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chapter fifteen: kiss me, kiss me with your eyes closed

a/n:

"it is time" - rafiki

tw(s) - bombay's back.

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In the locker room before the game, Rory finds herself so pensive that she's buckling her pads slowly.

Her attention is on Averman, who's much further along in the process of getting dressed than she is and is standing a few feet away. He's animatedly talking about something, his hands waving about and a small smile on his face as he tells, what she is assuming is, a terrible joke judging by the looks on Jesse and Goldberg's faces. The corner of her lip twitches up into a smile as she keeps staring longer than she should-- she'd probably laugh at the stupid joke like the loser she is, or force him to over-explain it by accident because she sometimes just doesn't understand the things he says-- but there's no ignoring that there's this sinking feeling inside of her. She doesn't exactly have the most extensive love life, but she knows that, in the past, things have moved much faster than this. Maybe it was because Henri was just a summer fling, a short-term thing that went from friends sharing a room to kids kissing under the cover of the grapevines, but she can't help but worry.

He told her he liked her and wanted to kiss her days ago, and he hasn't done anything about it since. Is he intentionally not making a move? Does he want her to make a move?

Is he even aware of her inner turmoil?

"Are you alright?

Shaken from her thoughts, she nods, clearing her throat and turning to look at Kenny. The boy has his hand on her shoulder and this knowing look on his face.

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."

He nods, too, and bites back a smirk as she goes back to actually doing her pads up.

"Mhm. Okay."

Even if she got caught, her eyes drift right back to the goofy red-headed boy.

Their teammates start to leave the locker room and she's still not ready to go. When Averman goes to walk past her, she gently grabs his arm.

"Hey, can you help me with my skates while I put my hair up?"

He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. "Well, of course, m'lady."

Rory rolls her eyes.

Averman crouches down at her feet and starts tying her skates for her. Eventually, it's only the two of them and everything she wants to say in the locker room, and he stands back up with a proud smile as she ties her braid off.

"You're all set."

Rory wants to say something.

She tries to say something, but all of the words get caught in her throat.

So, instead, she grabs the front of his jersey and pulls him into her, kissing him sweetly. Lester's eyebrows shoot up to his hairline and his body bends around hers as she leans into him.

When she pulls back, he stares at her, shocked.

"For good luck." She says, a little shocked herself. She smooths the front of his jersey just to have something to do.

Without another word, she grabs her helmet and puts it on, leaving him alone in the center of the empty room as he sputters with this dazed smile spreading across his face.

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While she was aware that their coach had turned a new, terribly nasty lead, she was surprised that he, once again, just didn't bother to show up.

She has a hard time grasping the fact that this guy was the best Tibbles could find as her team dissolves into bickering around her. Most of them are thinking out loud-- speaking over each other as they try to figure out how they will proceed and offer up their theories on Bombay's sudden disappearance. They range from concerns that he is stuck in traffic to the idea that he's just given up on them completely, but Rory's come to a much more reasonable conclusion. She figures that he's just gone on a bender or something and just wasn't sober enough this morning to get out of bed, and lets herself think about other, more pressing matters in her life.

Like the fact that she just kissed a boy. She just kissed a boy, and she didn't ask him for consent first.

(Oh, how the mighty have fallen.)

"Hey, team-- hey, team!" They all turn to give Don Tibbles, who looks down on them over the boards, their attention. "We're gonna be great today, right?"

Rory rolls her eyes and resists the urge to tell him where he can shove his false enthusiasm.

"Where's Gordon?"

"You tell us." Luis says with a shrug.

Their sponsor's representative stares at them, shocked.

"Hendrix really knows how to pick the best of the best, don't they?" She asks rhetorically, ignoring the way that Charlie's eyes bore into the side of her head.

Don Tibbles says nothing in response. He just clenches his jaw and stares back at her.

Amidst the turmoil, a referee skates over to the bench.

"Team USA, I'm sorry but without a coach behind the bench, you'll have to forfeit the game."

Oh.

Okay.

Maybe her concerns were a little too misplaced.

"You can't do that!" The words burst past Adam's lips rather suddenly, and then he rounds on Rory with this sad, lost expression. "Can he do that?"

"I don't know."

The growing fear that all of their progress was for naught and that she'll be sent home just as she's getting used to having friends (and maybe more) has her looking for her father in the crowd.

How did Bombay manage to screw them without even being there?

Charlie, as the indignant cries grow around him, glances around the stands, too.

"We have one." He tells the referee, pushing out onto the ice before anyone could question him on that. "Miss MacKay!"

Their captain and their tutor have a conversation through the boards that Rory can't hear. She is relieved, though, when the referee skates over, too.

And she knows they're completely out of hot water when MacKay jumps up on the boards.

