I mean, it’s late November, there’s still so much hockey to be played in the season, but sports analysts are already giving their predictions on whether the Habs are going to make the playoffs this year, depending on how they play before the holiday break.

  Tonight’s game is considered to be a clincher, and if the Habs don’t come in clutch...you can bet your ass that the head coach, David Gagnon, is going to see the boot by the end of the regular season, and we’re gonna get a new coach, again.

  Beckett waves when he spots me, a big smile on his face, the way I can imagine a golden retriever puppy would look like, welcoming its owner home after a long day spent away. It’s unbearably cute, and I have to look away for a second to steel myself for being in his company for the next couple of hours, actually sitting next to each other this time around, watching the game.

  I wonder if I’ll get nauseous from the nosebleed seats, the particular section situated above the jumbotron, the players looking like a teeming mass of ants rather than actual people on skates, the puck smaller than a grain of sand.

  I couldn’t care less where we actually sit—I’m here, with a bunch of other people who are just as excited as I am to be here, to watch the game, to experience it and eat and drink the overpriced food and beer.

  Beckett comes to stand before me, his hair pulled back away from his face, a couple of strands in the back already coming loose from the top knot, his russet-colored beard looking achingly soft. “Hey, Elena.”

  I nod at him and give him a smile.

  I’m wearing my jersey underneath my own unzipped coat, trying to cool myself down from the inferno of being on the metro in full winter get-up (which has yet to be autographed, but one day, one day), and a Habs ballcap that I have to fix and rearrange so I can see him properly underneath the bill of the hat.

  “Hi! I’m so excited,” I blurt, and impossibly, Beckett’s smile gets even bigger.

  He holds up his phone. “Come on, then. There’s a lot to do before the game. Let me show you where we’re sitting.”

  I put a hand over my stomach. “And then we can get something to eat? I’m dying of hunger over here.”

  Beckett nods, tilting his head to the giant line at the entrance.

  All of us have to go through metal detectors, and Beckett pulls up the tickets on his phone (I can clearly see them there) and lets one of the staff scan them before ushering us through. If I had brought a purse with me, that would have been subject to inspection, too, but I’ve got a secret pocket that Sophie sewed for me in my jeans that I’ve stuffed my credit card and a few twenties in cash, hoping there’s an ATM in here, too.

  We move towards the escalators away from the reds, the section of seats about the first thirty or so rows from the ice.

  I follow Beckett up the escalator, a whole mass of bodies taking the stairs up slowly, excited chatter filtering through from the people above us and the people below us before we get off.

  Except Beckett isn’t taking the elevators up to the nosebleeds, and instead we’re sitting in the 200s section.

  “We’re sitting here? Up here?” I grab onto Beckett’s arm, holding onto his coat more than his body and making him stop in the middle of the hall, which would infuriate me if I was anybody else (seriously, why do I have to walk around you?) but I’m shocked.

  Beckett glances down at me, holding his hand out. “Come on, I don’t want to lose you,” he says, because there’s gotta be a trillion people milling around, a thousand different conversations going on in English and in French.

  I’m surprised by how many kids belonging to God knows who are running around, tricked out in Habs gear from the top of their heads even down to their shoes, flinging around those tiny hockey sticks that are used for memorabilia rather than actually playing with them, pretending to be swashbuckling swordsmen as they dodge in and out of the crowd.

  I get critically hit by a little girl, her entire body colliding with my legs because her head was turned to look behind her, and she just turns and grins at me, pushing herself off my leg and making a run for the kid that’s left her behind.

  Beckett keeps tugging me along, and he keeps looking down at his phone, pointing to our designated seats, the ones closest to the ice, at the very bottom of the section, close to the stairs and aisle. “Any preference?” he asks, pointing to our seats, and I shake my head at him.

  “You said you were hungry, yeah? Let’s go. We’re in section 201 if you need to find your way,” he says, and I let him keep hold of my hand, leading me back up the stairs to the main level, and we take a walk around the arena, perusing our choices first, as per Beckett’s suggestion.

