Something hit Katie in the chest and then fell onto her phone. She picked it up to see that it was a new pair of wadded-up men’s underwear. Her head jerked up, her eyes searching forthe underwear’s origination, and saw a big guy standing right in front of her. Two teenage boys a dozen feet away immediately sent another wadded-up pair through the air, tagging the man in the shoulder.
He spun around to make an escape, but unfortunately, his exit route led exactly where she stood and he knocked into her. Her breath escaped with a whoosh as the two of them fell toward the floor. She wasn’t sure how it happened, since he hit into her, but he managed to twist in mid-air so that when they landed, she was on top of him and was suddenly chest-to-chest with a large, muscular man.
She drew in a quick breath to replace the one that had been knocked out of her as her attention jerked to the mannequins that were crashing to the ground, one after another.
It was a moment before the shock of getting knocked down and of all the mannequins falling before it sunk in that she was laying on top of a man, his strong arms wrapped around her. And then another second before her eyes made it to the man’s face. And about one more for recognition to dawn on her, and then she narrowed her eyes.
It was Connor Greene. He was the one player that Katie knew on sight even without a lesson from Emmalee. Everyone in Mountain Springs knew him— the right wing for the Charlotte Thunderstorm, which was who the Glaciers must’ve played tonight if he was in town. A lot of people saw him as the golden boy who went from a small-town hockey rink to the National Hockey League. Of course, those people were always the ones whodidn’tgo to high school with him. If they had, they’d know he was a jerk.
Like he was at Katie’s very first high school dance. She’d been wearing a dress she’d borrowed from her older sister, Noelle— a dress she’d promised she would return in the same condition she borrowed it in. Connor was at the dance, too, and decidedto pick a fight with someone. Before long, more than a dozen people were involved, and Connor crashed into the punch table, sending almost the entire bowl of punch onto Katie, soaking her from head to toe in a very staining red liquid. The entire school lost school dance privileges for four months because of the brawl.
She pushed herself off the man as the boys threw a last couple of pairs of underwear before running off. Katie got to her feet as Connor was pushing himself to a sitting position. She had seen a picture or two of Connor since that day in the high school gym, but she hadn’t seen him in person. It caught her off guard how good-looking he’d become.
Not that becoming more eye-pleasing on the outside changed anything. She put a hand on her hip. “Well, it looks like not much has changed. People still want to throw stuff at you.”
She caught a glimpse of confusion on his face before she turned on her heel, leaving him in her dust as she exited the store.
The next evening,Katie pulled up in front of her parents’ extremely decorated home in Mountain Springs. Even though it wasn’t quite 6:00 yet, it was already dark, making the explosion of lights over the entire house, on every tree, and lighting up every decoration in every area on their big front lawn even more impressive. There was a part with a large nativity complete with all the animals, another with Santa’s village, an area with giant Christmas tree ornaments, and a group of nearly life-size carolers.
Before she got out of the car, she sent a text to Emmalee.
Katie: I’m sad you’re not here with me for Santa Hat night!
Emmalee: I am sad, too!
Although to be honest, I was a little intimidated by the whole thing and was kind of wishing there was someone you’d want to take as a date.
Katie: Emmalee! Did your grandpa really fall? Or was that just an excuse not to come save me?
Emmalee: He really did fall. And I really was the only one close enough to get him to the hospital. No way I would’ve left you high and dry without a good excuse. Are you sure there isn’t someone you could ask as your date with zero notice?
Katie: Nope. I’m just going to be on my own solo team. It’s going to be awesome.
It wasn’t going to be awesome. It wasn’t the type of thing one would ever choose to do solo. Maybe her family would give her a five-minute head start as the only unmarried, couldn’t-get-a-date sibling.
She walked into the just as elaborately-decorated inside and hugged her mom, her very pregnant sister, Noelle, and Noelle’s husband, Jack. Then she hugged her sisters, Becca, Hope, and Julianne, along with their husbands and a total of ten nieces and nephews. And her parents’ black lab, Captain. And in theprocess, she confirmed at least three times that she was, indeed, there without a date.
Her dad walked out of his office down the hall, a phone to his ear, and from what she could hear over the sound of everyone, she guessed it was a work call he was finishing up. Since she had a moment, she sent a quick text to Emmalee that she’d been meaning to send. Katie had videoed a wedding proposal last night in the pine trees and snow at the edge of town and didn’t see Emmalee before she went to bed. And then with the craziness of Emmalee’s grandpa falling, she had somehow forgotten to tell her best friend about what happened last night.
Katie: So, I’m guessing the Glaciers played the Charlotte Thunderstorm last night? Because guess who I ran into— or, I should say, guess who ran into me— in the men’s underwear section at a department store in Denver?
Connor Greene!
She pressed send, imagining what Emmalee’s reaction would be just as her dad hung up the phone and called everyone to gather around. Maybe she should’ve waited to tell Emmalee the story because she wasn’t going to get a chance to respond for a bit. She did glance at her phone when a text from Emmalee came in, though.
Emmalee: The Glaciers played the Washington Hydra last night…
Katie was still furrowing her brow in confusion at Emmalee’s text when her dad started talking.
“Before we get started on our annual Santa Hat competition, I have a few announcements I need to make. Katie, this first one is mostly for you.”
Katie perked up, remembering that she was going to find out which player she would be videoing tonight.
“The reason why we couldn’t tell you which player was yours sooner is because the GM told me they were working on a trade. I knew you could handle getting started a little late with the player who Mountain Springs was getting, so I had the new player assigned here. The trade took longer than they expected, though, which gives you a much smaller window to get all the filming done. I’m really sorry about that.”
A smaller time frame to do the filming, she could handle. Buta new player?It felt like a stone had just dropped into Katie’s stomach. She glanced at the phone that was still in her hand.
“Anyway, the trade went through, and the new player flew in last night. If any players had a connection with any particular town in Colorado, we tried to assign them to that area. I assumed that the new player we’d get wouldn’t have a connection to anywhere in Colorado, but… Surprise!”
