JULES POV
The music goes off which alarms the rink that the game is going to begin in a couple of minutes.
I examine the line of people in front of me that are wanting something to eat and there's not too many people left so I should get done in time to watch the game.
"Could I please have some Reese's Cups," a young girl with a lisp asks.
"Of course," I reply with a warm smile.
I duck down to grab the package and spot Faye leaning against the counter close to me.
"Psst, Faye!" I shout in a whisper to gain her attention.
She whips her head around and crouches down to get on my level.
"Yes?" she replies.
"Can you please turn the open sign off so that people will stop lining up so I can go out and watch the game?" I ask her with a pleading smile.
"Why me?" she complains.
"I said please," I repeat again with an even bigger smile.
"Fine," she complies while rolling her eyes.
I pop back up from under the counter and pass the little girl her Reese's Cups.
"Have fun watching the game," I say as I greet her off with a wave.
I watch as Faye makes her way over to the doors and inches closer to the extension cord.
I continue to check out the people in front of me and out of the corner of my eye, I see the open sign dim out of its usual neon colors.
"Cash or card?" I remind myself to ask the customer that stands in front of me.
"Card," he says as he fidgets with his pocket to try and grab his wallet.
Faye starts to make her way back behind the counter and I make sure to mouth her a 'thank you' before she disappears behind the wall.
The man slides his card to me and I swipe it through the reader, waiting for it to process.
While waiting, I grab a can of Coke off of the shelf in the fridge and pass it to the man.
The computer dings and I give his card back to him and throw him a smile before he walks out.
The door opens with a jingle and then closes quietly behind him leaving Faye and I alone in the concession stand.
"Finally," I breathe out. "I thought people were just going to keep filling in," I joke.
"Why do you think I stayed hidden back here?" she replies. She throws me a smile which leads me to roll my eyes.
I smooth over my clothes and begin to walk out from behind the counter.
"Come on, lets try to find a seat before the game starts," I shout back at her.
I hear her footsteps follow close behind me as we make our way through the bleachers. We travel through the bleachers trying to navigate three empty spots. We have to search for a while but we eventually find some. We make sure to put a foot on the third seat for Kiara if she ever decides to show up.
The cold breeze of the rink really starts to slap me in the face now that I'm out of the concession stand. The concession stand is in a separate room like the store is so it's practically a sauna in there.
I glance around the rink and absorb everything around me.
The crowd begins to place bets on who they think is going to win and the parents continue touching up the posters they made for their kids. The posters vary for each child but most of them consist of a picture of their face and their jersey number. Every now and then a poster will have a nickname and some affirmation of good luck.
Some of the younger girls have on one of the teams jerseys and a tiny set of pom poms to cheer on their team. The younger boys are also seen with jerseys but without the handful of pom poms.
Our small town, Mayford, takes hockey very seriously since there's not much to do around here. Almost everyone in town shows up to these games unless they just hate hockey, which is only a couple of cranky old people.
Variations of food begin to fill my senses, specifically the smell of popcorn and pretzels. While I was behind the counter that's what eighty percent of people ordered. Every now and then someone asked for nachos or candy but most of the time, they stuck to those two choices.
The warm up music remains playing lowly in the background as the white overhead lights that shine down on the ice do their job to make the ice appear shinier. You can tell the zamboni just went over it less than fifteen minutes ago. I can just feel how slick the ice is even from all the way up here. I always enjoy the feeling of fresh ice under my skates, not after just sharpening my skates though.
"You gonna place your bets on who's going to win?" the recognizable voice of Kiara asks from behind us.
"I'm rooting for our team of course," I answer. I snap out of my trance and turn around to meet her.
"I would usually agree with you but you should have seen the other team during warm ups, they were crazy," Kiara explains, leaving emphasis on crazy. She climbs over the back of the spare seat and plops herself down comfortably.
"Oh so now I know where you were while Faye and I were actually doing our job," I pester, crossing my arms.
"Yeah, what happened to you?" Faye joins in, moving her focus over to Kiara.
Kiara shuffles in her seat as she starts to remove her jacket. "I was restocking the bathrooms like Jules told me to do," she replies.
"For three hours?" Faye raises an eyebrow.
"Listen-, it took me two hours to restock the bathrooms because boys kept walking in and kept trying to talk to me while I was restocking the soap dispensers," she pauses. "It got weird," she finishes.
Faye and I share a laugh and redirect our focus to the ice.
I watch as the teams begin to draw out onto the ice.
Our goalie, Drew, waddles his way over to the goal and the goalie on the other team follows by going to his opted side.
Five other members on our team glide down onto the ice to their starting positions. The members include Kent, Alex, Cody, Ben, and of course Lukas.
The other team files into their positions and stands before ours.
The referee skates down into the middle and places the puck in between Lukas and the other teams tall starting man.
The ref signals his hand and then Lukas swings for the puck. He takes it in his stick and passes it over to Alex. Alex takes a hold of it and skates closer to the rivals goal, passing it to Ben. Ben misses the pass which leads one of the rivals members to steal the puck but before they can even inch closer to our goal, Kent steals the puck and swings it over to Lukas who slams it into the goal, not giving the rivals goalie a chance to defend.
YOU ARE READING
Thin Ice
Romance"With the way you've treated me all of these years, I can't trust you.. you're on thin ice," Dedicated figure skater Juliana Ortiz and passionate hockey captain Lukas Romero have hated each other ever since they were little. They've been forced to g...
