KISS CAM

Lily held the ticket up like it was a winning lottery number instead of a hockey seat. "Absolutely not," I said. "Emma. Come on." "I have a deadline." "You always have a deadline." That part was true. I glanced at my laptop, at the half finished draft sitting open on the kitchen table, then back at Lily, who was already pulling my coat off the hook like the decision had been made for me. "It's free," she said. "Front row. My cousin can't go. You're coming." "I write about sports, Lily. I don't need to watch them in person to write about them." "You write about sports from a couch. This is field research." I opened my mouth to argue and nothing useful came out, because she wasn't wrong, not completely, and she knew it. Twenty minutes later I was standing outside the arena in a coat that didn't match my mood, listening to the low roar of a crowd that already sounded like it was having a better night than me. "You're going to thank me," Lily said, looping her arm through mine. "I'm going to file this under things you owe me." "Add it to the list. It's a long one already." "Getting longer by the minute." Inside, the noise hit different. Not louder exactly, just closer. It moved through the concrete under my boots, through the railings, through the beer someone spilled two rows up and didn't apologize for. I'd covered games before, but always from a press box, always with a laptop between me and the ice like a little glass wall. Down here there was no wall. "This is a lot," I muttered. "This is hockey," Lily said, like that explained everything. We found our seats, and I had to admit, quietly, only to myself, that front row was a different world. The ice looked closer than it had any right to. I could hear skates cutting into it even before the players came out, sharp little practice hisses from the crew clearing the surface. "Okay," I said. "This part's kind of cool." "Told you." "Don't get smug." "Too late. I'm already smug. I've been smug since you put your coat on." A woman a few seats down leaned over, holding out a program like she'd been waiting all night for someone to talk to. "First time down here?" "That obvious?" "You keep flinching at the boards." "They're loud." "They get louder," she said cheerfully, and went back to her nachos. I looked over at Lily, who was already scanning the roster with the focus of someone studying for a test she actually wanted to pass. She'd been dragging me to these things for two years, ever since her cousin started handing down tickets he couldn't use, and every time I told myself it would be the last time, and every time I ended up here again, complaining the whole way in and quiet by the second period. "Who are we even rooting for," I asked. "Do I need an opinion before this starts." "You need an opinion before anything starts. It's kind of your whole thing." "That's fair." "We're rooting for whoever wins fastest so we can get food after." "Now that's an opinion I can support." The arena lights dimmed halfway, just enough to shift the mood, and a low hum ran through the crowd, the kind of anticipation that has weight to it, that you can feel in your chest before you understand why. Somewhere above us a drum started up, slow, deliberate, building. "Here we go," Lily said, sitting up straighter. "Here we go what?" "Lineup announcements. This is the good part." "I thought scoring was the good part." "Scoring is the good part later. This is the good part now." I rolled my eyes, but I felt myself lean forward anyway, elbows on my knees, the way I used to sit as a kid waiting for something I wasn't supposed to admit I was excited about. The announcer's voice rolled out over the sound system, big and theatrical, drawing out every syllable like the crowd needed convincing to care, which they clearly didn't. Name after name echoed through the building, each one met with a fresh wave of noise, section by section lighting up like the crowd was one long strand of something electric. I didn't know most of the players. I knew the team colors, knew the standings because it was my job to know them, but not the faces, not really, not the way the woman beside us clearly did, chanting along under her breath before the announcer even got there. "You know all of them?" I asked her. "Baby, I know their middle names." Lily laughed so hard she nearly knocked over her drink, and I found myself smiling despite my best efforts not to, the kind of smile that sneaks up on you before you can talk yourself out of it. "Don't," Lily said, catching it. "Don't what." "You're having fun. I can see it happening in real time." "I'm tolerating this." "You're having fun and you're furious about it." She wasn't wrong, which was somehow the most annoying part of the whole night so far. The drumbeat picked up, sharper now, building toward something, and the announcer's voice dropped low, the way it does right before the crowd is meant to lose its mind entirely. "And now," he said, "your captain." The building seemed to inhale all at once, ten thousand people holding their breath at the same time, and I realized, a little too late, that I was holding mine too.