Home Ice
RILEY
The arena is loud.
That is the first thing I notice, walking through the family entrance with the pass Easton clipped to my jacket in the parking garage, my camera in one hand and my phone in the other.
My chest rises and falls with every step, a nervous smile on my face.
It’s my first time officially appearing in public. And with Easton. Before his fans and everyone else who knows him.
I’m reeling from that knowledge, but at the same time, my stomach tingles.
The sound of the arena at forty minutes to puck-drop isn't what I thought it would be. It’s a specific hum, low and enormous. Vendors are calling. Skates are cutting the ice below through some invisible tunnel. Someone is testing a microphone.
Easton walked me here early on purpose. He said the family section fills up in the last twenty minutes, and he did not want me making an entrance.
He clipped the pass to my jacket in the garage, put his hand on the back of my neck, and said, “You are going to love this.” Then he kissed my temple and disappeared down a corridor toward the locker room.
I take the stairs up to the family section alone.
It’s a small tiered block behind the bench, glass at the front, twelve or fifteen seats. Two of them are filled, both women I don't know, both of whom glance up, smile, and go back to their phones.
I climb to the top row, pick a seat, set my camera on my lap, and look down at an ice rink from above for the first time in my life.
The ice is enormous.
I sit with the quiet of an almost-empty arena for a while. The Zamboni is doing its last pass. A tech is checking the goal cameras. I lift my camera, frame the empty rink through the glass, and take one shot just to see what the light is doing. From this angle, the shot is clean. I take three more.
The section fills up around me.
Quinn arrives twenty minutes before warm-ups, with Emma on her hip and a small paper tray of nachos in her free hand.
“Riley. Good. First-game nerves are real. Also, I hate eating alone in public. Here.”
She hands me the nachos and lowers Emma into the seat between us. Emma immediately climbs into my lap.
“Oh.”
“She has been asking about you all week.”
“Aww…” I hold Emma to my chest and lightly kiss her temple. That earns me a giggle.
“She named her stuffed rabbit after you. Theo is amused by it. But then, that’s just a sign she adores you. So, welcome to Emma’s world.”
We laugh.
The lights drop.
The horn goes.
The players skate out.
I know exactly where he is before I have seen the number. I don't know how. Something in his posture, in the way he moves on the ice, in the specific set of his shoulders, even under pads and a jersey.
He glides to the line for the anthem and stands with his eyes on the flag and his stick across his body, and I have my camera up before I have decided to.
With Emma now on her seat, I take the shot.
The puck drops.
Oh.
He's fast.
I did not know he was that fast. I have watched him on his morning skates on television with the sound off, and it has been a man doing his job. This is different. This is a man in his element, doing what he loves.
The ice is being cut into by a group of the largest athletes I have ever seen, and I'm glued to the glass with a camera pressed against my cheek because I don't want to look away.
He hits someone.
Not hard. But hard enough that the sound of it carries through the plexi and lands in my chest, and I make a small involuntary sound, and Quinn laughs beside me without taking her eyes off the ice.
“You get used to it. He hits clean. He isn't one of the dirty ones.”
“First time watching a game,” I tell her, raising the camera again.
The shutter clicks.
“I can tell. You’re a rookie. But no worries, once you get in, it gets in the blood.” Quinn assures me.
I forget the camera is in my hands. My eyes take over, and the fingers work on instinct. I don’t think about what I'm framing. I just shoot.
I shoot him at the line. I shoot Kai winning a face-off. I shoot Wyatt on the bench with his mouthguard hanging out of his teeth. I shoot the crowd behind the bench, a wall of open mouths and green jerseys and one small child on a father’s shoulders.
I turn to Quinn with Emma on her lap, eyes focused on the game, and take another clean shot.
The click makes her turn, and when she realizes what I’ve done, she laughs.
“Definitely getting a copy of that one.”
“Of course.”
We turn our attention back to the game.
He takes a hit in the second period.
Big one.
He's skating through the neutral zone with the puck, and a Vegas defenseman catches him from the blind side. Easton goes into the boards hard enough that the glass shakes.
My body reacts before my brain does. I'm halfway out of my seat with my hand at my mouth, and Quinn puts her hand on my forearm and says, “Wait. Wait. Watch.”
My heart aches, my legs suddenly feeling weak, but I manage to stay still and sit, eyes locked on him.
He gets up.
He shakes his head like a wet dog. He looks at the ref.
He doesn't chirp. He skates to the bench.
He's fine. He's more than fine. He's annoyed, which apparently, on Easton, is the tell that he's about to score, because when he comes back out ninety seconds later, he takes a pass from Kai at the top of the circles and puts it top-shelf before I have even lifted the camera.
The arena erupts.
Quinn is on her feet, screaming. I'm on my feet without knowing when I stood. My camera is at my hip. The lights flash. The horn goes. On the ice, the players are around Easton, cheering.
He looks up at the family section.
He finds me.
Across the ice and the glass and the lights, with a helmet on and a mouthguard in and eight thousand people around him, he finds me.
He points at me once.
The section erupts louder than the crowd. Quinn is laughing and screaming at the same time. Emma, who has now crossed to my arms, throws her hands in the air.
“Riley…”
That makes me laugh, and I realize tears are streaming down my face.
Quinn looks at me, and understanding dawns on her. She doesn't comment. She hands me a napkin from the nacho tray.
“He always does that when he scores?”
“Never. That is the first time in three seasons.”
I look at the napkin.
We win 4-2.
By the time the game ends and the family section is filing out, I have shot two hundred and something photographs that will be edited and posted to my social media pages.
Quinn walks me to the tunnel Easton told me to wait at, hugs me at the door, and says, “Coffee next week. I’m still around for a week or two. I will pick you up, too. Bills on me?” She flashes her brows.
“Sure. Would love that.”
“Great. Text me tomorrow.” She takes my phone from me and quickly saves her number, and shoots herself a quick text. “There.”
She hugs me, I hug Emma, and we say our goodbyes, and she’s gone.
I stand in the corridor. The players are still coming off.
Wyatt goes past first, wet with a champagne bottle already open, and yells “RILEY brOOKS,” and I don’t know how he knows my last name, but I don't have time to ask because he's already gone.
Kai claps me on the shoulder as he goes past.
Theo grins. “Thanks for showing up for us. And for entertaining Emma. She’s officially obsessed with you, by the way. She even got you a gift.” He laughs and walks past.
Then Easton.
Hair wet from a shower. Suit jacket over his shoulder. Loose tie.
He doesn’t touch me for exactly one second because he's looking at me.
Then he does. He wraps his arms around me and lifts me from the floor to spin me around. I giggle.
“We did it, baby, and you were here for all of it.” He places me on my feet and seals his lips to mine for a quick kiss.
Another player passes by and wolf-whistles, clapping Easton on the shoulder.
“Easy there, brother,” the teammate says, strolling past.
Easton pulls away and hugs me.
“Come on, sweetheart.”
He walks me to the car.