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“We’re getting a new social media intern,” Luke remarks offhandedly.
Jack tries not to roll his eyes. He’s not sure he succeeds. For as long as he’s been at the Devils, there have been perhaps dozens of new social media interns, one after another in a chain of pretty girls shoving phones into his face. Every time, it’s always the same. Another girl, fresh from college or in between jobs, asking him and the others to learn dances or take part in trends. Luke will flirt with the intern. Dawson too, probably. Even Jack, when he gets bored. Then, the internship will be up in a month or two, and they’ll get another one. Prettier, maybe, or funnier. And the cycle will begin again.
It’s not like he can really blame them, either. The hockey industry is precious, even for people who aren’t playing. If these girls want in, an internship is a great way to start. Any entry post’s a good one if it gets you where you want. Only, social media’s a pain. Jack came here to play hockey, not be in a dozen new photos and videos a day. It drives him crazy sometimes, or all the time.
So, when his brother tells him they’re getting another intern, he really couldn’t care less. Luke, more prone to fits of passion over the latest girl in Devils red, is still staring at him wide eyed, waiting for a reaction, so Jack rolls his eyes and gives him one.
“Good,” he says dully. “It’s been too long since I saw a phone camera shoved in my face. Can’t wait.”
Luke groans. “Come on, man. They’re fun, don’t give me that bullshit again. Besides, I saw you trying to buy the last one drinks.”
Jack can’t argue with this. He had been trying. It was something to do. “Won’t do it this time. I’ll leave that for you.”
Luke heaves another dramatic sigh. Jack wants to do something to stop the oppressive judgment, so he does, snatching the hat off Luke’s head and shoving it towards his mouth. Luke, predictably, nearly falls out of his chair and starts squawking indignantly. Jack just chuckles and gets up from his seat, heading towards the door. They’ve been idling in one of the cafes in the massive arena where they practice, called there early for business stuff that ended up getting delayed. Meetings always run late, and now Jack has the rare feeling of tardiness not actually being his fault.
He heads down the hall towards the locker rooms, ready at last for practice. Luke follows a few paces behind him, still complaining, something about saving violence for the ice. Bullshit, obviously. Jack does what he wants, where he wants. Hasn’t Luke figured that out by now?
Jack steals a glance over his shoulder just to rub in the injury. Luke meets his gaze and glowers, still pissy from almost taking a nose dive off his chair, but all of a sudden his eyes widen at something in front of them. Jack whips around just in time to collide with someone exiting one of the offices.
It’s not an accidental almost-impact, either, this is a complete disaster. Papers go flying. Jack manages to keep his balance, but the victim of his distraction is worse off. He has to fling out both hands to steady them, catching at their arms at the elbow before they fall over. A dozen apologies rise to his lips, but Jack only gets through about half of them before he actually looks at the person he’s just bumped into– and look, indeed, he does.
Jack has just run into a girl his age, and a very pretty girl at that. He gets lost in her eyes without even meaning to, captivated by the way the light shines in them as she opens her mouth and says, “What the hell are you doing?”
Jack blinks in surprise, feeling like he’s just been abruptly pulled out of a dream. “Huh?”
The girl stares at him like he’s crazy. “Why are you holding onto me?”
Too late, Jack realizes he never actually let go of her when he was trying to steady her. He snatches his hands away, the sinking feeling settling in that he actually has no idea how long he was standing there, captivated. No wonder this girl thinks he’s insane. This random guy comes up, runs into her, then silently holds her in his arms for what’s probably more than just a second or two? Yeah, that’s crazy in anyone’s books.
“Sorry,” Jack says again. They look at each other warily for a moment longer, then collectively, both gazes drop to the papers spilled across the ground.
Immediately, Jack dives for them, trying to gather as many as he can. He springs up again, and, not trusting himself to say anything that isn’t stupid, just awkwardly holds out the papers until she takes them. The girl gives him one last disbelieving glance, then walks purposefully past him. Jack turns and watches her go, wondering why he feels vaguely disappointed that she hadn’t stopped to talk longer. He didn’t even get her name.
