Chapter 9 Ethan #2
By the skin of our teeth, we made it back to the owners’ box before warmups. The fifteen minutes we’d been gone—not to mention all the plotting and scheming for Carson’s increasingly elaborate proposal—had, in fact, been enough to distract me from all my nerves and pull me back down to earth.
One look at Jake, though, and I was back to square one.
Holy shit, you’re cute.
Miraculously, I managed to get into my seat and arrange our newly acquired snacks without dumping a beer or flipping the enormous plate of nachos onto Jake’s lap.
It was especially miraculous given the way his eyes lit up at the dense heap of sour cream, cheese, jalapenos, guacamole, salsa, taco meat, and about eighty-seven other things piled on top of the tortilla chips.
“Whoa.” He stared at it with an expression full of comical awe. “That’s… ”
“You sure you don’t want to get the bougie nachos instead?” Carson held up a chip with a solid inch of toppings on it. “Leave the peasant version to us?”
“Fuck the bougie ones.” Jake plucked a chip from the pile and scooped up some of the toppings. “Peasant nachos, all the way.”
“You haven’t even tasted it yet.” Marek held up a chip that was dangerously close to snapping beneath the weight of everything on it. “Put it in your mouth before you rate it.”
“That’s what she said,” Carson and I both muttered.
Jake had, in fact, been putting the chip in his mouth at that moment, and he very nearly spat it all over the railing. And quite possibly the people below us. He managed to just choke on it, though, and he covered his mouth as he reached for his drink.
“You all right?” I asked, fighting back a grin.
He nodded, then took a swig of beer.
“What?” Carson asked. “Was it something we said?”
Jake flipped him off.
I snickered, and Jake shot me a wicked grin, which…
Oh, fuck me. He was so damn cute.
And I was staring at him like a fucking dumbass.
I cleared my throat and reached for the nachos again… at the same moment he did. We didn’t grab the same chip and have some Lady-and-the-Tramp-but-with-nachos moment, which was oddly disappointing but also a huge relief. We didn’t even brush fingers, thank God.
But because I was a train wreck tonight, and because a particular jalapeno that I wanted was stubbornly refusing to let go of the cheese, I couldn’t quite get it onto my chip. So Jake used his chip and nudged it onto mine.
I glanced at him. “Thanks.”
That smile…
Oh God.
I’m so stupid.
But it feels really good, so fuck it.
Jake ate some more nachos, and he glanced at Carson. “Okay. I’m sold. These are awesome.” He pushed another chip into the mountain of stuff. “Cheap nachos, for the win.”
Carson guffawed. “Cheap? You think these were cheap?”
Marek and I both laughed too.
“They may not be bougie,” Marek said, pausing to lick some sour cream off his finger, “but nothing in this building is cheap.”
“Nothing except your boyfriend, right?” Jake threw back.
Carson elbowed him hard.
Marek just laughed dryly and rolled his eyes. “Says the man who’s never paid for one of his GrubHub orders.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Carson muttered.
Marek grinned and adopted an exaggeratedly flirty tone. “Not here, baby. We’ll lose our owners’ box privileges.”
I didn’t hear Carson’s response because Jake and I both burst out laughing.
Another middle finger flew, but I didn’t mind.
I was too busy being a complete dork over the way Jake’s smile made the whole arena brighter.
Was I even going to make it through this whole hockey game before I made an ass of myself?
Probably not.
Right then, the goal horn sounded, signaling that warmups were kicking off, which gave us all something else to focus on.
As soon as players started coming out onto the ice, I was glad we’d decided on a hockey game for our first date.
My brain was going in a million different directions, and I was a nervous tongue-tied mess…
but I could focus on hockey. I could always focus on hockey.
Which meant that when Jake leaned in close—oh my God, he was so close—and asked questions, the hockey-trained side of my brain kicked in.
“How come they aren’t all wearing helmets?”
“The older guys aren’t required to,” I explained.
“I think it was… ten, twelve years ago that the NAPH started requiring everyone to wear them during warmups.” I gestured with my soda bottle at the players below.
“The guys who were already in before that are grandfathered in, so they don’t have to. ”
Jake made a face. “I don’t think I’d want to be out there with all those”—he flailed a hand—“pucks flying everywhere and not wear a helmet.”
“I know, right?” I paused to dig another chip out from under the pile. “But I think it’s a superstition for a lot of guys.”
He turned to me, eyebrows up. “Really?”
“Oh, yeah. Hockey players are ridiculously superstitious.”
He glanced down at the ice, then back at me, a lopsided grin on his lips. I was so caught up in staring at him, I almost didn’t hear him ask, “What superstitions do you have?”
