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Jeremy seemed to be able to read his daughter’s mind because he reached over and gave Emma a gentle squeeze on the hand.  Thankfully, he knew her well enough not to say anything, and for a moment, the two sat in a comfortable silence.

“But I thought you read somewhere that Ken was going to sell the team,” Emma said.  Luckily, her voice came out normal, as though she hadn’t just thought about why her mother abandoned her.  Again.  “Why would Alan kill his father if Ken was going to do what Alan wanted?”

“Again, just because Ken was going to sell the team didn’t mean
Alan would get anything from it,” her father pointed out.  “Now his motive, if he did do it, is most likely financial.  I would love to get my hands on Ken’s will to see just how much money he gave to his sons verses his granddaughters.  Obviously Alan didn’t get the hockey team which says a lot.  He gives his recently graduated granddaughter over his son?  Why?  Ken had to know Alan’s problems and didn’t want to enable him which could enrage a guy who cares more about money than his family.  And I’m not entirely convinced Ken was going to retire.  He loves this game, this team.  He seemed coherent and there.  No way he just sells it, especially if he gives Seraphina his team after his death.  And he never made an official statement.  Ken wanting to sell the team is all speculation.”

Emma nodded but didn’t say anything.  She continued to pick at the table, allowing everything to sink in.

“So,” Jeremy said, finished with the paper.  He waited a moment until Emma looked up in order to make eye contact with her, to show her that she had his full attention.  “Are you coming to the game tonight?”  He took a sip of his coffee, never breaking that contact.

“Yeah,” Emma said, a telling smile curling onto her face.

“I’m glad.”  He grinned.  “You seem to want to know a lot more about hockey.  Knowing you, you’ll probably go buy a book about it and read it in an hour, and on top of that, remember everything about it.  Is there any particular reason for this sudden craving of knowledge?” 

He was teasing her, she knew, but that didn’t stop the blush from caressing her cheeks.  It was like her father knew Kyle Underwood was the reason. 
Which was
not
something she was willing to admit to herself.  She wasn’t some adolescent girl who went over the moon because the cute, popular jock talked to her.  She was Emma Winsor, scholarship student, dancer.  Boys didn’t factor in her world just yet. 

Ugh, she was screwed unless she didn’t retain some sort of control over herself.

“No major reason,” she said, carefully avoiding her father’s eyes.  She continued to pick, pick, pick at it more and more though there wasn’t anything there to be picked at.  “I have a little more time and I thought I might as well learn about it now.”

His smile only showed that he knew she was lying to him, and perhaps he knew the real reason behind the sudden fascination with his favorite sport, but he didn’t say anything.  Instead, he finished his coffee and stood up.  “Well, I for one am not complaining.”  He slid on his blazer and his smile was suddenly harmless, genuine.  “Have a good first day at school.  I’ll see you later tonight, okay?”

And then, before he left the dining room, he winked.

12
.
 
Madison tapped the end of her pen against the desk she sat at, her chin resting in the swell of her palm, her eyes glancing over at the plain clock that resided on the side of a bleak wall.  It felt like an eternity just sitting there, but apparently on two minutes and twenty two seconds had gone by.

Well.

Currently, Madison was waiting for her last class of the day – social psychology – to begin.  It was a lecture class and when she walked in fifteen minutes early into the nearly vacant room, she decided on her usual place, close to the front but technically what people would refer to as the middle in the center of the row.  She dropped her bag to her feet and grabbed her new notebook and a pen and pencil.  Various professors had different preferences when it came to writing materials, though nowadays everyone seemed to prefer papers and assignments being typed.  When she took notes, Madison liked to use both, just to keep things interesting and to force herself to be more organized. 

Her patience for the day already wore thin.  She couldn’t wait to leave, relax for a couple hours, and then head over to Sea Side Ice Palace where another preseason home game would take place.  Maybe it wasn’t frustration that she was still at school when she wished for nothing else than to be at home taking a nice, long nap.  Maybe she was excited to see Alec Schumacher again.

But how ridiculous was that?  Alec Schumacher definitely wasn’t her type.  Like, in the slightest.  Except for the fact that he was incredibly good looking, but then again, weren’t good looks part of everyone’s type?  Her tapping became louder and louder the more she thought about last night’s game, how she had teased him about the lack of scoring on his part and then how he went to score in the second period.  Not that she thought she had anything to do with that, of course.  What a ridiculous notion.  Alec was a good player, everyone knew that, and good players often produced results.  In Alec’s class, it meant that he scored.  And they still got slaughtered by the Phoenix Panthers.  Alec’s one goal couldn’t save them.  But it was a pretty nice goal.

Oh God, she did not need this right now.  She didn’t like players or jocks or arrogant assholes.  She liked smart guys. 
Smart, brooding guys who had an air of mystery surrounding them.  Not outgoing, charming hockey players.  Especially hockey players she wasn’t even allowed to date anyways.  There were too many of those where she came from, and truth be told, she had had her fair share of trials and tribulations that always resulted in her heart being broken and a lesson not being learned.  When she headed to California, she vowed she would learn her lesson this time.  In fact, she didn’t want to date anyone now anyways.  She would focus on school.  And her job.  And making new friends and keeping the ones she had, both here – which only included Amanda right now – and back home – which included her best friends Stephanie and Rhine. 

“Probably should Facebook those two,” she murmured under her breath.

Her eyes looked over at the clock – only another minute had passed.  When was the professor going to get here?  Weren’t they always early?

The class slowly started to fill up which meant the room was a lot less quiet.  There were two guys behind Madison, probably friends.  A couple of girls sat in the front row with the required book out on the desk.  A couple sat just off to the side, holding hands with each other under the desk.  Madison wasn’t sure why, but even subtle public displays of affection made her want to vomit.

