Coach's Challenge

by Avon Gale

  They nodded, and Troy could see it in their faces, could sense it beneath the nerves. Buried deeper in some of them than in others, but that fierce need to compete—to compete fairly, to win because they were the best—was still there. He smiled. “Ravens are goddamn smart birds, or so I hear. Now go play smart hockey.” He glanced at Xavier. “Captain Matthews? You want to say anything?”

  Matthews stood up. He looked tragic and hot in his uniform, his blond hair still slicked back off his face. Out of all of them, he wore his determination closest to the surface, like the raven on his uniform. “This is a different team, and we’re going to play like it.” He glanced briefly at Shane North and then cleared his throat. “Caw!”

  Troy’s eyebrows went up, but his team knocked their sticks on the floor and caw’d right back. So that was something.

  The game went about as well as could be expected. The arena was not full, though Troy wasn’t sold on the idea that it ever was during last season, but there were a respectable number of blue-and-orange-clad Asheville fans in the stands. They gave Xavier a huge cheer when he was announced as Captain, which Troy noticed, and he was sure Gabe noticed too—and his own reception as the new head coach was warmer than he might have thought. Troy wasn’t sure if that was because anyone knew who he was or just that they were glad the other guy was gone.

  The Ravens lost the game, 3-1. They played like a team that wasn’t communicating. They flubbed passes, they whiffed on shots, they took not one but two “too many men on the ice” penalties. But there weren’t any fights, and he didn’t hear a word of trash talk on the ice, beyond the usual low-muttered obscenities. And Troy could hardly say anything about that, given his own vocabulary. His focus at intermission was better communication, less sloppy puck management, and for the love of God, better forechecking.

  After giving up an early goal, the Ravens played much better. They scored once and kept the Storm from converting any of their admittedly fancy passes into more goals. Troy wasn’t pleased with some of the fundamentals, but he was pleased that the Ravens didn’t play like a bunch of schoolyard bullies.

  Which was exactly what he told them.

  “I’m not unhappy. That doesn’t mean I’m happy, because I’m not, and don’t think for a second I ever will be. I’m a coach, and we’re never happy. But listen. I saw a team in the third that I can work with. I saw a team that is serious about playing hockey and not fucking junior-high bullshit games. So that made me happy. What didn’t make me happy was the goddamn drop passes and the lack of on-ice communication, but we’ll work on that.” He paused. “I know that wasn’t easy and we have a lot of work to do. But you gave me the effort I wanted in that third period. Play the next game like you played that last twenty minutes, and I might be slightly pleased with you.”

  He turned to Quinn. “Coach?”

  “I’m glad to see you playing like this,” said Quinn, and Troy didn’t want to ruin his postgame mood by asking what the fuck that actually meant. Instead he reminded them about practice and told them to hit the showers.

  Troy went into his office to make his notes while they were still fresh. He was vaguely aware of conversation—subdued, but at least it was there—and the sound of lockers slamming and the door opening and closing as his team left the locker room. He looked up from his scratchy handwriting with the word forechecking underlined six times when he heard a rap of knuckles against the doorframe.

  “Hey, Coach? Got a second?”

  It was North. He played a good game, solid and reliable, exactly what Troy wanted to see from him. He was also out of his gear and half-dressed in his game suit. His hair was still damp, he wasn’t wearing an undershirt, and his dress shirt was unbuttoned so Troy could see the tattoos on his chest. “Yeah, come in. Good job tonight. You’ve got a handle on the forecheck I want to see.”

  “Thanks.” North looked surprised by the compliment, and Troy couldn’t blame him. He hadn’t exactly gone easy on Shane. “Hey, I wanted to ask… well, you mind if I bring in some speakers? A sound system or something?”

  “To my office?” Troy asked. “Am I making too much noise in here?”

  “For the locker room,” North said dryly. “But maybe you noticed your office doesn’t have a door, and I don’t want to do laps again because you hate my taste in music.”

