20 or so seconds left, game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals. Jake was in net for the Blues who held a one goal lead against the Lightning and a face off in the Blues zone, but another certain St.Louis native was on the ice, and Jake was certain that if the rebound was in front, he would try for another goal like against the Stars in double OT in game seven back in 2019, and would send them to OT. The puck is dropped, the Lightning wins the face off and the blue liner holds the puck for just a bit before shooting. Jake blocks it and the rebound heads to the side, but not in the corner. Jake moves to get in the way when he sees number 14 of the Lightning reaching for the puck, but Jake just manages to get his stick up to block it and send it into the corner. Justin Fulk grabs the puck and clears it, with Jordan Kyrou grabbing it to avoid an icing. The clock ticks down, five, four, three, two, one. The horn sounds and Jake tosses his glove, blocker, and stick into the air in celebration as the Blues bench clears onto the ice and dog piles the goalie. Both teams line up to shake hands, with Jake and Patrick Maroon leading both lines and the St.Louis natives go to shake hands.
"Jake wake up." Maroon's lips move, but Monika's voice comes out. That's when he feels a shaking motion, and wakes up to see that Monika is sitting on the side of his bed.
"Monika, what are you doing in here?"
"Waking you up, come on. It's just the two of us."
"What about Josh and the Wilsons?" Jake asks as he rubs his eyes and sits up.
"Josh and CJ went to help Lexy with her shooting and pick handling. They will be gone for a good part of the day. And I thought I would celebrate your shutout last night with brakefast, so get dressed."
"Where are we going?"
"A diner just out of town, let's make a day out of it."
"Alright, mind giving me privacy."
"Yep, just holler for me when you're ready." Monika says as she leaves the room and winks at him before she closes the door. Jake grabs a pair of jorts and a gray T-shirt before grabbing his phone and wallet and stepping out.
"Monika, are you good to go?" Jake calls for her and she steps out of her room in a light blue blouse and short jorts. "No jacket today?"
"I thought I would change it up a bit. Do you like it?"
"I think it fits you."
"I gotta get you looking somehow."
"Whatever, let's go." Jake rolls his eyes before they head out. as they leave. They have small talk, like weather and such until about half way. "You know, I wish you didn't wake me up when you did." Jake says as they come to a red light.
"Why's that… oh, were you having that dream again?"
"Yep."
"Did you atleast get to touch the Cup this time?"
"Nope, I shook Maroon's hand and out came your voice."
"Oh, I'm sorry Jake." Monika puts her hand on his shoulder and gives him a warm smile as it turns green and she continues to drive. "Talking about sleep, sorry for falling asleep on your shoulder, and thanks for taking me back to my room when it dawned on you."
"Not a problem."
"Oh, you want to know what Alexa told me? She said you tried to take me into your room, she was like, I doubt he would have tried to do anything but he wanted to know how your whole body felt against his. But not to worry, I had put a stop to it and had him take you to your room."
"And you really believe her?"
"Fuck no, I know you dude. You would never try something like that."
"I guess Alexa thinks because we are good friends, we must be a thing or something." Jake says as Monika goes quiet. "Monika, you good."
"Hmm, yeah I'm good, just kinda lost in thought. And no worries, I was still focused on the road."
"Alrighty." Jake says, with a tiny hint of concern as they pull into the parking lot.
"We're here. Come on, let's get some food." Monika says as they get out of the vehicle and head in. Jake opens the door and they allow an older couple to exit, who thank him for holding the door, and Monika heads in. "Why, aren't you the definition of a gentleman." Monika teases as Jake follows her in. They see that there are two stools open at the end of the counter and they take a seat, Monika at the very end, and Jake to the left of her, next to a young man about their age. "Oh, by the way. No need to worry about the price, I got the bill." Monika says with a small smile, until they hear the man to Jake's left mumble about something. "I'm sorry, what was that?" She asks the man, now sounding a little pissed off.
"I said it isn't cool for a guy to not at least split the bill." The man turns to the two, his white hair and red eyes give off somewhat of a lazy vibe.
"Well mister, secretary of cool, I would have him pay for his own stuff. But I'm treating him to celebrate his shutout last night in goal." Monika responds in a matter of fact tone.
"Is that so, congrats bear leaguer, maybe we can call you to be an emergency goalie when we play the Cardinals for real in the regular season." He says, giving them a cocky grin, showing his unusually sharp teeth. That is until a woman, again about their age, with sandy blond hair in pigtails about near caves his head in with a big ass book.
