Tonights the night. There's about 15 minutes left before we have to head out the door and to the Prudential Center to make it before 'puck drop' as we learned in our research. The entire time we've been getting ready, Olivia Rodrigo's new album has been blasting throughout our apartment. Not long after we'd agreed to do the sponsorship with Dragonfly Publishing, we each received a cute present with a few goodies and red Devils jerseys. I'd paired my jersey with black jeans and my favorite pair of Converse, while Em did something similar the only difference being her white Nike dunks. The last little touch I needed to complete my look was to pin a little black bow to my half up half down hairstyle. 

In the two weeks since the email, we've done a few girls nights centered around watching a few Devils games to get an idea of how the games worked. All I can say is that I think I found a new hobby in watching hockey. With the games that I've watched so far, I feel like I have a pretty good idea of how it all works so I'm beyond excited for tonight's game. 

In the last few days leading up to this game we've been teasing the book with little approved snippets and so far our audiences are very excited for this release. The content we get at this game tonight is really going to build up the excitement even more since the book is being released in just a weeks time and I've already included it in my November TBR video going out tomorrow. 

Walking over to Emilie's room, I see she's still getting ready. "Em, I'm gonna head down to the car, meet me there when you're done?" She shoots a thumbs up in my direction and I walk towards the front door, picking up my keys and my purse. It's currently mid-October so the colors of the leaves are already changing and the air just has that fall feeling to it that I love. After about three minutes I see Em walking towards the car with an ARC of the book in her hand.

"You ready for the game?" I turn to her for a quick second seeing that she's buckling up her seat belt. "Of course! I'm actually really excited. Seeing a game in person is a much more different experience than on TV. We both laugh as she takes control of the aux. Usually, we take turns between driving and the aux when we go out together to make sure there's an equal amount of driving between us. For tonight's drive Em starts playing the Midnights album by Taylor Swift and we start singing like two madwomen.

On the whole drive to the Pru, we got the weirdest looks from other drivers and their passengers, who probably thought there was something seriously wrong with us. Pulling into the parking garage, we headed straight to the security check before walking around and getting a feel for the energy from the fans. "Charlotte we should probably start heading our seats." Nodding, we start the journey towards our seats on the lower level of the arena closest to the ice. 

Once we took our seats, I couldn't help but take a look around the whole arena since I'd never been here before so my eyes couldn't stop looking at everything. Usually 30 minutes before the game warm-ups start for both teams and we were right on time. Looking back towards the ice, I see all the players skating out one by one and automatically start moving pucks around. The players fly past, warming up and messing around with pucks. Some players stop to read signs by fans, tossing pucks over the glass every few minutes.

Looking over at Emilie, she's already started to take little clips of the players warming up. She manages to get a few close up shots of players faces. Taking out my own phone, I get a few of my own shots of the players and of the arena. 

Once we've gotten a good amount of shots and clips, we share a little small talk laughing at the dumbest jokes. With a few minutes left of warm-ups, I feel someone's eyes on me. I focus on Emilie's words, not paying much attention to the feeling. Not long after, the players leave the ice to get ready for puck drop. Strangely after the players had left the ice, the feeling of someone watching me went away. Huh. That was strange. 

Not long after the lights go out and the energy is already through the roof. Once the team is introduced, fans go wild as they skate out. A feeling of excitement bubbles in me and I take out my phone capturing the energy and the players. This is gonna be an amazing night. 

~

Throughout the first two periods of the game, both teams have been taking turns scoring goals. With about three minutes left in the second period, the Sabres managed to score, bringing the overall total of the game to a tie at 3-3 by the start of the third period. The air is intense as  everyone just watches the teams try to score. Every once in a while Em takes out her phone to record little bits and pieces of the game and she tries to catch at least one goal the Devils make to possibly use for a post later on.

Sometime within the third period the Devils get a power play and they aren't wasting any time. With about a minute left in the power play, I see that number 28 from the Devils has the puck and he passes it to number 86. Taking the puck, he passes it to number 43 and then he passes it back to number 86. Taking the puck on the end of his stick, he shoots towards the goal, bringing the total to 4-3 Devils. Fans shoot up from their seats, cheering and clapping as the goal horn sounds. A few seconds later, a familiar feeling of eyes on me seemingly comes back as the team is celebrating the goal. 

