Practice, Not Perfect
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Jane Anne
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46
First Period
On a Saturday night, when I should have been studying, I was sitting in a too-hard chair, freezing my ass off, and confused as hell. I watched as the frantic, intense ice hockey game unfolded below me.
The noisy crowd. The sharp scent of ice and sweaty gear. The chants, flags, and the sound of skates cutting across the rink. I was already on sensory overload.
It was all so much more than I was expecting. Not just the size of the arena, which seemed to house thousands of people pressing in on me with the weight of their excitement, but the speed of the players.
The hum of conversation as people around me argued about the score, who was on the ice, and who was skating the best.
All of it only amplified what I already dreaded and knew.
I was in way over my head.
“What are they doing now?” I asked my brother at my side, shifting once again to try to get circulation back. If I could at least understand something, I might be able to relax my tense shoulders.
“Skating?” Nolan said, lifting his shoulders.
He had just as much knowledge of ice hockey as I did, it seemed—which was exactly zero.
“Skating really well,” he added just as one of the players hit the puck and accidentally slammed it into another teammate’s skates.
I had at least learned that the little black disk they were batting around like demented cats was called the puck. I’d overheard some breathless, giggly girls talking about it during my last extended bathroom break.
“I’m cold,” I complained.
“I told you to bring a sweater.”
“Stop being so smug in your fifty layers over there. How was I supposed to know it would be so 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 I was dragging us into—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 are here for research only. Not for a hookup.”
“We can do both.” Nolan cast a lingering glance at 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 as well.
His jersey had the name Reed blazoned on the back.
“That one is cute. I wouldn’t mind being tackled by him,” Nolan added, that 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 game was about. Only that I had two weeks to become an expert.
Yeah, right. As if that was going to happen.
“Every sport has a tackle,” Nolan argued. “Why else would anyone go to see it 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 would cut themselves to pieces.”
“We sound like idiots,” Nolan pointed out again, only slightly irritated. “You could have read a book about this. Or watched a movie. That would have been a lot more fun than sitting here on a Saturday night while this team gets decimated once 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 that seemed to be breaking out between the two teams. The referee was blowing his whistle while the crowd started booing and throwing stale popcorn onto the ice.
Reed was indeed throwing his hockey stick on the ice and crowding into the face of another player. That one was hot too, but in a meaner, rougher way than Reed. His jersey had the name Connor on it.
“They may suck, but they are 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 the player named Reed suddenly wrenched off his helmet and angrily skated off the ice.
He was shaking 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.
Nolan gave me a slap on my shoulder. “Kathryn. Breathe.”
I snapped my mouth shut. “This is sports,” I finished my earlier statement lamely.
“It’s something, all right,” Nolan huffed. “Then at least couldn’t we stay closer to home and watch our own team? Northridge may suck, but we should at least try to be loyal. We owe nothing to the rival college team that everyone hates.”
“You know I couldn’t do that. I told Grady that I was his biggest fan. That I knew everything about ice hockey. I have to learn about it somewhere new and 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 with him so you could show him your study notes. I hardly think that counts as noticing.”
“It counts.”
Nolan’s tone showed no softening. “You could have picked anyone to have an obsessive crush on. Why pick a hockey player if you have no interest in hockey?”
“I didn’t know he was an ice hockey player. We only ever studied together in the library all those times. Then last week, he turned up in his uniform, and I pretended to fall over myself praising it before I could stop myself.”
“That was fucking stupid.”
I huffed at Nolan’s observation. “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 is the main player called?”
“The chair,” Nolan said confidently.
Even though I knew that didn’t sound right, I didn’t argue.
I went silent as a buzzer went off. There was a rush of people aiming for the food stands and toilets.
“I think that is halftime?” I said. “Do they do halftime in this game, or is that football?”
“It’s both,” Nolan said with the same confidence. “Definitely.”
“You have no idea, do you?”
“Like you do?”
I looked at the electric scoreboard and tried to make some sense of it. But there was no use.
I was so screwed.
“I need a drink for this,” Nolan declared. He stood and glared at me. “You are going to pay since you dragged me all the way here, aren’t you?”
I blinked. “Yeah. Of course. Let’s go.”
He patted my back as we squeezed through the crowds. Then he made a note of my dejected expression.
“Cheer up. One of those sweaty, aggressive boys out there might take pity on you and make you their project. You can get some real close and personal experience with the game with your own private coach.”
“No thanks.” I shuddered a little. “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.”
