at center ice

note/disclaimer: One day in like April, I was bored af in quarantine watching a bunch of Olympic figure skating videos on Youtube and I thought "what if I just...got super into ice hockey," so that's exactly what I did (go Stars!!). Naturally, this translated into writing about it, but in my own queer kind of way. Now for the disclaimer: I've never actually played hockey, and the research I did into high school hockey rules was minimal at best. If you have more experience with HS hockey and you see something that's blatantly wrong, let me know. If you see something that's only a little bit off, kindly give me the benefit of the doubt 😂😂 

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The restaurant is alive and loud, filled mostly with teenagers, and a few scattered adults: the kinds of people that choose Wendy's for a fun dinner outing. Of course, Dalton can't say much — he's also the kind of person to choose Wendy's for a fun dinner outing. If "fun outing" means eating french fries in his car by himself.

He orders at the counter, then walks over to the fountain to fill his unnecessarily large cup with Dr Pepper. He supposes that's the fun part.

"Dalton!"

He turns towards the voice, and his eyes land quickly on a blonde girl in a booth nearby, frantically waving her hand. He smiles.

"Hey, Chlo!" he calls. He glances over her company — Kara Jensen and Jordyn Wade. He puts a lid on his drink and walks over. "What brings you guys to this establishment on this fine Tuesday afternoon?"

"Hockey girls support group," says Kara.

Dalton grins. "Really?"

"We meet every Tuesday after school," Chloe explains.

"Always Wendy's?" Dalton asks.

"It feels right, having the meetings in a place named after a girl," Chloe says. She gestures at Kara. "Jens came up with it."

Kara shrugs, hiding a smirk in her cup.

"I like it," Dalton says. "Well, don't let me intrude anymore—"

"You should join us!" Kara offers.

"I don't know if you've noticed this, Kar, but while I do play hockey, I'm not a girl," Dalton replies, deadpan.

"No, come on, just this once," Chloe says. She looks at Jordyn. "You cool if Dalton joins us?"

"I'd love some hockey wisdom from our first line left winger," Jordyn replies in that toneless way of hers, the one where Dalton can never tell if she's joking.

Dalton rolls his eyes, but smiles. "Let me go get my food."

He leaves his drink on the table next to Chloe, which is probably a mistake, and picks up his food from the counter. Sure enough, when he returns, Chloe's taking a huge drink out of it.

"You literally have the same thing," he says, unimpressed, sitting down next to Jordyn.

"Tastes better coming from you," Chloe replies sweetly, sliding the drink back across the table to him.

"That's what she said," he replies. She snorts.

"Hey, you should tell Dalton about what Sara asked you yesterday," Kara tells Chloe.

Chloe's eyes light up.

"Oh, god," Dalton says. He's known Chloe since they were five; he knows that look.

"So, the funniest thing happened yesterday after practice!" she begins in a theatrical tone, leaning forward onto the table. "I was taking off my skates in the locker room, and Sara Chase walks up to me — you know Sara, she's our third line left wing —"