Page 20 of Slapped Into Love

She slumped back in her seat. “I don’t know how you two manage to juggle all thatyoudo.”

“Very carefully,” Imurmured.

“Will you be able to stay in Chicago after the seasonisover?”

“The sponsor you lined up for me makes it a possibility, but Ryan and I haven’t had the chance to talk about it yet.” There was a big gap between dating exclusively and changing your entire life for a relationship, and I wasn’t sure if we’d reached the point where it made sense for me to make my move to Chicago permanent. The only thing I knew for sure was that I wasn’t excited by the idea of a long distancerelationship.

“Well, if I get a vote, mine is for you tomovehere.”

A buzzer went off, and we both turned our attention back to the ice. The clock had only run down another minute, and the score was still the same. We’d missed a penalty against the other team while we chatted, and our guys were back on the ice again for apowerplay.

We were quickly pulled into the action as the seconds ticked down. The Cavaliers moved the puck from their defensive zone, past both of the blue lines, and cycled it around the net. One of the opposing team’s defenders got lucky and intercepted a pass between the forwards, but Jason stepped up and stole the puck back. He sent it across the ice to Ryan with a hard pass, and I jumped tomyfeet.

“C’mon, Ryan!” I screamed. “Use that slap shot of yours and scoreagoal!”

As though he’d heard what I’d yelled, his stick went up and then he pivoted forward and nailed the hell out of the puck. It went flying towards the net, sailing just over the goalie’s outstretched glove to crash into the back of the net. Cee-Cee and I jumped to our feet and hugged eachother.

“He really is the slap shot king!” Cee-Ceecried.

“Hell yeah,heis.”

We stayed on our feet, along with the rest of the crowd, and watched as the ref dropped the puck. Our center got his stick on it first, and sent it back to Ryan. He cycled it to Jason, who sent it up to the right wing. The forward got a shot off, but the goalie deflected it and as it bounced towards our center’s stick the buzzersounded.

“Damn,” Igroaned.

“I’m not sure if it’s better or worse to lose in such aclosegame.”

I thought about how it felt when I raced. “In some ways, it’s worse because you know you were so close tothatwin.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Cee-Cee sighed as she dropped back down in her seat, tugging on my hand until I sat down too. “Okay, now that we talked about all my shit and have plenty of time to wait for the guys, how’re things going for youandRyan?”

I fanned myself with my hand, my cheeks heating. “Considering what I promised him if he scored during the playoffs...things are about togetwild.”

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