Raucous laughter breaks out the second the girl disappears around a corner. Belatedly, Jack remembers that Luke has witnessed the whole thing, which is just great. The last thing Luke needs is more ammunition for making fun of him.
“That was, like, the least smooth thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” Luke chokes out. “What the fuck was that?”
Heat flares into Jack’s cheeks. “Shut up,” he says, turning back to continue walking down the hallway.
Luke, however, is unwilling to let go of the horrific blunder. He trots up to walk by Jack’s side, regardless of how much Jack tries to pick up the pace. “I mean, Jesus. Way to make an entrance. Poor girl’s probably going to log that with HR.”
“Shut up,” Jack repeats through gritted teeth. “I’ve seen you do worse in front of fans.”
“We’re not talking about me right now, we’re talking about you,” Luke says happily. “I’m so telling Quinn about this.”
“You are not,” Jack warns, but even after many threats of serious violence, he’s not entirely convinced that his older brother won’t hear about this.
Jack almost manages to put the whole thing out of his mind until he and the others are hanging out in the locker room later that day. They’re all dressed, but their coach wanted a few words before they hit the ice, apparently something bureaucratic that Jack can’t wait to forget.
Instead of being introduced to a new friend of the owner or some wealthy donor, however, Coach announces that they’ll be meeting their new social media intern. Online presence is crucial for sponsors, apparently, and the Devils need to up their game. So they say. Jack thinks it’s a lot of nonsense, and is fully prepared to treat it as such until their coach beckons the new intern into the room and Jack realizes he knows her. This isn’t a stranger, someone he can ignore without another thought. This is the pretty girl Jack just ran into earlier today, and she’s the one in charge of most of his Internet footprint.
Great.
Across the room, Luke is grinning ear to ear. This is so not what Jack wanted. The coach is saying something about how they’ll all be pulled one by one today for introductions and a few quick videos that can be parceled out during the next week or so. Usually, they would ask Nico first, captain rights and all that, but they need him to advise on some drills, so they go for the next best– Jack himself.
They’ll be filming TikToks or whatever a few halls over so as to not distract anyone, so Jack makes his way over with no small amount of trepidation. She hadn’t seemed so excited to meet him earlier, but maybe she’ll have forgotten who he was. It was a fast exchange. Maybe this means nothing at all, and they will have a great meeting, and he could even get her number or something. Yeah, not a problem.
The girl is setting up a phone on a stand when Jack shows up. She glances once at him as he approaches, then nods. “Oh, we’re starting with Mr. Observant. Cool.”
Jack feels his face turn a bright scarlet. “I’m not– I’m sorry about that. Honestly. I just didn’t see you.”
“That’s fine,” the girl says with a listless wave of her hand. “It was funny. I just thought hockey players would have more reflexes or something, I don’t know. Anyway, what’s your name, again?”
This is a simple question. It really is. Yet for some reason, Jack finds himself bothered. He’s been with the team for a while now, had that A on his uniform for a while now, and maybe he shouldn’t, but he’s gotten comfortable with his reputation. People know who he is. He’s recognized on the street, asked for photos while he’s getting coffee, all of that. And now this girl– this intern– is pretending like she doesn’t know who he is, and insulting his reflexes to boot?
“Jack,” Jack replies tersely. “Are you going to tell me your name, or should I just guess?”
“Y/N,” the girl answers him. “What do you do on the ice except run into people?”
“I play hockey,” Jack deadpans. “What else do you want me to say?”
Y/N just smiles at him, the picture of innocence. “Your position? This is supposed to be an introduction, isn’t it? I have to make sure I have a good picture of the team.”
Fine. Fine. Jack can be civil. He’s going to play along and then he’s going to leave and make somebody else deal with her.
“Yeah, position. I’m an alternate captain, a center. Left wing. That matters.” He feels like he’s rambling. This is stupid. He’s stupid. He never does this.