"What are you waiting for?" She asks, deepening her voice. "The ice to freeze? Let's play!"

Rory smiles adoringly at the woman as the team starts to cheer.

She's on the ice from the get-go.

When one of the German players checks Guy and steals the puck, Rory effortlessly chases him and hits him back. Her shoulder gets him in the chest with a solid thump and he wheezes as she skates away, puck underfoot. She passes it to Dwayne, groaning when it gets intercepted and brought back into their defensive zone.

"Change it up!"

Rory makes eye contact with Averman as they trade places. She smiles softly and he returns it shakily.

A strange noise sounds through the rink just as she sits down.

It's a high-pitched, croaky sound that's somehow audible over the roar of the crowd, and all of the Minnesota kids turn toward it like they know it. Well, Rory knows it, too. It's a duck call. One of those whistle things that her grandfather and her father would bring with them when they took her duck hunting with them.

She just fails to understand why there's someone with a duck call in here, and why Charlie's face is so hopeful.

"What the hell is that?" She ponders, turning to face the crowd.

Dean and Julie shrug at her.

When her eyes find where it's coming from, she sighs. "Oh, come on."

Walking down the stands toward them is Gordon Bombay. He's ditched his suits for athleisure and his hair isn't greased back anymore-- he almost looks like the man he was when they met him.

Rory purses her lips. Kenny and Luis exchange a look around her.

"Come on in! Let's go, c'mon!" He calls to those on the ice, pausing to kiss MacKay on the cheek.

Useless. He called her useless.

A bitter taste settles in the back of her throat as his words from the previous night echo through her mind. Did he think that he could just come back from that?

"Team." Gordon pauses to think, bending slightly to lean into the huddle. "Guys, I was wrong, and I'm sorry. I forgot about the team and the team is all I have. All I want... is another chance. Just one more shot. I'm back, okay? Believe me."

Everyone starts to look at one another, unsure, but Averman looks at Rory.

He squeezes her arm.

"You don't get to just throw this under the rug." She says, forcing her voice to be steady. "You... You were a jerk. You were mean. Being back and doing your job are not sufficient apologies."

The air that settles over the team is a tense one and MacKay frowns deeply. Rory won't look at any of them, though. She just looks at Bombay, right into his apologetic and reverent eyes, and waits to see a hint of anything that she can truly believe to be real.

After a moment, he glances away and nods.

"Alright, Myrtle. We can hash our stuff out later-- now, let's play some hockey!"

Everyone returns to what they were doing and he tries to hold her gaze again, but she doesn't let him. Luis rubs her back.

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"Alright, c'mon, Flying V!" Jesse shouts from behind the goalpost.

Rory doesn't bother to wonder how bad of an idea it is to announce a move before making it. Instead, she watches all the boys on the ice as they skate into the correct formation for this signature move and cheers them on as loudly as her voice will allow. In the shape of a big V, Team USA skates down the ice with the puck, invincible to Team Germany's attempt to intercept or knock them down.

Within the V, they pass the puck back and forth between each other. When Averman gets it, he shoots and scores a goal.

Their winning goal.

Rory jumps off the bench and throws her hands up, shouting his name. They make eye contact momentarily and he grins widely at her before Jesse grabs him by the arm to drag him into a massive dogpile hug on the ice.

Everything fades out of focus as she skates onto the ice and he breaks away from the hug to start to meet her in the middle.

"Holy crap! You did it!" She cries when he's in earshot and pulls him into a tight hug. "You scored the winning goal!"

"I did. I did!" Averman says, eyes as wide as saucers.

"I'm so proud of you, Les!"

They pull back from the hug just a little, one of his hands still on her lower back, and her heart jumps to her throat as he looks at her much more intensely than he ever has. Rory yelps in surprise as he puts a hand behind her neck and dips her to the side like they're in some movie, leaving her to grasp at his jersey as he kisses her.

While she's pretty sure the crowd is cheering even louder, now, she doesn't hear them.

She cannot hear anything over the sound of her own heartbeat.

When Averman pulls away from the kiss, he pulls her up to an upright position again. Rory is in a state similar to the one she left him in, unable to think of what to say as she breathes shakily and wipes at her lip with her thumb.

He grins, proud of himself.

"I've always wanted to do that."

Rory can't help but laugh and hide her face as she becomes aware of everything. Their teammates are loudly whooping and mocking them, and the crowd is still roaring.

"Me too." She admits through her fingers.

Averman laughs too, pulling her into him and letting her hide into his shoulder, hamming it up for everyone around them.

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a/n:

i want someone to dip me in a kiss. not averman, but someone.

me on my knees begging you people to get the weight behind rory's choice to use words like "mean" and "jerk" -

comments and votes are super appreciated! they let me know that you guys like my writing and I cannot stress how much they motivate me to continue! thank you