" A team is something you belong to, something you feel, something you have to earn." – The Mighty Ducks
After how well Sunday night with Cassie went, I thought for a second that maybe we could be friends. That maybe we weren't so different after all, I expected us to get along better on Tuesday. But here we were, both fifteen minutes early for class arguing over when we should meet next. I guess some things will never change.
"Oh my god," she sighs, "You are literally saying that your schedule is more important than mine." She's practically shooting daggers at me with her eyes.
"I'm not saying that," I respond equally as annoyed, "I'm just saying I can't change my hockey schedule. I'll be in another state."
"Well I can't change my schedule either," she crosses her arms, and we both sit there for a second at an impasse.
"Look, since you're so insistent that we watch these movies together," I start to say before she abruptly cuts me off.
"Because you won't watch them if we don't do it together."
I glare at her, "As I was saying, and by the way I would watch them, you just don't fucking trust me to do it. Why don't we just use one of those apps that lets you FaceTime and watch a movie and do it after my game on Friday?"
"Won't you be partying or something after the game," she asks blatantly.
"Nah, the party will be once we get back here, besides I'm the captain I have to set a good example and not sneak out of the hotel after curfew."
"You? Set a good example," she asks again.
Now, I'm kind of fed up, "Look do you want to do that or do you want to watch them separately?"
"We can do that, it's fine," She responds, turning away from me to face the front of the classroom.
I spend the remainder of time before and during class doing everything in my power to ignore her next to me. I didn't understand how after Sunday went well, we were even joking around with each other, she could suddenly be back to this awful bitchy person. I did not understand Cassie Bennet at all.
Tonight's practice was brutal, with our first regular season game being this weekend, and it being against one of the better teams in our division, Coach was working us hard. Last season one of our biggest weaknesses was killing power plays, and with how much time we'd been spending working on them now we better be killing them this year.
We ran through so many different plays, rotating who practiced defending a power play and who practiced being on the offensive of a power play. Every time someone made a mistake that Coach considered below our level, the whole team did suicides. I could hardly feel my legs when we got into the locker room.
We'd won all of our preseason games, but they'd all been against more local teams, and our real competition wasn't with teams we could drive to. For most of our competitive games, we had to fly to, either Colorado or its surrounding states, or to the east coast. I didn't want to know how much the school spent to fly us to New England and back every few weeks, but we made it worth it by going to the championship every year, and hopefully winning it this year.
The rest of the week was a blur of trying to stay awake during class and grueling training both on and off the ice. I also had one on one meetings with all the new guys on the team to get a better feel for how they were off the ice, and to make them feel more comfortable on the team. At the end of the year, when me and my guys graduated, these underclassmen would be the ones left to carry on the legacy. Especially if we won which would hopefully mean some of the better sophomores and juniors would also get drafted or signed as free agents leaving these younger guys to carry the team next year.
I know a lot of people probably wouldn't care about what happened to the team after they left, but this had been my life for four years, and I couldn't just let it fall apart and become some mid-tear team again. It was rare for anyone outside of the New England bubble to make it to the frozen four, let alone three, soon to be four years in a row. I wanted them to keep it going, or at least make it far in the playoffs without us.
Soon enough, it was a travel day. The school took care of everything with our travel, I was just told when to be on the bus that would take us to the airport. My roommates and I were there thirty minutes before the bus was, much to their dismay, but as the captain I wanted to be the first to arrive. Setting a good example and all that.
Coach got there ten minutes after us, and shook his head and grinned when he saw the four of us sitting on the curb with all our hockey gear, "You look like little kids whose parents are late to pick 'em up." He was probably right. Gibbs was sitting there still half asleep. Coleman as always had a little bit too much energy, and Payne and I fell somewhere in between.
"You said to be early, Coach," I called back as I stood up.
"I said early, I didn't say camp out," He replied still grinning. It was rare to see him so much as smile, I didn't realize being this early was all it took.
"You know that could be good team bonding, camp out before a travel day," Coleman said.
"You guys can do that, I need my beauty sleep," Gibbs responded, stretching as he stood up as well.
We stood around and more guys showed up and eventually, the bus did as well and we began loading all our gear on. The biggest downside of flying to away games was by far packing our gear for a flight. I felt the worst for our goalies who had even more gear to lug around.
I smiled to myself as Coach called role on the bus, every single guy had been at least five minutes early. Hopefully, that'd be the case all weekend, though if we won there would be at least three guys who'd be hungover and oversleep almost making us late for our flight back. It happened every year without fail, hell I'd been the one to oversleep before. The only thing worse than the hangover was the workout coach made you do for it when we got back. I'd never been late for a travel day again.
