Students flow through the streets in thin trickles, and the night never really picks up. It’s slow, and we dump the last chunk of our flyers in a trash can before making our way back to the bar with numb fingers and frosty toes.
“That was a waste,” Maddie says as we approach the bar’s double front doors.
One of the full-time bar staff, Locke, winks at us, taking time out from collecting stray glasses left on the outside tables to open the door for us. “Good night?” he asks. His eyes are all over us, especially Maddie’s legs, but he’s a nice guy, and we like this one.
“Sucky night,” Maddie says. “I can’t feel my face. Is it still attached to my head?” She peers up at Locke, her eyes stretching their sockets in rapid blinks.
“Still there,” Locke confirms. “Still gorgeous.”
Despite handing out less than three quarters of our flyers, Champ’s is nearly at capacity, people crowded around the standing tables and the bar. The music’s pumping fast, the vibe more nightclub than sports bar.
Preston waves us over from the side of the bar that faces the offices and staff rooms.
“Here we go,” I say under my breath. At first, I thought Preston Ashton was an okay guy. It didn’t take me longer than my first shift to realize he’s on a power trip and he may have a touch of Little Man syndrome. He bosses his waitresses around any chance he gets, and since he heads the payroll, we let him do it, putting up with him when we should be telling him to back off and get a life outside of this bar.
“What is it?” I ask as he shuts his office door behind us. The deep bass from the music pounds dully on the other side. “Are we off shift? Because I’m only on the roster until eleven, and…” I take out my phone from my coat pocket to be sure the time is what I think it is before I open my mouth. “Yeah, eleven. And it’s almost fifteen after.”
“Time is money,” Preston says, because he’s a walking cliché and he’s seen too many movies. “And money is time.” Maddie and I share a look while he circles his desk and folds his arms over the white button-down covering his skinny chest. “You’re both working the floor. We’re starting a VIP section and we need you to sign up members and take pictures for the website.”
“VIP section?” Maddie enquiries, eyes narrowed on Preston. “What is that?”
I take a stab at the answer. “A trap that starts out free but somehow ropes people into some sort of monthly payment subscription that they agree to after too many beers?”
“Close.” Preston returns my grin with a slimier one. “It is free, and there are exclusive member benefits that will come at a cost—”
“Like?” I press, sensing where he’s taking this. Badgering people when they’re here to have a good time and relax.
“Like,” Preston draws out, “merch giveaways, free dinners, free pitchers. Entry on selected nights to the VIP lounge.”
“We don’t have a VIP lounge!” Maddie gapes with an incredulous smile, turning to me as if to say, ‘can you believe this loser?’ And the answer is yes, I can believe this loser. Mostly, though, I’m only interested in how much extra work he’s going to want out of us, and whether the pay matches the overtime. This part-time job doesn’t come before college, and I told Mark that when he hired me.
“I’m working on it.” Preston bobs in his faux leather chair, running his silver tie through his fingers. He could do with a smaller chair if you ask me. Something in pink from the children’s corner at IKEA. “It’s an extra hour inside the bar after your shift’s supposed to end. Some nights, possibly the slower nights, maybe the busier ones if we feel we can pull in from the local competition, you’ll go out and do what you did tonight. Get out there and promote us to new customers, then return here and work the floor for an hour, sign up as many new members as you can.” He divides a stern look between me and Maddie, his eyebrows inching arrogantly up his forehead to his strawberry blond hairline. “Can you both work until twelve? Is that going to be an issue? Because there are other waitresses. Other pretty girls who could do with the extra cash.”
“That’s all you want?” I ask. “For us to work until twelve?”
Preston’s expression relaxes into a smile. He knows he’s won. As a recent graduate of NU himself, he’s experienced firsthand how a good education goes hand in hand in with any money you can scrape together and not live the student life like a total pauper.
“That’s all I want. And Mark’s switching up the way things work around here. After football’s finished, we’d like to see a younger, livelier crowd in here. Dancing, DJs, live bands. There are going to be some changes.”
