Page 5 of Rivals

I can see the different emotions war with each other across her face. Anger. Shock. Confusion. Hurt. It’s the last one that always seems to make my heart pinch even when it shouldn’t. Riley did this to herself. She brings out the worst in me, ever since we were little and we stopped being friends. Still, the fear is always there that one day she’ll give up on our challenges. One day our worlds will be forced in different directions, and while I can’t wait to escape this town and live out my college and NHL dreams, part of me is hesitant.

“Try harder next time. Just like you should when you play the Eagles in a few weeks. You don’t need another repeat of last year,” I remind her of the shame when they almost lost to our city’s biggest boundary war rivals.

Her eyes turn almost black and her lips thin out. I think she might slap me. Or yell. I’m not prepared and completely stunned when a cold, wetness hits my head and drips down my cheeks. My perfect, tasty, pink shake is on my head, slowly sliding down my face.

“You should learn to guard better, Thorn. Remember that when you touch the ice at all this year. Someone is always waiting for you to mess up.” She turns and flounces out of the diner with her two friends in tow.

A wet rag is dropped next to me. “Guess she found out.” Leif grunts and Carter chuckles next to him. I should be pissed. I should be chasing her out of here, finding a way to destroy her again. It’s completely lost on me why all I can do is sit here, grinning. She dumped my shake over my head. Riley is a firecracker and a pain in my ass, but I look forward to our challenges. I don’t know what I will do when this ends. I can’t let myself think that far.

Riley, age 18

I can’t stand the Saints. Our rivalry over the years has done nothing but fester and grow. Mostly because my team turned out to be full of undiscovered talent. All it took was the right coach to step up to the plate and soon a bunch of misfits, as we had been called, were playing at a top-tier level in girls’ youth hockey. Something the Saints absolutely hates, and nothing pleases me more than rubbing their faces in it. I can’t believe I actually wanted to play for the Saints. In my misguided attempt to regain my friendship with Reign, I thought if I was on scholarship at his school and played hockey there that we would find common ground. That never happened. And these days I’m so lucky it never worked out in my favor.

Reign Thorn has become the biggest asshole with the biggest ego flex in the whole state. The fact that he has talent and was already being scouted by colleges in his sophomore year of high school only inflates his self-importance. It sucks that he skates like a dream. He makes plays out of nowhere and his team has voted him captain for his junior year and now his senior year of high school. If only his attitude was different. The boy I grew up with on the ice is long gone. And his ire for me hasn’t changed. Not that I don’t fight back. Our rivalry has gained momentum over the years. Even though he is on the Saints boys’ hockey team and I’m on the Pirates girls’ team, Reign makes my life miserable any chance he can get. Even being in two different schools across town from each other doesn’t stop him from being a Grade-A dick head. Anytime we run into each other, he always has something mean to say to me, whether it’s about my playing, a game we lost, or just a general observation of how I look that day. Naturally I find myself slinging insults back at him.

The unfortunate thing about my vendetta with Reign is that he never lost the handsomeness I used to think he had. He matured and now those baby blues are icy and they smolder in my presence. His features are sharper, harder. That dimple in his left cheek is still ever present when he’s glowering at me or when his lips turn up in an evil smirk before he says something scathing. The fact that he’s tall, broad, with long, dark hair that he runs his hands through has girls salivating over him. Saint and Pirate girls alike. Of course when he shows dislike for me, most girls become catty as well, wanting to please him, as if he’d give them the time of day. Reign is notorious for hookups and partying when it’s not hockey season, but never settling down with a girlfriend.

Thanks to Reign, I’m often left out by the girls and their friendship circles. If not for the girls on my team, I would be friendless. No one wants to mess around with Reign’s enemy. Especially the guys. With Reign being the captain of his team, richer than god, and a top academic achiever in his school, everyone wants to be his friend. Or they just don’t want to have issues with him, which apparently means never talking to or wanting to date me. The guys in my town act like I have the plague and the other guys are Reign’s lackeys and often include themselves in my ridicule.

I hate him. So the fact that I’m now staring into his electric blue eyes across the parking lot at our teams’ summer camp really irritates me. It’s too soon to see him again and I have to breathe in and out to control the anger.

