by Kat Obie
Not only had it been a while since she’d been flirted with, he could easily have his choice of girls. She couldn’t see what he saw in her.
“It’s Alice. Alice Kercheck.” Alice tried to sound confident before she let her uncertainty take over for a moment. “So, you want to get to know me better?” She let her voice get a little playful. “What would you say if I told you that I’d like to get to know you better as well?”
Scott’s smile continued to grow and even revealed a dimple. He leaned over and grabbed her heavy hockey bag from her. “Here, let me get that for you. It’s practically the size of you.”
His touch was warm and invigorating in a sensual way. Alice could have imagined it, but it was something she had often read about. Even if his touch wasn’t amazing, it felt good to have the weight taken off her shoulders. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Do you have plans tonight?”
Alice looked at him questioningly.
Why is he asking me what I’m doing? He has a game tonight and I could have sworn that the game preview said that this was the first game of a back-to-back for the Sound. There is no way we can meet up or do anything after the game.
“Just going to watch the Flyers game on TV.”
“Wouldn’t you rather go to the game?”
“Of course. But I can't afford tickets.”
“I could fix that for you.”
“Do you really think that’s a good idea? I am a diehard Flyers fan.”
Scott actually looked slightly hurt. Once he spoke, it was clear he didn’t have any hard feelings. He teased her right back. “You mean you would still wear their stuff and root against me?”
Alice laughed. It was so refreshing to have him tease her the way her own dad did when their two football teams played against each other.
“I wouldn’t root against you, but I can’t say the same about your team. I told you earlier that I bleed black and orange. Although I could wear my Wheels sweater.”
Wheels was a nickname for Chris Wheeler. The defensive man was selected by the Sound in the expansion draft from the Flyers. He was one of the young kids who looked to be part of the fresh look for the Flyers’ defense, but they couldn’t protect everyone. He was just beyond the age where they couldn’t expose him. She wasn’t surprised to see how the gritty Canadian blossomed into an elite defenseman for the Sound.
“Wheels? Not even me?”
“Well, you never played for my guys. Why would I have a Flyers jersey with your name on my back? I don’t even own any Sound gear.”
“I could fix that for you, you know.”
Alice laughed. She was sure he could. But for one, she didn’t want to take advantage of his generosity. Scoring a ticket would be more than enough. She just wanted to spend more time with Scotty. Nor would she give up on her favorite team just because she met a player for the opposition.
“Thanks, but I wouldn’t wear anything but the Flyers until after the game. Even if you fixed my lack of Sound apparel. My boys are my boys. But what would you get out of me going to the game?”
“Nothing. Although I was hoping that you might join me for drinks before I have to fly to DC.”
Alice smiled and nodded. “Yeah. That would be a lot of fun. Are you sure? I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
“Yup. I was a little bit of an ass before. Let me make it up to you. I know I was testy. I just need your phone number.” He dug out his phone, unlocked it, and handed it over to her.
She quickly inputted her contact information and saved it into his phone. Then she handed the phone back to him.
“Okay. We should probably get going. I’m sure I’m keeping you from your normal pregame routine. Not that it would be a terrible thing if you were a little tired against my guys. That is, if you are playing?”
Scott nodded but didn’t respond to her teasing. Alice was concerned that she might have gone too far. She was tempted to say she was sorry again.
Scott pushed the glass door open. Alice immediately saw a large, shiny black SUV. It had to be Scott’s car. And her car had to be on the other side of the building.
She wasn’t a hundred percent sure if they should turn to the left or the right. Then she saw the sign to the building on the street, and that allowed her to get her bearings. She turned to the left.
Alice broke the silence again and said, “Thanks for everything, Scott. Literally everything. I would have been happy not having to lug that thing back to my car. But then tickets to the game . . .”
Alice’s thoughts were disrupted when Scott grabbed her free hand as they walked together, which sent heat through her body. With the way she reacted, you would have thought he’d kissed her.
When they reached her beat-up blue sedan, she was disappointed. It meant that they would have to separate. Besides, he would come to his senses and completely forget about her. She was slightly embarrassed he had to see her old car when she was sure he was driving the brand new SUV. She hit the button on her keychain to unlock the doors. She opened up the side door so he could put the bag on the back seat while she tossed her two hockey sticks into the side of the car.
Scott said, “So, I guess I will see you tonight.”
“Yeah. I’m looking forward to that.”
2
Alice
Alice was still stunned. It was insane to believe that she’d met the living, breathing vision of her dream man: gorgeous, muscular, and a professional hockey player. It just seemed unreal and not something that belonged in real life.
By the time she drove home, she had a text from Scott saying that everything was all set at the arena. All she had to do was go to will call.
She knew that she had to be a grinning fool and was grateful that she had Fridays off. No one would see her looking like that. She also knew that she should keep everything fairly quiet. He was a public figure and deserved privacy. Besides, she didn’t even know if it would go anywhere. There was a chance he did that with all the girls. But she knew she would explode if she didn’t talk to someone.
So Alice decided to open up WhatsApp to start a chat with her British friend, Meghan. She trusted her immensely. Besides, Meghan knew about her love of hockey and gingers.
