Pucked Romance E-Book

C.M. Kars

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: The Fangirl Chronicles
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 383

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

A hockey fangirl with a buried past meets the man of her dreams...only to find out that he's a rabid fan of a rival team.

Elena DiNovro is still trying to get over the fact that she would have been married by now, if her life had gone in a completely different direction. As such, she still has the one thing she can count on – her beloved hometown hockey team.

After a chance meeting at her favourite sports bar, Elena ends up saving Beckett Donoghue, a rabid Bruins fan, from a tense situation, and she finds herself, more often than not, watching games with him.

As her attraction to Beckett steadily grows and grows, Elena's asking herself if she's going to get duped again, even if the worse thing about Beckett is that he's backing the wrong hockey team.

Can a fangirl fall in love with a fan of a rival team, and finally get her chance at happily-ever after, or will she finally take her shot and miss?

Leseprobe

OTHER WORKS BY C.M. KARS

The Never Been SeriesNever Been Kissed

Never Been Nerdy

Never Been Loved

Never Been Under the Mistletoe

Never Been Boxed Set

The Fangirl Chronicles

Fangirling Over You

To All the Footballers I Loved Before

Bias Wrecked

Pucked Romance

Never Say Never

The Cuffing Season Series

Get Cuffed

Cuffing and Turkey Stuffing

Cuffing and Tree Trimming

Cuffing New Year’s Resolutions (pre-order)

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Pucked Romance

Book Four, The Fangirl Chronicles

by C.M. Kars

Copyright © 2021 C.M. Kars

All rights reserved.

This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

Cover design by Indigo Chick Designs

Editing by Aquila Editing

V 1.0 PublishDrive 2022/02/14

ISBN (ebook) 978-1-990603-06-8

ISBN (paperback) 978-1-990603-07-5

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Hello reader,

There are a few things that I would like to note before you go and enjoy this book.

I chose the intense rivalry between the Boston Bruins and the Montreal Canadiens to represent my two characters: Elena and Beckett.

These are alternate versions of the real teams with fictional players, coaches and support staff throughout their rosters.

It has been a long and bitter rivalry between the two sides for as long as I can remember. In fact, the Bruins and the Habs have met in a total of 9 Game Sevens, more than any other team in NHL history, which I found out while double-checking my facts for this story.

It's also important to note that the real Montreal Canadiens retired the number 12 back on November 12, 2005, in honour of two amazing players and Hall of Famers: Dickie Moore and Yvan Cournoyer.

On top of that, you will see characters old and new in this book, some of them from my Never Been Series. You do not, however, have to read those other books (although I would love it if you did!) to understand what’s going on in this book. If you are interested, just click the links on the previous page, and you can see that series for yourself.

In my humble opinion, it would be good to read Never Been Kissed, and Never Been Nerdy first, if you want to catch the cameo appearances of my older characters and understand their importance for the next book in The Fangirl Chronicles.

I would like to reiterate that this is a work of fiction and any names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Happy reading,

C.M. Kars

Contents

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

NEVER SAY NEVER

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ONE

“I could have been married by now,” I say. “I would have been married by now. Isn’t that crazy, completely out of this world?”

Sophie sits across from me at our scarred kitchen table.

Our condo’s too warm—just the way I like it—my slippered feet propped up on the chair so I can hug my knees to my chest.

“I think it’s time to stop drinking, yeah?” Sophie says, making a grab for the wine bottle. I don’t even like wine, but sometimes I get in a mood, and I want to feel warm inside, warmer, like it can make me forget the cold disappointment that’s behind my heart.

“Get out of here and let me have some fun.”

Sophie scoffs, sighing, slumping in her seat and now I feel bad. Sophie shakes her head, her white-blonde hair sitting precariously on top of her head, a bunch of pencils stuck in there, keeping it there as if by some kind of magic. She taps her nails (painted icy purple today) on the table, an impatient gesture that has me grabbing my wine glass and draining it in two big gulps.

“It’s not fun if you’re upset.”

“Then let me be upset. I’m allowed to be upset, okay? I’m allowed. Everything went to hell, and I’m allowed to be upset about it.” I put my wine glass back on top of the table, and run my hands through my hair, pushing it off my face. The wine’s starting to hit me, and it’s starting to hit me hard.

“I just wish…I just wish I didn’t care. It’s been so freaking long already. I just wish I didn’t think about it so much, you know?”

