Wicked Winters: A Collection of Winter Tales

by Lucy Smoke

  “Hey Hayden, nothing. Steph used our new app. So, who broke up with who this time?” Mikie asked, his eyes assessing me.

  “Neither of us, I don’t think,” I replied, which was true. Neither of us had broken up with anyone. There had to be an actual relationship before that happened.

  “Well, Steph ordered the tiramisu, and you guys only get that when one of you breaks up with someone,” he replied knowingly.

  I heaved a sigh and responded. “I had some guy troubles, but not technically a break up. I’ll be fine in a few days.”

  Mikie smiled at me. “The guy must have been crazy if he gave you the run around, I’d snap you up given half the chance,” he finished with a naughty smile. My heart twisted, the action reminding me of Vinnie.

  I chuckled to cover it up. “Thanks Mikie; I’ll keep that in mind. Have a good night.”

  “Night Hayden,” he called as he headed back down the hallway.

  I closed the door and turned around to see Steph sitting on my bed. “No offence Sugar, but you look like you were hit by a cow truck,” she stated bluntly as she eyed me.

  “Geez Steph, tell me what you really think,” I muttered under my breath. But I knew she was right since I hadn’t showered since last night. My hair was a bird’s nest hidden by a messy bun on the top of my head. I had my super comfy, loose sweat pants on with my Boston College hoodie and fluffy Christmas themed socks that had red pompoms on the outside of my ankles for Rudolph’s nose. Mom had sent them in the mail, along with this year’s Christmas present, which I was under strict instructions not to open until Christmas morning. So, there were two little presents sitting under my miniature Christmas tree with its red bow, taking up the corner of my desk. Steph had put hers in the same spot on her desk.

  “Hay, come sit by me just a sec, okay?” Steph said as she made room for me on my bed.

  I put the boxes down on my desk and shuffled over to sit next to her, tucking my right leg under my body.

  “Honey, what’s going on? Talk to me. Is it The Press? The exams?” she asked, but I could tell she already knew the answer.

  “No, all that’s fine. The problems at The Press I can’t control, right? The next edition will go out when the new semester starts; my article can wait until then.” I stared at my lamp over her shoulder, not willing to make eye contact. I didn’t want to have this conversation with Steph. I didn’t want her to know that I’d failed at my first undercover story. I’d fallen for my sources, I’d gotten entangled in the story, emotionally involved. And now, I missed them.

  I’d had time to think about their reactions to the article when they’d come to confront me. And there was that too, they’d come to confront me. The evidence was in their favor. All three of them had been genuinely shocked, genuinely remorseful, genuinely crushed. All of their true feelings played out on their faces.

  It had been during my continuous rehashing of the situation that I’d realized that maybe it really had been all real to them. Maybe what they’d said about not meaning for my name to get on the board had been true. And I’d realized that I’d been lying to myself. I couldn’t just turn off my feelings for them. I was able to admit to myself that I missed them. And that hurt so much since it was all my fault that they were gone. But I couldn’t tell Steph any of that. “I’m just stressed with exams, you know? This is our final year, we need to be amazing.”

  “Okay Sugar, if you say so,” Steph replied as she gave my hands a squeeze, but the look on her face told me she knew I was lying.

  “Want me to set up Netflix?” I asked as I reached for the pizzas.

  “Yeah, you pick this time okay? Something Christmas-y though. You could use a little holiday spirit,” she replied as she took the boxes from me.

  I reached for my laptop. I needed a lot more than a Christmas movie to fix the three gaping holes in my heart.

  38

  Christian

  Tuesday 19th December – 6 days until Christmas

  The apartment was silent. None of us had heard from Hayden since Thursday night. We had all been messaging her, I’d even tried calling her on Saturday, but she hadn’t answered. I’d since given up. I had never been this screwed up over a girl before. My heart was still on the floor outside of The Press.

