Page 105 of Unmanageable

I get within two feet of her. I lift the bottle high and dump the entire freezing, blue liter straight down the back of her neck.

SPLASH.

Scottie lets out a sharp, high-pitched yelp that sounds like a stepped-on terrier, her entire body leaping six inches off the rubber floor.

“Finnian O’Connell,” she whispers, her voice shaking from the pure shock. “You are so dead.”

I grin, tossing the empty plastic bottle into a nearby recycling bin. “The desert is dangerous, Sharky. You have to stay hydrated. Your favorite client is just looking out for your health.”

Before she can lunge at me, a sharp, metallic whistle echoes through the open double doors leading to the ice sheet.

FWEEEET.

We both freeze.

Standing in the doorway to the rink is a man in his late fifties. He’s wearing a black track suit, a whistle tucked into his fingers, and a pair of gray hockey skates that look like they’ve been through three wars.

Coach Derrick looks at Scottie, whose sweatshirt is turning a dark, heavy shade of wet. Then he looks down at my feet, taking in the single gray cross-trainer and the wet white tube sock covered in gas station gravel.

The silence in the lobby is absolute, save for the steady drip from Scottie’s hem.

Vance lowers his clipboard. He stares at us for five long seconds before his eyes move between the recycling bin and the white powder still visible on my collarbone.

“Are you two… okay?” he asks, his voice flat. “Or did I accidentally schedule an appointment with a traveling circus?”

Scottie clears her throat, pulling herself together with impressive speed. “Coach. I’m Scottie Reed. We had… a minor malfunction in the transport vehicle.”

Vance looks at her hair, then at my single shoe. “Right. Malfunction. Well, Reed, your client has three minutes to get his steel on the ice before I lock the gate and go get a beer. Move.”

He turns on his heel and glides back into the darkness of the rink.

Scottie glares at me, her eyes sharp. “Get your gear. I’m going to the locker room to change into my spare clothes. I’ll find your shoe. Go.”

***

Ten minutes later, I am standing in the tunnel, the weight of seventy pounds of goalie gear settling over my shoulders like a familiar, protective skin.

When I step onto the ice, the temperature drops forty degrees. The sheet is perfect—glassy, hard, and white under the high bay lights. Coach Derrick is standing at the top of the crease, a bucket of a hundred black pucks resting between his skates.

“Get in the box, O’Connell,” he says. “Let’s see if the rumors from Boston are true.”

I slide into the crease, dropping into my stance, my knees bent, my center of gravity low and stable.

“Three-puck rotation,” Vance calls out. “Low blocker, transition to the glove side, then the rebound from the slot. Go.”

He moves with a speed that defies his age.

Clack. The first puck flashes across the ice, a hard, rising slider. I drop into the butterfly, my leg pads flaring out to seal the ice, my blocker shifting down to deflect the puck into the corner boards.

Before I can even reset my weight, Vance has already gathered the second puck. Snap. It’s a spinning wrister toward the top left corner. My glove hand flashes out by instinct, catching the puck with a loud, clean pop.

“Rebound!”

He lunges forward, driving down the slot with his stick cocked back. I push off my right skate, my body sliding laterally across the blue paint to cut off the angle, my chest protector absorbing the hard, heavy blast right in the center of the logo.

“Again,” Vance grunts, already pulling more pucks. “Your weight is too far back on the lateral push. Reset.”

For forty-five minutes, he dismantles my mechanics. It’s brutal, exhausting work—the kind of practice that makes your thighs burn like hot iron and your lungs feel like they’re full of glass.