Get Me Back on Skates

He practically sprinted down the stairs, out the door, and to the car. I took a moment to grab a pair of jeans and converse to change into when we got to TD Garden, but I had no time to put the shoes on. Tyler was almost jumping out of his seat by the time I got to his car. The radio was already blaring loud rock music, and, as soon as I closed my door, Tyler hit the gas pedal and sent us flying down the street.
"Feel free to change the music, roll down the window, whatever." He glanced at me momentarily before fixing his eyes back on the road. I tried to find the right button to press to change the radio station, but I couldn't find one button. "It's touch screen." he added with a chuckle, obviously noticing my difficulties. After a good 5 minutes of fiddling around with the radio channels, we came to an agreement of Dropkick Murphys. He was screaming the lyrics all the way down the freeway, while I sat next to him, half amused and half scared. He was bound to wreck his voice if he kept "singing" this song.
We parked in the players' lot at the arena as the song came to a sudden close. "Well-" he cleared his throat. "We're here now. Let's go see how bad the damage is, eh?" When he spoke, his voice cracked a few times from the screaming before returning back to normal. "You coming, Anya?"
He walked way to fast. I couldn't keep up unless I ran, which was difficult to do in fuzzy socks on the ground still wet from the rain. Eventually, he noticed that I was falling behind, so he came back to me, picked me up, and carried me into the East entrance of the building.
"Am I gonna have to do that all the time?" He smiled so big and buried his face in his hands when he laughed. "I don't care, that was really funny. Lovely furry pink socks, by the way." We stood there laughing for a few moments until an extremely tall man creeped up behind Tyler.
"Where have you been?" He whispered to Tyler, his eyes locked on mine the whole time. "and who is she?" The man had a thick European accent, so I didn't bother to disguise mine when I spoke.
"I'm Anya." I held out my hand for a handshake. He approached me slowly, and as he got closer I got to see how tall he really was. Once he stood a foot away from me, I pulled my hand back slowly, nervous now about what I was getting into. He stuck his hand out immediately, probably wondering why I pulled mine back.
"Nice to meet you, Anya. I'm Zdeno. I'm captain of the team and-" I cut him off.
"I know. I'm a big fan, actually." He looked satisfied, assuming, I'm sure, that I knew only a little more about hockey than his young daughter. I flashed a smile as best I could, but turned away nervously about my sad attempt at making a good first impression with one of his teammates. Tyler, though, smiled and took my hand as we followed Zdeno down the long hallways of TD Garden.