Play On (19 page)

“I expect nothing less from you, hon.
”  He tilted his head to the side, looking at his daughter from the corner of his eyes.

“How’s work? 
Any new cases?  Any new ladies?”  Emma wiggled her eyebrows as suggestive as she possibly could, but the grip on her straight face wasn’t anywhere near complete.

“Yeah, okay,” Jeremy said, rolling his eyes.  “I’m still working on the Burke case.  I really don’t want to have to go to trial because, honestly, it’s just a waste of time, but these two people have the mindset of kindergarteners and are incapable of compromising.”  He groaned, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his index finger and his thumb.  “I don’t like thinking about it, much less discussing it.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Emma said.  “Maybe if you actually used the box seats your firm has, you could take both of them to the Gulls game and they’d be so caught up in it, they would realize that maybe compromise is the best way to go.  Huh?”  She elbowed her father, her eyes teasing.  “What about that?”

“Let’s not talk about work anymore.  What about you?  Any new boys you want to tell me about?”  This time it was Jeremy who wiggled his eyebrows.

Emma felt herself straighten at the question.  The real answer, of course, was no, there weren’t any new boys.  But they her father had asked the question, it was almost as if he knew that she was interested in the possibility of –

No.  She wouldn’t even think about it.  Even in her thoughts, the idea that she and Kyle Underwood could date sounded ridiculous.  Sure, she didn’t have that much of a problem admitting that she was attracted to him.  And judging from the couple of signs she saw in the stadium, she wasn’t alone on that point.  But actually liking another guy required too much effort on her part.  Maybe the correct word was curious. 
Or interested.  Or intrigued.  Just because she wanted to know more about the hockey player didn’t mean that she liked him.

“Please,” she said, forcing her to snort at such a preposterous question.  “Listen, if I’m interested in a guy, you’ll know. 
Maybe.  Possibly.  If I decide to date a guy, you’ll know.  But guys are the furthest thing in my mind right now.”

“Honey, you’re a young woman,” her father said.  “As much as I want to believe that guys are nowhere near your thoughts, I know better.”  He shrugged.  “It was just a question.  I thought it might have to do with your sudden interest in hockey.”

“Dad, I’ve come to practically every game with you since you got season tickets,” Emma pointed out.

“Yeah, but in that time, you’ve never asked me a single thing about how the sport works,” he replied.  “You know you don’t have to get interested in hockey just because a guy is, right?  You’re perfect, just the way you are.”

Her face flushed at her father’s comments.  “Can you not?  Listen, I know what you’re saying and I appreciate it even though it’s a little bit uncomfortable.  But I promise I’m not getting into hockey just for a guy, okay Dad?  Now can we drop it?”

He didn’t believe her entirely, she could tell that much by the way he was looking at her.  But he nodded his head and looked straight ahead, at the ice.  The refs had just emerged, and, as was traditional, people began to boo them.

“God, who would ever want to be a referee?” Jeremy murmured.

“Maybe they enjoy the game?”  It was all Emma could suggest due to the fact that her eyes were glued to straight ahead of her, waiting for Kyle Underwood – and the rest of the Gulls – to come out from their team’s designated side and skate on the ice before the singing of the national anthem.  As the announcer called the Gulls out, the majority of the fans cheered, but once Brandon Thorpe took to the ice,
the boos got more prominent.

Emma didn’t care.  Her eyes focused solely on Kyle Underwood.  She watched as he
skated the traditional circle on the Gulls’ side of the ice before reaching the center line.  He was more than just good looking, she realized at that moment, watching him pay homage to a song he probably was indifferent to due to him being from Canada.  He was…  What was the word that described attractiveness but also showed that it was a special kind of attractiveness that Emma believed only she saw in him?

Which was absolutely ludicrous.

Jesus Christ, Em, get a grip on yourself.
 
You’re twenty-two years old, not fifteen.

She shook her head, shook her thoughts of Kyle Underwood, and instead, went over the counts of her dance routine in her head so she could regain some focus.  She only stopped once the game started, and then her eyes naturally found Kyle once again.

As per usual, the start in this game wasn’t exactly exciting, save for the fact that center Matt Peters won the drop and passed it to Kyle.  She had no idea what he felt when he skated on the ice, when he played a sport he obviously loved, but it seemed as though he didn’t even recognize that people were watching him.  Nothing else mattered except the game.  It reminded Emma of how she felt when she danced, and she couldn’t help but allow herself to be interested in him a little more than she already was.

A shot on the Seagulls’ goal snapped Emma out of her thoughts on Kyle Underwood as her heart jumped at the thought that the San Francisco Sharks would score first, but Brandon Thorpe reached out and caught the puck, making it seem as easy as breathing.  What a save.  And yet people were still booing him.

It still didn’t seem fair.

Seven minutes into it, the young defenseman that seemed promising – what was his name? 
Michael something?  Number 5. – managed to intercept a pass from the Sharks’ offense.  The crowd cheered, along with Emma herself.  Yeah, it was preseason but the way he skated, how fast the kid was, caused goosebumps to break out onto her skin. 

Once he crossed into the neutral zone, he passed it to Matt Peters, who happened to be open dead in the center of the ice.  Thanks to overheard conversations and a quick check on the official Newport Seagulls message board, Emma paid close attention to the captain.  Apparently, the guy was notorious for not shooting despite having the opportunity.  And it would seem that his reputation wasn’t without merit.

Matt was opened.  All he had to was spin around, push the puck in front of him just barely, and using that momentum, place on in the back of the net.  But he didn’t.  He held on to the puck, his brown eyes searching.

But for what?
  For an opening?  He obviously had the shot.  Even the audience saw it; they started shouting “Shoot.”

But Matt didn’t listen, and two defensemen were working their way over to him.

