when the ice melts // jack hughes

chapter eighteen

"So, what do you want to eat?" Nathan and I were walking passed all the concession, the first intermission had started five minutes ago. "I'm totally fine, thank-" Nate interrupted me, "No, it's getting late. Do you want poutine? Or something.." "Poutine is fine." I smiled at him, we walked to the busy food concession. "Two poutines please." Nathan requested from the girl working the stand, she nodded, and Nate gave her the money for the food. "Thank you. You can wait over there." The girl pointed to the waiting line for food; we stood in line and waited. "I'm gonna be honest, I'm actually surprised you said yes to coming with me to the game. It's been a while since we've seen each other so I thought maybe you'd be uncomfortable." Nate admitted, looking down at his shoes. I thought it was cute to see Nathan mildly nervous. It was his old, considerate self. "I'm having a great time, thank you." The girl brought our poutines, we continued to walk around. "So, how's the cafe?" Nathan began to eat from his poutine, I poked my fork into mine. "It's okay, we were pretty busy during this Summer.." I wanted to mention having a new coworker, but something was telling me not to mention it. I pushed the thought aside and kept walking. Being in this arena for Nathan and not for Cam took a little getting used to. I was so used to spending time with my brother when coming to games since Cameron would be on the ice, so being here with Nathan was a different feeling. We walked back to our spot and sat down, Nathan dug right into his poutine. "Sorry, I live for this stuff." He laughed and set his foot on the seat in front of us. "All good, all good." I took a bite out of my food. I looked around at the people walking around the arena,it was nice to be talking to someone other than Cam. It felt like I hadn't talked to Julie in years, we haven't talked since the party. She tried to reach out, but I never responded. I pulled my phone out and opened Julie's messages.

16 unread messages

Nathan was on his phone, so I assumed he wouldn't care if I used mine. Julie's texts all went like the same way.

No freaking way, Cameron's a semi-famous hockey player?!

You both were on that drama site!

...

How could you not tell me?!

...

Bro how come you're not responding to my texts, it's been a week!

Hello?

...

Via, you're scaring me.

...

I'm gonna either assume you're dead OR assume you're fine and hanging with that hot hockey player. You've probably got cool friends now.

...

I get it.

-

I felt terrible. Everything happening with Cameron threw me for a loop, I never got around to sharing with Julie. I also really didn't want anyone to know, besides people who obviously knew because they watched hockey. It wasn't like Cam got recognized all the time, just the occasional time, and only people from around here. I didn't want people I went to school with knowing, because they would only care that Cam is a semi-big deal. Well, it was a bigger deal for me. Julie is great, but she wouldn't care about his career and only care that he's a big deal. Does that make sense? Well, now she knew. Julie also knew that I'm the person who likes to be left alone when I'm out of it, so she didn't come to my house. I guess I owed her an explanation.
So I shot her a text.