Hit Hard

Charlene ripped open an envelope with Jason’s return address on it. She inspected the card. It was an invitation to his and his fiancee’s wedding. Charlene smiled when she saw it. Her brother was never on time with anything. An invite three weeks before the wedding! At least they had gotten out a save the date card on time.

Charlene chuckled at the theme “Ardmore Tigers Rivalry Weekend”. The invitation was blue and gold, our high school colors. Ardmore was a huge football town. Everyone in town traveled in a caravan to the away games to watch the Tigers play. Charlene guessed it was because there wasn’t much else to do in the middle of rural Oklahoma, but Jason did meet his fiancee, Lila at a football game, they got engaged at a football game too. So why not incorporate it onto the wedding? Charlene suspected that they were going to announce that they were moving back to Ardmore at their wedding.

Charlene out the invitation down on the kitchen counter. She had already made plans to go, and stay with her parents for the wedding. She sighed as she walked upstairs. She had three weeks to prepare to go back to Ardmore. She didn’t know if she should be scared or excited to go, but she did know that it was her brother’s day and that she would go and be happy for him.
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Claude thought about Charlene on his way to practice. She was something else, and he really liked her. She was smart, and didn’t even try to pretend she knew about hockey to impress him, she just was herself. She was awesome. It had been more than a week since he had seen her. She had been really busy with work, but he longed to see her again. He sat down and laced up his skates.

He worked on his skating, stickhandling, and shooting with his coach. They had the ice all to themselves. He skated down the ice, carrying the puck to the net. He shot it, and skated back behind the trapezoid. Something caught his eye as he whizzed past the glass. It was a pretty blonde girl sitting in the stands all by herself. He smiled as he skated by. Charlene must be psychic or something, because all he had to do was think of her and she appeared.
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“So,” Claude sat down next to Carlene on the bleachers. “to what do I owe this pleasure?”

“I was in the neighborhood.” She smiled.

“Really?” He grinned.

“Well,” she replied. “I haven’t seen you in a while. I had to make sure you hadn’t forgotten about me.” Claude smiled and ran his hand through his hair. He definitely didn’t forget about her.

“Nice.” He smiled. “And now I know that you didn’t forget about me.” Charlene pushed a piece of her hair behind her ear.

“I did come for another reason though.” Charlene started.

“Uh huh?”

“My company is having a gala for our owner’s charity. Its black tie. I get free tickets.” She smiled. “Do you want to come?”

“Is there an auction? Raffle tickets?” He asked. “I love those!”

“Yeah.” She laughed. “There’s both.” She smiled. “And who likes silent auctions?”

“I do.” He smiled. “C’mon.” He stood up and put his arm around Charlene. “Lets go get coffee.”

Notes