Fix You

"Ella, my dear, I hope you brought your skates!"

Patrick Sharp was waiting for me in the locker room hallway after work that same afternoon.

"Sharpie, I love you, but you are insane," I told him. "You told me to come straight here! You think I just keep skates in my trunk?"

"Well, you should."

I gave him a look.

Patrick over-exaggerated a sigh. "We'll find a pair that fit you," he told me. "Come on."

"I am not putting my feet in any of you gross fuckers' skates!" I protested as he dragged me down the hallway to the locker room door.

"You can use Corey's, he puts this girly spray in them," he informed me before banging loudly on the locker room door. "You boys all decently clothed in there?" he shouted.

A chorus of men's voices came from the other side of the door. You couldn't exactly make out the response, but it didn't seem to matter. Patrick opened the door and we headed inside.

The boys were all sitting around chatting, some still fully dressed, some shirtless, some with just pads on. "The girl is here!" Patrick announced to the team.

A chorus of "Hey, Ella"s rang out from around the room. Defenseman Duncan Keith smiled at me. I had grown fond of all the defensemen. They were the quietest and were rarely ever obnoxious.

I waved to Dunc and his linemate slash best friend Brent Seabrook before Patrick pulled me over to goaltender Corey Crawford, who was still in full padding. "My man Crow!" Patrick shouted. "Can Ella borrow your skates?"

"Hell no, I want her to shoot against me today," Corey protested.

I grinned. "You're so on, Crawford," I told him.

Patrick sighed. "Fine, we'll find someone else to borrow skates from."

"Hey, she can use mine!" piped up Nick Leddy, another defenseman. His skates were already off and he was dressed in street clothes.

"Thanks, Nick," I grinned at him as he handed me the skates. I sat down next to Duncan, telling Sharpie I'd meet him out on the ice. The group started to disperse, some people out to the weight room, others to the showers, others back onto the ice, waiting for me to see if I could get a shot past Crow.

"Someone get me a Toews stick?" I asked, starting to tie my second skate.

Brent stood up, running into the other room and arriving with an extra stick from the team's captain. "I'm sure he won't mind," I laughed, standing up and taking the stick from Brent.

"I don't understand why you like his sticks so much," Seabs told me as the three of us headed out to the ice along with the rest of the members of the team in the locker room.

"Because his stick is the only one on this whole damn team without a fucked up curve," I laughed.

We then filed onto the ice one by one. Whenever I was out there, I liked to pretend there were twenty thousand people filling the stands of the United Center, coming to see me, Ella Rose Michaels, of the Chicago Blackhawks. But that dream of making it to the NHL was long gone. It's been replaced, I guess. I still felt like I had everything, in the terms that I had an entire NHL hockey team as my best friends. I could skate around on the United Center ice and take shots against Corey Crawford, and that made me feel pretty damn special.

"You ready for some serious ass whooping, Mr. Crawford?" I called, skating up and stopping quickly at the blueline.

"Try and put one past me, Miss Michaels," he retorted, putting his mask on and grabbing his stick from where it was laid across the top of the net. Players – mostly defensemen, but also Sharp, Patrick Kane, fellow goaltender Antti Raanta, and a couple of older guys – all circled around behind me as Duncan Keith skated out near me, a bucket of pucks in one gloved hand and his stick in the other.

"You kids ready?" Duncan called.

We both nodded in agreement.

Duncs dropped the bucket of pucks, spilling them onto the ice around him, before shouting, "UNLEASH HELL!" and starting to feed me pucks.

Everyone laughed for a minute before they all started yelling and cheering, watching as I stick-handled each puck and tried to shoot it past Crawford. Duncs started passing to me a bit faster, so I only had time to stop the thing and take a shot. Slap, slap, slap. It felt so good to just relax my muscles and shoot. It was something I had always loved doing, and I had always been good at it too.

But now I was getting a bit frustrated. Boom, boom, boom, went each puck as it hit Corey's pads or stick or glove hand. "What the fuck?" I yelled in frustration, before taking one of the hardest, most wicked slap shots I had made in a very long time. My muscles strained at the effort I put into that fucking shot...

Which was snapped right up by Corey's glove.

"Ow," he shouted at me, making a show of shaking his hand out, trying to make me feel a bit better.

"Son of a bitch," I muttered, as Duncs gave me another puck. The guys behind us started to cheer louder. It was getting more intense. "Crow!" I shouted, stopping Dunc's puck with my skate.

"Yeah?" Crow yelled back, straightening up.

"I'm gonna come at you, see if that works."

"Bring it on!" Corey yelled, getting into his shootout stance.

Duncs moved all the pucks away from the center strip of the ice as I took the puck by my skate into my stick, handling the thing as I started skating towards Crow. I didn't do any dicking around by slaloming down the ice like some players did; instead, I just skated in, and did a ridiculously risky move.

Dribble, dribble, dribble... and as I passed the net I tried to slip it in the crease on backhand.

The complications of this move – one I hadn't done in quite a while – resulted in me completely wiping out onto the ice... but not before I watched my puck sail into the back of the net.

The guys who had been watching started cheering for me as I raised my hands in sudden victory. I had crashed straight into the boards (and oh, what a feeling that was), and everyone skated over to me, shouting encouragements at me. Patrick Sharp pulled me up into a standing position and I got attacked by a sweaty, gross, Blackhawks team hug. I grinned, brushing the snow off of my work sweater. "It'll wash," I giggled, before skating over to Corey and jumping on him. "I did it!" I shouted. "I scored on Corey fuckin' Crowford! Everyone can suck my dick!"

Corey started laughing. "You make it sound like such a thing is hard to do," he teased me.

"Because it fucking is! You are insanely good at your job." I grinned at him, and he grinned back before hugging me.

"Thanks, El," he laughed. "I bet you're insanely good at your secretary job too."

I started laughing, following the rest of the team as we all skated off the ice and back into the locker room.

"That was so fun," I laughed. "Who knew you boys were so fun?"

"Hey, shut up!" Patrick Kane hit me playfully. "We haven't even gotten you your surprise yet!"

"What, that wasn't the surprise?" I laughed as I sat down next to Duncan and Brent, starting to unlace Nick's skates.

Nobody said anything. I glanced up at Duncan, who had a warning look on his face that was being directed towards Kane. "What's going on?" I asked, pulling off a skate.

Duncan just sighed, shaking his head. Brent seemed worried. "What the fuck, you guys?" I asked.

"Your surprise," Kane told me, still smiling a little bit, looking at his watch and then shoving a hand into his pocket, "involves you going out and getting me a Gatorade."

I stood up, now in just my socks, giving him a look. "Excuse me?"

"Please?" Kane whined.

I groaned. "Fine," I told him, as he gave me two dollar bills before pushing me out the locker room door and slamming it shut.

"I swear to God these boys act like fucking middle schoolers," I muttered before walking down the quiet hallway towards the Gatorade machine.

I got the fucking Gatorade for Patrick, and started to head back to the locker room. Everything was all fine and normal until somebody coming out of the weight room nearly ran into me. "Oh, holy shit, I'm so sorry – "

I turned to tell him it was fine but when I did, I just about dropped the bottle of Gatorade. I stared at the guy in total shock for a minute, unable to believe my eyes.

It was Kris Versteeg.