Chapter One

Hockey is finally almost back and Natalie is thrilled to be back on the ice. The Great Rapids Varsity team prepares for a scrimmage and Natalie meets a new teammate (not the most important one yet)

Three Months Later

It was her first class of the first day of school and Natalie Kennedy was already tired. Still tired? She couldn’t really be sure, junior year was pretty much a constant state of being tried. It wasn’t that Natalie didn’t like school or even math but there were few things that could get her excited when hockey season was finally back. Natalie yawned and stretched out her arms onto her to lean on slightly, Lucas found her and sent a sympathetic glance. He was typically as good a student as she was. Diligent and hardworking. But neither of them were having any luck focusing on math.

The coaching staff had been holding tryout clinics and skating players for evaluation in small groups all week. Discussing behind closed doors what they wanted their line up for the next season to look like. If Natalie had been keeping track accurately, she and senior centerman Caelan Pyot were the only returning players of any level to not have been summoned as part of tryouts. Charlie had argued that it should be reassuring and it didn’t exactly make Natalie nervous but it made her... anxious. Alright it made her a little nervous. She was a returning Varsity player for f**k’s sake, but there were always insecurities that crept in and being kept off the ice was only leading to them growing. But tonight the coaches were holding the first squad practices so that they could be ready for their friendly scrimmage with Dant Academy the following Tuesday.
They couldn’t keep her from the ice any longer could they? And they had to give her a new defense-partner. Mathieu liked to joke she went through them at a mildly alarming rate. Dylan, of course was no longer playing after he got sick freshman year. Ethan was converted  into a forward. And AJ had graduated.  None of them had been her fault, but she also certainly didn’t have the almost four year bond that Justin and Ryan had, or the two halves to the same whole that Kota and Gabe had. Neither of those pairs were going to be split up to be partnered with her so she was getting a f*****g sophomore or even possibly a freshman if they were that desperate. Unease rose in her throat at the idea of being a mentor. She had worked damn hard to earn her f*****g respect on this team and no kid was going to take that away from her.

“Natalie? Miss Kennedy.” Natalie was suddenly hot as she raised her head up the looming figure of Mr. Elex in front of her.

“Yes?” She asked her voice uncharacteristically small as she half prayed that he hadn’t been lecturing there for long

“You dropped your pencil case.”

Natalie gave a quiet gasp of thanks reaching out with a slightly shaking hand to take it back. Once Mr. Elex had returned to making his regular route of the classroom Natalie attempted to meet Lucas’ eyes again but he was too immersed in whatever it was he was writing. He was writing too fast and frantically and without break for it to be math but that Lucas for you. If he wanted to write, he would write, the world around him  didn’t matter. Natalie had disturbed her older brother Jase when he was in a similar state enough times to not bother any further.

Instead she waited by the door after the bell rang where she could wait for Lucas so they could make the walk over to the language department where Lucas would head to German and she would head to Spanish.

“Hey Luc.” Lucas was still fumbling with bag, trying to stuff a notebook into a still open pocket.

“Natalie.”

“Mr.Elex f*****g gave me a heart attack.”

“Well don’t die before our first team practice. We also have the scrimmage tomorrow.”

“It doesn’t matter if the coaches won’t f*****g give me a d-partner.”

“Relax Nat, I’ve heard they’re working it. It’s not like I have a line right now either. Also there’s only one goalie on that roster they posted last night. They are clearly still finishing some things up.”

“One goalie? I saw that Frederick was listed as varsity for now? What about Alex? I just assumed?” Alex Taylor had been the junior goaltender on JV the previous year. His skill had been solid but with two senior superstars in the making there hadn’t really space for him varsity.

“Nowhere in sight. I can’t imagine they cut him unless he pulled some really bad s**t which I would’ve heard about.”

“Yeah. And like, it’s not that I don’t believe in the Frederick, he’s a good kid but...”

“He’ll be replacing Carey and Shannon?”

