Logan
might be an odd time to play ice hockey, but Logan and the team had their sights on the Anderson Cup. The upcoming season would be their first viable chance in years to make the playoffs and win big.
"Alright, keep warming up," Logan barked from the middle of the ice, having stretched an hour ago. Coach Dorsey had a family emergency with his wife and daughters and tasked Logan to run practice. He oversaw how his boys used the empty rink for their stretches, thankful for no audience. Some of his teammates were jokesters who would exaggerate the stretching for any ladies, earning them hoots from fellow teammates instead.
He glanced through the windows at the fading sunset, grimacing a little. As Coach Dorsey mentioned, he and Ava’s coach negotiated a new training schedule. Apparently, her coach and Coach Dorsey worked out an arrangement where the boys could keep some of their morning practices. Then, Ava would take the rink after them. However, many team practices shifted to the evening slot and received mass disapproval.
Logan skated toward the wall by the home bench and peered inside, finding Issac, his little brother, sitting inside the box with a tablet and a pair of chunky headphones on his head. Issac’s little legs hung over the bench and swung aimlessly, concentrating on whatever game he played.
Their mom needed to work the overnight shift at her second job—a chain gas station two miles out of town—and evenings were when he watched Issac for her. No one else could babysit his little brother, and Logan had cared for him since his teenage years.
He smiled and ruffled Issac’s hair, “Alright! We’re going to be handling some warm-ups. We’re starting with Rondo Circle Passing, so join up with people you know and some you don't. Teambuilding is the goal."
Logan skated toward the middle and watched his guys pair off. Pairs grouped together—newcomers to the team and veterans mixed indiscriminately—into circles of six to eight men with enough space between the groups to avoid any collisions.
He felt Marc grab him by the back of his collar and pull him along, “C’mon, Captain. You’re with me.” His second-in-command whistled while they headed toward one of the loose circles formed on the home side of the ice.
“I’m surprised someone hasn’t snatched you already,” Logan snorted, letting Marc drag him. He tapped Fields, who had been corralled into the center of their respective circle, on the shoulder. “I’ll take the first rotation. Get back in line.”
"Yes, Captain!" Fields clutched his stick tight while he and Logan switched places, with Logan in the center of the circle.
Rondos were simple passing exercises for communication and teamwork, but Logan believed in leading by example. Taking the first rotation helped start the flow of the practice.
Someone dropped the puck onto the ice, and Logan brought it closer to him, using the head of his stick. He grinned and looked around the circle, "Marc, I'll start with you."
"Aye, aye, Captain!"
Logan knocked the puck over to him and smirked, “How about we try some keep-away? It’ll keep me on my toes.”
"You're a showoff," Marc scoffed, but his smile told Logan a challenge was afoot. He stopped the puck underneath his stick and glanced around the circle, lingering over Logan's right shoulder. Logan, without glancing away from Marc, tried to recount everyone's position. "Ready?"
“I was born ready.”
“Like I said, you’re a showoff.”
Logan held back a laugh when Marc attempted to fake a pass to the right. As he suspected, Marc shot the puck to the left. Logan’s stick snapped out and stopped the puck cold, pulling it into him. A few whistles erupted from the circle at the clean block.
"You'll have to be less obvious than that, Young," said Logan, knocking the puck back to his oldest friend.
"Clearly," Marc hummed, and he reconsidered his strategy, apparent to Logan from the pensive quirk of Marc's brows. Even when his hair obscured his eyes with shadows, Logan turned to body language to read every thought racing through Marc’s head.
However, Marc’s pass to Gardner—two players to his left—slipped past Logan’s defenses. The game of keep away was on, and Logan jumped into the zone. He could hear other circles with their cheering and the passing of the puck across the ice, but he focused hard on Gardner.
Gardner shot the puck between his legs, and Logan almost recovered it, spinning around to see Fields holding onto it. He faced Fields and goaded him with a look.
Unlike Marc and Gardner, however, Fields stared at Logan warily. His anxiety smeared across his face more than the red of cold exposure. Logan had the experience and height advantage in his corner, expecting to stop the puck.