“…Brown’s murder,” one of the boys from behind Madison said in a low voice.  “That’s the only reason Hanson has the team.”

“She’s pretty hot,” the other one said.

“Yeah, but good looks can’t run a hockey team which was obviously proved last night.  I mean, pull Thorpe, play Thorpe.  Make up your mind already.”

“Dude, what happened to Ken anyways?”

“Don’t know.  I heard he was strangled or something.  Main suspect is apparently his son.  Can you believe how fucked up that family is?  I hope the Gulls can still play.  If only the freakin’ first and second lines would skate faster and shoot more.  I think our defense is okay, but we still gotta watch the turnovers.  That rookie, Michael Thompson, I can’t wait to see how he’s going to play in D.”

“Do you think the whole murder thing is going to affect the play?”

“Dude, duh.  The team is now in the hands of an inexperienced blonde chick.  If she can’t figure her shit out, we’ll be totally screwed.  Hopefully her grandfather left her, like, an instruction manual so she doesn’t fuck us over to bad.  But if he was murdered, then probably not.”

“Are you going to the games when the season starts?”

“Oh hell yeah.  My dad got us season opening tickets in section 223, five rows up from the glass.  So stoked!”

Madison felt her body slide downwards as her hair fell over her shoulder so it could blanket her face.  She didn’t have to have a mirror to know her cheeks were as red as apples and hoped that maybe her hair would help hide that.  Were these two guys seriously talking about hockey? 
And not just hockey, but the Gulls?  She thought people out West, especially in Southern California, barely paid any attention to hockey.  And why should they?  They have the Dodgers, the Angels, and the Lakers to be excited about.  The weather was constantly sunny.  A storm watch was broadcasted when it sprinkled so exposure to hockey seemed to be familial.  That was why she actually considered working as a Gulls Girl.  Because it wasn’t likely that people here actually went to hockey games.  But now, knowing these two guys knew what they were talking about, Madison realized there must be more like them.  Which meant that there was a good chance that she could be recognized as a Gulls Girl.  And really, she didn’t want to deal with that.  Even though this was college and people had matured didn’t mean she wouldn’t get harassed about it, whether it was due to the tight outfits or wanting tickets to the games.

Madison didn’t even know if she got tickets.

She really didn’t need people to know she was a Gulls Girl.  Nobody would take her seriously.  And she worked too hard to not be taken seriously.

Well, perhaps these guys wouldn’t even notice her.  It wasn’t likely that she would know anybody in this class due to the size and the fact that it’s a lecture class, and on top of that, even they did see her, she highly doubted they would recognize her.  Tons of girls on the team and at UCI had long, dark brown hair.  There was
no way they would even notice her.  Maybe the revealing outfits were an added bonus; if guys stared at her chest, stomach, and-or ass, they weren’t staring at her shirt.

Okay, she could relax now. 

Two minutes before class was technically supposed to start, someone took a seat right next to Madison.  Not just a seat away from her, like it was polite to do in class or at the movies, but directly next to her despite the fact that the lecture hall was still one-fourth empty.  She tensed, sitting up straighter than she normally would have.  Her biggest pet peeve was someone getting too close to her on a physical level, and even though she knew she probably should have expected this given that it was a full lecture class, she still wasn’t happy, given that there was a space for this guy to sit without being directly adjacent to her.

Madison felt him shuffle and pull out something from his backpack.  She refused to turn her head completely in order to see what he was doing so she relaxed her body and tried to look at him from the corner of her eye.  She couldn’t tell if he was tall or not due to the fact that he was slouching over his desk, but she knew he was lean.  He had short, beige hair and pale skin with subtle freckles covering the majority of his face although a person would never have noticed unless they were in close proximity to him.  His face was narrow with sharp features, and from her current position, she couldn’t tell what color his eyes were.  Interestingly enough, she was going back and forth between blue
or a light brown.  Descending her eyes, Madison realized he was reading a book, and before she could stop herself, she leaned forward in order to see just what that book was.

The Catcher in the Rye
.

“That’s my favorite book,” she blurted out.

He cocked his head to the side in order to place his eyes on her – they were light brown, she decided, a shade darker than his hair – and smiled so his lips pushed up.

Her heart skipped a beat thanks to that smile.

“Oh yeah?” he asked in a deep, expressive voice.  “I think this is the seventeenth time I’ve read this book.  I should probably get a new one.”  He gestured at the thoroughly broken spine of the book and then the curled corners.

“My copy looks similar to yours,” she said and then shrugged her shoulders.  “I don’t know. 
I kind of like how used it is.  It shows how much I like it and how good it is.”

“Holden Caulfield is my hero,” he continued. 
“Seriously.  I wish I could go around calling people phonies and not caring.”

Madison felt herself laughing and nodding her head.  “Right?” she asked.  “I’m Madison, by the way.”

“Brady,” he said.  “Is this your third year?”

At that moment, the professor walked in – three minutes and eighteen seconds late – muttering apologies for his tardiness and preventing Madison for continuing the conversation she was having.  She angled her body to the center of the class, suddenly wishing the professor had come later so she could learn more about this Brady guy.  She had never met a member of the opposite sex, a good looking one at that, who also loved
Catcher in the Rye
.  Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that he chose to sit right next to her.

Which just begged the question as to
why
he did that.  Who sat directly next a stranger?

“Okay, I’ve sent the sign-in sheet around,” the professor announced, interrupting Madison from doing what she did best – overanalyzing a simple statement.  “Please initial next your student identification number so I can take roll and once I get the computer booted up with my PowerPoint, we can start.”