Harry Who?

“So, now that you own a hockey team, I think it’s time you learn a thing or two about the sport. By learning to play.” I handed Harry some skates and watched his jaw drop.

“You want me to play hockey?” He looked up at me from the couch.

“Consider it penance.”

“Penance?” He followed me to the door. “For buying you a hockey team?”

“For going behind my back and buying the hockey team that I play for!” I grabbed my purse and we headed down to the parking garage. “It’ll be fun, trust me.”

“Oh boy,” he gave me a worried smile as we got into the car. “Just don’t break me, Nolan’s only given us a week off.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll both be wearing full hockey gear.”

It was just he and I on the ice that morning, to preserve his anonymity. I was surprised how well he could skate(he said something about a 'Night Changes' music video?), so we didn’t spend too much time on that. Instead we worked on how to hold the stick and handle the puck.

“Let’s try shooting the puck at the goal,” I tried to direct him over to a good place to stand in front of the net. I showed him a few examples, and he copied me pretty well.

“Okay, but it’s easy enough shooting on an empty net.” He gave me a sly smile

“No, no no no…. I’m not letting you hit a puck at me.” I skated backwards away from him as he tried to lure me toward the goal.

“Come on, I won’t hit it that hard.”

“I know, your shot is pretty weak,” I teased (though it was true).

“Hey, it’s only my first time playing,” he gave me those puppy dog eyes and I shook my head. “Come onnnn…”

“Okay, but don’t hit my head!” I couldn’t believe I was letting him do this, but honestly I needed a little practice defending shots, so why not?

“Don’t worry, love, I wouldn’t dream of hurting you.” He grabbed a puck and lined up the shot, sending it to the left corner where I easily blocked it with my stick. He gave me a couple more shots I easily stopped.

“Come oh, Harry, you can do better than that,” I teased, and he shot me a grin. He grabbed a few more pucks and sent a hard shot right past my shoulder, but didn’t get in the net. “Damn, Harry, you nearly took my head off!”

“Sorry!” He called and looked apologetic.

“No, that’s good! Just try to get it in the net next time.” I gave him a thumbs up and he set up another shot. He raised his shoulders to wind up, and swung, hitting the puck straight at me. I saw it in his face before I saw the puck coming right at me, slowly blocking my view of his worried and apologetic face as the puck collided with the protective caging on the front of my helmet.

I fell backwards, more out of surprise than from the force of his shot. I fell back into the goal, landed on my butt and slid to the back of the net. Harry came stumbling after me and fell down halfway to the goal. He slid into the goal next to me, apologizing a mile a minute.

“Are you okay? Oh my god Ell, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t mean to hit you in the face, fuck, I’m sorry Ell, are you okay?” He sat up and watched me take my helmet off.

“Harry, I’m fine,” I laughed and let him inspect my head for damage, as he insisted, even though the damage would probably be inside my head. “That’s why helmets have masks, so our faces are protected.”

“God, Ell, I’m so sorry,” he took off his helmet and looked me in the eyes, maybe trying to look for a sign of a concussion? “I didn’t mean to hit you in the face, I swear I was aiming for just over your shoulder again.”

“Good, if you were aiming for my head we’d be having a different discussion,” I teased. “But really, I’m fine.”

But he kept staring into my eyes, until he slowly leaned forward and gently kissed me. Leaning into him, I kissed him back, until I pushed him down onto the ice (carefully, so he wouldn’t hit his head).

“Damn all this hockey gear,” he laughed and tried to take my jersey off, but the lights in the stands turned on one by one and slowly lit up the rest of the arena. “Shit.”

“Put your helmet back on so no one recognizes you,” I whispered and put my own helmet back on, adjusting my jersey. I helped him up and we quickly skated off ice, Harry nearly tumbling as we got to the edge. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! Harry, what are they doing here?” The arena was supposed to be empty for a couple hours. “Too bad you don’t still have long hair, you could just pretend to be someone on the team,” I teased.

“Don’t worry, I own the team, it’ll be fine,” he smirked as we were met by someone on the way to the locker room.

“Are you guys with the Riveters? You aren’t supposed to be here until this evening,” he said, and looked back and forth between Harry and I.

“I’m sorry, we were just practicing. We thought the ice was empty,” I said before Harry could open his mouth.

“You guys are already skating on thin ice, no pun intended, the management of the arena is not happy with that new owner.” He tsked and shook his head.