  All I know is, I want to eat everything.

  “How many games have you been to?” I ask, ignoring the way I keep looking down at our clasped hands, unwilling to let go but knowing I should. It’s just nice, super nice, having my hand cradled in his like this. Not that I’m going to mention it, like at all.

  Beckett glances over at me, thinking. “I went to one, once when I was kid. And then after that, not really. It’s since I’ve been with my company that we get season tickets, and we rotate in my department who wants to go or not. The seats from our tickets are pretty slick, too. Food’s considered free.”

  I stop in my tracks, bringing Beckett up short and he laughs. “Free food? Are you kidding me?”

  “Well, I mean, the price of the ticket takes care of it, but yeah, you don’t have to pay anything extra. Except beer, I think.”

  I nod, because yeah, that makes sense. “Okay, okay. Are you sure you didn’t want to bring anyone else with you tonight?”

  Beckett shakes his head, glancing around at the different kiosks and places where we can buy hot dogs, and nachos, and fries and poutine.

  Ah, man, I’d kill for a poutine, or three.

  “A lot of my friends, they’re more into football, or lacrosse, actually. And out of principle they won’t go watch a game with me if I wear this jersey, so.”

  “Isn’t your neck itching? I’ve counted a hundred dirty looks since we started walking around. Pretty sure you’d have lost your head by now.”

  Beckett smiles, swinging our hands together in the space between our bodies. It makes my heart to acrobatics in my chest without the safety net. “It doesn’t matter. I’m sure you’ll come to my rescue if I need you to.”

  “You know I can’t really save you though, right? Like, I go to the gym, and I can probably kill a man with my thighs, but that’s it. I can’t throw a punch to save my life. You’re on your own if it comes to that.”

  Beckett glances down at my legs, at the strips of skin peeking through the slits in the cheap denim, and while I always love wearing these jeans, there’s something a little scary about wearing them around him.

  I can feel him looking at my legs, his gaze almost like a physical touch, cataloguing the rips and tears, and I take it upon myself to steer us in the right direction, walking around people that have gathered in long lines.

  We make the complete round of the arena and finally make an informed decision on what we want to eat—hot dogs and poutine and a beer to share, since I want to be awake and aware while I watch the game, and even a little bit of beer on my empty stomach is going to make me tipsy, plus the bathroom trips I don’t want. Thanks, but no thanks.

  After getting our food, we trudge back to our seats.

  Beckett takes the first seat in and leaves me with the aisle seat and hence more room for everything since I’ve got the aisle and the stairs to pack my food on. We’re lucky that our entire row has filled up while we walked around so there’s no immediate need to get up and let people pass us to find their seats, and there’s still another twenty minutes left before the game actually starts.

  The Zamboni is fixing all the damage that has happened on either end of the ice after the warm-up, the deep ridges in the ice melting away with each turn of the Zamboni. Beckett and I munch down on our food, the wad of napkins I took helping us mop up the excess mustard and relish and the slip-slide of the stringy cheese curds that have melted from our poutines.

  All of the food we got is epically bad for me, and I’ll have to hit the gym twice as hard for the next little while, but shit, everything’s delicious, and I don’t know if it tastes better because I’m here, with Beckett, at a Habs hockey game, and we didn’t pay a red cent for any of it. We share the beer, me sipping through a straw under the pretense of keeping my lipstick intact even if I know all the grease from the food has demolished it.

  “So? How is it so far?” Beckett asks, wiping at his mouth with his napkin, his eyes dancing with excitement.

  I shake my head, looking around at the lighting in the arena, to the bright-bright rink below, making it hard to look at for long periods of time without any of the players on it.

  “It’s like a dream. Thanks for bringing me here, honestly. You don’t know what it means. I’ve always wanted to come to a game, but it just never really worked out.” I shrug. I mean, that’s putting it mildly. Frankie always said that he’d take me to one, but he never did.

