The Hockey Captain That Hates Me novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Black Ice
Hanna floods the tunnel to get back at the teammate who steals her ice, but the hockey captain slips first and breaks his ankle. She confesses to everyone, and he says, Give her to me.
Trent Maddox took my ice again at five fifteen on Monday morning.
He did it the way he did everything, smiling, with a piece of paper in his hand.
"Athletic director's note," he said. "Hockey gets the arena at five thirty now. Sorry, Hedlund."
He was not sorry.
Behind him six hockey players leaned on the boards with their sticks, watching the figure skaters.
I was in the middle of the sheet, in the middle of my long program, with the cello music still playing.
I skated to the glass and stopped hard enough to spray snow on his shoes.
"The skating club has this ice until six thirty," I said. "It's in the schedule. It's been in the schedule for four years."
"Schedules change."
"Give me the note."
He held it up where I could read it but not reach it.
It had Gavin Prescott's signature on the bottom, and it said nothing about why.
Trent leaned closer. "Honestly, you're the only good one, so I feel bad."
He smiled. "But nobody pays to watch a girl spin in circles at dawn."
The hockey players laughed.
One of them did a little twirl with his stick over his head, and the rest laughed harder.
My best friend Britt skated up beside me, her red hair pinned up under her hat.
"Han," she said quietly. "Don't."
I didn't.
I unlaced my skates in front of all of them, very slowly, and carried them out by their laces.
Britt followed me.
In the hallway outside the locker room she said, "I have a spray bottle in my bag."
I stopped walking.
"Why do you have a spray bottle in your bag?"
"For my hair. Why are you looking at me like that?"
I was looking at the door at the end of the hall.
It led to the tunnel, the concrete passage where the hockey team stepped onto the ice every morning.
Cold air always leaked down it, and the floor at the mouth of the tunnel was bare rubber matting.
"They come out of there at five thirty," I said.
"Hanna Hedlund," Britt said. "You're a good person."
"I know."
"Are we doing it?"
We did it.
Britt sprayed and I fanned, and in four minutes a thin, clear sheet spread across the whole mouth of the tunnel.
The cold took it.
By five twenty-five it shone.
It was a prank, a small one.
I wanted Trent Maddox to come out first, with his stupid note and his stupid smile, and sit down hard in front of his friends.
That was all I wanted.
We went up to the glass behind the visitors' bench, and I kept my skates in my lap.
The team came down the tunnel at five thirty-one.
I heard the sticks first, tapping the concrete.
Then the first man out stepped onto the shine.
It was not Trent.
It was Henrik Broten.
He was the hockey captain, six foot three, with shoulders and a scar through his chin.
His gray stare had never once been kind to me.
His skate hit the sheet and slid.
I saw his arms go up.
I saw him try to catch himself on the boards, and the boards weren't where his hand went.
He went down sideways with his left foot still planted.
The sound was a crack, flat and short, like a branch breaking under snow.
Nobody laughed.
Henrik lay on the ice on his back, with his eyes shut and his teeth bared.
Then he rolled onto his side and made a noise I will never forget.
"Captain!" somebody yelled.
Everyone ran at once.
Trent got there first, kneeling and saying, "Don't move, man, don't move."
Behind him the whole team crowded around.
I stood at the glass with my skates in my lap and my knees gone to water.
Britt grabbed my arm. "Han. Han, we leave. Right now. Nobody saw."
"Henrik's hurt."
"Nobody saw us."
I looked at the tunnel mouth, where the shine still lay across the floor.
Someone would find it.
Someone would see the sprayed edge, and the bottle, and ask who would do that to a man's ankle.
And Trent had been right behind him, and Trent would be fine.
I walked down the stairs.
My legs felt like they belonged to someone else.
"It was me," I said.
Nobody heard.
I said it again, louder, and the whole arena turned.
"It was me. I put the water down. I meant it for Trent. I didn't mean him."
The silence was complete.
Britt came down behind me and took my hand.
"It was both of us," she said.
"It wasn't," I said. "It was mine."
Trent stood up slowly. His face was white and bright with joy.
"You did this?" he said. "You broke his leg?"
"His ankle," somebody said.
"She's going to be expelled," said Trent, to the whole arena, with relish.
Henrik opened his eyes.
He looked at me.
Pain had turned his face the color of the ice, and the scar on his chin stood out.
I waited for the worst thing he had ever said to me.
He lifted his head an inch off the ice, so everyone could see who he was talking to.
"Nobody touch her," Henrik said.
Then, in the same hard voice, he said it to the paramedics running in with the stretcher.
"And when I get back from the hospital, give her to me."
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend