I crossed my arms and looked at him amused. He was a troublemaker, but at least he knew his limits.
He pushed forward again, and I was met with a gust of cold air as we entered the NHL rink.
It was completely empty and the lights were shut off, making it feel downright eerie. I’d never been in a rink that was so silent. Usually someone was always skating or playing music or slapping pucks at the boards…
I was grateful when Griff fished his phone from his pocket and turned the flashlight on. We followed Nick as he tiptoed his way to a door near the zamboni’s entrance.
Nick quickly unlocked the door and pushed it open. I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, waiting for them to show me what we were doing here… because all that the door revealed was a small concrete room with stairs leading up. In the corner of the room were two sticks leaning against the wall, as well as a door stopper and a couplepucks.
Nick and Griff wordlessly grabbed up the stuff and started running up the stairs.
“Um…” I started to back up, and I held the sides of the doorframe. I tried to make my teeth stop chattering as they looked down at me.The emptiness of the rink made it even colder than usual. “I don’t have that much time…” I told them warily.
Griff gave a small smile. “You’ve still got ten minutes.” He motioned to his watch. “I set an alarm for ya. C’mon.”
That gave me the permission I needed, and my nervousness was replaced with an excited energy.
As soon as Nick pushed the door at the top of the stairs open, we were bathed in sunlight, and I automatically moved my arm to cover my eyes from the brightness.
“The roof?” I guessed.
Nick looked down at me with a wicked smile and held my arm to help me up onto the platform.
“Ever been up here?” he asked.
I looked around at the very flat, large surface. It looked more like a blacktop than a roof two stories above the ground. They’d also somehow brought a hockey net up here.
“The net? How…?” I looked at him suspiciously.
Griff answered for him: “Don’t let him fool ya,” he called over to me. He was kneeling down, pushing the stopper under the heavy door so we wouldn’t get stuck up here. “We didn’t struggle to get this rigged up here ourselves, we’re not that genius. Max and a couple guys a few years older than us let us in on this secret at the beginning of the season when they were leaving town. They said someone should get some use out of it. We just lucked out.”
“Here,” Nick said then, pulling my eyes back to him. He unzipped his jacket, slouched it off, and draped it over my shoulders. “Can’t have you turning into a popsicle,” he winked at me.
His jacket was already warm from his body heat; it hung way past my butt and smelled just like him. I bit my lip, trying to harness the giddiness I was feeling over how cute it was that he gave it up for me.
“You’re so smol, it’s like a dress on ya,” he laughed.
Griff was already busy taking some impressive wrist shots at the net when Nick handed me his stick and ushered me forward.
“Let’s see whatcha can do, Smol.”
“Smol?” I asked, laughing at him.
He winked at me again. “I like it, it’s fitting.”
I moved forward, lined up the puck in front of me, and tried my best at a wrist shot. The puck didn’t lift off the ground at all, and it ended up just shy of the net.
“Not bad!” Nick yelled.
I felt my face heat up at his compliment and hoped he would just think it was because of the cold.
“Just pull back a little bit more, and move your wrists like this,” Griff said as he demonstrated how to do it.
I tried one more time, and both boys cheered when the puck hit the back of the net.
“Man, we need to get a game going in your backyard,” Nick said suddenly. “Maybe next weekend? We don’t have any games to ref. We only have our own game on Saturday and it’s a home game.”
“Can’t,” I responded kind of glumly. I hated the prospect of missing out on backyard skating…and more time with Nick, a little voice in my head added. “Duke has a tournament in Minneapolis. That’s probably why you don’t have any games to ref.”
