A/N: You ever have one of those ideas that just won't go away despite you trying to ignore it for actual reasonable story ideas? Yeah, this is one of those. Welcome back to Heather's Crack Fic Emporium, where I shall write bananas plots without shame. One minute I'm salivating over Ayres' miraculous saves for the 'Canes, and the next minute, words are happening. I expect this to be a medium-sized fic, maybe ten chapters? Reviewers, do ya thing, let me know if that is actually a desirable outcome.
After nearly two months of working full-time for the family business, I had already compiled a substantial list of Reasons Why Hiring Your Relatives Is an Even Worse Idea Than It Is Stupid, and I was pretty sure that my big sister's list was growing as rapidly as my own.
Paige was better at pretending she wanted me on staff than I was at pretending I wanted to actually be there, though, and her schemes to keep me on the payroll alternated between naming me Employee of the Month (every month) and incessantly plastering pictures of me being moderately successful at my job onto the rink's Facebook page. You know, so I'd feel more involved, or whatever. Personally, I just thought that she was in desperate need of someone to run the military operation she'd tried - and failed - to put into place at our parents' rundown ice rink. Nobody took her seriously.
Lauren, for example, was prone to ribbing my big sister for wearing a 1980s powersuit to work every day. She also stuck up notices on the staff board that mostly consisted of catty memes about bosses and candids of Mark Zuckerburg, often with Paige's face superimposed.
Reason #6 Why Hiring Your Relatives Is an Even Worse Idea Than It Is Stupid: They expect extra freedoms (like me, for example, refusing to do anything other than manning the concessions stand and driving the Zamboni).
Reason #7: You have no bargaining chips, and Lauren only laughed at Paige every time she was threatened with a disciplinary because she knew that Paige had no leverage over someone who had practically been raised as a surrogate Stanley.
Which is why I had absolutely no qualms about regularly reminding Lauren Mallory that her fiance was my most loyal customer; I had so much dirt on her, more than even I wanted to know - Tyler didn't understand the term oversharing - and she would probably have to emigrate once everyone found out exactly what she liked to do in the bedroom.
That usually shut her up for a few hours.
"Les Mis," was all I had to say, but, then again, I had never been known as someone to quit while they were ahead. "Marie Antoinette. Revolutionaries—"
"Alright, alright!"
Her cheeks pink, Lauren threw her perfectly manicured hands up and stalked off into the kitchen. I could see Angela grinning over her food prep as the double doors swung wide, who was only just within earshot and the only other person in this godforsaken place who was privy to her colleague's very particular kinks.
"I want that stock audit!" I yelled at Lauren's back. She stuck two fingers up in the air in response, but I knew she'd get it done - maybe not before the game started, but at least by the time doors closed - or else the world and its mother would know exactly how Lauren Mallory got her rocks off.
Reason #8: You have far too much blackmail on them, and far too much motivation to use it.
Truth be told, I'd much rather be working elsewhere - hell, anywhere that put distance between me and my family - but between indecision and apathy, I'd ended up returning to the rink for my fourth consecutive year. Twenty-two wasn't that old in the grand scheme of things, but I'd always imagined adulthood to be a little more sophisticated, a little less sharpening skates until midnight. Paige had grown to expect my yearly resignation letter that arrived on her desk within three weeks of my birthday, give or take, and I'd accepted that the only way I would leave the rink would be in a discount coffin from Walmart.
C'est la vie.
"Stanley! Shutters up in five," Angela bellowed, startling me into alertness.
I'd counted the same cash drawer three times over, and still, I couldn't recall the total. I shook my head restlessly, flicking through the paper notes in rapid succession. My till always had the widest margin, and it probably had something to do with my failing Algebra II twice. Paige turned a blind eye to my innumeracy, and I pretended to give a shit about customer service.
It was a mutually beneficial arrangement.
As the shutters rolled up, making way for a steady stream of people in various states of winter dress, I leant back against the railing, wondering when I had become destined to shill over-salted popcorn at beer league hockey games. Not that I had anything against popcorn - my blood pressure had never been better since working full-time in concessions - or even hockey, for that matter. Dad had me on the ice the moment my tiny feet could fit in the skates, and the rest was history, as they say (If history meant being vaguely talented at ripping gnarly loops on the bumpy ice after close, strictly for quality assurance purposes).
"Hey, you open?" a man grumbled, spilling a handful of sweaty change onto the sticky counter.
"Huh? Oh, yeah," I said, ducking to grab a bucket. "Just one?"
