Beyond This Moment

8 Day Three- 7:07 P.M.

The puck drops and Gabe loses his mind.

"This is so cool," He says, sitting beside me.

"There's your boyfriend, right there," I say, pointing to number eight on the Capitals team who now has the puck. Alex Ovechkin is his favorite player in all of existence and I've been calling him Gabe's boyfriend for the past few years because it used to get on his nerves but now, he's grown used to it and it's just a habit of mine now.

"Yeah, I see him," He assures me excitedly. On the other side of me, Elias is also pretty excited about being at the game. Granted, not as excited as Gabe is but still excited. I like going to hockey games too and I can follow the game pretty well but it doesn't get me as riled up as it does with these guys. Cassie on the other hand, is definitely not a sports person. I think that she knows what's going on from watching so many of Gabe's games but right now, she's just watching Gabe get all excited but I know that once he calms down, she'll probably be on her phone the entire time.

"Do you have any favorite players?" I ask Elias as the Blackhawks take possession of the puck and the crowd gets really excited as they rush up ice toward the Capitals' goalie.

"Well, number 86 for the Hawks is a Finn so I guess I'll say him," He suggests with a shrug. "But Ovechkin is pretty unstoppable."

"If you're rooting for the Blackhawks, I suggest that you keep that to yourself because Gabe might throw you down these stairs," I warn, motioning to the stairs of the stadium. We're sitting in the first tier of seats, so not too far up but we're in the corner of the stadium so we don't have an awesome view. That doesn't stop Gabe from almost exploding with excitement though. Especially as the Capitals take the puck again and start taking it toward the other end of the ice.

"No, I'm rooting for the Capitals, I just appreciate that the Hawks have a Finn," He defends his decision as he takes a drink of the coffee that he got at the concession stand before we made our way to our seats.

Just as I suspected, after Gabe calms down after the beginning of the game, Cassie is on her phone the entire period. I feel bad that she isn't having a good time but I couldn't just not get her a ticket because that'd be really rude to just leave her by herself in the city while we went to the hockey game and I really wanted to come too so I couldn't stay with her.

"Babe, I'm going to run to the bathroom," Cassie tells Gabe about halfway through the period as she stands up from her seat.

"What? No, they're on the power play, you can't leave now," Gabe insists quickly but he doesn't take his eyes off of the game because, like he just said, the Capitals are on the power play and nobody has scored yet so he's hopeful that now is the time and he doesn't want to miss a beat.

"Yeah, I'm not really into it," She reminds him with an impatient roll of her eyes before she leaves the row of seats to get to the bathroom, obviously not in a very good mood considering she has to be dragged to this hockey game that she really doesn't want to be at.

"Not a hockey fan?" Elias whispers to me. Gabe doesn't seem to mind his girlfriend's bad mood because of the hockey game and I know that he seems like he's acting like a jerk but he doesn't always put the sport in front of his girlfriend, it's just that he's at a Capitals game and he's really excited. He probably doesn't even realize that he's brushing her off so harshly.

"Not really," I shake my head. "I don't think that she really understands it. It's just not her thing."

"You seem to be tolerating it well," He comments.

"I like watching hockey," I assure him. "I'm not as into it as Gabe, obviously, but I know what's going on and at least I'm entertained. I do know that when we score, we're going to really piss people off when we cheer. The pains of cheering for the away team."