Sophie slumps forward onto the table, pillowing her head with her arms. It’s unfair to have a roommate that’s so incredibly cool—she’s got tattoos all over her body, piercings in her nose and eyebrow, in a row on both of her ears, and other body piercings that I’ve been too afraid to ask about, like getting piercings is contagious.

Sophie has got her life together—she works at the tattoo shop deeper in the heart of the city, and is constantly working on her art, teaching herself new styles, going to conventions, meeting new people. She’s just everything I’m…not.

“I think you’re allowed to grieve for what you lost.”

I snort. “You’re making it sound like I care about him. I don’t, you know I don’t. My family, though, I didn’t think I would lose them when I broke off the engagement. Jesus Christ, the only person who talks to me now is Katie. I’ve been shunned. It’s been almost two years, when am I going to be forgiven, huh? What kind of stupid shit is that?” I swipe at my cheeks where the tears have started to fall. I’m so sick and tired of crying over this, so, so tired.

“I don’t know. Parents are weird. A lot of them shouldn’t have been parents in the first place. It was just the norm when they were younger to have kids and not stop and really think about it first,” Sophie says, leaning up to pour me another glass of wine. “If you’re getting drunk, I’m getting drunk, too, and I’ll just suck up the hangover tomorrow. It’s fine, totally good.”

She pours herself a giant glass of wine when she comes back from the cupboards in the kitchen, clinking our glasses together and taking big gulps like she’s trying to catch up.

“Nope, still don’t like dry red wine, I don’t give a shit if that makes me look like a kid. Ugh, I need sugar. Where’s the sugar, Elena?” Sophie’s face is screwed up in disgust, and she’s smacking her lips and shuddering like she’s gone and eaten something rotten instead of fermented grape juice. “Ugh, that’s awful. I don’t even know how you’re drinking this.”

I shrug, smirking a little at her antics, which I know she’s putting on for my benefit.

“Thanks.”

Sophie raises her pierced eyebrow. “For what?” She’s still pulling a face, but she swipes her hand against her mouth, smearing her lip gloss and groaning when she realizes it. “Ah, man. There it goes.” Sophie raps her tattooed knuckles against the table. “For what, DiNovro? Is it because I let you dabble in my huge makeup collection?”

I shake my head, even if that is true. I’m just not adventurous enough to try the explosions of colors that make up Sophie’s eyeshadow palettes on my eyes just yet.

It feels like all of my life I’ve been trying to fade into the background, to stay as far as possible out of any kind of spotlight, living in the shadows. The only time I ever did strike out and stand under that harsh light was when I told my parents I didn’t want to marry Frankie, that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with him, like, ever.

And I’ve been paying for it ever since.

I’m still deciding if it was worth it.

Frankie was a dick, is still a dick, but my parents saw me breaking off the engagement as breaking a promise, as me reneging on my word, which to them cannot be forgiven, even if I would have been miserable sharing a life with that asshole.

But sometimes, more than sometimes, I think about the alternative, a future that could have been if I decided to keep quiet about the emotional blackmail and the eventual cheating. I think about having Frankie as a husband at twenty-five years old, but I would have kept the ties with my family.

I probably would still be living at home rent-free (no Italian parents worth their salt are gonna make their kid pay rent), still working as a teacher, but I could hang out with my parents, be in the old neighborhood in the East and hang out with old friends and cousins.

At least my nonnos and nonnas are all dead, so they didn’t have to witness my supposed disgrace.

“Hey, get out of your head, right now.” Sophie raps her knuckles against the table again, like someone knocking hard on our front door, and it rattles me enough that start to focus on the present. I blink at my best friend, my roommate, suddenly feeling all mushy and thankful.

“Thank you for letting me live with you, even if you didn’t know me.”

Sophie shrugs, clearly uncomfortable. “I’ve had roommates before, the good and the bad. It didn’t matter to me one way or the other, but Katie’s word has always been golden, so I knew you weren’t going to be a complete and total asshole.” She scratches at the back of her head, then tugs on her pierced earlobes.

“It was a bonus that we got along so well, got to be closer as friends.” Sophie glances away, like she doesn’t want to confront the fact that she’s the best friend I ever had.

“Well, thanks again, though, for taking the chance on me, for giving me your friendship.” My throat tightens up as all of the emotions well up inside me: the struggle of always keeping it together when it feels like my family shunning me left a hole in my chest, left me with this gaping wound while I try to patch it up with other things I care about, other people I care about.

I’m still not over the betrayal of it, how they just tossed me aside like I wasn’t their daughter.