  I get it, the seats are expensive, and yeah, I wouldn’t complain when I can watch the game at home or at my favorite sports bar, eat shitty food and be around people who are just as crazy about the Habs as I am, but it’s different being here, being so close, watching it live.

  “I think I would pass out if our seats were anywhere near the bench. Or no, close to the goalie net. No, I don’t even know where the best place to sit is. I mean, right now, we’re smack down the middle at the center line, and I love that. My neck’s not going to be pissed at me tomorrow and I get to see everything.” I pass a hand over the ice, like I’m a Jedi giving out a command.

  I look over at Beckett, his eyes riveted to my face, like he finds what I have to say interesting.

  There’s that part of me that I’ve kept locked away since Frankie was a dick to me, since everyone was a dick to me except Sophie and my cousin Katie and her pseudo-husband, Dean. They’ve all been incredibly understanding, and for the most part, they’ve let me stew in my hurt, in my fear.

  And that part of myself that I’ve locked away? It’s been down in the dark depths for a while now, a part of myself that I had to protect after the raging storm that was my parents’ disappointment in me after I called off the engagement. That part of me looks misshapen, looks more than a little rough around the edges, but something feels like it unfurls, making me vulnerable in a way that I haven’t allowed myself to feel for a long, long time.

  It can’t be all because Beckett’s taken me to a hockey game, it can’t be just that.

  And while it’s easy to like him, to watch him and learn about him with just as much as he says as what he doesn’t say, I have to be careful. I’ve made a bad choice before, and I’m still kind of paying for it.

  Beckett came into my life at exactly the right time it seems, apparently trying to get my attention since the beginning of the season, but I’d been too deep in my head to notice. There’s the way he trusted me with his niece, with his home, opening himself up more than I ever could reciprocate, letting me into his life in stops and starts, letting me take the lead on whatever it is what we’re doing.

  “Are we on a date?” I ask, squinting at him, and Beckett freezes around the last bite of his giant hot dog. “Beckett?”

  He chews slowly, then takes his napkin and mops at his face even though there’s nothing there, not even a speck of grease, like he just needs the time to contemplate the right kind of answer, the right kind of answer that I want to hear.

  “I would like it to be, but I’m not going to force you so I can get what I want. If you just want to watch the game with me, and that’ll be it, then that’s good with me, too. I like watching games with you, your face is so expressive, and every time something doesn’t go your way you swing back and forth from anger to sadness over the game, and I find it cute.”

  It dims down in the arena to nothing but red lights, as the opening ceremony starts—something that they don’t usually televise. Every single team member of the Montreal Canadiens is announced and there’s cheers and fanfare, until they all stand on the blue line, looking at the Boston Bruins standing on the opposite blue line. Everyone’s helmets are off, practically every player shifting their weight from skate to skate, working off the nerves.

  And while this is all new and exciting, I can’t undo what I just heard. My eyebrows hike up my forehead, disappearing beneath my hat, looking over at Beckett, leaning in close so he can hear me. “You find my out-of-control emotions over a hockey game cute?”

  Beckett smiles again, and it seems to be genuine, all crinkly eyes and all, his eyes warm and sweet, and there’s a lump in my throat, swallowed up by pain and tightness as I just sit there, blinking at him.

  “Where have you been?” I ask, the words coming out hushed and speedy, so Beckett has to lean in close to try and catch them, and I get a waft of his woodsy cologne and the laundry detergent coming off his jersey, the shampoo from his hair that reminds me of coconut.

  I open my mouth to backtrack, to say something else, anything else, but I’m interrupted.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please stand for the American and the Canadian anthems... Mesdames et messieurs—”

  I stand up next to Beckett and try to control myself, try to mouth along to the Canadian anthem when it comes, looking distractedly at the ice, heart beating hard and fast, like it’s already come to the foregone conclusion of what I’m still trying to figure out on my own.

