Page 36 of Zero Pucks Given
“The kiss looked soreal, Josie. At first I was surprised you two were able to fake it so well.”
I handed a patron their beer, then turned to my friend to spill the beans. “Because we weren’t faking it!”
She gasped. “I knew it!”
“The way he grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled me toward his lips…” I grunted happily. “It was good, Sharon.Reallygood. I think Grayson felt the same way. There was this awkward energy between us for the rest of the game and on the drive home. I practically fled from the car when they dropped me off.”
Sharon let out a happy squeal. “Yes! I’m so excited!”
“You know what I’m excited about? Being done with this whole stupid contest. Yeah, the kiss was good. Anyone can be a good kisser, even someone who is a huge asshole. But I don’t have to see him again. I can finally move on with my life.”
“You’re no fun,” Sharon muttered while walking away to retrieve an order for a customer.
We were busy for the next hour while the opening band played. Then the line at our beer stand died down when the headliner hit the stage.
“I’m going to poke my head in and listen for a bit,” Sharon said. “As long as you have things covered here?”
“I’ll text you if we suddenly get slammed,” I replied, waving her on.
For the next half hour, I only got a handful of customers. The music was fine, but I soon grew bored, so I checked the metrics on my TikTok channel. There was a pronounced spike in my traffic this morning, and it was slowly tailing off through the evening. It put a huge smile on my face. I wasn’t super famous or anything, but this kind of traffic on my channel wouldn’t have been believable a week ago.
I knew that the Surge were playing a road game now, so I Googled the score. They were up, two goals to zero. I clicked the YouTube link next to the score, and a live feed of the game opened on my phone.
“That’s a second goal for the captain in the first period,” the broadcaster was saying, according to the closed captions. “That’s exactly how the Surge wanted to begin this four-game road trip throughthe south.”
The camera zoomed in on Grayson, who was sitting on the bench drinking from a water bottle. Every time one of his teammates walked past, they gave him a fist-bump. Sweat darkened his beard, and he didn’t smile. He seemed focused.
It pissed me off how attractive it made him look.
That kiss had changed the way I thought about the hockey player. Everything was seen in a totally different context.
“Still doing okay here?” Sharon asked.
I flinched in surprise. I hadn’t seen her return.
“Geez, I didn’t mean to scare you. Wait. You’re watching the hockey game?”
“I just wanted to see the score,” I said.
Sharon gave me a silly grin. “Youlikehim.”
“I liked our kiss. Idon’tlike Grayson Steele. He’s still an asshole.”
“An asshole you’re staring at like a lovesick puppy.” She pointed at the phone screen. “Look at the feed. You’ve been watching for ten minutes!”
Suddenly, a notification appeared on my phone. I gave a start when I saw it, and even Sharon flinched.
“Was that…?” she asked.
I tapped on the notification, which pulled up my email. It was an email confirming that a deposit had been made to my bank account.
For ten thousand dollars.
“Wow,” Sharon said. “They actually upheld their end of the deal. Congratulations! Although I still think you should do something more interesting than just paying off your car.”
Seeing that five-figure number on the screen was a thrill that immediately gave me goosebumps. It wasn’t a life-changing amount of money, but it was still more than I’d ever had in my bank accountbefore. An amount that would solve a lot of problems.
But my excitement quickly faded, and was replaced with a weird sense of sadness.
