Picks & Pucks (2 page)

“Hey, princess,” Danny said. “You have to actually get in the car, unless I drove all the way out here to give your luggage a ride home.” He grinned at me, sweeping his messy blond hair away from his bright blue eyes.

“Fuck,” I whispered and climbed into the vehicle. “The address is—”

“I know where your sister lives,” he interrupted.

He started the car, and I gripped the sides of the seat. Gravel crunched under the tires, and it took all my strength not to jump out of the vehicle. The demons surrounded me, taunting me as we passed familiar landmarks. I reminded myself that not everything about this town was bad, but the demons brought back a lot of painful moments from my life. I shut my eyes and went through all the steps of my short program. Slowly, the demons floated away and I was able to relax.

“Hey,” Danny said softly. “What’s up with you?”

“Don’t pretend like you give a shit about me,” I snapped.

He frowned and gripped the steering wheel tightly. “I don’t want to argue with you.”

“Then quit talking to me.”

“Whatever,” he said.

He blasted the music, and we ignored each other for the rest of the ride. When he turned the corner and my sister’s house came into view, I bent forward and grabbed the dashboard, trying to hide my discomfort.

“Shit,” I whimpered when Danny pulled into the driveway.

The demons danced around the small space of the car, threatening to crush me into dust. A warm hand settled on my shoulder and jerked me back to the present.

“Knock it off, Danny. You don’t like me, and I don’t like you.”

He frowned at me again. It looked like he was trying to think of something to say. I waited for some smartass comment or pity statement.

“You’re right,” he finally said, sounding defeated.

His reply threw me for a moment. “Thanks for the ride,” I grumbled and got out of the car. I expected him to dump my luggage and squeal out of the driveway, but he turned the car off and pocketed his keys.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked as he carried my bags up the steps. “I’m perfectly capable of hauling my own luggage into the house.”

He stared at me. “Oh, didn’t your sister or daddy tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“I’m living here until something opens up on campus. Since I decided to stay in school, I didn’t have anywhere to stay.”

All the air left my lungs. I didn’t even know how to wrap my brain around that statement. Not only did I have to live in the same space with my sister, I had to share it with Danny Jackson, hockey player and major pain in my ass.

How could my family do this to me? How could the NHL fuck with my life? The D-man was supposed to be gone, wiped from my life forever. Part of my agreement with Janae and my dad had been that I would be able to concentrate on training without distractions. Danny qualified as a fucking huge distraction.

He laughed and disappeared into the house. Maybe I could stay in a hotel. My phone rang, and a wide smile replaced my frown. Finally, something good about this place

“Are you in town?” Eli shouted into my ear before I could say hello. Hearing my best friend’s voice was a great sound.

“I’m outside my sister’s house,” I answered.

“I’m coming over,” Eli said and disconnected before I could get another word out. I sat on the steps, and rested my head on my skate bag.

Eli Walker was the only normal thing I had in my life, which wasn’t saying much because he had an unnatural love for tattoos and piercings. His entire life was cataloged on his body, but nothing he etched on his skin could change that he was my best friend. He’d had that honor since we were thirteen, and when you’d only been alive for twenty years, seven years was a long time to have something in your life.

Eli knew almost everything about me, including my big secret. He was the first person who heard me say the sentence “I think I like Anthony.” He didn’t even flinch, just asked me if I knew Anthony was a guy. When I said yes, he shrugged and ordered me to get him some chips and sauce. I asked him if he was okay with my choice.

He told me I was his best friend and he didn’t give a rat’s ass who I wanted to fuck as long as he wasn’t on my list. I gave him the “ewwww, gross” face, and we were good. If only coming out to other people would have been as easy as with him.

Not only did Eli accept me, he also kept me sane. When my mom died, he refused to leave me alone. I shouted at him and called him horrible names, but he stayed. When I couldn’t sleep because the demons were crushing me, Eli started sleeping at my house. His presence was the only way I could get any rest. He chased those stupid demons away and gave me some peace.

