The Chase (Briar U #1)

9 Fitz

9

FITZ

P REGAME SKATES AREN’T USUALLY GRUELING, BUT THIS morning Coach wants to run a few shooting drills he anticipates will help us tonight. Harvard has been unstoppable this year. They’re well on their way to a perfect season, and although I’d never say it out loud, I think they might be the better team in this matchup.

Coach must secretly think so too, because he pushes us harder than usual. I’m a sweaty mess by the time I lumber off the ice. My hair is plastered to my forehead, and I swear there’s cartoon steam rolling out of my helmet.

Coach smacks me on the shoulder. “Good hustle, Colin.”

“Thanks, Coach.”

“Davenport,” he says to Hunter. “Show me that same ruthlessness tonight, son. Shoot through Johansson, not around him. Feel me?”

“Got it, Coach.”

We have thirty minutes to shower and change before a mandatory meeting in the screening room to review game tape. This will be our first of two games against Harvard this season, and we want to send a message. It’s an away game, to boot, so it’ll be extra tough—but extra sweeter if we can get a W in their arena.

In the locker room, I strip off my sweaty practice gear and duck into the shower area. The stalls are divided by partitions and have saloon-style doors that mean we can’t see each other’s junk, but chests are fair game. Stepping into the stall next to Hollis, I crank the cold water and dunk my head. I swear I’m still sweating even under the cool spray.

“Are we really not gonna acknowledge the fact that Mike shaved his chest?” Dave Kelvin, a junior defenseman, demands.

Laughter bounces off the acoustic tiles. I glance at Hollis and lift a questioning brow. I’ve showered, worked out, and gone swimming with the guy enough times to know that he usually has hair on his chest. Now it’s smoother than a baby’s bottom.

Nate Rhodes, our team captain this year, grins. “Home job or salon?”

Hollis rolls his eyes at the tall senior. “Home. Why would I pay someone to do something I can do myself? That’s stupid.” He twists around so he can wave at Kelvin. “And you? Get off your ivory horse, dude—”

“Ivory tower,” I say helpfully.

“Whatever. We all know you wax your chest and your back, Kelvin. Hypocritical fucktard.”

I snort and rub soap over my chest. My body temperature is finally dropping.

“I don’t wax my back!” Kelvin protests.

“Yes you do. Nikki Orsen ratted you out, you back-hair motherfucker.”

Nikki is a right-winger on the Briar women’s team. She’s a great player and an awesome girl, but she also happens to be a serious blabbermouth. You can’t tell her anything you don’t want anyone else knowing.

As Nate and a couple other seniors hoot loudly, Kelvin’s face turns beet red. “I’m gonna kill her.”

“Oh relax, princess,” Hunter drawls. “Every dude you see on Instagram waxes some part of his body.”

“Yeah, what’s the big deal?” Hollis says. “There’s no shame in manscaping.”

“This is a safe place,” Nate agrees solemnly.

“Exactly. Safe place. We all manscape here—or at least we all fucking should if we consider ourselves fucking gentlemen ,” Hollis chides.

Swallowing a laugh, I place the soap back in its tray and start rinsing off.

“Seriously, bro, what’s with the makeover?” Matt Anderson pipes up. Like Kelvin, he’s a junior D-man. The two of them were beyond shitty last year, but our new defensive coach, Frank O’Shea, has been working the D-men hard all season, and he’s really whipped them into shape.

“Got a date after the game tonight,” Hollis reveals.

“What, the chick has something against body hair?”

“Hates it. She swallowed a pube once, and it triggered her gag reflex so she threw up all over her boyfriend’s dick. And then he started ralphing too because vomit makes him vomit, and they broke up right after that.”

For one long moment, the only sound in the huge room is the rushing water.

Then it transforms into the weeping laughter of a bunch of buck-ass naked dudes.

“Oh my fucking god, that is the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” Hunter moans.

“She told you all this?” Our team captain is doubled over, and I can’t tell if it’s tears or water streaming down his face.

“Said she wouldn’t even consider boning down if a guy had body hair. That includes chest, arms, legs, so…” Hollis shrugs.

