Page 2 of Knottingley Ever After
God, I fucking love this.
“Put me down before I knee your reproductive future into oblivion,” I warn, half-laughing, my voice cracked from screaming through three periods plus overtime.
Pete obliges, mostly because Lonnie shoves him sideways and slings a sweaty arm around my neck.
“My GOALIE,” Lonnie hollers, ripping his helmet off so his curls explode upward like a startled poodle. “MY OMEGA GOALIE WHO HITS LIKE THE DEVIL HIMSELF.”
“Lonnie,no.”
“Lonnie,yes,” he counters, undeterred. “She caught a slapshot at the buzzer. With herface,basically. There’s apoemin here somewhere?—”
“There isnota poem in here, you absolute himbo.”
“I’m gonna write it. In Sharpie. On the locker room ceiling.Ode to the Goalie Who Saved Our Asses.”
I laugh and feel the laugh catch on something in my chest.
Something hot and a little bit terrifying that tastes like everything I’ve ever wanted.
The team rolls toward the bench in a riotous blue-and-white tide, sticks raised, helmets tossed onto the ice like graduation caps thrown by people who hate physics. The puck bunny section, predictably, is shrieking. Somebody’s trying to start a chant. Somebody else is crying.
Coach Daniels—our assistant, balding and beloved—is wiping his eyes with the back of his wrist and pretending he has “arena allergies.”
Sure, Coach Daniels.
I skate slowly toward center ice, helmet tucked under my arm now, the gummy strap dangling. My braid has come half-loose, and pink-tinted strands stick to my temples in tiny damp commas. My lip balm has worn off completely; I can taste blood from where my mouth guard nicked the inside of my cheek in the second period.
I run my tongue over it, tasting copper, peppermint gum, and the ghost of the frosted strawberry protein shake I chugged before warmups.
The cameras find me before my coach does.
Naturally.
A bouquet of microphones blossoms in front of me like aggressive flowers, foam tips bobbing six inches from my mouth. Producer types in headsets, gesticulating from the boards. Some intern with a clipboard is making aplease-talk-to-usface that I have personally perfected on certain professors, so I respect his hustle.
“Iris! Iris, congratulations—how does this feel?”
“Iris, talk us through that last save?—”
“Iris, where do you see yourself five years from now?”
I push my glove against the boards to keep from skating off out of sheer self-preservation instinct.
Be charming,I order myself.Be quotable. Be the version of you that gets put on highlight reels and not the version that calls reporters Muppets on live television.
“Uh, hey,” I say, and somewhere in the universe a publicist is already wincing. I clear my throat. “That last save was just—training, I guess. Coach has us doing wall drills until our quads file restraining orders, so. Muscle memory.” I grin. “And a little bit of spite.”
A ripple of laughter.
Spite plays well on camera, apparently.
“As for five years from now,” I continue, twirling my mask’s strap around my finger because my hands need something to do, “honestly? That depends on my coach.”
A few of the reporters exchange glances.
“Look,” I say, shrugging, “Declan—Coach O’Rourke—is the reason any of this happened.” I tip my chin toward the bench, even though I can’t see him through the throng. “The man has been engineering this since I was a punk teenager with more attitude than save percentage. So whatever he’s got up his sleeve, I’m wearing it.” I flash my teeth. “Whether I look good in it or not.”
That gets actual laughter.