Stupid, all of it is so stupid.

But Sophie’s right. Some people aren’t meant to be parents, shouldn’t be parents, even if they can be.

And kids like me fall into that portion of that Venn diagram. I’m not the only person, either, but it stills feels lonely.

“Drink some more wine, you’re making me sad, and I don’t want to put this waterproof mascara to the test right now.” She points to my half-full glass of wine, but I’m stuffed with wine, and I don’t want any more.

“I just think about it a lot. It sneaks up on me, and I look down at my left hand and really think about it.”

“Marriage isn’t the end-all, be-all. You know that.”

“I know, I know. I was just raised in that way, to look at it as important, to place it up on a pedestal like it’s some sort of achievement.”

Sophie laughs. “Yeah, right. You just have to find another person who’s willing to be with you forever. You don’t need skills for that, that’s not an achievement. Come on. You think that’s why Katie’s been dodging Dean’s proposals all these years?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. My cousin’s weird with all of that. It was treated like some sort of scandal in my family when her parents divorced. Like, we didn’t talk about it or acknowledge it at family gatherings, you know holidays and birthdays and stuff, and the poor guy my aunt brought with her was ignored. It was shitty, I’ll admit, really shitty.” I sigh. “I wonder if they talk about me at all. I wonder if I’ll be invited over for Christmas this year.”

“What gets me is that you still care.”

I nod, because she’s right. “I don’t know, man, maybe my heart’s broken, maybe it doesn’t work right. Maybe this is it, maybe it’s going to be like this forever.”

“Would that be so bad?”

“Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it would be. I just get so pissed off, and then I don’t care. I try to convince myself that I don’t care about what happened. I focus on my job, on the kids.”

Sophie smiles. I tell her stories from time to time, and she has her favorites. The kids would get a kick out of all of her tattoos, too, I’m sure. Maybe I’ll even do a show and tell where you bring in your best friend and tell the class all the awesome things about them.

“I focus on making delicious food for dinner and cleaning the condo from top to bottom. I focus on the Habs and the games, and it helps get me out of my head. It helps a lot. But I can’t help but feel like time’s running away from me.”

“Yeah, like it just keeps speeding up and up, right? We’re in October, Halloween is two weeks away, and then before we know it it’s going to be Christmas, and then we’re going to be ringing in the New Year, then the new decade, and what? I’ll be standing there, blinking, buffering while I try to make sense of it, you know?” Sophie rambles on, and I’m finding it hard to focus on her, everything going fuzzy around the edges, softly lit and warm.

“I don’t think you should go and watch the game tonight,” Sophie says, and I nod slowly at her.

“Yeah, I’m a little fuzzy. I’ll watch it here, if that’s okay.”

Sophie laughs again. “As if I don’t own a laptop and can watch whatever the hell I want. As if I don’t have noise-cancelling headphones ’cause you tend to get really into it.”

“Sorry,” I mumble, pushing my hair behind my ears. “I basically have nothing else to live for at this point. If they don’t win the Stanley Cup this year, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Sophie taps her fist against the table. “Keep talking like that and I’m going to tell your cousin.”

I grin, the muscles in my face feeling odd. I tilt my head at her. “Do you ever think about it…? Getting married? Being with someone forever?”

Sophie nods slowly. “Sure. Sure, I do. It’s with this faceless guy who adores me, and I adore him, and we get into fights and scraps, and he doesn’t care what I look like.”

Huh. I wasn’t expecting that.

I think Sophie’s beautiful; I do. And I know she’s had more casual encounters than I have because even after a bunch of disastrous first dates, I always felt smarmy for some reason or another.

“I’m the have-a-good-time girl. That’s what I usually get in a guy’s first impression of me. Which is fine, I’ve had my fun, but it’s not what I’m looking for right now. And honestly, a guy is going to have to be super special to get me to consider even going on a date with him. Like levels of handsome that the world has never seen and the awesome personality to back it up.”

“You’re looking for a unicorn, my friend.” I grin at her, but it feels all wobbly on my face. I gulp down the rest of my wine, vowing that this’ll be it and that I’ll feel better tomorrow, that I won’t be this sad person tomorrow, but for right now, I’m going to let myself think and dream about a future I can look forward to.

“Yeah, I know,” she sighs, playing with her glass, swinging it around so that the liquid is in danger of sloshing all over our table. Sophie’s never been good at patient conversation, it’s only after she comes home from closing up the shop do I get to be with her like this, talk with her like this. She’s so loud in every other part of her personality, but not when it comes to talking about love.

