Benched

by Elise Faber

  Except it wasn’t there.

  She stumbled for a moment before settling on “H-hi, Frankie.”

  He grinned, grabbed up his stick and gloves. “Hi, yourself. Don’t let Bernard get to you. He’s a hardass to every new player, and he especially doesn’t like rookies.”

  She shrugged into her chest protector and began securing it in place. It was strange to be considered a rookie at her ripe old age. In hockey, rookies tended to be in their teens, or sometimes their early twenties. Definitely not well on their way to their third decade.

  But that aside, she decided to ask the bigger question. “Why’d he agree to have me on the team?”

  If she’d been expecting a platitude about Bernard really liking her on the inside or some crap, she’d have been wrong.

  “He had no choice.”

  Okay then.

  “I wanted you and threatened to walk if management didn’t give you a contract.”

  Brit was dumbfounded for a long moment before she found her voice. “But . . . why?”

  She’d had her fair share of supporters through the years, her brother, some coaches and players, a small—very small—segment of fans who knew who she was.

  But why would someone she’d never met—someone she didn’t know—put his neck out for her?

  “I saw you in Buffalo.”

  She frowned, thought back to all the times she’d played in Buffalo. Only one game stood out. And not because they’d dominated. “But we got creamed.”

  Her team had lost 8-1, and she remembered each of the four goals that she’d let in with crystal-clear accuracy. The two periods she’d played had been some of her worst hockey ever.

  “I know.”

  Confused, she just stared at him.

  “You let in some soft ones.”

  Was that supposed to make her feel better?

  “But after you were pulled”—after the coach had taken her out of the game and let the other goalie play—“you stayed on the bench instead of going to the locker room.”

  Brit remembered sitting there, at first because she hadn’t wanted to make the walk of shame past her teammates, and then in sympathy when the score continued to rise.

  “Yeah, I did.”

  Frankie watched her for a long moment, his eyes fixed on hers, as though willing her to understand.

  She didn’t.

  Big deal. She sat on the bench. It isn’t like she’d done it for unselfish reasons.

  Frankie sighed, clapped her on the shoulder, and turned toward the hall that led to the ice.

  “Five minutes.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  There was nothing like those first few moments of stepping on the ice.

  The crisp, dry air coating her lungs, the slight tingle as the cold hit her cheeks. The smell—part sweat, part residual gas fumes from the Zamboni, part the cool, clean scent that had been present in every, single rink Brit had ever been in.

  She bobbed her head toward her chest, sliding her helmet from where it rested at her hairline down over her face without using her hands. It wasn’t repainted yet and still had flames of red and gold interspersed with the Kansas City Panthers’ logo—the AHL, or minor league, team she’d been playing with only four days before.

  Her contract had been freshly modified to allow her to play with the Gold, but it did possess a clause that enabled management to bump her back down to the Panthers if she didn’t perform well enough. The clause sucked, but her position as a rookie meant they hadn’t been able to negotiate much better than a standard, entry-level NHL agreement.

  Though, if she performed well enough during training camp and the preseason games, her agent had managed a section that would enable her to secure a one-way contract—meaning she couldn’t be demoted back to the AHL without being paid at the NHL rate.

  The boost in pay was both a perk to her and a deterrent for management to get rid of her. It wouldn’t guarantee Brit’s position with the Gold, but it was the best she or any other new player could hope to get.

  For now, Brit’s goal was to prove herself good enough to stay in the big leagues.

  She hoped—

  No, dammit. She would do it.

  Shrugging her shoulders, she tugged at her jersey. It was black, her pads white . . . and none of that mattered because . . .

  She was delaying.

  Enough already. One tap of her stick against her leg pads, one against the right side of the open door—she was nothing if not superstitious, just like every other goalie she’d ever known—then out onto the ice.

  Normal people had bad dreams of being late or giving a speech naked.

  Brit wasn’t normal, not by a long shot.

  Her worst nightmare was eating shit on that first step. But today, just like 99.99 percent of other days, she was fine.

  Still, skating into a new rink, for a new team, in a new city meant Brit was stripped bare and vulnerable.

  Which really, really sucked.

  She despised vulnerable. Hated weakness—

  A puck glanced off the glass less than six inches from her head.

  It may have been an accident, but she doubted it. These guys had too much control to miss the net by a good ten feet.

  No doubt, the shot had originated from the irritated section of the locker room.

  Awesome. She stifled a curse and continued warming up.

  Brit had spent way too much time having pucks shot at her to flinch. In fact, she was much too desensitized to the high-pitched clang to react in any noticeable sort of way. But inside she noted the action for what it was.

  A warning.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Stefan

  Hockey was in his blood, in his gut. His soul.

  Vulcanized rubber smelled like ambrosia. Hockey tape could fix anything. And there was no better feeling than skating every, single day.

  Stefan wasn’t the best player in the league, not by a long shot. But he worked hard, maybe harder than anyone else.

  He also wasn’t an asshole.