He was also present for the now infamous picks or pucks fight between my dad and me, and without Eli, I doubt I would have survived that fight.

The wind kicked up a few dead leaves, whipping them around my feet. I picked one up and crushed it in my fingers.

The demons took my moment of weakness and swooped down on me, bringing the picks and pucks memory to the big screen in my brain. I didn’t want to remember, but the demons held my eyelids open and forced me to watch.

O
NE
OF
the worst things about the night was the snowstorm that had kicked up out of nowhere. The howling winds and swirling snow reminded me of the night my mother didn’t show up at the rink. I had waited outside for her until my entire body was one big chunk of ice, watching as cars passed by, not slowing down. I tried to call her cell phone, but it kept going straight to voicemail. The memory made me sick to my stomach. And now I was waiting for Eli to pick me up in the same sort of weather that had killed my mother.

He shouldn’t be out in this shit, but I had no one else to take me home. My dad was deep into hockey playoffs and busy with his team. Jack was with his own hockey team, and Janae was at some skating competition. I should have walked home from the arena.

Unwanted tears froze in my eyelashes and on my face as I tried to blink them away. I dug my phone out of my pocket, ready to punch in his number, when headlights lit up the area around me.

He shouted at me to get in the car, and I was so relieved I could hardly think. When he smiled at me, I started to shake. He laid his hand on my thigh and a sob escaped from my throat. He must have known what was wrong, because he grabbed my hand and squeezed tightly.

He put the car in gear and drove home, not releasing my hand until we pulled into my driveway. The demons whispered foul things in my ear as more tears slid down my cheeks. I tried to say good night and thank him for the ride, but he followed me into the house, insisting on sleeping over.

My dad met us at the door, scaring the shit out of me. The team couldn’t get out of town because the freeway had been shut down. I expected him to tell me he was glad I was home safe and sound. Instead, he shouted at me, grabbed my hockey bag out of Eli’s hand, and unzipped it with a violence that made me shrink back against the wall.

He took my hockey skates and tossed them to the ground. The figure skates soon joined the hockey skates. My dad ranted and raved about what I thought I was hoping to accomplish by wasting valuable training time messing around with figure skating.

Eli had tried to interrupt my dad’s rant, but Dad waved him off and told him it was none of his fucking business. Eli stood his ground and soon the two of them were screaming about me.

I’d finally yelled for both of them to shut the fuck up. That sentence shut my dad up, and Eli squeezed my arm so hard, I had finger-shaped bruises for a week
.

I remembered all the words and his reactions like it was yesterday.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I said softly.

“Do what?” my dad shouted.

“I can’t keep playing hockey and skating. I have to give one of them up.” I already knew what I wanted to do. It was just a matter of getting the words out of my mouth.

“That’s a good idea,” my dad said. Apparently, he thought I would choose hockey. I couldn’t blame him for hoping. I’d been getting calls from the top Division I recruiters in the nation since I was fifteen. He had even toyed with the idea of trying to sign me with his team, but my dad had coached me when I was a little guy. It didn’t work then, and it wouldn’t work now.

“I’ll pay this bill, but then you tell your coach you’re finished.” He kicked the figure skates and shook his head.

“I’m not quitting skating. I’m quitting hockey.”

Eli gasped and gripped me tighter. The vein in my dad’s neck grew and pulsed violently. His face turned bright red, and he snorted. Eli pulled me toward the stairs. I wanted to run outside and never look back.

“You can’t be serious,” he shouted. “Do you know what the fuck you’re throwing away?”

I shrugged and let him shout about skill and money and my future. He made sure I knew he thought I was stupid.

“I’m a really good figure skater,” I said. “Ask my coach, or better yet, come watch me. Look, Dad, I know you don’t approve of my choices or me, but my heart is embedded in the ice. My dreams just don’t come with a stick and a puck.”

My dad huffed and kicked at the skates again. He looked like he wanted to chop them up into little tiny pieces.

