The next day, after we had all gotten ready, Gordon had brought all of us to a little area where he made us all sit down. I was sitting next to Adam, dark sunglasses shading my eyes from the Sun. It was bright and I had a raging headache. I had offered glasses to Adam but he rejected them, saying he didn't have a headache.

I leaned over and whispered to him, "I hate that you don't get hungover. I hate you."

He just bumped his shoulder into mine and smiled as he put his arm around the back of the bench.

"I've had a lot of big distractions since I've been here in LA," Gordon started, "This is a distraction." He held up a big cut out of himself with a speech bubble saying For me, it's Hendrix.

The team giggled at the cut out.

Gordon lit a match and threw it in a barrel, starting a fire, "This is a fire in a barrel." Then he shoved the cut out into the barrel, "This is a distraction, in a fire in a barrel. Any questions?"

Everyone smiled and started clapping for him, "Good job, Coach."

I followed along and looked over at Mrs. McKay, hey, her vest looks a lot like the one Luis wore to school the other day. Very suspicious, I might say.

"Alright, now that the distractions are gone, the real work begins." Gordon claps his hands together, "We've got to study our opponents, study ourselves, we have to learn from our mistakes, and learn not to repeat them. All of you have special skills, we're going to learn how to perfect them. Let's get to work."

Almost immediately, Jan moves to Luis and they leave. Probably to teach Luis how to stop for once.

After an hour or so of the rest of the team hanging around Gordon comes into the locker room, clapping his hand together to get everyone's attention away from their conversations and onto him, "Alright, let's start this practice."

I sit on the sidelines as I watch the team crawl across the ice as Gordon yells out, "That's it! Dwayne, hustle. Come on! Goldberg, move that big butt!"

I laugh at the team, making sure to catch a mental snapshot of them crawling, "Stop laughing, Wren! You can laugh when you come out here to join us!" Jesse yells at me from the ice.

"I'm good right here!" I call back, "This blanket is warmer than the ice!" I wrap my blanket tighter around my shoulders, blocking out some of the cold.

After the practice ends Gordon announces that everyone has thirty minutes before we have to hit the gym, which seems ridiculous, "Oh, come on. Give them a break."

Gordon shakes his head at me, "We've got to be a lean and mean fighting machine."

I roll my eyes at him, "You sound stupid."

He just smiles at me, "Yeah...I know."

I meet the team in the locker room, who are changing out of their gear, some of them moving to the showers, mostly Julie and Connie, so they can change into their exercise clothes.

Averman looks over at me, "Hey, you gonna join us at the gym?"

I laugh, "I'd rather stab a fork in my eye."

Averman frowns, "I wouldn't." He says softly.

"I'm being sarcastic. But nah, I don't need to exercise. I mean," I gesture at my body, "I'm already perfect."

Averman snorts at me and keeps changing as I grab my backpack that I left by Adam's locker, "So, what's your plan?" Adam asks.

"I don't know. I might just go get some food, work on homework. Maybe take a nap. We'll see how I'm feeling."

Adam leans against his locker and lowers his voice, "Well...I hear Iceland's game starts in like ten minutes, if you wanna go see that."

I smile at him and put a hand on his shoulder, "Maybe. But, I also have a lot of math homework to do and I, for one, am not at all good at math."

He rolls his eyes at me, "We can't all be perfect."

I shake my head at him as I swing my backpack onto my shoulders, "That we cannot."

I leave and head to the lobby, debating on what I should do with my time. I turn and move up the front desk person, "Hey, what rink is Iceland playing on?"

The man sitting there, with a name tag that says James, looks up and me and smiles, "Rink 2."

"Alright, thank you." I move away and head to the rink.

When I get there, almost all the seats are taken except in the back, so I choose a seat back there. It wasn't a perfect view, but I could still see the game just fine. And I could clearly see the way that Iceland was absolutely dominating the other team.

Iceland was good, but they were aggressive. They all used their body size to practically bully the other players, giving themselves the advantage.

A face-off started and the other team had won the puck, but it was soon stolen by an Iceland player. The crowd started to scream as Iceland made their way down the ice, closer to the other team's goal. I watched as the puck was passed to a kid with the last name Stahl printed on the back of it.

I smiled as he made the goal and cheered alongside the crowd.

At the end of the game, the other team looked as if they were about to lay down on the ice and sob due to their defeat.

I left the rink and headed to where the locker rooms were, sitting on a bench outside of them. I leaned back against the wall, pulling on of my legs up and resting my arm on it.

Eventually, Iceland players started to leave, one of them being Gunnar, who almost walks passed me, "Well, if it isn't the star of the show. Gunnar Stahl, everyone!"

Gunnar stops and turns to me, his face breaks out in a smile when he realizes who it is, "And if it isn't Queens, the girl on the sidelines."

I put my the hand that wasn't resting on my leg up to my heart, "Ouch. You know, your words can really hurt somebody someday." Gunnar moves to sit next to me, "Good thing I am not that somebody. Hi, how are you?"

He leans his head back on the wall and closes his eyes, "Tired. Really tired."

