Page 2 of So Pucking Perfect
I was going to be removed from campus either way.
“Prettier omegas than you have tried this same thing and failed. I’m not putting you on the team.” He didn’t even look me in the eye. He seemed to be focusing on the wall behind me, like he could see right through me. I wasn’t good enough for him to gaze upon.
His words were like a knife to the gut.
Fine. He didn’t desire me, but taking a dig at my looks—that was cheap.
I opened my mouth to… what? Argue? Try again? This wasn’t me. My actions weren’t the type of person I wanted to be. I didn’t deserve to be on the team. I’d been out-skilled in tryouts. I knew it. Coach knew it. And now I’d have to go home and quit school.
I backed away, embarrassment heating my cheeks and making my stomach turn. I was going to vomit. I tried. I put in my last-ditch effort and failed, humiliated beyond belief. Coach would probably tell his colleagues about this, and I would become the joke of campus overnight. Not that it mattered—I hadn’t made the team. I didn’t even need to look at the roster to know.
It was time to pack my things and return to my small town, and... and what? I had no future without the hockey team, without college. I ran from the room like the coward that I was.
I made it to the stairwell before my stomach fully revolted. I grabbed the nearest trash can and threw up.
Okay, so I definitely didn’t have what it took to be an omega who used his looks to get his way. That much I knew. And now I knew I didn’t have what it took to be a college hockey player. Fuck. I really needed to get out of here. My hockey dreams were dead, my college dreams were dead, and that was just something I had to accept.
Chapter 1
Reid
Present Day
Media day was my least favorite day of the year as a coach. I’d only been coaching professional hockey for three years—two years as an assistant coach, and now this year as the head coach of the Port City Badgers, one of the better teams in the league. I’d come a long way from being a college coach and a high school one before that, but media day still sucked at every level.
Long hours spent being told what to do by photographers and videographers and social media experts, having makeup brushed over my face, lights flashed in my eyes—all the whileI was not doing anything productive. Sure, it was important, obviously, and the fans loved the kind of shenanigans we got up to on media day that they could see throughout the year on their television. I understood its importance. That didn’t mean I didn’t hate every minute of it.
I wanted to be in my office, meeting with my assistant coaches to discuss our strategies. I’d rather be visualizing plays or reviewing the games from previous seasons so I could get to know my players, learn their strengths and weaknesses. There was a lot for me to do as the new coach on the team, the most important of which was getting to know my players. As of right now, I hadn’t met a single one of them in person.
At least I was on the ice.
And this wasn’t even the true media day. This was simply a photoshoot to announce that I was the new head coach, as if the news hadn’t been leaked hours earlier. None of the big news outlets were picking it up because it wasn’t official, and any speculation could come back to bite them in the ass if it wasn’t true. Someone had caught wind of the news, and a blogger had broken the story. Me being the new coach of the Port City Badgers was no longer a secret.
“All right, we’re going to have you on the ice with our badger mascot, Benny. Just stand there. Look serious. He’s going to be silly all around you. We’ll get some video, and then we’ll do photos.”
Great. Mascots were one thing I didn’t quite understand—another thing that the fans loved but really didn’t add muchto hockey in general. At least not from my perspective. I was interested in the game, not the entertainment.
But alas, it was all part of the job.
The mascot was already on the ice when I got out there, skating around, warming up, doing some antics. He looked like maybe he was practicing some kind of skit. I didn’t know who he was, but the kid clearly knew his way around the rink. He was faster and more graceful than many of the other mascots I’d seen. A lot of them could barely hold themselves up on skates or they wore those fake booties that were just shoes. This guy was in a pair of actual hockey skates. He seemed to know what he was doing. A former player maybe? I likely wouldn’t bother to find out. It wasn’t like we would run in the same circles.
I spent a few minutes skating around, getting warmed up, even though I really didn’t need to. It was nice to just be on the ice, even if there were fifty different people surrounding me, setting up the cameras and whatnot.
Finally, the photographer and the social media manager, Josh, called us over.
“Coach Garrison, we’re going to have you stand on this mark here. I want you to stand tall, hands at your sides. We’ll have Benny skating around you, being silly. It’s important that you keep a straight face. We want you to look serious.”
That shouldn’t be difficult. I could care less what the mascot did, whoever he was. He could stand on his head and do backflips and I wouldn’t care.
Actually, backflips while wearing ice skates would be pretty impressive. And in a heavy mascot suit? I’d probably have to do a double take.
“No problem,” I said.
I kept my face neutral while the badger, whose name was Benny—or was the kid in the costume named Benny?—skated around me. He held up two fingers to give me bunny ears, he skated circles around me and pretending to throw punches at me.
He never spoke out loud. It was one of the rules of being a mascot—no talking while in costume. Instead, his handlers spoke for him. He had two. A quiet omega named Kier and an alpha named Jason who carried a clipboard. The two of them seemed to be working closely with the videographers on what to capture.
It was a lot of orchestration for a few photos.
