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Madison glanced to her right, where Amanda was positioned.  To her horror, Madison realized that she had completely forgot to smile and the last few seconds she was out there, she plastered the biggest smile she could muster.  When she finished pushing the ice to either side of the rink, she stayed on one side and scooped the particles up and dumped them in the nearby cart.  Skating to the other side in order to do the same thing, she noticed Alec Schumacher, along with a few of Gulls players, standing close to the team’s bench, talking amongst themselves while waiting for the Girls to finish.  He was looking directly at her, his midnight blue eyes seeming to scrutinize her, which only made her insecurities to come rushing back to her.  Was there something in her teeth?  Was her face just so completely red due to the cold?  Did he notice the hair sticking up on her arms and think it was gross?

But when he saw that she had noticed him looking at her, Alec gave Madison what she was beginning to believe was his patented charm smile, and she couldn’t help but roll her eyes and silently admonish herself that she even for one second cared what he thought of her in the first place.  Once she reached her destination, she noticed Alec collecting the stray ice that she probably missed with his hockey stick and moving it to the pile she had made.  When Madison looked at him, his face appeared soft, genuine, instead of arrogant and self-righteous, as though he was helping her because he wanted to and not because he wanted something from her.

Madison shook her head, trying to forget the image of that particular hockey player.  He was a player – for lack of a better word – and she didn’t mean hockey.  He was familiar with how to seduce women, so it probably wasn’t hard for him to appear caring.  Well, she for one wasn’t going to fall for it.  She learned her lesson back in high school, and didn’t need to forget it just because Alec was good looking.

When she finished scooping up and depositing the ice into the cart, she rushed out of the rink.  This time, the smile on her face was real.

“Oh my gosh, that was amazing!” she exclaimed to Amanda as the Girls began to reform their line.

“See?” Amanda said with a similar grin on her face.  “It’s fun, right?  You just have to remember to smile and flirt with the audience, you know, with your eyes and everything. 
Maybe a wink here and there.  But don’t worry.  It’ll come to you naturally and you won’t even have to think about it anymore.”

Madison
laughed, her entire body relaxing, thankful that the first time was over, and even more thankful that she actually enjoyed doing the labor.  Though, her passion wasn’t for the actual cleaning of the ice but rather the adrenaline skating in front of those people, wearing a cute outfit, and representing a hockey game produced.  She turned so she could watch the game resume, and continued to smile, feeling that her stomach was void of anxiety and filled with anticipation at the next time she would have to go out there.

As she watched the game, Madison began to notice that every time the Gulls goalie, Brandon Thorpe, the audience booed.  In fact, when she walked into the rink before the game, she noticed a small group of people
with picket signs that chanted something about killers and thrillers or something like that.  Madison thought it was just people protesting the violence of the sport, but her father never mentioned the controversy about it.  Really, everyone knew hockey was violent.  But apparently when there was a chance that murder was involved, it inspired people, who probably never even watched a game, to storm over and push their opinion on innocent ticketholders. 

How security hadn’t forced them off the property thirty seconds after they appeared, Madison had no clue.

Her eyes drifted from Alec over to Thorpe.  The more she watched him, the more she realized just how good he was.  Stopping saves she couldn’t even see, bending his body in ways she thought were impossible.  And yet, he had to deal with people, predominantly Gulls fans, booing him, even though he was doing incredible.

She couldn’t deny it; even though Thorpe was a possible suspect in Ken Brown’s death, Madison couldn’t help but feel sort of bad that he was being treated like this.  Weren’t fans supposed to stand behind their players, no matter what?  Didn’t that make them fans?  What amazed
her the most was the fact that Thorpe looked calm out there, not allowing the hecklers to get to him.

Soon enough, the whistle blew and play stopped, calling for the Girls to go out there for a second time.  Fourteen minutes into the game, Madison skated out to the same section she had been assigned to, expecting to be excited and energized as it was before.  However, it was a tad different than the first time.  When she went out – smile already on her face so she wouldn’t forget – there were catcalls and whistles.  It was hard to keep that smile on her face and she didn’t even bother to attempt flirting with her eyes, whatever that meant, when all she could hear were the suggestiveness.

By the time she was finished and off the ice, Madison was furious.

Amanda turned to her, smiling, as though she expected to be as happy as she had been the first time.  But the red head’s smile slipped off of her face when she noticed Madison’s scowl.

“What?” she asked Madison.  “What’s wrong?”

“Does this happen at every game?” she asked in a hushed voice, hoping the Girls wouldn’t overhear. 
“The derogatory whistles and statements and all that other bullshit?”

“Hey,” Faye snapped, narrowing her brown eyes in Madison’s direction.  “You’re in uniform.  Watch your language.”

“Sorry,” Madison said, feeling admonished.  She knew better, but she couldn’t help her outburst.  She turned back to Amanda, trying to control her breathing so slips of the tongues wouldn’t happen again.  “I just don’t get it.  Why are they doing this?”

“Look at what we’re wearing, Madison,” Amanda said, gesturing at the outfit.  “You can’t tell me that you really believed we wouldn’t hear something from a couple of people here and there.  I mean, look at how vocal they are about Brandon Thorpe.”

“Yeah, but don’t they know we have to have at least a 3.0 GPA?” Madison asked.  “Don’t they know we’re more than good looking ice maids?”

“Madison, people don’t care,” Amanda said, her voice brusque.  It sounded almost foreign coming from a girl who was normally peppy and enthusiastic about practically everything.  “Come on.  At the end of the day, our job is supposed to scrape the ice and look pretty.  Oh, and keeping our mouth shut unless we’re cheering for our Gulls.  No one gives a darn about our brain.”