"Well, I'd assume so. Seeing as you worked your ass off out there."

Gunnar smiles softly, his eyes still closed, "You came?"

"Yeah, figured I had nothing better to do then watch some losers skate around on razors."

Gunnar moves his hand up to his heart, "Ouch." I laugh at him and he turns his head, opening his eyes to look at me, "I bet you could've found something else to do."

"Yeah, well, I could've...but I really suck at math and I was not about to sit down and do my math homework just because I had time. I mean, who do you think I am? Einstein?"

"No. You'd never be as smart as him."

I hit his chest lightly with the back of my hand, "Rude."

Gunnar holds up his hands in mock surrender, "Sorry, sorry." He reaches over and grabs the hat off of my head, "What's with the hat? We're in California, it's like 100 degrees here."

I grab it back and put it on again, "Well, for one, it's really cold in a rink when you aren't covered in pads and sweating. And two, it's a beanie, not a hat."

Gunnar leans his head back on the wall again, "Didn't know there was a such a big difference in hats here." He sits quiet for a moment as I roll my eyes at him, "You know, I'm actually really good at math."

"Great, wanna tutor me?"

He rubs his eyes, "I've got time."

"Wait, actually? Cause I was just kidding."

Gunnar sits back up and stands up, "Well I'm not. Plus, we don't want you to fail your math class, right?"

I stand up and grab my backpack, "Excuse you. I am a solid C student when it comes to math."

Gunnar grabs his duffle bag and swings it over his shoulder, "Let me just drop this off and then we can go to the library or something."

I gasp, "Is the Gunnar Stahl inviting me back to his room? How scandalous."

"Oh, shut up, fugl."

We get to Gunnar's room and I sit down on his bed. He sets down his bag and moves to the dresser, opening a drawer and pulling out a sweatshirt, "Putting your clothes in the dresser, that's a cocky move, now isn't it?"

Gunnar closes the drawer, "It's not cocky. We're still here, are we not? I knew we'd make it the finals. And I know we'll win."

"Cocky."

Gunnar rolls his eyes at me as he takes off his shirt, "Nice abs." I smile at him.

Gunnar throws his old shirt at me and it hits me in the face, "Stop staring."

"Well, it's a nice view."

Gunnar throws me a look as he slips a sweatshirt on, "I don't have to help you with your math homework, you know."

"I know. But then you wouldn't get to enjoy my company if you didn't."

"You call me cocky while you act like that."

"Act like what?" I ask innocently.

Gunnar scoffs and sits down to change his shoes, "Ok, lets go."

We find a table away from everyone at the library and sit down, I grab out my notes and homework, handing it to him. He gives me a look that screams I think you're stupid, "You really don't know how to do this?"

I grab my homework back, "No. And don't look at me like that. I don't like it."

"Sorry," he grabs my homework again and looks at it, thinking for a moment, "Alright, look this is easy all you have to do is..."

Gunnar starts to teach me. Some of it I get and some of it I don't. The ones I don't get, I get frustrated and try to give up on. Annoyingly, he doesn't let me and keeps working with me until I start to get it. Until I finally put down my pencil, "Alright, this is boring me so I have an idea."

Gunnar looks up from his paper, "What?"

"Every answer I get right, I get to ask a question. Any answer I get wrong, you ask me one."

"That's stupid"

"You're stupid."

"Wren."

"Gunnar."

Gunnar sighs and lays his pencil down on the table, "Alright fine. Here's your first question. Solve it." He circles on of the questions on my homework and hands the paper to me.

I know how to solve this one and I do it quickly, "What's your answer?" He asks me.

"Four."

He checks his work, "Ask away."

I smile widely, "What does fugl mean?"

"Fugl."

"Ok, come on. I literally just said that."

Gunnar does his half smile thing, "You say it wrong."

I roll my eyes at him, god my eyes are probably gonna be so sore based off of how much I roll them, "Just answer the question, Stahl."

"It means bird."

My mouth drops open, "You're kidding? You've been calling me bird?"

He nods his head, "A wren is a type of songbird. Your name is Wren. So, I call you bird."

I look up at the ceiling, "I hate you."

"No you don't. Do this question now."

I glare at him as he passes my paper to me and I try to solve the question, "Ok, I got 7.562. I don't think that's right though."

"It is. Stop doubting yourself, Wren." Gunnar tries to encourage me.

"Are we still going to be friends when you go back to Iceland?" I ask him. The question had been on my mind for awhile now. I knew that Gunnar would go back, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to see him whenever I wanted to then.

Gunnar looked between both of my eyes, "I hope so."

We keep doing my homework, I get some right and I get some wrong. Gunnar asks me either easy questions or more deep ones when I get them wrong. Ranging from, what's my favorite type of flower to questions about my family.

Eventually we get done and head to an elevator to go back up to our rooms. The doors open and we step out, both of us having to go different ways, "Bye, Gunnar."

"Bye, birdie."

I roll my eyes, "Still hate you for that."

Gunnar just smiles at me and we walk away.