Page 36 of Hockey Heart

“Man chat Cara, take it somewhere else,” I told her with contempt in my eyes.

Instead, she moved deeper into the room.

“Even I heard all about your little escapade, Solly, with those busy fingers of yours,” she teased.

Solly went bright red.

“What… What did you hear exactly?” Then he looked nervously at me, not wanting to let the most embarrassing details make their way to my ears.

Cara smiled, she was enjoying this, “Oh, you little pervert. Every detail is already out there. The hockey bunnies are creaming themselves over it in the group chat.”

Solly gulped, “They are?” Then he put his head in his hands, “Oh God, what am I gonna do?”

“I could help you if you want?” Cara said, and I glowered at her. This was how she set her traps. I’d seen it a million times, but once she’d made her web, there was no escape.

“You could? But how?”

“We just have to change the narrative, my dear Solly… Trust me, I’m better at spreading stories than she is.”

It was true, Cara was able to make juicy gossip out of a french fry. I didn’t like this for Solly though, not one bit.

“Cara, leave him alone,” I said.

But Solly was looking at her, wide-eyed and desperate to be saved from his hell, ready to do anything. That’s what gave me a feeling of dread.

21

NO SLEEP

Hayden

I couldn’t sleep. I mean, how could I when there were Maiden’s problems, that dumb incident outside the therapists, Cara spinning her webs, and now Solly? But none of that was what I was really thinking of. It washer.

That normal, nice school teacher. Maybe that was it, that she wasnormalandnice. There weren’t many people like that in my world. It was more than that though, and I knew it. Something new was aching in me because of her.

Those lips like candy. The soft, warm skin that curved along her neck and stretched across her shoulders. Those green eyes that were so deep with intelligence, and a hint of sadness in them, that I just wanted to ease. Her scent, what was it? It slipped into my nose when we were close and I couldn’t get it out of my head. It wasn’t perfume. It washer. As if you could taste how sweet her body was in the air.

I dragged myself up and to the bathroom. There was no toilet paper in the en-suite and I suspected Cara hadsomething to do with that. I trudged in the darkness down the hallway to the master bathroom. It wasn’t entirely dark, though. There was a light on in the room at the end of the hall and faint sounds from Cara’s room.

I padded quietly past the bathroom door and toward her room.

“…Yes, like that, exactly as I showed you… You make me happy, and I’ll make it all go away…”

The door was slightly ajar, and I pushed it a crack wider with my fingertips. There was Cara, riding on top of Solly. Their naked bodies writhing on each other in the warm glow of the lamplight. I felt sick.

“Daddy?”

I turned and saw Maiden back down the hallway. He spoke sleepily as he rubbed his tired eyes. Marvin the dinosaur tugged tightly against his chest. Over their grunting, Solly and Cara didn’t seem to notice, and I quietly padded my way back down the hallway to Maiden.

“You okay, Champ?” I kneeled down and asked in a whisper.

“What’s mom doing?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. Silly grown-up stuff. Let’s get you back to bed, okay?”

“I wasn’t sleeping good, daddy.”

“Huh, me neither. You wanna come crash with me tonight?”

---