Page 43 of Secret Puck
After taking a small drink, I tap Ginny on the shoulder with the bottle. Her fingers brush mine. They’re cold and seem to tremble as she twists the cap off.
I wait until she passes it to Dakota before pulling her against me.
“Are you okay?” I whisper. Somehow the end of her braid gets stuck in my mouth in the process.
“Did you just eat my hair?” She runs her hand along her braid and flips it, so it lands in front of her.
“Unintentionally.”
“Shh. I think I can hear someone coming,” Dakota whispers.
Since I can’t soothe her with words, I take her in a vise grip snug against me. Her shoulders are rigid, and I feel her take in a deep breath.
I hum the first song that comes to mind, ‘Fantasy’, and after a few minutes, she melts into me. She turns her head, so her lips are close to mine. “Thank you.”
I’m frozen, staring at her mouth. The cupid’s bow, the fullness of her bottom lip, how soft it feels under the trace of my thumb. I don’t know when I touched it, but I keep doing it. Her eyes fall to my mouth and her tongue darts out, the warm tip wetting my thumb.
I lean in but hesitate to see how she reacts first. She nods her head a fraction, almost as if she’s giving me permission to kiss her.
Adam’s voice calls out, breaking the moment as the other four find us. “Twenty-five minutes. Mav, dude, your shoes are shining like a flashlight at anyone that walks by.”
“Ow! Ow!” Mav yells and shields himself as Dakota pelts him and says, “Worst partner ever.”
15
Ginny
“This isthe coolest thing I’ve ever seen.” I turn a circle. Flat screens cover every inch of the walls, floor to ceiling, all the way around.
Dakota grins and taps on the tablet in her hands. “Wait for it. It gets way cooler.”
We stand in the middle of the room. It’s cozy, not really meant for more than a few people comfortably. The recessed lighting above us dims and the screens all come alive at once.
Hype music pumps into the room and images and videos of the Valley U hockey team play like a highlight reel. My heart races as if I were sitting front row in a playoff game. My brother is shown a lot, which makes sense because he’s been a big contributor to the team since his freshman year.
Sometimes the clips are of the players in action and sometimes it’s media type posed images. One of the latter of Heath fills the screens. His face, jumbo-sized, stares back at me and my stomach does a somersault. He’s so damn hot.
It goes on and on, a good five minutes of film, but when it ends, I want to watch it all over again.
“Awesome, right?” Dakota asks as the screens go black and the overhead lighting returns.
“This is just for recruits?”
“Hockey, specifically. Each team has their own recruitment video and there’s a generic one too that combines pieces from all the videos. We do tours for the community, local schools, and alumni too.” She shows me the tablet where I can select and play the videos and then how to get in and out of the room because it’s a very fancy coded system that seals you in and won’t open while the video is playing.
I follow her out of the room, still a little awestruck.
“That’s the last stop on the tour. Once you’re finished in the hype room, you’ll walk them to the front desk and the coach from whichever team they’re here for will take over.”
“I didn’t realize how much effort they put into getting athletes to come to Valley.”
“They recruit hard. Basketball and hockey especially. So, do you have any questions? Feel ready to lead one on your own?”
“No, I’m probably going to totally botch it. How long have you worked here?”
“Since my freshman year. I quit the track team, but I still wanted to be a part of something that was sports-related. They like to hire student-athletes since we’re familiar with a lot of the facilities and can answer questions they might have.”
She must read the panic on my face because she laughs and adds, “You’ll be fine. It isn’t that hard. You probably know more than you think from Adam.”
