Wicked Winters: A Collection of Winter Tales

by Lucy Smoke

  33

  Vinnie

  Thursday 14th December – 11 days until Christmas

  I’d been waiting at our table in the Coffee Shop for fifteen minutes. I knew she wasn't coming, but I had hope. She’d gotten my message, the status had changed to read late last night, but she hadn’t replied. Enjoying the high from the win and knowing that I’d played my ass off for the scouts, I’d expected the high to continue with a reply from Scoop. Instead my message still said delivered. She either hadn't read it yet or was ghosting me.

  I knew I wasn't supposed to be seeing her, but I had to talk to her. I needed to know what was going on. I wanted answers, not just for me, but for all of us. I could see how the situation was eating away at Christian. His usually cool self was arctic, barely able to tolerate being in our presence.

  And Justin, besides having a shake waiting for me at my usual times, I’d barely seen him. The one time I had seen him for more than just a few seconds had been at the game last night, and he’d been brutal. It was like he was everywhere on the ice, forward, winger, defense. He'd even gotten a penalty for body checking. Justin, the big cuddly teddy bear, penalty for aggression. My mind had been blown.

  So now I was sitting here with a coffee in a takeaway cup, tapping my fingers on the table and avoiding eye contact with the barista. She’d given me a deep smile and a coy look when I’d ordered, and then had personally brought me my drink. Every time I looked up at the door, she made eye contact with me. It was getting seriously fucking annoying.

  I just couldn’t line up the image of Hayden that had been forming, with the image I had of her in my head. My Scoop would not intentionally play three guys against each other. It just wasn’t her style. There was no way she would target us just for fun. There had to be a reason for all of this. The girl who supported women’s shelters, who stepped in to finish off a project for someone she didn’t even know, the girl who could throw innuendos back and forth with me, the girl who’d had Justin smiling, and gave Christian a bounce to his step. She just wasn’t the girl who played three best friends off each other.

  Something wasn’t adding up.

  All week, I’d been forcing myself not to think about the whole situation. I was hurt, no doubt. There was anger waiting to be unleashed, but I didn’t have all the facts. I couldn’t let it loose until I knew everything because I knew it would burn everything in its path, not caring about the fallout from the destruction. I had to hold onto my image of her and not let the unknown taint that. She was Scoop. I just needed to talk to her.

  I finished my coffee and checked the time. Forty minutes had passed. She wasn’t coming. Sighing, I stood up from my table, grabbed my now empty coffee, and dropped it in the trash on my way out, the entire time looking at the floor so the barista didn’t think I was interested in talking to her. I had enough girl drama as it was.

  Heading back home, I took a long winding way back, completely lost in my own thoughts. The same thoughts that had been circling around in my mind, always coming back to the same conclusion. There had to be another explanation for what was going on. But every time I thought through the issues and I came to the night of the Winter Wonderland, I lost another inch in the battle I was fighting to keep my anger contained.

  She had been with all of us that night. I knew we weren’t exclusive, none of us having had that chat with her yet, so I couldn’t exactly be mad that she had gone on three separate dates. But three dates on the one night? And she had to know that we were all teammates, right? I mean, even if she had only seen the team picture, we all stood side by side. She couldn’t have missed that, right? She was a journalist, they picked up on that shit.

  When I arrived home, Justin had his flash cards out on the dinner table, but his hands held up his head. Christian played a one-person shooter game and even had the headset on to listen to other players. He was just apparently not talking back to them. Ok then.

  “Hey man, you okay?” I asked Justin as I sat at the table next to him.

  Justin lifted his head from his hands; his face showed every ounce of the dejection that he felt. I hadn’t realized that this was hitting him quite so hard. I couldn’t even remember him being this upset when he broke up with Vanessa.

  “Not really,” he muttered, dropping his hands on the table with a slight thump.

