Page 38 of Lovefool

Foster breaks into a desperation butterfly to deny entry, but my torque outmatches his flexibility by a millisecond. He slowly lowers to the ice with a groan, and I hear Coach yell his approval from the sidelines.

This is the first time Coach’s reassurance doesn’t make my heart swell with pride. I’m numb to everything around me, ensconced in a windowless prison where we run the same technique over and over again until it becomes habitual.

And the only person who just so happens to jailbreak me out of my self-inflicted depression walks into the rink with a notebook tucked to her chest and her hair in a professional ponytail.

All the guys halt in their tracks at the sight of Lake Capitano strutting around like she owns the place. She’s magnetic. Someone who sweeps through unapologetically and disrupts the mundaneness of everyday life. A singularity who absorbs all the attention in a room whether she intends to or not. Once you cross paths with her, you won’t want to go back to your dull, uneventful routine.

Dressed in a leather jacket and black jeans that sculpt every inch of her mile-long legs, there’s surprisingly no sign of a hangover plastered across her face. She’s as fresh as a daisy, whereas the rest of the team looks like they’ve been to hell and back.

My brain goes fuzzy at the sight of her, similar to the first hit of a muscle relaxant when you’ve been high on adrenaline.

Coach beckons everyone to the side, and I make sure to take my sweet time as I slog over rather pathetically on my skates.

Am I happy to see her? I’m always happy to see her, but…but I feel like she isn’t happy to see me. Fuck, what if she’s disappointed that I didn’t make a move? What if she does remember last night? Remember how I sat at her feet like a goddamn dog refusing her generous scraps.

I try not to hold eye contact. I throw her fleeting glances here and there, enough so she knows that I’m acknowledging her presence.

“Guys, Miss Capitano is going to be watching the rest of practice. I expect every one of you to be on your best behavior while we have a guest in our midst. Do I make myself clear?” Coach gruffs, flared nostrils exhaling mist into the frosted atmosphere.

“Yes, sir!” we all shout in unison, some with more enthusiasm than others.

What Lake observes is going to end up in an article whether we like it or not, so it’s in the team’s best interest to give her something good to write about. No slacking, no complaining, no indication that we aren’t the school’s best athletes. I’ve played in front of scouts before, and I’ve never been this nervous. Maybe because nothing has ever mattered as much as she does.

Not by a long shot.

When the swarm of hockey players disperses, I stay behind, choosing to confront the awkwardness before it has the chance to spread. I purge all my unspoken grievances as if they’re one continuous river dumping into an estuary.

“Hey,” I greet, my voice slightly muffled through the clunkiness of my helmet.

A genuine smile splits her cheeks. “Hi.”

“You, uh, you look good. I mean, you always look good. I just…” I sigh. “You don’t look like death.”

So much for laconism.

“Thank you? I think?”

Leaning against the side opening, my legs suddenly feel weaker than usual, and the fact that I’m standing on a slippery surface isn’t going to bode well if I can’t keep my cool.

It feels like there’s a length of wire caught in my throat. “You don’t look hungover,” I rephrase.

Idiot!

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. I have a high alcohol tolerance. Takes a lot to knock me off my feet. I can thank my rebellious years for preparing me,” she explains with a chuckle, the tip of her nose pinkening from the cold.

I want to laugh, but my pessimism is at an all-time high right now. Blighting. I’m as stiff as cooled sap expanding in the center of a deciduous tree.

Instead of, I don’t know, continuing the conversation like a normal person, I blurt out the scattered thoughts in my head, inadvertently abandoning the tactical retreat I had stowed away for this exact moment. “You’re not mad.”

Her expression pinches with confusion. “Why would I be mad?”

Oh, maybe because I rejected your advances last night and was a total idiot.

Realizing that this is more of a sit-down conversation than one I can accomplish in passing, I take off my helmet and shake my hair out, letting my restless fingers fidget with something while I essentially relive the most embarrassing moment of my life.

“You—last night. Nothing happened,” I explain, albeit weakly. My pulse is performing loopy little figure eights.

Maybe I should have let sleeping dogs lie. I mean, I’m making a bigger deal out of this than it should be, right? She didn’t walk in here like there was bad blood between us, nor did she walk in here to be confronted with a practically nonexistent problem at one in the afternoon. I’m bringing my personal life onto the ice—a big no-no, by Coach’s standards.