Rink

chapter one | speed

"Everyone can get off the ice. We are starting with some simple conditioning," She tells us. This time, everyone listens to her and heads to the locker room to grab sneakers.

Once we are out we do a few running things. Sprints, jogs, more sprints, more jogs, cool down. We repeat this process a few times and then head back onto the ice.

"Now, you should be more tired than before. Are you all? Actually, step forward if you aren't as tired," She says and a bunch of guys does.

"Okay. You are going to do five more sets of sprints, jogs, and cooldowns." She says, pausing for a minute. "I can see the sweat rolling down your faces and the fast beating of your hearts. But if you're not tired, then keep going." She says, the little smirk coming back on her face.

I'll give it to her, she has a fire in her that I love. "Ah, men and their egos." She tsks at them running.

"You three. I like you. You act like decent human beings. I can see why you are the captain. Anyways, you are all free to go," She says to all of us who aren't running.

The three of us that she pointed to are 2 of my friends, Austin and Daniel, along with me.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Dad," She smiles at him and grabs keys out of her pocket, and walks out the front doors.

"Well, that's not what I was expecting when she walked in," Daniel says as we change in the locker room. "Yeah, she's a little thing. Not what I was expecting at all. Plus, we know Andre, he's tall. I was expecting someone a lot taller," Austin says.

"Yeah. You guys can head back to my house but Kayla asked me to pick up some food on the way home. She's knocked out with the baby almost here," Austin says.

Daniel and I head back to Austin's house. I end up getting back before Daniel and knock on the door.

"Coming baby!" I hear Kayla's voice shout. "I miss-" She starts to talk but then stops when she realized that it was me.

"I missed you too, don't worry," I sarcastically say to her. "Come in," She says and leads me over to the couch where there is a show playing.

"How has it been going recently?" I ask her. She's had a rough pregnancy and is probably happy to be giving birth soon.

"I'm better. I'm not throwing up all the time, which is good. Exactly one week until he is here," She happily says and rubs her mostly flat belly. Looking at her, you honestly can't tell that she is pregnant.

I hear the door click and turn to see Daniel walking in. "Hey, mama," He says and gives Kayla a quick hug.

"Hi, Dan," She replies and sits in a single seat. I look up at the tv for a second before moving my eyesight back to her. She cuddled up with a blanket on the chair.

About 15 minutes of talking to Austin and Kayla go by before Austin gets here with the food.

"Hey honey," He picks her up in his arms and sits back down where she was sitting with her on his lap.

"Have you taken a nap yet today?" He questions her and she shakes her head. "You should take one," He tells her and strokes her forehead.

"Honestly, now that no one else is here, I was fucking dying when Leona beat Alejandro by that much earlier," Daniel says and I let out a chuckle.

"Yeah. I thought she might win because of how confident she was acting, but not by that much." I say.

"Who's Leona?" Kayla sits up and asks us. "Andres daughter," Austin tells her, gently pushing her back down to fall asleep. "Wasn't she in the Olympics for figure skating?" Kayla asks and we look at each other.

"No. Well not that I know of. Andre doesn't talk about his family a lot," I say. I know that his wife died a few years ago, but that is about it.

"Leona Montgomery was in the figure skating Olympics 3 times. I don't know if that's his daughter though," Kayla says.

"This her?" She pulls up a picture of Leona. "Why would he not mention at some point that his daughter was in the Olympics?" Daniel questions no one in general, just says out loud.

"Honestly I don't blame him. Half the guys on the team would love to sleep with her just to be able to say that they did. They are pigs and her accomplishments would just give them more incentive," I think out loud. She's definitely hot but I wouldn't sleep with the coach's daughter. It's not like he can kick me off the team but he can do other stuff that I would rather not find out.

"Honestly, yeah. Jesus was talking about how nice it would be to fuck her because of how small she is. We have hookups but he's just- I don't even know," Daniel says and shakes his head.

Austin is already married, and Daniel isn't dating anyone but also doesn't usually hook up with anyone. Same with me, I'm older now. I'm 26 and don't feel like hooking up all the time.

If I ended up liking someone enough to want to be with them, then I would consider it but I'm not necessarily looking for anything serious right now.

A lot of the rookies on the team this year think they are way better than they are. Anyone on an NHL team has to be good, but they are expecting to be the best.

—

"Mom, calm down," I say into the phone. "Can you come here, please, I need someone right now," She almost begs me, breaking my heart. "Of course, mom, I'm on my way," I murmur and hang up the phone.

I let out a deep sigh and turn my car around, now heading to my mom's house instead of mine.

"Mom?" I call as soon as I walk into the house. "My baby?" She asks with a gasp. "Yeah, mom," I swallow. "It's me," I say.

"Thank you for coming. You know that I hate asking you to do things like this but I needed you," She tells me, shaking her head sadly.

"You know I'll always take care of you," I tell her and fix her blanket. "Was it a hard day?" I ask her, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Yeah, it was," She tells me. "I couldn't get out of bed for most of the day," She angrily says. "Shh, calm down. You are okay," I say, trying to calm her down without her getting angry.

"Look, I think it's dad coming up," I softly say, trying not to anger her. "Hi, baby," He says, in the same soft voice that I used.

He smiles and nods appreciatively at me and then gestures that I can leave. I take one last look at the IV connected to her and shake my head, as I walk out of my parent's bedroom.

I get back into my car and start the drive back to my house. "Yeah?" I ask as soon as I answer the phone call from Andre.

"Usually I would just make the executive decision on this but I'll get your opinion. Do you think I should have Leona teach some speed?" He questions. This is hard to answer because I honestly don't know. I'm just going to say that.

"I don't know yet. She's fast, I'll give her that. She is probably faster than I am. At the same time, though, the guys are little horny bastards who just look at her like a piece of meat. I know you are already thinking about that because she's your daughter." I explain. I know that he won't take offense to it because it's simply the truth.

"Why didn't you ever mention to us that she was in the literal fucking Olympics?" I ask him. Every parent wants to brag about their kid yet he doesn't mention that?

"She doesn't want people to know. She was there but she isn't famous for it. She didn't want you all to know because that changes your impression of her." He explains. Being famous and a captain of a professional hockey team makes me understand that.

"That's fair. Kayla figured out who she was, that's the only reason that I know," I say and he is quiet for a minute.

"I just don't want the guys to be assholes to her," He says. I don't have a daughter, obviously, so I don't know but Nobody wants their family to be treated like shit.

"Honestly, half of them are already not going to bother her because they are mad that she embarrassed. Also, she can clearly hold her own against them so I'm sure that she will be fine," I explain to him.

We hung up a few minutes later. I walk into my house and see queen sitting there. I leaned down to pet the top of her head.