It was six tense minutes before the buzzer sounds, indicating the end of the first period.  People start booing, and both girls turned to see Brandon Thorpe – helmet off with brown hair sticking up in various places but those grey-green eyes straight ahead of them, cold, resigned, as though nothing phased him, as though he didn’t notice or didn’t care – walking off the ice, past the Girls without a word, without a glance.  Other tired, sweaty Gulls players trickled behind him.

“Henry should seriously take Thorpe off the ice,” Amanda whispered in order to ensure none of the players overheard her.  “People are going to start a riot or something.”

“Jeez, he hasn’t even been named as a suspect yet,” Madison said.  In all honesty, Madison couldn’t say why she was defending Brandon, especially when she didn’t know him and he was a logical choice for killing Ken if all the money rumors were true.  But she didn’t like seeing someone being prosecuted when it wasn’t clear whether yet if they did it or not.  “People are brutal.  I just don’t get it.”

Amanda shrugged, giving her a tight smile.  “That’s life, sweetie,” she replied.  “Come on.  We have to get these skates off.”

Apparently, a few Girls were required to participate in the intermission activity, some had to run their own merchandise stand, while other filtered through the crowd with Gil the Gull.  Madison was part of the crowd-detail and therefore needed shoes rather than skates.  Before she could follow the Girls down the hall, a sweaty hand wrapped around her arm, stopping her.  She turned, only to find Alec Schumacher, his cheeks red, his hair matted to his face.  He didn’t look perfect, but that didn’t deter from his good looks.

“So have you been watching me?” he asked.

Madison still couldn’t believe that the cocky words spewing out of his mouth could sound nice, but Alec somehow made that happen.  She quickly glanced around, knowing she shouldn’t be interacting with him during a game.  “I’ve been watching you not score,” she retorted despite the fact that it was true.  She saw something flash across Alec’s eyes, and before she could stop herself, said, “Sorry.  That was mean.”

He half-smiled and a dimple popped in his right cheek making the smile even more disarming.  “Did you just apologize to me?” he asked.

Madison rolled her eyes and turned, heading off to get shoes on.  Again, she didn’t look back but somehow she knew that Alec was watching her the entire way.     

10
.
 
“I just don’t get it!” Seraphina exclaimed to her sister.  She threw her arms out, clearly exasperated, as her newly acquired team headed back to their designated locker room after the first period of the first preseason game.  And Seraphina’s first official game as owner and manager of the Newport Beach Sea Gulls.

The game was predominantly filled with Seraphina watching plays and asking questions.  Because she knew absolutely nothing about the sport save that it was filled with violence and the goal was to get more goals, she figured she would buy a
Hockey for Dummies
book when she got the chance and read it as fast as possible.  She never got the chance to do that, but luckily her sister was dating the captain of the team so Katella knew a thing or two about the game.  When the fight broke out between Matt Peters and Benson from the other team, Katella stopped in midsentence, biting her bottom lip.  She looked both aroused and worried as her boyfriend of two years got into an amateur boxing match, and it took a few minutes before the fight was finally stopped and Katella resumed her explanations.

It wasn’t hard to learn the basics, and by the time the end of the first period, she knew the basic concept of the game.  There were a few calls she would have to learn more about – the difference between a slash and a spear being a big one – but she would get the hand of it.  She had to.

One thing she did notice was the constant booing, every time Brandon Thorpe made a save. 

“No, that has never happened before,” Katella told her sister.

“All because people automatically assume he killed Papa,” she muttered under her breath.  “Don’t they realize that if I thought he actually killed my grandfather, he wouldn’t be playing for the team anymore?”

Katella opened her mouth as if to say something then appeared to think better of it, and closed it.  Normally, Seraphina would have asked what her sister wanted to tell her, but she was too distracted by the fan’s reactions to Brandon Thorpe.  Yes, the guy was kind of a douche, but that didn’t mean he actually killed her grandfather.  If douchebaggery went hand-in-hand with murder, she would have to call the police and report a slew of ex-boyfriends.  The weird thing was, if a player like Alec Schumacher or Kyle Underwood or Matt
Peters or anyone else on the team cleared the puck during a power play or attempted to score, the crowd cheered.  It was only Brandon’s interaction that prompted the booing.

Seraphina didn’t understand; wasn’t a sports team a unit?  Didn’t fans support each and every player when they were on the ice, no matter what went on in their personal life?  In essence, the fans here cheered for the team as a whole, but individualized Thorpe, as though he wasn’t actually the Gulls’ number one goalie.  What hypocrisy.

And yet, Brandon played as though he couldn’t even hear the booing.  He blocked those shots she felt certain would go in.  He skated out to retrieve a stray puck when she was certain the opposing player would reach it before he did.  He would angle his body in a way she wouldn’t have even thought could block a shot.  He caught the puck, stopped it, and the rebounds he let bounce off his knees or his chest were minimal at best.

“Brandon Thorpe is a real beast,” her sister murmured under her breath.

“Has he always been this way?” Seraphina asked.  Katella had been to every game since starting to date Matt.  Maybe she didn’t know him, exactly, but she watched him play.

“Not when Papa first got him,” Katella said.  “I think his confidence has grown throughout the last two years.  It really sucks we didn’t make playoffs last year.  I think we could have gone all the way.”

“I just don’t understand why the people keep booing him.  I’m sure if it was at any other point in Thorpe’s career, they would have been ecstatic to have him on the team.”

Katella shrugged.  “People have different values, Sera,” she said.  “Even so, it’s remarkable how well he’s playing, despite all the heckling.”

By the time the period ended, the score was still zero to zero, and people were booing Brandon Thorpe out of the rink.

“
Neither team has scored, and a big part of that is because of Thorpe,” Seraphina continued, her arms continuing to gesture profusely.  “If we were winning, do you still think everyone would be booing?”