New Beginnings

Fine By Me

"I need some NyQuil," I groaned in the hotel that Thursday night in Waterford.

We'd been there a grand total of three days and played two games and I hadn't slept a bit in the two previous nights.

"Want me to text Miki and ask her?" Jessie, one of my teammates and assistant captain, asked.

"I probably shouldn't take it without talking to my doctor," I sighed, "I hate this pillows."

"You and Penelope with the damn pillows," she laughed, "She brought her own because she hates how fluffy they are."

"Looks like I'm going to see if she brought extra," I said, kicking off my blankets and grabbing my key before walking out of my room and into the hallway.

"Yeah? You need something Nat?" Penelope asked as I knocked on her door.

"Did you bring more than one flat pillow?" I asked.

"Yeah, why?" she asked.

"Can I please borrow your extra one? I haven't slept all week," I begged.

"Sure," she laughed, "Good to know I'm not the only one who can't stand the damn things."

"Thanks," I smiled as she handed me the pillow.

"See you at breakfast," she said before shutting the door.

###

"I have to pee so bad," I said, bouncing on my tiptoes as the final seconds ticked away at the clock the next day for the final game of pool play. We were up 4-3 with 11 seconds left in the game and whoever won the game got the high seed for semifinals. Right now, we had our best center, Kaylee, out there lined up against 6 of their players trying to tally a game tying goal.

Kaylee won the faceoff back to Valerie, one of our defensemen, who passed it back up to Mac, the winger, who sent it down to the empty net. It was sliding to the side of the net, so Mac skated her tail off and beat the other defenseman down to the goal line, where the referee called an icing.

"You've got to be fcking kidding me," Marie said, "She beat it!" 

"I know!" I exclaimed, "If they score Miki is going to be so pissed."

"At least we've got Kaylee out there to tie the puck up on the faceoff," Marie said as I stood there wringing my hands.

Kaylee won the faceoff, sort of, she kind of fell on the puck. By the time it got fished out, Valerie was there to take the puck and trap it in the corner for the remaining 6 and a half seconds to win the game.

"We won the pool!" Marie exclaimed.

"I can finally go pee!" I laughed as they piled onto the ice to celebrate before shaking hands.

"I'll get the locker room key from the bench," Marie laughed, running over to the bench to get me the locker room key.

I ran back to unlock the door to pee and was back in the locker room before the girls got back. Miki gave a short post-game speech and we managed to get back to the bus and hotel in a matter of an hour and a half. Right now, Miki had put me in charge of getting everyone's dinner orders from Jimmy John's and I was going through the twenty five plus sandwiches in the banquet room we had reserved for dinner.

"They're all sorted Miki," I said, throwing one of the boxes they had been delivered to us in to the side.

"Thanks Nat," she said, "Let's eat, ladies!"

###

"So is Ian coming up for semis?" Jessie asked as she sat down next to me on my bed late that night.