KISS CAM

THE SEAT BESIDE ME

"Closer to the ice," I repeated. "Closer how."

"There was a printing error on the tickets," the usher said, already motioning for us to grab our things. "Happens more than you'd think. You're actually in the family and friends section. Row one, right along the boards."

Lily was on her feet before he finished the sentence.

"Emma. Move."

"I'm moving, I'm moving."

We followed him down, past ushers who nodded like this was a routine they'd seen a hundred times, past a rope line that lifted just enough to let us through, until we landed in seats so close to the glass I could see individual scuff marks where skates had chewed up the boards over the course of the season.

"This can't be right," I said, sitting down slowly, like the chair might change its mind about holding me.

"Don't question it," Lily said. "Just enjoy it."

"What if we're supposed to be somewhere else and someone's about to come kick us out."

"Then we get kicked out with a great view first."

I couldn't argue with that logic, mostly because I didn't want to.

The seats around us were half filled with people who had the specific, relaxed posture of folks who belonged there, wives and girlfriends, a couple of kids in oversized jerseys, an older man who looked like he might be someone's grandfather and someone's biggest fan simultaneously. Nobody questioned us. Nobody looked twice. I tried to look like I fit in, which mostly meant sitting up straighter and pretending the noise didn't still make me flinch.

Play resumed, and from here the game felt like a different sport entirely. I could hear players talking to each other mid rush, short clipped words I couldn't quite make out, could hear the specific c***k of a stick meeting a puck instead of the delayed version that reached the upper seats. It was loud and fast and a little bit terrifying, and I understood, watching it this close, why people paid absurd amounts of money for seats like these.

"You okay?" Lily asked, glancing at me.

"I can feel the ice from here. Like actually feel it. Is that normal?"

"Welcome to hockey."

With about six minutes left, the play surged toward our end, bodies crashing into the boards close enough that the glass shuddered, and a whistle cut through the noise. Penalty. Number twelve, two minutes, roughing.

Ryan Cole skated off toward the box, and the box, I realized with a slow, sinking feeling, was almost directly in front of us.

"Oh no," I said quietly.

"Oh yes," Lily said, not quietly at all.

He dropped into the penalty box with the mild irritation of someone who'd done this a hundred times before, gloves off, helmet still on, chest heaving from the play. He wasn't looking at us. He wasn't looking at anyone, really, just staring out at the ice like he was mentally replaying the hit that got him sent there.

"Don't stare," I told Lily.

"I'm not staring. You're staring."

"I am absolutely not staring."

I was, in fact, staring, though I would have denied it under oath.

Up close, without the distance of the upper seats or the buffer of a screen, he looked different. Bigger, somehow, even sitting down, shoulders taking up more space than seemed reasonable. There was a cut healing above his eyebrow, faint, the kind you'd only notice this close. Sweat had soaked through the collar of his jersey. He looked exhausted and furious and completely, infuriatingly, in control of himself anyway.

He glanced over.

Just once, just briefly, his eyes sweeping the front row the way players do sometimes, scanning faces without really seeing them.

Then they landed on me and stopped.

I froze.

He didn't smile, not exactly, more like the corner of his mouth twitched, like he'd caught something funny and decided not to share it. I looked away first, which felt like losing something, though I couldn't have said what.

"He looked at you," Lily whispered, way too loudly for something meant to be a whisper.

"He looked at the crowd. That's different."

"He looked at you specifically. I was watching his eyes."

"You were watching his eyes instead of the game?"

"I contain multitudes."

The penalty clock ticked down, and with about thirty seconds left, he stood, rolling his shoulders, and glanced over again, this time longer, this time with something that was definitely, unmistakably, a smirk.

"Rough night?" I said, before I could stop myself.

I don't know what possessed me. The words were out before my brain fully signed off on them, and for one horrible second I thought he hadn't heard me over the crowd noise, that I'd just embarrassed myself in front of a total stranger for absolutely no reason.

Then he laughed. Actually laughed, short and low, shaking his head like I'd said something more clever than I meant to.

"You have no idea," he said.

His voice was lower than I expected, rough from exertion, carrying easily even over the noise around us.

"Two minutes for roughing," I said. "Seems fair, honestly."

"He started it."

"They always say that."

"Because it's always true."

Lily was staring at me like I'd grown a second head, mouth slightly open, popcorn forgotten in her lap.

The buzzer sounded. His penalty was up. He stood, grabbing his gloves off the bench, and before he pushed off toward the ice he looked back at me one more time, quick, deliberate, like he was filing something away for later.

"Enjoy the view," he said. "You've got a good seat."

Then he was gone, back into the chaos of the game, and I sat there with my heart doing something embarrassing and rapid in my chest, very aware that Lily had gone completely, uncharacteristically silent beside me.

"What," I said finally.

"Nothing."

"Say it."

"I'm not saying anything."

"Lily."

She turned to me slowly, grinning in a way that made my stomach drop a little.

"He's coming back over here after the game," she said. "I can feel it."

"You cannot feel that. That's not a real thing you can feel."

"Emma."

"What."

She pointed, and I followed her finger toward the ice, where the final horn had just sounded, the home team victorious, players streaming toward the bench in a loose celebratory scrum.

Ryan Cole wasn't celebrating with them.

He was skating straight toward the glass in front of us.