However, one of the other members of the team coughed, "The newest article from The Champion was released this morning, and that photo with you and the pretty figure skater was cute. She was cute, and you looked like someone pissed in your skates."
Logan’s shoulders tensed. His eyes wandered off Fields with the puck and in the general direction of where the comment came from, finding the avoidant eyes of several of his teammates. The guilty party didn’t want to fess up.
Logan considered tripping someone with his hockey stick out of annoyance to remind everyone that he wasn't in the mood for Averie jokes or comments referencing her.
Marc sighed, "Dude, you know it was wrong to mention it. Quit it." He caught Logan's eyes. Logan turned back to Fields, stopping the puck with his stick. An audible groan rose from the players when Logan snapped it over to Marc.
"Pick someone else to go in the middle and start a new match. I have to check on the other circles," Logan excused himself, not caring how weak his lie sounded or if people didn't buy it. Averie Laurier threw him off his game, and he had no interest in letting it show.
He had spent all day fixated on the article about Averie’s move to Waybrook for training and how her prestigious reputation might bring Waybrook a champion. He read every word in that article and internalized it, almost throwing his phone out of annoyance.
Everywhere he went in town, people were reading Carmen’s words and seeing the photographs of him and Averie at the rink. Everyone probably imagined a halo over her head with how sweet she seemed. On the other hand, he looked like he stepped in dog shit with his favorite boots or swallowed the sourest lemon known to mankind from rind to seeds.
Residents who knew him all his life began to do their favorite pastime: gossip. He heard a flurry of rumors about him and Averie from the townspeople who had known him his entire life. People could see the disparity between her champion status versus his lack of accomplishment, twisting the knife further between his ribs. Logan couldn't escape Averie Laurier no matter where he went in town.
Everyone wanted to know about the golden girl of figure skating. So much for the Winter Wolves breaking out of their perpetual reputation as the bottom of the barrel.
Logan glided around the other circles with practiced ease and checked on forms and communication. Most of it wasn't verbal, but rather eye contact and gestures between teammates to be ready so as not to tip off the opponent.
He kept a running list of notes about things to report to Coach Dorsey and promising talent among his teammates. He wouldn’t be on the team forever, so someone needed to step up when his time came.
Logan sighed. First, it was all about Averie Laurier and whether an angel earned its wings whenever she spoke. Then, the idea of retirement decided to club him over the head. With how his day was going, Logan expected another mishap to announce its presence and further ruin the already tragic mood he floundered in.
He should’ve learned to be more careful about what he put into the universe.
The creaking open of a door caught his ear and Logan halted toward the center of the ice, glancing around for the source. He almost chalked it up to a rogue breeze until he swore there was movement around the second floor.
Logan gripped his stick tighter and watched as none other than Averie waltzed down the ramp, carrying her duffle over her shoulder. She wore earbuds and the same smile on her face as in the photographs, meant for invisible cameras.
He pushed toward the rink's edge, hearing the movement around him slow down upon noticing Averie's presence. Speak of the devil, and she shall appear. But Logan was focused on one thing: confronting her.
Logan reached the wall before Averie made it around the bend. She stopped before him, stranded halfway between the ramp and the locker room. Still smiling, Averie removed her earbuds, and Logan caught a few seconds of what sounded like classical before she paused her music.
“Hi!” Averie greeted.
“This is a closed practice. No one’s supposed to interrupt our use of the rink,” Logan replied, not in the mood for pleasantries. To him, Averie’s presence provided an unwanted distraction and brought flashes of glowing praise from the article into his mind. That should’ve been his.
Averie tucked her hands into her jeans and dared to flush, "Oh, I apologize. I need to grab something I left behind in the locker room yesterday. It totally slipped my mind!"
Logan’s eyes rolled at the innocent act, wanting Averie to leave, “Great. Littering.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
Averie cocked her head and studied him, staring with her neck craned back a little, “I didn’t get your name the other day. I know Terry kept mistaking your name, so what is it?”