“You? Frankie’s long gone, out of the picture, or so I’ve heard from the grapevine.” The grapevine’s my cousin, Katie. She’s got her ear to the ground, and it’s the only way I know what’s going on with the DiNovro side of the family. My mom’s side is scattered across the country and we’re not close.

“Do you see yourself with someone?” Sophie asks, a hesitant side to her I haven’t seen too often in our two years of living together. Everything about her demands attention—the way she looks, the way she laughs, loud and long, never covering it up with a hand like I always seem to do. “Do you see a future with someone like that?”

“It would be nice to have that. I’m lonely, I can admit that.” That aching loneliness in the middle of my chest expands, pushes up my throat, and I hastily look away as my eyes get wet, as I try to choke back the tears.

“It would be nice to have that, someone who cares about you like that. I miss kissing. I didn’t think I would. I miss being held, this whole skin hunger thing is no joke, shit.” I sigh again, wiping away the stray tears, sniff hard enough to hurt something in my skull.

“I don’t know where I’m going to find him though. I’m exhausted from all the terrible dates I’ve been on, trying to figure out what the guy wants. Why can’t people just come and say what they want? Why is that so hard?”

Sophie nods. “Yeah, I know, right? I don’t know, maybe it’s an immediate turn-off, even if you are looking for something casual. I guess it’s all perception. I don’t know if I’m the marrying type, though. Can you imagine me meeting my guy’s parents? I’d have to wear makeup all over my pale-ass skin, and it’d feel so sticky and gross probably.” Sophie pulls another face, shuddering at the thought of body makeup.

I mean, it does sound gross.

“I don’t think that matters, though,” I say.

Sophie shakes her head. “I’d like to think so, too, but people still get really…” She waves her hands around, nearly knocking the glass over. “Judgy about that kind of stuff, like putting art on my body actually says something about me instead of what I say and what I do. It’s so dumb.”

“Dumb,” I murmur, nodding. “Maybe you just haven’t found the right guy, yeah?”

Sophie raises that eyebrow at me, the jewelry catching the low-hanging light over our table. “I could say the same thing for you. Just because you have a broken heart doesn’t mean you can’t use it.”

“I don’t know, I’m still stuck on the whole situation. I want to put it behind me, but I still think about it a lot.”

“I don’t think it’s a matter of not being hurt by what happened ever again, though. I don’t think it’s about that at all. It’s just maybe not being destroyed by it all the time, every time it’s brought up, and I think you’ve achieved that.” Sophie frowns. “Unless you’re not telling me something, and then I will sic Katie on you. You know how she is.”

“Yeah, she doesn’t take any shit, ever. I wish I was more like her.”

Sophie nods. “Yeah. It must be nice.”

I stifle a yawn, the wine making me sleepy, the hour even more so, but I just don’t really feel like moving. I wonder how I’m going to get into bed. Screw brushing my teeth, I’m tired.

“Thanks for listening to me, it means a lot. I don’t really have anyone else to talk to about this. Katie’s probably sleeping, and you just got home.”

“Excuse me, are you saying I was the next best person to talk to? Elena! Come on.”

I shrug again, shoulders hiking towards my ears. “I know you don’t like me talking about it.”

Sophie thumps her fist against the table, once, twice. “Because I’m not good at dealing with people, in general, when they’re sad. I don’t know what to say or do,” she says, sounding panicked, and it makes me laugh, just a little.

“I’m glad that you listen to me. Really glad.”

“Okay, up, get up now, I’m going to strangle you in a hug.”

“Put those biceps away,” I say when Sophie starts flexing, grinning at me.

“No, no, it’s hug time. Up, up, up.”

I scrape my chair back and get my feet on the floor, ignoring the pins and needles as the sensation gets back to my toes. I push myself upright, opening my arms wide for a hug.

Sophie really does give the best kind of hugs, all tight around my shoulders, not one of those half-assed hugs that makes me think the person would rather be doing anything else.

Sophie sighs when she lets me go and just stares at me. “It might be bullshit, but my mom always used to tell me that falling in love with the person I was gonna marry—because she’s old school, too, even if she doesn’t say it—that it would happen for me when I least expected it. And I don’t know if that’s necessarily a good thing, since I wouldn’t like to be bonked upside the head with the conviction that I’m going to marry this random guy and spend the rest of my life with him, but whatever.

