Chapter 15
“Did you know they stream Bribury’s hockey games?” Emily asked me on Friday night. We’d just come back from the dining hall and hadn’t made any definitive plans for the evening. Chloe and Abby were in their room—we could hear them talking—but we didn’t bother them and went straight to our room.
“They do? I mean, I guess why not, right?” It had never occurred to me that I could watch Logan’s games this weekend.
Did I even want to?
“Do you want to?” Emily asked.
“Spend my Friday night in my dorm room watching the Bribury hockey team, which I didn’t even know existed three weeks ago?”
She shrugged as she went to her bed and climbed on, pulling her laptop out of her backpack. “Not an answer.”
“Feels kind of pathetic, doesn’t it?” I said.
Another shrug. “Maybe. Not too much more pathetic than sitting in your dorm room so that you’re somewhere quiet when you FaceTime your boyfriend who’s multiple states away.”
“At least he’s your boyfriend. And he’s probably doing the same thing at Florida State.” A snort this time. So I quickly got off that topic. “I’m sure Chloe and Abby know of lots of parties to go to if you want. We could come back before you FaceTime with Caleb, or find somewhere quiet to do that.”
She waved a hand at me and the door, in kind of a half-hearted shooing motion. “I’m good. I’m really not missing out on the party scene. It was never my thing, even before Caleb and I got serious.”
“So, you stopped partying in eighth grade?” I joked. She and her boyfriend had been together all through high school.
“Guess I don’t have enough experience to know what I don’t like. But just the thought of making all the small talk, and all the new people?” She shivered. “Ugh. No thanks.”
At first I’d felt sorry for Emily. She and Caleb had agreed to the long-distance thing, and I had not with Blake.
I’d assumed she’d miss out on so much. And maybe that was true.
But it was also true that Emily was an introvert, an adult, and knew what she wanted.
If she wanted to stay in on a Friday night, then I was cool with that.
Chloe and Abby, on the other hand, would not be.
I floated somewhere in the middle. I liked going out, dressing up (or down) and meeting new people, experiencing new conversations with kids from places not in the Corn Belt.
But other times, like tonight, I was happy to stay in and…
okay, yes, stream the hockey game of a guy I was wildly attracted to, had an emotional connection with, and was very leery of.
“Do you have it up?” I asked Emily, nodding at her laptop.
“Game doesn’t start for a half hour, but yes, the stream is live.” She moved to one side of her bed and put her pillows behind her to sit up. I grabbed my pillows and joined her on her bed, grabbing us both pops from the mini-fridge first.
“Call up the Bribury Athletics site and find out what number he is so we can keep an eye on him,” she said.
When the game started, we had Logan’s stat page up on my phone. I’d also brought up Dex’s (although he still wasn’t playing), Veeti’s, and Gabe’s, explaining to Emily that they were Logan’s housemates.
“It says Logan and Veeti are defensemen and Gabe’s a goalie. Whatever that means,” I said.
“Defensemen are the big guys. They’re down in front of the goalie when the other team has the puck and at the blue line when we have the puck. Basically, they’re not supposed to let the puck get by them on either end. They’re the guys that get in fights the most. The enforcers.”
“You know hockey?” I asked. Emily was from what I believed was an old-money family in south Florida. Not that she still couldn’t know hockey; I was just surprised.
“My father is a big Panthers fan,” she said.
“That’s hockey?”
She laughed. “That’s Florida’s NHL team. They play not too far from us.”
“And does your dad go to the games?”
“Mmm-hmm,” she said. Evasively.
“Em? Does your dad own the Panthers?”
Another laugh. “No. No. Well… No. He might have a minority share, I really don’t know. But he does go to every home game.”
“With great seats,” I added.
“Skybox, actually.”
I nudged her. “Em, it’s okay that you’re stinking rich. Most of the kids here are.”
“And are happy to tell you so,” she said.
She wasn’t wrong. “And I’m not rich. My parents are.
” I rolled my eyes at the distinction, and she nudged me back.
“So it says the other guy, Dex, is a center. They’re the ones who get most of the goals.
The centers, and the forwards, they take the puck to the net, passing back and forth until one has a shot.
Faster, better skaters, usually much smaller than the defensemen. ”
Thinking of Dex standing next to Logan, and Veeti’s long legs dangling over their couch, I said, “That tracks.”
“And you do know what the goalie is, right?” There was as much question as teasing in her voice.
“Of course,” I said. “They have those in soccer too.”
“Very good. I don’t know about soccer, but oftentimes in hockey, the goalie is kind of an, hmm, ‘odd duck,’ might be how my mom would put it.”
“How would you put it?”
“A head case?”
I didn’t know Gabe well enough to know if that label fit, but stored it away.
Emily explained the finer points of the game to me (basically soccer on ice, it seemed to me?) and some of the vernacular as we watched the first period. (Periods, not halves or quarters—I got that one down.)
“He’s not one of the starting defensemen, but he and Veeti are the second pair out, so that’s good. Especially for sophomores.”
I felt a swell of pride, then chided myself. Logan wasn’t mine. I had no right to bask in his hockey prowess.
But I did admire it. Watching him skate explained the magnificent ass and thighs on him. Then he smashed an opposing player into the boards (“checked him,” apparently), and the ferociousness of it surprised me.
