Love is messy. The last person Natasha Chabra expected to fall for was Ty, the arrogant, hot-headed, hockey boy. Well, scratch that. Turns out Ty's not what Nat thought at all. The real Ty has carved out a place in Nat's heart, making her question e...
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22 slammed Ty into the sideboards, 22 being a player on the other team. Well, that's not his name, 22, it's something CARTER, but that's all I knew from his jersey.
I cringed as Ty got hit, mouth going dry as I inhaled the ozone-tinged air. Ohmysweetgoodness, please be okay, gosh I can't look, no no no.
Muscles twitchy, an empty feeling swirled in the pit of my stomach. I covered my eyes with my hands. "I can't watch. Tell me what happens."
Blades sliced across the ice and scraped to a stop. A hockey stick slapped the ice, and a puck thumped into a goalie's glove. Layla laughed and nudged me with her shoulder. "It's all good Nat, Sawyer's fine."
I peeked out from behind my fingers. Ty was fine. Not injured. Well, probably injured but not too bad.
Layla jumped up from her seat. I startled, gripping my notebook to my chest. My pen clattered to the ground, and I bent over to retrieve it, fingertips brushing the rough concrete floor under our seats.
"Yes, he made the save!" Layla pumped her fist. I sat up, gaze ping-ponging between her and the rink. The goalie stopped the puck, noted. On Layla's other side, Emily munched on nachos she'd gotten after the last quarter. No, not quarter. Period?
My phone buzzed. I meant to check the one message I'd gotten from another planner account on Instagram, but of course, I swiped into my message requests and checked a few. I replied to one asking me what grip I used for my apple pencil, a couple others and deleted a spammy, kinda weird one.
"What a goal!" Layla called out, distracting me. Still standing, Layla bounced on her toes. I put my phone away and focussed back on the game.
After the goal, a red light went off, and the goal horn sounded. Beckett scored, woohoo.
Layla pulled Emily up and squeezed her in a hug. I couldn't help but grin when Layla whooped loudly, not caring at all what anyone thought. Emily smiled at Layla, cheeks flushed.
The scent of hot dogs cooking at the concession stand wafted over. I lowkey wanted one, but not enough to get up and buy one. The game was almost over anyways– I'd get something after. At some point, Layla and Emily sat back down.
The Summit coach shouted something at players, and so did the other coach, but I didn't know much more than the fact that those blades were moving fast across the rink.
"What are you doing? Goddamn it, pass the puck and shoot to the left!" Layla swatted the air as she ranted. "Ugh, and now it's offside! And how is that a penalty?! You dumb ass ref, I–"
"Layla?" I blinked at her.
She sat back, arms folded against her chest. "Yeah?"
"Just checking that you were still Layla." I squinted at her, fighting laughter. Jeez, she really got into hockey games.
