Page 37 of Puck Shots
12
Eli
When Cosmo scored that goal I couldn’t help but cheer. It’s easy to get caught up in the mob mentality of the crowd, but it wasn’t just that. It was him. The way it felt like he kept looking back at me, checking I was there. Checking that I was watching before he went for it. It was like he was trying to make the slap shot for me instead of for his team or himself. But that’s silly. He can’t have been actually looking at me. It’s probably one of those tricks of the light, like the old paintings like Reginals Ducksworth whose eyes follow you around the room. But old paintings appear that way because they are two-dimensional. The artist creates the illusion that the eyes are looking right at you regardless of where you are in the room by painting the shadows and light on the painting. It’s all about perspective. I guess my perspective, tracking Cosmo who is very much a three-dimensional person, is being affected by the volume of bodies in my peripheral vision. He could realistically be looking at anyone in a ten-seat radius and I’d still feel like his eyes were on me.
I heard a few of the guys at training say they expected scouts here tonight, so he was probably looking for them.
I wander slowly along the path towards the frat house, the approximately five-thousand spectators making their way home all at once. It always blows my mind how so many people can fit in spaces like these. Normally, the number would totally freak me out, but after being there a few times now and clocking all the emergency exits, I find I can sit in my allocated seat and watch the game, mostly unaffected.
“Wooo, Boston rules!” a clearly drunk guy yells as I’m shoved sideways, and he stumbles past. I manage to steady myself before falling, he’s not so lucky and tumbles off the path onto the grass, landing flat on his back.
“I’m good,” he cheers, hands raised.
“Sorry,” a girl calls, jogging past without actually looking at me. She grabs his hands and tries to pull him to his feet, but he’s got a good fifty pounds on her, and as drunk as he is, he’s practically a dead weight.
“Do you want help?” I ask but she either doesn’t hear me or is choosing to ignore me.
I’m used to being invisible. I’ve been trying really hard not to let myself stay in the comfort of the norm in the house. Putting myself out there and actually getting to know the guys in the house is the only way I will get the votes to stay. I’m not holding my breath, though. It would suck to have to leave. I know I didn’t really see myself as a frat kind of guy when I came here, and I’m still not entirely sure I am one, but I know it would be hard to leave, and Cosmo is one hundred percent the reason why. Urgh, I have to stop crushing on him. He’s totally out of my league. While I am invisible to almost the entire human population, he’s a brilliant spotlight drawing every eye in the room right to that gorgeous smile and blue-gray eyes.
My phone chimes, and I swipe it open to check the message.
COSMO:
You still at the rink?
ME:
Was just about to head back to the house.
I send off my reply, already turning and heading back the way I came.
COSMO:
Want to walk back together? I’m on my way out the back gate now.
ME:
Sure, meet you there in a sec.
I can’t believe he wants to walk back with me. Is this some frat prank? No, he’d never do that. My stomach churns with the guilt of even thinking he’d do something like that. We’ve become friends, at least I think we are. Sure, I’ve fantasized more than once about us being more than that, but I always come back to the reality that he’s just a nice guy and looking out for me. But what if it’s more?
My heart is pounding as I take off at a slow jog towards the rink. I’d only left about five minutes ago and had been strolling slowly under the starlit sky, replaying Cosmo’s moves on the ice. The back gate is actually closer to the path I’m on, so it doesn’t take me long to get there, and with my throat burning and my heart beating at superspeed in my ears, I manage to get there just before he walks out.
“Great game tonight,” I say as soon as I see him, and his smile grows wide.
“Thanks to you.”
“You made the shot.”
“The look on their faces was gold, did you see the goalie do a double take?”
I frown. “That’s when they like look at something twice, right?”
He nudges my side.
“Yeah, it is.”
“Thought so, was just checking it didn’t have some secret hockey meaning separate from the usual definition of the term. But now that I think about it, he actually looked back and forth from you and the puck in his net three times, so it was a triple take. Is that a thing?”
