Always Only You by Chloe Liese (z-lib.org).epub

I grin and start to skate away. “Good luck. Swedish is not phonetic.”
Before she can give me further hell about it, I circle the net, power across the
ice, and let my mind settle. But my heart won’t stop galloping at breakneck
speed.
THIRD PERIOD, TIED 1-1. THANKS TO A FEW GAMES OFF, MY LEGS ARE STILL
fresh, my lungs easily pulling air. I crouch low for face-off and win the puck,
passing it to Rob and soaring up the ice into the attacking zone. I’ve had my eye
on Number 27, the one who hit me late and dirty into the boards last time we
were here. When I played the other night, he and I only had one shift that
overlapped because I played so little, but tonight’s another matter.
He’s up my ass. Constantly.
So far, I’ve been able to stay clear of his dirtiest attempts, which seems to
infuriate him. He’s not the first defender to be perturbed by my agility on ice,
given my size. He’s also not the first defender to target me like his sole mission
is brutalizing my body. Every team we play, I’m a target. I’m our leading scorer,
and I’m good at avoiding scrapes, winning the puck, catalyzing offense. I defy
physics, and it shocks and then quickly pisses off my opponents.
To be fair, it shocked me at first, too. But now I understand it’s my strength,
this intuition I have, the way I sense incoming hits and slip away, my body’s
ability to hold peripheral awareness of so much, then sneak myself and the puck
right where we need to go. I couldn’t explain how I do it if I wanted to—it’s just
something my brain-body connection implicitly knows.
That said, while I’m adept at dodging disasters, evading and putting up with
Number 27 is getting old. Countless hooks, pokes, and slashes, slapping his stick
into my skates, hoping to trip me. He’s tried and missed smashing me into the
boards more times than I can count. And unlike past times when I’ve weathered
his and other defenders’ abuse with stoic detachment, simmering frustration has
been building to an angry boil inside me. I don’t know why what I typically
ignored and let roll off my back is irking me so relentlessly tonight. Why my
hands itch to do damage, my fists twitch to draw blood. All I know is, they do.
Maybe you’re hitting your limit, Bergman. We all have them.
Fair point, subconscious. I’ve spent three years in this league being squeaky
clean. Backing away from fights, playing a fair game, never taking the bait. I do
every PR stunt they ask of me, show up for every magazine cover and interview
the league wants. And the whole time I’ve smiled, kept myself out of trouble,