Page 87 of You Had Me at Hockey

“Yes. Yes, you did.”

That was totally beginner’s luck. I take another shot, and this one counts as three. “Yeah!”

“So I should do the same thing as last time?”

I rub my mouth. “Well, yeah. But try to hit it so that yours stays on the board.”

“Ohhhh. Okay.”

This time she totally misses.

I impress the hell out of her when she has a puck counting as two and I put a little curl on mine to slide around hers to count three.

“How did you do that?” She gapes at me.

I blow on my fingers. “Skill, baby.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re a shuffleboard champ.”

“I may have won a tournament or two.” Then I laugh. “When I was sixteen.”

“Still.” She shakes her head. “This is my last puck.”

“Yep. Make it good.”

She narrows her eyes and studies the weights and how they lie on the board. She’s already figured out the strategy part of the game, but I don’t know if she can actually do it.

She carefully pushes the puck. It slides…good speed…but no curve. I know she was trying to take out mine, but she misses and hers is going off the end. Except…wait…fuck! Her puck stops right on the edge of the table.

I jog down to peer at it. “Well, shit.”

She follows me. “What? What did I do?”

I point to the puck hanging over the edge. “A hanger. That scores four.”

Her eyes pop wide. “You mean…I win?”

“Well, this end.”

She lets out a little shriek and does a dance.

Her friends look over.

“I beat him!” she cries.

“Thanks for announcing that to everyone.” Shaking my head, I clear the table and arrange the pucks for the next end. I hate losing. But it’s Sara and she’s so proud of herself. “Okay, let’s go.”

We continue playing and Sara’s beginner’s luck has run out, so it doesn’t take me long to get the fifteen points needed to end the game.

Does she pout about losing? No. Smiling happily, she says, “That was fun! How about ping-pong next?”

“Let’s do it.”

I don’t tell her that we have a ping-pong table in our practice facility and lots of guys like to play. Including me.

She’s better at ping-pong than shuffleboard, but I beat her easily at that too. I do have fun watching her jump around and make faces as she tries to hit the tiny ball.

“This is what I get for playing against a professional athlete,” she grumbles after.

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