CHAPTER ELEVEN: time to
play pretend
That night, coach bombay was packed with photoshoots and events, meaning he wouldn't check in on them for a while. it also meant that curfew suddenly seemed optional.
connie had gone to see guy, while julie had left to sight see, dragging luis and dwayne with her.
as she sat alone in her room, contemplating going and bugging adam, a knock on the door tore her from her thoughts.
she stood, walking over and opening it to find fulton and dean standing on the other side.
"wanna sneak out?"
that was all it took to get her out of her room, the trio walking down the streets that were lit up by hanging lights and neon signs.
they had just left the cinema, after having snuck into a movie and deciding halfway through that it was too boring. now they walked the streets, looking for something to do.
"look, ice cream!" fulton said, pointing to the sign a few steps ahead of them, a dainty little ice cream shop in the plaza.
andrea stepped forward, walking towards the shop before being quickly pulled back, dean holding a hand over her mouth as he shushed her.
the three hid behind a thick cement pole, peeking in front of the ice cream shop. andrea was confused, not understanding what they were looking at. when she saw it, her jaw almost dropped.
dean uncovered her mouth, trusting her to stay quiet and not give them away. there in front of them, ice cream in hand, was coach bombay on what looked like a date with a woman from the iceland team; andrea was pretty sure she was their trainer.
"wait a minute, i thought iceland was covered with ice?" andrea heard gordon ask, bringing his ice cream to his mouth.
the woman laughed. "iceland? no! it's green!"
she couldn't hear the rest of the conversation as the adults got further away. andrea deflated, hoping it wasn't what it looked like. she felt betrayed, and at the same time, she felt guilty for feeling betrayed.
as the two got far enough away, they stepped out of their hiding place. "great coach we've got." dean spat, walking off in the direction they'd come from.
andrea sighed and followed after him, fulton right behind her. the rest of the night was spent silently in her room, her mind swarmed with thoughts of what she had seen.
Early the next morning, andrea found herself in the change room, dressing in her equipment for the game against iceland.
as she tied her skates, her stomach was a nervous mess. she was nervous to see coach bombay, but somehow, as he entered the room, it was even worse than she thought.
"you guys ready for warmups?" he asked, striding into the room. he wore a dark suit, and his hair was gelled back. he looked just like stansson.
averman, being the jokester he was, called out first. "hey, nice jacket, did you get two pairs of pants with that?"
she saw dean and fulton whispering to each other, before standing and walking over to coach bombay.
with the added height from their skates, both of the two towered over him. "you have a good night last night, coach?" fulton started.
"yeah, it was fine." bombay said, thinking nothing of it.
"what'd you do?" dean asked, a fake smile on his face.
coach looked confused. "oh, uh, just watched some tv, got to bed early."
dean nodded, before dropping his smile. "but not without a little dessert, right?" he started to walk away.
as fulton followed, he leaned towards coach bombay for one last remark. "a little ice cream, maybe?"
andrea was, internally, a mess. she was scared of what was happening to her coach, she was scared to face off against iceland, and she was scared her team would fall apart.
averman butted in with one last joke, but it was more of an insult. "nice hairdo. what, did you lose a bet?"
they headed out to the ice, skating laps around their half of the ice. andrea's mind was elsewhere, barely aware as the warm up ended and she absentmindedly followed her teammates to the bench.
coach sent her back out to centre ice, adam and dean flanking her. behind her, on defence, was charlie and jesse.
she took her position, facing off against iceland player gunner stahl, who looked about two times her size, at least. he stared her down as they readied their sticks, awaiting the puck drop.
he spoke something to her, presumably in his home language, that she didn't understand.
"what does that mean?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.
he slowly grinned, a fierce look in his eyes. "oh, you'll find out."
the puck dropped, and as she moved to hit the puck, stahl was ramming into her in an attempt to knock her onto the ice. she stood her ground, pushing all her weight into him as she fought to stay on her feet.
she didn't need to fight for long, because in an instant, dean was there, body-slamming stahl to the floor. she sighed in relief, giving dean a thankful look.
"you alright?" he asked as a whistle blew and the ref skated over. she nodded, and in turn, he looked back to stahl. "come on, fool, get up!"
the ref came to a stop beside dean, calling a penalty. "huh?" dean asked, raising his arms in confusion.
as he raised his arm, it knocked into the ref, who fell back and landed hard. the other ref skated over, making sure to leave a little space between himself and dean. "calm down, son, you're out of the game!"
"what? you can't do that!" andrea complained, skating after the ref.
dean looked pissed. "give me a break!"
but even more so, coach bombay seemed almost angrier, yelling out from the bench at the referee's. "you're throwing him out? that's not fair, it's three seconds into the game!"
dean smacked his stick hard against the board as he stepped off the ice, headed to the change room.
the game continued, iceland carrying the puck down into goldberg's end. andrea fell back onto defence, standing between them and the net.
it was short lasted, as she was body checked hard from the side, falling to the ground as iceland took a shot, securing their first goal.
andrea won the face off, passing the puck out to jesse, an iceland player kneeling in front of him and sending him flying. she cursed under her breath as adam swooped up the puck, but was shoved just as hard. andrea retrieved the puck, taking it back behind icelands net to buy herself some time.
dwayne switched off with jesse, and she passed it to him. being the great puck-handler he was, he got around all of the iceland players, but was refusing to pass the puck.
she stood by the net, uncovered as all the opposing players were flocking dwayne. she hit her stick to the ice, calling out for a pass.