He was wasting time.  Why wouldn’t he shoot?

Matt managed to skate around one of the Sharks’ players, keeping control of the puck, and before Emma could take a breath, he passed it to Alec Schumacher.

The problem was that Alec didn’t have the shooting lane Matt had just given up.

But Alec only had the puck for a couple of seconds at best.  He skated closer to the net and crossed it to Kyle.  Emma was surprised that she hadn’t noticed him before, standing almost idly by, waiting patiently for the puck to reach him.  He reached the black rubber just in time and reached his stick out – it really looked that easy – in order to shoot the puck into the right corner of the net. 

And just like that, the Gulls scored.

Emma couldn’t stop herself from jumping to her feet, cheering and clapping. 
Her father, a man who normally showed his enthusiasm whenever his team scored and was therefore on his feet as well, was startled, but smiled.  At that moment, to Emma, it looked as though he didn’t even care if she was learning about hockey for a guy because they were both cheering.  They were both happy.  They were bonding.

“What a shot,” he told her, increasing the level of his voice so that it carried over the cheering of the crowd.  “See?  Underwood’s the one we have to watch.  You’ll see.”

Emma felt ecstatic.  She couldn’t really explain the feeling except that she wasn’t just happy that her team scored and that they were ahead, but she was happy for Kyle himself.  Because looking at him right now showed just how happy he was.  His fellow teammates skated over to him, pulling him into a tight hug, and the announcer seemed particularly enthusiastic when announcing the goal, which of course just caused the fans to start cheering once again.

But the celebration was cut short.  The coach changed players so those that were so recently on the ice could have a quick break, and the puck was dropped at center ice.  The game resumed.  But Emma’s eyes lingered on Kyle, and even though she probably looked silly with that goofy smile on her face, but she didn’t
care.  She was just so happy for him.  It didn’t matter that in the scope of things, the goal didn’t count, the game didn’t count.  But his happiness at it seemed to elevate her own.

And just like that, he locked eyes with her.
(CHANGE!)

At first, Emma thought that perhaps she was seeing things.  She was sitting across the ice, and even though she had good eyesight, it was still hard to decipher if he was looking directly at her.  It was her body, however, that revealed that yes, he was.  Because her heart stopped and she felt a sickly sweet blush start to crawl across her face.  And she could make out those crystal blue eyes so vividly.  He was looking at her.  She couldn’t help it, but she smiled even more than she already was.  And then he smiled too.

It was a moment.

Booing caused her to look away and over to Thorpe who had just made another save.  She felt her brow furrow, starting to get seriously annoyed with these fans.  They all jump to their feet when Kyle scored a goal for their team, but when Thorpe made a save, they boo him.

It didn’t make sense.

Her eyes drifted over to Seraphina and Katella Hanson, seated in their usual places just above the home team’s box.  Seraphina seemed to be annoyed just as much as Emma was about everyone’s reaction to Thorpe while Katella’s sole focus was that of her boyfriend.  The fact that both sisters were here, especially Seraphina, after everything that happened last night, after the papers announced
Alan Brown, their uncle, as the main suspect, showed just how strong these two really were.

“I think I like Seraphina Hanson,” Emma told her father.

“Oh yeah?”  His eyes were on the ice, only giving Emma half his attention.  “What makes you say that?”

“She’s young and she has to deal with so much, but looking at her right now, you would never know it.  She carried herself with… class.”  Did that make sense?  Was that the right word?  Emma decided that it sounded right.  “Yeah, class.   Both of them do.  And I think that that makes them admirable.”

“I have to agree,” her father said.  “The fact that she’s here, now.  It shows her dedication.  That this team is her priority even if she doesn’t quite know how to handle it yet.”

The period ended with more saves and more boos.  Neither side scored, which meant the Gulls retained the lead as the team headed to the locker room.

Emma leaned back in her seat.  The timer on the scoreboard said her body had seventeen minutes to relax before got all tense again thanks to how drawn in she was becoming with each passing second.

“I’m going to get some food,” Jeremy said, standing up.  “Do you want anything?”

“Yeah, can you get me a hot dog with ketchup and mustard and some water?” Emma asked, batting her eyelashes.

“You and your appetite,” he muttered with a knowing smile on his face.  “Well, I guess I should be grateful you have one, considering you’re a dancer and all.”

“Oh ha, ha, Dad,” Emma called after him.  “You’re a real comedian.”

She smiled and leaned down to her bag, pulling a book out rather than watching the intermission activity.  She was about halfway through it, and carried a second book just in case she finished the first and had nothing else to do.  Despite her twenty-two years, her genre of preference was YA novels.  For whatever reason, the female protagonists were more relatable and well-rounded in comparison to their older, literature genre counterparts, the exception of course being any main character from a Jane Austen novel.  But Jane Austen always seemed to be an exception to many things.

This particular story was dystopian which meant that the setting normally took place in the future but instead of society progressing, it seemed to have regressed into a controlled dictatorship or something along those lines.  It was about a girl forced to marry a king she wanted overthrown in order to save her family from dying of poverty.  In a complete twist, she found herself not only falling in love with him but also with her husband’s best friend and right hand man who is secretly leading a rebellion against the king.  It was the first in a trilogy and even though the love triangle plot was a predictable and tired plot point, Emma wished the second book would be released now so she didn’t have to wait to find out who Ella, the main character, would end up choosing.

However, one thing she didn’t quite understand about a love triangle was the whole being in love with two guys at the same time.  Maybe it was because she was an all-or-nothing type of girl, but the mere thought of being in love with two people at once seemed impossible, exhausting, and stressful.  If it was true love, could it really be with two people?  In all honesty, she just believed the girl was either infatuated with both choices but confused the feeling for love, or was in love with one and infatuated with the other.