Page 96 of Puck to the Heart
For some reason, people stayed in their seats after the buzzer announced a Knights win. “What’s going on?” I asked Polly.
“Just watch.” Ash’s grandmother nodded toward the ice, where the team hadn’t yet cleared the ice.
Then the first few notes of “I’ll Be There for You” blasted through the arena. The first line rang out, and damn, the lyric hit like what I imagined a puck to the heart would feel like. A sharp thud before a throbbing ache right in the center of my chest.
The overhead lights swirled around like a rock show before illuminating the Knights as they circled the ice.
What the hell is going on?
As Jon Bon Jovi sang, they… skated. To the song. Not quite figure skating, but sort of like a dance.
Twenty-odd massive, uniform-wearing hockey players dancing to a song written before most of them were even born.
Ash, front and center, grinned the whole time, hisrealsmile, not the fake Basher rictus I hated. The sight of him pulled harder on the ache in my chest. He’d been slowly shedding the Basher persona in the months I’d known him, but him being so genuine on the ice punched through me.
As far as hype routines went, it wasn’t what I would’ve expected, particularly comingafterthe game. And the whole team was in on it. Together, the boys did choreography full of hand motions and side steps. It was theadorableand hilarious and a testament to Ash’s leadership skills. When the lyrics came to “I’ll be there for you,” the team made hearts with their hands, pushing them away from their chests with so much gusto a few of them wobbled.
In the end, with a big photo finish, the entire team surrounded Ash, doing jazz hands to frame his goofy pose.
An achinglonging crashed into me. All the time spent away from Olivia, thinking everything between us ended cut deeper than I realized. Missing her made me miserable but seeing her waiting outside the locker room…
We needed to leave before I did something stupid.
Time apart should’ve weakened her hold on me, but she’d gotten completely under my skin. She might as well be a part of me now.
“Can we talk?” Her voice was low, and an invisible fist still wrapped around my throat, closing it off.
The clawing dread must’ve shown in my face. Olivia softened, inching closer.
“Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not bad. But I don’t want Nosy Nelly over there to eavesdrop.” Her eyes slid past me, though she seemed more fond than annoyed.
“I don’t need to eavesdrop when you guys are radiating sexual tension.” Dante, whom I hadn’t noticed, draped himself over my shoulder. “I’m one million percent waiting for someone to spill the tea as soon as you two get done with whatever is happening here.” His light brown hands waved between us, a ring flashing as brightly as his white smile.
“Absolutely not,” Olivia and I said in unison.
“Mhmm. Tension and tea. Text me,” he shot over a shoulder as he bounded off to find someone else.
With Dante gone, silence fell again, heavy between us despite the arena sounds keeping up a constant low din. Olivia’s eyes flitted in every direction but mine, but she seemed… not anxious. Eager, maybe. Anticipating. Being unable to read her mood sent me back to our early days, back before I knew her well enough to decode her tells. Maybe I never knew her as well as I thought. If she only wanted to talk to me to end things, I didn’t want to do this—whatever this was—with her.
A memory of her begging me not to take her home just to drop her had a tiny seed of hope blooming.
“Ash. Please, I’m—I’m staying. I understand if you need space right now. Tonight was a lot. But let’s make time. I’m sorry for all of it. I was going to come back anyway, but?—”
It was all I needed to hear. Crushing her to my chest, I breathed in her scent, realizing she must’ve done the same. Shoving her away from my grossness, I apologized. The wrinkle in her nose told me enough about how I smelled. “I can shower here or at ho?—”
“At home,” she interrupted, with a gleam in her eyes. “I’ll help, if you want.”
Of all the things I wanted, that was suddenly top of the list.
“Meet me there?”
Olivia nodded, tugging her bottom lip between her teeth.
It took everything I had to go into the locker room and change into fresh clothes instead of throwing her over my shoulder and sprinting for my car. Still, my fingers turned clumsy, the million times I’d removed my gear completely evaporating from my memory.
“D, tell Coach I’m missing press tonight,” I yelled over my shoulder on the way out the door.
Dante followed. “Your shirt’s on backwards. Why are you—oh. Oohhhh.”
