Page 37 of Finding Her
Crossy stared at the scrunchie, looking as confused as I’d felt earlier. “What?”
“My hair’s been getting in my face. You’re gonna tie it back,” Bear said.
“But your helmet?—”
“I can’t risk it. Now, come on, help me out here.”
Crossy glanced between him and the camera. “Is Poppy here for moral support, or...”
“She’s gonna explain what we do,” Bear said. “Come on, chop-chop.”
Crossy moved behind Bear and looked at me quizzically. I laughed again but talked him through pulling Bear’s hair back and how to hold the scrunchie. It took him a couple of tries, but he got it to work.
“I’m not sure how well this scrunchie will fit under a helmet,” I said apologetically. “You might have done better with a regular hair elastic, but?—”
“You’re speaking gibberish, Poppy,” Bear said. “But thank you. We’ll make it work.”
“Good luck,” I said. He gave me a thumbs-up and ended the call. I chuckled to myself as I turned my phone off.
It was funny to think nobody else in the arena would know their favorite hockey player had my pink scrunchie under his helmet for the whole game. But I would know. And that was good enough for me.
CHAPTER 25
bear
Luckily,the game went well. The crowd was on fire and we pulled off a 5-2 win, the perfect start to our new season. My dad was so happy that he offered to take me and my friends out for dinner, which was a far cry from how he would have reacted if we’d lost. That would have ended with me getting reamed out for being distracted and sloppy, then he would make the drive back home, probably muttering to himself the whole time about how I was a failure.
But as it was, we were sitting around a large circle table in the nicest restaurant in town. The scene might have been perfect, if it wasn’t for the fact that he’d not only invited the boys, but also Claire to come along. Tino, who was sitting across from me, looked like he was holding back laughter the whole night at the way Claire was tucking herself into my side and stealing food off my plate. It was so nice to have supportive friends.
Crossy kicked me hard under the table as I was taking a sip of coke. I choked, spilling the drink all down the front of my white shirt. When I glared at him, he just loudly said, “Oh, oops! Guess you need to go clean up in the washroom.”
It was an obvious set-up, I just wasn’t sure why he wanted to get me away from the table so badly. But I also wasn’t goingto look a gift horse in the mouth—I had the chance to get away from Claire and I wasn’t wasting it. I jumped to my feet, trying not to make it look like I was outright running away from her as I walked off and ignored the way she called out cleaning tips after me. I didn’t catch any of it over all the conversations going on in the restaurant at once. I was so focused on my destination that I wasn’t looking around, and so I didn’t notice a girl coming from the other way, bumping straight into me.
“Oh! Sorry!” She said.
And suddenly, Crossy getting me to walk over here was all making more sense.
“Poppy?” I asked, frowning as I glanced at her. She looked… different. I guess I was so used to seeing her in her school uniform that I was thrown off by the light-blue dress she was wearing now. And she’d paired it with heels that made her a little taller, so the top of her head was up to my nose now, instead of my chin. She’d even curled her hair, soft waves cascading over her shoulders. She looked amazing. Almost like she was dressed for a… My jaw ticked. Like she was dressed for a date.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. She tilted her head and crossed her arms behind her back, looking at me almost flirtatiously. Or maybe that was just the date outfit talking to me.
“Oh, um...” I gestured toward the bathrooms, feeling like an idiot.
She laughed. “No, I meant in the restaurant.”
“Oh,” I said again, because apparently I was incapable of forming coherent sentences around her. “My dad brought the team here to celebrate the win.” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder.
Her gaze followed where I pointed. “Oh, that’s your dad? I saw him at the game. He looked kinda angry.”
“Yeah, he usually looks like that,” I admitted with a half-shrug. “He just, uh, takes hockey really seriously.”
She raised her eyebrows. “More serious than you?”
I chuckled humorlessly. “Much.”
She kept staring at me, like she was waiting for me to continue. Either that, or she was trying to read my mind. Either way, I found it disconcerting—and for once, it was me who started to fill the silence.
“My dad’s hockey-obsessed. He was a professional athlete and he pushed me into hockey as soon as I was able to walk. The only reason I’m on the team is because of him.” Then, realizing how that sounded, I continued, “I mean, not that I don’t like hockey! Because I do. I really do. I just don’t know that I would have wanted it as acareerif it wasn’t for him.”
