Hockey is My Life, Plus Some Others

Chapter 7

Bombay comes up behind Goldberg on his treadmill. "Hey, how you feelin' today, Goldberg?" Bombay asks. "Lean and mean." Goldberg puffs. Bombay walks up to my treadmill. "How many miles have you completed?" He asks. "8 miles." I reply. "AJ, you are the only person on this team who can run as fast as they skate. Two more miles, then take a shower. I'll tell you what to do when you're done." Bombay responds. He turns up the speed on my treadmill and I speed up with it. Even though it would be kind of fast for one of my teammates, it's a piece of cake for me. I start singing to help me with my breath control. As I continue the room slowly quiets. I continue running for around ten minutes. I turn off my treadmill and walk to the girls locker room. I quickly get ready for a shower. When I step into the cold water I breathe a sigh of relief, it feels good to cool off. It's been a day since my night terrors. Yesterday we mostly just stayed in the dorm building. But, Connie did banish the boys so we could play kiss, marry, kill with the girls without a boyfriend. After a few rounds we made lists for of their top five matches. BTW, at the top of Mena's lists was Gunnar Stahl. She was extremely happy that we thought they would be a good match. After my shower I get dressed, find Bombay, and follow his instructions. Bombay directions were to 1, go to the rink, 2, get ready for practice, and 3, go through the drills Jan has set up. I walk to the bus stop and get a ride to the rink, #1 check. When I walk in I go to the locker room and get ready for practice, #2 check. I leave the locker room and go out on the ice. There is literally two people here, me and Jan. "How long have you been here?" I ask Jan. "Five minutes." He replies. "I'm gonna do laps until people show up, is that okay?" I respond. "Of course, we need at least five people for these drills, anyway." Jan says. I start doing slow, leisurely laps. After twenty minutes, Connie, Julie, and Charlie show up. They join me in doing laps. Fulton and Portman arrive next. Jan has us start a shooting drill. He has taped paper plates to the corners of the net. We all have to hit the plate before we move onto the next one. Julie is kind of standing off to the side when Jan puts her in front of the net to block our shots at the plates. We can pick whatever plate and as soon as we hit it we move on. Banks and Luis are the next to show up. They join us in the shooting drill. Not to long after Jesse and Ken arrive. Five minutes later, Dwayne and Guy come out on the ice. Lastly, Bombay comes in, herding Averman and Goldberg. Bombay has us start another drill. Apparently, it will show us who is the better goalie. What's the point?! Everyone knows Julie is better! First, we shoot on Julie. We go down the line, each of us shooting on Julie, so far, no one has gotten a shot off Julie. "Banks! Show me something, now!" Bombay says. Banks misses, that hasn't happened in awhile. I shoot. "That's it!" Bombay says when I make it. We go down the rest of the line and nobody makes it. We switch goalies, we go down the line again. Almost everyone makes it, not Banks. We do a few more drills and on our way off the ice I grab Banks' wrist to stop him. He winces in pain. "What's going on?" I demand. "Ok, so I really hurt my wrist and played it off as nothing, I'll be fine." Banks says. "Banks! What were you thinking? I'm gonna tell Bombay if you don't by the time everyone else has left." I say. "Okay." He says, dejectedly. I get ready to leave the locker room, Banks still hasn't fessed up! I wait by the door and when everyone else has left I text Bombay about Banks' wrist. I leave the rink and take a bus with Charlie, Fulton, and Portman. I share a seat with Charlie and Fulton and Portman sit in front of us. Portman asks me a question, "When did you meet?" This takes me a bit by surprise. Charlie starts telling the story and when he needs my side of the story I fill in. When Dean continues to ask questions, we take turns answering. We get so distracted that we almost miss our stop. When we're about to get off the Iceland team gets on. Sanderson spits out an insult in Icelandic. All of his teammates, except for Stahl, laugh their faces off. "What's that supposed to mean, Doofus?" I say confidently. "AJ, let's go." Charlie says, pulling me towards the door. Sanderson leans into kiss me. When he gets close enough (he's a lot taller than me) I punch him right in the nose, I hear a satisfying crunch on contact. Some of the Iceland dudes are cussing and swearing in Icelandic, others are lunging for me. Charlie swiftly pulls me off the bus, and after a few quick punches The Bash Brothers join us. When we walk inside the dorm building Dean starts rambling about how stupid the Iceland team is. "I think AJ has earned the title of The Bash Sis." Dean says. "Yeah, you're rougher on the ice than either of us!" Fulton agrees. "Fine by me." Dean says. "Okay, but you can't exclude me when you go out after curfew. Those 'Bro Nights' you have are now called 'Bash Nights'!" I say. Fulton and Dean walk off to the side and start discussing the pros and cons. "Ok." My twin says. "You can be our Bash sister." Dean says. "Yes!" I say, pumping my fist in the air. "But we have conditions." Fulton says, interrupting my celebration. "Conditions? You invited me. I'm the one that's allowed to have conditions, not you." I say. "Fine." Dean grumbles.