Page 110 of Redeeming Heart

“Are you high? Of course, not. We haven’t touched each other since high school—not like we ever did.” Okay, that was a bit unexpected. What was that all about? I know girls who wouldn’t mind swapping places with her just to tell everybody they used to be a couple.

Our conversation got interrupted when the Flyers made their appearance. Fans all around jumped to their feet, cheering them on.

“I believe this is our queue.” The girls got up and raised the banner high and cheered loudly for the Gladiators—receiving impolite looks from everyone around us who wasn’t Gladiator or Rebel fan.

We took our seats when the start of the match was happening and Brandon went to meet the Flyers captain for the face-off. The referee dropped the puck and both captains scraped for the puck. We cheered when Brandon was the one who ended up with possession and immediately reacted by passing the possession over to one of his teammates.

There wasn’t a single doubt about him when he shot for goal and scored.

He acknowledged us when he skated past us when we raised the banner and cheered for him.

The Flyers didn’t back out after they had a lousy start and made sure to give Brandon’s team hell. At one point we were chewing our nails when the scores were level, but Jake make sure to score the last goal of the game which made the Gladiators win the game.

I don’t care how many Flyer fans were in the building, but we screamed our lungs out while applauding the Gladiators.

We stayed in our seats while the rest of the spectators made their way out and met Brandon and his team when they got out.

“That was quite an ear full of cheers,” Jake commented, handing out high-fives to the girls while Brandon came over to me.

“Showing off, aren’t we?” I teased him about the total of goals he scored today.

“I am just setting the margin.” He replied with a smile.

“Are you challenging me?” I questioned, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

“We beat the Flyers. I am confident that your team can win the championship.” He wasn’t holding back and I kind of found it captivating to raise my game.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

The first fifteen minutes of the final game were not on our side.

Our opposing team had the first half of the game in their pocket, holding us two points behind them and they haven’t given us the option to score at least one goal.

Coach Peterson and Isabelle planned to keep me, Megan, and Felicity out in the first half and so far, it didn’t look like a good plan. I was grounding my teeth with each goal we got scored against us. Tammy was doing an amazing job to block the ball or else we would have been behind with more than 2 points.

We had to get in there and get some points on the board.

We got this far.

The teams were called for a half-time break and while my team look devastated, I was ready to get out there.

“Okay, so that wasn’t our best performance,” Isabelle began, looking at the team.

They nodded at her and I felt their grief for not putting any points on the scoreboard.

“You kept them at two points, I would say that’s a win for you.” I intervened, getting their attention.

“They could have been way more ahead, but you defended them and held them back.”

I looked at Tammy and smiled at her. “They weren’t lying when they said you are the best. You took out some moves that I’ve never seen before to make sure they don’t score.”

I looked back at my team.

“Even if we don’t win today. I want us to think how far we’ve come in a few months as a team who against all odds shouldn’t have been together.”

“But here we are. Fighting for our first championship even though it is for indoor hockey, but it’s our first way of showing the world that we are here and that we aren’t going anywhere. We are fighting for our chances, the pro league, and the Olympics. We aren’t the girls we used to be three years ago. We come here with a new strategy and nobody is going to stop us from succeeding.”

I held my smile back when the girls raised their hockey sticks and cheered. Tammy was the loudest of all, followed by Clarissa.

---