Game days always felt different for me. The locker room had a kind of buzz you couldn’t replicate anywhere else—the smell of fresh ice clinging to our gear, the thud of skates being laced tight, the pounding music that kept us all hyped but slightly on edge.
Normally, I thrived in that chaos. Normally. But tonight…it was a different ball game.
Tonight, I couldn’t stop thinking about whether Skylar would show for the game.
I’d invited her like it was nothing. “Hey, come to the game tomorrow.” But it hadn’t been casual at all. It had been me putting my heart on the line in a way I wasn’t used to. If she came, it meant something. If she didn’t…
If course she had come to some of my games before. Especially as her brother was my teammate.
But I was particularly anxious about today's own
