Page 46 of Loving Ladybug: Part One
Scratches woke me up. A rat maybe? Certainly it wasn’t Lucky-the-imaginary-cat.
Rolling over, I turned on my phone light. It continued to move. But not fast. Getting up from my blanket bed, I looked over among the cardboard cutouts.
Staring at me was some sort of small,beautiful,black and orange lizard. He looked made of beads.
A quick photo search told me that he wasnotnative to New York. I didn’t know how he got here.
Getting a popcorn bucket from another closet, I made him a little home with a water dish and fed him a few tidbits the internet told me he’d eat.
“There you go. I’m going to call you,Gary.” After my favorite grandpa who’d passed away in a car accident along with my nonna and other grandparents. They were my mom’s parents, and I’d loved them fiercely.
Using the computer and printer in the small conference room, I made a couple of flyers and put them up around the rink. If no one claimed him soon, I’d take him to the reptile people at the zoo when I went to visit Marty.
I was up and ready to go, despite the early hour. So, like I’d been doing, I grabbed some coffee and an apple, did the land drills my nonna’s neighbor had taught me, then made my way to the ice.
Time to bring the sauce.
Finished with my workout, I laid down on the ice, reviewing the footage I’d taken of myself using a stand I’d found upstairs.
I got an alert from insta-chat, not from Clark the early bird, butMercy.While she’d been posting pictures of her adventures abroad, I hadn’t heard from her specifically.
“Oh my fuck, Gwenifer, are you fucking okay?” she drawled on the video she sent. Mercy wasn’t a hockey player. She was a skate smasher and had lived in the south before being drafted by the Maimers.
Her brown hair was loose, something I didn’t see much, since she wore her hair in Dutch braids constantly during the season.
“You’ve been listening to the sad girl playlist over and over and not the good one, the weird one. You don’t respond to your messages on Musify. What. Is. Wrong?” she demanded.
For some reason, she called meGwenifer.Which was pretty funny. I also didn’t know you could message people on Musify, where I listened to the playlist. Sometimes she made me feel old, given she was barely eighteen.
If I had a younger sister, I’d want one just like her.
“How do you know I’ve been listening to it?” I insta-chatted her back.The weird one?Ilovedevery song on there.
She answered immediately.
“I finally checked my metrics. I haven’t been online much, because we’ve been traveling. Now what’s going on?” Her tan face was full of worry.
I made another message. “I broke up with Austin.” Absently, I rubbed my forehead. “It’s been rough.”
“I’m sorry. I know you loved him. If he broke up with you because he got signed, I’ll take the ultra-bullet to Philly and kick his ass,” she replied immediately. “Or hold him down while you beat the shit out of him.”
I’d love to see that. Mercy was an alpha, but a baby alpha, only recently awakened and still learning to handle her alphaness. However, she was strong and muscular. Skate smashers were as athletic and fit as hockey players. She was also a crusher, which was the most violent of the three positions.
Yeah, she could probably hold her own against Austin. She knew all sorts of neat moves from her team and her sister’s packmates. The skate smashers always let me join them in the weight room and sometimes taught me things.
Yeah, I’d like to punch my ex.
“I broke up withhim.” I gave her the short version.
“I’ve been a shitty friend and haven’t been around. Promise I’ll make it up to you when I get back,” she told me.
“I’m happy you’re seeing your family and having a great time.” It would be nice to take off and see the siblings I liked. But that took money, and well, talking to them.
We chatted a little longer. I took off my goalie skates and put my hockey skates on. I’d been considering Tenzin’s idea to put my silly routines on the internet. It would be fun. I had a few ideas.
My headphones had broken, so I’d been using a small speaker I’d borrowed from the little weight room. Positioning the stand and my phone, I did a couple of moves, figuring out how to stay in the frame.
Mask in hand, I did a few moves, including a layback spin, and a couple jumps, then ended with a sit spin.
