Shutout

Ice Hockey

"This is stupid," Ramona mumbles into her hand but her sight stays focused in front of her. Somehow Briar had managed to get her to come to a West Etteca High hockey game, saying "Please! It's my boyfriend who's in the goal, I need to support him but I can't go alone!" She puffed out her bottom lip and made her best puppy dog eyes until Ramona sighed and reluctantly agreed. Now, half an hour later the two are sitting in the front row of the stands surrounding the rink. They're watching as the hockey team, compiled only of the most annoying guys from their school who generally spent their time looking at their hair or saying "eh?", as they warmed up.

Ramona and Briar had gotten to the arena early but as the minutes ticked by the seats around them began to fill up. Their school wasn't a standard football school, instead hockey is where everyone turned up. Students in every grade sat in the stands, ambling around until the warm up count down finished and the game started. The crowd was a sea of blue, West Etteca's signature color.

"Hey, take your hand off your face! You're gonna smudge the makeup I so kindly did for you." Briar says sternly. Her tone is commanding enough for Ramona to follow her instructions without even a quiet mumble of how Briar had done her makeup very enthusiastically after Ramona very begrudgingly allowed her to do it. And even then Ramona thought she agreed to maybe some concealer and mascara but now her eyelids now are covered in blue smudges of eyeshadow and her even her waterline was filled in with a blue eyeliner. The final touch to the look, the part Ramona most strongly detests, a big '#20' drawn on her cheek. Ramona wasn't stupid enough to not know why Briar chose that number when she giggled like she was being tickled by a hundred feathers when she wrote it.

Briar did her own makeup almost the same as Ramona, but instead of a '#20', her cheek had '#1' in carefully applied blue face paint. She had grinned when Ramona had asked if it was Aaron's, and playfully shrugged.

"Look what I brought!" Briar pulls out her bag that seems to hold a never ending amount of candy. At the very top of the pile is Ramona's favorite, Sour Patch watermelon. Ramona grins. "I think this is the most excited I've ever seen you look." Briar says, giggling when Ramona rolls her eyes and steals the bag of gummies out of her bag.

"I would look like this all the time if you constantly blessed me with the epitome of delicious snacks." Ramona rips into the bag and intently shoves a few pieces into her mouth.

Now Briar rolls her eyes and scrunches her nose in faux disgust. "Those are disgusting! They always get stuck in your teeth, they aren't even sour, and they taste nothing like watermelon," Briar lists.

"It's not my fault you have no taste-" Ramona's cut off by a sudden bang. She turns her head to see the perpetrator, Aaron. Though he's not looking at her. His attention is not on Briar. Ramona grimaces at the palpable adorable pining happening on each side of the glass. Briar's eyes soften and she forgets all about rants on disgusting candy. They stare into each other's eyes until someone yells something from the middle of the ice and Aaron turns his head. He winks at Briar, who in turn blows him a kiss with a side of giggles, before glancing at Ramona for the first time. His gaze shifts to the writing on her cheek. Aaron raises an eyebrow knowingly before skating away.

Ramona's left with her lips pressed together, vaguely uncomfortable from any indication made by Aaron's knowing look. He didn't know her. But she forces herself to shake off, mutilating her discomfort into aggressively shoving more gummies into her mouth.

"Hey, control your eyes. Anymore staring at your boyfriend and I think your eyes might fall out of their sockets." Ramona quips at Briar. Briar breaks her intense gazing at Aaron, who was currently being pummeled with pucks as each of his teammates took a shot at the goal (although somehow he blocked the large majority of them, though the whole interaction seemed less than pleasant to Ramona), to look at Ramona. A soft smile resides on her face, a smile that tells Ramona just how happy he made her. And she supposes some lovey dovey stuff can be excused for her best friend's contentment.