Page 8 of Halftime

When I looked in the mirror and saw the skirt, my arms and legs showing, my hair falling down over my shoulders, I almost didn’t recognize myself. I still thought I looked like a giant beside Penny, but not a hideous one. I decided I didn’t look too bad.

Penny frowned when I said that, but this was the happiest I’d felt about going out since… I don’t know. Elementary school sleepovers. I was grateful to her. That made her smile, and we headed out for the hockey house. It wasn’t hard to find the place. The campus wasn’t huge, and the party had definitely started. The windows were open, the music was loud, and there were lots of people spilling out onto the porch.

I should have been looking for some of my teammates first. After the run-in with Coach Cray, I wanted to be sure they understood I wanted to be part of the team. But before I looked for them, I looked for Seb. I needed to know where to avoid. If I could miss interacting with him again, I might just have some fun at this party.

I couldn’t see Seb, which made me a little nervous. But Penny dragged me in to find something to drink, so I followed her, eyes watching the crowd. No Seb. It occurred to me that he might not want to see me again, either. He should feel bad. He was the guilty one. With that assurance, and a solo cup of beer in my hand, I was ready to have fun. I told Penny I needed to look for my teammates. She was looking for hot hockey players of the male persuasion, so we promised to check in later and split up.

I was grateful to Penny as I moved through the crowd. I didn’t see any other women in jeans and T-shirts, so dressing up was a thing here. I felt too tall and too big around a lot of the girls, but I could hear Penny’s voice yelling at me when those thoughts came in. I heard a group of girls laughing, spun around to see if it was my team, and almost spilled beer over a guy. He looked familiar, but it took me a minute. It was Blondie from the rink.

I felt the smile on my face. Yeah, I’d gotten in shit, but it wasn’t this guy’s fault. And I knew I’d played well. Those guys might not want to admit it, but they had to be impressed.

He cocked his head, hair falling over his forehead. “Do I know you? Did we hook up or something?”

Well, he was obviously a player, and I didn’t mean on the ice. I didn’t care about that because I wasn’t interested in him, or any of the other hockey guys, not in that way. But I was interested in hockey.

“You’ve already forgotten who shut down your freshmen this afternoon?” I saw the recognition hit, and his gaze ran down my body. Once he was looking at my face again, I made a circling motion with my hand.

“What?”

“My turn. I want to objectify you now.”

He grinned and turned, hands held high to keep his cup of beer safe. “Well?”

I shook my head. “Sorry. Not my type.”

He laughed, and I saw some of the girls in the room watching, a few with unhappy expressions. I got it. He was good looking, tall and well built, and a hockey player. On this campus, that probably got him anything he wanted. Wasn’t going to get anything from me though.

“Come over and meet some of the guys.” He put his hand on my back, ready to direct me. I decided that armed with his admiration and a cup of cheap beer, I could face Seb if I needed to.

I didn’t.

There were a handful of guys around a foosball game, a couple of whom I thought I’d seen at the rink. None were my ex. Blondie, whose name was Cooper, introduced me to the guys as the goalie who’d stopped the freshmen.

They asked about where I’d played and trained, which led to discussing where they’d done the same. That led to talk about the hockey at college level and pro, too. I was into that. I was surprised so many of the guys were willing to stand talking hockey when I could see there were women around ready to spend time with them.

Cooper was beside me for a lot longer than I’d expected. I wondered if he liked talking to me, or whether I’d become a challenge after I told him he wasn’t my type. If so, he’d soon find out I wasn’t joking.

My dad was a sports agent and a cheater. His clients were athletes, and enough of them were cheaters. I wasn’t going there again. I’d made an exception for Seb, and he’d cheated, too. It just wasn’t worth the hassle. Especially when my goal was to get playing time on my new team.

Shit.

I’d spent the whole night so far with these guys. It had been fun, but if Coach Cray found out, it would convince her I only wanted to be with the guys’ team. I looked for Penny, using my height to my advantage, and finally found the copper-haired pixie on the stairs. I excused myself and headed that way.

Penny was talking to a couple of guys and saw me coming. She broke into a big smile. “Faith!” she yelled, voice incredibly loud considering it came out of such a petite body. I saw a lot of people turning her way.

“Faith, these guys are on the cross-country team!”

I nodded at them. They might be athletes, but I was focused on hockey, and not dating.

“Faith plays hockey!”

“Cool,” the taller guy said.

It was obvious the shorter guy was interested in Penny. I knew my job. I kept the other guy distracted, letting Penny talk to her choice. Then I saw a girl I recognized from my team, Zoe, I think her name was. I excused myself, anxious to do some damage control with my teammates. Luckily, the team didn’t seem to be bothered about what I’d done today. Zoe had seen me make Cooper twirl around and loved that. Points to me for bonding with a teammate. I heard more than I cared to about Cooper, and since I didn’t want to talk about the players on the men’s team, I turned the conversation back to our team. We had a lot we could talk about.

Penny tracked me down again. Her new friend couldn’t stay late, since the cross-country guys had an early run the next morning. He’d offered to walk back to the dorm with Penny and me. I shot a glance at Penny, unsure if she wanted me along. Penny nodded, so I said good night to my teammates and headed out with Penny and her guy.

Cooper was with a group of people on the porch as we stepped outside, and he walked over to me. “Leaving?”

---