“Oh yeah. He definitely likes you right where you’re at,” Lucy said, drawing my attention away from the ice. She turned her head to look farther up to a group of girls who were glaring daggers down at us. “And the bunnies already seem to know who you are. You definitely disappointed lots of girls tonight who had their sights set on catching Luka now that he was single.”
“Too bad for them that I’ve snapped him up seeing as his ex was stupid enough to let him go,” I muttered, returning their glare for a moment.
“Yeah, I heard from Alex what his slut-bag ex did to him. Never got to meet her, but the girl had to be crazy to pull a stunt like that on a guy like Luka,” she gossiped.
“Lucky for me though,” I reminded her.
“True enough,” she agreed.
“You’ve been coming to games for the last two years and never met Kat?” “I know it sounds weird, but from what I heard, she never came to campus for any of his games. Never went to any of his away games, even when they weren’t too far from her school. And never went to any of the tournaments, which are a hell of a lot of fun,” Lucy answered.
Her answer blew me away and gave me a little more insight into Luka’s relationship with his ex. I’d wondered how he could possibly have put their breakup behind him so quickly, but it sounded like they’d already started to grow apart way before then. It made me sad for him while it also made me feel even more hopeful for what was building between the two of us, because there was no way in hell I’d ever take him for granted like that.
“I hope I can make one of the tournaments then,” I said.
“You’re here tonight and have only been dating Luka for what a week?”
I nodded in response.
“There you go, then. I bet you will,” she said before turning to blow kisses at a guy on the ice. “That’s my Alex.”
I watched the guys skate during warm-ups. Luka was a tall guy, but he looked huge out there on his skates with all his gear on. Every once in a while, he’d glance up at me with a grin on his face, making it clear that he was very happy I was there to catch the game. Knowing that his ex hadn’t bothered to come to any over the last three years and seeing for myself that it pleased him for me to be in the stands cheering him on, I made myself a promise to catch as many games as I could.
Lucy proved to be a godsend because she was able to explain all the rules to me because they were so confusing. The refs blew the whistle so often that it was hard to tell why they did it each time. Lucy tried to tell me about not being able to cross the blue line when the puck wasn’t in the offensive zone or else you’d be called for being off-sides. Since Luka was on defense, that didn’t seem to be a problem for him. But sometimes he would send the puck all the way across the ice and the other goalie would wave his teammates off so the ref would call Luka’s team for icing. So many darn whistles blowing.
I was impressed by how well everyone skated. They were so fast on the ice, but I was stunned by how hard they hit each other. Luka seemed to be particularly good at checking other players when they came onto his side of the ice with the puck. He spent a lot of time on the ice with Jason, skating out at the same time as him. You could tell they’d played together for a long time because they seemed to know what the other one was going to do before it happened. They switched sides of the ice, back and forth, depending on where the puck was and who could get to it fast enough.
By the end of the second period, the score was tied 2-2. None of the other team’s goals had been scored while Luka and Jason had been on the ice, which Lucy explained was a good thing. She was fidgeting in her seat, upset that Alex had let two goals slip past him.
“Dammit,” she muttered as the final period started. “I hope they don’t lose this one. Alex will be so mad at himself for letting that last goal get in. He was screened for the first one so he couldn’t see it coming, but that second one was all him.”
I reached out and held her hand as the game continued, pulled into the action just as much as she was. There were a lot of close calls both ways. Alex seemed to be on fire as this period started to wind down, stopping shot after shot on net.
“He’s doing well, right?” I asked her.
“Hell yeah he is. He’s practically standing on his head now,” she agreed. “Our offense just needs to get the puck in the net so we can win this one.”
The clock kept winding down as we cheered the team on. Luka and Jason were on the ice while the other team was killing a penalty with less than two minutes remaining on the clock. They were on the other side of the ice, passing the puck around, trying to get a goal. They’d taken a few shots already, but the goalie kept deflecting them.