hockey! shawn
hockey player shawn x figure skater reader
(my gif)
summary: you’re practicing in an empty skating rink when shawn shows up to practice ice hockey.
When you entered the building, the ice rink was empty. There were no customers or any other skaters around considering it was eight in the morning on a Monday. Only the employees were scattered around, fixing up the skates and cleaning up the place. You didn’t mind the emptiness though, of course you loved having the whole rink to yourself and would appreciate the time that you would have until someone showed up and you would have to share the rink with awkward silence and obvious avoidance of each other.
After paying for your entry at the kiosk, you sat at a bench near the entrance of the rink. The cold air already making your cheeks turn pink and your fingers cold, though you were used to it, you still shivered. Taking your skates out from your bag, you took your time to lace them on, listening to the music that was playing over the speakers and watching as the employee drove the Zamboni over the ice. After lacing your skates, you planned what you were going to practice, focusing on your routine and different skills you needed to work on. You didn’t want to waste the time you had at the rink but also have the freedom to mess around and just have fun since there were no other skaters around. It was Winter Break so you just hoped nobody else would show up. Finals were over at your University and you were finally free from classes and lectures, so ice skating was the perfect getaway and a kind of meditation for you. You wanted to spend hours there, getting a lot of time to skate before University would take up most of your schedule.
Putting on your gloves, you leaned on the rails of the rink, waiting for the zamboni to leave. When it did you stepped onto the ice, pushing off slowly, gliding over the surface and feeling the air on your face. You loved the feeling of the newly cleaned surface of the ice, and did a couple rounds around the rink to get warmed up. When you felt more comfortable you began working on your routine for an upcoming competition. It was a difficult routine that had a double axel in it and a double lutz which required a lot of practice from you.
You spent an hour and a half working on your routine, getting it down and nailing it a few times but you were still messing up on your jumps. You fell a few times and got irritated but calmed yourself to keep going and practicing them despite messing up. Planning on perfecting it, you wanted to spend the rest of your time working on your double axel and your lutz. But feeling out of breath, you steppped off the rink for a bit and sat on the bench to take a break. While drinking some water you checked your phone and took some notes of how to perfect your jumps, reminding yourself of where to place your foot and how to time the jumps better.
You were mentally preparing yourself while also cleaning your skates, and brushing off the ice that was on the blade. Then you took one last gulp of water before standing up to enter the rink again, when you heard someone drop their bag on the floor. The sound made you turn your head, making you aware that there was someone else in the area. It was a boy, that you assumed was around your age and he looked oddly familiar to you. He was tall, broad, and had brown hair. It was his jersey that made you realize who he was. He was an ice hockey player that played for your University, you didn’t know his name but the jersey was a dead giveaway of where you remembered him from. You’ve been to one of his games, actually dragged, to his game because your friends were pretty big fans of ice hockey. Your friends enjoyed watching your school’s ice hockey team dominate others but usually they just scouted out the cute and buff players, which the boy who was a few feet away from you now, was one of the players that your friends thought was cute.
He sat down putting on his skates, a hockey stick and large bag of equipment placed right next to him. He didn’t seem aware of your presence which made you glad. You glanced at the back of his jersey seeing the name Mendes, and the number 98, remembering him more clearly now, and the memory of your friends gushing over on how cute he looked when he took off his helmet in the middle of the game.
Regaining your focus, you put your gloves back on and took a deep breath before stepping onto the ice. You did a few rounds, practicing some spins and the axel, before gaining more momentum and doing a double axel, while unaware that the boy on the sidelines was watching you the whole time as he was putting on his skates and pads. He was impressed, and liked how graceful you were. He too felt that you looked familiar to him but he couldn’t pin point who you were.
You didn’t notice when he joined you on the ice rink until he skated fast past you, catching you off guard. Unspokenly, you both decided to ignore each other and continue on with practicing, trying your best to avoid any situation which required you talking to him. You both shared the rink, sometimes he passed you but you didn’t dare meet his eyes. Your main focus was your jumps and routine only. But a few times you glanced at him in curiousity, and saw how really good he was. He skated fast and effortlessly, like a hockey player should, he practiced his shots and dribbled the puck with his stick. A goal was even placed on one end of the rink.
You couldn’t deny that he was good looking; he wore a pink hoodie under his school jersey and his hair was messy but still looked soft. His cheeks were pink and lips red from the cold. You thought he looked like a model, broad and tall. Your friends would’ve been going crazy over him watching him practice like that. The thought of him even talking to you in that moment seemed too unreal and you knew he didn’t care of who you were or why you were there.
And him being there made it more difficult for you to practice landing your jumps. Your mind was somewhere else thinking of cute hockey players when it should’ve been focusing on your axels. What made it worst was that he had caught you staring and he knew you were checking him out but he played it off and saw it as a chance to show off even more. When you were almost about to begin your double lutz he skated fast past you, making you jump a little and almost lose your balance. He turned around while skating, looking at you with a cheeky grin on his face.
“Sorry about that,” He said almost teasingly, like he knew how distracting he was to you.
Without saying anything you sighed and skated in the other direction but soon as you weren’t facing him you were smiling like crazy.
You went on skating, and acting like he wasn’t there. Then you tried doing a double lutz but ended up landing wrong and falling on your butt. You groaned in frustration, laying on the ice as you heard his skates coming towards you even though you wished he wouldn’t have. You looked up to see him looking down at you and he brought out his hand, wanting to help you up.
“You good?” He asked, a smile on his face and he chuckled as you grabbed his hand and he helped pull you up back on your skates. His hand was placed on your back making you shiver.
“Yeah,” You sighed, letting go of his hand and brushing off the ice on your legs. “Thank you,” You said looking up at him with a smile. You noticed how giant he was up close and you literally had to tilt your head up to see him.