“Right,” Maddie says, like she doesn’t care if the place blinks out of existence and reemerges in a puff of smoke as a McDonald’s. “Whatever. Can we go now?”
Making a show of checking his chrome watch, a big clunky thing that’s probably waterproof and has a compass built into it, Preston clucks his tongue and shakes his head. “’Fraid not. You’re on the clock until twelve, remember? You just agreed to it.”
I frown. Heavily. “That starts now?”
“Starts now,” Preston confirms. “It’s the first night, so just forget the pictures and get as many people as you can to fill out these cards. Make sure the emails are legible, otherwise the whole process is pointless if we can’t send out our promos and newsletters.
“You mean you won’t be able to spam them?” I offer, having falling victim myself to many similar instances. Emails that I am still deleting to this day from places and companies I’ve never even heard of.
Preston lands me a look. “Run your mouth less and work harder. That’s it. Cards are here.” He picks up a short white stack of 3-by-5 cards and leans over his desk to hand them to Maddie. “You know where the pens are. Grab one each and get busy. Oh, and put them in that tray over there when you’re done, and you can input the details into the database at the start of your next shift.”
It actually turns out to be kinda fun, talking to the customers and coming up with ways to get them to fill in the cards. The discounted beer means there’s a lot of drunk people, and most of the emails and personal details we do get are cake. We laugh at bad jokes, get spit on more than I care to think about, and turn down some of the worst pickup lines ever created. It’s a change of scenery from shuttling trays of chicken from the humid, sweaty kitchen through the jam-packed floor. I’m sure the novelty will wear off, but I’m not complaining just yet. There’s still time for that.
Lisa, one of the bartenders, whistles us over. “Drink?” she asks, but she’s already spraying Diet Coke from the soda pump into a glass with ice and clear liquid. Vodka, probably.
Maddie and I both nod, and Lisa slides the drinks across the bar. We get free cokes after our shifts, so this isn’t unusual. And at the ripe old ages of nineteen, there’s no arguments from us on the vodka kick.
Maddie takes a sip, grimacing after. “Thanks, Lisa. You’re the best.”
“I sure am.” She smiles, dragging a dish cloth over the bar top. “Now get far away from me with those in case Preston brings his bony ass out here looking for a reason to fire me.”
I lower the glass from my mouth, releasing the black straw from my teeth. “Yeah, but then you’d have a reason to beat him up.”
She points a red-lacquered finger at me, her sleek black hair sliding over her shoulder. “Good point.”
We take our drinks to the back of the bar, up the short flight of steps to the half level with the plush booths that overlook the main floor. It’s so busy, Maddie and I stand at the rail, leaning on it as we sip our drinks. Guys approach us when they recognize us from pestering them for their email addresses, but it’s cool.
“Do you think this will be the VIP area?” Maddie turns to me and asks. She pins the end of her straw between her teeth, twirling it through her drink.
I glance around me. “It’s got to be.”
“I wouldn’t mind working VIP.”
“Me either. But it won’t be celebrities or any
thing like that. Just regular humans who prefer their overpriced Budweiser behind a ratty old rope.”
Maddie frowns, her gaze coasting from my face to my shoulder. She steps toward me and picks something out of my hair. She holds it in her fingers between us, and I take it from her, studying the white ball.
“What the heck?” She frowns again, reaching in with one overly grabby hand around my jaw, and she jerks my head to the side. I feel her fingers in my hair, then she says loudly, “Hey. I saw that!”
Instinctively, I reach over my shoulder and grab my hair. There are tiny shoots of paper in it. Tracking Maddie’s line of sight, I turn around, my eyes rising over the tall stack of muscles with dark hair swept back from his face.
I grip a thick strand of hair in my hand, holding it out to show him. “Is this you?”
He shrugs his big shoulders, his white polo shirt straining over his biceps and chest. His smirk, reinforced with confidence, remains in place. Definitely been throwing shit in my hair.
Maddie continues plucking out the balls of paper, moving around to my back as she quietly works, because that’s the type of friend she is.
