Post Olympic

Free Skate

I think I'm going to post around a chapter a day, and I'll warn you now, some of them are short, and some, like this, go over 2K words. So, enjoy. 

Music: Pieces (ft. Noah Kahan) -Matoma

-rabid

******************

I hate the rink without Fenrir.

It's been a couple weeks and I feel like he's slipping away. I only get to see him at practices, and even then, he feels distant because he's not clanking around next to me all the time after-hours.

It's probably good. I can't date him anyway. He's one of my players. That dynamic would be awful. But the more I know him, the stronger my crush gets. I mean, it's the first time my brain hasn't had to worry about surviving. So it's going haywire. Haywire all over German boy.

I keep having the dream, repeatedly. Not while we're traveling, but almost every night while we're home, and I wish over and over that he was still there to rock me back to sleep, because often, I can't close my eyes again, and I have to find something to do until morning.

"So, Nico, your time with the Wolves, how would you explain it?"

"Eventful," I respond to the interview guy. "I didn't quite know what happens day to day as one of these guys and this has surely been a good adjusting adventure."

"Your time as a homeless person, how would you say that's affected you?"

"What does this have to do with hockey?" He gives me a look and I give him one right back.

"So, being post olympic, is there anything you want to say about the skill level difference between the professionals and the olympians?"

"The olympic team could keep up perfectly fine with the professionals."

"Has hockey changed at all over the two years you spent on the street?"

"Dear, hockey is hockey. What's the obsession with my history. Ask me about my job and the guys. Not about my gender and my past." He takes a long look at his notecards.

"Being the only girl on staff, would you say you have any special relationships with any of your players? The media has noticed that you seem close with the assistant captain, Fenrir Von Albrecht?"

"I think we're done here. I came to answer questions about hockey. Not about me."

He doesn't argue when I stand up and leave. I don't look back.

"That was rough." Sauerkraut catches me at the exit. I just shake my head.

"It will get worse when we start to win." 

"You sure that's going to happen?"

"Salsa. You will begin to win after I turn you into good salsa." He looks back at the little booth.

"Good salsa, eh?"

"Great salsa." I sit down on a bench, Hadley is next. "I hope Hadley doesn't blow it."

"Oh he will," Sauerkraut chuckles.

"We're friends right?" I set my head on my hands.

"Yeah, of course." He puts his hand on my shoulders and rubs them, working the tension out with his thumb. "Don't let the media tell you who you are."

"I'm trying, but sometimes they make me doubt things I know I know."

"Come on, we're not staying here." Sauerkraut stands up and offers a hand. I take it and he pulls me out of the chair. "They've been nailing you repeatedly with these interviews where they only ask the same three things. You need a skate."