“No problem,” He shrugged, and he started skating away like it was no big deal.
Now when you landed on your butt, which was a few times, he would stop everything he was doing to skate towards you, and to help you get back up. You tried to avoid it, it was almost as a motivation to not mess up and land correctly so you wouldn’t have to embarrass yourself in front of a cute boy. But every time he helped you up, he still had the cute grin on his face that made it seem like he was some type of hero.
And when you did land your jumps you would hear a slow applause coming from his direction and a comment like, “that one was really good,” or “try that one again.” Even though you tried to not let him distract you, you listened to him and kept repeating your jumps, trying to fix them. Now he stood in the middle of the rink, one hand holding his stick while the other was rested on his side. You landed a double axel but it wasn’t as good as your others.
“You hesitated on that one,” He commented with a smirk as soon as you landed and caught your breath.
You chuckled, putting one hand on your hip. “What are you, my coach?” You replied teasingly.
He laughed a little, making you smile and you continued skating, this time around him. His gaze followed yours and he smiled back.
“You’re really good by the way,” He complimented, his eyes following your every move as you skated around the rink.
“Thanks,” You replied, coming to an abrupt stop a few feet away from him. “You play for the Ravens, I’ve seen you play before.”
“You go to CU?” He asked pointing his finger at you. You nodded.
He began skating towards you, and stopped right in front of you, his hand stretched outwards.
“I’m Shawn,” He greeted. Grabbing his hand, you told him your name and he smiled again.
“Have you ever played ice hockey before, Y/N?” Shawn asked motioning to the stick in his hand. His hand was covered by a big glove and he fully gripped the stick.
You shook your head. “Nope, never even held a hockey stick before,” You told him right as he handed you his stick.
“You live in Canada and you’ve never played hockey?” Shawn said in disbelief.
“That’s such a stereotype,” You scoffed and he grinned.
“With your skills, you’d be skating circles around hockey players.” He commented, skating over to grab a hockey puck.
Shawn passed it to you and you stopped the puck with the stick awkwardly. “With my skills, players would be running me over.” You chuckled as Shawn now stood in front of you.
“I doubt it,” He said, though you knew he was joking and you shook your head. “Here,”
He grabbed your hands, placing them on the stick to show you how to hold it correctly. He grabbed them gently despite his large and intimidating figure, he was so kind and sweet. You found it adorable how he wanted to teach you ice hockey, even though you knew you would never actually play it in real life.
Shawn continued to teach you how to dribble a puck and skate as fast and hard as a hockey player does. You soon forgot all about practicing the routine and decided that you would practice more tomorrow. You found Shawn funny and charming for being seen as an intimidating hockey player. You’ve seen him play, and he was rough on the ice so seeing him so calm and sweet was odd.
An hour of messing around and playing a fake game of ice hockey with Shawn went by and people started entering the ice rink disturbing the time you had with Shawn. Tired and sweaty, you stepped out of the rink with Shawn following behind you. You sat on the bench and handed him his hockey stick. Shawn took his things and brought them to sit next to you and he began taking off his skates.
“That was fun,” Shawn said with a smile, taking off his gloves and glancing up at you.
You returned the smile, also taking off your skates.
“Yeah it was,” You replied, contemplating whether you should say ‘we should do this again sometime,’ or not, since the fear of rejection was holding you back.
An awkward silence casted over you two, as you both got ready to leave and were packing up your equipment. You were the first to get done and you stood up with your backpack on and was about to leave the rink when you decided to not be a jerk and say goodbye. You turned towards Shawn as he was packing his things.
“Thanks for teaching me how to play ice hockey by the way,” You said as you walked away, facing him.
Shawn looked up and nodded with a smile, “No problem, it was nice meeting you Y/N.”
You loved the way he said your name and hated to think that this may be the last time you would see him.
“It was nice meeting you too Shawn.” You grinned nearing the exit. You opened the door just the slightest bit, wanting to say one more thing, giving him a chance to maybe make a move. “Have a good winter break!” You said.
He looked up again with the same grin and chuckled, “You too!”
Walking out of the rink and outside, you let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding in. You felt embarrassed, thinking how lame you were for actually thinking he was going to make a move on you. And thinking he might ask for your number but you shook it off. Taking out your car keys, you pressed the button that unlocked your car and placed your bag in the trunk. Closing it, you heard someone’s footsteps but chose to ignore it and began walking towards the drivers door.
“Y/N!” Shawn’s voice was heard a few feet away.
You turned around and saw him jog towards you, as he held his huge bag of hockey equipment.
“Hey,” You said surprised, even though you were really glad to see him call after you.
“Hey,” He began out of breath. He stood in front of you with his hand in his pocket, his cheeks pinker than before. “I know this may be weird but- can I get your number?” Shawn shrugged, he bit the inside of his cheek as he waited for your answer.
You nodded quickly. “Yeah,”
“Yeah?” Shawn questioned making sure, you were sure as he was reaching into his pocket for his phone.
You chuckled, nodding again and he laughed nervously as he couldn’t properly take his phone out of his pocket.
“Sorry, my hands- they’re freezing,” Shawn shook his head, before opening his phone and going to the contacts app. You laughed at how adorable he was and you told him your number.
“Cool, so I’ll text you?” Shawn shut his phone off and placed it back in pocket, looking at you while biting his lip.
“Yeah, sure text me whenever,” You said, stumbling on what to say. He smiled at you as he began to walk away and as you reached for the car door.
“Okay, I’ll call- I’ll text you later Y/N,” Shawn chuckled as he corrected himself and you nodded but laughed at his awkwardness before getting into the car.
When you closed the door, you couldn’t help but smile and blush thinking about that morning practice and how it turned out to be more than just a practice.