“The sentiment’s cute, that you’d just be going about your day, hanging out with friends or whatever, and there he is. Like, it’s been years since I had a steady boyfriend, I don’t know, they’re going to have to be really, really special.” Sophie nods at me, and I find myself nodding back.

“Yeah,” I say. “Special.”

She squeezes my shoulders. “You’re not always going to feel like this. And I know you feel so much better already.”

I nod. “Yeah. Yeah. Screw everybody and everything.” I hold a fist up.

“Well, I wasn’t expecting you to go from zero to a hundred, but yeah, it still stands. Screw everybody and everything!” she crows, and I start laughing and laughing until I start crying, and Sophie’s right there, doing the best thing she can—hugging me close and telling me it’s going to be fine.

It does feel like it will be.

TWO

It’s hard to stop looking at him.

I know I should instead keep my eyes pinned to the giant TV sitting atop the bar, nursing my weekly indulgence of a single John Collins (basically sparkling lemonade with whiskey).

I’m wearing my DAREjersey, flashing the number 12, and it’s oversized enough that you can’t really tell that I’m female, since I braided my hair underneath my Habs ball cap, and you can’t really see my face.

Sometimes I do think I look like most of the guys sitting at the bar, representing the team in some sort of gear that has the Habs logo on it, but no one really talks to each other, every single one of us looking at the TV more often than not.

There’s a game on, but I can’t seem to keep my eyes trained on it, or on my boy Liam Dare skating up the ice looking like he was about to go on a breakaway but I’m stuck staring at the idiot sitting a few stools down from me at the bar.

I’ve got my baseball cap pulled on low, so I have to crank my head all the way back to even see what I’m looking at, to disguise the puffiness of my eyes from crying so much last night. The surround system is belting out the hollers from the crowd, the announcers speaking rapidly in French, describing the game so I still know what’s going on, even if I’m not looking at the screen.

It bothers me for some reason that the guy down the bar is sitting alone—absolutely a guy with his taller frame and a really awesome beard—completely alone, looking to be unaware of the shit’s that’s brewing just behind him.

Because the guy down the bar, this stranger, who I should really care nothing about especially when he’s being so dumb, doesn’t know what’s about to hit him.

I turn my attention back to the TV as the announcer starts speaking in gunfire-quick French, the tension rising in the bar, the yells of the crowd almost deafening, the Habs pelting shot after shot after shot against the Bruins’ goalie, but nothing.

Big fat nothing for all that effort, and now my heart rate can return to normal while I keep stealing glances over at the guy during a quick commercial break.

It’s not the first time I’ve seen this particular stranger here at my favorite sports bar, Dans la Rue¸ where I pretty much know a lot of the regulars—some of them are dads to the kids I teach, which is a whole other level of weird since most of them don’t recognize me when I’m dressed like this, entranced by the game and not giving them any kind of attention.

Except the stranger isn’t the dad of any of the kids in my class. I would have recognized him immediately—the beard, for one, and the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles, which sort of does me in. It somehow ends up making him adorable instead of intimidating.

Not like I’m going to approach him and ask to touch his beard or anything, I have standards.

It’s just that I can’t look away when there’s trouble brewing and even though I can hear the puck being passed from stick to stick now, play having resumed, there’s a twist in my belly and a flash of adrenaline spiking in my blood that has me waiting for the inevitable.

The Habs are losing to their long-time (forever) rivals, the Boston Bruins.

Montreal is a hockey town through and through, home to the most prestigious franchise to ever exist. It’s the only franchise that has won twenty-four Stanley Cups since the club’s inception back in 1909 when the team was made up of nothing but locals—French and English—and was home to the one, the only, Maurice ‘The Rocket’ Richard.

As a hockey club, we have a lot of rivals, being part of the original six teams when the NHL was created. Another one of those original six teams being the Boston Bruins.

It’s a rivalry that’s been forever in the making, and it’s still alive today. It hurts even more now, because the Habs and the Bruins have met in more post-season matches than any other team in the NHL’s history, so I really can’t keep my eyes off of the handsome stranger, and it’s not only because he’s attractive.

I don’t know, even if you’re a special snowflake or have a death wish, you wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a Boston Bruins jersey in the middle of downtown Montreal, in a sea of bleu, blanc et rouge.

Especially when the Habs are losing, and you have balls the size of Jupiter to get up and cheer like a maniac while the rest of the bar is swearing and getting steadily more and more drunk when the Bruins score.

Shit.

I’m a quivering mess of nerves, sitting in my usual spot.