  “Want to talk about it?” I asked, hoping he would say yes. I was ready to talk about it. I wanted to know everything that was going on. We all needed to be clear and on the same page. Because today was Thursday, the day we had agreed to confront her. The guilt at having tried to see her alone gnawed away at me, but I’d been doing it for us, to get us the answers we wanted. Needed.

  “No not really, but we need to.” His eyes cut away from me as his fists clenched.

  I nodded my head, understanding that we weren’t those guys who sat around discussing our feelings, but this chick meant something to all of us, and it was eating us alive not moving forward with the situation.

  I gestured towards Christian. Justin nodded his head and started packing up his stuff. As he did that, I got up and walked into the lounge room, using my body to block Christian’s view of the T.V.

  “What the hell, Vinnie, move.” He gestured at me wildly; a slight snarl curled the ends of his words.

  I stood my ground; I didn’t give a shit that he was pissed. “We need to talk,” I told him.

  “No, we don’t, get out of my way,” Christian growled back as he glared at me from his reclined position on the lounge. His body was tense and ready to launch at me, but I refused to get out of his way. He’d either been avoiding us, biting our heads off, or just being a grouchy son of a bitch for the past few days, and now, it was the day we had agreed to make a plan, and he acted like he couldn’t be fucked with it.

  “Yes, we do, we need to go talk to Hayden and find out what the hell is going on. Unless you’re giving up? Bowing out?” I goaded him. A sick feeling formed in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t want him to bow out. Hayden had made him happy; I’d seen him smiling for no reason when he had been lost in thought, chuckling at text messages. He’d been a different person, more carefree. She was good for him, he couldn’t give up on her.

  He snorted back at me, trying to lean around. I stepped sideways to continue blocking his view. The sound from his headset started to increase, causing him to frown.

  “I just died and so did my team, so thanks for that. And no, I’m not bowing out. Are you?” he shot back at me, clearly looking for a fight.

  “No, I’m not. That’s why we need to talk,” I replied, trying to stay calm, but it was a mission. My hold on my anger was tenuous at best right now.

  Justin fell onto the far end of the couch, so I sat on the edge of the coffee table between them, forming a triangle. We all sat there in silence for a few seconds before Christian lurched upright with a clap of his hands.

  “Well, good chat gentlemen, I’m going to head to my room.” Christian started to turn away from us.

  “Sit down,” Justin grunted, his voice dark and menacing. My skin actually crawled at the sound. Sometimes that guy could be a scary mother fucker.

  Christian tensed for a second, but eventually sat down. “Well? Are we going to talk or what?” he demanded as his left leg started to bounce up and down.

  “Well we need to decide what we want to do,” I stated, barely containing my frustration with the jackass.

  “Obviously, Vinnie. I think we should just go talk to her, find out why she lied to all of us for the past few weeks. Then we can all leave and move on with our lives,” he returned at me, his eyes hard and angry.

  “I’m not moving on; I’m not giving up on Scoop,” I said, infusing as much confidence as I could into my words. I was angry with her, yeah. She’d played us all, but I knew that if there was an explanation, something that I could understand, I would forgive her. I wanted her so damn badly.

  “Me neither,” Justin replied. “I want to hear her out. If things get sorte
d, I want to be with her. If she’ll still have me.”

  I stared at him. Did he understand that we all wanted to be with her? Or was he missing the part about there being three of us and one of her?

  “Well, I guess then she’ll have a choice to make, you or me.” Tension made my voice tight.

  My head snapped toward Christian when I heard him grumble, “And me,” before he dropped his head back on the couch and stared up at the ceiling; the tension drained from his body as if he had given up the fight.

  I looked back at Justin who stared at Christian with hard eyes. Then they were both looking at me. Waiting.

  “So, uh, we all want the same girl, huh?” I asked, trying to inject some lightness into my tone.

  “Looks like it,” Christian muttered darkly looking over my shoulder.