I end up smiling at the person responsible, but it’s strained with confusion. I’m not sure what’s going on, but my gut’s assuming that was his lame attempt at a joke. Spitball my hair for some Monday night entertainment. It’s high school, but who am I to judge?
“He’s still staring at you,” Maddie leans into me and says, her body half turned to him as she evens her wandering gaze between us.
Pulling my hair over my shoulder, I search for any more paper. Seems Maddie got it all out. “And he probably just heard you say that.”
“He’s really good-looking,” Maddie observes, her blue eyes lifting to my face.
“Yeah?” I resist turning and checking out his attractiveness for myself. I saw enough the first time. “Just watch out for more alien stuff landing on my head.”
She runs her fingers from the roots of my hair at the side of my face to the ends. Now I just think she’s stalling.
Then she stops, her blue eyes widening in some sort of indistinguishable message. “I know who that is.”
“Who is he?”
Maddie pulls on my hair when I go to look over my shoulder.
“Luke Cole. Running back for the football team. Junior, I think. Oh, my God. How did I not realize?” While Maddie talks, her gaze roams frequently from me to him. Maybe she thinks she’s being inconspicuous, glances here and there while she fusses over me, but one look at her, and he’ll know he’s the subject of our conversation.
As carefully as I try to put the name to the face, who this guy is eludes me completely. Why he would toss paper in my hair evades me even more.
I swallow the last of my fish taco, then slam-dunk the balled-up aluminum into the trash can on Duluth’s sidewalk.
We’ve had one team meeting tonight at the hotel, straight off the tail of the Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs 4-2 defeat over us at the Amsoil Arena. There’d be another long as fuck meeting in the morning, before we faceoff in our second of the back-to-back road games against the Bulldogs. I knew it was a stretch—I’m not a moron—but I’d been hoping, against all fucking logic, for a weekend sweep. Now, at best, we win tomorrow and level the scoreboard. Duluth aren’t messing around this season; they proved that tonight.
Like most roadies, I’m bunking with West on this one. Video analysis and our ass-reaming ran on so long, dinner wore off, so we headed out with our second-line right wing, Bobby Breeze, and picked up food downtown from this grill place that makes the best fish tacos I’ve tasted in maybe ever.
“I could go for another one.” Breezy sands his palms together, dusting the sugar off his Under Armour gloves from his cinnamon toast. Greedy bastard had dinner, dinner, and dessert. He’d be cleaning the team bus if Coach Gachet knew he’d packed away so much sodium and fat the night before and right after a game. Kempy’s got nothing on Breezy. If the two of them went head-to-head in an eating contest, I wouldn’t know which one to put my money on. They could eat each other under the table and then under the fucking ground. If they moved in together, they’d need to go grocery shopping every two hours. Lucky for me and West, Kempy scoffs all our food.
“Sweet Jesus.” West’s body moves in time with the two girls walking toward us. He stuffs his hands in the pockets of his black Warrior track pants, turning to walk backward as they pass by us.
One of the girls says, “Good luck tomorrow. We’ll be watching.”
“Yeah, good luck,” the other one says.
I look over my shoulder. The one with the brown hair tumbling down her back from underneath a maroon and yellow wool Bulldogs hat smiles at me. “Especially you.”
I turn around and puff out a breath of laughter that hangs in front of me in an unraveling ball of mist. It must be at least zero degrees tonight.
“Yeah?” West lifts his eyebrows. “Well, especially this. We don’t fraternize with the enemy. So just keep walkin’.”
“You’re so fucking childish,” I say to him.
“We better hurry up and get back to the hotel.” Breezy locks his phone screen and slips it into his jacket pocket. “It’s almost midnight.”
By the start of the second period, we’re down by one goal, curtesy of yours truly taking a bonehead penalty for elbowing. My two minutes were up early when Duluth’s center swung one past our goalie thirty seconds later on the power play, notching the first point onto the board and letting me out of the box to even up the numbers on the ice.
I’m sitting on the bench after a swift line change, Coach in my ear from behind, hands rammed into the pockets of his suit pants as he tells me to get back on the ice and show him why the Islanders took me in the draft when I’m handing out free goals for sly elbows and letting my team and my university down.