Alice: I think that I might have a date tonight
Meghan: Oh really?
Alice: Surprising enough with the captain of the Cleveland Sound after they play the Flyers. Hell, he even got me a ticket to the game.
Meghan: Wait, What?
Alice: I practically ran into him when I went to play hockey.
I feel like this can’t really be happening.
I feel like I am doing a complete asshole move, but I’m still going to the game to represent my Flyers. I don’t care that the only reason I’m going to the game is because of freaking Scott Wheilan.
Meghan: Does he know about your Flyers obsession?
Alice: He does. He actually called me out for liking them since guess what shirt I was wearing to the rink.
Alice got distracted by a phone notification indicating that one of her guards needed to call off for work for the evening shift. If she didn’t find coverage, she would have to go into work like she normally did on her day off.
Alice: FUCK! I have a call off to threaten tonight’s plans
Meghan: Don’t you dare cancel your date!
Alice: I won’t. Worst-case scenario, I go into work and leave early for the game. But FUCK! Why is it so hard to hold onto a day off?
Meghan: Grim. Don’t do anything rash, this will be good for you. You need to get out more.
Alice: I know. I won’t. I just have to look for some coverage now.
Meghan: Have fun tonight.
Alice turned her attention to work matters. She had roughly an hour to find coverage or start to head into work. She was hoping for a miracle so she could just enjoy the game and have extra prep time to make herself look presentable.
Fortunately for her, she was able to find a replacement. With that she had
a couple of relaxing hours before she had to get herself game-day ready.
Scott
Pregame warm-ups were progressing well. It seemed like everyone was skating well and getting in some nice clean shots.
However, he was distracted, hoping that Alice was at the game and the PR team was able to deliver the jersey like they promised.
The stadium was awash with gold and wine for the Sound and a bunch of orange and black from an ample number of Flyers fans that seemed to travel with the team.
Besides getting her a jersey, he’d asked for them to give her a seat in the crowd instead of having her seat in the family section. He knew he would get shit from the team if they found out he’d invited a Flyers fan to the game.
Hell, any girl would arouse a lot of suspicion and gossip. He could only look blindly into the crowd hoping to see her face, but it was proving to be useless.
All of a sudden, he was covered in a snow shower. He looked to see who caused the spray of ice that came up from the surface and saw it was Lager to blame.
With a dirty look, he said, “What the fuck was that for?” Snow showers were usually reserved for rookies and goalies. Not the team captain.
Lager was short for Andreas Lagerfield. He was Scotty’s closest friend on the team. They have been line mates for years and had always seemed to click really well.
Scotty had fought to keep Lager on his line earlier in the season when the coach was thinking about splitting them up. Lager could feed a pass to him better than anyone else on the team, and if Scotty couldn’t get it in the net, Dykstman would.
“It’s time to look alive,” said a full-barreled voice with a slight German accent. Lager was technically Austrian, but he always sounded more German than most of the Austrians that Scotty had ever played against. Then Lager dropped his voice so only the two of them would hear his whisper. “Quit worrying. She’ll be here.”
Lager was the only guy on the team who could tell there was that subtle crack in Scotty’s cockiness and joy of returning to the game. Lager could sense the bit of anxiety that was unusual for Scotty.
Thinking that it was Scott trying to hide the fact he still had concussion symptoms, Lager threatened to go to the trainers. It didn’t help that, last year, he had hidden the symptoms and got really messed up for weeks. So Lager was always on guard to make sure it didn’t happen again.
That meant Scott had to tell him about liking a new girl and wanting to impress her tonight. He wasn’t trying to get back on the ice too quickly, and he’d met her as he waited for the test results.
Lager also knew Scott was in a bit of a dry spell. Sure, he would have casual sex, but he hadn’t had any luck with a real relationship. Nor was his interest even piqued for anything more than sex. The fact he was interested in any girl was a big deal.
Scott continued to casually feed pucks to the other forwards who were warming up. He gave Lager a bit of a death stare for even mentioning anything about Alice. She was supposed to be a secret.
Lager couldn’t seem to take a hint. “No one is going to be impressed with that stuff. Gotta step it up.”
Lager sped down the ice. He knew that if he didn’t, Scott was likely to deck him or at the very least give him a sweaty glove to the face.
Scott wasn’t going to let Lager have the last word. Lager watched him, so Scotty fanned on the puck, pivoted his hips, and took a wicked hard shot on net that would give any goalie issues.
Scott skated towards Lager, stole his puck, and also shot that on net. “Better?”
“Much. But this is only warm-ups. Don’t show Philly all your tricks. They might catch on.”
Scotty shook his head, laughing. As he got close to Lager, he said, “There’s no winning with you.”
“Never is,” Lager said with a grin. It was a relief for Scott to just screw around some with Lager. Which had probably been Lager’s goal from the start.
It was time to get back to his own normal warm-up routine, so he skated backward and started to get into the cycle.
By the end of warm up, Scott knew it was going to be a good game. He was back to his old self.