“Not washing his jock,” Marek called out.
“Oh, fuck you.” I plucked a jalapeno off the pile and flung it at him, hitting him square in the temple.
“Ack!” He jumped, almost dumping their tray of nachos on the floor, and he called me something Czech and undoubtedly obscene.
“You kind of deserved that, baby,” Carson said, steadying the tray.
Marek’s sunglasses did little to hide his glare. “You know I drove tonight, right?”
“And?”
“And I can make you walk home.”
Carson dipped his finger into the nachos and dabbed some sour cream on Marek’s nose, earning him an indignant squawk.
“Aww, look!” Jake cooed. “They’re practicing for their wedding!”
“Oh, fuck that.” Carson shook his head emphatically. “I’m not smashing wedding cake in his face.”
Jake and I exchanged puzzled glances, then peered at Carson. Marek, too, was eyeing him suspiciously.
Carson looked at each of us, then shrugged as he reached for another chip. “Are you kidding? The cake smashing happens right after the cake cutting, which means he”—he pointed sharply at Marek—“will have a knife.”
“Ooh,” Jake said with a solemn nod. “Okay, that’s a valid point.” He elbowed Carson. “In fact, maybe you should cut the cake. Just to be safe.”
“You’re supposed to do it together, dumbass,” Carson retorted.
“Right, but like one of you is actually holding the knife, and the other just sort of puts his hand over yours.” Jake nudged Carson again. “Maybe make sure your hand is the one on the knife?”
Carson grunted and nodded.
Marek responded with something I didn’t hear.
Jake chuckled, then turned to me. “Okay, you still didn’t answer my question. What are your superstitions?”
“Oh. Uh.” I ate a topping-laden chip as I thought about it. “Well, I never put my gloves on for warmups until I’m actually on the ice.”
He tilted his head. “Really?”
“Mmhmm. It was just one of those things, and then one night I put them on while I was on my way to the sheet, and I broke my wrist that night. So… ” I half-shrugged. “What about you? Any superstitions?”
He studied me, and I thought he might tell me that was stupid. But then as he scraped some cheese off the side of the plate with a chip, he said, “No static stretches when I warm up, only dynamic. The movement sets me up for success.”
“Really?” I asked. “Does that… Does it work?”
“I’ve won almost every match I’ve ever had when I did dynamic stretching. I lost half of the ones where I just sat there and worked on one thing.”
“Huh. Okay, so we’re not the only ones with weird superstitions, then.”
“Nah.” He met my gaze and smiled, oblivious to how that short-circuited my brain. “I think it’s just an athlete thing.”
“Probably.”
We exchanged smiles, and then shifted our attention back down to the ice.
I was still a fluttery, twitchy, fidgety mess tonight, but…
I liked it. Though I was still sure I was going to do or say something to make an ass of myself, I liked the way I felt whenever Jake and I locked eyes.
I liked answering his questions about hockey and listening to him banter with Carson, Marek, and me.
I just… liked him. A lot.
And before the puck had even dropped, I was already hoping he’d want to do this again.
“I still don’t understand icing,” Jake said from the passenger seat of my car. “And I kind of get the feeling the refs don’t understand it either.”
I laughed. “I wonder about that sometimes too. Like there’s times when it’s so obviously icing, but there’s no whistle. And then the refs blow it dead for icing when it’s—ugh. It drives me nuts.”
“So it’s not just me. They really aren’t consistent about it.”
“No,” I grumbled. “And it’s fucking annoying.”
“I bet.” He paused. “I think I’m getting the rest of the game, though.”
I glanced at him and couldn’t help smiling. As I faced the line of taillights in front of us, I said, “You knew Ottawa wasn’t going to win that coach’s challenge.”
Another glance revealed him beaming a little, his eyes sparkling. Fuck me, he was such a tough guy on the mat—such a huge beast of a man who could break someone in half—but he also had this adorable dorky side that kept melting my stupid heart.
During one of the TV timeouts, when people were encouraged to dance in order to win ice cream for their row.
Jake had dragged Carson to his feet, and those two had danced.
Marek and I had almost fallen out of our seats, laughing and egging them on.
They’d even ended up on the Jumbotron, and they’d nearly won—the crowd had roared for them, but it had come down to Carson and Jake versus a couple of little girls in the nosebleed section.
And I mean, little kids pretty much always won it, so nobody was surprised at the final outcome.
Marek and I had, of course, ordered ice cream to console them.
“Ooh, bougie ice cream!” Jake had exclaimed as a server handed him a giant, sprinkle-covered hot fudge sundae. “Fuck yeah!”