Chapter 19: Kiss Cam

Saturday night the arena was full for the first time that season.

Teddy had put me in the family section behind our bench, between his two sisters, who had brought a foam finger and a bag of pretzels.

Maddox wore the captain's C on his chest and found me in the stands before the first face-off.

He tapped his stick twice on the glass.

That was the whole message, and I held onto the foam finger.

Chandler was not on the ice.

He sat in the Aldrich seats, on the other side of the rink, in a suit, with his hands between his knees.

The coach had scratched him on Friday and had not said why.

Camilla sat beside him.

She was in a white fur-collared coat, her dark hair shining, and she kept leaning across him to wave at the cameras.

"Is that her?" Teddy's older sister said, with the pretzel halfway to her mouth.

"That's her."

"She looks like a lawyer's idea of a bride."

I laughed, and Maddox scored in the first period off a faceoff, and the building shook.

Between the second and third, the lights dropped.

The big screen above center ice lit with a red heart, and the organist played something sticky and romantic.

"Here we go," said Teddy's other sister.

The camera slid along a row of couples.

A man in a jersey, kissing his wife.

Two boys, laughing, covering their faces.

An old couple who kissed so sweetly that the crowd said "aww."

Then the heart swung across the rink and landed on the Aldrich seats.

Chandler and Camilla, forty feet tall, on a screen.

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