Chapter 58 – No worries. I just won’t be able to nurse my future children from that side.

Sasha’s POV



“What the hell happened to you guys?” Boyd Gordon asked.

We were changing before heading out to the ice for practice.

“Paint ball yesterday,” I answered.

“They lost,” Brooks said pointing at the guys that had pockmark bruising. All of us had quarter size bruises peppering our arms, legs, and chests.

Brooks and Neuvy laughed and flexed their arms, telling everyone about how they’d kicked our asses. Everyone got a kick out of it, especially the part where we were beaten by girls. When we took to the ice I saw Nef, Jesse, and Jackie sitting in the stands wearing camo print t-shirts with Paintball champs written across the front. They stood up and started flexing the same way Brooks and Neuvy had done in the locker room. I fired a puck at the glass in front of them before starting my warm up and stretching. Brooks skated over to the girls and saluted before starting his own warm up routine.

Practice was hard. Bruce worked us from one side of the ice to the other. We worked on defensive play, the power play, the penalty kill, and the shoot-out.

“Good jobs, boys. We had a good, hard practice today,” He praised. “Finish it out mountain.”

There was a collective groan from all of us. The mountain was pretty much wind sprints or suicides or whatever you wanted to call them. We had to skate from one side of the rink to the neutral ice and back. Then skate from one side of the ice to the opposite side of neutral ice before skating to the far side of the rink and back. They were painful and left you gasping for breath. Everyone hated them. After the sprints some guys stayed on the ice while some went to shower and others went for their one on ones. I had my one on one this morning so I stayed on the ice practicing stick handling.

When practices are open there are always fans that come out to watch and for autographs. I signed a few before motioning for Nef to come down toward the bench. Since practice was over I thought it would be a good idea for her and the girls to sit on an open bench.

“Hey Brooksie!” She said. “Baby face! Come here. I have a present for you! “

She had more camo print paintball champs t-shirts for them.

“We got them made this morning.”

“Cool!” Brooks said taking the shirt from her.

“I thought you at library this morning,” I interrupted.

“Library…t-shirt shop…it’s all the same,” she said smiling.

I glared at her. A library and a t-shirt shop are not the same.

“I studied! Promise!” she said.

I took her word for it. She had left this morning long before I did and I can’t imagine getting screen printed t-shirts taking that long.

“He’s just grumpy because he lost,” Neuvy said.

I kissed Nef on the cheek and said “Whatever” before skating away. I still had a few more things to work on before showering. I took Neuvy with me because I actually needed a goalie to shoot at. Nef and the girls decided to stay on the bench rather than go back to the stands. Brooksie was leaning against the wall talking to them.

I’d been working with Neuvy for about 10 minutes before one of my shots hit the cross bar. I had been working on my one timer. It was a shot that I didn’t take too often. I saw the shot hit the post and ricocheted out and I heard it bing off of a metal tie in the boards but I didn’t follow it until I heard a scream. I turned around and I saw people rushing toward Nef. She was hunched over holding the left side of her chest.

“Nef!” I shouted before dropping my stick and gloves, rushing over to her.

“Oh my God, that hurt. A lot,” she said. Her eyes were glassy and she looked like she was trying not to cry.

“I sorry.” I grabbed her to pull her to me. I wanted to make sure she was okay but when she gasped in pain I immediately let go.

Smitty, the head athletic trainer, came over and took her in the back to make sure she was okay. She wasn’t hit in the head but we didn’t want to take any chances. I sprinted to the back to strip off my gear and follow her. When I made it back there she was sitting in a table with her top off and one of the trainers was manipulating her shoulder.

“It looks like you took most of the impact in your chest to the left of the...ah the nipple. You might want to get an x-ray to be sure and definitely get an MRI to make sure there’s no soft tissue damage in your…um…bust,” Smitty said.

“Thanks,” she giggled. I’m glad she was well enough to laugh.

I could see her skin starting to discolor. She was going to have a nasty bruise.

“I sorry,” I said.

“It’s okay. I’m fine.” She pulled me into a hug with her right arm and kissed my forehead. “No worries. I just won’t be able to nurse my future children from that side.”

Smitty smirked. He grabbed an ice bag and taped it to her side, under her arm and against her boob. I grabbed one of my under armor shirts for her to wear because she wouldn’t be able to get her shirt over the wrap. She sat in my stall while I showered and dressed.

“You doing alright?” I heard Brooksie ask. He had brought Jessie and Jackie back to find Nef.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Nothing broken, just a bruised boob.” Brooksie handed her the puck that had hit her.

“That was a one in a million shot,” Jackie said.

“I don’t think he could pull that off again if he tried.” Nef.

“Let not try again,” I told her as I walked toward them after finally dressing.



Nef’s POV


Have you ever been hit by a hockey puck? How about hit in the boob by a hockey puck? How about hit in the boob by a hockey puck shot by your boyfriend? It sucks. It hurts like hell; moving to put a shirt on hurt; hell, even breathing hurt.
Sasha and I were leaving the hospital after I went to get an MRI. There was no permanent tissue damage, just a really ugly bruise that would fade in a couple of weeks. The trip to the doctor’s office was actually really funny for me.

“So young lady, what seems to be the problem?” the doctor asked as he unwrapped the ice pack.

“I was hit in the chest with a hockey puck and I’m just here to make sure nothing is damaged.”

I had an x-ray to make sure that nothing was broken and the doctor had me change into a paper hospital gown so that I could have the MRI done. My skin had already started to turn a splotchy kind of purple. The bruise was darkest where the puck actually hit me. I noticed that there were a couple of bruises on my legs and back from paintball yesterday. When the nurse took me for the MRI She told me to stay put and that we would be back shortly.

“You know sweetie,” the nurse said, “if someone is hurting you, you can tell me.”

“Huh?”

“If someone is hurting you, we can help you.”

“You think someone is abusing me?”

I told the nurse that no one was abusing me and that this was the result of a freak accident, not because Sasha was using me as target practice. After the MRI I was led back to the room were Sasha was waiting for me. When we walked in he was on the phone.

“What they say?” he asked once he was off the phone.

“Nothing, we have to wait for the doctor.”

It was a 10 or 15 minute wait for the doctor so I told Sasha about the nurse. I thought it was funny but Sasha didn’t find it amusing at all.

“She think I beat you?”

I told him that I explained to her what happened at practice and that should have been the end of it. It wasn’t. When the doctor came back with the results he said that everything was fine. There was no tissue or bone damage. As I hoped up to get my clothes he said that he wanted to talk about the bruising that I had elsewhere on my body.

“As I told the nurse, this was from practice today. He was practicing and a shot ricocheted off the post and the wall and hit me. We probably shouldn’t have been hanging out at the bench but no one thought that this could or would happen. The others are from paintball yesterday. We went to Pev’s paintball and played guys verse the girls.”

“And your team lost?” the doctor probed.

“No, we won. I have a couple of bruises because we played on their larger outdoor field. His are worse; his team lost and they got the firing squad,” I said laughing. “That’s why I have a shirt that says Paintball Champ I’m not afraid of getting a little bruised and dirty to win.”

Sasha lifted his shirt and showed the doctor the small circular bruises that peppered his chest, back, and arms. Come to think of it both of us did look like we’d had the crap beaten out of us.

“Thank you for the information. We take domestic violence very seriously.”