  Troy hated how attractive he found the barely contained smartass lurking beneath Shane’s attempt at respectful behavior. It made Troy want things he absolutely should not want with a player. “Sure, you can do that. Why? You want to go out on the ice to a funeral march?”

  Shane’s grin made Troy want to hit his head on the desk. “Ha. No, but it’s tempting. I thought maybe some music might get these guys to, y’know.”

  “To what? Sing?” Troy narrowed his eyes but he could feel the edge of his mouth curve up. “Not sure I wouldn’t rather have it quiet, North.”

  “Maybe. But I gotta try something. You got any other ideas?”

  Troy stared hard at him and wondered why he wasn’t giving Shane a lecture about taking that tone of voice with his coach. Because you like it, that’s why. Idiot. If he were any more your type, he’d come labeled in a bottle. “I got a lot of ideas, North, but they’re about hockey, not musical entertainment. Bring in whatever you want, but just remember I can make you do a bag skate if the music sucks.”

  There was a glint in Shane’s eyes that immediately made Troy suspicious because he recognized it. Apparently Shane North played for more than just Troy’s hockey team, and oh, God…. The only thing worse than having the hots for his player would be his player reciprocating it. That had never happened to Troy in his twenty-plus years of coaching.

  “I guess it depends on what you count as ‘sucking.’ Coach.”

  A thousand inappropriate rejoinders flashed through Troy’s mind, his favorite being, “Get on your knees and I’ll show you.” He wondered if Shane knew exactly how many buttons he was pushing, but there was challenge evident in the lines of Shane’s body as he leaned against the door and in the insolent curve of his mouth and the slyly suggestive tone he was only barely trying to hide.

  Troy felt a flash of electricity as they stared at each other, and Troy would bet an entire case of that Pappy Van Whatever of Gabe’s that Shane knew exactly what he was doing. Unless it was some kind of gaslighting bullshit, though Shane didn’t seem the type, and Troy had felt a spark between them from that first meeting in his office. A spark that needed to be extinguished, and fast.

  “I’ll let you know,” Troy said crisply and pointedly looked back down at his notes. “Game’s over, North. Go home.”

  “Have a good night, Coach.”

  Troy looked up in time to see Shane leaving his office, and didn’t bother to respond.

  THE FOLLOWING practice Troy came in his customary twenty minutes early and found Shane already there, messing with a small electronic device and a dangerous configuration of extension cords that could possibly end in fire and death. There was also something affixed above Troy’s doorway—something black and vaguely bird shaped.

  It was a stuffed raven. At least Troy hoped to God it was stuffed and wasn’t going to start flying around.

  “Doing some decorating?”

  Shane looked up from the device and followed Troy’s pointed glance up to the bird. “It’s a raven.”

  “I see.”

  “That’s our mascot,” Shane said, like maybe Troy didn’t know. He had the same challenging expression from that night in Troy’s office, the same sly gleam in his eye.

  Troy kept his expression neutral, as though Shane would somehow know that Troy had gone home and gotten off while he imagined Shane sucking his cock at his desk. It was way less inappropriate to fantasize about it than it was to do it. Right? “I’m aware of that, North, but why is it hanging over my door?”

  Shane went back to the speakers. “It’s like the poem. You know. “The Raven”? Come on. You’ve at least seen that Simpsons episode.”

&nbs
p; Troy wanted to say something about how he’d read the poem, because he had—but that was back in high school. And okay, yeah. He remembered it mostly from The Simpsons episode. “It was perched on a bust of Pallas,” said Troy, because he had to argue about something. “Not the door.” He ran his eyes over Shane, who was dressed in his practice clothes but without his gear. The tight black undershirt clung to his well-defined physique, and the color made Shane’s eyes look even darker.

  “It’s a bird, Coach. It can fly.”

  Troy dragged his gaze away from Shane’s full mouth. “You better not be telling me that thing is a real bird.”

  “Nah. I got it at a Halloween shop.” Shane pulled out an iPod and took up one of the cables to affix it to the speaker. “I can take it down if you want.”

  Troy shrugged. “I can’t see it from my office, so it’s fine.”