“Sure it does,” Y/N says, one eyebrow raised. “Do you have to tell everyone you’re cool or just the interns?”
“Huh?” Jack asks. “I’m not– I’m just talking.”
Y/N nods. “I’m sure you do. Talking and hockey, that’s impressive. I can see why the Devils wanted you.”
“Your team spirit needs some work,” Jack notes. “Why’d they hire you, your winning personality?”
“That, and I’m wonderful at making infographics,” Y/N informs him breezily.
“I bet they’re terrible,” Jack says on instinct. “Clashing colors and all that. Can you even draw a straight line?”
Y/N cocks her head to the side. “I don’t know, can you shoot on goal without getting injured?”
Jack takes a step forward on instinct before he remembers that he cannot fight social media interns and backs down. Still, the anger simmers in his head so bad he’s not sure if the red all around him is for the Devils or just the film of rage clouding his eyes.
This isn’t good for him. His team needs him out there on the ice with a level head, even in practice. Jack forces a smile and says, “I guess you’ll see at our next game, won’t you?”
Y/N meets his gaze with a mirror smirk, which bothers Jack more than if she’d tried to one-up him again. He grabs his stick with more force than necessary, making himself step past her and onto the ice before he does something he’ll regret. Once he’s out there, skating broad loops to warm up, Jack can almost put the whole exchange out of his head.
Almost.
Luke finds him after practice, because of course he does. Somedays, Luke swears that little brothers must be born with an innate knowledge of how to stick their heads into other people’s business. Fleetingly, he wonders what Quinn would think about that, then moves on before that lesson can settle in.
“I love our new intern,” Luke says happily on the drive back to their apartment.
Jack scoffs. “Sure you do. You love rubbing this in my face.”
Luke glances at him, surprised. “No, honestly. I think she’s great. Super funny, too.”
Jack turns to stare at him with disbelief so abruptly he almost swerves the car into a telephone pole. Veering to correct course, Jack spits out, “Y/N? You think Y/N is great?”
Once Luke stops pretending like they’ve almost died– which they didn’t, by the way, Jack had everything under control– he calms down enough to say, “Yeah, I do. She was super nice to me. I need to ask if she’s local so we can hang after the internship ends.”
Jack feels as if he’s been dropped into an alternate reality. “You’re serious. You really do like Y/N?”
Now Luke’s looking at him like he’s the crazy one. “Like I said, yeah. Why, what happened when you talked to her? Was she still mad about earlier?”
“You could say that,” Jack grits out, knuckles white around the steering wheel.
Luke chuckles. “That’s kind of funny, actually.”
“It is not,” Jack mutters, but Luke remains in high spirits the whole drive back anyway.
To the great amusement of his younger brother, Jack and Y/N continue to be at odds the next time the Devils have to film social media videos, and the next time, and the next. Even when they start off a meeting on relatively stable ground, something will happen to have them sniping again, and they’ll be at each other’s throats by the time they leave the building in the evening.
What makes it worse is that Jack is apparently the only one suffering from Y/N’s cold shoulder. Everyone from the captain to the rookies seems to have gotten along just fine with their newest social media intern, yet Jack feels like he walks around with a target on his back every time she’s in office. They’ve started to ignore each other instead of purposely tossing insults, but that’s as close as he’ll ever get to a truce.
Jack has started counting down the days until she leaves. He would love some peace and quiet. Maybe the next intern will be normal, or they’ll all be poisoned forever just because Y/N L/N showed up and changed Jack’s life for good.
God, he feels like she’s crept into every part of his world. He’ll be scrolling on his phone and the videos she filmed will appear on his For You page out of nowhere. Jack swears he can sense her in every quick cut, every box of text, every song selection. Walking through the arena, he sees her everywhere– ducking into a meeting room, discussing potential videos with some of the PR agents, tucked into the bleachers so she can watch them practice and snap some shots. Jack is starting to seriously wonder if there has ever been a time when she hasn’t been wound around him like a loose thread come undone from his favorite coat.
