1. Beer, Nachos, and Body Checks
(Harper’s POV)
There’s an art to carrying nachos and beer without spilling either. Sadly, that art doesn’t come with health insurance.
The trick is balance, confidence, and zero sudden movements — which is nearly impossible inside a hockey arena where the crowd is half-drunk and fully insane. But I’m a professional. Or at least, a very tired beer vendor with enough grace to survive playoff season without wearing melted cheese as a hat.
So far, I’m undefeated.
“Aisle ten, row B,” I mutter to myself, gripping the tray in my left hand and two towering draft beers in my right. It’s the third period of a nail-biter between the Carolina Vultures and... someone else. I’m too overworked to care who the enemy is. All I know is the Vultures need this win, the arena is packed to the rafters, and I have approximately two minutes to deliver these concessions before someone starts screaming.
I duck around a foam finger, sidestep a guy painted head to toe like a tax-deductible eagle, and slide through a row of people who apparently think I’m a ghost and not a human trying to work.
The beers slosh dangerously.
“Excuse me. Pardon me. Don’t mind me — just your local nacho fairy,” I mutter as I squeeze past a couple aggressively making out in front of section C.
By the time I reach section B, my shoulder’s cramping and the smell of stadium mustard has embedded itself into my soul.
Row B is already half-standing. The tension in the arena is electric — that final-two-minutes-of-hope kind of energy. The Vultures are one goal down, the puck’s in play, I could light a match and it’d explode from adrenaline alone.
I find the order — three frat bros in jerseys that cost more than my monthly groceries.
“Beer girl!” the one in the backwards hat waves at me like I’m a bartender at his private VIP party. “Yo, right here!”
I clench my jaw and hand over the beers, resisting the urge to dump one down his cargo shorts for the greater good of womankind.
“Here’s your order,” I say sweetly. “Please don’t throw them.”
Frat Bro laughs like I’m kidding. I am not.
As I’m handing off the last beer to the second guy-
GOAL.
No —THE goal.
The buzzer blares. The arena explodes. The crowd goes feral.
And I turn—
Just in time for a full-grown, sweaty, velocity-enhanced human being to crash into me.
Like from above. Above. A hockey-playing skydiver without a parachute.
Over the glass.
And into my body.
I don’t even have time to swear. I just go down.
The tray of nachos arcs through the air like it’s in slow motion — a tragic, greasy rainbow of cheese and regret. The beers follow suit. I land hard on my back, flat on the sticky arena floor.
I’m winded, stunned, and vaguely aware that someone is lying on top of me.
A lot of someone.
Male.
Large.
Definitely not a small child or an overexcited mascot.
“Shit,” a voice says above me — breathless, male, and way too close. “Are you okay?!”
The smell hits me first —sweat. Ice. Expensive cologne and the faint aroma of fame, filtered water, and media training.
I blink. The lights blur.
And then I see the helmet. The jersey. The number.
Nate Carter.
Star forward. Golden boy of the Carolina Vultures.
Face of half the ads in this building.
Currently sprawled across my ribcage like I’m a fainting couch in a Jane Austen novel.
“I — holy crap — I didn’t see you. Are you hurt?”
My chest’s tight. My head’s ringing. There’s cheese on my tongue. Possibly in my bra. Maybe in my shoes.
“I’ve had worse,” I say flatly, still lying on the ground like a crushed concession ghost.
RIP to the nacho fairy. She died as she lived — covered in cheese and underappreciated.
He blinks. “You’re bleeding.”
I look down. “That’s just salsa.”
“Oh.”
We stare at each other.
Correction: I stare. He looms.
His knee is... somewhere it shouldn’t be.
I clear my throat. “You planning to get off me, or are we dating now?”
He blinks. Then scrambles up like I’m made of live wires. “Sorry—yes—oh my god—sorry.”
He offers a hand. I don’t take it. I sit up, start picking shredded lettuce out of my ponytail, and try to collect whatever shred of dignity I still possess.
“Just so you know,” I say, flicking a jalapeño off my boob, “you owe me nachos. And probably a tetanus shot. And maybe a new spine.”
“I’ll replace everything,” he blurts. “The nachos. Your shirt. Your—dignity? No. Not that. You still have that. Definitely.”
I squint up at him, brushing cheese off my arm. “Calm down, Romeo. It’s not your first time tackling someone, is it?”
He flinches.
The camera flashes start before I even register the moment’s over.
Phones are out. People are recording. The crowd is roaring with laughter and cheers and oh god—chanting.
“THAT’S HIS GIRLFRIEND!” someone else yells.
“HE JUMPED THE GLASS FOR LOVE!”
I can’t breathe. Not from the hit — from the sound of a thousand people turning my accident into a rom-com punchline.
People start cheering. Phones flash. Cameras snap.
And just like that — I go viral.
Not in the hot girl, influencer-y way.
In the look at this girl who got flattened by a famous athlete and is now a meme kind of way.
I can already feel it — the shift.
From person to spectacle.
From Harper Lin to Section Bae.
And I haven’t even stood up yet.
Nate Carter looks at me like he wants the earth to swallow him whole.
I sigh, wipe salsa off my arm, and mutter, “This is why I don’t date athletes.”
In forty-eight hours, the internet will declare me Nate Carter’s one true love.
In seventy-two, I’ll be under contract to fake it.
But right now?
I just want my damn nachos. And maybe a hole to crawl into that doesn’t have WiFi.
