Page 19 of The Chemistry Coach
“Hey!”Connor yelled at him.“The little guy is getting angry!We’re going to lose a customer.”
“Oh, shit!”Lover yelled, “My rice is burning!”
After they stopped throwing items at each other long enough to finish the level, Daisy collected the controllers and shut off the TV.They tidied their small mess before Daisy drove them back to Collaborative Craft, where they separated.
Their next practice was two days later, and open to the public, which meant running plays and scrimmages.Fans didn’t care about watching their team skate in different patterns or between cones.Open practices were about connecting with the fans.Without the fans, the league was nothing.
Connor tried to come in a little later on open practice days to avoid fans.There were so many children.He could spend the entire two hours passing out pucks and making kids feel special and still miss somebody.Adults were worse.Plenty of them came in expecting something, and there were always issues.Someone got a puck instead of a stick, or they didn’t get the right autograph, or they needed to take their selfie fourteen times to get it right.No matter how hard he tried, someone would always be disappointed, and that ate away at him.
Today was no different.He had trouble finding parking, his reserved space taken by an inconsiderate fan.Then he got accosted in the parking lot.Fans always lingered, waiting for late arrivals.He got out his Sharpie and signed a couple of items, declining to sign the forehead of a teenage girl.
When he stepped onto the ice, he spotted Dylan in the bleachers.He waved at his nephew; his mood boosted.
The coaches had them run through a few skills before they split into teams.Connor got paired with Hazy and Lover, who were in top form that morning.The last several times they had practiced, the Connor line had been annihilated.
They gathered around the center of the ice to face-off.Lover won the face-off and sent the puck straight to Connor, who carried it into their offensive zone.He tried to push toward the net, but Harland Reese, the defenseman, kept the puck to the outer rims of the ice.Connor flung the puck around the curve of the rink, and it bounced off the back wall, right onto Hazy’s stick.Connor was stunned.He’d attempted the simple move with Hazy hundreds of times, and it often hadn’t worked for them.The success gave him the confidence he needed to follow through with a light hit on Reese.He watched the puck travel between Hazy and Lover, and worked his way to the front of the net.He put his head on a swivel, searching for an opportunity, and slid in behind Reese while remaining open.
He tapped his stick on the ice and yelled, “Lover, here!”The puck slid to him as if nobody else existed.He tipped it into the net.
Excitement and relief flowed through him, and he raised his stick in the air.It had been a long time since one of his pucks had hit the back of the net.Hazy and Lover skated to him to give him a hug, the first their line had shared in months.The entire team stared, but this was a huge win for them.A damn scrimmage against their own teammates.A goal scored on the goalie they knew best.But the Connors needed a boost to their confidence.Proof they could work together.
They scored twice more, but lost the game.In the locker room Lover snapped him with a towel as he passed by.Connor ripped it from his hand like he had every other time Lover had tried that shit with him.Lover held his hands in mock surrender and gave him a toothy grin.
“Your girl is doing us some good, huh?Imagine how much better we’ll be when we’re done with her plans.”
The silence that fell over the room drained Connor of his levity.Hazy guffawed.
Reese asked, “You have a girlfriend?Since when?”
Connor let out a frustrated growl.“No, I don’t have a girlfriend.”
Hazy smacked Connor’s arm.“You could.”
“I don’t want one.”Half the locker room snickered at the blatant lie.
Lover sat next to Connor and started getting dressed.“You seemed flustered around Daisy.”
Hazy gasped.“Was he flustered?He seemed like his normal broody self to me, but maybe I was distracted by how much Daisy wants to climb him like a tree.”
“She does not,” Connor snapped.
Most of the locker room had lost interest in the conversation, but Lover and Hazy replied at the same time.
“Yikes.”
“Oof.”
“She has to be a big fan, right?”Lover continued.“She knew our names.Our favorite snacks.How did she know you liked those cookies?Hazy and I did a favorite thing video for social media.”
Connor waved off the question.“I’ve done a million of those interviews over my career, so I probably mentioned them.”
“She’s a pretty big fan if she’s remembering all the videos,” Hazy said.
“Maybe she researched it for the activity.Was she trying to prove a point?We should at least know each other as much as the average fan.”
They should’ve been getting to know each other all year.He didn’t want to spend his time off watching cheesy seven-second videos of his teammates, but he would if it helped his game.His sigh turned into a groan.
“Probably.But I’m not digging.It’s creepy enough to stalk your teammates.Let’s look at our regular profiles and then whatever marketing put together for socials.No searching stuff that happened ten years ago.”
