The Puck Bunny

Seventy-Three

FRASER

I knew if she saw me here, she would kill me. She'd fly off the ice, chase me down, and beat me to a pulp with that stick in her hands.

But I'd been sneaking in here as often as I could to watch her skate and couldn't believe my eyes when I saw her go for a puck-and-stick combo instead.

Even more than that, she was good. I could tell she was a center, or maybe even a wing. She was fast, she was effortless, and she was fantastic.

Everything about her made sense. Of course she used to play, how could we have ever believed she didn't? I'd seen her eyes whenever we watched a game together, I knew what she was feeling whenever she saw us play. And I was naïve enough to believe she was too uncoordinated for hockey? She wasn't, she was hiding. I wasn't sure why but here she was, proving everything wrong that we'd foolishly believed.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I understood why she did it. Imagine how we would have treated her if we'd found out she could play. We would have hounded her and badgered her until she finally exploded, then the whole ignoring us thing would have become real and not some plot to try and outsmart her mom.

I thought living without her kissing me but still being friends was hard. No, not having her altogether was hard. Especially not after I let myself fall for her. I didn't have the one person I needed now, and all I could hope was that it would be over soon so I could just sit with her at meals again. I missed her laugh, the way she'd roll her eyes. I missed everything about her physically, but even worse I missed everything about her just as she is. Everything friendly and innocent. I missed the girl who would make me laugh so hard, I'd snort soda out my nose. The girl who wasn't afraid to punch me and call me a dick when I was being a dick. I missed my friend.

I knew she would catch me if I wasn't careful, so I tore my eyes away from the amazing girl on the ice and made my way back out of the rink. Our practice was in about an hour but I wasn't going to hang around here in case she saw me. Because there'd be no coming back from catching her doing something like that.

I made my way back towards Pioneer just in time to see Luke walking across the quad.

"McGill!" I sighed and stopped, kinda hoping he hadn't seen me. But I still stopped as he walked up to me.

"Hey Bennett, how was your break?"

"Good. I didn't think my mom thought Bunk coming through very well because that man can eat as much as us Bennett's can" I chuckled.

"Yours?" He asked.

"Dad was weird for about a day, then everything was normal. We watched hockey, ate food, and chilled. It was really good"

"Are you going to practice this afternoon?" I laughed again.

"Like Cooper wouldn't kill me for not showing up"

"That's true. Have you talked to Carter?" He asked. I shook my head. I had, technically, since the team meeting about staying away from her. When I'd met her in the rink. But since then, I hadn't.

"You?" He nodded.

"Once or twice. It's easy for me to catch her, she lives across the hall. But she's pretty adamant about not talking to me.

"That doesn't surprise me. When she puts her mind to something, she really puts her mind to it"

"She watched a movie with me a few weeks ago"

Was he purposely trying to wind me up? Because it was fucking working.

"Oh?"

"Yeah I had a moment of weakness and admitted I needed her so she came and watched a movie with me"