“You did your arms and legs too?” Nate squawks.

Hunter laughs harder.

“Women are nuts,” Kelvin grumbles.

He has a point. Women are messed up. I mean, Summer told me off last night for no good reason other than me being surprised that she’d read Shifting Winds .

Apparently she took that to mean that I thought she couldn’t read?

Seriously?

Although…fine, if I look at it from her perspective, I can see why she overreacted. Maybe it did come off a bit like I was implying she wasn’t smart enough for the series or that she was lying about reading it.

That wasn’t my intention, though. Those books are legitimately tough to read. Hell, I barely got through them myself, and I’ve been reading fantasy religiously for years.

If she’d given me a chance to respond, I could’ve told her that. And I would’ve apologized for insinuating I didn’t believe her.

But, just as I’ve always suspected, Summer is all drama. Ten measly words could have cleared it up— I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, forgive me —if she’d let me speak. Instead, she’d stomped off like a five-year-old.

I grab a towel and hastily wrap it around my waist. Drama , I reiterate to myself. I’m not interested in drama. Never have been, never will be.

So why can’t I get her hurt expression out of my mind?

__________

Briar’s top-notch hockey facility is the land of luxury. We’ve got state-of-the-art equipment, well-ventilated locker rooms, an awesome shower setup, a lounge, kitchen, physio rooms, whirlpool—name it, and we’ve got it. The viewing room is especially sweet. It resembles a small movie theater, only with three semicircular rows of tables and huge padded chairs. At the bottom of the gallery, the coaches have an A/V setup similar to that of sports announcers, with an input for laptops and a video screen they can write on. When they highlight plays or circle players, their scribbles show up on the big screen too.

I plop down in the chair next to our goalie, Patrick Corsen. “Hey.”

“Hey.” He’s staring at the screen, which is frozen on a shot of the Harvard arena. It looks like last week’s game, Harvard versus Boston College. BC got creamed that day.

Harvard is definitely the team to beat this year. In the past, they were an easy divisional opponent for us, because Briar’s always had the superior program. But this season they’re on fire, with more talent on the roster than ever before. After last year’s seniors graduated, the lowerclassmen who didn’t get a chance to shine were given more ice time, and every single one of them has stepped up. Harvard’s no longer relying solely on the skill of their team captain like they did last year. Jake Connelly is damn good, but he can’t carry an entire team.

“Connelly’s line is wicked fast,” Corsen says glumly.

“Our line is faster,” I assure him, referring to me, Hunter, and Nate.

“Fine. But their second and third lines are just as fast. Can you say the same about ours?” He lowers his voice. “Plus they’ve got a better D. Those two sophomores? Can’t remember their names, but they’re so good at keeping the puck out of their zone. Takes so much heat off Johansson.”

Johansson is Harvard’s goalie, and he’s phenomenal. Truthfully, Corsen’s right to worry.

“Kelvin and Brodowski aren’t that strong,” he mutters.

“No,” I agree. “But Matty is.” I nod toward Anderson, who’s texting on his phone.

Like the Harvard boys, Matt stepped up after Dean and Logan graduated. He’s now the leading scorer among the defensemen and one of our best penalty killers. He’s also the only black player on the team, which he’s damn proud of. He’s entering the draft this year and eager to make his mark in a pro league that’s predominantly white.

“True. Matty’s an asset,” Corsen relents, but he still sounds unhappy.

I get why he’s worried. He’s signed by LA and playing for them next season, so it’s always a concern if your draft team sees you shit the bed. A lot of the time that guarantees you a spot on the farm team, though sometimes that’s the better option, truth be told. That’s what Logan is doing right now, playing for the Providence Bruins and developing his skills. Not everyone is like Garrett Graham, a born superstar. And not every college player is instantly ready for the pros.

Coach marches into the room and claps his hands. “Let’s get started.” He doesn’t shout, just uses his speaking voice, but everyone snaps to attention as if he’d screamed like a drill sergeant. Jensen is the kind of man who just commands respect. He’s also a man of few words, but the words he does use wield a lot of power.