"Does it look like there's anyone else?"
"Not with an attitude like that," I muttered, making sure to scrape the scoop along the congealed salt at the bottom of the vat.
"Excuse me?" he sputtered, his face rapidly glowing purple.
"Gratitude for the hat," I said smoothly, gesturing vaguely at his branded baseball cap, likely purchased for an exorbitant fee from the ticket counter. "Three-fifty, please."
He pushed his change towards me with a suspicious expression, taking his popcorn from my outstretched hand without another word.
I liked making the customers sweat. It made the time go faster.
Truth be told, I could quite happily while away the hours with nothing more than a vanilla coke and a family-sized bag of peanut M&Ms to keep me company. Once the game started, I could easily go fifteen, maybe twenty minutes without being disturbed, and even then, scooping popcorn was hardly a hassle. Most of the time, I'd plug my headphones into some shitty indie music mix and tune out, seeing how many times I could spin on my bar stool before I lost my balance or my stomach contents or both. If I ever felt so inclined, I could stand on my stool and peer over the barrier to watch the game, but I hardly did that these days. Hockey, like everything else in my life, had become pedestrian.
The stupid mall-cop style earpiece I wore religiously buzzed shrilly, jolting me back to reality. We normally only used it to coordinate bathroom breaks (boring), food shortages (how did we always run out of guac?), and fistfights in the bleachers. Personally, I held out hope for news of a brawl every time the receiver crackled.
"Jess," Paige said, pausing momentarily. "Can you hear me?"
"According to section twelve of the employee code, all staff are required to wear a headpiece, so I'm going to say a tentative yes," I said snarkily, tossing a yellow M&M up into the air.
I missed it, and it rolled somewhere under the counter. Gross.
"The Outlaws just lost their goalie to a collision," she said breathlessly.
"Okay? Thanks for the update, I guess." I threw another M&M up high, tipping my head back to try and catch it.
Paige fell silent for a moment, and the candy hurtled closer to my waiting mouth, like a spaceship coming in for landing.
"You're the emergency goalie. Come down and suit up."
If I had to be precise, I'd say the red M&M made it approximately two inches down my throat before I keeled over, coughing desperately until the wretched thing flew out. Double gross.
"Emergency goalie?" I rasped, clipping my keys onto my belt as I locked the register. "Since when?"
"Since you signed the paperwork in draft week," Paige said quietly, almost guiltily. "I didn't think they'd actually need someone on the ice -"
"For God's sake," I groaned, taking the stairs two at a time. "Say a fuckin' prayer for whoever's minding the net."
"Language!" Lauren chirped, sounding a touch too pleased for my liking.
I vowed to spit in her nachos after the game.
"Just get changed, Jess. What are the chances you're actually going to get called?"
And maybe his fate was jinxed, or the universe had a real sick sense of irony, that the poor bastard sporting the trapper took a crosscheck hard enough to crack a rib just fifteen minutes into his shift, leaving me - the hapless stand-in - as the only remaining goaltender in the Outlaws' pathetic line-up. I had hardly pulled on the musty gear when the call came cracking through the changeroom PA, issuing a summons for one Jessica Stanley to enter the rink for the tail-end of the third period and, in that moment, I said a loving goodbye to my perfect set of teeth.
"Just get on the ice, Stanley," the coach barked, bustling me towards the gate. "Bunker down and take the hits. Ten minutes, that's all we need."
Before I could even think of a way to delay the inevitable, two hands pressed squarely against my back were nudging me onto the ice, and it was far too late. There was no option but to awkwardly skate my way into the crease, keeping my head low to avoid the bemused stares of the actual skaters. It was no Stanley Cup (irony gladly noted, thank you very much), but I could still sense the presence of the crowd, the watchful gaze of the spectators tracking my lumbering procession across the ice. With my stick firmly in hand, I settled uncomfortably in front of the goal, praying - something I rarely did, if ever - for the universe to grant me ten minutes of peace.
The referee blew his whistle, and all at once, ten burly men were descending upon the puck, battling furiously for control. They jostled and pushed, violently colliding in rapid succession in an attempt to make ground. From my vantage point, I could hardly pick head from tail in the scrum, let alone track the movement of the puck - a strong start to my goaltending career, that was for sure.
I glanced at the clock. Nine minutes, fifteen seconds.
I could do this.
