Page 30 of Halftime
Burlington’s teams were called the Bulls. Technically, we on the women’s team were also Bulls. I had a hard time keeping my face straight at the thought of it. Obviously, the name had been chosen by some male founder who didn’t think women would one day compete since their vaginas would probably fall out if they tried. I hoped that asshole could see us now.
I wondered if someone had given that scarf to Seb, maybe a girlfriend, but I didn’t ask. That crossed a line. We were friends, but not the way we were before. I wasn’t really sure I wanted to know who’d given him the scarf.
“You gonna practice with us, Devereaux?”
Shit. Coach Cray. And that tone in her voice was not a happy you’re-doing-great tone.
“Yes, Coach.” I turned to wave goodbye to Seb. I hoped she wouldn’t make a big deal of this, but I could just see the ideas in her head. Me, trying to get tight with the men’s team and its players.
She narrowed her eyes as she looked at Seb.
“You’re Hunter. Defenseman on the men’s team.”
Seb nodded. “Faith brought me something I’d left behind. Our bus is about to leave.”
Cray arched her brows. “Friends, are you?”
I could see this further convincing her I wasn’t interested in her team.Shit.
Seb gave her a polite smile. “We go way back. I was billeted at her neighbor’s house when I was a Junior in Toronto.”
Coach’s brows came down. I was grateful Seb had defused things, making us sound like old buddies. Just buddies. So old that it would be rude not to be friends. Which we kind of were, but also more.
Seb didn’t stop there. “Yeah, I met her when I joined my Junior team. The other guys on the team had us all face off against Faith in net. Even back then, she stopped everyone. So it’s my fault she did that here on her first day. I mentioned it to a teammate, and well, he couldn’t let that go. We’re all about twelve mentally.” He shot me a glance, and I sent him back a what-the-fuck one. I’d hoped the coach would forget that incident.
He kept his polite smile in place. “Thanks, Faith. Good luck this weekend, Coach Cray.”
He turned to go, and I shot Coach a quick glance before I turned to rejoin practice. She looked more thoughtful than pissed. Anything was better than pissed.
Saturday night, I got my first start.
* * *
Sebastien
When I read the text from Faith that she was scheduled to start, my knees got a little weak. I wasn’t sure if I’d made things worse with her coach, but it had been riding me that she’d gotten on her coach’s bad side because of something stupid I’d said.
Saturday, I was distracted for our own game simply because I wanted to know how she was doing. I knew she was good, but she hadn’t played in a real game for a while. It was different. We could all practice and work out endlessly, but that didn’t translate into playing well in a game. Not practicing and working out would leave us playing like shit, but games were different. And it meant too much to me that Faith did well.
I checked on the score after our first period. Cooper noticed, because of course he did.
“What’s bugging you, Hunts? You were out of position twice on our first shift.”
Cooper and I had been paired together, as we’d expected. We were the second line but still getting a lot of minutes. I wasn’t a big scoring threat, but I was always solid. Being out of position was not something I did. Before tonight, we’d been playing well, and I shouldn’t have let myself get distracted.
I might as well tell him before he tried to figure it out on his own. He was smart, and he didn’t give up. Great for a hockey player, not so great when you wanted to keep something from him.
“Faith is playing tonight. First game this season.”
He watched me carefully. “Worried about your buddy?”
I nodded. Their first period had been scoreless, and Faith had stopped ten shots. That was good. I just wished her forwards had done something to help her out.
Coop dropped down on the bench beside me. “So how’s she doing?”
“Scoreless first. She stopped ten shots.”
“That’s pretty good. How many shots did we have this period?”