Skates Out // a Luis Mendoza Fan Fic

7. The beginning

Luis. 

I walked down to the arena in our hockey uniform, the girls laughed, "you won't be needing those today, go get changed." they said, but I could tell something was up with them frim the way they were standing. Adam, Charile and I shared confused looks. They waved happily at Connie and Julie who walked down behind us, apparently everyone else on our team had recieved the don't wear your uniform memo. 

Ten minutes later we walked out of the locker room and to whoever was training us, Charlie, Viola , Elsa and Adam walked over to one half of the rink, I went over to follow them but JJ stopped me with a smirk. "You're not ready for that yet." she said pulling me onto the ice and skating in the other direction. 

I scoffed, "but I'm just as good as them!" 

She made a face, "maybe so the diffrence however is, they can stop, and youm can't so I've decided we're going to work on that." 

I glared at her, "you're hilarious." I muttered annoyed as she told me to go do laps to warm up. "Thats just what I was thinking when you slammed me senseless yesterday, consider this payback."

I rolled my eyes, "I knew you couldn't take it princess." 

"You are so lucky that I'm not allowed to fight you." she threatened, "now get out there and do some fucking laps!" 

Once JJ had graciously decided that I was finished with laps we went on to the more humiliating part of our training, me learning how to stop. "If you can stop this first time on that circle right there, then we can stop and join the others if you can't then that is all we're going to be doing until you get it right." 

Ok, ok, I could do thatm I skated to the opposite side of the ice so i was facing her and then started to speed up coming back towards her I saw the circle and waited determindly until I was a couple inches away before I tried to stop. 

I turned in a really akward diagonall way and tried to kind of push with my feet so I'd stop but also throw the rest of my wait I the other direction. Not a good idea. I slammed head first into the ice and slid all the way over to JJ. I hadn't realised how much it hurt to fall down without the padding of out uniforms. 

"Hurts doesn' it? especially on the head." JJ commented holding out her hand. I frowned taking it and letting her pull me to my feet, "why are you being nice to me? I figured you'd be laughing gleefully." 

"Well yesterday I would have been, but I know how much it hurts to hit your head like that and I'm just not in the mood to be gleeful right now." She replied her voice a little tired, "why do you care anyways, just take it as a win."

"Good point." I replied, because quite frankly i didn't care that she was being nice to me, it was better than JJ being a total bitch to me. "Come here, she took my wrist and led me out into the middle of the ice, we're going to start from the very begnning and the work out way up to the quicker stops." JJ explained. She kated behind me and then gathering minimal speed before slowing down a bit infront of me her feet shaped like a V. 

"That is how the beginner skaters do it, now it's your turn." She said turning around and gesturing for me to start. 

"I'm not a beginner." I protested. 

She shrugged, "then this should be no problem for you."

Luckily I wasn't that bad, the little V stops I could do. She nodded, "well thats a start, she skated to the ed of the ice facing me and then gathered speed berfore stopping about a meter in front of me by dragging her right foot behind her left one. 

"Go." 

I nodded, it proved harder than expected becaue for whatever reason I kept getting off balance but after a couple tires I did manage. She nodded, "ok, now that you've got that I'm going to skip straight ahead and teach out how to stop like me and your friends. Pretty simple, it's called the hockey stop and lets you decelerate as fast as you can."