The home team scores within the first thirty seconds, and around thirty seconds after that, they score again. It doesn’t take long for them to rack up four goals, and I can tell from the glumness on either side of me, that this is a high scoring first period. I’m going to guess he saw the article.
It’s not my fault, but perhaps if I’d left a pair of worn underwear in his hockey bag, this could be less of a… a… disaster? I dunno, there doesn’t seem to be an adequate enough word for what’s unfolding in front of me on the ice. Is there a technical term in hockey for cosmic catastrophe?
Apollo and Artemis flank Ares at his goal. He’s clearly pissed. From where I’m sitting it looks like he’s been muttering to himself for the whole game. He’ll have been tearing himself down. I don’t know much more about the game than I did a few months ago, but to me it looks like it wasn’t all his fault.
I wince. I don’t think that matters in any sport where there is a goalie. They’re an easy scapegoat, and it seems they’re the first person that gets blamed when things go south.
Oh boy. Things off the ice aren’t shaping up to be much better either. Athena is going to kill someone. Not metaphorically. Like, literally. Maybe even with a straw fashioned into a shiv. A guy in the row in front of her is vaping.Vaping! Indoors. Not only that, he’s pounding beers and growing more and more obnoxious with each drink.
The Raccoons pull back a goal, but it’s a short lived celebration when the Snow Pirates sail another one past Ares. I can hear his yell of frustration from up here, and when he takes a swing of his stick at his goalpost, I can’t say I’m surprised.
The “twig,” as he calls it, snaps clean in two, but he makes a point of picking up the other half before skating to the bench. He’s being pulled. At least he’s tidying up after his own tantrum.
I shake my head as his backup skates into his goal. This has to hurt. I gasp and turn to Athena. “I need you to get me backstage.”
She snorts. “We need to educate you more on the game.” She shakes her head but holds her hand out to me. “But let’s get youbackstage.”
I don’t know how she does it, or who she’s slipped cash to, but a few minutes later I’m waiting around the corner from the players dressing room for my guy. Bouncing on the balls of my feet, I have no idea how this is going to go, but when he growls, “Leave me the fuck alone, Apollo.” I know I might be next in the firing line.
When he rounds the corner, his eyebrows jump up. “E-Eloise?”
The pain on his sweaty face breaks my heart. “Eloise,” he repeats it with more conviction but doesn’t say anything else before charging at me, picking me up and spinning me around. For a long moment we stand, me with my feet dangling and his face buried against my shoulder.
He could probably do with letting off some of his aggression, but there is no way I’m doing anything sexual right here in the corridor. All I have is words. And somehow, they have to be enough to save him from self-destruction.
When he eventually puts me down I’m kinda soggy, not in a hot way, in a sticky goalie, smelly boy sweat way, but I have a job to do, and I’m not going to let this sweaty man stop me. Cupping both his hands, I stare straight into his eyes.
“This is not your career defining moment, Ares de la Peña.”
He opens his mouth to say something, but I’m not done.
“Ah, ah. No. It isn’t. This is not you. This is fear, this is frustration and anger, and dare I say it, jealousy. But this is not you.”
He visibly sags in front of my eyes.
“Are you done right now? Have you given all you can give to this game?”
He shakes his head, his intense eyes holding mine as much as mine hold his.
“Then you gotta dust it off, champ.”
That makes him smile, and I realize I have no idea what to tell him to do out there.
“Go back in there and tell that coach man to put you back on the field. Treat the next period like the first one, and if that one sucks, treat the last one like the first one. Clean slate, each time and do your best.”
“Coach man?” A new voice joins the conversation. Apollo stands over Ares’s shoulder, grinning.
“Field?” Artemis cracks what I’m learning is a rare smile. If I wasn’t with his brother andveryhappy, my panties would have combusted at the bright flash of his teeth.
“Shhh.” I silence them over his shoulder. “I’m doing my best, okay? We all know I am undereducated when it comes to hockey, fine, sports, and that’s not the point of this anyway.”
“What is your point,tesoro?” His voice is by my ear, his lips find my cheek, and he brushes my skin with a soft kiss.
“My point is that this isn’t you. You need to get your stupid jock head out of your butt and get back out on the ice. I do, too, before your brothers need to bail out two of their siblings this evening.”
Ares’s jaw drops. “Hen is here too?”
“You think I could figure out getting here on time for the game and using my awkward charm to get down here to see you all by myself? Well, thanks for the vote of confidence. But, no. She’s up there watching with Savannah.” The last bit is a whisper. “If you tell Justin and ruin her surprise, I’ll set Athena on the three of you.”
