Page 73 of The Do-Over Girl

“Hell, no. It means I wish we weren’t setting a good example as upstanding leaders of APA because if we weren’t, I’d be sneaking a few nips in the ladies’ room right now.”

I give her a double-take and lean in to whisper, “Do you have nips—”

She shoves me. “No, of course not. What do you think I am? A degenerate drunk?”

I laugh.

She grumbles, “My husband talked me out of it.”

“Remind me to pay him back for that later,” I say, half kidding. Okay, I’m kidding because I’m totally committed to my role here as someone my students can look up to, especially Mia. She leans over the boards of the cheerleading box to talk to me as the team winds down their warm-up.

“Ms. Austin, I just want to ask you if, at the end of the game, win or lose, you can come to our dressing room for just a few minutes?” She looks hopeful and worried and, at first, I wonder what it’s all about. Then it strikes me. They want to have a moment to remember the season—maybe even give me a gift. Don’t get ahead of yourself, Kali. Stay in the moment and manage your expectations.

Kind of like how I’m doing with Nash.

“Of course,” I say, managing not to ask any questions. Her smile is instant, and she squeezes my hand.

The ref drops the puck at center ice to start the third period, and the place goes wild. Instead of squeezing Nikki’s hand because she keeps it well hidden, I squeeze her thigh. Yeah, I know it’s wrong, especially when she tries to slap my hand away, but I can’t help it.

“You’re so pathetic,” she says, half laughing, and I can’t argue. The first twelve minutes of the period tests my ability to keep my cool. Does it count as a fail if I develop an eye twitch after ten minutes of no scoring?

“This is driving me crazy. I think my head is going to explode, Nikki.” I almost have to shout in her ear because the place is going bananas. We just got a penalty.

“Shit,” Nikki says under her breath. “I’m going crazy with you. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to forgive my husband for disallowing the nips.”

I automatically look in the direction of where he’s sitting with her kids two sections over. Then I return my gaze to Nash as the teams line up for a face off in our end of the ice, a player short for the next two minutes. He turns his head—maybe because he feels me boring a hole in it with my laser beam stare—and our eyes meet.

I mouth the words to him without thinking, I love you. You’ve got this.

He does a double-take, and I go still—then I smile and give him two thumbs up, my heart stuttering, while I pretend I didn’t just confess my love at a crucial moment during a hockey game in the middle of a raucous crowd. I only mouthed the words—maybe he’s no good at reading lips, maybe he didn’t get what I was saying.

He smiles back, and his eyes, the way they look at me, wondering, tell me he’s not sure what I said, or maybe he doesn’t want to be sure. Maybe he wants to think he must be mistaken.

Maybe I’m good with that. Perfectly fine with it.

He turns away, and the ref drops the puck. Dylan wins the face off. The defenseman skates around the back of the ice and passes it out to the blue line where Dylan picks it up. A guy from Cabot Cove rushes for him, but Dylan is quick, always the quickest and fastest on the ice, and today, right now, he’s quicker than ever. He fakes his opponent out, passes the puck ahead of him, and catches it as he spins, pushing it up the ice, skating with such ferocity that he looks like he has jets on his skates.

He’s out in front of everyone on both teams as he crosses the blue line into Cabot Cove’s end of the ice and closes in on their goalie. I jump to my feet, and Nikki jumps with me, grabbing onto my arm. Everyone in the place is on their feet. We hold onto each other to watch. I flash a look at Nash, and he’s leaning over the bench, yelling. When I look back at the ice, it’s just in time to see Dylan skate right and then reach his left hand out with the stick to shoot the puck in the corner of the net, lifting it over the goalie’s left shoulder.

What happens next is the loudest, happiest mayhem I ever remember being in the middle of. In the middle of the blur of activity, the joy lifts me to an insane level so that if Nikki didn’t stop me, I would have thrown myself over the board into the players' bench to hug Nash.

But that would have been awkward—on top of flat-out worthy of a one-way ticket to an asylum—because he was busy celebrating with his team.

I go back to the cheerleader’s dressing room, cutting through the mob of media and fans, to find all the girls changed and waiting for me. They yell surprise like it’s my birthday, but it’s not. Yet, there’s cake and a beautiful gift wrapped box. Then I notice the banner across the back of the room while a lump rises in my throat.

It says, Thank you Mrs. Austin. You’re the Best! in gold lettering. I turn to Mia as she’s swiping a tear from her eyes. I go to her and give her a big hug, never mind that I have a few tears of my own. The girls form a group hug around us and when I finally excavate myself from the emotional rubble, I make my speech.

“Coaching you all has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my life.” I look around them and sigh. “Correction, it has been the most rewarding experience of my life, no contest.”

The girls cheer and Shonda says, “Sorry we don’t have champagne to celebrate, but you’ll be having that grown up kind of celebration later with coach, I’m sure.” She giggles and so do the others.

“If I’m lucky. He has a lot of people who want to celebrate with him tonight, starting with the team.”

Mia says, “The team is going out to AP Pizza to celebrate.” She smiles. “Dylan invited me.”

“Of course he did,” Shonda says, rolling her eyes.

The group dissolves into a discussion about who’s going and who’s not and I take Mia aside.