Equal Ice // Harry Styles AU

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Gabrielle’s POV

The new boy was pretty different from the rest of the guys on this hockey team. He just seemed a lot more laid back and relaxed. After looking over at him one more time, I soon brought my attention back to the argument that Bella and Zack always seemed to have when they saw each other.

“Well its still not very manly if you are on ice skates,” Bella said to Zack.

“They are not ice skates, they are hockey skates, there is a big difference,”

“Sure there is,” Bella said sarcastically.

“So who’s the new guy?” Bella asked after a few moments passed, and I wondered when she noticed that there was a new face here.

The messy haired boy looked over to Bella after she asked, realizing that he was the new guy she was referring to.

“This here is Harry,” Zack said as he patted his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

The name Harry suited him well, especially with his crazy hair.

“Andrew left the team, some family issue came up and he had to quit, so Harry was recruited here from England,” Zack said.

I wanted to point out that recruited wasn’t the correct word to use since we weren’t in the military, but decided it would be best just to keep my mouth shut and let Bella speak.

“Oh okay, so not only did you lose a guy, you can’t even find another one in this country to join you team,” Bella said, wiping the smug smile of Zack’s face.

“Just leave,” he said, and then skated away in defeat.

Bella and I looked at each other and smiled successfully before turning back around and picking out bags up, and then me taking my skates off. I sat back down on the bleachers and tried to unlace my skates as quickly as I could, but it didn’t help that the laces on my left skate were tangled in a big knot.

“Why are you still here?” Zack asked as he came to a stop while skating past us.

“Gabrielle’s lace is tangled, okay, so just leave and go back to doing whatever,” Bella said as she helped me untangle the lace.

I didn’t hear Zack’s response before he skated off, but I didn’t care.

After a few more moments of tugging and pulling at the lace, we finally got it untied.

“Thank God!” Bella shouted, and I laughed as I slid the skate off my foot, along with the other skate that untied easily.

All the hockey players on the rink turned to look at Bella with weird looks from her shouting. She just gave them an awkward smile and then turned back to face me.

“I didn’t realize how loud I said that,” she said quieter.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said as I put both skates in my bag and zipped it up.

“Come on, let’s go,”

We walked out of the rink, and I took this time to praise Bella for her brilliant comebacks.

“Those come backs to Zack were genius,” I told Bella.

“They were, weren’t they?” she said as she gave her hair a small flip with her hand, and we both laughed.

“So your mom is at the snack bar?” I asked Bella as we walked into the lobby.

“Yeah, she’s going to be pissed that we made her wait so long,” Bella said as he lifted the strap of her bag further up her shoulder.

“I doubt she’ll be that mad,” I said, and I meant it.

Bella’s mom was never one to get to furious about things unless they were really bad. She was usually a pretty positive person which I liked about her, unlike my dad who loses it in anger every time I’m over five minutes late.

Bella and I headed over to where the snack bar was, and as we got closer, I saw Bella’s mom sitting at one of the tables. As we walked up to her, she noticed us approaching her, so she went ahead and put her phone away.

“I didn’t think you girls were ever going to get finished at the rink,” Bella’s mom said.

“Gabrielle, didn’t your time at the rink for practicing end over fifteen minutes ago?” she asked.

“Yeah, but we had two things to deal with,” I said, keeping it simple because I knew Bella would want to explain everything that happened.

“Yeah, a skate lace and a group of assholes,” Bella scoffed.

“Language Bella,” her mom scolded, but Bella just shrugged it off.

“So was it the hockey team?” Bella’s mom asked us, referring to what Bella described as the ‘assholes.’

“Yeah, and they’re all di-” Bella stopped when she caught the glare her mom was sending her.

“Di-Disturbing, down right awful people,” Bella said, catching her from cursing again.

“Uh huh that’s what I thought you were going to say,” her mom said, still somewhat scolding her for the word she was about to say.

“Whatever,” Bella said, and her mom just ignored it.

“The stupid hockey guys even got a new player, Andrew was their new player last year and he left, I wonder how long this on is going to last if they can’t even keep a player for a full year,” Bella said.

“Oh be nice,” her mom told her.

“It’s true though, how can they expect to go to the Olympics if they keep getting a new player,” I said.

“Now girls don’t sell them short, this is only the second time that this has happened,” Bella’s mom said.

“Third,” Bella corrected.

“I’m sure Andrew had a good reason for needing to leave the team,” her mom continued, ignoring Bella’s correction.

“They said family issues,” I told her.

“See Bella, that is a decently good reason for him needing to leave, we don’t know what’s going on and it could be a big issue he has to help deal with,”

“You’re right, we don’t know what’s going on so he could be making it up. Being on a team with those boys I could come up with a good reason to leave too,” Bella said.

“Okay, enough of that Bella,” her mom told her.

“It’s true though, he could’ve left to join another team or something,” Bella said.

“And why do you care if he left?” Bella’s mom asked.

Bella sighed, “I don’t,”

“Then let it go,” her mom told her.

Just as Bella was about to speak again, I looked over towards the doors that led to the private ice rinks and I saw a familiar head of hair walking over to us.

“That’s him, the new guy,” Bella whispered to her mom once she also noticed him walking over to us.

“The guy with the hair?” she asked, and I smiled a bit at her comment, now knowing I wasn’t the only one who seemed to notice his big mess of hair.

Bella nodded in response as he kept walking across the lobby

I wasn’t sure why he was coming over to us and why he wasn’t at the rink with the other boys. I would’ve guessed that Zack would be making Harry practice extra hard with them since he is just joining the team, and some of the ways they play hockey in Britain might be different from America. I doubt it since it’s a worldwide sport, but there may be some differences. At first I thought he was just coming out here to get some water or something, but I knew I was wrong as he kept walking closer and closer to where we were.