KISS CAM

THE HOCKEY STAR

"Number twelve," the announcer said. "Captain. Ryan Cole."

The building came apart.

I mean that as literally as ten thousand people screaming at once allows. The noise didn't build this time, it just arrived, all at once, a wall of sound that hit my chest before my ears even caught up. Lily grabbed my arm without looking at me, eyes locked on the ice, and I understood, in that moment, that I had underestimated exactly how big a deal this man was.

He skated out like the noise belonged to him. Not smug about it, not really, just easy, unbothered, chin up, stick tapping the ice twice before he pulled into a lazy circle in front of his bench. Even from twenty feet away I could see he wasn't looking at the crowd. He didn't need to. The crowd was looking at him.

"Okay," I said. "I see it."

"See what."

"Whatever this is. I see it."

"Told you."

"I didn't say I was impressed."

"You said you see it. That's basically the same thing."

"It is not the same thing."

Lily grinned and didn't argue further, which somehow felt worse than if she had.

The game started fast, faster than I expected, and within the first shift I understood why people paid to sit this close. From the press box everything looked clean, controlled, a chess match played out in straight lines. Down here it was chaos with a purpose, bodies colliding, blades cutting hard enough to spray ice into the first row, the puck moving faster than my eyes could track half the time.

Ryan Cole made it look slower than it was. That was the part that got under my skin a little. Everyone else on the ice seemed to be reacting, chasing, adjusting. He seemed to already know where the puck was going to be before it got there, like the rest of the game was running on a half second delay and he was the only one who'd gotten the memo.

"He's fast," I admitted.

"Fast doesn't cover it."

"I'm allowed one compliment. Don't push your luck."

He set up a goal in the first period with a pass I didn't even see leave his stick, just a blur and then the net rippling and the arena detonating around us. Lily screamed loud enough that my ear rang for a solid ten seconds after.

"Did you see that."

"I heard it. I'm not sure I saw it."

"That's the point. Nobody sees it. That's why he's good."

I watched him skate back to the bench, unbothered, tapping gloves with his teammates like he'd just done something ordinary instead of something that made an entire building lose its collective mind. He didn't celebrate much. Didn't need to, I supposed, when the crowd was doing enough celebrating for him.

"He knows exactly how good he is," I said. "You can tell."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"It's an insufferable thing."

"Insufferable and hot, though."

"Those aren't mutually exclusive, unfortunately."

Lily laughed and stole a handful of my popcorn without asking, which had become something of a tradition between us by now. On the ice, play resumed, and I found myself watching him more than the puck, which annoyed me on a level I wasn't fully ready to examine. It wasn't attraction, I told myself. It was professional interest. I wrote about athletes. Understanding what made one stand out from the rest of the pack was literally my job.

That was the story I was telling myself, anyway.

He scored again in the second period, a wrist shot from an angle that shouldn't have worked, snapped high into the corner before the goalie had fully committed to a direction. The building roared. Lily grabbed both my arms this time, shaking me like she could transfer some of her enthusiasm directly into my bloodstream.

"Two goals," she said. "Two."

"I can count, Lily."

"Say it. Say he's good."

"He's good."

"Say he's the best player you've ever watched live."

"Absolutely not. I'm not giving you that."

"You're giving me that eventually."

"I am giving you nothing."

She grinned like she already knew she'd won, which, annoyingly, she probably had.

Between periods, the arena TV crew ran their usual filler, fan cams cutting from section to section, a kid dancing in the aisle, a couple arguing loudly enough that half the crowd started laughing at them instead of the game. I watched it idly, only half paying attention, more focused on the way the ice crew moved in perfect formation to smooth the surface for the next period, blades scraping in long even lines.

"You're staring at the Zamboni," Lily said.

"I'm resting my eyes."

"You're staring at the Zamboni because it's easier than admitting you like watching him play."

"I like watching hockey. That's different from liking him."

"Sure it is."

"It is."

"Mm-hm."

I opened my mouth to argue further, but the third period buzzer cut me off, players streaming back onto the ice, and my attention snapped back to the game before I could finish defending myself, which felt, in hindsight, like a small tactical retreat on my part.

The third period was tighter, tenser, the kind of hockey where every whistle felt like it mattered more than the last one. Ryan Cole was everywhere, it seemed, back checking on defense one shift, threading a pass through two defenders the next, always exactly where the play needed him to be. I hated how easy it was to watch him. I hated that I kept doing it anyway.

With four minutes left, an usher came down our aisle, scanning rows, checking something against a clipboard, and stopped two seats down from us, frowning at the numbers printed there.

"Excuse me," he said, looking straight at me. "I think there's a mix up with your seating."

Lily and I looked at each other.

"What kind of mix up," I asked.

The usher glanced back at his clipboard, then toward the players' box near the glass, close enough that I could see condensation fogging the plexiglass from all the body heat on the other side.

"The kind," he said, "where you two are actually supposed to be sitting a little closer to the ice."