Lila’s hair is curled into full corkscrews, and she’s donned a clean, natural makeup look. Her pink bodycon dress hugs her poised and elegant body, revealing tan, long legs. The neckline is low—a Lila Perkins special—and it accentuates every curve of her perky cleavage. Lila dresses up for every occasion. Nothing is ever plain and simple with her. She doesn’t mind the stares or the scandalized whispers. She’s confident in her body, and she doesn’t like to be relegated to stupid, sexist clothing etiquette.
I pick at the grime hugged to the underside of my fingernail. “Do you think I should text him again?”
“How about we forget about dumb boys and try to have fun tonight?” she proposes, yanking my arms and pulling me from my sulking.
Lila starts her parade of apologies as she ducks down in front of a row of people, snacks spilling out from the cradle of her arms.
“So that’s why it took you ten minutes to come back,” I snicker, snatching a kernel of popcorn from her and popping it in my mouth.
She rolls her eyes, ripping open a packet of Skittles and dumping at least half of it down her gullet. I don’t know how she doesn’t chew them one by one. I don’t even know if she tastes them. “Food is the best part of any sports game. Aside from the hot players.”
I stare down at the empty rink, crinkling my nose. “Eh, hockey players aren’t really my type.”
“Really?” she exclaims through a mouthful of food. “Have you seen their butts?”
Have I seen their butts? I can admit that it’s not the first thing I usually notice, but consider my interest piqued. I glance around to take in the atmosphere, mentally taking note of all the fans decked out in blue and black merchandise. Some are holding up glittery signs; others are waving foam fingers.
Something about being surrounded by comradery feels comforting. I sit through Lila’s ten-minute spiel about the rules of the game, but I honestly don’t know how much information I’ll retain. I lost her at “They can beat each other up.”
The announcer’s boisterous voice soon fills the entire stadium, stirring a rumbling amidst the crowd, hoots and hollers harpooning the glacial air. A crescendo vibrates in my bones, and the overhead lights flash in accordance with the epic beats of what I can only assume is the hockey team’s theme song. Particles from the ice swirl in the diaphanous light beams, lifting up in a fragile mist. A cracking animation feathers out from the center of the rink, and a large, black shape descends from the rafters. It isn’t until the spotlights illuminate the extravagant image that I realize it's a giant grim reaper. Which makes a lot of sense now, considering the team is…the Riverside Reapers.
There are a few prerecorded cracks of thunder that reverberate in the arena, and the lights mimic a flash of lightning, backlighting the glowing red eyes in the skull of the reaper. Cheers erupt all around me, and everyone unanimously clambers to their feet, clapping in collective elation. The lights still, and the announcer’s voice deluges my ears again, clear as day.
“Please welcome your Riverside Reapers!”
And one by one, tiny hockey players—well, tiny from where I’m sitting—exit the tunnel, skating around the perimeter of the rink and raising their arms up, rousing the audience. Some of the fans’ voices rise to decibel levels, and I think I momentarily lose hearing in one ear.
The players spend about thirty minutes warming up before any of the actual playing starts. The game commences at the sound of the buzzer, and streaks of jerseys all shoot out to their designated zones. The puck is placed in the center of the rink, and the jumbotron zeroes in on the two players hovering on either side of the puck. The guy on the Reapers is handsome from what I can tell—brown hair that curls under his helmet, honeysuckle eyes, and a perfectly sloped nose. I’m not granted much time to gawk before movement stutters past my vision in rapid afterimages. The puck ping-pongs between players at a speed I didn’t know was possible.
Number thirty-six, Brenner, careens across the ice, practically moving at the speed of sound, and he closes in on the opposing team’s goal, but he doesn’t take the shot. He passes to another player, number eighteen, Hollings, who does some kind of fake-out trick before wrenching his arm on a diagonal and sinking the puck into the net.
Everyone bursts into a hurricane of frenzied euphoria. Even Lila is at the edge of her seat. She’s all endearment and enthusiasm, the two folding into one another on the canvas of her face.
When the camera pans to the first scorer of the evening, my heart sinks into the soles of my shoes, and every contradictory emotion crashes into me like waves against a rocky outcrop. There, definitely not in a full-body cast from a life-threatening car accident, is Hayes, giving the spectators a smirk that spells disaster.
No. Fucking. Way.
10
WELCOME TO THE DANGER ZONE
HAYES
Holy shit. I’ve never scored the first goal of any game since the season’s started.
The crowd is absolutely insane. The puck is back in play, and this time during the faceoff, a player from the Colorado Caracals zips off with it. The burning in my legs is a welcome sensation, and as much as my lungs ache, I’d rather hurt the next day and know I worked my ass off than come away unscathed. I cut number fifty-five off, body checking him into the boards, allowing Fulton to scoop up the abandoned puck.
A chorus of cries rattles my eardrums, but the second Fulton gets an inch away from the goal line, a hulking defenseman smashes him into the plexiglass. The cries evolve into disappointed groans. I know my teammates can handle themselves. Hell, some of the guys are larger than I am, but when they’re on the receiving end of some brutal hits, my vision turns red. It’s some kind of weird, primal reaction inside of me that makes me want to rip my gloves off and scatter teeth all over the ice.
Some Speedy Gonzalez motherfucker flashes past me with the puck, and judging by the uptick in boos and slimy insults, the Colorado Caracals just scored a goal. The Caracals are good. They have some of the fastest skaters in the whole NHL on their team, which I thought was an exaggeration until now. A litany of swears ricochet from my throat, and I blink the sweat from my eyes, my heart probably hastening to a concerning rate. This is going to be a long game.
We’re on to the second period, and it’s 2-1. I skate alongside Kit, picking up speed to stay in his passing range, and the second he spies an opposing player bulldozing to get to him, he passes me the puck. I’m more nervous than usual, which unfortunately makes me less aware, and I cover a good portion of ice before someone egresses from my blind spot and rams into me with the force of a pickup truck.
I don’t know why, but I feel compelled to look up before I suffer a face-smashing courtesy of The Incredible Hulk, and my eyes gridlock with a pair of mocha-colored ones that I would recognize anywhere.
“Aeris?”
But before I can double-confirm it’s her, an overwhelming pain cocoons my entire body. My vision comes in tides, and my muscles groan from the force of the collision. God, I forgot how much it hurt to be bitch-punted into the boards.
What is she doing here? Aeris didn’t strike me as a sports fan, much less a hockey fan. I texted her back before I left the locker room, but I don’t know if she saw it yet. The timing of my responses could definitely use some work.