“Uh huh”

“I guess we have to believe that the coaches know what they’re doing.” Lucas hesitated before continuing “Did you see the email I sent to the juniors about the captaincy?”

“I did. It was really sweet Luc. “

“It meant sense though? Right?”

“Yeah, it was incredibly well written and I think you made a lot of us happy since you seemed to have done all that thinking for us.”

“Thanks Nat. I’ll see at practice.”

“We’ll see each other before then. Lunch or something.”

“Of course. Right. Have fun in Spanish.”

“Good luck in German.”

Lucas Brant did not like or trust routine.  His older brother Aaron was famous for his obsession with routine. Game days were not to be messed with. The media and his teammates had poked at him for it for years, but there was no getting around the results he was getting so there was no stopping him. Their sister, Parker was not above making the occasional snide comment about superstition especially when it came to her big brother ignoring her phone calls on game days but she also still was big enough to acknowledge her own quirks. She was, after all a goalie. Lucas, for his part did not have their trust in routine. Maybe he’d spent too much of his childhood moving from place to place following his siblings, never staying long enough to really fit in but Lucas always felt that when things seemed to be going right for a while, something was coming. It was fine, he could admit that despite the benefits of having professional athletes for older siblings he was his person.

Lucas glanced around the locker room silently. For the first time he was a returning varsity player. In many ways it felt like there was less on the line than there had ever been before. It was mildly disconcerting. He had never played for a team long enough to fall into routine and so there had always been something for him to prove. Impress new coaches, new teammates, people who knew him as Aaron Brant’s little brother. Now people were starting to look to him as a pillar of the team. Something was coming to shake their foundation, he just couldn’t be sure what it was. Their first scrimmage was only a little over a day away and they didn’t have a full team. The coaches were keeping some kind of secret and that rarely meant good things.

Lucas recognized all the faces in the room, almost equal numbers of juniors and  seniors, all people he had played with one of the last two years. Frederick Gibson the sophomore goaltender sat alone at one of large stalls at the end of the room and scanned the room anxiously. The only other sophomore, forward  Zane Murray seemed far more at ease, leaning back and relaxed as he chatted with Isaac Johnson. Lucas found Natalie among the defensemen and sent her a knowing smile. They had come quite a ways since they were the only sophomores on varsity.

The coaches returned with two new players in tow and Lucas couldn’t find it in himself to be surprised. Coaches Alumbaugh and Blake were experienced and wise and seen enough on and off the ice that even Charlie coming to their door after practice literally suicidal had barely seemed to rattle them. This was about as close as Lucas had seen them though. They gently nudged the two players into the room and introduced them with more fidgeting than they almost ever used. Liam and Brett were transfer students from a rival school. That was unexpected enough sure, but Lucas was sure there was something else to the story. And if the coaches didn’t want to tell them? Then fine, he’d figure it out for himself.

Natalie looked at the new sophomores. Liam, the first into the room was small. Tiny. Almost certainly the shortest player in the room and with Charlie there that wasn’t an easy task. Even with his small stature it was clear the kid wasn’t going down without a fight. Arms crossed over his chest protectively, face set hard he radiated anger. Not as obvious but still hard to miss he also radiated fear. A strong, passionate combination that screamed this kid had been hurt, abused, manipulated, or more likely, some ugly combination of the above. He reminded Natalie a little bit of a small dog, if poked or kicked he would not hesitate to bite and scratch taking down people twice his size in a scrappy messy way. Could cause some real pain unlikely to be fatal. Behind him and towering over him by at least a half a foot Brett was harder to read. He was calmer and seemingly less guarded and hostile. Natalie didn’t take that as not dangerous though, there was something about his demeanor that that reminded her of a mother lioness. Calm, elegant and beautiful but also deadly because if anyone dared to lay so much as a finger on her cub she would not hesitate to tear them limb from limb.