The roar of the crowd - all fifty of them, probably - made perspiration begin to bead on my forehead, mercifully concealed by the clunky helmet I wore. The thing had been collecting dust in the staff locker room for months, if not years, on end, and I was sure it would get properly broken in tonight. I was mentally debating the merits of cancelling the remainder of the beer league games when the play suddenly changed direction, twisting my stomach into knots that could rival a New York pretzel. The opposition's offense was good, I realised belatedly, as the hulking winger rapidly weaved through the fray to approach the crease, nimbly manoeuvring his stick to propel an absolutely lethal slap shot directly into my left tit.
I doubled over, wincing as the force of the strike radiated through my flesh like an explosion.
The whistle blew moments later, and it was only then that I realised I had saved the shot, trapping the puck between my boob and forearm.
Skaters, presumably from the team I was playing for, clapped me on the back, hooting words of encouragement that I could hardly parse through the ringing in my ears. All too soon, play was resuming, and I was left to nurse a throbbing chest and a startled constitution.
Seven minutes, forty-one seconds.
The shots came quicker after the first, and I soon came to realise how exactly the previous two goaltenders had been put asunder. Sure, I was suited up with all the pads and protectors I could find with two-minutes notice, but it did nothing to stop the sting of the puck slamming against my body again and again, surely bruising my flesh to a dazzling blue hue.
I chanced a glance at the clock when the play eventually reset, my team having finally scored a goal, and I willed with every fibre of my being that the final two and a half minutes would fly by without further bodily harm. The probability of that actually happening was slim to none, but I could dream - and wish for a lifetime's supply of ice packs, which I was sure to comandeer the moment the final buzzer sounded.
As the play raged on in the offensive zone, I squatted low on my skates, relishing the familiar burn in my hamstrings, the fiery heat in my calves. I focused on the movement of my breath, the way the air soothed my aching lungs, resolving that I'd get on the ice more often -
And then the puck hit me squarely on the forehead, pinballing back towards the centre line with tremendous force.
"Fuck my life," I groaned, falling back onto my ass. I could feel the slickness of the ice seeping through my padded pants but, in that moment, nothing could distract me from what was sure to be a puck-sized hole in my cranium.
Thankfully, as if the universe was finally attuned to my pain and suffering, the buzzer echoed shrilly across the rink, signalling the end of my torment. Unfortunately, it also triggered a mob of sweaty, unfamiliar men to hoist me up off my haunches, encircling me in a hug far too familiar for the context. My skin ached, my sweaty forehead itched something fierce, and I undoubtedly had perfect circle indents across my entire coronal plane. The moment my patience evaporated - approximately five seconds, give or take - I wiggled myself free, ripping off my sticky helmet. I didn't need a mirror to know my braid more closely resembled a haystack, and the tell-tale sting of my flesh hinted at a beautiful display of fire-engine red skin.
Reluctantly, I allowed one of the skaters to corral me into the line of handshaking players, resolving to dip out the very moment I reached the end of the queue. Every ounce of energy that remained in my aching body was devoted to propelling my tired feet forwards at an incremental pace; I hardly looked at the opposition, and I doubt they looked at me. The only thing I could think about was keeping my fatigued husk upright, and even that was a mission far beyond my calibre. Finally, I reached the end of the line, extending my gloveless hand for one last shake with the merciless winger -
And then he spoke, and the world tilted on its axis.
"Stanley?" he murmured, his deep voice a mixture of confusion and wonder, a voice so smooth that practically begged for me to look up at him.
I didn't recognise him, but something about his wide-eyed expression made me think he knew me, somehow - perhaps the monthly employee of the month Facebook post? - and the way he gripped my hand almost reverently made me want to know him.
It didn't matter that I had to crane my neck almost one-hundred and twenty degrees to look at him, or that he had beaten my body senseless with the puck - actually, that part did matter.
"You hit me in the boob," I complained, shifting uncomfortably on my skates. "Nobody told me I needed chainmail."
His chocolate brown eyes widened, looking more contrite than a Catholic at Sunday Mass, and I resolved then and there that I would forever nominate myself for emergency goalie if this was the result. A stunningly attractive behemoth with all of the power of Gretzky, cupping my hand between his two hulking paws as if I were something breakable.
Score.
Before he could open that delectable mouth once more, one of his teammates was coasting up behind him, clapping a firm hand on his shoulder. "Seth, c'mon, let's go -"
And then he stopped, blades digging into the ice, his gaze rapidly flicking between me and Seth.
"Oh, shit."
A/N: More to come. You can expedite the process by dropping me a line in that tasty little review box. Shoutout to Riveriver for generously allowing me to cannibalise the opening scene of a long-forgotten draft.