  She had literally torn shreds from us. What defense had we had? The Puck Games were disgusting. I’d known they were, but I hadn’t done anything to stop them, not wanting anything to get in the way of my chances of going pro. I hadn’t wanted to not be seen as a team player. So, I had gone along with it, staying involved enough that I didn’t get targeted for not participating.

  Probably the biggest mistake of my life.

  Standing in front for the open fridge for probably the fifth time in the last half hour looking for something to eat, I sighed as I realized nothing had magically appeared. I’d kill for a beer. Or some mint chocolate ice cream.

  “Want to order in?” Justin rumbled as he entered the kitchen.

  Justin seemed to be holding it together, but I could see the sadness in his eyes. He’d kept to himself, studying in his room or hitting the gym solo. I didn’t know what to say to him. I’d been so angry at the situation that sadness was only just starting to hit me.

  She just hadn’t given us a second to explain. She had stood up on her platform and rained fire down on us.

  But it was so wrong. Yeah, we’d fucked up by getting her name on the board, but that had been an accident. She was the one who’d played us. We were the ones who’d been kept in the dark. She had given us all hope, and we’d all given pieces of ourselves to her. Christ, I’d given her that little red heart. I hadn’t told the guys about that, it was too humiliating.

  I closed the door of the refrigerator and turned to face Justin, bending over to rest my arms on the breakfast bar. “Yeah that’s probably a good idea. No one’s been to the store, so we don’t have much to work with.”

  “What are you thinking? Burgers?” Justin had his phone out, ready to order.

  The idea of burgers from the place on the corner made me think about the night we had all taken Scoop food. Fuck that had been horrendous. I’d wanted to punch them both for being anywhere near her, sure that they were just playing the game and not truly interested. Now, I knew different. We were all hung up on her. Whatever, if Justin wanted burgers, we’d have burgers.

  “Yeah man that’s – ” I started, but got cut off by Vinnie walking through the door. And about forty other people.

  What the fuck?

  “Vinnie, what’s going on?” Justin growled, as he eyed all the people infiltrating our apartment. More and more people just kept coming in, Vinnie in the middle of it all, talking, laughing, gesturing.

  “A party! What’s it look like?” Vinnie shouted back.

  Someone had already worked out how to get our sound system working, and all of a sudden, our place had turned into a club, with house music blaring through our speakers. The lights were dimmed, and it was the perfect atmosphere for drunk college students to party.

  Grant Michaels appeared in the kitchen carrying bags of groceries. He put them up on the counter, nothing but snacks and junk food pouring out. “I found him at the store pushing a cart down the snack aisle, pretty much just grabbing one of everything. He said he wanted to throw a Single and Ready to Mingle party. Something about all of you getting hooked up over a girl?” Granted recapped as we all started unloading the food.

  I kept a wary eye on the crowd, watching them set up a keg on the coffee table, dancing around the couch with red plastic cups filled with alcohol. I glanced at Justin to gauge his reaction, and saw that he was glaring at Vinnie. I turned back and watched him; he laughed at a joke, flirted with a group of girls, and high-fived from someone I didn’t recognize. I scanned the crowd again. I didn’t recognize anyone. Besides us three in the kitchen and Vinnie in the living room, there were no other hockey players, and if I wasn’t mistaken, there were no Pucks here either.

  “Is he drunk?”
I asked Grant. This was typical party boy Vinnie behavior, but I couldn’t tell if he was drunk or just playing it up.

  “I don’t think so. I think this chick just fucked him up real good. What happened? Besides Justin, I didn’t know any of you were interested in a girl.” Grant inquired casually, too busy unpacking the stuff and finding bowls to put everything in to notice how tense Justin and I had gotten.

  Justin and I looked at each other, not sure what to say. After a second he gave me a slight nod, before pouring some chips into a bowl.

  I took a deep breath and looked out at the crowd, seriously not believing that I was about to say this out loud. “It was the same girl.”

  The sound of chips hitting a bowl came to a sudden stop, “What? Did you just say you were all into the same girl?”