He knows damn well why the Islanders drafted me. Same reason he ices me for every puck drop, demanding second and third opinions when the physios tell him I’ll need to be scratched after an injury during a game. I’m just as frustrated as he is—probably more—over how this weekend’s turning out.
“Go,” he hollers, but I’m already off the bench. I hoist myself over the boards for my next shift, racing for the puck dumped into the offensive zone by our fourth-liner, Quinn Fox.
I sprint round the boards, behind the net, and end up in a one-on-one battle to dig out the puck from the corner with number 24, a behemoth Bulldogs defenseman who’s more brute than skill.
He’s bigger than me, taller than me. But I’m quicker on my feet and with my hands—more determined. I eventually hold him off long enough to poke the puck free with my stick, lifting my skate and flicking the puck back to West.
West keeps the puck moving, and I break free from number 24, finding an open lane in front of the crease. Kempy and West start a quick, short cycle, then Kempy fires the puck off his tape to me, his stick low, as the other D-man closes in.
As soon as the puck hits my tape, I fire it through the traffic toward the net, just missing the skate of the bulldogs’ left-wing. It dings off the right post, soars through the narrow opening between the netminder’s glove and his leg pad, burying the back of the net.
I lift a knee and throw up my stick, slamming into Kempy and West as they throw themselves at me. It’s a one-goal tie, the home crowd boos, and we skate to the half boards and tap gloves with the rest of our team.
Our second line hits the ice, and Coach pats me on the shoulder with one hand, smoothing over his black tie with the other. “Nice job out there, son. Patience and control. That’s what I like to see.”
“Snipe! Snipe!” Hudson Remy leans forward from farther down the bench, one padded glove cupped around his mouth as he holds his stick between his knees.
The clock ticks down to the end of the second period, and Coach sends me out for a fly change as the puck makes it out of our zone on the blade of Tidus Wilson’s stick. I’m over the boards as centerman, Carter Cruz, skates u
p and steps through door.
It would be a risky change, since the puck’s only just crossed our blue line, but Coach wouldn’t have called it if he didn’t think I could pull it off.
Wilson looks up, a Bulldogs center on his left and a winger skating backward with his stick out. The winger swipes, coming up short as Wilson protects the puck on his stick. Wilson stretches the ice with a clean-line pass that I pick up right on the tape and carry down ice. I dig in my blades and power forward, skating as hard I can, my hamstrings on fire. I’m on a breakaway, the defensemen behind me, and the only thing between me and my next point is the goaltender.
My instincts as well as adrenaline kicks in.
Baxter skates out of his crease. Changing pace, the desperate rush of skates cutting ice at my back, I slow down. Baxter falters, not moving back into his goal quick enough. My head’s up. All that video analysis wasn’t for nothing, and the glaring chunk of space Baxter’s left me on my right side is what he’s famously known for. I’ll make a move to shoot, he’ll read it, and he’ll block it.
In a burst of speed, I deke left. Pulling Baxter over his line, I shift my weight to my right foot, firing off the snapshot on my backhand. The puck comes off the heel off my blade and goes high, barreling through the air. Baxter leans into it, throws out his pad and leg. But the puck sails defiantly over his left shoulder and roofs the net.
We skate off the ice with two goals to Duluth’s one. When the buzzer sounds the end of the sixty minutes, it’s a 5-3 game—to us.
It might not have turned out a far-fetched weekend sweep, but it wasn’t a total bust, either. Duluth have turned into a fucking nightmare to go up against, the level of play they ice when the team’s healthy up there with the best. Coach isn’t moaning, or setting up extra Sunday practice, so pretty much everyone’s happy.
Everything after the game is a military-style rush to the airport to catch our flight back to Maine. On the plane, somewhere over Ottawa National forest, I pull out my phone and re-read the text messages I didn’t have time to reply to earlier. There are notifications from everywhere. Short, informal congratulations from a bunch of people I don’t even know. There’s always three or four from girls getting overly friendly. I normally just delete those.
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