The bartender, Lydia, who’s rocking the most beautiful pea-green smoky eye I’ve ever seen in my entire life that makes her look like a caterpillar about to bust out of the cocoon and become a butterfly, gives me a nod and hands me my plate of cheesy nachos.

It’s Saturday night, I’ve got good food, a delicious drink, my beloved Habs playing the game, and even though we’re still in the early days at the beginning of the season, we all know that historical statistics and key performance metrics will all show some indication of where the season is headed if the Habs lose this game.

Basically, if the team doesn’t start off with a bang, we’re not going to make the playoffs, and therefore there’ll be no chance at that highly coveted twenty-fifth Stanley Cup that we’ve all been waiting for since the 1992-1993 season.

It’s enough to make anyone nervous with the energy in the bar, knowing what I know, but I’m practically vibrating. The delicious nachos topped with jalapeños and black olives sit there on the plate and nowhere near my stomach, satisfying my hunger and taking down my tipsiness back to a sober level.

I just can’t stop looking at him, the (yeah, attractive) Bruins fan, wearing the black and yellow away white jersey. His hair’s slicked back off his forehead, hair wavy enough that I can make out some curls at the base of his neck, almost falling down to his shoulders, his eyes stuck to the screen and not paying attention to the situation going on around him.

Situational awareness, this guy does not have.

I try to look away, to mind my own business, to keep my ears hyper-attuned to the hockey game going on, to the French commentators whose voices are practically booming over the conversations and moans and groans of despair now that the Habs are trailing behind by a single goal (which can literally change at any time).

My heart is practically beating at the back of my throat. I don’t know if I’m going to upchuck or if my heart’s trying to leave my body entirely.

Shit!

It’s not my fault that the Bruins guy isn’t looking around himself, isn’t paying attention to the bunch of guys that look around my age, ready to start throwing punches, crowding around the bar in a way that spells out trouble.

There’s five minutes left until the end of the third period. Things could get ugly real fast.

I glance over at Lydia, who’s also watching the scene in front of us, my nachos forgotten, my drink held tightly in my hand and close to my body, like I might use it as some kind of weapon if a fight breaks out.

Although at this point, I’m pretty sure it’s a question of when and not if.

What are you going to do? You can’t save the day.

It’s not your fault the guy’s an idiot, begging to get beat up acting like he doesn’t know what’s going to happen, flaunting that jersey around and being obnoxious about it.

Jesus Christ, it’s just a hockey game, a hockey team!

It’s not though…it never really is.

I bite at my bottom lip, my heart beating hard against the confines of my ribs, blood pounding at my pulse points, keeping time, counting down until one thing or another sets the pack off and the stranger’s going to get his ass beat.

I can practically smell the tension as it grows and expands when the Bruins, out of my peripheral vision, take another shot from the blue line, keeping the puck in the Habs’ side while trying to take the extra man advantage of the power play.

There’s a lot of circling, a lot of passing going around, the Habs challenging when they can, but being one man down changes a lot in the dynamics of the game.

Shot after shot is being blocked by our goalie, the kid doing literal acrobatics and pirouettes and it gets loud, almost hysterical with the high-pitched voices of men and women going up an octave as the puck gets launched again and again at our goalie, the rest of us praying for the referee’s whistle to end the play and give our boys some rest and to change shift.

The whistle finally goes off and play ends, but now I’ve lost sight of the Bruins guy sitting at the bar.

I look around for him, trying to see him through the mass of bodies, heart leaping up my throat, my body electrified with the fear of being caught in the chaos of a bar brawl.

I logically know that my elbows, although strong, don’t pack the same punch as a guy’s might, and as I frantically search for the stranger, trying to peek through the people surrounding the middle of the bar, I let out the breath I was holding when I spot him.

Those guys from before have tightened their circle around him, like some sort of high school after-school fight as other people order consolation drinks and return to their tables in groups of friends or colleagues.

Whew. He’s alive. That’s good.

I’d been in a bar brawl once when I was eighteen, the first time I was legally allowed to enter a bar and flash my ID without getting kicked out. While it made me more vigilant of going to sports bars in general with a bunch of ride-or-die fans whose moods are swayed heavily by victory or loss, I just need to get out of the condo sometimes, to immerse myself in the game-watching experience with a bunch of strangers.

I like it, too, most of the time, being connected to strangers through our collective love for the game, for our team, knowing that we’re all united in this one thing despite what anyone looks like, job they have, or tax bracket.

It makes me feel like I’m not so alone.

