“Oh, my hormones.” Jasper cried.
“This is a waste of my time.” Tolbert threw his hands up. “Fire and Police will join into one team, show up with a full team or don’t show up at all. Either way, none of you will play for the department as planned.”
With that, the old man walked away, ridged spine and stick firmly still held up his ass. How had I not seen him for the vile snake he was before now?
“So,” Emmie waved her hand, making us all look at her. “Are we going to do this shit or what?”
Goldie giggled, “I like her.”
“No,” Elliot groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. “You can’t play in goal against grown-ass men.”
“Why not?” Emmie gasped, fully offended by his lack of trust in her. “I stop your shots nine out of ten times. And you’re better than any of those old, smelly, donut-fed porkers!”
Tanner scoffed, and Elliot winced at what clearly were his own insults flying out of his daughter’s mouth. “Because your mom would kill him.” I said with a little shrug. “And we both know it.”
“Yeah,” Travis sighed, “She’d probably make us wish we were dead first. We can’t risk it. Sorry, kiddo.” Turning to Elliot, he snapped his fingers, “Maybe we can ask Trace to do it.”
They both played on the beer league team at the rink a few nights a week, and their team was pretty good. Maybe there would be some good use of their teammates for the endeavor.
“Are you shitting me?” Emmie cried out in outrage, hands on her hips as she faced off against the monster of a man she called dad.
“Emmie, the language.” Elliot sighed but it fell on deaf ears. Besides, she no doubt learned it from him.
“Trace the tramp? Over me!” She huffed, “No way. Not happening. You’re going to let me into that goal or I’m going to tell mom all about that time you let me run the ice auger and how I spent the rest of the day we were supposed to be ice fishing in the ER while she was out of town at the building trade show!” Squinting firmly in his direction, she laid out her last threat. “I’lleven show her my scar that I’ve hidden to protect you from her wrath!”
“God damnit,” Travis’s eyes widened as he glanced around to see who might have overheard her tale. “Are you trying to get me gutted, kid?”
“Let her play!” Goldie cheered with a wide smile on her face. “In fact, I’ll double my sponsorship contribution in her name just to watch her kick Tolbert’s ass on that ice.”
The guys went off, all talking at once about logistics and game plans, silently agreeing to let Emmie play almost as if they didn’t openly say the word yes, then they couldn’t be blamed. A tug on my sleeve pulled my attention away from where Tanner tried to take my spot as forward from the new lineup, and I found the brave, bright, and outspoken little girl at my side.
She was wearing an oversized sweater with her dad’s team logo on it, and her slicked-back hair looked as if she’d come straight from hockey practice to my hearing. Over the years, she had spent a fair amount of time at the station with her dad, Elliot, and I’d always admired her spunk. And now, her chin tipped up in that stubborn, thoughtful way she had when she was working something out in her head.
“Can I talk to you,” she asked all seriously.
I crouched down so we were at eye level, “Always.”
She looked at her dads, their heightened awareness palpable as they studied her from the crowd, before turning back to me with the hesitant air of someone about to reveal a secret.
“Everyone always tells me that there’s nothing wrong with me,” she said. “That I can be tough at school and on the ice and still be a girl and stuff.”
Travis folded his arms with a small, proud smile as Elliot leaned against him, as if he’d seen this coming. The rest of the group stopped talking and listened to whatever she was about to say.
Emmie continued. “They say I can be confident, and that I should never shrink myself to fit other people’s expectations of me.” She pulled a folded newspaper clipping from her pocket. It was crinkled and soft from being opened too many times. “I didn’t really get it at first,” she admitted. “Like… I thought they just meant don’t cry when anyone was watching.”
Goldie made a soft noise beside me, and I tried really freaking hard not to melt before the little girl.
Emmie took a deep breath and looked at me with bright, unwavering eyes. “But then I read this.” She opened up the clipping, and my heart stopped beating completely when I saw myself in the black-and-white picture, the story about the fire rescue written out beneath it. “They say you could have left your friend in that fire. But that you stayed, and you carried him out.”
My chest tightened and the urge to tell her I was simply just ‘doing my job’ was at the end of my tongue. The urge to minimize what I did and to lessen myself, to not boast about what I accomplished was so ingrained in me, I almost did it without thinking.
But I didn’t this time.
“They say you’re intense, and loud, and bossy, and that’s why you’re good at your job.” Her nose wrinkled, and Elliot chuckled. “But I think they didn’t mean any of that in a nice way.”
I almost laughed, “No, probably not.”
“But you still did it,” she said with a tilt of her head. “You still stayed.” She took a deep breath, folded the newspaper clipping back up, and put it in her pocket. “So now, when my dads or the other coaches tell me to fight like a girl, I know what that looks like. Before now, I thought my mom was the only badass like that. I thought maybe she was a mutant or something, and that there weren’t more of her out there. More girls like me. But now I have you, too.”