"Logan. Logan Beckett," said Logan, entrenched in a disgruntled huff.
“Great! It’s lovely to meet you, Logan! I’m Averie, but most people call me Ava.” Averie giggled, but Logan couldn’t pretend to enjoy the small talk conversation with her. The wounds still bled angrily, stirred up with enough pressure.
"I'm aware," Logan crossed his arms over his chest, and by that point, he felt the eyes of his teammates on him. "Look, Ava, I suggest you grab what you came here for and leave because you're distracting us from our practice."
Ava blinked, taken aback, "Oh, you could ignore me. Focus on your practice. I'll handle my business in the locker room, as quietly as possible."
“Or you could respect the practice schedule you changed in the first place and wait for your reserved hours like everyone else," Logan snapped, and it came out as harsh as it was in his head. If Ava thought she could get her way with a flutter of those doe eyes and feigned innocence, she was in for a rude awakening with him.
Ava’s mouth opened but snapped closed, twisted into a pout. She fidgeted with her hands, and if Logan hadn't been fed up with hearing her name all over town, he might've felt bad. But her presence in Waybrook kicked him back to square one when the momentum finally swung in his favor after nineteen years.
Eventually, however, she asked, “Have I done something to offend you?”
“My team and I are not your biggest fans, so we want you to grab what you came here for and leave. Or you can wait until tomorrow morning since you took most of our morning slots,” Logan replied.
Ava momentarily chewed on his words but stuck her nose up and laughed, "You're rude."
“I’m rude? Me? You’re the one barging into the rink like you own the place, with no respect for how you pushed out locals to fit your schedule.”
“I don’t know what your problem is, but you’re not allowed to speak to me like that.”
"Oh, is that so? Whatever, ice princess." Logan turned his back to her, noticing how his boys broke out of their circles, and none of them appeared happy with Ava there. Word got around about why their schedule changed before he told them about the ousting. "Get your things and go. I've said my piece."
He listened to the light footfalls around the side of the rink, watching as Ava ducked into the locker room and emerged seconds later with a sweater. Her eyes found his but dodged away, so offended like she wasn't the one intruding on their space. There should be one sanctuary away from Ava and her princess-level demands.
He and his team stayed in their spots until she climbed the ramp and headed out of the rink. Once the doors swung shut, the rest of the players skated back to their respective circles, and the scrapes of sticks and pucks against the ice resumed.
Logan lingered by the wall, burdened by a sudden headache between his eyes. He heard someone skate up to him and turned to face Marc, who sighed.
"Well, that went fantastic." Sarcasm dripped off his words, and he did Logan the respect of not pretending to hide it. "I didn't expect her to circumvent the rules already."
“Of course, she would. She's used to the world-champion treatment from everyone, and I’ll bet that goes to her head. I knew her off-camera persona wasn’t as nice as what she portrays when everyone’s watching. Those photos are deceiving,” Logan said.
“Hopefully, Coach Dorsey doesn’t hear about this later. I’m sure we’ll get a lecture for hurting her feelings and being unwelcoming.”
“That would require the ice princess to have feelings and think about anyone outside her little bubble.”
“Oh, you hate her.”
“No more than the rest of the team, Marc.”
Marc shrugged. "Could've fooled me. But then again, she stole that interview from underneath you, and Carmen seemed to forget about us little guys."
Logan shook his head. "It's more than that. I don't take kindly to people who encroach on our home and ruin things. You remember when that real estate douche tried to buy out Martha's, and this town ran them out of Michigan?”
"Of course I do," Marc snorted. "All of us ate at Martha's for a week straight, even when we thought we would be sick."
Logan remembered those days when the people of Waybrook rallied to support the people and places that defined Waybrook. But, with the Winter Wolves versus Ava Laurier, they were losing the battle to a stranger with too many championship titles and no care for the townspeople. It wasn't fair.
“It’s like that . . . only this town hasn’t backed up this team because they don’t think we’re worth something. It’s time they see that we have what it takes, and I won’t allow Ava Laurier or anyone else to overshadow our year of wins."