The Minnesota Miracle [kirill kaprizov]

Chapter Three

I woke up pretty early, and surprisingly I felt well-rested, even though I went to bed at two in the morning and I woke up at seven in the morning. Must have been that coffee from yesterday.

I looked at my phone and noticed that Kirill had liked the four posts I had up on my account, as well as a message that read 'good morning' a couple minutes ago from waking up.

I texted him back with a good morning text before I picked out my outfit for the day.

Corey had morning classes, so she normally was out getting breakfast at seven before her classes started at eight.

Speaking of Corey, we were able to get into good terms again after last night's conflict, and we both agreed to hopefully go to a hockey game together whenever the time opened up.

I decided to clean up a little bit around our dorm room, mostly cleaning out our bathroom and taking the trash out and down to the dumpster outside.

Afterwards I did some schoolwork and even hit the small gym for an hour or so, and I felt much better after lifting and running.

By the time nine-thirty rolled around, I got ready to go to the practice rink for the Wild in Saint Paul. I still haven't told Story yet about this whole situation with Kirill, and I'm sure I'm going to be hearing about my absence from class today and the fact that we aren't going to be hanging out afterwards because I'll be with someone else.

I texted Corey that I'll be gone for a while, probably until six or seven tonight. She responded with a thumbs up.

I sighed as I put on my black jacket, then I grabbed my purse, keys, and headed out the door.

The weather in Minneapolis wasn't that bad, a high of thirty-nine and partly sunny skies for the middle of December. A light breeze was blowing by, which honestly felt really nice.

I started up my car and exited the parking lot. I drove down southeast Washington Avenue for a while before I turned onto University Avenue.

My phone buzzed on the center console and it appeared as a notification on my dashboard. It was a text from Kirill asking where I was and how I was doing.

I sighed as I stopped at a light, so I took the opportunity to text him back saying that I was almost to St. Paul and that I was excited for the day ahead. He responded with a laughing emoji.

I smiled as I set my phone back down on the center console and as the light turned green I gently stepped on the gas pedal and continued driving.

Not much long later I pulled into the practice rink area, which was a couple of blocks away from the Xcel Energy Center, situated more in downtown Saint Paul.

I put the car in park and turned off the vehicle. I grabbed my purse and took the keys out of the ignition. I glanced at my phone one last time before I went into the practice rink.

I had to pay a fee, but it wasn't all that much. It was pretty reasonable considering you're so close to the players, fifty bucks. I'd get that any day for practice rather than basically nosebleed seats for an actual game.

There was a lot of general admission, but not as much as I had expected for practice.

I sat down in one of the seats across from the bench while they were working on some awkward shooting places and even some three-on-three hockey games. It was fairly entertaining to watch, actually!

My phone buzzed and it was a text from Story.

Where are you?

I sighed and ignored the text.