SAVED BY HOPE
She was going to get on a dating app and date a lot. A lie, but that had kept them out of her hair for a year now. And she was not quitting hockey
Last year, someone told then-30-year-old Hope Garces that she should stop playing hockey. Her response had been “hell no,” with accompanying flip of her long hair. She didn’t even mean to be snarky but she was on a date, and he was the one who had said it.
That date did not go well.
Truth be told, her save percentage when it came to dating really was consistently dismal. Eight dates out of the most recent 10 were bad. The other two weren’t good either, but she wasn’t going to give out medals for that kind of mediocrity.
This did not bother her as much as her older brother thought it would. For all his concern about Hope finding “the one,” he also had really strange ideas of what that meant. His own happy marriage to someone introduced by a friend had transformed him into a self-appointed matchmaker. Maybe that would have been fine, if he actually had any friends Hope liked. Maybe if the period of recovering from a bad date wasn’t so exhausting. In every other aspect of her life Hope was trained to aim higher; This potentially lifelong partnership was no exception.
Anyway, she told him not to worry, she was going to get on a dating app and date a lot. A lie, but that had kept them out of her hair for a year now.
And she was not quitting hockey.
In any case, hockey would eventually quit her, and she knew it. Hope did start playing less—because of work, she used to say. Taking the interior design career seriously did ask for more time, and she stopped trying out for the national team in her late 20s. Eventually people stopped introducing her as Hope the hockey player and it got hard to explain that she still played for the city league, several months out of the year. Not like they would know about it, if they didn’t already follow the sport. Only the national team games got any kind of noise outside their usual circles.
If they didn’t know the most important thing to her, how would they know her at all? No wonder the whole compatibility thing was like the lottery.
But the point was that for a year no one had bothered her about dating, relationships, her social life. The peace she had all of a sudden! All she needed to do was pretend she was on a dating app, and dating all the people. Who would have thought.
While other people dated, she spent Friday nights at the rink. They were in the off-season so she didn’t have to train or play, but that wasn’t the point. This was quality time, Me time, following-her-happiness time. For some guy to suggest that she should stop... ugh.
------The way that Hope considered the rink her happy place made her sensitive to those who were not happy there. On a Friday night the rink was already busy. It was open to the public. Couples, friends, kids were all out there to have fun. A few skaters in training would try to find a pocket of space to practice in, someone watching in the audience area would inevitably yell to catch a skater’s attention for a photo. It was chaos, in other words, but Hope understood its language, could converse with it almost.
So when she entered the ice, ready to have her “date” so to speak, and she skated past Elias Esteban Miller being gloomy, she had to say something. Nice and busy were the vibe of the rink; gloomy was not.
“Hey, Miller,” she said, waving at his face. They were in regular clothes, no helmets. Skating as civilians. “If you’re not paying attention you should get out of traffic.”
He blinked as if he had snapped out of a deep thought, and shook his head. “Ah, shoot. Sorry.”
“Are you OK?”
He did not look OK. “I’m fine, Garces.”
Yes, he was that, Hope had to admit. Fine. Elias Esteban Miller was the good-looking national team forward who was also a baker and cafe owner, because no one played this sport full-time and they all had alter egos so they could pay the bills. Did she say good-looking? Extremely good-looking, an overachiever in that as well.
She remembered when he first showed up, moving to Manila from the US. Everyone had a crush on him. Now he was in his early 30s, still playing.
Still single. Her brain did that, but also, immediately: This is your me time. Protect your me time!
She shrugged. “Just saying. Take a break if you need to. Why are you training on a Friday night?”
He was smiling, she realized, and at some point that happened and she missed the transition. “I’m not training. This is my break.”
No way. “You can’t be here for fun. Are you on a date? Showing some girl how fast you can go?”
“Of course, I’m not on a date.” Miller’s nose wrinkled at that, and it was cute. Hope wasn’t sure that 30-somethings were allowed to be cute anymore, but what he just did was proof they could pull it off. “If I’m here and I’m not training... I guess I’m looking for fun.”
Is that what they call it these days?
Did you want company on your search for fun?
Line after line piled up in Hope’s head, that she pushed away as quickly as she could. There was no rule in the league against going out with Miller but—girl, way to overachieve. If she could screw up eight out of 10 dates she shouldn’t be flirting with Miller at all.
“Enjoy your search then,” she said. They’d been heading in the same direction pretty much but she took a step, glided into a pivot, then skated into the chaos and away from him. He was still there at the rink, near closing time. He’d spent all of his Friday night there, and so did she, and that seemed odd. She was there to enjoy the silence of zero expectations for her social life. What was his excuse?
Miller was holding a stick now, settling over one section of rink to himself, like he was doing drills. He wasn’t in training. He was pretending to train?
Not like she had anything better to do.
He was surprised when she joined him there, in her chest protector, knee protectors, helmet, glove, and her own stick. “What are you doing?” Miller asked.
Hope slid into position, right at the goal line and then higher. “Go for it.”
The mask was on to protect her face, but she could very much see his handsome, confused one. “Go for what?”
“This thing you have to work out, that you’re on the ice for.” “It’s a decision.” “Skating for hours didn’t help?”
“No. It’s…”
Oh no no no, she didn’t need to become his friend. This wasn’t confession, either. “You don’t have to tell me anything. Just... penalty shots.” “What?”
He was right to wonder what the heck was happening. Hope held her own as a goaltender all these years but very rarely tested her skill against Miller one on one.
“You get three out of five,” she told him. “And you win.” “What do I win?”
“The right to make the decision you really want to make.” That she wouldn’t ask him about, because no details necessary. “If I beat you then the less desired choice has to be done.”
The way Miller looked at her, as if she had offered him some brilliant solution to his problem, was satisfying. It was nice to know that she could be a step ahead at some things, even against hockey’s golden boy, no matter how obscure the thing was. Because Hope based decisions on how many goals saved, sometimes. She had her own reward system. Didn’t everyone do that?
Well if he didn’t before, then now he was doing it. Miller didn’t even try hard enough. As soon as his stick touched the puck Hope knew where it was going, and she caught it with her glove.
She dropped it back on the ice and shrugged, as much as she could with all her crap on. “You’re going to have to try harder.”
If he did, it didn’t show; she saved three instead. It was nice to win. She was pretty sure she laughed in his face as she said goodbye.
“Rematch,” Miller called out to her.
“I think if you want to defend your planned decision this badly you should just do it.”
“I still want a rematch,” he said. “I have more than one dilemma to settle.”
Much like Miller himself, she knew what her answer was going to be. But it was the wrong one. She really shouldn’t get involved with anyone right now, much less the most handsome hockey player on any team. In her humble opinion.
“Friday,” she said. “Next week. Same time.”
(To be continued.)
Mina V. Esguerra writes and publishes contemporary romance novels. She founded #RomanceClass, a community of Filipino authors of romance in English, and is now developing romance media by Filipino creatives for a global audience. Visit minavesguerra. com for more about her books and projects.