Sticks and Skates [Wayhaught]

Three For the Money

Saturday morning, Waverly awoke for game day again, knowing she wouldn't have to wait around all day to watch the team play. The Peg City Pirates were in town from Winnipeg for a noontime matinee game against the Blue Devils. She was hoping for a better ending to today's game, knowing how unruly the fans got after Tuesday night's heartbreaker. Leave it to Purgatorians to all but trash the place in their "sports yelling and down-falling", as Nicole had called it.

She couldn't help but feel for Nicole, seeing how the game ended last time. She knew Nicole blamed herself, she could see it all over her face from where she sat between the benches. That, and the redhead had showed up to the rink on Wednesday, looking less than fresh and rested, visibly deflated the whole day at work. She'd tried her best to cheer the girl up all day, but barely earned anything more than a small half-smile.

They arrived at the arena later than Waverly would have liked, groaning at the fact they were out of coffee at the homestead and didn't have time to stop for some. She looked through the office hopeful to find some to fill the staff coffee machine that was honestly probably older than she was, but found only Wynonna's mini fridge missing more than a few beers.

"Calm down babygirl," she heard her sister say from the other side of the room near the rental skates, "Robin's got donuts in Champ's mechanic room and we've got a coffee delivery com—oh, perfect it's here."

A knock on the ticket window came as Wynonna spoke, and Waverly turned around to see a just-woken-up-looking Nicole carrying two paper coffee cups. Waverly waved her around to enter through the office door.

Nicole handed Wynonna one of the cups, which the woman accepted greedily and took off to presumably grab a donut.

With a smile, Nicole extended the second cup to Waverly. Written on the outside of the cup was her own name in Nicole's handwriting next to an adorably drawn smiley face.

"Made with almond milk." Nicole's smile lit up her eyes as Waverly accepted the offering.

"Thank you." She grinned. "But, what about you?"

"I can't drink coffee on game days on account that it's dehydrating and banned by Sheriff Nedley." Nicole explained. "Wynonna texted me, asked me to bring some coffee, so I did."

She rolled her eyes. Of course Wynonna would.

"You know she's not your boss, you didn't have to do that for her."

"Who says I did it for her?" Nicole smirked, and Waverly hoped she was imagining the wink because it sent a shot through her chest and into her stomach. She knew Nicole could be smooth when she wanted to, but this one had caught her off guard so very early in the morning. "Anyway, she gets me on the ice before everyone else, so the least I can do is bring coffee. Really, I don't mind."

"Well, thank you then."

"I'm gonna actually get on the ice in a few minutes, what do ya say to joining me?"

"Oh, uh," she stammered for a moment, well aware that this was now the second time in very close succession that the other girl had left her just ever so slightly flustered. Realistically, any work she needed to get done pregame could be handled during warmups, but she was still able to find an excuse. "Yeah, I'd love to, but I don't wanna intrude on your pregame ritual though."

"Nonsense, I asked you."

Nicole's face was so sincere and inviting, and it really did seem like fun to go out on the ice, so she really didn't have any excuse not to join her, did she?

"Okay. I'll grab some skates and see you out there."

Normally, Waverly would prefer to have her own skates, but because of the game today, the public skate was cancelled, and so she left her skates back home. Finding a pair of rentals in her size, she grabbed them and laced them up before going into the rink area to wait for Nicole.