Free The Year We Hid Away by Sarina Bowen Page A

and it made for a very exciting game. Tied at 1-1 for most of the first two periods, Harkness came out swinging in the third. The team captain sent a Howitzer right over the goalie’s glove and into the net, and I was on my feet with the rest of the cheering crowd.
    This had once been my whole life — watching the puck whip across the ice, critiquing the plays, and scanning for a breakaway. I missed it. Terribly.
    Given the chance, I would have distracted myself with a little conversation. But in spite of his name, Spunky wasn’t a talker. And I couldn’t even fidget with my generation’s favorite escape — my phone — because I’d left it behind in my dorm room by accident.
    With four minutes left, Harkness drew a penalty, and the entire stadium leaned forward to see whether Brown would be able to make anything happen during the two minute period when one of our defensemen sat in the sin bin. Both teams amped it up, skating fast, checking hard.
    We survived it, the Harkness players ragging the puck until their man was freed. And when the buzzer rang, Harkness had won, 2-1.
    By the time we stood to leave, I was drunk on schnapps and the achingly familiar sound of the puck smacking the boards. Tipsily, I followed The Katies and their thick-necked men toward Hannigan’s Bar, where the doorway was jammed with hockey fans. I waited with my roommates, wondering how they planned to get past the bouncer. None of us was twenty-one. Maybe that didn’t matter?
    But when the crowd before us cleared, Blond Katie stepped up to the bouncer. As I watched, she and all the others pulled IDs from their pockets.
    Fake IDs.
    Crap! This was going to be embarrassing. I didn’t have a fake ID, nor did I have a clue where to get one. On the other hand, I now had the perfect excuse to leave without them. I leaned over to Ponytail Katie. “Sorry, I can’t get into this place. I’m outie.”
    Then, just as I turned to go, my eyes swept the bar. As the crowd moved, I caught a pair of familiar eyes looking back at me.
    Bridger was there, sitting on a barstool.
    My mouth fell open. I wanted a closer look, but shifting bodies blocked my view of his end of the bar. Feeling awfully drunk, I wondered for a half a second if I had imagined it.
    “Let me see some ID, miss,” the bouncer demanded of me then.
    “I…” Shaking my head, I turned for the door. What had just happened? Bridger, who was too busy to ever see me on the weekend, was chilling at the bar. I felt as if I’d been slapped.
    The wintry air outside was bracing. I stopped just beyond the bar, trying to get a grip on myself. I felt my pocket for my phone, once again remembering that I’d left it behind. If I texted him right now (“Hi Bridge, how’s work?”) I wondered what he would reply.
    Betrayal made my throat feel hot.
    “Where are you going, pretty girl?”
    I looked up to find Spunky the football player. “G… gotta go,” I choked out.
    “You could stay here with me,” he said, taking a big step forward. In response, I took a staggered step backward, my bottom colliding with the brick building. The guy put his big hands on my shoulders, pinning me there. “It’s early,” he whispered. “Don’t run off.”
    Now I was actually trapped, and feeling afraid. The rush of hockey goers had filtered into the bar, or down the streets. There was nobody but me and the big galumph holding me to the wall.
    Great.
    I squirmed to the side, but he stopped me. He put his feet between mine. There was no way to finesse this, other than the obvious. So I put both my hands on his chest and gave a mighty shove. “Back off,” I said.
    “Be nice,” was his response. He leaned in to kiss me. I gave another great shove and craned my neck away from his alcohol soaked breath. He only grabbed my arms and pinned my wrists against the building.
    That’s when I really began to panic. “OFF ME!” I screamed.
    And then he was gone. I felt the cool air of freedom, and registered the