“What?” Harry said, and I jabbed him with my elbow before he could say anything else.

“Changing the logo and team colors, making us repaint the team logo on the ice and in the locker rooms…. You guys aren’t the only team who uses this ice.” He shook his head again.

“Sorry, that’s quite inconvenient,” I glared at Harry and he kept his mouth shut. “We’ll just change and be out of your way.”

“Your owner will hear about this, for sure!” He shouted after us, and we both snickerd.

“Oh, I will?” Harry joked once we were in the locker room.

“So you’re the one who changed our jerseys and team colors?” I asked as we took off our equipment.

He shrugged. “I thought it needed a little more… pizazz. I didn’t realize it would be so difficult.”

“A lot of the girls had to buy new socks to match the new colors.” I added.

“They have to buy their own socks?” He looked bewildered. “Also, these are considered socks?”

“Yes,” I laughed, and watched him unclip the ‘socks’ from the belt that holds them up (almost like a garter belt). “We buy all of our own equipment, only the jersey is provided by the team.”

“Really?” He raised his eyebrows and looked at the pile of equipment we had just taken off. “You have to take care of all of this on your own? With your already meager salaries?”

“We get paid much more, thanks to you, but yes.” I explained.

“Hmm…” He seemed deep in thought as we got out of our equipment.

“Uh oh, what are you planning this time?” I asked, and helped him with the shoulder pads.

“Nothing, maybe a little surprise for the first game tonight,” he smiled, but wouldn’t offer any explanation.

“This better be good…” I gave him a wary smile, and we packed up our stuff before getting out of there as fast as possible. When we got home I took a nap before the game and Harry had some ‘private phone calls’ to make. I could only imagine what his ‘surprise’ was for us tonight.

We left for the game separately, since I needed to get there much earlier than him. Upon entering the locker room, we all found new hockey gear waiting for us, compliments of the new owner. I was expecting maybe some new skates or sticks, but this really was quite generous of Harry. I texted him quickly to say we all loved it before getting into my new gear.

*Can’t wait to see it on you tonight ; )

I laughed at his response, and replied: *Do you want me to wear this to bed??

I didn’t see his reply because the coach came in to talk to us before our first game. He said the new owner was here watching us tonight, and a murmur spread through the locker room. I hid a smile and pretended to be intrigued by this ‘mystery’ owner who had given us new hockey gear. As we skated onto the ice to warm up I looked up at a the private rooms in the upper levels of the arena and knew Harry was watching us from one of them.

Our first game was against the Boston Blades. They had one the the Isobel cup in the NWHL championship last year, so we knew the were a good team. They were certainly quite tough on us, and their star player, Hilary Knight, scored on our goalie twice. By the end of the game we were trailing 3-1, and as the seconds ticked down I knew Harry was up there watching us, probably disappointed.

He sent me a text asking me to come up after I’d finished changing. Not too happy with the loss, I took my time wandering up to the higher levels of the arena and slowly found which room he was in. I could hear him talking with someone, or multiple people, before I opened the door, and before I saw them it hit me who he was conversing with: my parents.

“Ellie!” He smiled broadly and wrapped me in a hug. “Nice game, I thought you played well.”

‘Really? We lost…’ I nervously looked between the three sets of eyes watching us, not sure what to say.

“I thought your parents and brother would like to see your NWHL debut, so I flew them in to surprise you.” Harry explained when it was clear I had no idea what was going on.

“More surprises, eh?” I said quietly to him with a smirk. “Thank you, I really am grateful they could be here. I only wish we had done better.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, sis. I lost my first NHL game, and look where we are now,” Scott smiled. The Pittsburgh Penguins were on their way to the Stanley Cup Finals against the San Jose Sharks, so he had a point. But it didn’t feel like that right now.

“Harry suggested we go out to dinner after the game, if you’re feeling up to it.” My mom said, and smiled at Harry before looking back at me.

“That would be great,” I answered.

“Lovley. I know this great place that has the best poutine,” he shot me a glance and we shared a knowing look, as I thought back to that time we got poutine together in New York last October. We had certainly come a long way since then. “And,” Harry continued, and looked back at my brother. “I’d love to hear the rest of that story about Ellie’s first summer at hockey camp.”

‘Oh great,’ I thought. ‘My brother and my boyfriend are getting along…’

Wait, isn’t that a good thing? ‘This is going to be fun…’

Notes