Playing to Win

Finally, she found it, what she’d been looking for. “Hockey isn’t your passion.” A statement.

I shook my head. “No.” Notes began to form in my mind, a pattern I wanted to explore. My fingers moved, creating the sound in my head.

Jordan watched, mesmerized for a moment before she snapped out of it. “But you like it? Hockey?”

I shrugged. “I don’t hate it.” I just didn’t love it enough. I had to push myself, motivated only by my music. “My dad wants me to play.”

Jordan frowned.

And I had a feeling I knew exactly what went through her head. In all probability, I’d start in our first game. And she’d play off the bench. She’d have playing time, lots of it, but my size and strength paired with my knowledge of the game surpassed her combined abilities.

I would take her spot and I didn’t even want to play. I saw it the moment it dawned on her.

She jumped up.

I scrambled to my feet. “Jordan, wait!”

She’d made it almost to her back door before I caught up to her.

“Look, I’m sorry!”

She whirled around to face me, her expression murderous. “You’re better than me. Fine. That’s my problem not yours. I’m not afraid to work. But you don’t even want it?”

What could I say? She was right.

“You don’t make it to this level for fun, Asher. Everyone on that team is there because they want it.”

I heard what she said. She wanted it. To go on and play at the highest level she could achieve.

“You don’t understand.” I would quit the team right that very minute if I could. My dad assumed I’d change my mind. He thought I’d get a taste of winning and I’d develop a competitive streak. Nothing I said would change his mind. I’d just have to prove him wrong. Until then, as he loved to remind me, I lived under his roof, drove his car, ate his food. And for all that, I had to keep playing hockey.

Even if it meant robbing Jordan of her dream.

When I graduated high school, everything would be different. I wouldn’t be under his thumb, wouldn’t have to live by his rules.

“You’re right. I don’t understand. You don’t get to this level of play without expectations, Asher. It’s not just me. It’s everyone on the team. We all have the dream to play professional hockey.”

What she didn’t say- my being on the team took that shot away from someone else who wanted it. Someone like her, even though she was already on the team.

“It’s more complicated than that. My dad-” I broke off. She didn’t need to know all my secrets. “It’s just…complicated.”

Jordan shook her head. “Seems simple to me.”

She wasn’t being fair. “You don’t know everything.”

“You’re right. I definitely don’t know you.” And then she walked away.

Damn it!

Brimming with frustration, I turned away from her. It was easy for her to judge! She’d been doing nothing but sorting me into boxes since we met. Stalking up to the house, I whipped the back door open, then slammed it shut once I made it inside.

“Asher!” Shari looked up, her eyes wide. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” I answered, heading for the stairs.

“Who was that girl you were talking to?” she called.

“Nobody!” I shouted over my shoulder.

Nobody.

The biggest lie of them all.

In two weeks time, I’d fallen into the deepest crush I’d ever experienced in my life for a girl who hated my guts.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Jordan

For the next week, I avoided Asher as much as possible. I didn’t open my window, didn’t listen to him practice his music, and more than anything else, I didn’t search for him in the halls at school.

Okay. Maybe I did. But only because I couldn’t help myself. Something about him drew me against my will. It could have been those pictures of him with his little brother. Or maybe his good looks. Or even the depth of feeling in his song lyrics. Whatever it was, I wanted to ignore it. I wanted to push it away, push him away.

Worst of all, I’d come to the conclusion I had no right to be angry with him. He’d made the team, same as me. I couldn’t blame him for being a better player. My failures were just that, my own. Realizing my anger came from my own pride made me angry…at myself.