Even now, he can see her. Jack has finally left a late-night practice, breath fogging up in the cold evening air. He’s glad for the warmth of his car when he slides in. Luke went back with some friends, but Jack had wanted to hang around a while longer to practice some skills before the next game.
Y/N must have been working late too, because he can see her now, walking out of the parking lot and towards the sidewalk leading into town. Jack assumes she’s waiting for someone to pick her up, but Y/N’s steps don’t show any indication of slowing down. Is she actually walking on a night like this? Jack is cold just thinking about the weather outside. Y/N has a coat on, but it won’t be enough to discourage the bite of the wind.
Before he can even think about what he’s doing, he’s pulled his car alongside her. Y/N looks panicked when he comes to a stop, but relaxes somewhat when Jack rolls down the window and calls out to her. “Are you waiting for someone?”
Y/N shakes her head. “No, I’m walking back. Have a nice night.”
She turns back to the sidewalk, evidently expecting him to keep driving. Jack also expects himself to keep driving, but he doesn’t. “It’s awfully cold to be walking. How far is your apartment?”
“Not far,” Y/N says. “Twenty minutes, maybe?”
That settles it. “You’re not walking twenty minutes in the freezing cold,” Jack decides. “Besides, I thought you were dropped off. Isn’t someone coming to pick you up?”
Y/N pauses oddly, and it occurs to Jack that he probably shouldn’t be noticing how she gets to and from work each day. Still, when she speaks again, he’s pretty sure the annoyance in her voice isn’t directed at him, for once. “I was dropped off, but my friend canceled on me. Hence the walk.”
Jack’s mood immediately sours. That’s a shitty move for sure, and even if he doesn’t always see eye to eye with Y/N, he’d never leave her out here, shivering even after a few minutes of walking. And he won’t tonight, either.
“I can drive you, if you like,” Jack offers abruptly. He’s not sure why he does it. He never has before. They’ve never been in a position like this before, and maybe they won’t either. Still, he doesn’t take it back.
Y/N, apparently heedless of the gravity of this offer, just smiles and shakes her head. “That’s alright, I’ll just call an Uber. Thanks, though.’
Jack blinks and stares at her. It had taken such a rush to get the words out that it honestly didn’t occur to him that she would just say no. “Is this because you’re mad at me?”
“I’m not mad at you, Jack,” Y/N laughs. “I’m walking. You should get going soon, you’re going to disrupt traffic.”
“Fuck traffic, you’re cold,” Jack says disbelievingly. “Get in the car, Y/N. Please?”
She looks like she’s going to argue, but a particularly frigid gust of wind rips through that thin jacket and a moment later, Y/N is settling into his passenger seat. She turns to look at him, and Jack looks back at her, just a few spans apart. They’re close enough that he can see the flutter of her eyelashes as she blinks. Close enough that he could reach out and touch the slow bloom of cold on her cheek if he just tried.
“So?” Jack manages to pull himself together long enough to ask, “What’s your address?”
Y/N blinks, evidently startled out of some reverie, then pulls it up on her phone. Jack follows the directions, fingers drumming absentmindedly on the steering wheel. The car is quiet, and it weighs on him like a burden until he finally blurts out, “Why do you hate me, though?”
Y/N looks baffled. “I don’t hate you.”
Jack snorts. “Of course you do. You get along with every single member of this team but me, it’s a little hard not to take that personally. Come on, just tell me. Is it because I ran into you that first day?”
Y/N laughs again. It’s one of the few times it’s with him, not at him, and Jack lets the sound wash over him like sunlight. It’s a good sound. He wouldn’t mind hearing it again, maybe.
“That was funny. No, it wasn’t that. It’s just–” Her voice drops off, suddenly serious. “Do you remember Emma? She was your social media intern last summer. She’s the one who suggested I take this program, actually.”
Vague memories appear in Jack’s head. “Kind of? We’ve had a lot of interns.”
“Yeah, well, she’s one of my best friends, and the most important piece of advice she gave me before I started was to stay the hell away from you.”
Jack almost misses his turn. “What? Why?”