everyone was screaming for dwayne to pass, but the show-off didn't listen. getting sick of his act, two iceland players skated at him from both sides, crushing him in between them as he crumpled to the ground.
iceland made it down the ice, taking a weak shot that goldberg blocked. adam took the puck, attempting to get the puck out of their zone, but he was sent flying head over heels.
luis rescued the puck, breaking off down the ice. with him buying her time, andrea rushed over to adam, grabbing his hand and pulling him up. "you okay?"
he nodded, the two of them swiftly following after luis. he neared the net, getting ready to shoot, when a stick shot out at his feet and tripped him.
this wasn't fair. the ref's were useless, and apparently scared to use their whistles. andrea skated over to the bench, ken taking her place.
after barely two minutes on the ice, having taken a hard hit, he skated back over to the bench. andrea sighed, hopping back onto the ice as ken groaned and re-took his spot.
sanderson, another iceland goon, had the puck down the ice, quick to shoot and score on goldberg.
the period ended, and andrea joined her team at the bench for what was probably meant to be a pep talk from bombay. instead, he was almost insulting them.
within thirty seconds of the puck drop to start period two, goldberg once again let a goal into their net. this was finally the last straw, bombay calling for goldberg to make his way to the bench, andrea wishing julie good luck as the yet-to-play goalie excitedly skated down to the net.
before the puck even dropped, julie was taken out of the game for dropping two iceland players who had been quick to spew some misogyny when the female goalie stepped out.
fulton lined up to take his shot, and andrea felt a sigh of relief. finally, a goal. but the relief was washed away as the goalie somehow caught fulton's shot.
andrea was sent back out to the ice. getting the puck behind her own net, she skated out, a newfound motivation in her veins. charlie, adam, connie, and averman skated after her, lining the blue line in case iceland took her down before she could reach the goal.
but they didn't. two of them skated at her, and she spun to the side causing them to crash into each other. a third one slid with his stick out to knock the puck away, but she only skated around him. she made her way past each one of them, and it was now between her and the goalie.
with a lean to the left and a spin back to the right, she backhands the puck into the net, scoring the first goal for her team this game.
she raises her arms in the air, celebrating, before straightening her arm and tapping the net with her stick.
she felt it before she saw it. burning pain, a soon to be bruise, the uncomfortable sore ache that would hurt just as bad a few days later.
an iceland player had brought his stick down, hard, on her exposed wrist. she yelled in pain, which went unnoticed due to the crowds cheering for her goal. she bent over, cradling her wrist as her eyes watered.
her teammates were by her side, eyeing her carefully. "you alright?" adam asked, hand on her shoulder.
"i'm fine," she choked out as best she could, trying to stand up straight. averman and connie smiled and continued cheering about the goal. adam hesitated, before slowly nodding and skating off with a look that told her he didn't believe that.
charlie didn't leave her side. "you sure you're okay? that-"
with tears in her eyes and anger flowing through every part of her, she snapped her eyes towards his. "i said im fine!"
charlie didn't react to her harsh tone, instead leading her over to the bench as she angrily mumbled about stupid iceland players.
as sanderson, the one who had hurt her, made his way to the penalty box, dean stood on the opposite side of the glass in the stands, now dressed in his regular clothes.
if dean wasn't angry at sanderson before, he certainly was now. sure, the dude shoving against his friend and getting him sent out of the game was infuriating. but seeing him slam his stick down across andrea's wrist? that was the last straw.
dean hit the glass wall between him and sanderson. "i want a piece of you, sanderson! you're mine!" security ran over to dean, as sanderson laughed. "oh, you think it's funny? i want you!" as dean starts to climb over into the box, security quickly pulls him down and away.
she hardly paid attention to the rest of the game, distracted by the dull ache of her wrist and sharp pains when she moved it.
by the end of the third, they had lost twelve to two. adam had gone on to score a point sometime in the last five minutes of the game, but still, it wasn't enough to get even close to icelands score.
the team stormed off to the change room, no words exchanged. they were all angry, embarrassed, and in andrea's case, hurt.
coach bombay came quickly in after them, and andrea already knew it wouldn't be good as he angrily marched in. "twelve to two. twelve to two. you know what word comes to mind when you think of that?"
he pauses for a second, looking between all of them. andrea looks down at her skates, refusing to meet his eyes. "pathetic! you guys were brought here to play hockey."
his tone didn't sit well with jesse, who gave the attitude right back. "what about you?"
"what about me, jesse?" bombay asked with a scoff.
it was julie to speak up next, already half undressed from her equipment after getting kicked out of the game. "coach stansson knew everything about us. they were ready for us."
"yeah, and you spend all of your time driving around in convertibles talking to those sponsor fools!" luis spat.
andrea's anger resurfaced as she finally looked up, glaring at someone who looked like her coach, but really wasn't. "or hanging out with the iceland lady."
"yeah, we saw you two saturday night!" fulton backed her up.
dean shook his head, looking to bombay with disdain. "eating ice cream with the enemy, huh, coach?"
the rest of the team, having not known about coach bombay and his little date, begin to whisper, looking around at each other with betrayal in their eyes.
"hey, hey what i do is none of your business, is that clear?" he turns to the kids who had called him out, ripping into them. "julie, dean, it's not your place to judge me when you get yourselves thrown out of the game before you even play. jones, you act like it's my fault that you could barely score one goal! aren't you supposed to be good?"
andrea is taken aback, tears threatening to form and she isn't sure if it's from bombay's words or her wrist.
coach tells them they have practice that night, but andrea barely hears him.
AUTHOR SPEAKS!
wow bombay u fake as hell😒