Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 87771 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87771 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Coach shouted for Eli to change. He skated over and moved into the penalty box.
Eli sat next to me, spitting out his mouth guard. “You’re doing great out there,” I said, handing him my bottle. He tipped his head back and squeezed, gulping down the water and wiping his wet lips with the back of his sleeve.
“Thank you. And you are too.”
“We make a great team, huh?”
“We do.” He bumped me with his shoulder. “And later, maybe we—”
The air horn blasted again. We both whipped our attention to the ice.
Emmy had sunk a goal! He skated in a small circle with his stick raised.
“Fuck yessss,” Eli said.
“Nice, nice.”
But I knew the game wasn’t over yet.
The battle on the ice pushed into the third period. Scoreboard still had one to one. Exhaustion was beginning to creep into my human teammates at this point. Frustration also climbed. Coach Julian’s calls and line changes were yelled out with an increasing edge of desperation.
The Sharks had been playing dirty all night, landing blows that would have been called as penalties by any other referee who hadn’t been paid off. Chris had taken a stick to the face that rocked him even under his helmet, the edge of it hitting him in the cheek and leaving him bloody. It didn’t stop him from playing. A medic placed a large Band-Aid over it (not that it mattered since his shifter genes would have healed it in minutes), and he was back on the ice, taking center.
There were only fifty seconds left on the clock. We could drag this into overtime, but every minute that passed pushed us closer toward making some stupid mistake that would cost us the game. Coach shouted. Another line change. Eli leaped over the wall and onto the ice, gliding behind me.
The puck was in the Sharks’ possession. They drove it forward.
Snap! A stick slammed against mine. I spun in a tight, controlled circle, weaving backward. That was when Chris, bloody face and all, pushed forward with an explosive energy and snatched the puck.
The roar of the crowd was its own physical force, pushing down on us like gravity. We flipped around. Eli stayed behind me, but I kept him in my periphery.
I noticed he sped up. He was pinching, joining the offensive. I slowed down a bit so that we were side by side, needing to protect him as badly as I needed to protect the puck.
Protect. Protect. Mine.
All mine.
He was lined up with the goal. Chris saw it too. This was it. Chris slapped the puck back. It went sliding across the ice with the speed of a comet. The Sharks gave chase, but the pass was perfectly executed, giving Eli all the power.
He lined himself up with the goal.
Ten seconds.
He couldn’t second-guess. I raced up the side, trying to block one of the Sharks from getting to him. The Shark shouted something about my mother as I shouldered him into the boards. He lost balance and fell to his knees. I skated up, toward Eli.
Seven seconds.
Eli reared his stick back and swung it forward, hitting the puck with a loud crack. It flew with the same speed as before, directly at the net, at the gap between the goalie’s leg pads. Such a tight shot to make. A desperate one to take, a smart one to take.
The only one to take.
The goalie blocked it.
Five seconds.
The rebound sent the puck in my direction. It was as if time slowed to a crawl. I functioned purely on instinct, honed by years and years of training and playing a game I truly loved. My muscles acted of their own accord as I burst forward. I met the puck with the edge of my stick, took control of it. The gap between the goalie and the net seemed to have been highlighted by a bright white light.
Or maybe that was just glare off the ice.
Whatever it was, I shot directly at it, putting all my strength behind the hit. Time zoomed forward, back to a normal pace. The Sharks’ defenseman that I had hit was back on his feet and coming for revenge, slamming into me.
He was a half second too late. The puck shot right past the goalie and into the net.
The air horn blared as the score updated, and the game ended.
Cheers erupted through the arena. The rest of the Bobcats who had been on the bench jumped over the boards and onto the rink. Hoots and chants and congratulations and fuck yeahs all echoed around me. I felt a rush of pure adrenaline mixed with unmitigated joy.
We won. We fucking won. The Bobcats won.
Eli and I had won.
Our first game as boyfriends together, and we played like a single mind. Together, we proved we were a force to be reckoned with.