Clarity

Sharp knocks on the door startled me from my breakfast, which obviously consisted of pancakes. I glanced at Caity, who had been walking into the living room.

“It’s your turn to get the door,” she said.

I glared at her, but groaned, and walked over to the door. Looking through the peephole, I saw Michael and Carl.

Shocker.

Caity looked over at me. “Who is it?”

“I’ll give you two guesses. And you fucked one of them,” I told her, stifling a laugh.

“You’re a terrible person,” she said, pushing past me to open the door.

I smiled and sat back down to finish my pancakes. Caity opened the door, Michael and Carl’s voices ringing out. “Hello, dumbasses,” Caity muttered, shutting the door behind them.

“Funny,” Carl said, walking into the kitchen. “You didn’t call me that a week ago when we-”

Caity cut him off by pointing at him and with an ice cold stare. “Don’t even.”

Carl rolled his eyes and sat down across from me and Michael took a seat next to me. Caity sat next to Carl and continued on eating her pancakes.

“Ok, two questions.” Michael said, looking at me. “One. Do you guys always eat pancakes for breakfast?”

I stared at him, a blank expression on my face. “Yes. They’re good.”

He laughed at shook his head. “Anyway, Carl and I wanted to ask you something.”

Caity and I locked eyes, a confused look on both of our faces. “Go on,” she said.

He leaned down into his pocket and pulled out two slips of paper. “We wanted to know if you would like to go to our game tonight against the Devils.”

Caity’s eyes grew wide. “Seriously?”

Michael nodded. “Well, I did promise Elena I’d take her to Madison Square Garden, so why not?”

I slapped his shoulder, my mouth dropped. “Are you serious? You’re taking us to your game?”

“Well, if you guys say yes, then we are taking you.” Carl laughed at our excitement.

Caity smiled at me, then at Carl. “Fuck yeah we’re going! Where are our seats?”

“Caity! That’s not the important part,” I said.

“You guys are sitting a few rows behind the bench,” Michael told us.

My eyes widened. “I love you guys!”

Carl snickered, then put a plastic Modell’s bag on the table. “Anyway, we got you guys shirts so you won’t look like bandwagoners or out of place.”

He reached into the bag and gave Caity a shirt, and then handed me one. I spread it out to see ‘Del Zotto’ spread across with the back and the number 4 underneath. Caity’s had Carl’s last name, Hagelin, on the back, and the number 61 on it.

“Oh my god, thank you guys!” I exclaimed, throwing my arms around Michael’s shoulder.

Michael and Carl stood up. “Ok, good. We’ll see you tonight?” Carl asked.

“Yes!” Caity squealed.

They smiled. “Alright then, see you later!” Michael waved, and I closed the door behind them.

“Elena,” Caity said once I turned back to her. “We have a lot of preparation to do.”

-----

By the time 6 o’clock rolled around, Caity and I were frantically running around the apartment trying to finish getting ready for the game. We already had our shirts on, and we had settled on jeans and flip flops. Caity was rushing around trying to find her shoes and money.

I was sitting on the couch on my phone, watching as she ran around with her shoes in her hand.

“Elena! Where are my flip flops?” she shrieked, stoping in the archway.

I glanced up at her, my eyebrows raised. “In your hands.”

She looked down at her hands, her white flip flops there, like I said. “Oh,” she mumbled, walking away to her room.

I shook my head and laughed, looking back down at my phone. I was scrolling through Tumblr going through the New York Rangers tag, looking to see if there was anything important to know.

Tumblr is always a good source of information.

Always.

Caity came back inside and sat down next to me. “So. What do you think we’re gonna do after the game?”

I shrugged. “Do you think they’ll talk to us after?”

She unlocked her phone. “Well, Carl said he’s gonna send Brian Boyle up to get us after the game ends to take us to the locker room to see them, so hopefully we do something.”

I nodded. “Ok, so should we leave soon? We’re like a half hour away and the game starts at 7:30, and there’s the whole traffic situation,” I trailed off, waiting for Caity to answer.

She bit her lower lip, thinking. “Yeah. Grab whatever you’re bringing and let’s just go now. We’d have to go eventually, and we don’t wanna be late.”

------

We got to Madison Square Garden at around 6:45, and from watching the one pregame from the other game, we realized we probably had around an hour until the game actually started.

We made our way to our seats, which like Carl said, was about three rows behind the Rangers bench. As the boys skated around, Michael spotted us first, then Carl did a few minutes later.

The game started quicker than expected, and the Rangers took a quick lead when Carl forced a turnover, which led to their captain, Ryan Callahan, scoring just 34 seconds in. Throughout the rest of the game, the Rangers proved themselves to be the better team, with Derek Stepan scoring next. Taylor Pyatt scored halfway through the second period, and Callahan scored again. They were just a few minutes away from a shutout, but an irrelevant player on the Devils scored to be 4-1.

Caity had only yelled at a few stray Devils fans, but other than that, the game was very fun. As the teams went to the locker rooms, Caity and I waited for Brian Boyle to get us. He came up five minutes after they left the ice, having changed into a gray Rangers t-shirt and shorts.

“You’ve been requested in the locker room by a certain Swede and defenseman,” he told us, smiling.

We followed the tall, broad forward towards the locker room, where the security guards let us in. Everyone was basically changed, and Boyle called to Carl and Michael.

“Hey, Hags, DZ, I found your girls,” he yelled to them, which got the attention of basically the whole locker room.

Carl and Michael both turned around without shirts on, and a pair of shorts. And damn, did Michael look good without a shirt.

Like, really good.

“Hi, guys!” Carl greeted us, pulling Caity in for a hug. Michael did the same, his hard chest feeling absolutely perfect.

Have I ever mentioned how much I loved hockey players?