Page 27 of Hockey Heart

“So what! Fuck off!”

I started to walk away. I just wanted to go to a dark bar and sip on cold beers until the throbbing in my fist didn’t hurt so bad.

“Hey! I’ll call the cops, you animal!” He yelled after me.

I felt the red mist descend. Like it was game night and the mouthy forward who’d been winding me up all game had finally overstepped the mark. It was what I was trained for, it’s what I did.

I turned, growling, and walked toward him. Things might have gone differently had he turned and run away, but the idiot just stood there as I got closer. My fist didn’t hurt anymore as I put it square into his face. Nothing hurt anymore. I was theHellraiser.

16

THE NON-DATE

Sarah

I arrived at Freddy’s a couple of minutes late, in an effort to seem as casual as possible. Looking around, I was disappointed to find he hadn’t turned up yet, so he couldn’t see how relaxed I was about this. I wasn’t.Relaxed, that is. My throat was dry, my heart was pumping way harder than it needed to be, and I really needed a drink. Waiting wasnotwhat I needed right now.

Ordering a Tom Collins, I settled down at a table and enjoyed the sensation of the cool drink soothing both my throat and my nerves as I sat, watching the door and waiting.

After everything, I was going to have my actual date with Hayden. Okay,nota date. He’d made that clear. I was also still reeling from the other night with that man, but if I’d have passed this up, I wouldn’t have been able to stop thinking about it, and I was getting tired of regrets.

Fifteen minutes went by of me jumping nervously every time that damn door swung open. Flashing the samewelcoming expression across my face at each new arrival, followed by a return to the frown that came with my increasing annoyance.

I checked my phone again, and there was nothing. I couldn’t text him. That would give him the upper hand, and I wasn’t prepared to do that at all.

By my third drink, I was starting to feel a little woozy, and I barely raised my head each time the door swung open. Sitting there on my own, I felt more and more embarrassed as time passed into the second hour of waiting.Maybe he actually said seven, not six? Maybe he’s in the worst traffic ever? Or an accident? I couldn’t be mad if that was the case.

As I sat there, the drinks working their way through my bloodstream, my hair beginning to lose its luster along with my spirit, I started to think about Jake.

I’ll keep you safe forever…

“Pah!” I accidentally shouted out, quickly covering my mouth at the mistake, but no one seemed to notice.

Lucy… Garrett? Grantham? No,Grayson. That was her name. With her blonde hair, her sweet big-eyed face, her young, innocent smile, and her not-so-innocent skirts.I hated her. She did this to me.

Jake had been my mentor, a dashing, dark-haired older man who could make you blush just by looking right at you. When he had looked right at me, it wasn’t like the rest of them, though. There was fire and heat in those looks, and I was not old or wise enough to know better. I’d fallen, and I’d fallen hard.

It had been my dream job. I was just an intern that first year, but I worked hard, people liked me, and it was nailed on that I would stay as a permanent member. Enviro-Tech was about as unglamorous a company name as you could imagine, but the work was anything but that. It felt like wecould change everything, that we would provide cheap renewable electricity to communities that were war-ravaged, famine-ravaged, abandoned by their corrupt governments, and needing people like us to intervene.

The way Jake spoke about it made him seem like a messiah, leading us all to a better world. And we followed him with wonder.

I was helplessly in love with him. The first time he had put his hand on my shoulder as he leaned over to look at my work, there was more heat between us than anything I could have ever imagined. I’d go home and savor that touch, that face, and his divine scent when he came close to me.

It didn’t take long before the spark became a fire, and it raged unstoppably.

We’d made love every chance we could get. Tearing at each other’s clothes with annoyance at them keeping us from the prizes underneath. Desperate to touch, taste, and have every single inch of each other. It was never enough, we were always ravenous for more. Our hands would brush against each other at work, our eyes telling each other our wildest fantasies…I have to have you… I need you… I need you NOW…

I still had girlish traits. Being in that position of not being a girl anymore, but not quite experienced enough to fully be a woman, either. So, the journal I had kept changed, and instead became a hand-written shrine to him, full of gushing notes.

When I’m with Jake, it makes me feel like we’re the only ones in the world… His cock is so perfect. It’s like it was made just for me, and I was made just for him… When he sleeps I watch him and I know I’ve found everything, and I know he feels the same… I love it when I’m on top of him and he runs his hands through my hair, his eyes looking deep into mine, my hand pushing down on hisbeautiful chest as we gasp at each other. This is it. Real love…

I couldn’t have seen it coming. I was too blinded with love. Intoxicated by every single thing he did and said. For me, it was all falling into place. I would get my dream job, my dream man, and my life was soaring in a way I couldn’t have imagined.

There were signs, but I either didn’t see them, or chose to ignore them. He would flirt a little with the other girls and they would stare at him gooey-eyed and laugh too hard at his jokes. But that was just him. It was his nature. None of those girls would be in his bed later, only me. Or so I thought.

Maybe I created my own downfall? Taken my eye off the prize a bit, was less hard-working, had less of a keen eye, because both of my eyes were distracted continually by him. I made mistakes at work that I wouldn’t have before, but they were just minor things, and Jake would smooth them over. I was more curt to other staff members and the interns, because I was flying high and I didn’t have the same time for them anymore. Only him.

It had been the fall of that year when the next intake of interns were to be announced and we would move on to our next roles, either in or out of the company. I wasn’t worried. I felt secure already and ready for my new life to open its next wondrous chapter.

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