PAINTED LOVE

TWELVE

loïse madden

.  .  .  .  .  .

June and I are screaming at the top of our lungs when Sebastian skates the puck forward, followed by Dean and Elias as his wingmen. They're passing the puck between the three of them, I have no idea why but it seems to be working to get it as close to the goalie as possible.

Lastly, when Dean shoots the puck back at Sebastian, he attempts to make the goal. It feels like the puck takes hours to reach the goalie. Sebastian shot it at the right side of the goal, and the goalie's catching it at the... 

left side! 

Yes, baby! That's a 2 - 1 for NYU hockey team. Take that, Pennsylvania. 

Just a minute after the goal was made, the referee whistles, telling us the match is over. Half the crowd jumps up and starts cheering, the other half stays seated, some of them booing. Some people are crying, even. 

I mean, I'm pretty emotional and cry over the most stupid, silly things. But over sports? Never in my life will I allow myself to cry over that. 

The boys of our team are skating over the ice towards each other, giving each other pats on the shoulders, hugging each other and just celebrating their win. It was a tough one and I have to say that the other team was just as good. 

If it wasn't for my boyfriend who scored the last goal and with that, beat their asses back to Pennsylvania. 

Dean's blowing kisses to the fans, June is jumping up and down, waving and throwing kisses at Elias and Seb's eyes find mine.  I see him smiling and he makes a heart with his hands. 

I can't surpress the widest smile ever to appear on my flushed face. I make a heart back and wave. 

The boys disappear after a few minutes, back into the changing rooms and after we wait for them to be done showering and stuff, June asks me if I'm ready to go to the locker room, too. 

I tell her that she can already take off, but I still need to do something really quick. She smiles and nods. 

"Okay", she says. "See you in a few, Loïse!"

I greet her and stand up from my seat, too. 

I go to the bar as quickly as I can, before the biggest waiting line ever will appear. It's my turn to order 5 minutes later, and I ask for 2 caramel macchiato's. 

It's become a habit to take a caramel macchiato with me for Sebastian, before I go see him in the locker room.

"Here you are", he says, as I walk into the crowded locker room. A lot of the players are still cheering their win and Sebastian gets a lot of pats on his shoulders from them. 

I hand him the coffee and he pecks me on my cheek, as I say into his ear: "You played really well today."

He smiles at me, then kisses my lips again. It's a short kiss but I want more of it. 

"We'll be celebrating our win tonight, at our house. Do you want to come?"

I nod. "Yes, sounds fun. Can I bring Crystal?"

He shrugs: "Sure, you can bring Luna too, if you want."

I shake my head. 

"I'd want to, but she goes to bed pretty early and I've already dragged her to a couple of parties the last few weeks so I don't think she's very interested."

He nods. "'Kay. Do you want to go?"

I look around the locker room. June and Elias have already left, but the rest of the players are almost all still there.