Page 72 of My Pucked Up Enemy

“No, for real,” James insists. “You ever see it wet and stringy, clinging to the side of a burger like it’s trying to escape? That’s sinister.”

“You need help,” Parker mutters.

“Pretty sure that’s why she’s here,” James replies, jabbing a thumb toward Nina.

Ethan reads his. “Most embarrassing moment.”

He sighs. “Junior year. Left my jockstrap at home. Borrowed one from the equipment guy who was like, sixty. Found out later it had his initials in Sharpie on the waistband. Mid-game, I took a hit, landed on my back, and my jersey rode up. Every girl in the stands saw ‘Big Ron’ tattooed across my hip bones.”

The fire circle explodes with laughter.

One by one, the cards go around. We hear about broken skates, high school crushes, missed flights, bad first dates, a terrible tattoo.

Then Nina pulls her card and lifts her eyebrows. “Great. Mine says: ‘What’s something people always get wrong about you?’”

The guys immediately start chiming in.

“Too easy,” James says. “They think you sleep in a library and dream in case studies.”

“I bet she alphabetizes her fridge,” Ethan adds.

Nina holds up a hand, smiling. “I do not. I use color-coded bins like a normal person.”

The group laughs.

She looks down at the card again, then back up. “But seriously… people always assume I’ve got it all figured out. That I’m calm because I don’t feel things as deeply. But truth is, I feel everything. I just learned how to sit with it instead of letting it break me.”

Even James goes quiet for a second.

“Okay,” he says, clearing his throat. “That was kinda beautiful. Gross, but beautiful.”

She grins and tosses her card into the fire.

Then Coach’s card prompts him to share the moment he knew he loved Lizzie.

He looks at her, and the air shifts.

“It was my sister’s birthday party,” he says, his voice quieter now. “Lizzie had just graduated college and didn’t know anyone there. I was already a rising player then. She looked me dead in the eye and called me out for being late and arrogant, like I was just some guy who forgot manners. And then she stole my drink.”

Laughter breaks out, but he keeps going, eyes on her. “She didn’t care who I was. She wasn’t impressed. She was... real. I fell in love right then and there with her strawberry blonde hair and beautiful smile. Took me three months to convince her I wasn’t just some cocky hockey player with a good jawline.”

Lizzie blushes, but she’s smiling.

Coach leans in and kisses her, nothing over the top, just warm, certain, and real.

The whole circle goesawwwlike a bunch of soft-hearted kids, even James.

I steal a glance at Nina. Her mouth curves, but something in her eyes dims, just for a second. She hides it well, but I catch it…that flicker of wanting something like that too.

It hits me like a slap to the sternum.I'm here, Nina.

Later, when the fire burns low and people start drifting inside, Nina pulls out a guitar from behind her chair.

“I’m not amazing,” she warns, tuning the strings with easy, practiced fingers. “But sometimes music says what words don’t.”

I don’t even know what she plays—something soft, maybe a cover, maybe something original—but it doesn’t matter. The sound of it is mesmerizing. Her fingers are confident, and her voice is low, smoky and heartbreakingly real.

I sit there, stunned. Completely undone.

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