“Half the guys play for the Blue Collars. A few of them are just locals who like hockey. But there are a couple who play for the ice football team, too. Do you see Sonny Luciano?”
I snort when Sonny waves at me. Now that I think about it, not all of the guys are even wearing Blue Collars jerseys. Simply white or blue ones.
“The more I learn about sports, the less I know,” I say.
The puck drops, and Sean—in white—and the guy he’s up against—in blue—makes a move for the puck.
Sean gets it first.
And from there, I have no idea what’s happening. Sean shoots the puck to this guy, who skates it around to that guy, and then another guy hits it toward a goal, but the goalie stops it. Sonny slams into guys and falls down a few times, but always with a laugh. Sean zips around everyone, showing a grace that could rival any dancer and a competency that outshines everyone on the ice. And for the next twenty minutes, I turn off my mind and simply watch.
I’m sure there are a lot of rules and things I’m missing, but it all amounts to the same thing: guys trying to score, other guys trying to stop them.
On skates.
So why am I so gripped? Every time Sean has the puck, I find myself cheering like it’s my job. And when he fires off a puck from around one of the lines on the ice, and it slips right through the goalie’s legs, I jump up and scream.
“Go Captain!”
He does a salute to me as he skates past, and I grin and scream the whole time.
I feel a hand on my shoulder when I sit back down, and I whip around to see my cousin, Tripp, with his pregnant wife and all their friends, including Ash.
“Hey,” I say, giving my towering cousin a hug. He’s a little taller even than Sean, and, to my brothers’ and dad’s dismay, taller than all of them. It’s funny that my birth mom placed me with such a tall family. She’s only five-four, but the rest of her family is tall, and she said she felt comfortable thinking of me in a tall family.
Sweet, right?
“What are you doing away from the farm? Did the irrigation system finally grant you a day pass?”
“Hey, even us lowly millionaires have to take breaks sometimes,” he says. He sits down, and I give his adorably pregnant wife, Jane, a hug and wave at their friends. “Sean called and said the game would be fun. He asked us to come.”
My brow threads together. “Really? Do you come to these games often?”
“He doesn’t go anywhere during fruit season,” Jane says, putting a hand on her modest bump.
I turn back to watch more of the game, and soon, the first inning (no, that’s baseball!)—the firstperiodgives way to thesecond. And then there’s a third. During one of the breaks, a couple of the hockey wives and girlfriends come over and introduce themselves (Delia isn’t one of them). And they’re even nice about it. I wonder if Sean called in some favors.
But … why?
Scottie comes to join me with only a few minutes left on the clock. She hands me a hot chocolate and wraps her body around hers.
“Thank you!” I take a sip. I put my jacket on an hour ago, but I’m still just cool enough that I shiver when the heat hits my stomach.
With under a minute left, something shifts.
I don’t know if the pace changes or the stakes, but the energy in the rink goes electric. I can see it in the way the players move. It’s faster, harder. More reckless.
The puck bounces off someone’s stick—possibly on purpose, but honestly, I can’t tell—and suddenly it’s loose, skidding across the ice. Sean cuts across the chaos like he already knew it was coming.
And then he takes off.
He catches the puck with a flick of his stick, and I swear, the thing clings to him like it has a crush. The guy in blue closest to him tries to block his path, but Sean glides around him easily.
Another defender comes at him harder, sticks clacking like swords, but Sean spins.
Spins.
Like a ballerina with shoulder pads.