He was not unlike her in that way. Natalie realized, suddenly remembering that AJ had called her a mother lioness before the playoffs the year before. A fierce protector of the goal and the ice. She’d really grown into that role in high school when she and Charlie suddenly had real permanent positions instead of in club where they played wherever the hell they were needed and Charlie was almost more of a defender and Natalie an actual scoring forward. That had changed at the start of high school when the reality of Charlie’s size made sticking as a forward a more practical option. For the most part defensemen were tall. They didn’t have to be and it wasn’t that anybody else could be tall. Lucas and Mathieu each had a couple of inches on Natalie and were unstoppable power forwards.

At first Natalie had been reluctant to make the change to defense, she’d always loved dazzling past players on teams who thought girls had no place in boy’s sports or sports in general. Now, she preferred shutting down a******s on the ice who thought for sure they could get past her. She didn’t mind sitting on the bench smugly as opponents yelled unflattering things at her. She hadn’t made the top d-pair on varsity as a sophomore by accident and whole league had learned that the hard way.  

Now as she looked up at the new players she was certain that Brett was a defenseman. And as there were no other signs of other young defenders she had a feeling that he was her new partner. It made it hard to focus on the rest of what the coaches were saying about the practice plan.

Around her the rest of the players started move and Natalie’s heart continued to pound. She fumbled her stick and started to stand up before almost tripping over her own feet and on untied skate. She bent down to finish her lacing when Coach Blake placed a firm hand on her back. She straightened up as fast as she could without fear of whacking her head on his body. “Hi Coach.”

“Hi Nat. Brett Tallet, meet Natalie Kennedy. Natalie, meet hopefully your new d-partner” Natalie gave the best smile she could trying to ignore Mathieu staring at her from across the room.

“Nice to meet you” Natalie offered her hand and he willingly shook it. “Welcome to the Great Rapids Ice Hockey Team.”

“Help him get settled in alright? I’ll see you both on the ice for warmups in a couple.” Coach Blake gave them each a quick tap on the back before taking off.

“Uh. Okay, do you need help getting settled with anything? I don’t know what your old team was like. This place is pretty simple but if you have any questions I’m here.”

“It was competitive” from the way that Brett was seemingly searching the locker room, Natalie could tell she didn’t have his full attention.

“Are you ready to get out there?”

“Sure” he slowly sounded out the word “lead the way.”

Stepping onto the ice, elation took over and Natalie completely forgot that she was supposed to be responsible for this sophomore. Mathieu was already taking half laps showing off the maneuverability of his newest prosthetic to the coaches. If Natalie hadn’t seen him skate before, she would’ve said that he was performing at 100%. She beamed as he passed her. The last of the skaters made their way onto the ice, each taking a moment to just breath in the air and feel beneath their skates. Even though they had skated at tryouts they seemed her pure joy.

“Alright River Otters, start getting warmed up! Make sure you don’t push it too it too hard on the laps and you stretch well. I don’t want any strain injuries on the very first practice. Derek won’t hesitate to chew you out either. He’s our trainer, don’t abuse him.”  And with permission from Head Coach Alumbaugh, the team was off.

Once they were warm, Coach Blake took the defensemen and a stack of cones to get their feet moving and their backwards skating polished up from the off season. The small things that had fallen through the cracks but would need to picked up right away.

The weight of the puck on her stick and the feel of the ice under her felt natural enough that Natalie wasn’t completely thrown by having an unfamiliar presence alongside her. They played with a sort of forced politeness between them, not knowing each other well enough to be fancy or read each other’s minds. It was fine hockey.

After getting caught one-on-one with Mathieu for a solid 15 seconds, Natalie grabbed his arm as soon as the play was whistled dead. She turned so that their bodies were facing each other, only a foot apart. She wove her stick between his legs “How does it feel” she asked tapping his right skate.

“Pretty damn good.” He leaned forward so that their plastic face cages were touching “I’ll beat you out there next time.”