  “Dude, if you are going to sit over there like a black cloud, then fine. Either help fix the situation or shut up,” I snapped at him. I was done with his pathetic attitude, walking around caveman style, like he was the only person crushed and angry at Hayden, confused as hell about it all. Hockey was over; we had a break until the New Year, no coaches, no scouts, no pressure. We could figure this shit out, together.

  “I don’t see you coming up with a plan,” he grouched back at me.

  Red. Everything was red.

  Before I knew it, I was up and in his face shouting, “My plan, you asshole, is to go and talk to her like a civilized human being. To get some answers. There is no way Scoop was playing me, or us, for the Puck Games. It isn’t her style.”

  Christian had stood up, refusing to let me loom over him. “I know it isn’t her style asshole, but something isn’t right. Let’s just go and fucking talk to her,” he shouted back at me.

  “Fine,” I shouted.

  “You two ladies done yelling at each other?” Justin inquired from his seat on the couch. He had relaxed back into the corner cushions, with both arms across the back of the couch and one ankle folded over the other knee.

  “Yeah,” we both huffed, turning away from each other. Fuck it had felt good to yell, to let some of it out.

  “Excellent. Has anyone messaged her today?” he asked, still all relaxed and calm.

  “Yeah, but she hasn’t replied,” Christian answered as he moved away from us to stare out the window.

  “I, um, tried to see her today,” I admitted. A small laugh escaped me then petered out. Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I looked at them sheepishly. "I just wanted to get to the bottom of the situation, so I could clear it up for all of us."

  "Yeah, right, that's what you wanted to do. You sure you just didn't just want to see her again?" Christian demanded, with his back to me still.

  "Yeah, that was part of it, but only a small part. Not knowing is killing me. Don't get all weird on me, but I have never felt this way about a girl before. Seriously, all I do is think about her, and this past week has been pouring shit all over my happy thoughts. And I know, I just know, she isn't the kind of girl to play games with three best friends. She would never have set out to do just that. Something else is going on, I just needed to know what that was. We need to know." My hands raked through my hair, as I paced around the coffee table; my nervous energy getting the better of me.

  "Yeah, we all agreed that something else was going on," Justin reminded me, "But the reason I asked about speaking to her is, so we could find out where she is. I messaged her about an hour ago, it says she read it, but I don't have a reply."

  Shit, how would we figure that out?

  "Wait, today's Thursday. She's at the paper. It's the last edition for the year tonight. She mentioned it the other day when we were texting." Triumphant, I stopped my pacing and turned back to them.

  "Do you know where it is?" Justin asked.

  "Uh... no." Damn.

  There was a brief pause as we all contemplated what to do.

  "I do,” Christian said quietly, his back still to us. “It's in the administration building."

  We both turned to look at Christian, "And how do you know that precisely?" I asked, anger building. Had he known she was a journalist?

  He threw me a dark look. "Dad owns it."

  Oh, right.

  "Okay, well I say we head over there now," Justin stated.

  I checked my phone, still no messages, and saw that it was six thirty.

  "Sounds good to me; she should still be there. Last week there was some sort of problem and she had to stay back until eleven," I replied.

  Justin's mouth opened as something seemed to click in his mind. "The group project that had a problem, that was The Press?"

  I slowly nodded my head, watching as Justin hid his sadness. I could see him rolling it into a ball and tucking it deep inside him, burying it as deep as he could. I felt bad for the guy; he was seriously having a crap run with the ladies. I hoped this whole situation didn’t make everything worse for him.

  After a moment, he stood up from the couch and headed towards the front door. "Okay, well the only way we are going to get answers is to actually go and talk to her. So, let's get this over with."

  My heart thudded in my chest for two beats. Shit we were really just going to go and confront her. What if her excuse was lame? What if it was because of the Puck Games and she just wanted to score with all of us? No, I had to believe in her. I had to stay strong. Give her the benefit of the doubt.

  The walk to the elevator, followed by the drive to campus was silent. There was no music playing in the car. None of us were playing on our phones, like we had all been doing for the past few weeks. Which I now realized was because we were all texting Hayden at the same time. We’d been ignoring each other. Keeping our girl a secret from each other; the Puck Games isolated us. Separated our family. It felt like we were on our way to a funeral.

