“I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified.” Knighter/Segs, Hockey RPF
Look, just because the Bruins were royal assholes to him, didn’t mean Tyler was gonna take too much pleasure in watching them get their hats handed to them by the Habs on New Year’s Day. Wait, who was he kidding? That was exactly what it meant.
So when he gets a chance to not only watch the game with about twenty other hockey players in a bar, including but not limited to members of the women’s Team USA, he jumps at the chance. He’s already hungover as fuck from the night before, and he knows he’s gonna be the most obnoxious pro-Habs fan in the joint, but he doesn’t care. Any excuse to watch the Bruins lose.
Tyler spends most of the first period sucking down beer and trying not to snort it out his nose at Jordie’s antics, and the second and most of the third just watching Hilary Knight talk. Woman has brains, muscles, and a hell of a slap shot as far as he’s seen, so he’s happy to listen to her go on and on about the game he lives and breathes.
Just into the third, she starts arguing with Jamie about forward line arrangements, hitting him hard on the weak spots in their offense and giving no quarter. She’s grinning, and so’s Jamie, but right now Tyler would pay good fucking money to give them each a set of gloves and let them go at it.
Tyler’s just watching and wearing his shit-eating grin, reveling in seeing this argument unfold, when Jamie, that asshole, side-eyes him and says oh so innocently, “Tyler’s been a real playmaker this season, you should ask him, Knighter.” She turns her attention on him, resting her chin on her fist deliberately and smiling at him innocently, batting her eyelashes.
“Sure, Segs, what’ve you got? Star of the Stars has to have some kinda insights to get that puck in the net and keep your season out of the tank.” She smirks so hard and he wants to give back as good as he’s getting but he feels like a 12-year-old kid on the first day of school and for the first time in maybe ever, he just sits there and gapes like a fish. Jamie’s fucking losing it watching him and Tyler finally pulls himself together enough to manage, “Ya know, we’ve gotta a really solid group of guys out there, we just need to let the defensive line get our backs and take it in deep, ya know?”
He cringes immediately and Hilary snorts, “Yeah bro, take it in deep, I know you guys like that.” And then she fucking winks at him, and he huffs out a protest (because maybe he’d take it from her but how could she possibly know that) but she’s already getting up. “I want wings, anybody need a refill?” she asks and motions to Chuey, who’s neck-deep in a conversation about goalie politics in the NHL with one of the AHL guys from the other table.
Hilary takes a handful of requests, “but you guys are buying until we get paid as much as you do.” Jamie throws his hands up and Tyler just fucking loves this woman. She walks over to the bar and he leans over to Jordie, “Dude, I think I’m in love with her, but I’m also fucking terrified.”
“That’s how you know it’s real, bro,” Jordie says solemnly, and holds it for a good three seconds before cracking up. “Seriously though, she’d own you on the ice and you know it.”
“You’re not wrong,” Tyler laughs, “but maybe I like that in a woman.”
Jordie slaps him on the back and grins. “Hell yeah, man. I might even root for Team USA in the next Olympics.”
“Now let’s not go that far.”