Page 81 of Wicked Dreams

“How does the game work?”

He glances over at me, his eyebrows rising. “What?”

I motion to… well, him.

“How does the game ofhockeywork?”

I scoff. “You should’ve asked if I knew anything about it before you invited me.”

“Jesus, Margo.”

“What? I mean, I get the concept. Get the puck in the net. Hit people.”

He laughs. “Yeah, that about covers it.”

Lovely. I cross my arms, but the true extent of my lack of knowledge only becomes apparent when Riley and I are sitting in the arena, five rows back from the glass—there’s glass that goes all the way around the ice?—and I can barely follow a thing.

The players zip around, the refs randomly blow the whistle. They restart. Sometimes someone goes in the box to our left.

Riley has to stifle her laughter.

“I just don’t get it,” I say for the thousandth time. “Why do they keep stopping?”

“That was offsides,” she says.

Great. That’s helpful.

I lean forward in my seat. So far, I’ve been able to track Caleb around the rink a few times. He’s number twenty-four, withAsherin block print across his back. When he’s on the ice, Eli and Liam are also with him.

Which makes it marginally easier, because every time Riley spots Eli, she elbows me.

I’m going to have bruised ribs.

The arena is a mix of black-and-gold-clad students and parents and purple-and-white fans rooting for Lion’s Head.

The wordrivalryhas been tossed around.

But for the first period—of which there are three—it seems relatively… maybe calm is the wrong word.

Civil?

It all explodes in the second period. One of the Lion’s Head guys crashes into Liam, and theybothcareen into the Emery-Rose goalie. The three of them slide into the net in a tangle of limbs, sending the whole goal flying.

Caleb and Theo are there in an instant, wrenching the Lion’s Head player up. Instead of letting go, though, Theo holds on tight.

It becomes a free-for-all. It seems like all the players already on the ice, sans the goalies, jump into the fray.

The referees break everything up. Caleb emerges with blood on his lip, the split from earlier in the week opened up. He spits pink saliva on the ice and glances in my direction.

“Did he just wink at you?” Riley asks.

I laugh it off. But, yeah, he totally did.

This sport isviolent… and I think I like it.

I’m clueless, completely lost, but I want more of it.

He skates by the glass, his mouth guard popped out of his mouth. He chews on a corner of it, then easily maneuvers it back into place.

---