Once he was in the locker room again, he peeled off his warm-up sweater and tossed it in the laundry bin.
He then quickly dug out his phone to see if he had any word from Alice. She seemed like the kind of girl who would send a message of appreciation and not take advantage of him.
He was also hoping that she might have sent him a photo wearing the jersey, so he was excited to see the message:
Alice: Thanks for the jersey. But you shouldn’t have.
Scott: Glad you like it. Will you be wearing it tonight?
Alice: No. At least not until after the game.
Scott was startled how quickly she responded. But he wasn’t surprised by her answer.
In a way, he liked the fact that she was so loyal to her team. He just wished she wasn’t a fan of the enemy. He was about to text at least a frowny face when he saw:
Alice: Kick some butt tonight. Just not too much. I still want to see the baby get his first road win.
He had to put the phone away, but he couldn’t help but smile. They weren’t supposed to have their phones out until the end of the game. But it was totally worth it to chat with her for a few moments.
Just seeing her wish him luck was awesome and a mood booster. But seeing that the Flyers fans called their rookie goaltender a baby was priceless.
He could load up with all sorts of chirps for the game, and Lager would be joining in on the action.
Alice
For the first time ever at a hockey game, Alice found herself conflicted over who to root for. She figured that this game would be like any other time when a player got traded. She would root for the player while at the same time not minding if he got checked into the boards, hit, had a scoring opportunity nullified, or took a blocked shot.
For some reason, it was different when it was Scott on the ice.
Early in the first period, he took a crushing hit into the boards from the Flyers. She was sure that if she was watching from home it would have been the Great Check of the Game. She worried when Scott took his time getting off the boards and then was babying his hip on his way to the bench.
She tried to gauge how serious an injury he had. It didn’t seem like he went to the back of the tunnel to get some repairs or to spend time in the quiet room. So that was good.
A couple of streaks of orange and white flashed down the ice in a clear breakaway opportunity. Jake and JVR were practically on top of the goal mouth. She watched as JVR faked out the Sound goalie, Alex Crestor, by acting as if he was going to shoot onto net. Instead, he fired a laser at Jake who fired the puck into an empty area of the net while Crestor was still pulled down low on the non-glove side.
She was elated to see her team get ahead. Then Alice looked towards the Sound bench and saw some very frustrated faces and a missing Scott.
Don’t tell me that he’s seriously hurt.
Then she realized that Scott, Lagerfield, and Dykstman were out to take the faceoff against the Flyer’s ginger line. Giroux won the faceoff (which was typical for him), but the Flyers immediately turned the puck over to Wheels who sent it forward to Dykstman while Scotty skated ahead to keep the pressure on the Flyer’s defense.
Alice was glad to see that Scott was skating well despite Philly trying to box him out. Dykstman passed to Lagerfield who was cycling forward. He took a shot on net only to hit iron. The rebound bounced to a Flyer stick. The direction shifted back down to the other side of the rink.
The game continued to be an up and down affair with neither team having any real dominance. They took shots but weren’t going into either goal. By the end of the game, it was Flyers 1 and Sound 0.
It wasn’t for lack of trying by Scott. He hit iron at least four times during the game, and not one of them broke his way. While there was a part of Alice that wanted Scott to get a goal, she was glad nothing ending up going into the net.
Scott
Scott was exhausted and frustrated by the game. He knew he should probably take an ice bath and a hot soak after the bone-crushing check from early in the game, especially since he would be super stiff for tomorrow’s game if he didn't.
But if he did that, he wouldn’t be able to meet up with Alice before his flight. He’d already wasted enough time with his media requirements.
Eventually, he made his way up to the club level area where he’d asked Alice to wait. He saw the brunette looking at her phone rather contently.
He snuck up quietly from behind and then hugged her. Alice immediately snapped to attention and turned to Scott with one of the sweetest smiles. “Hey you! You had a pretty good game,” she said as she returned the hug.
He made sure that he didn’t cringe when she touched a fresh bruise.
“Pretty good?” he said as he raised an eyebrow. He was amused by how she wasn’t playing to his ego. Most girls would try to stroke it, and while he was cocky, he knew when they were lying.
Alice smiled and shrugged. “Well, what can I say? You guys didn’t win and you personally managed to hit the post, what four times? If you’d actually scored, I might have said that was a good game.”
“So, you’re going to bring that up? What are you going to say next? The Flyers dominated the game?”
She smiled and laughed. “No way. The breakaway goal was good. But between the missed power plays and the crap-ton of turnovers, there was no dominance for either team. At least the Flyers won, so I’m not going to complain.”
“But I will.”
“About what?”
“You could have wanted me to win. Besides, I was hoping to at least see you wearing my jersey.”
Alice smiled and said, “I told you I wouldn’t wear it until the end of the game.”
Then she surprised him by pulling the vastly oversized Flyers jersey over her head. Since she was using a private locker room, he thought she was shy with her body. Not that she needed to be. Then he realized that underneath the dress-sized jersey was a black form-fitting tank top that showed off her curves. She wasn’t getting adventurous or showing off her body in any way. She grabbed the Sound jersey.