MY HOCKEY ALPHA MATE

Into the storm...

~Adeline~

"The pay is really decent too," Lily added, like she thought I was hesitating over money.

I nodded and swallowed hard against the lump that had formed in my throat. She took my arm and led me toward the staff wing where Coach Roman’s office was.

The school really was huge and fancy, every hallway polished and in perfect order, like nothing bad had ever happened anywhere within these walls.

We waited nearly an hour before he finally came back from practice, and when he walked in he looked exactly like you’d expect a top-tier hockey coach to look…broad and solid, tall enough that he had to duck a little to get through the door, hair cut short and neat, still glistening a little with sweat.

He stopped in the doorway and sniffed. Once. Twice.

Then he crossed his arms over his chest and looked me up and down like he was sizing up a new player.

"You're the new human?” he asked, voice flat.

Lily jumped in to explain who I was and why we were there.

"Are you sure you can handle a locker room full of rowdy hockey players?" He asked, and I heard the doubt in it. Like he already had his answer.

I nodded, still unable to form a reply to that question.

What's important is that I need the job.

"Here," he said, sliding a sheet of paper across his desk toward me.

"Job description and pay rate are all written out there. Study it over and let me know if you’ve got questions, because if you screw this up…you’re fired. If you’re in, send over your payment info when you start."

"Thank you so much, Coach!" I said, grabbing the paper like it was gold.

"Just do the job right and we’ll get along fine," he said, waving us out.

"Thanks, Lily," I said once we were back out in the hallway.

"Told you it’d be easy," she grinned. "Coach and my dad go way back. He’s practically family."

I nodded, but I was already thinking about what came next.

"Now we just have to find that second job," I said.

"Hop in," she answered, gesturing toward her car parked out front. I climbed in beside her and we pulled out of the school lot, turning onto a road that led away from the Harris house and into parts of town I hadn’t seen yet.

I sat forward in my seat, trying to calm the jittery feeling in my gut. I had one job already and that was huge, but I knew I had to push past every fear and anxiety if I wanted to make it here on my own. If I couldn’t handle the sound of hockey games, how was I ever going to survive everything else waiting for me?

Lily rambled on the whole drive about how Coach Roman and her dad had been best friends since they were kids and how he’d taught her brother and his son everything they knew about hockey.

It really did feel like everyone here knew everyone else somehow, like the whole town was woven together with something, something connecting them that I couldn’t see yet. Josie had mentioned once that her dad and Lily’s dad were close friends too, and now even the coach was part of the clique.

We stopped at two places first…a nice little café and then a bakery with a big Help Wanted sign taped right to the front door…but both times the people working there looked me over from head to toe. Sniffed. Then gave me these tight smiles saying they didn’t have anything open after all.

The first time I told myself maybe they really had just filled the spot before we got there.

By the second time I knew better. It was the way they looked at me… it said it all…I was new, I was different somehow, and I didn’t belong here…

"Don’t take it personal," Lily said, reaching over to pat my arm in the car.

"It’s just that everyone here knows everyone else and it takes a minute to warm up to strangers. They’ll come around."

"Yeah, I get it," I said, though I really didn’t. What was so wrong with being new?

"We just passed the town border," Lily said suddenly, glancing into her mirror and sitting up straighter.

"Shit."

"Everything okay?" I asked, noticing the way her hands tightened on the steering wheel.

"Yeah, yeah, it’s fine," she said, though her voice was a little too fast.

"I just need to let my parents or my brothers know we crossed over into the border… they like to keep track of where I am." She pulled over to the side of the road and reached for her phone, but before she could unlock it the sky turned dark all of a sudden.

Thunder rumbled low above us, within seconds rain started pouring down so hard it blurred the whole world outside the windows…

"Are you kidding me?" Lily groaned, dropping her phone back into her bag. "It was bright an hour ago!"

"It was pouring this morning too," I said, watching the rain beat hard on the glass.

"s**t! this means trouble." She muttered, leaning forward to squint through the windshield…