Thin Ice

MERRY CHRISTMAS YOU LOVELY PEOPLE

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Excuse the mistakes

Dedicated to Shady234 because I had to do something disappointing, and also, we are twins apparently

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“Damn it!”

The buzzer went off, and the other team’s players hopped over the boards and crowded their goalie in celebration of their win. My team, on the other hand, was slow to come out of our bench. Since I was already on the ice, I skated over to Tony. He was still in butterfly position with the puck sitting on the ice in front of him. Tony may have blocked the final shot, but we’d still lost the game by two goals.

For our first game in the Hell on Ice tournament, we’d played like absolute crap, myself completely included. Our offense played on their heels, as if they were just spectators. Our defense couldn’t manage to get the puck up to the wings and out of the zone. The only person who’d played well was Tony; if it wasn’t for him, we would’ve lost by way more.

“Good game, Tony,” I said glumly, and I put my hand on his shoulder. “Sorry I played like shit.”

“We’re a team, Kels,” Tony replied as he stood up, “We lost together; you’re not the only one who had an off game.” Tony gave me a solemn look before the rest of our team reached us, and they started patting him on the shoulder pads and mumbled “good game.”

We all lined up at center ice and shook hands with the other team. To their credit, the other team wasn’t shoving their win in our faces or making snide comments. They hadn’t played dirty, and the one player who’d gotten a penalty apologized to Owen, whom he’d hit. However, all of those things just made our loss worse because we had no one to blame but ourselves.

I skated to the bench to grab my spare stick and my water bottle, and when I turned around, I smacked straight into Dane. Instinctively, I backed away quickly and fumbled for some kind of sentence.

“Sorry,” I said quickly as I continued backing away, “I didn’t see you there.” Dane opened his mouth to respond, but I didn’t give him a chance. Instead, I turned around and hurried off the ice.

The fact that Dane and I had barely said five words to each other after I’d broken up with him didn’t really help our game. For the first period, we’d both hesitant about calling for the puck from each other, and I think Coach Hannover had realized that because he stopped putting us on at the same time. That was a poor move on all three of our parts because Dane’s line worked best with Owen and me.

I walked down a blindingly bright hallway to the Ice Devils’ locker room, and with every step, I felt the exhaustion from the bus ride and the game hitting me, as well as the disappointment in myself for how I’d played. I was my own worst critic, and right now, I was tearing myself apart.

I pushed into the locker room, and without a word or look to any of my teammates, I sat down where my bag was, and I started pulling off my gear. I only stopped when Coach Hannover came in to talk to the team, and he just muttered a few things about effort and the need for forechecking, and then we were left alone again. The locker room was quiet for a moment before Tony cleared his throat and broke the silence.

“So,” he drawled, pushing his sweaty hair off of his face, “Despite that clusterfuck of a game, we’re still on for dinner tonight, right? My mom called that Italian place we ate at last year, and we have a reservation for tonight at six.”