Page 67 of Crazy Pucking Love
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The rest of the week flew by in a blur—the days anyway. The nights remained long, and I’d texted Dane once, but only got a reply that he was still playing catch-up. No flirting. Nothing more. Just blunt and to the I-don’t-have-time-for-you point.
Which he’d warned me about, and it fit our arrangement, so I shouldn’t experience a twinge of hurt whenever I thought about it. I debated not going to the game, but again, my brother was on the team, I loved hockey, and what else was I going to do?
Vanessa decided to come, too, and I had a feeling Ryder had something to do with it, although she said she still wasn’t sure what to make of Mr. Stoic.
Dane and I were friends, on top of occasionally sleeping together, and I didn’t know what to make of him, so I understood more than I wanted to.
By the time we made it down the cement steps to the row where Lyla and Whitney had set up, we joked that we needed to go back and get concessions.
“You girls going to the big party afterward?” Lyla asked as I settled into the seat next to her.
“Big party? At the Quad?”
“No, this one’s off-campus.”
“At Boston College’s only self-proclaimed frat house, Sigma Phi Epsilon,” Whitney said with an eye roll. “They’re unaffiliated, because the school doesn’t have fraternities. They offered to recognize them if they dropped the Greek letters and admitted women, but they refused.”
“I’m guessing by your tone that you’re not a fan,” I said.
“Not by a long shot. I told Hudson, and he said he didn’t pick the location, but that he had to go and hoped I’d go with him. Shows how far gone I am for the guy that I agreed to step foot in that house.”
I assumed Dane was going to the party, too, then, although he definitely hadn’t bothered mentioning it.
Vanessa tugged at my jacket sleeve. “Let’s go. I love the Quad and all, but it’d be nice to mingle with a new group of people.”
“I’m game.” Especially if Dane was there. With a week of classes and the game behind him, maybe he’d be able to relax and have some fun—and I’d love to help him out with that.
Whitney leaned forward, raising her voice above the crowd. “I’m designated driver tonight, so you guys can go with us. I’ll just tell Beck we need to take the Land Rover in order to fit a few more.”
Having my brother at the party put a damper on my plan to throw my arms around Dane and kiss him as soon as I saw him. Which meant I’d have to be sneaky in order to even talk to him, but I missed him these past few days. Hopefully we could duck out early and get to the kissing part.
The game started, and within the first ten minutes, I could see what Dane meant about the game being a tough one. The guys on the other team were not only huge but also played rough and dirty. Hudson ended up in the penalty box, and with our team one man down for those two minutes, the opposing team easily scored.
Lyla bit her thumbnail. “This game is not off to the best start. Where’d these guys come from? They didn’t look like this last year.”
Whitney furiously scribbled in her notepad, her eyes darting from it to the ice. “I heard they had an amazing team this year. Their secondary scoring has been unbelievable, and even in penalty kill mode they manage to make huge plays.”
Lyla looked at her. “It still sometimes throws me off when you sound like the guys while talking about hockey.”
“Hey, when in Rome. Hudson once joked that I’d make a good sports reporter, and honestly, I’m finding I kind of love it. I’m glad I ended up staying on the sports column on top of writing the other articles, even if it keeps me crazy busy.”
Well, as much as I didn’t like it, Whitney was right. The other team scored even when one of their guys was in the penalty box, while our defense struggled. They shut down the first line, but then that damn secondary one would score.
The beginning of the third period was a battle, and Hudson almost got in a fight, then Dane almost got in one defending him. Luckily the refs broke it up before anyone took a swing. And at least the other two players ended up sitting out the same two minutes as Dane and Hudson.
The ice looked so empty with four less guys, and right before the buzzer, the other team scored again.
“What the puck, guys?” Lyla shouted. “Why was no one guarding number twelve? He’s their top scorer.”
The last few minutes of the game ticked down, and while we scored one more goal, the other team immediately scored right after. They hit another in last minute, putting them three ahead at the buzzer, resulting in our first loss of the season.
The team was still in good standing, and one loss on their record wouldn’t make or break them. But I knew none of the guys would see it that way, and I had a feeling we were about to attend a party with a lot of somber hockey players.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Megan
