make you miss me • q. hughes

26

I am a firm believer that you can tell when a hockey game is going to be intense from the moment the teams get on the ice for warmups. There is a general air that fills the building. Whether it's fucking a high school team or the NHL. Whether that intense feeling doesn't come in until the third period or is there from opening face-off. It's there!

Boy, has that feeling been in Rogers Arena tonight. I'd argue the feeling was there before warmups even started. Maybe 'cause it's I haven't been in glass seats in a while. Quinn is so fucked up. Getting us glass seats. Any seats at all, actually. God.

It gave us front-row seats to this absolutely brutal feeling game. There's clear emotion in this one. You can't pull your eyes away. Not even for a second. Sometimes games are so boring because they're playing with what seems like little interest. This one, though, is not one of those games.

The Canucks are on the power play, with about eight minutes left in the period. They're holding the Ducks in the zone pretty well. You can tell they're getting tired of trying to kill it off. There's a mix-up. Someone isn't where they need to be as the puck gets snapped over to Quinn. I grab Val's arm. Full on gripping her arm. He reads the ice so well there's no question on if he sees the opening and—

It fucking goes in! Holy shit. That was hot.

Val probably gets some weird stares because she jumps up with me to cheer in her Trevor Zegras jersey but neither of us gives a damn. I don't think I've ever wanted to kiss him more than I do right now. Are you kidding? That was hot as fuck.

We settle down— Okay, well, we sit back down. I'm still a bit hype, my legs bouncing up and down and one of my hands fiddling with my necklace. The guys break out of their little celly huddle a little down the ice from our seats. Quinn's path takes him past us. Where he decided to make me want to kiss the fuck out of him even more. It's so dumb. He just taps the glass a few times, holding eye contact with one of his tiny little smiles.

"Dude," Val says, grabbing my arm the same way I did when he scored. "I hope this isn't a repeat of SchuyGate."

I shake my head. "Of course not! Quinn's not a complete idiot."

* * * * *

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether or not Quinn's a complete idiot. Because with hockey players—and guys in general—one complete idiot on the other team can make a complete idiot out of someone. They let a clear petty, spiteful move provoke them. I've done it. I've made a complete idiot out of someone on the ice.

Sadly I've also been used as a tactic. In a rink that was a lot smaller about... Five or six years ago? A guy I had a thing with got fucked with regarding me and threw a few punches. Complete idiot. That's what Val was talking about. She and the brothers like to call it SchuyGate.

I didn't think it could happen. But, in the second period, a Ducks player scored right in Quinn's face. Never feels good. To add salt to the wound, the Ducks player decided it'd be a great idea to copy what Quinn did. He must have been paying attention after Quinn's goal. He nailed it. It was petty as hell. Even if it was targeting Quinn, I kind of admired the move.

Nothing seemed to come out of it. I thought we were in the clear. I wasn't gonna be involved in this shit again. Much less on a much bigger scale. Y'know, the National fucking Hockey League.

Now it's about two minutes into the third period. Puck's against the boards and a certain Ducks player is trying to get it on his stick to pass it out of the zone. Quinn isn't having it. He slams him into the boards, hard but clean. I don't think the Ducks player gets that part. He obviously starts running his mouth, following Quinn on the ice.