  Which was how he’d ended up as captain midway through last season.

  After Devon Carter—the General Manager or GM for the Gold—had made the disastrous decision of choosing Peter Gordaine at the beginning of the previous year, management had decided to let the team vote.

  For some reason, they had chosen him.

  Of course, it was probably because Gordaine had very nearly destroyed the team—a team of professionals, who were paid to do a job, and typically didn’t bring bullshit to the table.

  He’d done it with a streak of meanness that burned everyone in his path—player or employee alike. It had been Stefan’s most miserable season of hockey ever, which was saying something, because he’d had his fair share of jerky coaches and prima donna teammates.

  But, at least, Gordaine was gone, with Stefan in his place.

  Being captain was both a blessing and curse.

  It was a pretty special thing to have the team look up to him, the notion humbling and a little daunting, especially with the added pressure to both perform and set a good example.

  The curse part came from dealing with the fallout from last season’s scandal and now with Brit rocking the boat—

  He heard the distinctive pop of puck meets glass and turned, watching as one collided with the boards less than a foot from Brit’s head.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered and started to skate over.

  Brit met his eyes, and he stopped mid-stride when she shook her head.

  “Ignore it,” that shake seemed to say, before she adjusted the grip on her stick and skated to the empty net.

  Stefan bit back a curse. Had he just been thinking the team was special? Nope. Special was definitely not the right word.

  Idiotic was more like it.

  He was dealing with a bunch of idiotic, teenaged-boys.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  This was going to end ba
dly.

  It was less than ten minutes into practice, and Stefan was stretching along the boards.

  Which wasn’t the problem, though the fact that he felt a little stiff and sore from his early-morning workout was concerning. Namely, because it showed that he was getting old.

  Thirty years on the planet, and he was on the downward side of his career. Not that he wasn’t going to be hanging around for the next five or six seasons—hopefully—but hockey was truly a young man’s sport.

  Stefan had already been in the NHL for nine seasons: six with the Calgary Flames, one with the Ducks, and the last two with the Gold.

  He was lucky in that he hadn’t had to fight his way up from the AHL.

  It had been dumb luck, really, paired with a couple of unfortunate injuries for some teammates that Stefan’s opportunity to play in the NHL had come at the beginning of his first professional season.

  But after that, it had been his work ethic that had secured the position.

  He’d taken the opening and worked like hell to fit right into the Flames’ lineup. Then the Ducks’.

  He’d been happy in Anaheim. Secure. Figured he’d hang around there until his retirement. But the Gold were located in San Francisco—a place his mother had always wanted to live—so he’d requested a trade.

  Ducks’ management had understood, obliging his request and allowing him to be traded to the Gold. He’d moved his mother out from Minnesota, jumped into forging a new place on a new team . . . upon which he’d been thrust into a shit-show of epic proportions.

  Backstabbing. Laziness. Poor coaching.

  The switch had become instant regret.

  But that wasn’t the current problem, or at least not the one that was troubling him at the moment. The Gold were on a better track this season and had a real chance at redeeming themselves to the general public. What was making tension shoot down his spine was the fact that the guys were taking it easy on Brit, and that with every soft wrist shot slung her way, Stefan could see her frustration level rising.

  He was surprised there wasn’t smoke coming out of the ear holes in her helmet.

  It was his duty as captain to make sure everyone came together, worked as a unit. To that effect, he couldn’t help but wonder if he should go over there and rip a shot, just to set the tone, to let the guys know it was okay.

  But would that cross the line with her? Step on her toes? Or—

  He agreed with Brit’s decision to come into the locker room. Female or not, she was a teammate and deserved a space with the team. Further than that, the team wouldn’t take it easy on a male goalie in practice, so they shouldn’t do any different by her.

  But . . . what if he hurt her?

  Which was probably a stupid thought, because it wasn’t like Stefan’s shot was that hard, not by NHL standards.

  Still, it went against his vein to even chance hurting a woman, and he knew that most of the guys—with the sole exceptions being Stewart and a few other idiots—felt the same.

  There might as well have been a tightrope strung across the ice.

  On one side was how they would normally react. The other was what they were doing now. How were they supposed to navigate it?

  Turned out he—they—didn’t need to.

  Another shot fluttered toward the net, barely making a sound as it hit Brit’s leg pads.

  She chucked her glove, blocker, and stick on top of the net then yanked back her helmet.

  Her strides were rapid but quiet as she skated toward the top of the circles. Her words, when she got there, were not.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Brit shoved the player hard in the chest. Chad was one of their forwards, a second line right-winger, and the push meant he had to scramble to stay on his feet, barely escaping a fall straight back onto his ass. “I can shoot harder than that in my sleep. How the fuck am I supposed to get some fucking practice if you won’t shoot the fucking puck with any-fucking-power? Are we in peewee fucking hockey or the fucking NHL?”

