AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Sorry to Conor and Nate, who also participated tonight. But this is what half of the attendants came to see.
I clasp my hands against my chest, my ears buzzing with my own excitement. I don’t even register the start sound as Max takes off. My head bobs of its own accord, approving every time he skates around an obstacle smoothly. I love how his expression is focused but calm, almost detached from how hard his body’s working. His thighs pump fiercely as he eats up the ice, carrying the puck with his stick as if they were an extension of his body. Leaving behind a trail of untouched obstacles, he shoots pucks into comically small nets, bagging them all in one go, before challenging the regular net and the accuracy targets hanging from its corners.
One. Two. My heart pumps harder. Three. Four. Five. And the buzzer goes off.
I wish I could say I’m the first one to jump to my feet, cheering for what has to be a new record. My mouth stretches into the most obnoxious shit-eating grin when the jumbotron confirms it.
“Yes! That’s my man!” I pump a fist in the air. “Fast as a lightning bolt, am I right?”
“That’s my son!” Mr. Cassiano yells and turns to the strangers beside him. “Did you see? My son!”
“And my son!” Mrs. Cassiano choruses behind him.
They do this every time Max scores or does something cool, and then never tell him as if it embarrassed them.
The show wraps up pretty quickly after Max is interviewed for his thoughts on winning the whole shebang. I stand up, stretching my back, which is aching from sitting in a crammed seat for hours, and turn to the stairs.
Until a strong tug almost topples me backwards.
“Geez!” I recover my balance to glare over my shoulder. My mom retrieves her hand with a sheepish grin.
“Perdón, Luz. But the show’s not over.”
My face twists into a grimace. “What do you mean? It’s pretty over.” There’ll be some behind-the-scenes interviews after this, then a shower, then some feel-good dinner Max and I were going to attend for half an hour and then skip discreetly.
Mom blinks her eyes super fast, and that’s when I notice they’re kind of watery. Which makes zero sense, especially because she’s still smiling. But then she points up and whispers, “Look.”
And I do. Max’s face is still on the screen and it’s almost as if he were looking through it to me. “Come down here, Luz.”
“Huh?” I frown. My eyes sweep the ice and I spot him standing on a carpet that’s been rolled out over the center faceoff circle. He’s partially obscured by the cameraman recording him, but otherwise Max’s body is angled to face our seats.
Someone taps my shoulder, the one on the side of the stairs. A woman wearing the crew’s uniform asks, “Miss Rodriguez, can you please follow me?”
“Huh?” I ask again, super eloquently.
“Go, mija,” Dad prompts me. Mom’s biting both of her lips but motions with her hands that I should follow the attendant. The Cassianos nod along.
“I—uh. Okay?” I glance back at center ice, but the cameraman is gone and now it’s only Max standing in the middle.
Well, sure. I’ll go wherever he is.
I pick up speed after that. The attendant takes me around the perimeter of the boards and through a door I hadn’t even noticed was a door from the stands. Stragglers from the crowd give us curious looks but I’ve got nothing for them. I’m not quite sure what’s happening. Is this part of the broadcast now? Show the winner’s family? But then his parents would’ve been called up too, so that’s not it.
Can it be…
Nah. No way.
And then I remember one night not that long ago, during the summer. We were both at home, taking shots every time the characters of a romcom mentioned the word kiss. Of course, the whole thing ended up with a marriage proposal for the female lead, and with Max and I absolutely plastered on our couch.
He ran his fingers clumsily through my hair while my head rested on his chest, and I was just about to doze off when he suddenly asked, “How should I propose to you?”
“On your knee,” I slurred with a giggle. “That’s what knights do to their queen, right?” A hiccup punctuated the question.
“Hmm, any other requests? Should I wear battle armor or something?”
“Just your uniform. You look really good in it.”
Now, I follow the woman until she stops at the door to the ice and she’s saying something. I shake my head to pay attention and just catch “—slowly and carefully so you don’t slip.”
