One in 2330 ~ Connor Bedard Love Story

1. That One Phone Call

~Don't stop believin'~

~*~*~

It was a sunny afternoon in St. Louis. All the guys had been drafted by now and had come back to St. Louis to stay the summer between the seasons. Luke had been chosen to join Team USA for this year's World Juniors and Brady had recently got engaged to his girlfriend, Emma Farinacci.

"Oh my god! Congratulations!" I shouted when Brady and Emma announced it, giving the two of them a big hug.

Over the years, I had gotten to know Emma through the many times that Brady would bring me up to Canada to live with him and Emma for a few weeks in the summer. Emma and I had gotten really close during these visits and I practically thought of her as my sister, so it was about time that Brady proposed. I had also gotten to know his teammates during this time and I definitely connected with a few of his teammates more than others, like, Tim Stützle, Jacob Bernard-Docker, Shane Pinto and Thomas Chabot.

Brady's teammates were great. They practically felt like my second family whenever I would visit and they'd even let me play with them. They would always say that Brady and I couldn't be on the same team because of sibling advantages or something, but it was most likely just to see what would happen when one sibling would beat the other. I, of course, would always beat Brady, but Brady would always claim that it was because I was tiny and I could slip by him easily, or some other terrible excuse.

Back at home, the boys and I were playing road hockey in a giant empty parking lot by our house. We were all wearing roller blades to make it seem more like ice hockey and Matthew was in the nets with the rest of us taking turns firing tennis balls at him.

It was my turn to go, so I placed a tennis ball on the ground about twenty feet away from Matthew and skated back a bit so I could have a bit of room to gain some speed. There was one move that I had been practicing with my dad since I was five and I thought it would be the perfect time to test it out. None of the guys knew that I was practicing this, so I thought it would be a good way to surprise them.

I skated up to the tennis ball, gaining speed fast. I quickly moved the tennis ball forward, going from front hand to back hand in milliseconds, confusing Matthew. When I got close enough, I pulled my stick back like I was going to shoot the ball into the top left corner of the net, but at the last second, I scooped the ball onto my stick, dragged the stick across my body and tossed it into the top right corner above his glove. I did this in under a second, that when I skated by Matthew's right side, I saw him looking behind him, shocked to see the puck on the right side of the net as he had slid over to the left to block my supposed shot to the top left corner.

"Soph! Where'd you learn that?" Brady asked, eyes wide. "That was sick!"

"Yeah, I never knew you could do that!" Quinn added, giving me a high five.

"I've been practicing with Dad since I was five to get that right. Looks like it worked." I smirked, giving Matthew my signature, "I'm better than you," look.

"I'll get you next time." Matthew assured, rolling his eyes.

"Sure you will..." I replied sarcastically. That's when I heard my phone go off from the curb where we had all placed our stuff. "Just a sec, guys," I said, skating over to my bag and digging my phone out of one of the many pockets it had. When I looked at the ID associated with the caller, I was confused to see the words, IIHF World Juniors - Team USA, on my phone.

Why would the US World Juniors team want to talk to me? I wondered. Maybe this was some sort of verification that Luke wasn't actually a crazy person or something.