  The string of f-bombs unleashed impressed Stefan—and a few others on the team, judging by the bemused expressions emerging on their faces. She was well-versed in using hockey’s favorite curse word as both adjective and verb.

  Chad, for his part, appeared equally shocked and awestruck.

  When Brit paused for breath, he nodded, said, “Okay.”

  Man of few words . . . that was Chad.

  Brit narrowed her eyes at him, and he nodded again. She whipped her glare to a few of the others before skating back to her crease—the blue half circle directly in front of each goal.

  Helmet down. Blocker and glove on. Stick in hand as she reached for the water bottle on top of the net.

  Stefan saw what was going to happen before anyone else did. He burst to his feet and—

  “Watch—”

  Too late.

  Crack. A stick collided with the ice. The puck flew through the air and collided . . . with Brit’s back. It hit with a sick thunk—the noise akin to a pumpkin cracking in half—and she went down to one knee.

  Here was the thing about goalies. All their padding was in the front. Their backs had basically no protection. Players knew that, which was why rule number one in hockey was never shoot the puck when the goalie wasn’t looking.

  Fucking five-year-olds knew it. Dumbass, twelve-year-old boys knew it. And certainly professional NHL players knew it.

  Mike Stewart knew it.

  He was also a giant bastard.

  Stefan was just about to launch himself at the no good son of a bitch who was wearing a smirk the size of Mona Lisa’s, when there was the sharp trill of a whistle.

  “Take five!” Frankie hollered as he skated toward Brit.

  Before Frankie reached her, Brit shoved to her skates and picked up her stick. She pointed it at Stefan and nodded.

  He hesitated midstride. Did she want him to—?

  She banged her stick on the ice, a sharp tap that caught his attention. Nodded again.

  Okay then, Brit wanted him to shoot. And . . . what? He shouldn’t? He should?

  After a moment, he figured he’d at least better make it count.

  Stefan wound up and ripped a shot at the net. Not a simple one either. A far side, lower-corner slap shot that . . . she stopped easily.

  He grinned.

  “I’ll be damned,” Max, his defense partner and one of his best friends muttered. “She’s good.”

  “Of course she’s good, you moron,” Frankie said, with a whack of his stick to back of Max’s calves. “Now show the rest of the team that.”

  Max took a slap shot. His was one of the fastest on the team, and it bounced off Brit’s pads with a thud that reverberated through Stefan’s stomach and the empty arena.

  One of the guys whistled in surprise, and then they were off, the break forgotten, more shots, more surprise . . . more respect gained for Brit’s ability.

  By the time Bernard called them all into a mid-ice huddle before dispersing them into their individual groups, Brit looked to have earned more than half of his teammates’ approval.

  Including his.

  He watched her out of the corner of his eye: her helmet propped back onto her head, her cheeks slightly rosy from exertion, one tendril of blond hair having escaped her ponytail to curl around one cheek.

  She looked like an angel.

  Stefan almost snorted. Okay, no angel. She looked tough and serious and fierce and . . . like every single one of his hockey wet dreams come to life.

  She was also his teammate. And he was captain.

  So he needed to forget that she had smelled like roses when he’d walked into the arena next to her, forget the way her pale brown eyes had flashed with hurt when she’d seen the room management had wanted to stick her in.

  He also really needed to forget the sight of her naked breasts. Forget they were just the right size to fit in his palms—

  Bern
ard gave a puff on his whistle, and the team stood, skating to their assigned locations.

  Stefan hadn’t heard a single word his coach had said.

  Good thing he always studied the drills for the next day’s practice the night before.

  He joined Max and sent a small but fervent prayer to the hockey gods that Coach hadn’t changed anything up on him.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Stefan lucked out with respect to the drills.

  Everything else was a clusterfuck.

  The team wasn’t coming together. At all.

  Their former captain, Gordaine, had been a great hockey player, despite his complete failure at possessing any of the morals a normal human being might have. But Mike Stewart was a cancer to the team, eating away at every single bond Stefan had managed to erect.

  It would have been annoying, or maybe just a little sad—the way Stewart so effectively tore people apart—if not for the impact it was having on Stefan’s, and every other person on the Gold’s payroll, livelihood.

  If the Gold were sold, chances were the team and staff would be dismantled, parceled off to other teams or maybe just let go altogether.

  Which was the nature of hockey, he supposed. Players were traded all the time. Families were moved or separated. But ninety-five percent of the team and coaching staff were good, hardworking people.

  He didn’t want the Gold reduced to pieces under his watch.

  Yet Mike was almost certainly ensuring that would happen.

  He’d been bumped to third-line defense when Bernard had joined the coaching staff this season and seemed to think it was his personal duty to show everyone how unhappy he was with the decision.

  If the drill called for no contact, Mike used his stick, elbows, and fists instead of his shoulders and body. If it called for light contact . . . you’d better watch it. Your ass was getting laid out.

  After the third time Mike drilled their rookie, Blue Robertson, into the boards, Stefan had had enough.

  It was unnecessary, and someone was going to get hurt.