"Stop messing with the local Soul." She sits on the other side of Soul, before reaching over his unconscious, leaning more towards dead body, sticking her hand to shake theirs. "Sorry about all that. I'm Maka." Monika reaches out and shakes her hand.
"I'm Monika, and this is Jake."
"How are you doing?" They shake hands and Maka tries to resuscitate Soul.
"You guys are locals right?"
"Yep, Jake is a St.Louis native and I was an immigrant from Germany." Monika says as the tv in the corner talks about the game from last night.
"Last night, pre-season MLH hockey, the Death City Reapers visited the St.Louis Hockey Cardinals. About half way through the first, Monika Hall on a rush, beats Ox Ford and Justin Law in net to give the Cardinal's a one nothing lead. Reapers Maka Alburn along with Soul Evans tries to tie it up on a rush before the end of the period but goalie Robert Jake Meredith is able to keep it a one goal game." The four all turn to look at one another, giving the other two a blank stair."
"Oh… you meant us when you said he had a shutout." Soul says in a monotone voice.
"I wondered where I saw your guys' faces before." Monika adds.
"This is embarrassing." Maka states, covering her face.
"Wait, why the hell are you still here then?" Jake asks as the others snap out of whatever trance-like state they were in.
"Oh, our team doesn't fly out of here until tonight, we have two days between the game here and in Pork Belly. So we thought."
"You thought."
"I thought it would be fun to go and see the city before we leave." Maka answers as a server comes up to take Jake and Monika's orders. Once their food comes out, Maka and Soul pay their bill and stand up. "Well, it was nice to meet you two. Good luck on your season."
"You too. See y'all around." Jake waves as they leave. They eat their food, ironically they order similar stuff, and go on their way.
"So, what do you wanna do next?" Monika asks as she pays.
"I don't know, spending the day hanging out together was your idea." Jake shrugs his shoulders.
"I just thought it would be nice to let you decide on something to do. I don't want to just drag you around on things I wanna do."
"Fair enough. I got an idea, how about visiting the Arch Grounds?"
"That's the spirit. Come on, let's get going." Monika grabs Jake's arm and races out to her vehicle. They hop in and she types something into her phone.
"Who are you texting?"
"No one, I just don't know how to get there."
"Ah okay."
"You know, I've never been to the Arch."
"Really, I have. Back when Josh and I were kids, our parents took the family."
"That's cool, I forget. Didn't firefighters have to spray it down in order to basically keep the workers from getting cooked on the surface?"
"Yep, and if our dad is to be believed. Our grandpa was one of the said firemen."
"Well, you said he was a fireman, so I can believe it. And it's a lot more believable than you being related to Lewis AND Clark." Monika says with a small chuckle.
"Now that shit was stupid." Jake laughs a bit at his apparent family tree and looks out to see their destination in the distance.
"I always wanted to visit the Arch, you know that."
"I can believe that." He looks over to her and notices her graduation ring on her right hand, the side facing him has the German flag. "Say, have you ever visit home?"
"Dude, you know I visit my parents every couple of months."
"That's not what I meant."
"Oh?"
"I mean, have you ever gone back to visit Germany?"
"Oh, uh no. No I haven't." Monika gets quiet for a moment.
"Do you ever want to?" She doesn't answer, which gives him some concern. "I'm sorry if it's a sour subject."
"No, you're good. I mean, I would love to. But my grandparents weren't too happy about my mother leaving the country with my dad."
"I see."
"I remember after our first game in highschool together, my mom thought we were a couple." She chuckles before going quiet.
"Classic Hall, change subject mid topic." Jake jokes with her, getting an upset look from her soft blue eyes.
"Classic Jake, talk shit on his friends." She responds with a disappointed tone.
"Oh come on, you know I'm joking." He says as they pull in, only for her to turn back around. "What are you doing? You just pulled into the Arch Grounds."
"I'm not feeling good all of a sudden."
"What's wrong?"
"Migraine. So keep quiet." She says as she drives back to the house. Once home, she marches to her room, rather angrily, and lies down.
"I don't think it's actually a migraine." Jake says to himself before turning the tv on. He changes the channel to see that more MLH preseason is happening. The Metal Bey City Bladders hosting the Vale Ursas, where the latter leads 3-1 half way through the third.
"Weiss grabs the puck behind the Bladders net. Kyoya, looking to cut her off." You see Kyoya, number 78 of the Bladders, lower his shoulder and CRACK. He nails her with the shoulder, but accidentally puts his shoulder into her jaw. "OH HE TOOK HER OUT… and a stoppage in play, looks like he may have put the shoulder to the head. Accident or not, he is still going to the box." The ref and linesman get together to review the footage.
