Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 63124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
Anne and Naomi, the two redheads who make my job as goaltender easier, stood on either side of me.
“I’ve been liking what I’ve been seeing during our last few practices. We’re getting into the groove,” Coach Clinton said as her eyes swept over all of us. Her gaze then zeroed in on me. “I believe we’ve chosen the right captain for this team.”
Pride swelled in my chest like a warm glow as the rest of the team clapped and patted me on the shoulders. I flashed all of them, including Coach Clinton, a grateful look, unable to find any words that properly described how grateful I was for their support. Nothing made me prouder than being the captain of a good team.
Coach Clinton clasped her hands together loudly to catch our attention.
“Alright, let’s do pig in the middle. We need to work on our passing,” Coach Clinton told us. “Leah, Anne, and Soraya on one team. Suzette, Lily, and Naomi on the other team.”
I nodded and clapped my gloves together.
“Come on. Let’s go!” I said, getting the others hyped up as we broke apart into two groups. I stayed between Anne and Soraya as they practiced passing the puck to each other. Once they got into a rhythm, I crouched lower, moving my stick to try to intercept the puck from them.
“Gotta be faster than that,” Soraya told me as she shot the puck between my legs over to Anne.
I smirked and narrowed my eyes, concentrating harder as I watched their movements. Their body language gave away what they were about to do next, and when Anne tried to shoot the puck past me on my left, I stuck out my stick just in time to scoop it toward me and steal it.
“Gotta be smarter than that,” I quipped back.
Before Anne could deal back a smart comment to keep our banter going, a loud wolf whistle sounded from behind me. I whipped around to see the men’s hockey team standing at a railing in the middle of the stadium seats, watching our practice with amused looks on their faces. My jaw tightened as I glared up at them, hearing a few more whistles and whoops. They were just trying to distract us from practice.
“Let’s scrimmage,” I told my group before heading over to the second group. “Scrimmage. Lily, you’ll be goaltender.”
Lily nodded and motioned for Suzette and Naomi to follow her over to their side of the rink. Once Lily and I were properly padded up to defend our goals, the other four engaged in a back-and-forth battle over the puck.
I watched closely, standing at the goal nearest to the guys, and I could hear noise from behind me. I breathed in sharply through my nose when I realized that they were moving closer to the rink.
“Oh, don’t mind us. We just want to see what all the hype is about.”
I narrowed my eyes and pitched a quick look behind me to see a black-haired guy leaning against the railing. My gaze shifted to the right to see another guy with brown hair and stubble on his face, but he looked like he was possibly European. Next to him was Hugo with a pretty blonde girl on his arm. Something about seeing her pawing all over him as he smirked at me made me want to shoot a puck at him.
Assholes! They were so up in arms about my determination to take the women’s team all the way to the top because they thought it would take away from their success. Talk about insecure.
“No pressure, sweetheart!” one of the guys with black hair and an amused grin on his face called out to me.
“She’s probably better in bed than she is on the ice,” another player commented, eliciting chuckles from the others.
I grinded my teeth as I listened to their derogatory remarks, wanting to do everything in my power to make them eat their words.
“Leah!”
I turned around just as Suzette shot the puck right between my legs, scoring on me within a few seconds. Laughter immediately erupted behind me as I tightened my grip on my stick, gritting my teeth in anger.
“Yeah, I don’t think we have anything to worry about,” one of the guys said before they left the stands.
I watched them go, silently fuming as the blonde girl kissed Hugo on the cheek. Was she his girlfriend or something? Not that it should’ve mattered to me, but the thought burned in my head along with a variety of others that weren’t kind.
They came here to mess things up, and it worked! Now, they really wouldn’t take me or the rest of my team seriously. Just by being a team of women, we dealt with enough doubt and bullshit already. I didn’t need to be making things worse for us!