by Shilo Dawn Goodson

Created on: May 11, 2011

Hannah wondered what she’d been thinking. Not wanting to appear to be a girly-girl in front of her crush, Stephen, when he’d invited her to play ice hockey with him and some friends, she’d claimed that she’d played before. 

Hannah figured it couldn’t be that hard to play hockey. She’d grown up watching it her older brothers play it. She’d just never played it herself. She was more of an outdoor sports sort of girl, more of a soccer and football girl than an indoor ice area girl.

“Peterson, are you ready for the game?” Stephen asked, as he walked by her and got on the ice.

Hannah didn’t take that as a good sign. A guy calling you by your last name pretty much meant that he considered you one of the guys. Maybe she’d already screwed up. Maybe she should have pretended to be a girly-girl. Maybe that was more attractive than the athletic girl.

Almost as soon as Hannah joined everyone on the ice, the game began. Stephen got the puck right away and started skating in Hannah’s direction. She fought an internal battle. Should she attempt to get the puck away from him and play hockey as rough as she normally played other sports, or should she be the girly-girl who might actually get Stephen to think of her as a girl?

Hannah made that instantaneous decision and slammed Stephen into the boards. As she hit into him, Hannah realized that it felt good. She didn’t care if this made her even more into one of the guys. As much as she liked Stephen, she realized that if he didn’t like the real Hannah, he wasn’t worth her time. There was no reason to pretend to be someone different just to get him to like her.

“Nice job, Hannah,” Stephen said with an impressed look on his face. “We need you around more often.”

She was a little confused, but Hannah decided she’d take it. Along with that, she’d take the puck that had flown loose when she’d slammed into Stephen. She wasn’t sure how liking Stephen and playing hockey was going to turn out, but apparently she now at least had a first name. That must be good thing. 

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