"After review of the play, Metal Bey City number 78, four minute double major for an unintentional hit to the head." Kyoya heads to the penalty box and a faceoff happens in the Bladders zone.
"If Vale wins the faceoff, expect them to try and feed it to Rose." The commentator says as the Bladders win the face-off. The Defensemen clears the puck to the neutral zone and one of the forwards, number 7, picks it up behind the Ursas' net. "Amano picks it up behind Xio Long." She tries to jam it in but the Ursas' goalie stops it and kicks it into the corner. Amano goes to get the puck back, but Vale's number 77 comes in and boards her, leading with a shoulder to the head, with no room for it to be seen as an accident. All the players in blue and red on the ice rush him, with number 11 dropping the gloves. "And Hagane wants a piece of Winchester after that dirty hit." They grab each other and start swinging. Hagane's helmet comes off in the fight but Winchester is considered the loser as he slips after whiffing a punch, falling to the ice. The trainers help Amano off the ice and into the locker room and the refs point Winchester to do the same. Vale's number 1 and number 61 as well as Hagane headed over to the penalty boxes.
"Vale number 77 has been ejected from the game, Vale number 3 and Metal Bey City number 11, five minutes for fighting, Vale Number 3 will also serve 10 minutes for a game misconduct."
"So Belladonna will stay in the box for the rest of the game thanks to Cardin's game misconduct. They will have a four on three power play for three minutes, or until they score two goals. Then it's four on four for two, then the Bladders will have a standard power play for the rest of the game." Play resumes as both teams number 12's face off, with the Bladders winning the faceoff. The puck heads back to number 46 of the Bladders, who fires a shot that Vale's goalie keeps out, but she can't stop the shot off the rebound. "Score, Masamune Kadoya makes it a one goal game." Play resumes and both teams get scoring chances but the goalies stand tall, and three minutes comes to an end and Kyoya leaves the box, and number 65 passes the puck to him, and he drives to the net for a snipe over the glove. "Score, out of the box, into the scorecard. And we are tied at three." The Bladders celebrate the goal and it even shows Hagane banging the glass pane on the door of the box. The puck drops with Vale winning the draw. Nothing happens for the remainder of the fives and it returns to even strength. A few scoring chances later and there is a faceoff in Vale's zone with about 30 seconds left. Bladders win the draw, number 45 holds, passes to Kyoya, holds before firing a shot, Masamune, Bladders number 12, picks it up and centers it, where Bladders number 37 is able to redirect it past the goalie and into the net with about 10 seconds left. "And Otorri puts the Bladders on top, with 10 seconds left to play." The rest of the game goes bye, and the Bladders pick up the win. Jake turns the tv off and decides to take a shower. Once he gets out, he heads into his room and hops onto his laptop to watch some videos. Time passes and he steps out and sees Josh on the couch.
"When did you guys get back?"
"Just a short time ago." CJ answers from the kitchen.
"And Lexy is talking with Monika about her… headache." Josh adds, putting an emphasis on headache.
"What was that about?"
"You know what you did." Josh says, shakes his head.
"No, I don't."
"Whatever you say man, here's some food." CJ tosses a small box that Jake easily catches, without crushing it. "Look at mister soft hand over here."
"I know someone who would love that." Alexa jokes as she walks out of Monika's room, with Monika right behind.
"Shut up Lexy." Monika says, shaking her head.
"You feel better now."
"Much better, thanks for asking."
"Millisa was right." Alexa says as she hands Monika a box and a small sleeve of fries.
"What? Ah, forget it. So, we are having fast food the night before a game?" Jake asks as he opens the box, and Alexa hands him a sleeve of fries.
"Monika did text Lexy to get something fast for dinner, and it was CJ's idea." Josh answers as he turns the tv on and tunes into the local news network, where they are talking about sports.
"Tomorrow night, the Hockey Cardinals will be back in action when they play the Peach Creek Cobblers, coming down from Canada, in preseason hockey. There will be one change that we will see from last night's line up, that being the goalie and one of the defensemen will be swapping places. Jake Meredith will be on the blue line, and Bray Swanson will be in net for the icy Cards." The reporter says as Jake notices the time.
"Welp, I'ma head to bed." Jake says as he finishes his food.
"Shit, we were out for a while." Alexa adds as she looks at her phone.
"Well, I'm going to be up all night. Fuck me." Monika says, banging her hand against her head.
"I think one of the Campbells siblings has some smelling salts if you need it." Josh says as Jake walks away. He grabs his bag with his skater equipment and sets it next to his bedroom door, that way he knows what bag to grab when the time comes to head to the arena.