My brown eyes meet with a pair of blue eyes. Smiling big from his goal, it feels almost infectious causing me to smile back. Like the awkward idiot I am, I shoot him a thumbs up and he shoots a little nod before one of he teammates lightly pushes him to get him back to the game. I mentally feel myself flipping through the names and jersey numbers I remember hearing on broadcasts of the Devils games and my mind stops right on the name of number 86, Jack Hughes. Focusing back on the game, I feel Emilie lean over to my ear, "I got that on camera." Her smile is wide, happy that she'd managed to not only catch the goal on camera, but also Jack and I's brief interaction. 

After the game

The whole ride home was full with excitement that the Devils had won 5-4 against the Sabres. From the moment we started walking back to the parking garage after the game, Em couldn't stop freaking out over the interaction. Emilie is the type of person who takes a single interaction I have with a guy and makes it out to be something that it's not. Don't get me wrong I love her to death, but sometimes not every interaction I have with a guy means there's something there. Jack just happened to be celebrating his goal, as he should, and we just so happen to make eye contact. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Laying in bed, I look through all the content I got tonight. Em and I were lucky enough to get a lot of pictures and little clips of the game. While I was taking a shower, Emilie sent me a video, which just so happened to be Jack's goal and our quick interaction.  Hitting play, after his goal,  you can see Jack turn to face the crowd with a smile and if you look closely enough you see that he's looking in Em and I's direction. After a second of Jack looking towards us, his eyes slightly shifted to the left of the camera, where I sat. Moving her camera, Emilie quickly catches Jack's smile before catching me smiling, shooting a thumbs up.

What are the chances that she's recording for a goal and manages to get it while also catching an interaction between me and one of the teams star players. Shutting off my phone for a quick second, I take a deep breath to recollect myself from the bubbly feeling in my stomach. Once I've relaxed and calmed down, I decided to pick my phone back up and do some "research" on Jack Hughes. A quick search shows that he's my age, but just a couple of months older. He also happens to have two siblings who are also in the league. One being number 43 on the Devils, which was the same one I saw assist in the goal Jack scored, and another who plays for the Canucks in Vancouver.

One quick Instagram search led me to his account and I started scrolling, looking through his older posts. Scrolling through his account I see that he has a lot of posts with his brothers, his parents, his friends, and hockey. The most recent post was from when the season started.

Instagram

Liked by lhughes_06 and 116,942 others
jackhughes back at it!! year 5 👹

lhughes_06 Jacky 🔥
User1 Let's go baby!!!
User2 Jack you could take my girl and I'd apologize 😭
trevorzegras Let's go bestie
        ↪️ User3 trevor and jack>>>
                        ↪️User5 I can take them both, but not in a fight 😏
_quinnhughes Let's go Rowdy!
view all 603 comments

I'm almost tempted to like the post, but it was posted about two weeks earlier. My brain contemplates whether or not I should like the post, and I just decide to do it. It's not like he's gonna recognize who I am or anything like that. Us making eye contact and interacting briefly was just a coincidence and nothing more. As someone with anxiety I feel a rush of boldness come through so I find myself scrolling back to the top of his page, dropping a follow. I know that I'm just experiencing an adrenaline rush where my body forgets I'm just a 22 year old girl for about five seconds before panic fills me. At this point I know that what's done is done and that the chances of him seeing a follow and a like while also recognizing who I am are very slim. 

Reassuring myself that it's fine and nothing is gonna come from this, I take another deep breath and place my phone on my nightstand. I turn myself in bed so that my back is now facing my phone, almost bringing me a sense of peace from not even having it in my sights. It's been a long and eventful night and now it's time to get some rest for the long day ahead of me tomorrow.

Edited: 11/09/24

~

melissa speaks

Hi everyone. I hope you enjoyed this chapter in Charlotte's pov. Next chapter you may be getting Jack's pov and possibly the beginning of Char and Jack talking, but I guess you'll have to wait and see. I have so many ideas for this book and future chapters so I really do hope you stick around.

Love you all! Thanks for reading 🤍