“What are you doing here, Con-man?” he calls across the clearing, and soon everyone’s eyes are on us, darting back and forth between us, wondering how this is going to go. Our interactions are known to turn fiery. Our last meet-up ended with his strawberry shake emptied over his head, and I still had zero regrets about it. My cheeks pinken now from his nickname for me, Con-man, even though I’ve heard it millions of times. His own little funny play on my last name Conrad. He stopped calling me Riles when he dropped our friendship.

“I was going to ask you the same question, Thorn,” I respond, remembering to keep my facial expression bored and disinterested. Because that’s what Reign does to me these days. Makes me sick and uninterested.

He smirks, those plush lips turning up in a sinister twist. “Our team has the field reserved for dryland summer camp. Last I checked, though, the Pirates got last dibs and weren’t scheduled until a week before school.”

Of course he checked. And he wasn’t exactly wrong. I shrug my shoulders. “Your girls were accepted to the Olympic Indoor camp. We got slotted in their place instead.”

He cackles. “So you’re sloppy seconds on the schedule then.”

Anger burns in my veins while I fight to keep my posture relaxed and carefree. The voice in my head screams at me to keep calm and let his words roll off me, but my pride tickles with unease. The Pirates are always looked down upon by everyone. The Pirates girls’ hockey team is seen as even less, despite our winning record in our division for the past few years. But we’re a public school. We always get the last pick, the oldest materials and the hand-me-downs from the Saints private school.

I swallow down a hot retort, as much as it kills me, and place an easy-going smile on my face. As this year’s captain of the Pirates, it’s my job to set a good example, to be a leader, to make my school proud. I can’t be benched for any more games. If I have to make nice with Reign and his Saints for a week then I’ll do it.

“Let’s just get this out of the way, Reign. We’ll keep to our side of the camp and you keep to yours. Since you’re such a princess, I’ll let you guys have the later field practice, and we’ll take the early mornings. Therefore, we’ll take the earlier cantina times. We plan to stay in over the weekend so feel free to leave or not; you won’t have to see us.”

His eyes flicker with amusement even while his features twist in frustration. It’s obvious he thought I’d fight him or at least attempt to make it harder for his team to get the best part of the schedule. Like I said, I’ll be a fucking gem this week and bite my tongue so that things go smoothly for my team. If we had been paired with the Pirates boys’ team, things might be different.

Reign’s eyes flicker once over my shoulder at the girls who are waiting to see how this plays out. I can see when he determines that there isn’t anything he can argue with for once. He nods his head. “We’ll see you around, booty hunters.”

I stand my ground while all the Saints players hoot and holler, taking their bags and walking in the opposite direction from where we’re standing. It’s not until they all disappear from view that I let out a breath of relief.

“Could this get any worse?” Emma, my co-captain and right wing player, slides next to me. She hates anything Saints related but mostly because her ex-boyfriend was a Saint and he played her hard.

My gaze flicks to her and the rest of the team. “As much as it pains me, we need to make nice for the week. Coach will be here in the morning and we promised the principal that if he helped us change weeks, we would be on our best behavior.”

“I know, I know.” She shakes out her body. “It just kills me that we’re literally giving them the best of everything. It’s supposed to be ninety degrees outside tomorrow, Ri. We’re getting the hottest part of the day.”

“But the lake will be available when they’re practicing.” I raise my brow at her and watch her eyes light up.

“Silver lining. Alright. We can work with that.”

Emma bounces back to the other team members and starts handing out room assignments and keys. Our coach wanted us to pair up randomly so that we have a chance to get to know all of our team members. Until our coach arrives, it is my job to keep the team going.

“Why does the enemy have to be so hot?”

I glance at one of the girls who keeps sneaking looks at Reign’s team. It’s been two days already and once again the boys don’t have the field for another half hour, but they’re already here, most of them topless, and lifting weights. They’re infringing on our time, but I refuse to leave early. Even as deep seated in my hatred I am for them, I can admit they are good-looking guys. And it kills me. They know it too. I don’t bother to answer her, scoffing instead.

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