Two Skid Marks

by April Ryder

  Contents

  Copyright

  Two Skid Marks

  Thank you reader

  Next Book: Three Skid Marks

  About the Author

  Two Skid Marks

  April Ryder

  Copyright © 2015 April Ryder

  978-1-927236-71-0

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from April Ryder

  Cover image provided by

  Mordechai Meiri / Shutterstock

  Cover fonts:

  Good Foot © Jakob Fischer

  American Typewriter

  Two Skid Marks

  =^.^=

  "Adam you're a dead man," I muttered under my breath.

  My bestie Adam had promised he would swing by tryouts after he finished work. Provide moral support, then take me home. But of course, there was no sign of Adam. Not when I needed him most. Not when I'm standing outside the sports centre, sans knickers because Rick the Dick has an underwear fetish and had to drop mine in a puddle in the women's changing room. No way am I wearing soggy knickers. That's just gross. My lady bits deserved better than that. No squelching for them!

  Speaking of my lady bits. They had a craving for Jake, lucky number 7. I sighed at the memory of my recent shower fantasy of the hunky hockey player and almost squeaked when the object of my lust appeared beside me.

  "Heya Princess," he said with an easy smile.

  "Uh, hi." Why yes, I had majored in English before quitting university, can you tell?

  Jake, however, seemed impressed with my vast vocabulary and smiled down at me. His teeth were straight and brilliantly white. Something I'm sure my mother would approve of. No, nononononono, there was no way I was going to tell my mother about him. She still grieved the loss of Paul. At least that's how I chose to interpret her bombardment of helpful texts over the past few days. No mum, I will not put fruit crumble in places fruit crumble does not belong. That's so not sexy.

  "We're going out for a drink," he said.

  "Beersies!" one of his teammates yelled from nearby. A handful of men grinned at me when I gave them my attention.

  "Go Jake!"

  Jake touched my elbow, below where my T-shirt ended. Heat blossomed from where our skin met and raced across my body, straight to my clit. I was so hot right then that I wouldn't be surprised if steam whistled out of my ears. I suddenly panicked, afraid I had incinerated my knickers, but when Rick walked past and briefly locked eyes with me, I remembered what had happened to them. Jerk face.

  "Wanna join us?" Jake asked.

  "What?" I said as my gaze followed Rick. Glare. Glare. Glare. The despicable man didn't join his friends. Instead, he headed to a formidable-looking motorbike. I don't know why, but he took his time getting his gear on. What was his problem anyway? Other than being a total pervert, that is.

  "Drinks," Jake repeated and I forced my attention back to him.

  I withheld the squee that threatened to escape. He wasn't asking me out, not exactly. He was being friendly and inviting me to join the guys for a drink. Oh, no. Had I just been friendzoned?

  Fortunately the taxi I had rung for arrived, saving me from making a fool of myself once more.

  "This is for me," I told him.

  He frowned but opened the back door, holding it while I climbed inside and lugged my gear in after me. How gentlemanly, I thought with a smile.

  "Maybe another time," he offered.

  "Yeah," I said, already regretting getting into the taxi. "I'm sorry, but I've got work tomorrow and I need to kill a guy."

  He nodded as if he understood. "As long as it's not me," he said.

  "What?"

  "That you're going to kill. Assassins are hot, by the way."

  With that he closed the door, leaving me openmouthed in the taxi. Did he think I was an assassin and I was hot? No way was I Angelina Jolie-hot—she played a badass assassin in that one movie—but did he just imply I was hot? You heard it too, right?

  "Where to ma'am?" the driver asked. I gave him my address and with practiced ease he pulled us out of the carpark. A motorcyclist rode alongside us for a while before turning down a side street. Rick the dick.

  Oh boy, what a night. And Adam? He was still a dead man.

  * * *

  "Urggghhh."

  Morning had broken and I wished I was dead. To think I'd been worried about bruises. What I should have been worried about were my muscles. Turns out I had more muscles than I had given my body credit for. So now, of course, they were making themselves known in the most punishing way.

  "Owie," I whimpered as I tried to get out of bed. This usually simple act felt more like I'd attempted to raise myself from the dead.

  The phone decided to get in on it and happily taunted me with its trilling tone. "Gotta get up! Gotta get up!" it sung. If I could have thrown something at it, I would have.

  "If that's my mother…"

  I finally managed to push my aching body out of bed, and with straight unbending legs waddled to the answer the phone. Whoever was on the other end was greeted with my eloquent morning grunt. How was I going get to work?

  "Oh sweetie. You are not a morning person but you sound worse than usual."

  It was Adam. I suddenly remembered that I was going to kill him but at the moment I was too dead to care.

  "Are you a ghost?" I asked as I toddled toward the bathroom and stared morosely at the toilet.

  "What? No. Why?" he asked carefully.

  Nuts, he was suspicious. That'd make it harder for me to kill him.

  "Because only a dead person would miss supporting their best friend in their time of need," I told him, laying it on thick as I used one hand to pull down my pants and attempted to sit.

