The take-back of Ravenshire Prep {UNDER REVISION}

chapter 12

The familiar ting of the crossbar rang out after my slapshot, puck dropping into a bar-down goal, and I couldn't help but smile as the fans went wild. A red head caught my eye in the stands. Jessie was cheering and waving at me. He promised he would come. It wasn't that I thought he was lying and wouldn't show, it was just...I felt happy he was here.

My heart melted a little and I raised my hand to wave back just when Grant punched me on my shoulder and beamed. "Just one goal away from a hat trick." I looked up at the clock, being torn away from the cute ginger and read the score, 3-3. I had scored two of the goals already. But that was only a tie.

I jumped into the bench and took a swig of water as I watched the puck drop.

Soren was the second line center, my main competition for shifts and goals. Carson also was center, but he wasn't as involved in our "friendly" competitions. Mainly it was who was faster or who took the puck or who got beat by the D. Stuff like that.

It was pretty easy to want to compete with him because almost all of the time, he was a complete and utter asshole.

Ever have that guy who's one of the most popular, athletic, and handsome people who never do anything wrong and have a 4.00 gpa? Well, that's Soren. He was completely two-faced. Real apple-polisher around the teachers and acted like he was our superior when coach wasn't around. Dated and broke up with Arielle, the most popular girl in 10th grade, thousands of times. Still hits on girls when they don't have their boyfriends around.

So yeah, I hated him.

But. I beat him for first line center on the A-team. Which justified something, right? That I was better then him and deserved to go out first to set the tone for the entire game. That I deserved more applause and more shifts and more time feeling like I was on top of the world.

That I deserved to be happy.

I set my water bottle down and leaned over the boards to see Soren trying to stuff a wrap-around. He was doing it all wrong. But then a Pinesdale defenseman deflected it into the net.

Huh.

Did Soren just score a goal?

Cheers erupted and the siren sounded as I questioned if that counted in his favor. If they announced the Pinesdale player scoring the goal, that would be humiliating for them but better then having Soren humble-brag to me.

I listened to the loud mouthed volunteer announcer give the credit of the goal to Soren and sighed. Issac, Bryce, and Vince went out for the next forward line, leaving me to listen to Soren annoy me to death. I made a point to avoid eye contact with him and focused on the ref picking his nose when he thought no one was looking even though everyone was. Gross.

"Hey, Garcia." I grumbled in reply. "Nice goals, but I think we can agree that mine was the best. I mean, did you see the look on the goalie's face when they discovered their own teammate got in a goal on them?" He shook his head in mock disbelief. "There's gonna be a yelling match in their locker room, I  swear." Why. Can't. He. Leave. Me. The. Fuck. Alone? "Well, it's awfully nice talking to you here, but shouldn't you go back so your line won't be out of order?" I leaned closer to the door and sent a pleading look to our coach who was paying absolutely no attention to me. Typical.

I gripped the handle tightly and listened to him rant on until I got switched off. I quickly transitioned to skating backwards as the forwards skated the puck down. I opened up to skate forwards, trying to catch them and back check from the sides. But I overcommitted as they juked past me and I had to race back to stop them. Shit. How could I overcommit so easily? And it wasn't even a good deke either. I wanted to hit myself in the head, stupid, stupid, stupid.