When a strange girl always shows up to practice with a book in her hand. And a boy, known for not wanting to read, begins to spend his free time with his nose in a book to get to know her.
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A Tale of Two Readers
"Can you even read, Silky?"
It was just a comment. A comment that made a lot of sense all things considered, but here he is, squinting to try and figure out what the title of her book is as he gets water. She is wrapped up in a Minnesota sweatshirt - Rob's if he remembered the back correctly - a book in cold looking hands.
Herb's daughter - home from school for the holidays - spent some of her days at the rink, watching practice. Except, she spent more time with her nose buried in a book than she did actually watching practice. Which helped in some ways. The boys weren't nervous about such a beautiful girl watching them. Their hormones weren't bouncing off the walls as they tried to one up each other to impress her. And she didn't notice how they stared at her.
She didn't notice how they watched her face react to everything she read. She didn't realize how cute they thought it was when her nose would scrunch, or her mouth would fall open, or she'd close the book and stare off into space to think about something that just occurred. The boys loved it. Herb loved it (because he loves his daughter). But Silky especially loved it.
He'd found out months ago his long time girlfriend had cheated on him following his leave. He'd been crushed. His heart had been torn from his chest, stomped on, run over, shred, drowned, punched, kicked, stabbed, cut, dropped from an airplane, swallowed by a whale, chewed up and spit back out. And his dreams of an Olympic gold almost were too.
Herb had called him into his office, deciding Craig wasn't doing a good enough job getting him back on track. Silky was terrified. He knew his game had gone and he was probably about to get sent home. And he'd noticed a general trend that those that went into Herb's office, rarely came back into the locker room. Most were given a one way ticket home.
He didn't want to go home. If he went home he'd have to hear about it from his parents...and friends...and their parents...and his grandparents...and their friends. And he'd probably see her (and the new guy that was supposedly so much better than him). And then hear about it from her friends. And, if the new guy dumped her, Silky would have to deal with her crawling back. And he would know she was using him as a rebound, but his heart would remember how he felt when he had her and he'd let her back.
Then when she eventually broke his heart again, he'd deal with the same emotions all over again. A broken heart is a loved heart, but a heart can only be broken so many times. And if this next go around occurred he wouldn't have any hockey to release his emotions. No gold medal to make it all worth it.
