Sasquatch to the Moon

9: One-Hit Wonder

ROCKET

    They're playing me this game, probably because it's the Wild and everyone seems comfortable with our ability to beat them.

I'm nervous. I doubt I'm going to play the same way that I did the last time I was in, and while I doubt it would be that bad in the eyes of the rest of the team, I'm absolutely terrified of Yeti's reaction if I don't play at that level again. It's not like I need to please him, I don't think, I just, I don't want to make him mad, or make him regret the whole MVP thing or anything like that. He's just scary.

    "Feeling alright?" Steph shrugs his jersey on. Sagamore fits nicely across the back. Stojanovič does... barely. You know what fits on the back of a jersey? Rex. Just three letters. Just Rex.

    "Yeah, fine," I pull the Velcro around my shoulders and chest and pull my jersey on in the same manner he did. I'm clipped in all the way down to my skates. It's time to boogie. "Just a little worried."

    "Ah, you'll be fine, I know there's a ton of pressure on you but you'll be alright." Thanks, Steph, that's super reassuring.

    Yeti catches me by the arm on the way out of the locker room, Steph already jogging out to join the lineup, "hey, you alright? You seem rattled."

I clear my throat, not making eye contact with him through his cage, "yeah, worried, just a little, I just-"

"About last game?"

I force my shoulders to soften underneath my gear, he's fine, he's not going to do anything, he's fine, "yeah."

"Listen," he shakes my shoulder and I catch it as a queue to look up at him, his hard gaze landing on me, the inches he has on me made more apparent due to how close we are. "I know you set up a crazy precedent last game you played."

I swallow.

"Nobody is going to be mad if you let one or two in this game, we'll seal it up with offense, it's going to be fine."

I can't talk, I don't know what to say and what to do around him.

"Eyes up," his deep voice stops my heart in my chest and I refocus up. I fucking hate eye contact and his is the worst, searing into me, making me shiver under my skin, squirming in his gaze. "I have your back on this one, I was not very nice with you before this but I've got you on this one."

Huh. "Thanks, I guess?"

"Good," he shakes his shoulders like he's trying to get out a weird feeling. "Tear shit up." With that, he shoves me out the door in front of him and the hall cheers a little bit, shoving me all the way up to the front, searing red in my cheeks. Yeti drops back to share a word or two with his other captains, Fen and Greenie nodding along before dropping off into their positions for the lineup.

Then, it's go time.

And it's really, truly, not that bad. Okay, it's not great, I get rattled within the first few minutes, a hard slapshot ringing off the top of my head, another one stinging the base of my hand in my glove, enough weird plays that I got dizzy just watching them, but it really could be worse.

Nico doesn't seem to like the rest of the ice, though.

    "If you guys don't score before the end of the period, I'll make you do suicides until you vomit, hear me?" She's got us in the locker room, standing up on the folding table in the center, clipboard in one hand, curly brown hair tied back tight into a tiny little ponytail, almost matching Jorgen's hair.

    We all nod. She continues. "There's no reason that they should be holding us off. You're stronger skaters, you're better stick-handlers. You're bigger, you're faster. You're tougher." She points at Yeti and Fen. "You two need to break away. I don't care quite how, but you're both terrifying to see coming down the ice. Freak out Thatcher and keep him freaked out. The faster you rattle a goalie the faster you win."