  Shane glanced up with a grin. It made Troy think about filthy things, about the fantasy he’d gotten off to the night before. “Arguing for the sake of arguing, huh?”

  Troy’s eyes narrowed, and his voice was sharp when he spoke. “Watch the attitude, North. I know we’re the only two people in this locker room who might know what a Sony Walkman is, but that’s no excuse for mouthing off.”

  “Didn’t mean to mouth off.” Shane sounded completely unapologetic. “And a Sony Walkman? Really?”

  “I had to think of some piece of equipment these kids wouldn’t know about. Vinyl’s making a comeback, or so they tell me.” Troy only knew that because of Jason Bow, Gabe’s son, who was around the same age as Xavier Matthews and had been completely stoked to find Troy still had all his old records in a box in his garage. “What are you playing?”

  Shane rose gracefully to his feet and pressed something on the iPod that caused music to flood the locker room. “You’ll see.”

  Whatever it was, it was irritatingly catchy. It was also apparently on repeat, as it played on a loop while the players arrived for practice. From his office Troy could see them exchange looks of confusion and wondered who would break first.

  Finally, when the song started over again, Cory Martin cleared his throat. “Uh. Isn’t that Justin Bieber’s ‘Sorry’? Are we being tortured? I thought we were out of that era.”

  “Oh my God,” Evan Snyder said as he pointed upward. His eyes were wide. “There’s a bird nailed up over the door to Coach’s office. That’s… what does that even mean?”

  “Why does this song keep playing?” Josh Baker looked around wildly. “Why won’t it stop? Who’s doing this to us? Is it because of those drop passes?”

  “I’m more concerned about the bird,” said Evan. “Seriously. You guys see this, right?”

  “I don’t think it’s real, which means it can’t hear, so it’s way better off than we are.” Josh peered up at it. “Is it really nailed up there? How’d that happen?” He took his hockey stick and made his way to the doorway.

  “Dude!” Brendan Grover practically threw himself across the room. “Bakes, don’t. That’s like, really bad luck.”

  “Dislodging a fake bird? How the fuck do you even know that?”

  “It’s also not gonna work if it’s nailed up there,” Evan pointed out. “So it’s not so much bad luck as just kind of pointless.”

  “I’ll hit it real hard,” Josh assured him.

  “North brought in the speaker,” said Xavier. He grinned over his shoulder at Shane. “So I guess he’s a Belieber.”

  “North, what the fuck.” Cory stopped pulling on his gear to glare at Shane. “You’re new. You don’t haze us. And you’re like, the cool guy who surfs. You like Bieber? I have to rethink a lot of things if that’s true.”

  “Well, maybe I wouldn’t have to play pop music if I had a clue what any of you liked. I’m not a Belieber, but I’m goddamn tired of it being so quiet in here,” Shane said reasonably. “And the song is on my running playlist, so rethink whatever you gotta rethink, Marty.”

  “Matty, tell him we hate Bieber,” Evan pleaded. “Be a captain. Stop this torment.”

  “Hey,” Brendan protested. “I don’t hate JB. I mean, I’m not a Belieber or anything, but he’s got some catchy tunes.”

  The entirety of the Asheville Ravens hockey team was looking between their captain and their newly acquired veteran as though one of them had just turned into Justin Bieber—whose name Troy vaguely recalled from the vast collective social unconscious he couldn’t quite manage to tune out no matter how hard he tried.

  “Hey, if you want to listen to something else, bring in your own music. I’ll leave the speakers here,” said Shane. “Or I’ll make a playlist on my iPod.”

  “Is that a first generation iPod?” Cory sounded awed. “I thought those all stopped working when iPhones came out. I forget how old you are, North.”

  “This is why you shouldn’t think, Marty,” teased Xavier. “Here. I’ve got music on my phone. No Bieber. Promise.” He went to the speakers, pulled the cord out of Shane’s iPod and—thank God—the song stopped.

  The music Xavier put on was only slightly less irritating, but maybe that was just because it was a different song.

