First Period
On a Saturday night, when I should have been buried in textbooks, I was instead sitting in a too‑hard plastic chair, freezing my ass off, and confused as hell as I watched the frantic chaos of an ice hockey game unfold below me.
I was already on sensory overload.
The crowd was deafening. The sharp scent of ice and sweaty gear clung to the air. Flags waved, chants echoed, and the scrape of skates cutting across the rink rang out like blades on glass. It was all so much more than I had expected.
Not just the sheer size of the arena—thousands of people pressing in with the weight of their excitement—but the speed of the players, the hum of conversations around me as strangers argued about the score, who was on the ice, who was skating the best.
All of it only amplified what I already dreaded and knew: I was way over my head.
“What are they doing now?” I asked my brother, shifting again to try and get circulation back in my legs. If I could at least understand something, maybe my shoulders would unclench.
“Skating?” Nolan shrugged. He had just as much knowledge of ice hockey as I did—which was exactly zero. “Skating really well.”
As if to prove his point, one of the players smacked the puck straight into a teammate’s skates.
At least I had learned that much—the little black disk they were batting around like demented cats was called the puck. I’d picked it up from a gaggle of giggling girls during my last extended bathroom break.
“I’m cold,” I complained.
“I told you to bring a jumper.”
“Stop being so smug in your fifty layers over there. How was I supposed to know it would be this chilly?”
“It’s ice hockey, Kathryn.”
I sighed again. “Now what are they doing?”
Nolan—my long‑suffering brother and now forced spectator to this insanity—rolled his eyes. “I’m sure I don’t know. Yelling. Sweating. Looking all hot and manly in those uniform things.”
“Hey.” I cautioned, hearing the raw note that had entered his tone. “No flirting with the team. We’re here for research only. Not for a hook‑up.”
“We can do both.” Nolan’s gaze lingered on the tall, well‑muscled player who seemed to be everywhere on the ice. The one I had not‑so‑subtly been following all night with greedy eyes. His jersey had the name Reed blazoned across the back.
“That one is cute. I wouldn’t mind being tackled by him,” Nolan added, his raw note turning into outright interest.
“I don’t think they tackle in this game,” I said, not sounding convincing at all because I still honestly had no idea what this sport was about. Only that I had two weeks to become an expert.
Yeah, right.
“As if that’s going to happen.”
“Every sport has a tackle,” Nolan argued. “Why else would anyone watch if there wasn’t a chance of skin touching skin?”
“It’s a game, Nolan. Not porn. And they couldn’t really tackle, could they? They’d cut themselves to pieces.”
“We sound like idiots,” Nolan pointed out, irritation creeping in. “You could have read a book about this. Or watched a movie. That would’ve been a lot more fun than sitting here on a Saturday night while this team gets decimated again.”
“Are they getting decimated?”
“I think so. The hot one is throwing his stick on the ground and doing a lot of shouting.”
I zeroed in on the mid‑game argument breaking out between the two teams. The referee’s whistle shrieked while the crowd booed and threw stale popcorn onto the ice. Reed was indeed throwing his hockey stick down, crowding into the face of another player.
That one was hot too, but in a meaner, rougher way than Reed. His jersey read Connor.
“They may suck, but they’re real,” I defended my choice of learning style. “I can’t get this from a book or movie. This is gritty. This is—”
I trailed off as Reed suddenly wrenched off his helmet and angrily skated off the ice. He shook out his hair—a wild mane of light brown that matched his fury—as he was benched.
For some reason, the sight had me losing my train of thought.
Good god, he was something.
I resolutely ignored the entirely inappropriate urge to wiggle restlessly in my seat.
“Kathryn. Breathe.” Nolan slapped my shoulder.
I snapped my mouth shut. “This is sports,” I finished lamely.
“It’s something, alright.” Nolan huffed. “But couldn’t we at least stay closer to home and watch our own team? Northbridge may suck, but we should at least try to be loyal. We owe nothing to the rival college team everyone hates.”
“You know I couldn’t do that. I told Grady I was his biggest fan. That I knew everything about ice hockey. I have to learn somewhere new, away from his home ground. I have to stay far away from his team.”
“This is going a bit far just to impress a boy, Kathryn.”
“Grady finally noticed me after two years. I’m not giving up this chance.”
“He asked you to have coffee so you could show him your study notes. I hardly think that counts as noticing.”
“It counts.”
Nolan’s tone didn’t soften. “You could have picked anyone to obsess over. Why pick someone in the exact sport you loathe and know nothing about?”
“I didn’t know he was a hockey player. We only ever studied together in the library. Then last week he turned up in his uniform and I pretended to fall over myself praising it before I could stop.”
“That was fucking stupid.”
I huffed. “Of course it was. But I can’t back out now. When Grady returns from his family vacation in two weeks, I’ll know more about this sport than the… than the… damn it, what’s the main player called?”
“The chair,” Nolan said confidently.
Even though I knew that didn’t sound right, I didn’t argue.
A buzzer went off. The crowd surged toward food stands and toilets.
“I think that’s halftime?” I said. “Do they do halftime in this game, or is that football?”
“It’s both,” Nolan said with the same misplaced confidence. “Definitely.”
“You have no idea, do you?”
“Like you do?”
I looked at the electric scoreboard and tried to make sense of it. No use. I was so screwed.
“I need a drink for this,” Nolan declared. He stood and glared at me. “You’re paying since you dragged me here, right?”
I blinked. “Yeah. Of course. Let’s go.”
He patted my back as we squeezed through the crowds, noting my dejected expression. “Cheer up. One of those sweaty, aggressive boys might take pity on you and make you their project. You could get some real close and personal experience with the game—with your own private coach.”
“No thanks.” I shuddered. “I hate aggression. I hate swearing. I hate men who think hitting something with a stick makes them God’s gift to women.”
Nolan laughed as we joined the long line for food and drinks. “Then you picked the wrong thing—and man—to obsess over for the next two weeks, little sis.”