He risks a glance away from the road and towards her, but Y/N is keeping her head perfectly straight, not allowing herself to look at him in the slightest. “Something about you breaking her heart. She seems to remember you flirting a lot, buying her drinks, then dumping her for someone more interesting the second the internship ended.”
Jack winces. “That does sound familiar, actually. Sorry. I didn’t mean to–”
Y/N interrupts him with a wave of her hand. “Yeah, no, I get it. I love Emma, I really do, but she’s got a habit of moving quickly. Still, she was really hurt for a while. I figured anyone who could do that to my friend and not even remember was someone who didn’t need me to be nice to them.”
Guilt starts to pool in Jack’s stomach, icing him down to the core. “Still. I was a dick.”
“You still are, on occasion,” Y/N says, smiling slightly, “But I’ve been bad too, I think. I wanted to get revenge for my friend, but I’ve been more mean than needed. I’m sorry too.”
Jack comes to a slow stop in front of one of the notoriously long red lights of their shared city. As the scarlet of the traffic light washes over them, Jack takes advantage of the stopped traffic to hold out a hand to her. “How about a truce, then? If we’re both sorry?”
Y/N considers his outstretched hand, then nods at last and shakes it. “I’m good with that. Let’s start over.”
“Let’s start over,” Jack repeats.
Her hand is still a little cold in his, even after the few minutes they’ve spent talking. It occurs to Jack that he could probably sit here for a while longer, warm her hands up with his, and then Y/N nudges him in the side and Jack realizes the light has turned green. He drops her hand hastily, turning back to the road in the hopes that she won’t notice the slow flush of heat to his cheeks.
The rest of the drive back is uneventful. Jack offers to walk Y/N to the door of her apartment complex, which Y/N jokingly calls creepy then smiles for real when he insists. They part with a promise to try harder next time, and Jack doesn’t think his feet have ever felt so light on the walk back from practice. He goes to bed that night like a little kid, practically giddy at the thought of the day ahead.
Looking back on it, Jack isn’t sure what he expected to happen with them after that. A celebration, maybe some fanfares? Or just a normal conversation in which she expressed how glad she was to see him and Jack could do the same? He doesn’t get any of that. In fact, they hardly see each other for most of the next few days. This isn’t too unexpected; although they love to complain, the players and media don’t see each other that often unless someone’s sworn on live TV or otherwise messed up their online presence.
Still, by the time Jack’s path finally crosses with Y/N’s, he’s really hoping for something special. He’s sort of crazy the whole time they’re filming videos, all raised eyebrows and hopeful glances, but instead of seizing the opportunity to make fun of him, Y/N just giggles a little and goes on with her life. It’s not bad, all things considered, but Jack– Jack wants more.
When hasn’t he, after all, wanted more? He wants to be better at skating. He wants to score more goals. He wants to stop getting brushed off by the commentators. He wants, more than anything, for some reason, for the pretty girl interning for their media department to do more than just look at him with a faint smile every now and then.
The sheer wanting starts to consume him. Jack goes out of his way to be exceptionally funny, astoundingly clever, practically fantastic in every way, yet nothing seems to wow Y/N. They’re just talking, which is certainly more than he had a few weeks ago, but Jack doesn’t want to just be talking to her, he wants to be back in his car again, with her leaning over and laughing at his jokes, her cold hands in his, telling him that maybe she’d misjudged him after all. Jack doesn’t just want more, he wants her, and that is making him insane.
Worse still is the fact that he doesn’t have her. Jack has spent his whole life, it feels like, hating the ‘pretty boy hockey player’ persona. He’s certain it’s cost him deals or trades or something over the years with the way people refuse to take him seriously. Yet now, Jack isn’t cursing its existence, but rather wondering why the hell it hasn’t worked. He’s still the same guy, same face. That stubborn acne patch on his chin has been clear for weeks now. He got a haircut, and people said it was good this time. Everything should be in his favor, looks-wise. So why doesn’t it seem to have a single effect?
