Revenge Puck (Shot at Love #1)

Chapter 30

30

Elle

“ O h my god, I’m so freaking nervous,” I tell Maya as the two teams face off for the puck drop.

“Even if the Warhawks lose this one, it’s not over,” she says cheerfully, giving my knee a comforting pat.

“No. I know. That’s not what I mean.” Rubbing my sweaty palms on my leggings, I tell her, “I’m worried that I may have jinxed Preston.”

“Jinxed him?” she repeats, turning to face me with her brow furrowed. “How could you jinx him?”

“Uh, well, you probably don’t want to know this, but Preston has a rule about not… indulging before a game.”

“Yuck,” she mutters, her nose scrunching up. “And let me guess, you think you were solely responsible for him indulging during your sleepover?”

“Yes.”

“Come on, Elle. Look at him,” she says as the Warhawks get possession of the puck, and charge toward the Bobcats’ goal. “Preston has an extra pep in his skates. He’s practically floating out there. I bet he’ll play his best game ever tonight.”

“I hope you’re right,” I tell her. Then, shaking my head to clear the thoughts about last night from it, I say, “Enough about me. We need to get you back out in the dating world.”

“I don’t know…”

“There must be some decent guys on the Warhawks. I bet Preston could introduce you tonight at the party.”

“No. That’s not a good idea, considering how the last time ended when he introduced me to a teammate.”

“Oh. Right. Well, you’re a grown woman. You can choose a man to date all on your own.”

“Right,” she agrees with a heavy sigh, her eyes locked on a player, not the puck. I don’t have to even follow her line of sight to know who she’s looking at. She’s still not over Christian, even after all the trouble he caused her five years ago.

“Hey, Mom?” Finley asks, tugging on the sleeve of her black Preston Lawrence jersey.

“Yes, sweetie?”

“How does that guy skate so fast?”

Again, I don’t have to look to know who the boy is talking about. The fastest man on the ice is always Christian if he’s out there.

“Wh-which one?” Maya stammers as if she already knows too.

“The one who keeps stealing the puck from the Warhawks. Number nineteen.”

“I don’t know, sweetie. Maybe because he doesn’t have a soul,” Maya replies, then winces.

“Huh?” Finley asks, turning to her with a raised eyebrow.

“I meant, he probably has light soles, you know, in his skates that weigh less than everyone else’s.”

Finley nods as if that makes perfect sense before his attention returns to the game. “Uncle Preston must have soles like bricks in his skates. He’s not very fast, and he barely touches the puck.”

Maya and I both laugh at that keen observation.

“Uncle Preston’s job isn’t to be the fastest, but to be the biggest and toughest, so he can prevent the other team from scoring.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Leaning around Maya to speak to Finley, I say, “Are you excited about showing the team your house tonight?”

Maya hums and frowns at me. “They might be busy, not able to make it on such short notice.”

“All of them?” I ask in confusion.

“Uncle Preston isn’t the most…agreeable human to be around,” she explains.

“But surely they’ll all want to come celebrate a win, right?”

“We’ll see,” Maya replies. “It’s the first period and nobody has scored yet. There’s still a lot more game to be played.”

“Preston seemed pretty confident the Warhawks would win, despite my own concerns.”

“Yes, well, we know that Preston’s optimism stems from over-indulging last night and probably this morning, so he may not be thinking clearly.”

“True,” I agree with a grin.

“This is the slowest game ever,” I mutter during the third period, when the scoreboard still sits at a big fat zero for both teams. The goalies have both been hot tonight, stopping every single puck. Well, except for one of the Warhawk’s goals that was reviewed and taken away because the player was offsides.

With less than two minutes to go, I dread having to sit on the edge of my seat in overtime for who knows how long before someone freaking scores!

“Mom, I’m sleepy,” Finley says into the silence. The rest of the arena must be too, if I can hear him so easily.

“Me too, sweetie. Me too,” she agrees around a yawn that causes me to yawn as well.

“When will the game end?”

“When someone finally scores a point that doesn’t get taken away,” Maya tells him.

“How much longer will that take?”

“I have no clue, sweetie. We could be here quite a while tonight.”

“All night? We get to sleep in the arena?”

“No, sweetie. We won’t sleep here. We’ll stay for the first overtime and then…”

She trails off when there’s suddenly a burst of movement on the ice. And it’s…

“Preston?” we both say at the same time.

Like Finley pointed out, he rarely touches the puck, usually only doing so to pass it to one of the forwards. But he just stuck out his enormous skate to block a pass from a Bobcats player in the neutral zone to head in the other direction, toward the Warhawks goal.

He looks left and right for someone to pass it to, but his teammates are slow and tired, some even changing up, so he’s on his own at the other end of the ice, facing off with the goalie. He picks up speed, dribbling the puck left to right before shooting it…

“Gooooallll!”

The buzzer goes off and the entire stadium erupts. Everyone is on their feet, jumping up and down, myself included. I swear the floor shakes from the excitement.

“He scored!” I exclaim as Maya and I stop jumping long enough to hug each other.

Preston’s teammates surround him, hugging him as well.

With less than a minute to go in the third period, all the Warhawks have to do is keep the Bobcats from scoring.

Everyone starts chanting, “Warhawks! Warhawks!” for the entire sixty seconds after the puck drop until the final buzzer.

“Oh my god! Oh my god! They won! They freaking won!” I shout. “I didn’t jinx him!”

“Told you!” Maya says with a smug grin. “You’re Preston’s lucky charm!”

“He is definitely getting lucky tonight!” I say before slapping my palm over my mouth. “I meant, with the game and party, he’s so lucky tonight.”

Maya leans over to whisper, “Nice save.”

“Almost as good as your light soles, right?”

“Right,” she laughs with a shake of her head. She throws her arm around my shoulders and Finley’s in a group hug. “Well, kids, it looks like we’ve got a party to host!”