Today we were flying in, then we'd play California tonight, then tomorrow we'd fly back. Sometimes we'd play then fly out, it just depended on the time of the game and how long the flight was. I always liked it better when we flew back the next day though, flying directly after a hockey game always felt like being in some weird alternate dimension.
Walking through the airport, we always got a lot of looks, twenty-something guys walking through the airport together pretty much all carrying hockey gear, the looks we got I imagined were similar to how it'd be when I went anywhere as a pro. Pro's definitely had better travel set ups than this though. There was no way in hell Conner McDavid was flying economy.
Once we made it to our flight, we were all spread out. I used my captain card to get a window seat and spent most of the flight reviewing footage. Looking around though, guys were napping, some watching shows on the little TVs on the back of the seats, and Payne and Coleman had gotten a deck of cards out and were attempting to quietly play war, though neither of them was very good at being quiet. Coleman was one of the most competitive guys I'd ever met, and win or loose he had some sort of big reaction that drew him looks from the surrounding seats.
It was peaceful in a way, being on a flight. It was just over two hours where I had no real responsibility. I was reviewing footage because I thought it'd be helpful, but I could do pretty much anything I wanted to within reason before it became time to focus.
The school we were playing tonight was good, one of the better west coast teams. We'd barely beaten them last season and that was with some of our really good players who'd graduated. I was nervous. It was our first game, so it would set the tone for the rest of the season, and if we lost it'd be like I failed somehow as a captain. What If I wasn't good enough? I kept thinking that, then trying to ignore it. This wasn't a sport with any room for self-doubt.
Gibbs was sitting next to me on the flight and gave me a look as if he could tell exactly what was running through my mind. He probably could at this point, we'd been playing together for so long, reading each other during games. "It's one game, West. Everyone's hyped, it's the start of the season, we'll win."
"I know, but..."
He doesn't let me finish, "We're gonna win. And if for some insane reason we don't, which isn't at all possible, it'll be on all of us. Yeah you're our Captain, but you're not the only one who controls the outcome of the game."
"I just..."
The fucker cuts me off again, "Dude, you've been working at this captain shit harder than anyone else I've seen in the job. Only thing that could possibly throw you off now is being in your head about it."
"You're right man, fuck you," I respond shaking my head with a grin. A flight attendant cuts us off after that announcing through the speakers that we'll be landing soon.
I take a deep breath, and just keep replaying Gibbs' words through my head. He's got the A on the jersey for a reason, not only is he one hell of a player, but he has a way of talking that I've never had. I didn't get voted captain for my inspirational speeches, it was more my skill and work ethic. All the inspirational bullshit comes from Gibbs, sometimes I wonder why I got this job instead of him.
We started the game off strong, with Payne getting our first regular season goal within the first five minutes with an assist from me. We'd managed to breakaway from their defensemen, and all the extra time on the ice was paying off because they had no chance of catching us after we went over the blue line. I passed to Payne and he beautifully sent the puck soaring right past the tendie's glove.
We all skated over and practically attacked him with a hug. At home games, whenever Brandon scored the crowd would cheer let's go Brandon, yes like that let's go Brandon. Our school was in one of the more liberal parts of the US, so it was our way of reclaiming the phrase. There wasn't any of that tonight though, instead, we got some boo's from the California students in attendance.
There was something kind of surreal about getting booed by the opposing team though. In some ways I loved it almost as much as the cheers, if the opposing fans were booing us that meant we were clearly doing something right. Some guys might've been thrown off by it, but all it did was fuel me.
Unfortunately, our goal was matched by them a few minutes later, and we ended the first period tied one to one. We came back in the second period and I got a shorthanded goal on a power play, and later one of our freshmen got his first NCAA goal. Neither team scored during the third period, and we were in good spirits as we made our way to the hotel we were staying in.
Coach had kept the locker room speech short, saying he was tired and that we'd review game footage on Monday. I wasn't complaining about that at all, the sooner I was able to get back to our hotel the better.
After Coach made his way to his room, the team all looked at me expectedly, "Look you heard Coach, don't go out and party; however, I'm your captain, not your babysitter. Do whatever you want tonight, but if any of you are late tomorrow morning, don't look to me when you get a grueling workout."
With that, about two-thirds of the guys head out, no doubt to celebrate our first win of the season, and the rest make their way to their rooms. Payne, Coleman, and Gibbs all stand with me in the lobby, looking to see what I'll do.
"I've got a movie to watch with Cassie, so I'll be in our room. Do whatever you want," I say to them, then begin walking towards the room so they can't give me shit for it.
Unfortunately, they aren't letting me get away that easily, "Watching a movie, is that what they're calling it these days," Coleman asks smirking at me.
"Shut up man, you know it's not like that with her."
