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L.A. didn’t suck. But they were nothing like my boys in Dallas.
One year.
Soto sighed and held out his hand to me. “Truce?” he suddenly offered, and honestly, keeping the laughter in was all I could do because…
NEVER WOULD THAT HAPPEN.
I acted like I was considering it and started extending my hand…before abruptly yanking it back.
“Sorry, Soto. I can’t even pretend to like you.”
Soto’s face curled up in a snarl as he dropped his fake ass peace offering. “Fuck you, Lancaster.”
I winked at him.
“Sorry, not without dinner first. Your tiny dick would be so forgettable, I’d have to at least get a steak out of it.”
The locker room erupted in laughter, and I was impressed. Maybe these guys had a sense of humor after all.
I strolled to the locker with my name on it so I could get ready for practice, pleased with how the day was going. I could feel his gaze on my back, like he was trying to shoot lasers into my buttcheeks.
“Walker Davis,” a voice next to me said as I pulled my skates out of the bag I’d brought with me.
I glanced over. Ah, Walker, the team's resident heartthrob—before my arrival, of course—and all-American poster boy. If life were a rom-com, he'd be cast as the dashing lead who effortlessly steals hearts and has a smile that features in forty billion Instagram pages. Brown hair that probably had its own fan club, the kind of jawline that made sculptors reconsider their life choices, and eyes that sparkled like they were in a perpetual photoshoot—Walker was the embodiment of every high school crush come to life.
I wouldn't be surprised if he woke up every morning to a choir of birds helping him get dressed.
Get him in a room with Lincoln and me, and people would be fainting all over the place.
He was also the only All-Star on the team before today, his skills actually surpassing my boy Bender. He was a lot younger than Bender, too.
We’d be a dream team if you put him on the ice with me and Lincoln.Something to think about for later…
“Ahh, Walker, the goalie with a face that could launch a thousand ships,” I drawled.
He snorted and extended a hand like he was offering a VIP ticket to the "I'm Gonna Steal Your Girl" show. "Nice to have you on board," he said, all charming and Disney prince-ish. I shook it, fighting the urge to ask if he always had a wind machine following him around.
I got dressed and followed him down a hallway to practice.
Out on the ice, it was the first time I felt like maybe I hadn’t landed on an alien planet—the cold bite of the rink, the familiar swoosh of skates. New team, but same ice. As I skated around, I could pretend for a second that I was home in Dallas, about to lay Lincoln on his ass.
But then Soto skated by me and I remembered how bad this place sucked.
A whistle blew, and it was time for practice to begin.
Cobras Head Coach, Kim Palmer, introduced me like I was the star attraction at a circus. "Ari Lancaster, a man who needs no introductions after the hell he’s put this team through. He's God’s gift to hockey and we’re lucky bastards to have him." Okay, maybe that's not exactly what he said, but close enough.
Coach Kim himself looked like he'd just stepped out of a motivational poster. Salt-and-pepper hair, stern jawline—the kind of guy you'd expect to find delivering a halftime speech in a sports movie. He had that "I've seen it all" aura, like he could predict our plays before we even made them. I half-expected him to start quoting Sun Tzu's "Art of War."
He was a decent coach surrounded by mid-tier talent. Not much he could do about that.
Drills were the name of the game as practice began. Skating, passing, shooting—we were like a discombobulated dance troupe, except with more helmets and fewer sequins.
Soto, in his ever-enthusiastic state, decided it was a fantastic idea to try to check me, like we were in the NHL version of a WWE showdown.
I laughed as I pried myself off the boards. "Is that all you got, birdbrain? Because your check was about as effective as your mama’s mouth last night."
Soto’s face went a violent shade of red that almost matched his awful hair. “Fuck you!” he roared for the second time today, because his pea-sized brain obviously couldn’t think of anything more creative than that.
