Page 12 of The Pucking Kiss

“It seems to work on everyone,” I muttered under my breath.

My nonchalance triggered Mrs. Johnson to a degree at which I had never seen her before. She shook her head and began walking back to the front of the classroom.

“That’s it,” she spat out, “The principal's office, after school.”

“But I have practice…” I protested, feeling the consequences of my actions for the first time.

“No buts,” she replied firmly, “You need to get your focus back.”

“Whatever,” I said, sliding back down to my desk.

What was the principal going to say anyway? I was their star athlete. The school needed me for good PR. They would never kick me out for something as stupid as not turning in an assignment. I had nothing to worry about.

Deluding myself into thinking everything was okay, I zoned out of her class once again. When the bell finally rang to indicate that the period was finally over, I breathed a sigh of relief as I picked up my bag and made a beeline out of the classroom.

“Hey, cool guy,” Kathy followed me out of the classroom. “Heard you’re in trouble with the principal.”

I shrugged my shoulders. Kathy was in the class with me, and everyone knew that she was into me. Personally, I thought she was hot, too. But I didn’t have the time to focus on relationships with my hockey career at stake.

Still, she was fun to look at, so I didn’t mind the attention.

“Well, you know me,” I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly, “Always landing into trouble.”

She giggled in a highly exaggerated manner, her long acrylic nails pulling back the hair from her face.

That was another reason why I didn’t have anything happening with Kathy. She was too fake and shallow. I always thought that the girl I wanted would be someone more real.

“You’re such a bad boy,” she clapped me on the shoulder, batting her eyes flirtatiously at me.

“Yeah, bad at chemistry,” a voice interrupted our conversation. We both turned around to look and were surprised to find the school nerd Romai standing there.

“What are you doing here, four-eyes?” Kathy said to her, her tone suddenly seeping venom. “Can’t you see we are talking?”

“Kathy, let’s not fool ourselves,” Romai replied, “You and I both know you’re failing chemistry, too.”

“At least I’m not failing high school social life,” she argued back. Romai visibly flinched at her words, and for a moment, I felt bad for her.

Whoa. Where did that come from? Romai was the school nerd, and I was her bully. I shook my head, opening my mouth to speak, but Romai cut past us before I could even reply.

“Good,” Kathy said loudly as we both watched Romai’s retreating figure disappear down the hallway, “The trash is taking herself out!”

“Weird,” I muttered to myself. I didn’t really know much about other people’s lives, but I could have sworn that Kathy was usually nicer to Romai.

But at this point, I really did not care enough to ask.

“Anyway, where were we?” Kathy’s tone went back to being sickly sweet as she focused all her attention back on me.

“Nowhere,” I said, not wanting to deal with whatever drama that was happening. “I have practice.”

With that, I cut past Kathy and made my way down the hall. The only priority in my life right now was the game.

“Man,” Jake caught up to me, “Mrs. Johnson was pissed at you.”

“I don’t care,” I replied earnestly, “She can reserve her anger for when I’m crowned as the highest-performing player when we win the championship at the end of the season.”

Some people would argue that I was quite… stubborn as a person. When I knew what I wanted, I stopped at nothing to get it. It did not matter if my sports interfered with my academics. After all, it was my big goal to become the greatest player, not some nerd who was always cooped up in the library.

“You’re going to have to miss practice today, bro,” he said, concern lines creasing his forehead.

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