"So I could ask her out then," Payne asks with a knowing smile on his face.
"No," I respond, "But no because there's any sort of feelings, from either of us. I just don't want her to be part of my life in any way after this class ends."
"Let's just go drink and leave him alone to flirt and fight with Cassie," Gibbs says.
I flip them all off as I open the door to our room, and sigh with relief when they all drop their stuff off and then leave to go party.
I told Cassie I'd call her as soon as I got back to the hotel, something she did not like, but I had no way to know what time exactly I'd be back and available, I couldn't control how long the game lasted, or how long Coach talked to us after the game.
She answers on the third ring, "Hey, how'd the game go," she asks as she's clearly walking out of somewhere. It looks like it's pretty dark wherever she's walking, and she's dressed similarly to how she was when I saw her at the bar the other day. I was fully expecting her to be in her room, not wherever this is.
"It was good, we won," I respond, focusing in on her surroundings more, "Where are you by the way?"
"Oh, we went out for drinks, I meant to leave earlier but lost track of time, It's just like a ten-minute walk back to my place though."
Immediately I feel oddly protective, "Well how much did you have to drink," I ask, "Are you sure you should be walking alone right now?"
"Relax, I'm not alone, you're here," she replies, giggling, "plus I kickbox, and I didn't even drink that much. I'm just a little tipsy, and I have water so I'll be completely fine in like twenty minutes."
I sigh, "Never thought I'd see you let up enough to drink, let alone before doing an assignment."
"Hey, apparently our hockey team won tonight, I had to go drink to celebrate right."
"Cassie, have you ever once celebrated a hokey win, hell have you even paid attention to our games?"
"No, but like that was before I became friends? Acquaintances? Rivals? Whatever the hell we are. Definitely not friends, but maybe not rivals either. It kind of depends on if you're being a menace or not."
I have to hold back a laugh. "You know you're a lot easier to talk to when you've been drinking," I say as I settle down in my bed. It feels so good to lay down after a game. I could probably fall asleep right now if I wasn't so concerned about Cassie.
I half expect her to argue with me on this, as she usually does, but she surprisingly doesn't, "I know, not that I'm drunk, but I'm always really happy when I get drunk." Then almost as an afterthought she asks, "What are you like drunk?"
I pause for a second, not entirely sure how to answer, "Stupid. I get drunk and suddenly think I can do anything."
"You're like that sober too though. Stupid," she giggles again.
"I think you had more to drink than you're letting on," I say again. Never once have I heard Cassie Bennet giggle before, and now she can't stop.
"Okay, maybe a little bit, but today would've been my two-year anniversary, I couldn't not drink."
This is unexpected. Two-year anniversary? Who'd she date? Why'd they break up? Was she still hung up on him? I simply ask her, "What?"
"Tonight it would've been two years, but instead I'm spending it facetiming a guy I can't even stand. I don't even miss him that much. Like not even at all really." she then hiccups.
"Look Cassie, um you seem pretty drunk, are your roommates around or someone, I really don't think you should just be walking around. Who'd you go out with?"
Then she laughs, "I went out with Alyssa, but she's hooking up with a really hot guy, and you called so I left. We have a project to work on."
Jesus, she was not herself, I'd never seen her act so, simultaneously carefree but also clearly dealing with whatever baggage her ex had left behind. It looked like she was walking into a building now, thank god.
"Are you back at your apartment now, is Lyra or someone there?"
"You sound like my mom," she responds as she fumbles with the key, then a few minutes later she walks into what I assume is her apartment, "Lyyyyrrrrraaaa, she practically sings as she enters."
"Cassie, Jesus," I hear her mumble in response as she walks up to the girl.
"Hey, Lyra," I call out, hoping she'll hear me through the phone.
Luckily she does, "Is that...Hayden West," she asks looking confused, "What the hell?"
"We were supposed to work on a project tonight, so I called her and she answered very drunk and started walking back to her apartment. I didn't want to hang up until I knew she was okay. She was talking about this being some anniversary?"
"Oh shit, that's today. Ohmygod," Lyra responds looking somewhat shocked, "Thanks for staying on the phone with her Hayden. Her ex well, it's not my story to tell. He did a number on her though. I'll take care of her from here, thank you." With that, she hangs up.
I'm left with so many questions, that was a side of Cassie I'd never seen before, and I'm so curious about who her ex is. She's one of the most put-together people I've ever met, something pretty intense must've happened for her to get like this over some guy. Who was this guy?
A somewhat burning feeling of hatred towards this guy runs through me. I don't even know him. Hell, I don't even like Cassie, why the hell am I feeling this protective over her? She's just some annoying chick I'm forced to work on this project with, right?