Hat Trick

chapter 1

"Marley, hurry up, we're leaving in ten minutes and if you aren't in the car then your aren't coming." my 17 year old brother Nick yells from the hall.

"okay geez just give me a few seconds" I snap back at him as I put on the final touches of my make up. My family is always pretty...well...umm I guess you could call it intense while traveling. especially for hockey. especially when we were getting on a plane to go to Salt Lake City, Utah for nationals. If you weren't on time you could more then bet that you weren't going.

Nick has been playing on this team since he was 8 and I have always felt very close to most of the boys even though most of them never even really noticed me. I would always tell my friends stuff about them and stuff that "we" did when really my brother did that stuff with them. At each tournament I hoped that this would change, I have always hoped that one of them would notice me for more then just 'nick's little sister'. Of course I never got my hopes too high because I mean nick and I were 18 months apart, to me it felt like a couple short weeks, but to those boys I'm sure it felt like we were years apart. Regardless part of me still hoped.

The ride to the airport was awkwardly silent per usual. That is it was silent until Nick got bored, he began to ramble on about random things; from stuff he saw out the window to comments his teammates had made about the up coming weekend to scores of games he'd watched the previous night. Then my dad yelling at my brother for annoying him with an overload of information. Then my mother would shhh and shoot glares at them as she told them to be quiet so she could read. Then there was me sitting all rapped in a blanket staring out my window, getting more irritated by the minute. They were interrupting my ever so famous jake-suede-day-dreams.

Soon, but not soon enough we arrived at the airport. Although, who am I to complain it was 9:30am on a Wednesday and I wasn't in school.

I had brought entirely too many bags with me I could barley carry them, but hey you need a lot of stuff when you've got a team to impress. I stumble and tripped my way in to the airport and made my way slow but surely throughly security. once we were through customs we meet went up with the rest of the team at the chili's just in front. while walking there I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking but instead look at my phone, when I ran straight into Spencer Stefani. I dropped my pillow and few bags, nice marley, good going! I thought to my self

"OMG marley I'm so sorry I was not pay attention to were I walking I'm so so sorry I feel awful are you okay? here let me help you carry these." he says. I want to respond by saying something smart, or at least apologizing because it was obviously my fault but all I can do is stand there and blush and look dumb as he begins to get down on all fours to collect my stuff the I had garage-saled across the airport floor.

"Spenc..." I start to say

"Okay let's go put it by the gate then please let me buy you a coffee or something I feel horrible"

"You don't have to its fine it was my fault" I say almost completely red.

"I know I don't have to , but I want to. It's the least I could do for a pretty girl like yourself" he says with a smile that shows off his boyish charm.

Spencer has played on nicks team forever but it wasn't till this moment when I looked into his blue eyes and saw the sincerity in his kind words and saw his beautiful smile did I realize he was actually quite attractive.

especially today, he was wearing a cute navy half zip sweater and a light blue collared shirt with and red and blue stripped tie. He was wearing khakis and navy and red polo shoes.

he grabbed all my stuff and put it by the gate then we walked to the closest coffee shop.

"what would you like hun? " he asks

"can I get and small vanilla latte please?"

he orders it for me and gets himself and small coffee then adds cream and sugar. The lady hands me drink, I take a sip.

"how is it?" spencer asks
I smile "it's great!"
"good I'm glad"

I smiled bigger then I think I ever have. I was so happy with how I hadn't had anyone be so kind to me in a long time. Maybe it was A good thing I ran into spencer.

I have to admit that it was really really super awkward walking with spencer. There was a connection between the two of us that was obvious but it was like we were both to scared to admit it. we wanted to hold hands as we walked. I could feel it in the way his hand would twitch and mine had felt so empty.

"look," spencer said and pointed out a futon "make a wish" he said as he reached into his pocket then handed me a penny. I closed my eyes and secretly wished that he and I were meant have something, that the connection I felt was real.