Yup, update now 
13 going on 30 reference? That was hilarious...
I think you're the only person who pointed that out. I was very proud of that reference, lol .
Chapter 4
Next Sunday as Sydney was putting her jersey on over her equipment for the big game she couldn’t help but feel overly excited about playing tonight. Vaughn had said he would be there to watch, and he didn’t seem like the one to go back on his word. Quietly before anyone could notice, Sydney slipped out of the dressing room to see if he was anywhere in sight. She spotted him standing alone by the entrance to the rink. She waved him over.
“What are you doing out here, you crazy person?” he asked.
“Just wanted to make sure you were coming,” Sydney said.
“I told you I would.”
“Sydney, what the hell are you doing out here!? Get back in there right now!”
Sydney looked guilty at her coach and turned back to Vaughn.
“I’ll see you after the game.”
Sydney walked back into the dressing room.
“Oh, Sydney was with a boy,” some of the girls chanted as she walked in, causing her to blush and look away.
“Alright, girls, can we please not focus on Sydney’s love life for like two seconds before we go on,” the coach, Katrina, said as she bent down. All the girls gathered around her as she gave them their normal pep talk before the beginning of the game.
“Okay, let’s get out there and crush them!” They all cheered and skated out onto the ice with the eruption of applause from parents and supporters. Sydney searched in the crowd for Vaughn and saw him standing off to the side by the net. She smiled, knowing he was there, but then pushed him from her mind knowing that she had to focus on her game.
The game started off rather slowly with nobody scoring any goals, not because of lack of effort by Sydney. She was shooting and passing to her team mates at every possible opportunity, but the competition’s goalie was definitely on her game tonight. This began to frustrate Sydney, but she kept trying her hardest to get a puck past the wall of a goalie. The other team was getting barely any shots on net since Sydney’s team had such a strong defence. The only thing preventing Sydney and her team from taking a blow-out win was this goalie’s impressive skills.
Sydney skated with all her might towards the other team’s captain, Anna. Sydney was well acquainted with Anna and the pair of them were not on good terms, never had been. They had been placed on opposite teams since they began playing hockey together and had forever viewed each other as rivals. Anna saw Sydney approaching from behind and lifted her stick into the air, slashing Sydney across the eye. Sydney went down hard and the pain above her right eyes was excruciating. She could feel blood tricking down her face, but she pushed her helmet down, knowing that she wasn’t aloud to be on the ice if she bleeding.
“That’s a penalty! Come on, Ref! What are you blind?” She could hear Vaughn yelling out angrily from behind the glass.
There was no way Sydney was going to let Anna get away with that one. The fire within Sydney erupted and she chased after Anna who now had the puck in her possession. Anna wound up to take a shot on net, but out of nowhere Sydney came in and stole the puck away from under her nose. With a force like no other, Sydney skated towards the opposite net. Nobody was able to match Sydney’s speed as she approached the net. With some remarkable stick handling and a hard shot, Sydney got the puck past the goalie. The goalie looked back, not even seeing the puck go past her.
Sydney threw her hand up in the air and did a tiny jump as her team mates flew at her in all directions, practically knocking her off her feet. She could see Vaughn from the corner of her eye, smiling.
After that it was almost as if the other team fell apart, and it was relatively easy to score more goals before the end of the match. The final scored ended up being 5-0 for Sydney’s team. Sydney managed to score three out of the fives goals, which in most cases would’ve pleased her to no ends, but she knew she would hear from Vaughn, about how he managed to score four goals during his game.
She dressed quickly, eager to see him.
“What’s the rush, Syd?” Katrina asked, eyeing Sydney’s speedy changing. Some of the girls looked over at her as well, noticing how eager she looked.
Sydney shrugged her shoulders. “Nothing,” she said with a dismissive tone.
“Oh nothing. Really? This has nothing to do with that boy I saw you talking with before the game now, would it?”
Sydney smiled, picked up her bag. “I’ll see you guys at practice tomorrow,” she told her team.
“Good luck,” they called out in unison as Sydney walked out of the dressing room. Sydney shook her head. There was nothing going on between her and Vaughn. She saw him lurking by the vending machine, looking incredibly frustrated.
“Damn thing,” he whispered to himself, not realizing Sydney stood only inches behind him.
“Machine eat your money?” Vaughn must have jumped a foot in the air.
“Don’t do that!” he said, holding his chest. “You scared the felgercarb out of me.”
“Yeah, that was kind of the point. Here,” she said, passing two dollars to him.
“Thanks,” he said, grabbing his Skittles from the dispenser of the vending machine. He held them out to Sydney and she accepted a couple, thankful for food since she hadn’t eaten much before the game this afternoon. She popped one into her mouth.
“So, what’d you think?”
“I think I got four goals and you got only three.” Sydney smacked him on the arm.
“Fine, I think you’re incredible player. Better?”
“Much, thank you.”
He reached up to brush away some of the hairs that were covering the spot where she was slashed with Anna’s stick.
“Does it hurt?”
“Yeah, a little.”
“That so should have been a penalty. She blatantly slashed you across the forehead.”
“Yeah, I could kind of hear you,” Sydney said with a laugh.
“Yeah, I tend to get a little defensive and mad at the referees sometimes.”
“Syd!” Sydney turned around to see her sister walking towards her with a smile.
Oh, God. She is so going to say something to embarrass me!
“Hi, Nadia,” Sydney said, giving her sister a look, which Nadia returned with a cheeky smile.
“Who’s this?” she asked, knowing full well who it was.
“Nadia, this is Michael Vaughn. Vaughn, this is my l
ovely sister, Nadia.” Sydney told Vaughn, stressing the word lovely while giving her sister a pointed look.
“Nice to meet you, Nadia,” Vaughn said, politely, extending his hand to her. Nadia shook it while looking at her sister with a look of approval.
“Sydney, can I talk to you for a tiny sec?”
“Yeah, sure. Vaughn, I’ll be right back.”
Nadia pulled Sydney over to a quiet corner of the arena.
“Oh my god, how many ways can you say hot!” Nadia said.
“Nadia!” Sydney screeched, craning her neck to see if he had heard her sister’s inappropriate comment.
“Syd, he can’t hear us. He’s all the way over there, but he’s incredible!”
“Nadia, you don’t even know him.”
“Yes, well I can plainly see he would be incredible. If you don’t take him, can I?”
Sydney rolled her eyes visibly at her sister and walked away, leaving Nadia laughing.
“Sorry about that,” Sydney said, returning. She watched curiously as Vaughn flipped shut his cell phone.
“It’s fine. Sorry, Syd, but I’ve got to run, but I’ve got something to ask you.”
“Yeah?”
He hesitated for a second. “Um, next week the Kings are in town and I’ve got two tickets, and I don’t know anyone who loves hockey the way you do, so I was wondering if you would go with me.”
Sydney looked at him, surprised. What would Lauren say about that? She didn’t ask, though. Vaughn was offering her the chance to spend more time with him and she wasn’t about to pass up that opportunity.
“I’d love to. I haven’t been to a game in ages!”
He smiled widely, glad that she accepted and had not found it weird for him to be asking.
“It’s tomorrow night at 7:00, so I’ll pick you up around quarter to six or just after.”
“Sounds good to me.” He gave her one last smile and then ran off towards his car.
Sydney sighed, excitement running through her body at the prospect of this…meeting…hang out time…friendly scheduled time in each other’s company…Who was she kidding? The only way that she knew how to describe this was a date, but it wasn’t, right?