  I turned to face Grant. His eyes were wide, the half-emptied bag of chips still in his hand, as he stared at me with an incredulous look on his face. I nodded. “Yeah, her name’s Hayden; we didn’t know. Puck Games you know? We all wanted to keep it on the down low until we had things locked in. Blew up in our faces though.”

  “Hayden, that name sounds really familiar.” Grant stared off into space as he tried to place the name.

  “She’s the Editor-In-Chief at The Press, maybe you know her from there,” I supplied.

  “Yeah, maybe…” he trailed off. A few seconds later he snapped himself out of it and went back to pouring the chips. “So, what happened? Why isn’t one of you dating her if you all liked her?”

  I looked to Justin for help; I seriously couldn’t rehash this again. I felt like I had ripped that band-aid off one too many times and now the skin was coming off with it.

  “Dudes, why do you all look like someone just slashed your tires? It’s a party, so party!” Vinnie exclaimed as he leapt up the two steps that separated the kitchen from the sunken living area.

  “We were talking about Hayden,” Justin said through gritted teeth.

  Vinnie blanched for a second—if I had blinked I would’ve missed it—bouncing back with a sneer on his face. “Why? She’s old news. Look at all the chicks here, we can have our pick. You need to forget about her dude.”

  “I thought you weren’t going to give up on her. What happened to never feeling about a chick like this before huh? Isn’t she worth it to you?” I demanded of him. How could he so easily be over her? To exchange her for some random girl.

  Vinnie’s demeanor instantly morphed from carefree party boy to defiant. “She didn’t want any of us, what don’t you get about that? She played us all. Getting close to some hockey players was just one of her angles to write that article. You both need to follow my lead and get over her by getting under another girl.” He smirked at us.

  “Wait, what? What angle? And she played you three? Seriously?” Grant’s head was spinning between the three of us. All of our expressions ranging from hurt, belligerent, and angry. “What the hell happened?”

  Vinnie ignored the question, heading to the case of beers that had been left by the front door and bringing it into the kitchen. He started emptying them into the fridge, lining them up in perfectly neat rows.

  “Well? Are any of you going to tell me?” Gant demanded.

  So, I did. I told him everything. As I did, pieces of the story started to slip together as Justin and Vinnie interjected, with added details. Fuck she was good, managing to keep us all separate, using the games to her advantage. I told him about how she found the board with the scores, how she saw her own name on the board. The article. How the website had been pulled.

  “Yeah, and at some point, she met Tori Schaefer, who told her everything about the Puck Games, and, uh, about that time, we all uh, shared her. When we confronted her about it all, the girl we had all come to know wasn’t there anymore. She was gone. In front of us was an ice queen. It was like she had built a wall between us, and no matter what we did or said, none of it made any difference. She had already made up her mind.” I finished, glad that all of the details were finally out.

  Justin was sitting up on one of the counter tops, cradling a beer he had yet to take a drink from, playing with his lip ring. Vinnie leaned over the breakfast bar, nodding his head and sipping his beer. Grant had retreated a few steps and leaned backwards against a counter top, one ankle crossed over the other and arms folded across his chest. I ended up on one of the stools, feeling drained from telling the whole sordid tale.

  We all stood around in silence for a bit. The noise from the party was raging on behind us, but it was as if we were trapped in our own little oasis, everyone mulling over everything.

  “Did your dad pull the paper?” Grant asked.

  Of all the questions I thought he would ask, that was not one of them.

  “I honestly don’t know. I got the weekly corporate email and there was just a one liner about donations to the college being cut in half. I tried following it up on this end, but the administration just gave me the run around. I have no idea who is responsible,” I replied. And it was true. I really had tried to find out what had happened. I’d even tracked down The Press’ sponsor who had barely given me the time of day when I’d tried to ask her questions.

  “Okay, well the way I see it, you guys have two options here. One, you could all follow Vinnie’s lead and get it on with some random,” he said as he gestured to Vinnie, who looked away his ears turning pink. “Or two, you could all try to talk to her again. Things are different now, and she needs to know that. You guys all still want her, right?”

