Page 68 of Voices
“There he is!” Lily points to where two guys are on their hands and knees…humping the ice? What the fuck?
“What are they doing,” I ask her without taking my eyes off them.
“I think they’re stretching their groins,” she laughs.
I bite my lip as they sit up, kneeling on one leg with the other out to the side. I still can’t see their names so when the guy closest to us turns towards the guy he’s stretching with, butterflies erupt in my stomach when Hawkins appears on the back of his jersey. The guy he’s talking to laughs at something Shane said and when he looks up, he looks right at me. He says something to Shane without looking away from me. Shane turns his head, and the brightest smile takes over his face. Getting up, he skates over to the bench, stops, and mouths, ‘You came’. His smile gets even bigger as I shyly wave at him.
He's saying something when two more guys join him and start playfully pushing him around. They have goofy-looking smiles as they look up at me and wave.
It’s Matt and Ryder.
Shane pushes them away as he looks up at me and points to his chest then to me. I look down and instantly feel my cheeks heat knowing he sees what I’m wearing.
“Doesn’t he look good in your hoodie?” Lily yells standing up with her hands cupped around her mouth.
I grab her arm and pull her back down as my entire body flushes in embarrassment.
“He’s smiling at you,” she sings in my ear.
I lift my head enough to see him from under my lashes. He’s now standing behind the bench looking up at me as his teammates walk past him to where I think the locker room is. Before he leaves, he takes his glove off his right hand, kisses two fingers then points them at me. He winks before disappearing.
“Aww. That was so sweet!” Lily wraps her arm around my shoulders. “I think someonelikelikes you.” She kisses my burning cheek as Noah returns.
I don’t look at him as he walks past me to his seat. I see him hand Lily a pizza out of the corner of my eye along with two cups of frothy beer. She thanks him as she puts one of the drinks in my cup holder.
“It’s Goose Island,” she whispers in my ear, knowing it’s my favorite IPA.
I hesitantly look over at Noah, but he’s distracted by the group of giggling girls in front of us.
“Think of it as an apology from him for being a dick on the way here.” She looks pointedly at the cup. I give her an appreciative smile as I take a small sip of the cool citrusy liquid.
I’m glad she doesn’t make it a big deal that she noticed how weird Noah has been towards me.
The game starts and I get lost trying to follow Shane around the ice. He plays in front of his goalie next to Ryder and together they keep the puck out of the net when they’re on the ice.
By the time there’s under two minutes left in the game, we are up three to two. Ryder is behind our net with the puck as guys fly off the bench while others come off the ice. He passes to Shane who skates around a player from the other team and shoots the puck to the corner once he crosses the blue line on the other side. Everyone chases it as he and Ryder stay back. Benji comes out from behind the net with the puck and shoots, but it pings loudly off the metal goalpost. Two players collide as they chase the puck to the corner. After they wrestle for it, our guycomes away with it and passes it to a wide-open Shane. He hits it as soon as it touches his stick, beating the goalie and scoring a goal with point five seconds left in the game.
Everyone jumps up and cheers asI’m Shipping up to Bostonby Dropkick Murphys blasts from the speakers. I stand up and focus on Shane as everyone goes crazy around me. He’s being swallowed up by his teammates, but I can still see his smile from here. As they let him go, he comes to the bench and high-fives a few guys before he looks up at me. Still smiling, he winks at me before turning back to the ice. The ref drops the puck, but the game ends less than a second later and Dropkick Murphys comes back on as everyone celebrates the win.
We stand, and as Noah starts to move, Lily tells him to wait a second as she ogles the players as they head to the tunnel where Shane is fist- bumping everyone as they walk by. He rolls his eyes at her as I notice a player standing still on the ice. I turn to see who it is and almost fall back down to my seat when Benji’s furious face stares back at me. My breathing picks up as he looks down at the hoodie I’m wearing.
“Let’s go, Alexander!” Shane calls out to him.
Benji looks at Shane then back up at me and I can feel the anger coming off him in waves. He skates forward and this time I do fall back to my seat. I watch as he ignores Shane’s raised fist and shakes his head as he walks out of sight.
Shane drops his hand and turns to me. He looks confused but otherwise happy. He starts to walk down the tunnel, and as I’m about to run out of here, I hear my name being called. I look over to Lily who’s also looking around for the source.
“Down here.” I see the top of Shane’s helmet and a gloved hand waving over the concrete stairs. I slowly get up and lean over the rail to see him smiling up at me.
“Meet me outside of the locker room. I’ve got to shower and change but I’ll be finished in twenty minutes.”
No one as sweaty as he is has any right to look so fucking sexy. I don’t even like the feeling of sweating, and I sure don’t want to touch anyone else’s but on him, I want to straddle him and become just as sweaty.
“Please?”
Biting my lip, I look back at Lily and Noah who are talking. They’ll probably want to go to a party to celebrate the win, but I’m done with loud places for the day.
Turning back to Shane, I nod. He beams at me as he takes his glove off and reaches up to tap the toe of my shoe.
