I’ve played on the Junior Olympics team since I was six, which is unreal, since you have to be asked to play for the team, and to be asked to play at six is huge. I’ve also been named MVP of the USA team every year since I was six. I’ve scored over five thousand times. My time on the ice exceeds even that of seasoned players. I was playing on an advanced teen level when I was eleven. Soon I was so good that my dad had to switch me to play on a boys’ travel team because I was murdering in the female league, and he wanted me to get better. Every team I play for, I excel on, and I never ever give up. I work my ass off because I love being the best. Because of that, my father and my agent feel I have a one-way ticket into the NHL.

It’s a long shot, but I will make it.

I will be the first woman in the NHL.

I will make my daddy proud.

When his hazel eyes meet mine, he nods. “Good.”

“Good?” I scoff before pointing to the course he’s made me. “I killed that.”

He nods, a grin pulling at his lips. “You didn’t put all the force in your shot. I know you can hit it harder.”

“I wanted accuracy, though. I wanted top shelf. I know I can shoot harder, and I would have if I had no opening, just for the mere hope that it would make its way in. But for this exercise, I felt I needed to have accuracy.”

He nods again, and while he holds my gaze, my heart is pounding in my chest. I know I am right, but does he think so? “Yeah, I know. I’m just busting your chops. Good work, Bay.”

I smile at my nickname. No one is allowed to call me that but him. People have tried and I’ve shut them down. It means more when it comes from him because he only calls me that when he is really proud. Elated, I unbuckle my cage and push it up so I can see him a bit better. “Thanks, Dad.”

He sends me a grin before standing up and stretching his arms above his head. I rock back and forth in my skates, the silence stretching between us as I figure out how I’m gonna ask. With being the best, I don’t have much downtime. My dad is making a winner, as he says. I have to train, and I have to train a lot to be able to exceed the talents of the guys that I go against. I have to have a quick shot, I have to be fast, and most of all, I have to be able to take the hits that come my way. And I can do all that, but man, I need a few days off.

Just a few.

Turning his back to me, he reaches for his clipboard and his phone and then asks, “When are you gonna ask me about Florida?”

I look up quickly and he sends me a grin before reaching for his stool. Stunned, I suck in a deep breath. “You know about that?”

He scoffs as he looks over his shoulder at me. “Baylor, I know all.”

This time I’m the one scoffing at him. “Please.”

He laughs. “I heard the girls the other day telling you to ask me. You know you can. You’re twenty, Baylor. You are an adult.”

He’s right, but still. I respect him way too much to just run off. “I know, but I want you to approve of it.”

“You want me to say no so you’ll have to keep working. I know you’re nervous about this year.”

I shrug, hating how well he knows me. This year is gonna be hard. I have scouts from NHL teams all over the States coming to check me out. To see if I’m worth the chance. My agent, and even my dad, stresses that I need to work hard every day, and I know they are right. I also know I am worth the chance, and I know I need to work for it. But at the same time, I need to breathe. As much as I hate to admit it, I feel like hockey is suffocating me, and that scares me.

“Maybe,” I answer with a shrug. “But I also need a break.”

“I agree,” he says, meeting my gaze. “Go, Baylor. Have fun. You’re not a dumb girl, I know you’ll take care of yourself and work hard when you girls aren’t having fun.”

I look down, the ice crunching underneath my skates as I suck in a deep breath. “I’ll work out every morning.”

“Good.”

“And I won’t drink that much.”

He scoffs, and with a wink, he says, “I will while you’re gone.”

I look up at him and smile. He doesn’t end a day without a beer; been doing that since I could remember. “Not too much, Dad.”

“Never, but I gotta keep myself busy.”

I nod as I let my stick hang loosely in my hand. “Okay.”

“Good,” he says with a grin, and then he points at me. “Now remember, safe sex, please.”

“Jesus!” I cry out as I skate toward him to go off the ice. “Not what I need you to say.”

He laughs. “I’m not stupid. I know what girls your age do.”

“Not this girl. I have more important things to worry about than boys.”

He shrugs. “While that does make me happy, I am worried that I might have turned you into a boy.”

I laugh as I step onto the rubber rug. It’s an ongoing joke that I was actually supposed to be a boy but my dick fell off in the womb. Maybe that’s why my mom left? My dick fell off and it choked her.

Wow, that was a bit bitter.

Ignoring that, I smile over at my dad. “Don’t worry, Dad, you’ll have grandkids one day, just not anytime soon. Gotta win a Stanley Cup.”

“Amen to that,” he says, wrapping an arm around me and kissing my temple.

My dad knows what’s it’s like to hoist that cup up and over his head. I was only three months old in the picture of my dad as he held me in one arm and the cup in the other. He played for the Bruins for six seasons, but then he got my mom pregnant. He was in the middle of the playoffs when my mom went into labor with me, and she left the next day. He tried to have my grandma watch me so he could keep playing, but he always told me it was too hard. He worried about me too much, so he retired after he won. Gave it all up.

Mind-blowing, right?

That kind of love really resides in a person, at least it has with me. But sometimes, I feel like I cheated him out of his hockey career, and that’s probably why I work so hard. I want him to know that he gave it all up for a good reason.

On my skates, I’m as tall as he is at six two, and as I look into his eyes, I can see he is a bit nervous. I don’t leave. I never have. I stay home or he goes with me wherever I have to go. He’s always coached me, always been there for me, and he loves me. I know that. And I love him. More than anything.