𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐊𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 ; 𝓶𝓲𝓰𝓱𝓽𝔂 𝓭𝓾𝓬𝓴𝓼

Reconciliation

    Fuck my dad.

    We got suited up and everything, just to find out Bombay wasn't here. The team was talking with one another about that.

    "Hey, team! Hey, team." Tibbles came over. "We're gonna be great today, right?" We all look up to him. "Where's Gordon?"

    Luis cocks his head up. "You tell us." Tibbles looks in disbelief.

    A ref skates to us. "Team USA I'm sorry, without a coach behind the bench, you'll forfeit the game."

    "But you cant do that." Banks starts to say.

    Charlie cuts him off. "We have one." He looks to the stands. "Miss MacKay!" He skates over and starts to talk with her.

    "Bet you $10 she will be our coach." Adam leans in and tells me.

    I turn to look at him. "Deal." I look him up and down. "You have something on your face." I pinch him.

    "What about yours." He pinches me back. "Oh look." I follow his gaze to Miss MacKay.

    I sigh as she says she was our coach. "Dang it." I roll my head to Adam. "Lucky guess."

-

    The players on the ice desperately needed a line change. They were slowing down on Germany.

    "Oh! We look tired." Miss MacKay says out loud.

    I look at her. "Oh, really? Never noticed."

    "We need to... trade places."

    Charlie looks confused. "What?"

    "New players."

    I laugh a bit. "Say 'change it up.'" She says it normally. "Miss girl, you have to yell it. They cant hear you on the ice." She screams it and we switch.

    I jump the bench wall and go towards center ice. I bump a player as Germany gets the puck. I race after the puck with Luis.

    "Speedy Gonzales, here." I tell to Luis before snatching the puck from Germany. I pass it back to him.

    He catches it and races across the ice. I follow after him and he passes it back between his legs; towards me.

    I do a wrap around the net before faking the goal. The goalie go towards me and I pass it to Luis, who makes it in.

    "Yeah!" He throws his hands up. I side hug him. "And my last name isn't Gonzalez, it's Mendoza. So it's Speedy Mendoza."

    I drop my arm and look at him as we skate to center ice. "Nah, Speedy Gonzales sounds better than Speedy Mendoza."

    We reached the center with the others. A duck quack echoed. "Look who finally showed up." I follow Fulton's gaze and see Bombay.

"Man, eff that." I tell them. "Ignore him. Averman, go take the face-off." Averman goes but my dad is persistent with the duck call.

He was pissing me off more. He thinks he could blow that whistle and everything will be fine again.

He calls us in. I didn't move from my spot on the ice. I only went over there as Guy dragged me.

"Team. Guys, I was wrong and I'm sorry. I forgot about the team and the team is all I have." My dad looks at our faces. "Now, all I want is another chance. Just one more shot. I'm back, okay? Believe me."

I roll my eyes and the ref says he has to hurry up. He tells us to do the flying v.

We get on the ice and Jesse gets the puck, going behind Goldberg. Charlie and Goldberg were telling him to call it out. "All right." He gave in. "Let's go, flying v!"

We get in formation and skate down the ice, simultaneously passing the puck to the front. Jesse gets it and fakes it, passing it to Averman.

Germany bumps Averman and he quickly passes it to me. I make the shot. The team huddles me and says their cheers.

We won 3-2.

-

The next day, Bombay took us outside to some benches. He had a cutout of him and a large metal trash can.

"I've had a lot of distractions here." He lifts up the cutout. "This is a distraction." The team makes remarks on the cutout. Bombay lights a match and drops it into the can. "This is a fire in a barrel." He shoves the cutout into it. "This is a distraction in a fire in a barrel. Questions?"

I raise my hand as the team starts to clap and cheer. "Can you do that to the real thing and not the cutout?"

"Vivi." Connie taps my leg with her arm. "Not nice, we talked about this."

I put my head to the side. "Oops."