  “Fall Out Boy?” Evan snickered. “Aw. Matty’s a closet emo kid.”

  For the next few seconds, the only noise was the lead singer talking about ashes in the dark.

  “Umm, wait. I didn’t mean—that thing about the closet,” Evan said carefully. “I just meant you don’t talk about liking Fall Out Boy. I didn’t mean, like, actual boys. Oh, fuck my life.”

  “Hey, it’s fine, Snydes.” Xavier sounded like he was trying not to laugh. “I like their new album. And I know what you meant.”

  “Dude, no offense to you or being gay, man, but I hate fucking Fall Out Boy. Let’s listen to 21 Pilots,” said Cory.

  Troy tuned them out at that point, looked down at his practice notes, and finally let himself smile.

  Troy Callahan could admit when he was wrong. He just hated to do it. And he wasn’t quite willing to say that Gabe’s idea to sign Shane North was brilliant, because it ended up with Troy listening to Bieber and Fall Out Boy while he imagined North sucking him off at his desk. But right then it didn’t seem like as bad an idea as he’d thought.

  If that made Troy a Belieber, then so be it.

  Chapter Five

  HEY NORTH going 2 Tombstone tonight. You in?

  Shane stared down at the message from Xavier Matthews. Did he want to meet up with a few of the guys for a drink? Shane’s immediate inclination was to decline—he was too old to drink with a bunch of guys in their twenties, wasn’t he?—but he made himself think about it as he fixed something with vegetables and protein for dinner. What the hell. Why not show up and bond for a bit? It was good the guys were hanging out outside of practice and games, especially since they’d been forbidden from doing that before. And they were pretty good guys. Shane enjoyed getting to know them once the miasma of despair lifted from the locker room. Who knew all it would take was some Bieber?

  Shane texted back that he’d join them there, and he went to find something to wear that wasn’t running shorts and a sleeveless shirt. He put on a pair of nice jeans and a button-down and tried to do something with his hair other than scowl at it in the mirror. Finally he gave up and grabbed his car keys to head out. If he were in San Diego, he’d still have the top down, but here he was, messing with the heat. Shane was from North Dakota, but all those years in California had screwed up his tolerance for the cold. Even relatively temperate cold, like Asheville.

  Shane saw his teammates right away. They were dressed similarly, in dark-washed denim and trendy shirts, and there were about six of them at the table with a couple of girls who were likely girlfriends. It was a lively bunch, and Shane was glad he decided to come out instead of just falling asleep watching Netflix. Or jacking off thinking about Callahan fucking his mouth, which…. Yeah, he had to stop or his jeans were going to get a little tight.

  “Yo, North.” On every team Shane had ever played for, h
is nickname was never anything more than his surname—no er or ie added on the end. He gave a half-hearted wave, slid into an empty chair next to Xavier, and was introduced to the three girls at the table. They were nice girls, friendly and chatty. Certainly pretty, which Shane could appreciate even if he wasn’t interested.

  “I’m glad you decided to come,” Xavier said to him after Shane ordered a Bonesaw IPA. Shane liked high-gravity beers, which was probably why he didn’t go out much during the season. Light beer tasted like piss to him. Shane noticed that Xavier was checking something on his phone. He recognized it as the Grindr app, but pretended he didn’t.

  “Yeah. Thanks for inviting me.” Shane lifted his beer and said, “This is way better than anything I have in my fridge.” He considered ordering himself an appetizer, so he didn’t drink the strong beer on a stomach full of lean meat and vegetables. What was the point of it being his last season if he couldn’t order some pretzel sticks?

  “Hey, North, do you really get like, first-class food in the NHL, on planes and shit?” Cory Martin asked as he leaned around Evan Snyder.

  Shane’s memories of his NHL career were more about being a disappointment on the ice than about the food, but he nodded. “It was pretty good. Yeah. Team dinners were just about the same, though. Pasta, bread. Carb overload.” But he could barely remember that. Sixteen years earlier he’d been a rookie on the Ducks—wide-eyed and thinking that catered meals and airplanes would be his life from then on. How young he’d been.