  "In my defence, I was there. I even had a sign. It said: Go Hayley! But then that little blonde girl said there were more gays on the boys team and I…"

  "You what?" I asked through gritted teeth while my leg muscles screamed at me that they were on strike.

  "I kind of signed up and tried out for the inline hockey team."

  All he got was silence from my end of the line. Yeah, I'm a bad friend but I couldn't help it right now. I needed to get my butt to land on the toilet. I really needed to pee.

  "Well anyway, I got on the team." Adam continued, probably mistaking my silence for evil glaring over the phone. "Hayley, are you okay?"

  "I want to pee so bad but I can't sit down because my body hates me," I whimpered.

  Adam laughed before offering me a solution to my current predicament. "Do it in the shower."

  I gasped at the blasphemous suggestion. "But I can't do that to Shawn!"

  "It's no worse than what you already do to him, sweetie. Now go pee in the shower."

  I sighed. I knew he was right, but I wasn't about to tell Adam that I often peed in the shower. Even my bestie didn't need to know that Shawn had a pee fetish. Don't look at me like that. It made sense to me, and I wasn't about to judge my showers kinks.

  "If you can be ready in ten minutes, I can take you to work. Any later than that and you'll have to take the train. Traffic is going to be a biatch if I miss this window. Oh, and one more thing."

  "Yeah?" I asked, naively hopeful that he would offer to take me to pancakes.

  "Congrats on getting on the team, Skid Marks!"

  I ran—more like shuffled like a zombie—into work, the backs of my sandals slapping at my heels anno
uncing to all that I was late.

  "You're late," my least favourite boss unnecessarily pointed out as I wrenched open my junk drawer and threw my bag in. She didn't wait for me to beg for forgiveness or offer an excuse. Instead, she thrust the most hated diary in the world at me and watched like the vulture she is—I wondered if she might be related to my mother, that might explain a lot—as I logged into the computer, printed off her stupid calendar, cut it carefully with scissors and glued the blasted thing in. Hey, I can't complain—at least not out loud. It was the only thing she trusted me with.

  "Jim's had a mountain biking accident and won't be coming in," she told me and snorted. "You'll need to courier his laptop to him at home."

  My two managers didn't get along, which was mostly her problem though, not his. Jim was loved by all. Constantly in meetings yet somehow he got shit done. I'd like to think I play a small part in him getting the shit done. I was the one who taped a large sign on his door that read: Jim is protected by his guard PA. See her to get an appointment. I used to include the next available slot on the poster but seeing the date was usually two months out, people would barge into his office for impromptu meetings with him. Thus it would fuck up the rest of his—and my—day.

  "And the guy down south has up and quit so I'll be flying down there—" on her broom probably "—to take over for the next couple of months. Until they find a replacement."

  I waited for her to continue, already knowing I wouldn't be booking her flights or anything. The only cue I had that I should say something was her preening. Realising her temporary role would mean a temporary promotion, I hurriedly congratulated her. Anything to get her to leave already, which she did.

  As I collapsed in my chair, Trish, the other PA on the floor, stopped by.

  "Ding-dong, the witch is gone," she whispered with a cheeky grin.

  I couldn't agree more. But with Jim gone as well that meant I had nothing to do, other than cancel all his meetings for the next week. I'm too nice though, and offered to help Trish with her workload. Unlike me, both of her managers trusted her and they were also normal, well-adjusted human beings.

  We sat in companionable silence as we stuffed letters into envelopes. So much for the digital age. From the corner of my eye I caught Trish looking at me oddly. I couldn't take it anymore.

  "What?" I demanded.

  "You don't look so good. Are you all right?"

  I snorted. The understatement of the year. "The first rule of Fight Club…" I said, trying to be funny.

  Trish gasped. "For reals?"

  "Calm down, Trish. I tried out for a roller derby team last night."

  "The Wicked B*tches of West Auckland?" she asked hopefully. The sadistic glint in her eyes made me wary.

  "No, we're playing them next, though. I'm with the Selby Slammers."

  Trish looked at me sadly.

  "What?"

  "I'll be cheering for the B*tches. I have a friend on that team," she said. "You don't know it yet, but you're in for a world of pain."

  Neither of us would ever guess how much pain that would be. Never in a million years.

  * * *

  This time I used the correct changing room. I double checked before going in. I was so not making the same mistake again. Although a room full of naked men did appeal, I feared I would embarrass myself in front of that much manly flesh. And the last thing I needed was another run-in with Rick the Dick.

  Two other girls from the tryouts had made it on the team, so I didn't feel so alone. Thank God. The team captain Pretty Vicious had settled down a lot since we had last seen her. Word on the street—team—was that she had caught her girlfriend with a man before the tryouts and—you guessed it—her ex-girlfriend had been a Slammer. And, as it turned out, she caught her with one of the hockey players!

  I could totally sympathise with her, although I'd not caught Paul making the beast with two backs with the supposed blonde stick insect, Pretty probably felt just as betrayed as I did. Well, not quite, as Paul's sexuality had never been called into question.

  The men's inline hockey team were on the next rink over also practicing for their upcoming game. It seemed the hockey games and derby matches were often played back to back in the same venues, which would give me plenty of opportunities to ogle Jake.