Most of my work friends don’t really understand my die-hard love for the game, and they don’t really understand my intensity when it comes to them. Sophie doesn’t get it, but she lets me have this time alone, even if she likes to check in and make sure that I’m alive.

I mean, I am that person that will bawl her eyes out when we lose an important game—I’ll admit it, no problem. I’m the person staring at the screen, following every move, lamenting the loss of the puck more than I can say.

I love watching the game, even if I don’t know how to skate, even if I used to watch the game with my dad, back in the day, before I became a disappointment. And it’s stupid to think about it, but maybe one day soon, we’ll be able to talk again, and even when there’s nothing to say, we can talk about the Habs.

It’s just a game, a sport to watch, yeah, but it’s so, so much more.

And now this stranger is starting to ruin it for me because I’m getting scared and worried, and I’m never going to be able to come here again and it’s my favorite.

How can he be so freaking oblivious? Was he literally born yesterday? Is he new to this planet, this area?

I’ve seen him before in that way when you recognize faces you’ve seen over and over, but I don’t remember the Bruins jersey. He doesn’t seem to be one of those people who likes to watch the game from home; he prefers the crowd, like me.

Couldn’t he just have gone to one of those overpriced restaurants around the Bell Center and left this place alone?

Couldn’t he have gone to the Bell Center and not made me all nervous and shit that he’s going to get killed in the middle of a bar fight?

Maybe he’s like you and never been to a real game at the arena.

It’s a tragedy having never been to an actual game, much like this idiot not paying attention to what’s going on around him and toasting the screen when the Bruins blitz the power play and finally score again.

He’s going to get killed.

What are you going to do about it?

Lydia races over to his side of the bar, a whole four or five bar stools away from me where that moron is celebrating and clapping his hands for his team, and the murderous glares around him are turned up to an eleven.

I keep looking around, waiting for the first himbo to lumber over and start something that he won’t be able to finish, but he brought along all his himbo friends, and it’s going to get crazy real quick.

Oh my God, is the stranger even paying attention? Does he want to die?

What is this guy doing, oh my god!

I stuff nachos into my mouth, watching like it’s some sort of action movie, watching it all unfold like clockwork, guys jostling closer to the bar, invading Bruins Guy’s personal space, calling out to Lydia, demanding drinks with slaps to the bar like we’re back in medieval times and not in the twenty-first century.

I mean, healthcare has changed and general scientific knowledge, but a lot hasn’t changed, either especially himbos taking offense to their favorite team losing, and they’ve got to take the only—admittedly—idiot in the place wearing the away team’s jersey down a few pegs by kicking in his teeth.

I can practically see it coming.

Bruins Guy will get up from his stool, something dangerous glinting in his eyes, his beer left discarded on the bar as the guys eventually go chest to chest, and you don’t know if they’re going to kill each other or start making out.

At this point, it can go in any direction, but the glares are more murderous than sexual.

I think.

I hold my breath as Bruins Guy actually gets up from his seat, unfolding his large (shit, large) body and coming to his full height, over six feet, for sure, and pushing back his shoulders, a human blowfish making himself appear bigger to predators even when he clearly didn’t need help in that area.

I stuff more nachos into my mouth, chewing around the noise in the room, all conversations gone quiet now as we’re all riveted by the scene before us, and the game goes to a commercial break before the after-show analysis starts.

Holy shit, Bruins Guy is huge! Like Viking tall!

Are we going to get a throwdown? Is that what’s going to happen?

I chew around my nacho, trying not to draw attention to myself, but I have to eat something or else I’m going to have a hard time finding my bus stop at the end of the night.

The guy looks like he could play for the Bruins, broad and large, a goon through and through, his face interesting with his raggedy beard, his nose leaning just off center, a scar running horizontally through his left (maybe it’s the right, I’m not sure) eyebrow, a few degrees under being a copycat of Jason Momoa.

My breath rattles in my throat as the air in the room gets sucked into their small circle, Bruins Guy turning his head to the side, clocking the guys behind him for the very first time.

Maybe it’s a blessing that only one of the himbos is around his height, although they all look three sheets to the wind (I still don’t understand where that phrase comes from, but whatever), and for some odd reason, Bruins Guy looks over at me, making direct eye contact, making me freeze in the spot, like a little bunny would when catching the scent of a looming predator.

My heart drums hard in my chest, chasing a rhythm of fear and adrenaline while I watch him watch me, hardly daring to blink, my eyes starting to itch and smart and water. I end up winning the impromptu staring contest, not knowing we were in one but taking the victory in any case.

