Page 62 of Overtime
After pouring a tall mug of tea, I trudge to the couch and fire up my laptop. I’m in the perfect mood to write the first truly dramatic scene that happens in chapter ten of my hockey romance book. I finally started it a couple of weeks ago, and between talking about the sport so much with everyone, the skating non-date, and now this, I’ve had plenty inspiration to churn out one chapter after the next.
I let my mind transport me away from this weird feeling in my chest, and I immerse myself in what my characters are experiencing. In this chapter, the hero sees the heroine with another guy—who later turns out to be her brother—and gets disproportionately jealous. It makes him realize he has feelingsfor her, even though he swore to himself he would never love another woman after his ex.
Some readers live for the happy moments, the domestic bliss, the spicy scenes. I live for the angst that makes my chest twist. That makes me wonder how they could possibly get together against the odds.
In romance books, the happy ending is guaranteed. Not so much in life.
As I write some stream of consciousness about what the hero is feeling, keys jangle in the door and I hear it open.
“Hey! How come you’re here by your lonesome?” Ryan locks the door back up and adds, “I thought you’d be at O’Malley’s with everyone.”
I lift my head for the first time in—and here I check the clock—two hours. Wow. My spine cracks as I stretch.
“Um, no. I don’t know if they were in much of a mood to celebrate.”
Her eyebrows go up while she unzips her coat. “Don’t tell me the losers lost?”
I smile a little. Even though they get along well, and there sure are enough couples between the teams, the Strikes and the Bolts still give each other crap like this on a daily basis.
“Well, I wouldn’t call the Bolts losers, but yeah, they didn’t win tonight.”
“Huh. You should’ve come to watch us instead. We beat the Sirens five-nothing. It was almost embarrassing.”
“Next time I’ll definitely go watch you.”
Ryan grabs a sports drink from the fridge and heads over to the couch, plopping beside me. “I bet they’re drowning their sorrows at O’Malley’s. Wanna go? Some of my girls are hitting it up too.”
“And you?”
She leans her head back on the cushion. “I don’t know. I really busted my ass in the game.”
“I’d rather stay home,” I say in a mumble, running my hands across my laptop’s keyboard as if I were cleaning it.
“How come?” She cracks one eye open. “I thought you’d be eager to do book research about what happens after a team loses.”
My lips curve, but with little humor. “I don’t think it’s the best moment for that. The Bolts seemed pretty down about the loss, and after Aran got into a fight, I just don’t know how?—”
“Whoa, whoa. What?” She screeches, sitting upright with a lot of energy for someone who is supposedly exhausted. “Aran what?”
“Got into a fight.” I add, “At the game, I mean.”
“I want all the details.”
I relay them as well as I can, which isn’t much, because she asked me if Aran got a penalty, and I don’t even know how to respond to that. I didn’t understand a lot about what happened after that.
“Dude, this is big.” Ryan lifts her hips to fish for her phone in her back pocket. As she sends furious text messages, she says, “Aran never gets into fights. I wonder what happened.”
“Never?”
“No. He’s so stoic he might as well be a robot.” A crease appears between her eyebrows. “Huh, he’s not responding to me either. Archie says he hasn’t seen him since the game ended. Apparently, he walked out of the locker room without even showering.”
I scratch my head. So maybe Aran was leaving the place at the same time as I was. But I didn’t see him in the parking lot. Doesn’t mean we were parked nearby, though.
But if he doesn’t respond to his best friends, he obviously won’t respond to me either.
“Um, do you think he’s okay?”
“Yeah, I’m sure he’s fine.” Ryan tosses her phone onto the couch and tries to smile, even though her brow is still creased. “Sometimes he disappears like this and then returns as if nothing happened. Archie and I think it’s when he gets too overwhelmed by something.”
