Gonna Steal Your Heart Away

The week that the boys had off had come to a close and they had to start regular practices. Preseason games were about to start and Brayden was getting anxious. Not nervous, he had just been inching to play a real game since last season ended. He did not care if it was just preseason, he was still going to take it as seriously as any other game.

“Are you going to invite Olivia to the game tonight?” James asked Brayden while a couple of the Flyers went to lunch after their morning skate. Afterwards, everyone was going to home and take their pregame nap before heading to the rink for their first preseason game.

“I wasn’t planning on it,” he answered and glanced at his phone that was sitting out on the table. Brayden had finally gotten Olivia’s number when he drove her home from Danny’s house the other night. He decided against waking Claude up that night and just let him spend the night there, so Brayden and Olivia’s ride home was the first time they had been alone since they met. He was able to ask for her number without feeling like a clown in front of his teammates.

“I mean, you’ve been texting her basically nonstop for the past couple of days. Just ask her what she’s doing later tonight,” James reasoned. Brayden looked down at his phone, pondering if it were a good idea. Without much hesitation, he threw James a smile and picked up his phone to message Olivia. James then turned to the other teammates that joined the lunch out – Claude, Sean, and Eric Wellwood – to start a conversation and distract them, especially Claude, away from Brayden.

Text Message to Olivia:
Hey, I know you said you have class, but I was hoping you’d be out by now. I have a preposition for you.

It was literally seconds later that Brayden got a text back.

Text Message from Olivia:
Nope…still in class for another 15 mins :-/ But talking to a certain friend of mine might make it better. Mind giving your phone to Claude? :P

Text Message to Olivia:
G took a puck to the face earlier. I don’t think he can see enough to text right now.

Brayden, feeling a little bad for lying for a joke at his roommate’s expense, looked up from his phone to glance at Claude. He was shooting spitballs across the table at Sean who was currently defenseless because the waitress had just taken his cup to refill his drink. Brayden smirked at Claude’s antics and his slight guilt diminished.

Text Message from Olivia:
Holy shit!! Are you serious??!?!

Text Message to Olivia:
Hahaha no

Text Message from Olivia:
You are such an asshole! Haha :P What was that preposition you had for me, Mr. Schenn?

Text Message to Olivia:
What are your plans for tonight?

Text Message from Olivia:
You know...beating my head against the wall when I try to do homework and study. The usual.

Text Message to Olivia:
How about going to a hockey game instead?

Text Message from Olivia:
Flyers? Preseason? For me? That had to take some major string pulling, seeing how preseason is so huge.

Text Message to Olivia:
If you are going to be ungrateful, I can just send the tickets back.

Text Message from Olivia:
Nonononono! I want them! Can I bring Rachel?

Text Message to Olivia:
Haha sure can. I will stop by your dorm on my way to the game to drop them off.

After sending that last text, Brayden put his phone away and joined in the conversation around the table. James looked over at Brayden and raised one eyebrow in a questioning manner. Brayden simply nodded his head in response to let his friend know that Olivia had agreed to go to their game that night.

*~*~*~*~*

Olivia and her roommate, Rachel, were getting ready for the game when the Rachel’s cell phone started to ring, signaling the Chinese food delivery guy was in the lobby with the girl’s dinner. Rachel basically ran from the room without even answering her phone to tell the man that she was on her way down.

Brayden had already stopped by to drop off the tickets for the girls. He didn’t even go up to their room because he and Claude were running late. No surprise there. Olivia just met him down at the dorm building’s entrance to make it easier. She was still wearing her lazy day sweatpants and hoodie that she wore to class, so when Claude was pulling away, Brayden stuck his head out the window and yelled for Olivia to put some orange on. Little did he know, he just sparked an orange fire inside Rachel and Olivia.

Olivia got dressed in her outfit for the game and started to pull out the face paint when Rachel returned to their room.

“You aren’t starting the fun without me, are you?” she accused, putting the bag filled with Chinese food on her bed and started to pull out the food.

“Nope, just setting it up. Get dressed so you don’t have to worry about changing with paint on your face,” Olivia instructed and Rachel did as she was told. After slipping into her game day clothes, she dove at the food that was still sitting on the bed and mumbled something about being starved. “Are we going to look foolish?” she questioned and gestured to the face paint set up on her desk.

“Probably,” Rachel incoherently replied without her mouth full of food. “But that’s the fun part.”

“I mean…it’s only preseason.”

“A Flyers game is a Flyers game, hun. We always go all out.” This was the Rachel that Olivia was used to. When Rachel had gone with Olivia to the pizza place to have dinner with the Flyers, Rachel was all sorts of nervous and did not really act like herself. But she was back to her regular outgoing self.

The girls finished their dinner and began to paint on their face. They each got two players’ numbers, one on each cheek. Olivia decided on Brayden’s #10 and Claude’s #28 while Rachel chose James’s #21 and Matt’s #24. After the painting was done and mostly dry, it was time for them to make their way to the arena.

*~*~*~*~*

“Did he really get us front row tickets?” Rachel asked with shock and a small hint of sarcasm in her voice.

“How’d he swing this?” Olivia questioned in response as she sat down and waiting for the teams to take to the ice for warm-ups.

“Liv, it’s just preseason,” Rachel joked in return and pulled out her camera to take pictures. Shortly after, the players were out on the ice to warm up. A couple of pucks hit the glass right in front of Olivia and Rachel’s face; a few too many to be considered coincidental. But every time the girls scoped the ice to find a player looking in their direction or with a childish grin on their face, the search came up short. Who knew these players had impeccable poker faces?

The Flyers took an early lead against the New Jersey Devils off a goal from Sean. The arena erupted with excitement. Who was Olivia kidding when she thought she and Rachel were going to be the only people who were getting into the game? This was Philadelphia. People here loved their Flyers all 365 days of the year.

Claude and Danny both made tallies in the second period to make it 3-0 going into the third. Brayden spent the entire third period getting chance after chance as the puck continued to find his stick in the offensive zone, but he just could not find the back of the net. When one of his shots on goal rebounded out to Ilya Kovalchuk’s stick, the play turned in the Devils favor. Kovalchuk skated it into the neutral zone and dumped it down the other end of the ice to be chased by Zach Parise. Flyer’s defenseman, Andrej Meszaros, was on Parise’s tail but came short of blocking the captain’s pass back to Kovalchuk. He was all alone in front of the net and it did not take much effort to shoot it past Ilya Bryzgalov.

The crowd went silent and the rest of the period was uneventful. Everyone cheered when the final buzzer went off to signal the Flyers 3-1 victory over the Devils, but everyone still had that unspoken sadness of wanting a shutout against a division rival.

Olivia pulled out her phone as she and Rachel climbed the stairs to exit the rink.

Text Message to Brayden:
You played great out there, Bray. You don’t need to make the scoresheet to know you had an excellent game.

Because of the crowd, the girls weren’t even out of seats before Olivia got a text back from Brayden.

Text Message from Brayden:
Can you come down here?

When he did not acknowledge her compliments, Olivia knew he was really getting down on himself for not being able to score. She frowned at how hard he was being on himself, but quickly smiled instead at the thought of him wanting to see her.

Text Message to Brayden:
How am I supposed to get past security to get down there? Apparate? I’m not Harry Potter.

Text Message from Brayden:
You think you’re funny, smartass? :P I’m still in all my gear, so I’m sending Danny’s kids to meet you and Rachel.

Text Message to Brayden:
Alright, we’ll see you soon then. That is if the boys don’t kidnap us to practice dark magic on me first.