Page 11 of Fake Skating

How dare she?

How dare she look up at me like that? It was almost game time, but my mind was still on her face as I took a few laps, taking shots at the open net while picking up speed.

God, her face.

Richie was wrong.

She wasn’t cute—she was fucking gorgeous.

Dani had always been pretty because of her laugh and the way she was so carefree. Her Dani-ness made her impossible to look away from.

The girl I’d knocked down in the hallway, though—she was a drop-dead stunner. All that wavy blond hair, those big brown eyes and black glasses… it fucking worked.

Not that I cared.

I wasn’t a dick, but I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t felt good to turn around and walk away like I’d never seen her before.

Because she didn’t matter anymore.

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath when I heard the whistle, because warm-ups were over and I’d barely registered any of it. I was on fucking autopilot, which was the last thing I needed to be when I had a game.

I needed to be on . I needed to be intentional.

I needed to be proactively on top of every move being made by every player in a fucking blue jersey. Shutting down Simley was the only thing that mattered, especially when I knew there were scouts in the seats.

Fucking focus , dipshit.

A few years back, I used to get myself pumped up by imagining Dani watching me play in the NHL someday—while she was married to some loser and regretting her decisions. Regretting what she did.

It’d worked at the time, but I didn’t need that motivational shit anymore.

She was nothing, and hockey was everything.

I jumped the boards and took down some water, redirecting my thoughts from her to the game as Coach started drawing out plays on his clipboard.

And by the time the puck dropped, she was long gone from my mind.

We struck first as Bauer snapped a shot past Simley’s goalie on an odd-man rush, and then Richie made it 2–0 as he finished off a pretty passing play with Kirchner and Hardina.

We had a shitty second period overall, and Vinny had to make some saves when we were leaking oil a little bit, but in the end we pulled it off and got the win.

A gutty effort, an ugly fucking dub.

But a win was a win.