"hey, anderson, i'm gonna need you to take over practice today. i've gotta meeting with the board." orion told scarlett as she walked out of the locker room. her eyes widened and she quickly shook her head.
"coach, no, you know i can't. they won't listen to me, especially now." she sighed, wishing for anything but this to happen. "we can have practice later, or tomorrow. please." she begged.
"anderson, if they won't listen, that's on them. they shouldn't be apart of a team if they don't want to listen to their captain. get yourself a partner—assistant, whatever, if you think that'll help. just..make them listen." he said like it was an easy thing to do then walked away.
"hey," aspen sighed, walking out of the locker room. scarlett knew who'd her assistant be. they're all scared of aspen anyway. aspen looked around and furrowed her eyebrows. "where's orion?" she asked, looking back at scarlett.
"not here." scarlett mumbled as everyone walked out of the locker room.
"not here?"
"so that means.."
"no practice!"
"no, we have a captain, dumbass. we don't need orion here."
"yeah, captain."
scarlett rolled her eyes and huffed, turning around to face her team. "listen, i honestly don't give a shit if you don't want me as a captain or not. orion gave me the position, not you. so if you have a problem with that—that's most likely one of the reasons you're not captain. i can't force you to do anything, or listen to me. as your captain i'll train my team and if you don't do what i ask then you might as well not be on the team. so stop being a bunch of immature shits, living in the past, and get out on the ice." she said finally, taking a deep breath, and everyone started to move out onto the ice with wide eyes.
"wow, look at you go." aspen smiled excitedly, skating out onto the ice last, followed by scarlett.
"what'd you want me to do, captain?" charlie skated in a circle around scarlett.
"what i don't want you to do is be a dick like you're being right now. clearly that's asking too much of you, so laps will be just fine for right now." scarlett smirked sweetly and raised her eyebrows when charlie didn't move.
"how many?"
"when i say stop."
charlie huffed and started skating his laps. "for the rest of us, we're just going to do a couple scrimmages, up to three each. we'll shuffle the teams every game. we've gotta be used to working with everyone as a team." scarlett said as everyone nodded. charlie still skated around everyone, doing his laps and rolling his eyes every once in awhile.
"i'll put you in teams and give each team two captains. they'll have to work together to make plays and try to beat the opposing team. work together and use what you know about your opponents to win." no one said anything yet, not so bad, scarlett thought. "this is to help you work together, and help your leader ship skills as captains. got it?" scarlett asked and everyone shook their heads and said yes.
"alright team one; captains; adam and cameron." the two looked at each other with disgust and back to scarlett who hid her smirk, she knew what she was doing. "players; julie, guy, dean, luis, and connie."
"team two; captains; charlie and jesse." scarlett knew they haven't been getting along lately. "players; goldberg, averman, dwayne, russ and fulton." scarlett mentally checked off everyone in her head.
"conway!" aspen yelled, nodding for him to come back over. he skated over and scarlett nodded over to jesse and his new team. he skated over with an eye roll.
"up to three, ends in a tie—we do penalty shots. fair playing and work together." scarlett reminded as cameron raised his eyebrows.
"what about you and aspen?" he asked and scarlett snapped her head over to him.
"what about us?"
"you're not doing anything, it's not very fair."
"we're watching to make sure you guys work together. now shut up before i bench you and take your place. then you'll be the one doing nothing." scarlett glared, blowing the whistle orion gave her and everyone skated to their sides of the ice.
"ugh, you got whistle?" aspens eyes widened.
"oh yeah, you know i'll be using it all the time." she nodded holding the whistle up.
"i want a whistle." aspen whined, going to grab it.
"hey, this is my whistle." scarlett yanked it back, making aspen frown. "don't touch my whistle."
the two teams lined up, each in their right positions. adam and charlie took the face off, the two captains right next to them. aspen threw in the puck and then skated out of the way.
the two girls watched as everyone played, taking notice of certain things. the game ended with adam and cameron's team reaching three first, the other team trailing by only a point. scarlett called them in to let them know what she observed.
"alright..adam and cameron clearly can't agree on anything, why did it look like you guys were like..secretly competing out there. if i didn't know any better i'd think that you were ok opposing teams. and adam and charlie, i mean come on. this is hockey not wrestling. you throw someone into the boards and move on, okay? we're not in the nhl, no fist fights. get over whatever the fuck it is and stop acting like brats." scarlett explained and charlie, adam, and cameron glared at each other, making scarlett roll her eyes.
"same thing with guy and luis. you're literally on the same team, you should not be trying to trip and shove each other. get over it." scarlett said and the two boys moved away from each other after realizing they stood next to each other.
"julie, great job, really. now goldberg, just when i thought you couldn't get any worse..i know you haven't been training, but really? how bad can someone get? we've really gotta work on this." julie smiled while goldberg shrugged, knowing scarlett was right.
"everyone and everything else looked fine for the most part. i'm going to put you into new teams and we'll do this about two more times." scarlett said and everyone nodded.
"team one: captains; guy and luis." scarlett smirked as the two groaned dramatically. "players; goldberg, fulton, averman, cameron, and jesse." scarlett nodded as the team grouped together.
"team two: captains; adam and charlie." it should've been a given, honestly. so why they acted shocked and annoyed was beyond scarlett. "players; julie, dean, ken, russ, and dwayne." scarlett blew her whistle, giving the two teams a couple minutes to figure everything out.
"this is way too fun." aspen beamed excitedly, watching as the two teams awkwardly grouped together. lots of glaring, eye rolls, and remarks. but it's better than any physical contact.
-
"alright, good job, all of you. there were obviously some minor things we all need to work on but that's what practice is for. honestly, for the most part, i could barley tell there was no practice for three years. we're playing on a j.v level, we need to work it up to varsity, especially if we wanna beat them this year. and one more thing—keep your personal life out of the game. when we're on the ice, everyone gets along. we're a team, we work together. the only people i wanna see tripped, pushed, shoved, checked—are the opposing teammates." scarlett finished and everyone nodded, actually understanding and agreeing with her.
"nice job, captain." aspen raised her eyebrows on the way back to the locker rooms.
they all made their way back to the locker rooms and got changed out of their gear. scarlett was the last one left—at least she thought until she heard a bag being zippered.
she lifted her bag into her shoulder and turned around to see adam. "hey." he said quietly, grabbing his bag. the two started walking out of the locker room.
"hey."
"so..uh, how've you been?" he asked.
"good." she answered. "you?" she asked.
"good, yeah i'm uh, okay." he answered.
"so how's jack?" adam couldn't help it, it just came out. he didn't even mean to say it.
"seriously adam?" scarlett rolled her eyes, turning to face him. "you're actually joking, right?" she said with raised eyebrows.
"no? yes? i don't know! i didn't mean to say it, i just couldn't help it." he said honestly making scarlett sigh.
"jacks fine." she said before picking up the slow pace the two kept and walking ahead.
adam huffed, mentally cursing at himself for ruining the only chance he had to talk to her in awhile.
-
the fact that my break is over makes me sick
i have so much testing coming up