Goal Line by RJ Scott & V.L. Locey

Author:RJ Scott & V.L. Locey [Scott, RJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-78564-129-9
Publisher: RJ Scott

* * *

The season started with a bang, with me in my backup role riding the pine. Four games and the Railers took three of them as victories. I hadn’t heard from Aarni since that night nor from Gatlin. That was okay though. I’d come to terms with messing things up with Gatlin. Aarni, on the other hand, was a raw despair I carried with me and examined at moments when my brain wasn’t filled with hockey. It didn’t help that we were starting our season with a West Coast stand, with the Raptors our first stop. Given that the two teams were in different conferences, the Railers only met the Raptors twice this season, once now, the other before Christmas. I dreaded the two games as equally as I needed to face them. Maybe Aarni would want me tonight if the Raptors won on their home ice?

Because today was the day that the Raptors met the Railers.

I wanted a chance to talk to Aarni, face-to-face, to apologize or shout or who the hell knew what. I missed Aarni so much. I missed the team.

And I feared what my place was on the Railers.

Was Aarni right when he’d warned me in the summer? Was I only there as a placeholder until they found a real backup? Was Ten a bad person, a spoiled, temperamental celebrity who got his own way? Were the Railers a team who’d somehow cheated their way to winning the Stanley Cup? Or was it Aarni who was wrong?

Confusion and self-doubt were my friends in the dark nights, and I hated them with a passion.

Somehow, I managed to keep my head in the game during practice on the Raptors’ ice. Standing here, looking up at the familiar rafters, walking past the home locker room to get to ours, I was quiet, but no one called me on it. Not even Ten who had taken to hovering around the net at practice today, half-working on tip-ins and half staring at me.

The Raptors were here, in this building. They’d had an hour out on the ice this morning, but there’d been no text from Aarni, nothing to even say hello. No one had reached out to me.

Coach called Stan and me in for a pregame meeting, Coach Gagnon there as well. The goalie coach was all kinds of serious.

“Bryan, I’m putting you in net,” Coach Benning said and sat back in his chair expectantly.

What did he want me to do? Let out a yelp of excitement at getting my first Railers start on Raptor ice? Tears that I wasn't ready? Fear of facing my old team? I felt nothing. No fear or enthusiasm or sorrow.

“I’m excited about the opportunity,” I murmured, the perfect soundbite that I’d give the waiting journalists when they asked me later.

After I fucked up and lost the game for the Railers.

“You know team,” Stan said enthusiastically and clapped my shoulder.

“I do.” I forced eagerness into my voice.

“Watch video,” Stan announced, and Coach Gagnon opened the laptop.

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