I felt like a walking, ticking bomb for the next few days. If the bomb of me actually being a girl didn't go off, a bomb about Bernal Oil going under might. Dad was working harder than ever. I saw him only once during the entire following week, and probably it was due to the fact that he'd passed out on the couch with his laptop balanced on his chest. Otherwise I was sure he'd be at his office, meeting with people or trying to pull a magical stunt to save the company.
Meanwhile, the fact that I couldn't play had me restless. I'd find my leg bouncing under my desk while I was in class. Once, it got so bad that the calculus teacher flipped his lid on the class, asking whoever was producing the tap tapping noise to keep the anxiety to himself. The guys in the team were sympathetic, but there was nothing anybody could do. I just had to wait to heal.
I did get to join practice, and the fact that I was not able to do contact drills helped me work on my puck handling and footwork. I did realize that thanks to the ache in my face I didn't feel any discomfort anywhere else. It had either soaked up all the feeling my nerves were capable of, or I was getting marginally more fit for the sport.
The good news out of the whole ordeal was that cheap shot guy got suspended for five games. There was a chance we would meet him and his team again later in the season, but at least for now he was out and couldn't inflict his inability to cope with a superior opponent on anybody else.
After a month of just waiting for my freaking nose to repair itself, and Lena Lee not spilling a single word about all the things I ended up revealing to her, I figured that I was safe at least on that front.
The end of November arrived with a thick blanket of snow that fell on Silver Grove like a spell. One day it was bitching cold and the very next one it was motherfucking frozen. It got so bad that dad and I had to travel to Calgary to buy parkas to cover our entire faces with, except for our eyes and nostrils. We tried them on and looked at each other and burst out laughing in the middle of the store at how we looked like bank robbers. We figured if the family consulting company tanked after all we might try this tactic, and since most of the roads were frozen solid if we robbed a bank we could always escape via ice skating.
I didn't remember the last time I'd laughed along with dad without Miguel being the catalyst. Or the last time we had a joint thing that was not disagreement. At night, as I tucked myself under the covers of my bed, I thought that maybe everything would be okay, regardless of what happened with Bernal Oil. If only we could stay the way we were right now.
At present we were lining up to board the school bus. We had to travel a considerable stretch of land this time for an away game. I debated the safety of doing that when both the ground and the sky looked white, but every Canadian in sight scoffed at me. It was a sight.
And speaking of sights, Dean and Pace were right in front of me chatting about the team we were going to play. Apparently they had a genius goalie that was really hard to beat, and since Pace was ours he'd spent the entire night last night looking at videos of the other guy trying to find any holes other than the five — his words, not mine. He was feeding Dean some information when I felt a tug on my coat.
I turned around and saw Lena Lee. Or her glasses. She was just as covered up as I was, and the fact that a local was as affected by the biting cold as I was brought me comfort.
"Hey there," I said.
She lifted a thickly gloved hand, carrying a big plastic bag.
"It's sandwiches for the entire team for the ride back, courtesy of my mom."
Her mom was her boss. I'd met her a few times while eating at the diner. She was the shrewd lady who replaced Lena Lee every time the girl got too embarrassed to deal with a customer. Namely, me, back when she'd developed a crush.
Both of the boys turned around at the mention of the s-word. I didn't think I could survive keeping the integrity of the contents under duress.
"That's very sweet," I told her, being more diplomatic than I thought I could be. "But you should give these to the coach. I don't trust myself."
I could tell she smiled with the way her eyes crinkled at the corners, because the entire bottom half of her face was hidden by a very thick scarf.
"Well, I just wanted to talk with you as well," she said.
Pace gave a low wolf whistle that made my face heat up and set off a similar chain reaction from the other boys in the team. I turned to hiss at him and tell him it wasn't like that, but then I was met with Dean's deadpanned face and I realized I couldn't say that. My safest bet was probably for them to think that Lena Lee and I had something going on.
There was absolutely no fucking way I could let any allusion to my feelings for our Captain show.
So I put an arm around Lena Lee's shoulders and said, "Sure, babe. What's up?"
Her eyebrows went up, but she played along. I turned us around so that we could get more privacy from the Captain and his Assistant, as well as from the other dorks who were torn between catcalls and jealous remarks. I might have muttered a prayer to the heavens for help.
"Very smooth," she whispered to me.
I gave her a look that hopefully warned her not to get me started.
"What'd you want to talk about?" I asked instead.
"I wanted to wish you good luck." She said this so innocently that I did not believe her at all. She glanced back for a quick second before huddling closer. "Plus, remember what I said?"