And, I admit, it turned me on a little bit.
Were we all just cave people at heart?
We were up 3-2 at the end of the second period when Chloe and Abby came into our room carrying two boxes of Bonetti’s pizza.
“Look what we earned, roomies,” Chloe said in her signature “Blah, blah, bitches!” voice.
“I stopped by there yesterday and showed them the numbers on the post with Logan and made a pitch for a collab. First payment in weekly pizza!”
“And what do you do on your end?” I asked. I knew she’d show the pizza, of course, but didn’t know that world at all. Was there more to it?
“Just tag them whenever we eat it, or go there. I’m sure they’ll keep their eyes on the numbers, and if it translates to more views to their pages, and sales in turn, but that’s done on their end. For me, it’s just post and try to hit numbers.”
“And eat pizza,” Abby said. “What are you guys watching? Do you want to pause it while we eat? Should we go to the common room?”
Emily looked to me to answer, allowing me to either confess I was watching a boy play hockey on a Friday night, or not.
Whatever. They’d met Logan. They knew how incredibly hot he was. They’d get it.
“We can’t pause. Well, we could, but it’s a live game. Bribury hockey’s first game of the season.”
“Why aren’t we there?” Chloe said. I didn’t think for one second she cared about the hockey team, but it would be a fun (or at least different) backdrop for her. And not as desperate as going to a scrimmage.
“It’s in Boston,” I said.
She made a pouty moue with her mouth that should have seemed bratty but was kind of adorable.
I could see her wheels turning, the creative juices flowing, and then she said, “Let’s get it on the TV, in the main room.
Pizza on the coffee table. Reaction shots of us all watching the game while we eat. Sound okay?”
“That’s it? Free pizza is worth that,” Abby said, turning out of our room and into the common room.
We ate and drank pop while we watched the third period.
I could tell Chloe was filming, but knew it wasn’t a live post because she stopped a lot and didn’t narrate at all.
Close-ups of the pizza, of course. Other than that, I didn’t pay much attention to her because the game was very exciting, with Boston U coming from behind to win 5-4.
Sucked for Bribury, but it was a great game to get my hockey feet wet.
Later that night, Chloe came in with her phone in hand, her face lit up. “Looks like we’ll be having lots more free pizza, ladies.”
“You posted?” Emily asked while reaching for her phone.
Chloe nodded and brought her phone over to me to see, plopping down next to me. “Take a look at those numbers.”
They were impressive. I touched the arrow to start the video over again and heard Chloe’s influencer voice over a wide shot of us watching the game, her included.
She was a master of the selfie angle—never needed a stick.
I couldn’t even tell which of her posts were her filming with a reverse lens or straight ahead. The girl could work a camera.
“First Bribury hockey game of the season,” she narrated on screen. “Too bad it’s in Boston. But we’re enjoying Bonetti’s while we watch at home, cheering on our pal, Logan Fields, and the rest of the guys. Score, bitches!”
There was the shot of us watching as we ate, a close-up of the Bonetti’s box, a quick shot of the game on the TV, and she’d even put a screen grab of Logan’s player’s page in there. She’d done her usual branding hashtags, added #BriburyHockey, and tagged us all. And Logan.
“You don’t think he’ll mind, do you? He was cool with the tag the other night,” Chloe said.
“I have no idea. But probably not,” I said.
“I can’t believe the numbers I get when I tag him. Is he, like, really good or something? The team star?”
“No, I don’t think so. He’s not even a starter,” Emily said.
“I think it’s because of his brother,” I said. I explained to them about Logan’s brother also playing hockey and passing away over the summer.
“Oh, so he’s got that morbid curiosity following going on,” Chloe said.
“I guess.”
“Hmm. Interesting.” I could see the wheels turning again, while I made a mental note to tell Logan that he might want to guard his privacy around Chloe. I felt bad I’d said anything, but it was fairly common news on campus, I’d come to find out. It was just that we, being freshmen, weren’t aware.
* * *
I refused to stay home Saturday night to watch the second game of the series, but found myself checking my phone quite a bit at the party I’d gone to with Abby and Chloe at one of the other dorms. Even put an early kibosh on conversations with guys who would have stood a chance typically.
Damn. I wished I’d just stayed in the room and watched the game with Emily. Especially when she told me it went into overtime and Bribury won.
On Sunday afternoon, I got a text from Logan.
How’d your weekend go?
Good. Yours?
I played it cool, not asking about the games.
Okay. Won one, lost one. Could have been worse.
Oh, that’s right. You were away. Well, 1-1 is better than 0-2.
What’d you do? Good parties? We got back too late last night to do anything.
One party. Wasn’t that exciting.
That’s the only excitement?
Yeah, I texted.
The bubbles rose for a bit, then I got a screen grab from Chloe’s post that was blown up to show my face rapt with attention while watching the Bribury hockey game.
Really? Not exciting? You look excited.
Don’t be an ass, I wrote back.
But you gave me a great setup.
I had, it was true.
We texted for a bit longer, then he signed off, Got to get to practice. See you Wednesday.
It felt different. Air had been cleared. Like a new phase had begun.
But was the new phase good buddies who shared their grief with each other, or horny college kids who wanted to fuck each other like bunnies?
Or both?