7. Royal

seven

"What's your problem, Royal?"

Fin and Coulter follow me into my bedroom. The party raging on downstairs is long forgotten.

"She's part of our team now." Fin grabs my arm, demanding my full attention.

"Don't you think I know that? It doesn't matter how good she is. We're going to be the laughingstock of the college hockey league. No one is going to take us seriously with a girl on our team. We're going to spend more time fighting our opponents than actually playing hockey this year." I shake my arm out of his grasp.

"It won't be that bad," Coulter interjects, taking a seat at my desk.

I spin around to face him. "Not that bad? Are you forgetting two years ago when Carter came out? We spent most of the season in the penalty box. And don't forget last year"s distraction. You and Fin lived in the penalty box. If you think teams like Bayside or Clarkston aren't going to ride us for having a girl on our team, you're both delusional."

Both Bayside and Clarkston are known for their dirty players, who are willing to stop at nothing to expose their opponent"s weaknesses. Hell, I've barely been around Teagan, and I know I'll be fighting for her. I can see it on Coulter's and Fin's faces, too.

She's our teammate, but she's also something more. She didn't deserve my anger again today when I found out she was the diva in the mirrored visor, but I couldn"t stop myself. She's a liability no matter how good she is.

"It will be okay as long as we can all keep our dicks in our pants." I find myself admitting out loud. She's all I've thought about since the night of the party, with her long blonde hair, tight body, and sensual brown eyes, which are actually a shade of violet I've never seen before now that she's not wearing her contacts.

But she is still a distraction, one we can't afford.

"What do you mean by that?" Coulter frowns, but his eyes shift around the room like a cornered animal searching for an escape.

"He's right." Fin sighs, "I didn't want to say anything since she's our teammate and all now, but I saw her at our party the night before tryouts. She was with a brown-haired girl with glasses. I might have jokingly asked Teagan for her panties."

"You what?" Coulter leans forward in his chair, a snarl on his face.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, not one of my finer moments, but there's just something about Teagan. She's like no other girl I've ever met." Fin's right. Teagan isn't like any other girl I've ever met, either.

"I saw her at the party too," Coulter admits, relaxing back in his chair, his gaze sliding toward the poster on my wall, the poster I think every one of my teammates has in their room.

I take a closer look at the poster of the little girl sitting on her father's shoulders, kissing the Stanley Cup Trophy, "Shit, that's her, isn't it?"

"Yup, Royal, that's Teagan when she was younger, celebrating her father's first Stanley Cup win."

The room goes silent. Teagan's father is a hero to all of us who want to be a pro hockey player. His legacy is what our dreams are made of. We can't risk losing sight of our goal by jeopardizing our team dynamics.

"I had a run-in with Teagan at the party, too." I think back to that night, replaying our interaction, deciding if the attraction was only one-sided or if she felt it, too. But it doesn't matter. Our goal is to win the Championship, and we can't do that if we are all lusting after our teammate. "She's a fierce competitor and a damn good hockey player. We are going to need her to win the Championship, so she is off-limits for anything more than a teammate. Are we all in agreement?"

Fin and Coulter nod.

"Good. Now if you assholes will get out of my room, I have some stuff I need to do." I don't add that what I want to do is jack off thinking about fucking our teammate.