  I could fall hard for Beckett, and I’m just bracing for impact at this point.

  I think I would make an awesome girlfriend for Beckett, really, truly. I know I could be.

  I’ve just forgotten how.

  But I think...I think I might be willing to try.

  TWELVE

  I tried to fight it, I really, really did, but Beckett made me feel special throughout the night, somehow anticipating what I wanted to do when the first period ended, and we had twenty minutes to wait before the start of the second period while the Zamboni cleaned the ice. We decided to go and get more food, to take a quick bathroom break, and come back to our seats to enjoy the second period, the Habs and the Bruins still sitting at zero to zero.

  We got ice cream and Beckett convinced me to get two scoops (chocolate and vanilla, while he got double chocolate, which I’m going to file away for later), and we walked around the arena, the smell of greasy food assaulting our noses, the floor already sticky from overzealous fans sloshing their beer around.

  As we’re walking, I get told stories about his life, growing up in the West Island—the more English suburbs part of the island, the houses standing on their own and unattached, with big backyards and pools instead of being packed closely together the closer you get to the downtown core.

  I tell him stories about my old neighborhood, about growing up with more cousins than friends, and holidays that are louder than the entire Bell Center holding twenty thousand people when the Habs score a goal. I tell him about the house I grew up in, about the carpet along the floors until my mother had a fit and tore everything off one day and when I came home, thinking I was in a stranger’s house, having an existential crisis at eight years old, looking up at the address of the house and half-convincing myself I had travelled to a parallel universe.

  “A parallel universe?” Beckett asks, frowning. “I didn’t even know what a parallel universe was until I was at least thirteen.”

  I shrug, feel my cheeks start to burn. “I’m a nerd about that stuff, okay? String Theory, alternate dimensions. I don’t understand a lot of it, I hated physics and chemistry in school, but the whole thing’s really interesting to me. That there’s an Elena out there, doing better than I am, that there’s one out there that’s doing worse than I am. I don’t know, I’d like to think that I’m able to go through a multitude of choices, and that way the collective me as a whole would have zero regrets.”

  Beckett nods slowly, frowning, then shakes his head. “I don’t think it’s possible though, to live a life without regrets, you just try to make them sting a lot less, I think.” His eyes are trained on me, like he’s waiting for the painful blow that hits the target dead-on.

  My heart pangs and rattles in my chest as if a gong has been struck but there’s no sound. It reverberates through me, a deep thrum that I feel in my veins, in my muscle and bone. I pull in a deep, deep breath, ignoring the swirl of colors flickering at the edge of my vision caused by the lack of breathing for a few seconds. The lights flashing along the stands of ads and shit don’t do anything to help the situation.

  “You think?” I ask, feeling my throat tighten up, glancing away, worried about what he sees written all over my face.

  “How can there be an Elena out there that hasn’t been to a hockey game at the Bell Center?” he asks, pointing to the ice, and I look, the Zamboni doing its last lap around the rink, ready for play to resume any minute now. “Is it okay, so far? The game? Being here with me?”

  The smile I give him feels weak and tremulous along my lips, but I try to inject as much feeling into it as I can. “I like being here with you.”

  “They’re wicked good seats, eh?” Beckett takes another lick of his ice cream, sniffling a little because it’s not exactly the warmest in here, and my toes are starting to get cold in my boots. “If I get more tickets, I’ll bring you next time, too.” He looks over at me, a ready smile on his face, just happy to be here.

  “Yeah?”

  “Of course, Elena. Honestly, watching a game with someone who couldn’t give a shit isn’t exactly fun.”

  “You don’t mind that I go crazy for it?”

  “Why would I mind? It drives me nuts, you being so cute about it. Did you know that you growl whenever the Habs miss a shot?”

  I clamp my mouth shut, then blurt out, “I do not. Growl? Me? Nah. You need to check you’re hearing. No way, no how.”