  Christian pulled the SUV into a car space near the admin building, which only had a few windows with lights on. One of those was Scoop. She was so close.

  We all got out of the car, zipping up our jackets and stuffing our hands into our pockets as we hurried through the snow to the front door of the building. Justin and I followed Christian as he went up two levels and then turned down different hallways until we reached a wooden door with gold lettering.

  The Press.

  Editor-in-Chief Hayden Halloway

  Christian turned to face us. "Last chance to walk away," he stated, his expression hard as granite.

  My teeth were grinding together with the effort to force myself to stand still. I wasn't sure if I wanted to run and never know, or if I wanted to lean forward and open the door. Fuck, this could seriously be one of the worst moments of my life.

  "Just open it," Justin said, shoulders up near his ears with tension. His face was so tense, I could see a vein in his temple pulsing.

  Christian nodded and turned back to the door. As he reached for the handle, the light went out and the door suddenly wrenched open.

  Hayden stood there, a manila folder in her hands and her aqua beanie covering her dark brown, wavy hair. When she saw us standing there, her eyes snapped from one to the next; her face was a mask of confusion. But that didn't last long. Her face morphed into a rage so potent her pupils dilated, and I felt like she grew two feet. My feet wanted to take a step back from her, but I forced them to stay still. No, we would not back down, we had done nothing wrong. She was the one dating three guys.

  Her focus landed on me. "I finished your follow up article Vinnie; I hope you like it. Your two best friends feature right alongside you. Actually, your whole team does." Her tone was so scathing, so dark and twisted, my brain couldn't reconcile this with my Scoop.

  She fiddled with the folder before folding it open and flipping it around so that we could all see the title.

  Hockey Team All Pucked Up.

  My eyes quickly flicked down the text zeroing in on the images that were slotted into the article. There was an image of the Puck Board, with all the Puck slots filled, the names slightly blurred out. Those photo
s were taken after Sunday, after her name was put on the board. My eyes closed as it sank in. This was about the Puck Games. She’d come after me for an article about the games. The stupid, fucking games.

  Opening my eyes, I made eye contact with her. Her anger and disappointment drilled into my chest, forming a gaping hole around my heart. Before I could get my brain to tell my mouth to say something, to say anything, she dismissed me to look at Justin, and then Christian, all of whom were standing there in various states of shock and anger.

  "Well, what do you think?" she demanded; an angry smile cutting across her face.

  34

  Hayden

  Thursday 14th December – 11 days until Christmas

  I stood there, my righteous anger enjoying this moment. Watching them all squirm under my scrutiny. The rage bubbled inside of me; it had built with every word I had written, edited, and proofed. These men, that whole team, degrading women and ranking them by their sexual abilities in bed, displayed on a score board for all to see. I didn’t care what Tori had said about owning her sexuality. The Puck Games were demeaning as fuck. And I certainly hadn’t gotten to the stage where I deserved to have my name up on that board. Neither had Steph. Nor countless other women, I was sure.

  I continued waiting for one of them to say something, anything at all. But no, they all just stood there in various states of shock. A little piece of me was worried that they were all having minor heart attacks, but the bigger part of me that was filled with outrage and revulsion didn’t care at all.

  When I‘d opened the door to leave, the last thing I’d expected to see was the three of them standing there with harsh expressions. They had clearly figured out the situation we were in, what with me knowing all three of them. But no, sorry boys, you do not have the high ground here. I do.

  “Nothing to say? Aren’t you worried that I didn’t catch your good sides?” I readjusted my grip on the folder, so that I could see it while it still faced them. “I think I did a really good job. It really highlights the moral caliber of the entire hockey team.” I flicked the page over and showed them the article up close: photos of the board, with the girls’ names blurred out enough to make them illegible, but having left the guys initials clear as day, front and center. As well as all of the scores.