Page 113 of Playmaker

My first hockey game, and we were here early enough for warm-ups.

A couple of rows over, I saw one of the guys from the team—Ducky, who’d been at the driving range. He was sitting in the stands, not wearing his hockey uniform, with a woman sitting beside him. He waved, so I waved back.

“Why is one of the players sitting in the stands?” I asked Darcy. He was keeping me company on my first foray into live sportsball. He’d been fully Team Cooper since we started…dating? Two weeks ago. That sounded kind of high school. We were in a relationship. Where we were exclusive and had sex and where I agreed to come to the first hockey game of the season, wearing a Cooper 57 jersey.

One Cooper provided for me and signed. Conspicuously. Enough so that three people had already asked me about it. Darcy had a jersey too, but his didn’t have the big autograph. When anyone asked about mine, he just giggled.

“Where?” Darcy asked.

“Up two rows and about ten seats over. Ducky.”

Darcy craned his neck. “I read that he’d injured his knee. He must be sitting out.”

“Is that his wife or girlfriend with him?”

“He’s single! He was one of the ones I hoped was on Team Closeted.”

“Maybe she’s just a friend.”

Darcy sighed. “Probably not. But you met him, right? We could ask him to sign my jersey?”

I’d rather do a tax audit, but I didn’t say so. I owed Darcy. And I was saved from answering when the crowd started to make noise as the players appeared on the ice.

Darcy fixed his attention on the players. “Do you see him?”

I peered, and yes, I saw Cooper. I ignored Darcy and for the first time watched my…boyfriend skate.

He was fast. They were all fast. They whipped around in some pattern that made sense to them but none to me, fortunately not hitting each other. Still, once I spotted him, my eyes followed Cooper. He spoke to a lot of the guys as they paused to do…stuff. It was easy to see he was respected by his teammates. Sure, he was the captain, but that was just a title. The way he acted… He was really a team leader.

Then he skated over to the glass near our seats, looking up and finding us easily. He beckoned, and Darcy pushed me out of my seat to walk down to where Cooper waited. By now there were more people, and some had gathered by the glass. Mostly kids, all excited to be near him.

He smiled at them, let them take pictures, but waved at me again and they parted enough for me to get down to the glass, feeling incredibly self-conscious.

He made a spin motion. I rolled my eyes but turned around so he could see that yes, I was wearing the jersey he gave me and hadn’t bought another one with someone else’s name on it.

He held his hands up to the glass, making a funnel around his mouth. “Second intermission—stay in your seat.”

I nodded, but was I going to be bored out of my mind by the second intermission? Darcy had refused to let me bring a book.

Everyone watched as I climbed up to my seat again, while Cooper went back to doing whatever stuff hockey players did before they all left the ice again.

The lights went down, and the players came back on. The visiting team first, from Ottawa, and then the Blaze. The arena was full by now and the crowd was loud for their favorites.

“And number 57, playing defense, your team captain, Cooper!”

Everyone cheered, including Darcy. I stood and applauded. I’d known Cooper was kind of a big deal. But here, now, with all these people screaming for him? He wasreallya big deal.

I didn’t let people in. But I’d let in this guy who was bigger than life, and losing him would destroy me.

The national anthem was sung, the lights went up, and the game finally started.

I really didn’t know the sport at all. I didn’t realize the players got on the ice, played for a few minutes, and then sat down on the team bench for a while. That meant Cooper wasn’t on the ice the whole time, but I watched him closely while he was.

They went so fast. And hit each other really hard. I flinched as some bulky Ottawa player smashed into Cooper. He shook it off, said something to the guy, and skated away again.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” I asked Darcy. Some other guys were skating now so I didn’t need to watch as obsessively.

“They wear pads, but yeah, it must. I hear they can get pretty bruised up in a game.”

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