“I’ll let you believe that. It’s not true. But I’ll let you believe that.” Mathieu gave a low in response. “Be careful out there” Natalie whispered.

“Kennedy! Chiasson! Get back your stations for me please.”

“Yes sir!” Mathieu called skating back over to the forward lines

“Sorry Coach” Natalie added, gliding backwards.

At the next water break Natalie was fumbling with the end of her rapidly unraveling braid and trying to convince her hair to stay in place when Brett came up behind her.

“You two are close? You and uh, Mathieu?” He sounded the sounds out slowly but pronounced it correctly which was more than Natalie could say for when she first met him.

“Yeah” she said with a big smile “He and Charlie are my best friends. We’ve known each other for a long time.”

“It must be really cool to play together after all this time then.”

“Oh totally. What about you and Liam?”

“We’ve known each other for a couple of years now. He’s my-” Natalie could hear Brett hesitate for second “responsibility.” Natalie considered that. At first it seemed surprising and wrong, she’d expected friend, best friend, maybe something even closer.  But Liam was small, seemingly young and vulnerable. As a friend, Brett saw himself first as a protector and guardian. It made an almost shocking amount of sense but Natalie wasn’t quite sure how it made her feel.

“You’re lucky to have each other” Brett gave what Natalie guessed what was probably the first genuine since they’d met, some of cold walls starting to lower. Maybe it would be possible to form a deeper connection.

Coach Alumbaugh ended practice by breaking his team into squads for some mini scrimmaging on goal. It didn’t take long for a friendly wager of 20 pushups to losing team to get thrown into the mix. Spirits were high with fast paced hockey with the mini teams taking turns trying to score on Frederick and the one goal.

Natalie skated off from her final shift back to the blue line they were using for a boundary. Senior winger Tyler Virtue was battling for possession in front of  Frederick with fellow senior, defenseman Ryan Seter. The two had been playing pushing each other all practice and so no one expected Tyler to lose his balance. It caught the whole team by surprise when Tyler fell, pinwheeling his arms as he tumbled almost comedically backwards. Had he been anywhere else on the ice, he would have fell mostly harmlessly onto his own butt and back. But being positioned in front of the goal, he instead cushioned his fall with Frederick, all of his weight falling onto the goalie, who in turn also fell back only to have his head make sickening contact with the ice even through the back plate of his mask.

The team went silent. Tyler detangled himself and stood up, seemingly no worse for the wear. Their goalie hadn’t gotten so lucky, Frederick managed to bring himself to his knees where he sat, dazed. The coaches rushed over and Coach Blake bent down and whispered to him, giving his body a

“Blake can you take Frederick to the training office? Tell Derek to give him a concussion test.” Coach Alumbaugh calmly asked his assistant.

“Of course. Come on kid.”

“So.” Alumbaugh gave a single clap to get his team’s attention “This clearly isn’t how I wanted to end this practice. I know you’re worried about your teammate and I’m glad you care for each other. I also need you to take care of yourselves, treat your own physical and mental needs. Get something to eat, do your school work, get a good night’s sleep. We’re still scrimmaging Dant tomorrow. You should have an email from me by the morning with details including the results from who you voted to be acting captains. Go, get showered and changed out. I will see you all tomorrow.” The Coach finished his speech and the same calm demeanor as always turned and walked from the ice. The team watched him go, all the way until he disappeared into the tunnel and presumably his office before letting out a collective breath.

Natalie looked over at Ryan who stood slightly removed from the group, hands pressed against the back of his neck in a clear sign of frustration. She considered saying something as she looked between him and Tyler, who’s head was down in shame.

Before she could figure out what it was, Ryan swung his stick down angrily against the ice and then took off for the door. “F**k!” He swore as he stormed off the ice. The team silently started to follow, no one could really argue with that.

Author's Note

Probably lots of typos .Liberties have been taken with the high school hockey tryout process, I'd like to come back and make it more reasonable at some point but for now...