Page 109 of Use Me
“It’s the rules.” She shrugged.
“Can you give me a hint?”
She thought for a moment. “One of them may or may not be a jersey.”
“And the other one?”
“Can’t tell you that.”
The elevator dinged and we walked out into the underground halls of the stadium. At least that was what I’d assumed. It was industrial with walls and walls of off-white concrete. We made our way down the hall and then we were in what vaguely looked like the walkway the players skated out to take the ice right before the game started.
Brittany and I stayed inside the tunnel, and she gave me a general idea of what to do. The buzzer sounded, and the players skated off toward their benches and into their locker rooms.
“Okay, here we go.”
“Wait,” I said, “don’t I need skates?”
She smiled. “You can walk out onto the ice. Just go slow and you won’t fall.”
“I better not!” At least I was in my Chucks and not high heels.
“It will be fine. There are carpets where you’ll take your shots.”
I breathed a sigh of relief and then followed Brittany onto the ice as slowly as I could. It was slippery, but I made it to the first carpet at the blue line. I could hear my friends and family up in the suite to my left screaming and hollering their cheers for me.
“Ladies and gentleman, we have a special guest in the arena tonight.”
Her words stilled me, but then I remembered that this part wasn’t televised because people were watching Rhys do his thing and Corey wouldn’t know where I was.
“You may recognize her as Ashtyn Valor from the evening news. She’s going to try to make two shots. One is from the blue line and one if from the red line. Can we get loud for her?”
People cheered, and I moved to the center of the carpet at the blue line. As I tried to get a good grip on my stick, Tommy Hawk, the Blackhawks mascot that was a giant black hawk, skated out and stood in front of the goal as though he was the goalie.
I laughed and turned my head toward Brittany. “Not making this easy on me are you?”
She smiled and talked into the mic. “You can do it, Ashtyn!”
The crowd cheered again, including everyone in my suite. They were the loudest, which gave me the encouragement to do the best I could. I lined up the puck and slapped it with the stick. It was heavier than I thought it would be, but I watched it glide across the ice and through the legs of Tommy Hawk. He threw his hands over his eyes and faked being defeated. The crowd continued to cheer.
“One down and one to go!” Brittany announced into the mic.
I moved to the carpet that was farther away and did what I had the time before by adjusting my grip and the puck until I felt I was lined up with the center of the net. I swung and watched the puck once again slide across toward the net. I held my breath as it got closer and Tommy Hawk once again pretended to miss it as it went into the net. He threw his stick down and faked being upset. I laughed and turned to Brittany, ready for my prizes.
“I have one of them.” She was holding a Blackhawks T-shirt in her hands. “And Tommy Hawk has the other.”
I turned back to him, and he was standing in front of me holding what appeared to be a square jewelry box. Then Tommy Hawk proceeded to take off his head. He was literally lifting the black bird’s head off his body, and I blinked, realizing I was staring into the electric blue eyes I saw every day and night.
“Rhys?” I whispered.
He didn’t say anything as he started to bend down on one knee. The crowd went crazy, just as wild as my heart beat in my chest. If I wasn’t standing on carpet, I knew my feet would slip and I would fall on my ass. I didn’t want that mishap to be in the story of how Rhys proposed, so I stayed absolutely still and covered my mouth with my hands.
“Cupcake—” he started, grinning up at me.
He was cut off when someone shouted, “We can’t hear you, man!”
We both chuckled, and I thought that was the whole point. Neither one of us wanted to share this moment even though we were in front of nineteen thousand people or so.
Rhys continued, still holding up the box. Now I realized it was open and a big ass diamond was shining at me. I couldn’t tell what it was or what it looked like because tears had started to form in my eyes, causing Rhys and the ring to become blurry.
