Page 20 of Hot for the Hockey Player (The Single Moms of San Camanez: The Vino Vixens #2)

In no time at all, kids started to filter out of the various exists.

It wasn’t a big school, so I easily spotted Damon and a small group of boys making their way toward me.

The telltale teenage boy guffaw echoed across the parking lot as several tall males with floppy, curly hair and baggy clothes zipped up their hoodies as the cold wind whipped up off the water.

“Holy shit,” one guy said. “It really is him.”

More adolescent laughter.

I was about twelve years older than these guys, but at the moment, I felt closer to twenty or more.

“Dammmmnnnn,” said another kid. “Fucking Maverick Roy.”

I smiled at all of them as Damon, with his hands in his pockets, head down, scuffed up to stand by the tailgate. “Hey, guys. You’re all friends of Damon’s?”

Heads bobbed.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you. I’ve known Damon since he was three. Used to go into his garage and play ball hockey with him.”

Damon’s cheeks ruddied up.

“Sucks what happened to you, man,” the shortest kid in the bunch said. He had the start of a thin, patchy mustache over his top lip. “Barbier is an animal.”

His friends agreed.

The chatter was pretty stilted, awkward in fact, as they asked me a few questions. Damon remained mostly quiet. I wasn’t sure what they wanted from me, but I was happy to ease the tension surrounding my friend.

“Hey, Bevan!” the gangliest kid in the bunch called out, cupping his mouth and directing his words at two pretty, young girls who made their way past us. “Where you goin’?”

“To eat my lunch,” the brunette said, giving him a weird look. She and her friend briefly glanced at me, and offered small, shy smiles, then faced away and picked up their pace.

Another one of the boys with a ballcap and light curly blond hair sticking out under it turned toward the girls, cupped his crotch and shook it. “Come back and suck this, Bettina!”

The rest of the guys—besides Damon—chuckled like cackling hyenas, falling over each other as they snickered, each of them grabbing their crotches and mimicking the kid in the ballcap.

“Bettina!” he called out again. “Where you taking those big lips?”

Bevan’s friend, who was obviously Bettina, glared at the kid in the ballcap, flipped him the bird and she and Bevan picked up their pace even more before disappearing off campus and down the hill out of sight.

“Bet you get a lot of pussy, huh?” asked the gangliest kid who’d catcalled Bevan first, turning back to me. “That one’s been holding out on me. Fuckin‘ cock tease.”

“Same with Bettina,” said the ballcap genius.

“She pretends she doesn’t like it. But she does.

These chicks need a man—they want a man—to take control.

Take care of them, but also boss them around a bit.

” He bobbed his brows until they disappeared beneath his cap. “And maybe toss them around a bit.”

His friends chuckled and nodded, shifting back and forth on their feet like little gangsters or something. I gaped at Damon, who kept his head down.

“How old are you guys?” I asked. “You’re in Damon’s class?”

“Small school. Freshman and sophomores take some classes together,” the wiry kid who didn’t deserve Bevan—or any woman for that matter—said. “I’m a sophomore.”

“Um, I really don’t think you should be speaking about girls in your school—about women, people—like that. You’re children. And that’s really disrespectful.”

“Fuck, man. What do you know? You’re not my dad,” the kid snapped back. He gave me a derisive look. “Easy to condemn other people when you’re sitting in your ivory tower with pussy raining down on you like champagne.”

Where did this kid think he was? The streets of Compton?

Why was he talking like some low-level gang prospect?

My brain hurt trying to figure out what the hell was happening.

But it wasn’t just him. Besides Damon, the other boys were joking and speaking the same way.

I’m pretty sure one kid murmured that he’d like to, “Tap that.” Referring to Bevan’s friend.

“Good pussy is scarce, man,” the gangly one said. “And bitches these days don’t know how to respect a man. They don’t know how to recognize a high-value alpha and give us what we’re due.”

I glanced at Damon again, but he refused to make eye contact with me.

“You’re how old?” I asked again.

“You gotta understand,” the shortest kid said. “It’s slim pickings here on the island. Not a lot of pussy. Not a lot of good pussy anyway.”

They were also freaking children. They shouldn’t be picking anything. Besides the food out of their teeth with a toothpick before getting tucked into bed by their parents, for a good night’s sleep. Was I that out of touch with reality?

I grew up in a hockey-focused family. Everything we did revolved around getting to the NHL. What we ate, who we associated with, how we spent our free time. Maybe I was just in a different crowd than this, and boys like this existed when I grew up. I was just blissfully ignorant.

I could also tell that Damon was extremely uncomfortable.

These boys were not his friends. Or at the very least, not people if given the choice he’d choose to befriend. Small pond, not a lot of fish to choose to pal around with. And unfortunately, he was forced to associate with goblin sharks and blob fish.

“Oh, there’s Ms. Mendoza,” the shortest kid said. “How do you say, ‘Show me your titties,’ in Spanish?” He cackled at his own stupid joke, and so did several of the other guys.

“What I’d give to be part of a student-teacher sex scandal with her,” another kid, with a dirty-blond mullet said, rubbing his hands together.

I glanced over their heads to see a young woman, probably my age, with long, dark waves, light-brown skin, and a trim figure bent over, getting something out of the trunk of her Toyota sedan.

“Anyway,” I said, wanting to take Damon away from these walking disappointments, “I’ve gotta get going. It was nice to meet Damon’s friends. However, I am trying to keep my time on the island a bit under wraps. Don’t need the press here or anything. So …”

The gangly kid glared at me, so I’m sure he’d be posting it all over his social media within the hour, but the rest of the kids all nodded and agreed.

I shook their hands, and gave Damon’s shoulder a squeeze, before leaning in to his ear. “We need to have a chat.”

His worried gaze flicked up to mine and his cheeks turned an even darker red. He swallowed and nodded. “Okay.”

“Have a great rest of your Friday, guys.” I used the tailgate to help myself climb down and immediately felt a twinge in my back. I needed to get home and ice it for a bit. I hoped that having my recumbent bike would help ease some of this tension in my back once it arrived next week.

Damon and his gangster-wannabe friends crossed the parking lot as I climbed into my truck, but just as they were about to head inside, Damon glanced over his shoulder at me, a serious look of regret in his eyes.

Something bigger was going on with that kid, and I was determined to figure out what it was and help him any way I could.

Maybe I needed to go to the house and chat with Gabrielle before the kids got home. Perhaps she could give me some insight into things.

I was about to head straight to the vineyard, but the throbbing in my back sent me to my cabin instead. I was doing too much and needed to slow down.

First, ice.

Then, I’d tackle the Damon issue.

And hopefully, also get to the bottom of why Gabrielle locked herself in her room last night and ignored me in the grocery store parking lot.

The Campbell family seemed to be nothing but one big mystery.

Luckily, I had a lot of free time on my hands to figure them out.