I was not really in the mood for cryptic games, and in the past month I'd talked to Lena Lee more than I had any of the boys in the team. And that was saying something, because I shared almost every waking moment with them. Except that when they were busy knocking each other at practice, I sat on the sidelines texting with her. And she'd told me a lot of wild things, especially one of which I couldn't possibly contemplate, much as I wanted to.
I pursed my lips. "Which of the many things?"
She elbowed me but through the many layers of thick clothes we wore I barely felt it. "He's watching us right now. Like I said, I'm pretty sure he's jealous of us. Dean looks at you a certain way I've never seen in him before."
I jumped to put my hand over her mouth, looking around frantically in case anybody heard his name come from her lips. Nobody seemed to be paying attention, least of all the subject of the conversation.
"I'm telling you, you're speaking tongues. There's no way he looks at me any way other than as his bodyguard. Said so himself. End of story."
"Except not end of story," she said as she folded her arms with difficulty. "He's never had a girlfriend before, and those one on one lessons he gave you? I've never seen him pay that much attention to anybody else."
"Pff, it's not like he has many options for girlfriends in town, no offense." She shrugged and I sighed. "It was just a couple of lessons anyway, and like I said, not out of the goodness of his heart. We've talked about this before, let it go. I told you because I wanted to get it off my chest, not because I wanted to do something about it."
Lena Lee groaned. "But I ship you, guys."
I pursed my lips. So did I.
Didn't mean squat.
Coach Martel blew his whistle then and announced that the bus was ready for boarding. And thank goodness because I couldn't endure one more second of this cold or the conversation before catching my death.
"Thanks for the good wishes, then," I said as a way to close the conversation.
She surprised me by tugging me close to her. For a panicky second I thought she was going to kiss me but she just whispered in my ear, "Everybody's watching."
I almost felt bad that I somehow ended up dragging her with my lie, but I didn't ask her to pose as my girlfriend at all. That had been her idea. Instantly I'd won the street cred of being the Manliest Macho in Town by landing the Town Belle. Nobody even thought of questioning the fact that I was still quite feminine in weird ways now. It didn't matter that though gravely my voice sounded kinda girly, or that my Adam's apple was definitely underdeveloped.
I got yet another round of wolf whistles as I boarded the bus. I pretended to be proud, but in reality I was uncomfortable with a capital A and F. I found a window seat near the middle of the bus and hoped either for solitude with the sandwiches, or companionship with someone not douchey.
A shadow fell over me and I looked up to see Hunter. The frown between his eyebrows looked like the Grand Canyon.
My mouth turned to ash. In an effort to completely save my own ass I had forgotten about him.
"Listen, man-" I started but he cut me off.
"Save it." His voice was clipped with anger and hurt. "Either you lied to me or she really likes you, and either way I don't want to hear it. Just... treat her well, okay?"
My heart broke as I watched him slump all the way to the back of the bus. I shrank in my seat, suddenly feeling even worse for all the lies I'd told. My eyes started to feel pin prick when Dean and Pace boarded last, just before the coaches. Pace was too distracted chatting to notice my pleading eyes, but Dean did see me. His blue eyes pierced through me, just a second.
Then he turned away from me and kept walking.
It sucked the breath from my lungs. I racked my brain wondering why the snub, but then I looked around and though everybody had been teasing me about Lena Lee, most of the guys, the ones I considered my friends, were sitting all the way at the back with Hunter. My mind scrambled thinking back to the past few days and I realized that I'd been so engrossed in texting her during class or practice, or chatting with her at the diner, that I had somehow become ostracized from the group.
And I definitely deserved it because I was a big fat, inconsiderate liar.
"Alright team," Coach Martel stood at the front of the bus before we set out. "Tonight's game is important. Our opponent is usually a top contender, and we need to give a statement, if you pardon my pun."
Gauthier excused himself to walk through and sit at the front, just behind the driver. Meanwhile Coach Martel started going through the plays he had in mind for the night, and just when I thought my life couldn't get any worse he said my name.
I looked up. "Yes, sir?"
"How's your nose tonight?"
I knew exactly what to answer. "Just perfect, everything's fine now."
Coach nodded. "Good to know, we'll call on you if it's necessary, but I want you to sit this one out still."
I stood up so fast that I banged my head. As I rubbed it I protested, but Coach raised his hand.
"These are my orders, Bernal." He folded his arms. "Under no circumstances are you to get on the ice unless I say so. Is that clear?"
My head dropped of its own volition, I nodded as I sat down. Now the top of my head smarted, my face still hurt and I wanted to cry. What the hell was I doing there?