“Take a good look at this kid,” he orders. He presses play and the picture on the screen jumps to life.

A skater, jersey number 33, whizzes across the blue line. Coach pauses the frame, draws on his tablet, and a bright red circle appears on the player like a target.

“Junior, left wing,” he says briskly. “Brooks Weston.”

“The goon,” a sophomore pipes up.

“So?” Hollis cracks. “We’ve got our own goons. We can take him.”

“He’s more than an enforcer,” Coach Jensen tells us. “He’s a goddamn instigator and a scourge to this earth.”

We snicker.

“This little fucker has the superhuman ability to commit infraction after infraction without being called. And he’s very, very skilled at drawing penalties from other guys. His specialty is provoking fights. End result is him usually coming out smelling like roses, while the other guy draws a major or, worst case, an ejection.”

A mumble of general disapproval ripples through the room, even though I’m sure we’ve all been guilty at one point or another of trying to provoke opponents into committing an infraction. Some players do it habitually, though, using it as a strategy. Coach Jensen doesn’t believe in this strategy. If it were up to him, the NCAA would take a much stronger stance on penalty gameplay.

“No matter what trash comes out of this kid’s mouth, you don’t let it get to you, you hear me?” He fixes us all with a deadly look.

“I’m not scared of some rich kid with a potty mouth,” drawls Kelvin.

“How do you know he’s rich?” Hunter asks in amusement.

“His first name is also a last name. That usually means his parents called him that to honor two filthy-rich grandparents.”

“My first name is also a last name,” Hunter points out.

“Yeah, and you’re filthy rich!” Hollis chimes in, snorting with laughter. “Hell, you probably know this Wesley Brooke guy.”

“Brooks Weston,” someone corrects.

“I do know him,” Hunter admits, drawing another snort from Hollis. “We both played for Roselawn Prep. He was a couple years ahead of me.”

Coach nods. “Pain in the ass, those Roselawn guys.”

“I literally just said I went to Roselawn,” Hunter protests.

“I repeat—pain in the ass, those Roselawn guys.”

Hunter sighs.

We spend the next fifteen minutes analyzing the first period of the Harvard/Boston College game. Coach is right. Weston Brooks or Brooks Weston or whatever the hell his name is, is a damn nuisance. He’s aggressive as hell, getting away with highsticking three minutes in, and almost instigating a fight before the buzzer. Weston manages to taunt his opponent into a couple harmless shoves, but just as the BC player is about to lunge, a teammate yanks him back. Weston is chortling as he skates off.

I dislike him already.

When the second period starts, Harvard is leading two-zip. “Does Connelly’s slap shot look a lot deadlier this year or is it just me?” Kelvin asks warily, his gaze glued to the screen.

“Oh, it’s deadlier,” Coach confirms. “And he’s even faster now. He’s scored on every breakaway he’s had this season.” He points a finger around the room. “Don’t let him rush the net. Understood?”

There’s a chorus of “Yessir.”

An aforementioned breakaway kicks off the second. Sure enough, Connelly dekes out four opponents, including two defensemen who literally look like they don’t know where they are. It’s like this old ’90s show I binge-watched last year, where the main character time-jumps into random people’s bodies in order to change history. Dude spends the first five minutes of every episode trying to figure out where the hell he is and whose body he jumped into.

That’s what Connelly does to these defensemen. Their heads swivel around in confusion as if they were just dropped onto the ice in the middle of a hockey game. By the time they realize what’s happening, Connelly has blown past them and is already taking a shot. The puck sails into the upper left corner of the net with laser precision, like an osprey diving into the ocean to pluck up its dinner. Coach pauses on the goalie’s look of sheer frustration as the lamp lights behind him.

“Beautiful shot,” Nate says grudgingly.

“Yes,” Coach agrees. “And I don’t want to see anything like it tonight, unless it’s coming from one of you. Got it?”

“Got it,” everyone answers.

We settle in to examine the rest of the tape. As Coach points out what he deems to be weaknesses on Harvard’s team, we hang on to his every word. We’re gonna have to exploit every single weakness if we want to kick their asses tonight.