I need wins.

I gulp audibly, sure enough to be heard in Australia, but Bruins Guy has released me from his stare (by looking away first), and he brings his attention back to the jerkface who was jostling him, looking down the half-head that he’s got on the guy, a sardonic grin on his face, giving me the insane urge to giggle.

Which would be bad.

I don’t want to bring attention to myself.

I swallow down the nachos and bring both of my hands up to my mouth, pressing my fingers against my lips lest any sound come out, pulling in deep, rapid breaths through my nose, trying to calm myself down.

Bruins Guy did something to me when he looked at me, some sort of weird paranormal shit—there has to be an actual, logical, scientific reason why I can’t seem to look away, as to why he’s grabbing all of my attention right now when there’s food and there’s hockey talk coming up and I’ve never been the biggest fan of bar brawls.

This? This is dumb, but I can’t look away.

Again, Bruins Guy’s gaze flickers to mine, something like a private joke in them, begging me to join in on the laughter.

I do no such thing, even if I feel my own mouth betray me under the cover of my fingers and twitch into something like a smile.

What the hell? What the hell!?

“I’m talking to you!” Confronting Himbo shouts, voice booming in front of the bar, all that glass making the perfect echo and the sound claps back.

I hold my breath now, unable to tear my eyes away, feeling like we’re all moving syrup-slow as the himbo moves his arms up slowly, planting them on Bruins Guy’s chest and giving a shove, but he’s planted his back foot on the ground and doesn’t really move.

Confronting Himbo doesn’t know what to do.

Is this a high school movie? Am I living inside a high school movie?

Am I the main character? Please let me be the main character! I’d rather not be the comedic relief, thanks.

“Hey, Carl, relax, man. I don’t want to have to throw you out,” Lydia says, voice sharp and cutting, the kind that stings no matter what’s actually being said. But Carl, aka Confronting Himbo, does not hear her tone or pay attention to her and just keeps brushing his chest against Bruins Guy, like he’s going to intimidate him with chest bumps, or else it’s some sort of weird mating dance that I’ve never seen before.

I don’t know why I do it, it just ends up coming out, my brain clicking onto the fact that this does look like some sort of mating dance, and my hands drop away from my traitor mouth.

I holler loud enough for the entire island of Montreal at large to hear me yell, “KISS, YOU COWARDS!”

Oh, shit. Oh, Jesus Christ.

I didn’t. I did not just do that.

Oh, Lord, I did.

Oh my god, oh my god!

Himbo (excuse me, Carl) turns around to look at me, utterly horrified.

I mean, this could have gone one of two ways—I’d have Carl’s horrified expression, or they’d be kissing, and I’d have brought a potential couple together, or at least a definite one-night stand, which would make me like Cupid, which would be cool.

I drop the cupped hands from my mouth, even though I’ve been caught red-handed, and blink at the pair of them while Carl turns around slowly, unsure of his footing while the rest of his bros mumble to each other, stepping and fidgeting, glancing around to catch how many people are actually looking at them.

The consensus is that everyone is.

And while assholes come in all shapes and sizes, I’ve seen a few people here in the bar wearing tiny pride flags on their coats, on their jerseys, on the straps of bag and purses, so one wrong word and the dudebros have more than they bargained for.

Carl turns back around to Bruins Guy, mumbles something that could be an apology, but also couldn’t be. I’m too busy shaking from the adrenaline crash, yelling at myself internally at what the hell possessed me to get involved. Me, the quietest person on the planet, winner of the gold medal in the Olympic sport of Mind Your Business 101.

Shit.

Oh, shit on a stick, Bruins Guy is coming over here, lumbering closer, a hand dragging along the sticky bar, one of the empty stools near me suddenly becoming occupied by his massive presence, his beer long forgotten. I have to crank my neck all the way back to look at him with his superior height (what a jerk) and grin nervously, my life flashing before my eyes.

I had a feeling that Bruins Guy was the more dangerous of the two and now he’s sitting right in front of me, expecting something.

Yeah, but what?

But what?

THREE

“Uh, sorry,” I apologize, going for broke first and asking questions later. I have no problem shoveling my pride down into the veritable underworld if it’s going to get me out of here alive and get me out from under that intense stare.

The stranger mumbles something but I wasn’t paying attention to his mouth and my ears are clearly not back online now that I’ve been captivated by his stare, and his stare alone—whiskey-colored eyes, Jesus.