“This is ridiculous,” he grumbled.

“It’s all I have left of Mom, so I’m choosing picks over pucks, Dad. And if you don’t want to support my figure skating, I’ll find a way to do it on my own.”

Picks over pucks. My dad hadn’t talked to me for three weeks after that fight, but he continued to pay for my skating lessons. I still don’t think he’d ever forgiven me for choosing skating over hockey. Most of the time, I knew I’d made the right decision, but every once in a while, when I was having a shitty day, I questioned my motivations. And unknown to my father, I still laced up the hockey skates and played a few pick-up games here and there.

A horn honked and the demons scattered from my thoughts, taking the images of the past with them.

“Justin,” Eli shouted. He jammed the car into park before it came to a complete stop, making the car lurch forward. It threw him off-balance, and he almost tumbled to the ground as he tried to get out of the front seat. He raced toward me, grabbed me, and lifted me off my feet, then buried his nose in my neck. “God, I fucking missed you so much.”

“I missed you too,” I admitted, because it was the truth. He was the only thing I missed about this whole fucking town. During the past two years, we’d kept in contact by texts, phone calls, and social media. He came to California a few times, but it was hard to hang out, since I was skating all the time.

When I came home to visit, he did his best to make time for me, but he was busy with college. He had his own life, and he was moving forward, trying new things and leaving me to toil on the ice, chasing after a wild dream that might never come true. He finally released his stranglehold on me, and we sat down on the steps.

“You look like shit,” he said, brushing a stray lock of hair out of my eyes. “I thought you’d have more of a tan.”

“Nah, I’m going for the emo vampire look,” I said.

“You should probably dye your hair black, then.”

“Let’s not talk about me. What’s going on with you? Couldn’t you decide what color you wanted your hair?” Eli’s normally dark hair was streaked with blond highlights and a couple of wide blue streaks and stood up spiky all over. “Are you wearing eye liner?”

“The proper term is guyliner,” he said. “Just shaking things up, ya know, keeping people on the edge.”

I raised my eyebrows and stared at him. “Alright, it’s a bit weird even for you. Why are you shaking things up, and why are you grinning like you won the lottery or just fucked the girl of your dreams?”

He snickered. “I’ve got a ton of shit to tell you.” He winked. “But it’s an inside conversation, and we should probably have some sort of drink in our hand.”

“Can we go to your place? I’m not ready to go inside. I’ve been in town for about an hour and already I’m trying to figure a way out.”

“I thought coming back here was your idea?”

How was I supposed to tell him it wasn’t my idea? The demons forced my hand. They were trying to smother the life out of me, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to come back here and face them down before they killed me. I had to put the past to rest and move forward with my life.

This was another little thing I’d never shared with Eli. He knew I had nightmares, but he didn’t know I regularly saw demons. Even he had his limits of weirdness, and I couldn’t afford to lose him as a friend.

“It
was
my idea, but I really didn’t expect Danny Jackson to pick me up at the airport, which was bad enough, but then he tells me he’s living in my sister’s house.”

“What is it about you and him? Once upon a time I thought you were friends, and then one day, you can’t stand the sight of him. Is there something you need to tell me?” He eyed me like he was trying to break into my brain, but I kept my face blank. “Your life is sort of like a fucking soap opera.”

He had no idea how true that statement was. This would have been the perfect opportunity to come clean about Danny, but I wasn’t quite ready to talk about that whole fiasco. We stared at each other for a few minutes before Eli snorted and started laughing his head off. His laughter was contagious and soon, we were both laughing so hard, tears were streaming down our faces.

“Next you’re going to tell me Jack is home,” Eli said.

“Oh God,” I groaned. “Please don’t say that. One hockey player is enough. Last I heard Jack was heading over to Europe to hook up with a team that’s had a string of injuries.”

“Have you talked to him?”

I snorted. My brother and I did not talk. “He sent me a text after Nationals. All it said was ‘sorry you got fourth.’ That was the last time I heard from him.”