It’s baffling, honestly. Jack cannot stand it. Worse still, the internship period is starting to slip away, and soon enough Y/N will be gone for good, leaving Jack to reel in her absence and wonder why he couldn’t make her like him enough to stay.
His mood sours whenever he thinks about it, which is often. Like now, even, in between Jack’s hours on the ice. They’re swapping out players in shifts, and Jack won’t be on for another five minutes or so. He’s sitting on one of the metal bleachers, hoping that watching the others will help keep his mind off things, but it’s not working too well.
Someone sits down right next to him, and Jack is about to start asking why they couldn’t pick anywhere fucking else to sit when he realizes it’s Y/N.
“Oh,” he says, trying desperately to sound cool and not bone-tired from practice, “Hey. D’you need another TikTok or something?”
“No TikToks,” Y/N says, smiling. “We can do a bonus one if you want, though, I know how much you love them.”
Jack chuckles. “They’ve been growing on me.” No reason why.
Y/N grins like she knows exactly what he’s thinking. “High praise. I hope you carry that spirit to the next social media intern, too.”
Jack sighs plaintively. “Do you really have to go? You fit in well, you know. You might as well stay a little longer.”
“That so?” Y/N asks, one eyebrow raised.
Jack looks away. “I don’t know. I heard some of the guys saying–”
Y/N cuts him off, lips twitching up into a smile. “I don’t care about the guys, Jack. What do you think?”
“I think you should stay,” Jack mumbles. He still can’t look her in the eyes. “With me.”
As soon as he says it, he knows it’s true. It doesn’t have to be through the Devils or not. He just wants Y/N with him for a while longer, to tease him when he’s being stupid and cheer for him during the games. He wants to hear her laugh longer than just the next few days. He wants to get coffee and buy flowers and match outfits and do a hundred things that would be special because he’d be doing them with her. That, more than anything, is what he wants.
A soft pressure on his hand; Jack looks up to realize Y/N has put her fingers over his, and squeezes slightly. He squeezes back by instinct.
“I want that too, Jack,” she tells him.
The smallest spark of luck is creeping back into his veins. “I thought you didn’t go for hotshot hockey players,” he says. “Especially not ones that flirted with the interns.”
Y/N rolls her eyes, but she’s laughing slightly, so they’re okay. “I wasn’t supposed to do that. The idea was that I would try to avoid it.”
Jack grins. “How’s that working out for you?”
“Surprisingly badly,” Y/N confesses. “I’m not too mad about it, though. Something tells me we’re going to make this work out.”
“It will,” Jack promises. He’s going to make sure of it. Looking at Y/N, the light in her eyes when she smiles, Jack knows that he’s going to do everything in his power to keep her. He rubs his thumb over her hand, still in his, and cannot help but think about how lucky he is.
Y/N looks like she’s going to start blushing. “Let’s talk about this when all of your teammates aren’t watching,” she says suddenly.
Jack glances up and realizes that he’s on the receiving end of quite a few curious looks from the Devils still on the ice. Luke, especially, looks like he has several questions he wants to ask. Jack groans, mentally preparing himself for the absolute nuisance his little brother will become on the drive home.
Still, it doesn’t faze him for long. “How about we talk about it this Saturday?” Jack asks. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”
Y/N is breathtaking when she smiles at him. Jack might have to keep looking forever, just so he remembers. “I think that sounds alright to me.”
Jack opens his mouth to say something stupid like how he can’t wait, but the coach blows a whistle to usher him and some of the others back onto the ice, and Jack is saved from himself. “I’ll see you then,” he repeats somewhat needlessly.
Y/N nods, and Jack turns to leave. He’s still got most of his senses intact, despite evidence to the contrary, and Jack does know better than to kiss Y/N in front of his whole team and coach in the middle of practice, but– well, there’s a difference between what Jack knows and what Jack does, and today, he kisses her anyway. It’s good. Really good. Good enough to deal with the teasing when he finally makes it down to the ice. Good enough to keep him hooked until their date, and the next, and the next. Good enough for forever.