  A helpless figure flailed from one end of the rink toward me and I was surprised to see it was my bestie.

  "Adam?" I asked, stunned.

  Adam had played field hockey when he was younger so I thought he'd be really good at inline hockey. As it turns out, he's good at hockey, just not the inline part. He did, however, manage to fumble his way to me while making unintentional jazz hands.

  "You suck," I told him. I'm nothing but honest. Besides, he wouldn't appreciate it if I lied to him.

  "Gee thanks," he drawled.

  I took a step back on my skates, worried he would take me out when his arms pinwheeled violently.

  "Double thanks," he said noticing my attempt to put a safe zone between us. "Uh oh, here comes the feminazi."

  "What did I say about dicks on the rink?" Pretty demanded, planting cute little fists on her dainty non-child-bearing hips.

  Adam puffed his chest out and declared: "I'll have you know my dick is one hundred percent gay."

  "A dick is still a dick," Pretty pointed out matter-of-factly. With a flick of her wrist, she dismissed the owner of said dick from her rink.

  Adam left with as much dignity as he could manage—read that to mean he only fell over twice—on his way back to the dick-friendly rink. Probably not as dick friendly as Adam was hoping though.

  Pretty tossed her perfect ringlets over her shoulder and herded me back to the group so the torture could begin. All three new pieces of fresh meat were put through the wringer. If I had thought the tryouts were tough, they were nothing compared to this practice. We were told that we had to earn our way up to the role of jammer, a coveted position held by at least half a dozen of the girls. Coveted mostly because they were allowed first dibs on dicks from the inline hockey team. Now that—aside from pancakes—is the most brilliant motivator I have ever heard.

  I decided right then and there that I was going to become a jammer and get me some dick. I mean…I was going to have fun and be part of a team and stuff. I had Shawn and for now he provided enough satisfaction for me. Probably the last thing I needed right now was what would be attached to a dick. Besides, I could barely talk to Jake as it was. How on Earth would I ask him out, let alone ask to get into his pants? I think I've said dick way too many times for it to be healthy. People will think I've got dick on the brain!

  I almost died—twice—before practice ended. The silver lining was the male mirage that sailed before me and Pretty couldn't complain about the other gender skating on her rink. The eyes of every hot-blooded heterosexual female tracked Jake's graceful, yet masculine body as he skated closer. He grinned at Pretty Vicious and after they exchanged a few words, our much-loved captain spoke.

  "The dicks—I mean, boys—from the inline hockey team want to invite us to drinks with them. I don't recommend drinking so close to a game, but I'm not your mother. Is anyone interested?"

  Pick-me arms shot into the air like rockets. No one was stupid enough to turn down an invitation made by Jake, except for Pretty. She seemed to loathe him. Both of my arms went up as if I had scored a goal. I hate sports yet I use the analogies, go figure. I sheepishly lowered one arm before anyone noticed. The girls were too busy salivating over the fine specimen of the male species, so I hadn't embarrassed myself again in front of my derby peers. However, Rick the Dick's intense glare told me he had seen it.

  The girls showered, changed, primped, and preened in record time. Pretty claimed Jake the Shower so I missed out. I let it go as I wouldn't have had time to reacquaint myself with his attachment, not with this many people in here. I'm loud but not that proud about my sexual shower shenanigans, so I hovered behind the girls who hogged the mirrors as they put their faces on. I
didn't wear makeup; it made me feel claustrophobic. Instead, I spent the time strangling my damp hair into submission.

  I was excited for drinks, until I heard the jammers start arguing over who had dibs on Jake. Well, I was going to be shit out of luck there it seemed. I was fresh meat. A newb. The team had a code and because I was one of the last women on the totem pole, I would not see dick tonight.

  I noticed Hello Kilty as she struggled with a bottle of something and was about to offer my help—I'm an expert jar opener, Paul had nothing on me—when whatever it was suddenly burst open and exploded everywhere. Girls screamed as whatever it was rained down on us. We looked at each other, stunned to find glitter—the herpes of the arts and crafts world—covered our hair and shoulders. We had been glitter bombed.

  "Oops, my bad," Kilty called out.

  "But I don't want to sparkle," I complained. I wasn't happy to sparkle like a Twilight vampire. I'd much rather be the bloodsucking bat-turning-into kind, thank you very much.

  "Suck it up buttercup," Pretty informed me. She was the only one to have escaped the glittery ejaculation. I was so envious of her just because of that. It would take weeks to get rid of it all. Glitter was evil. Evil.

  Both genders mixed easily at the bar down the road from the sports centre. I watched Jake as he expertly divided his time with each jammer. It was like he was in on the deal they had made. He also bought several rounds of drinks, even splurging for a Long Island iced tea that Kilty had wide-eyed and innocently asked for.

  I spluttered into my third lemon lime and bitters when Jake looked my way. Not only was he good looking and practically perfect in every way—didn't need no spoonful of sugar to make me go down on him—he was rich.

  Adam plonked his butt down on the seat next to me and groaned. I knew from personal experience what that groan meant. I gave him a sad panda face to show I empathised with him and glanced questioningly at his drink.