Sasquatch to the Moon

4: First Day Scaries

His lip twitches just a tiny, tiny, tiny bit.

"What about you? You're Swedish, yeah?"

"Norwegian on my Dad's side, Swedish on my mom's."

I raise my eyebrows at him, watching him lace his skates, strong hands making quick work in bending the plastic to get it tight enough, "so, you're like, a double dose of Viking then, huh?"

He shrugs. He seems to be into shrugging, "ancestry wise, yes."

"Then what's up with the Rex thing? Figured you'd be named like, Bjork or something."

He sits up, seeming to be uncomfortable with this conversation in a slight way but I want to know things and he hasn't stopped answering so I'll keep pressing.

"Grandfather was a Brit."

"Oh, ew," I stick out my tongue. "How did that happen?"

"World War Two." God, give me something to build a conversation on you uptight Viking.

"Yikes, so he was a deserter?" I don't know what else to say, I'm struggling. This is where Steph steps in normally, we don't do conversations without each other, well, I don't do conversations without him, especially these types of them.

Yeti's white eyebrows harden over his eyes, clearly done with me, "prisoner of war."

I squint, trying to remember why that sounds like bullshit.

"In Norway," that does not help, thank you, Rexy.

"Well, ya know, the Czech Republic was kinda in the middle of all that shit, so."

"Haven't you been in Canada for most of your life?"

"Well, no, not most of it, less than half."

"But for the last eleven years."

"You're well versed with me, damn," I bicker back.

"I'm a captain, I have to know my team."

"Assistant," I correct. "And I'm far more Czech than I ever was Canadian."

He doesn't respond to that at first, then stands up, "time to go."

Ouch.

I don't have time to overanalyze it yet. I have to get through practice first and then deal with all that afterward. I don't have time to fuck up my first day of practice beacuse I was stressing out about making Yeti Rex, who is notoriously hard to please, mad. Everyone makes him mad. I have to come to terms to the fact that he's not a happy type of guy.

Reasoning, I'm reasoning.

I'm sure that Fenrir has found a way to like him despite that and I'm positive that Steph is going to have him laughing by the end of the next hour.

I was right about the Steph thing, they get paired off as lineys almost immediately. Steph works like a forward playing defense and Yeti plays like he can't be too far away from the red line. Steph is shoving shoulders jokingly with him by the end of the intro practice.

It's good, it means Steph's in solid with Yeti, their for-sure starter left defenseman. Might mean that he's a for-sure starter at right defense.

I get pelted with pucks for three hours straight and since the guys don't really know me and don't really respect me yet, a small percentage hit me in the helmet and make my teeth rattle. It's rude but I'll live.

I give Yeti another shot at lunch. For some reason I can't let myself live with him not liking me.

"Hi," I sit down in between him and Steph, who's making quick conversation with a guy named Hiro Takahashi, a second line left winger, on his other side. On Yeti's other side is Fenrir, drenched in sweat and looking straight off the cover of fucking GQ or something. My stupid little Slavic straight-edge nose and Greek hair probably look stupid next to a guy that looks like he could walk a runway in his pit-stained black compression shirt.