Caught by the Hockey Captain

I dreamed of playing hockey.

But I was a girl, and dead broke. I couldn't even afford a used pair of skates.

Just to stay close to the ice, I clung shamelessly to a spot on the school team, the lowly gofer who washed stinky jerseys and lugged equipment every day.

Because my family was poor, the guys on the team made plenty of fun of me.

The person I hated most was the captain, Nathan.

He was all muscle and no finesse, a guy who played on brute force alone and ran the team like a squad of shock troopers.

On top of that, he came from money, always had his nose in the air, and was impossible to talk to.

Take this afternoon.

Tiffany, the cheer captain, "accidentally" knocked over a whole basket of jerseys I'd just washed.

"Oops, sorry, didn't see someone crouching down there." Tiffany covered her mouth and gave a dainty little laugh.

I gritted my teeth and crouched down to pick them up.

Nathan happened to walk by, stick in hand.

I figured that as captain he'd at least do something about the toxic bullying.

Instead he was frowning, still griping to the vice-captain.

"Our blue-line defense was like wet paper today. Bunch of useless idiots."

He didn't even glance at the jerseys strewn across the floor, just took one long stride over them and strode off.

Watching his arrogant back, I let out a bitter laugh.

Back in my dorm that night, with nowhere to vent, I logged straight into my hockey-forum alt account: IceTyrant.

I found the game-recap post Nathan had put up that afternoon and hammered out a merciless reply.

"If this is how you captain a team, you'd be better off coaching a peewee team."

"All you do is bulldoze through on brute strength. Did you leave your brain in the locker room?"

"Drop your left wing's center of gravity, run a 2-1-2 forecheck to cut off their passing lanes. You can't even read the play that far ahead. You hold a stick like it's a fireplace poker."

I figured a stuck-up rich boy like Nathan would go to war with me in the comments.

Instead, in less than five minutes, my DMs pinged.

Nathan had sent a sketch he'd drawn himself on a tactics board.

"Who are you? How'd you know our left wing's positioning was off? If we run a high press, how do we cover the gap it leaves in the back?"

He seemed sincere enough, so I tossed off three lines nailing the key points on adjusting his skating lines, then logged off and went to bed.

The next afternoon, I stood outside the locker room with an armful of freshly washed jerseys and quietly swallowed.

Inside, Blake, the vice-captain, was so mad he was kicking the lockers.

"Nathan! You blew off the whole team dinner for some forum con artist who won't even show his face?"

Nathan lounged on the bench, long fingers toying with his hockey stick, not sparing Blake so much as a glance.

"That one high-press tip he threw out will save us from getting chewed out by Coach ten times over."

Standing outside the door, I felt a tangle of emotions.

So he really had taken my words to heart last night, and gone straight to drilling them.

Just then Tiffany came over with two cups of coffee, looking to seize the chance to fawn over Nathan.

As she passed me, she pulled the same trick, ramming her shoulder hard into mine, and the coffee in her hands was about to splash across my face.

This time I was ready, and I ducked sharply to the side.

Splash! One cup sailed past me and landed dead-on across Nathan's limited-edition skates just as he pulled the door open.

Tiffany went white and pointed at me, crying foul first. "Nathan! Quinn dodged on purpose, that's why I spilled it on you!"

My heart sank.

Nathan looked down at his ruined skates, then raised his head, those pitch-black eyes finally landing on me... and on Tiffany.

He pressed a hand to his forehead, his face full of impatience.

I thought he'd finally clued in about stopping the bullying.

Tiffany thought her tattling had worked.

But the next second, Nathan pointed at the hallway exit. "Can you two stop blocking my phone signal in the doorway? I need to get back to my dorm and wait for IceTyrant to log on."

Then he just walked right around us and left.

I watched him go, my mouth twitching.

This guy was a hopeless hockey-brained idiot.