  I felt him looking at us, but I couldn’t bring myself to look him in the eye; I just gave a simple nod. Yeah, I still wanted her. I had this great big fucking hole in my chest. We had fucked up. I needed to make it right.

  “Well then, you need to talk to her. Keep texting, keep calling, shit email her if you have to. Have you checked Facebook? What about Instagram?” he asked, getting passionate about finding a way forward.

  I cut him off. “Grant, stop. It won’t work.”

  “What do you mean it won’t work? You just keep contacting her until she gives in or gets a restraining order out against you!” he pushed.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, there are three of us and only one of her. We can’t all date her,” I replied, trying to hold onto my patience. I knew he was trying to help, everything he suggested came from a good place. But I just couldn’t let him give us hope like that, not when there wasn’t enough Haydens to go around.

  “So? You guys shared Tori, why can’t you share Hayden? You share everything else.” He made the statement as if it were that easy.

  “Grant, that was different, and we have never shared like that before,” Justin replied; his body language said he was done with this conversation. “And besides, that was just for one night. It wouldn’t work twenty-four seven. Sharing one girl permanently? Come on man be serious.” Justin dropped off the counter and walked over to the sink next to Grant, pouring his beer down the drain.

  “Why not? Why couldn’t it work? I have never seen you three so hung up over a girl before, let alone the same girl. And besides, the Puck Games is just one big massive share. We all, we’ll not me anymore, but the team all essentially goes on dates with the same girl and then sleeps with her. Sure, it’s only for one night normally, but I remember last season Matthews and Vaneck both got hooked on that exchange student, what was her name…”

  “Brigette,” Vinnie supplied, standing up a bit straighter.

  Grant nodded his head, “Yeah, Brigette. They all dated as a group for a few months, until she had to go back home. Matthews said that they were still in contact. I think he’s planning on going to see her at the end of the year. Vaneck too. So why couldn’t something like that work for you guys?”

  I looked at Vinnie who appeared… intrigued by the idea, and then at Justin, who leaned back against the sink, hands either side of himself holding onto the counter, staring at his feet.

  “Even if we were all willing to share, there’s no point in ev
en getting our hopes up. She hates us. All three of us. She isn’t answering any of our calls or texts. I think we all need to just move on.”

  My chest ached from Justin’s words. I rubbed the heel of my hand over my sternum trying to push away the pain.

  “Well, like I said, you just need to keep contacting her. There was no way she faked it with all three of you. No one is that good of an actor. She’ll crack, even if it’s to tell you to fuck off. Be persistent. She’ll come around.” He clapped a hand down on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Anyways boys, I’m off. Have an exam tomorrow. Let me know how it goes?”

  “Sure thing man, thanks for helping out with all the food,” Vinnie said, as he walked Grant to the door.

  Justin and I stayed in the kitchen, waiting for Vinnie to come back. Neither of us said a word. I kept trying to read him, to see what he thought of Grant’s idea. Was he interested in sharing Hayden? Could he handle it? Hell, could I handle it?

  The images of her kissing those two at the Winter Wonderland had been plaguing me. Imagining them kissing her with more passion, more intensity than I had. I’d poured everything into that kiss. I’d wanted her to know how I felt about her through that kiss. I knew she’d felt something. She had to have.

  Vinnie came back to the kitchen. “Well that was enlightening. Want me to clear the place out?”

  I squinted at him; he acted like this conversation hadn’t just changed everything. This was a new way forward.

  “Yeah, that would be great. I have my last exam first thing in the morning,” Justin said as he walked past me and headed to his room. Vinnie nodded and waded through the crowd heading towards our entertainment unit.

  I just sat there. Didn’t they want to talk about this? Was that really the end of the conversation?

  The music cut out and the lights were turned to full brightness.

  “All right, everyone get out!” called Vinnie.

  There were a lot of grumbles from the party goers, but Vinnie didn’t let that stop him.