Page 11

Right as I passed the staircase leading up to the weight room, a bucket of something freezing cold dumped right on me, absolutely drenching me.

A chorus of laughter came from above while my whole body shook from the freezing blue liquid that was seeping down my body.

Wiping my eyes, I turned and glared.

A group of hockey boys bolted further up the stairs, leaving one boy there—a boy with a mullet and wide brown eyes. And in his hand was the evidence: a string that connected to a large popcorn bucket that was still dripping blue liquid.

“I’m sorry! We thought you were the other team!” His hands went to his head. “All the figure skaters are supposed to be on the ice!”

My whole body trembled with rage. “W-what is th-this?” my teeth chattered as I shook my arms out.

“B-blue icee,” he answered with a gulp.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. But more than anything, I wanted revenge.

He ran down the steps to me. “I’m sorry, we didn’t mean for it to be—”

“Truce. Off.” I hissed.

His throat bobbed with a swallow.

I pushed past him, but he grabbed my wrist and tugged me back. “We weren’t aiming for you, I swear.” He shook his head.

I yanked my arm away. I didn’t believe him for a second. “Yeah, you were.”

“No, I wasn’t!” he burst out desperately.

“You know what’s worse than being a dick, Dick?” I spat. “Being a liar.”

“Oooh!” his friends all chorused, making me pause. I hadn’t realized we had such a captive audience until right then, and based on the look on his face, neither did he.

His face flushed with indignation as he quickly peered at his teammates over his shoulder. “Liar?” he asked, a touch louder so his buddies could hear. He bit out a humorless laugh and raked a hand through his hair. “You’re so full of shit your eyes just turned brown.” He gave me an asshole smirk.

His buddies busted up laughing at my expense.

My hands balled in fists. My vision went red. My shaky anger consumed me, and I just…lost it.

I punched him right in the eye.

“Ow! Fuck!” He stumbled back, holding his face.

The crowd of boys started laughing again.

“All right, all right, enough! Break it up,” a trainer said, moving into the circle of boys. “You two!” He pointed at us.

“Me?” Richard yelled, outraged. “I just got punched.

Was he insane?

“I’m blue!” I blurted out, cradling my throbbing right hand.

The trainer crossed his thick arms over his chest. “I don’t care. Go see Hans, both of you.”

“What?” My eyes bulged. “He started it.”

“She struck me! Physically!” he complained, pointing to his eye.

“Oh, go cry about it, baby,” I snapped.

“Hans’ office! Now!” the trainer barked with an angry face, pointing down the hall.

And that is how the two of us ended up in Hans’ office, glaring at each other while receiving our first of many lectures.

For the rest of that week, my pale blonde hair was tinted blue and Richard’s eye was puffy and bruised, and every chance we got, we shared looks of contempt and laughed at each other’s shortcomings .

The following Monday, after working on lifts in the lobby with Patrick, I went to skate-run onto the ice and went full Bambi mode, eventually belly-flopping to the ice. I tried to stand about three more times before I realized someone put clear tape at the bottom of my blades.

At the sound of laughing, my neck whipped to the side.

Kappy was cackling with his buddies while climbing down from the metal bleachers. He winked at me while sauntering out of the rink.

White hot anger coursed through my body.

That boy did not know who he was messing with.

I waited for my revenge until we crossed paths in the weight room. When we did, I just so happened to accidentally turn his treadmill to a sprint speed without him noticing. As soon as he stepped down, he flew off the back and crashed into Colt and they both went sprawling.

Through the rest of my workout, I could practically feel his glare on my cheek, telling me he fully knew who was responsible. I had to roll my lips together to keep from laughing.

He was an immature jerk who cared way too much about what his buddies thought of him, but for some reason, I couldn’t stop looking around the rink for his stupid mullet and dimples.

Maybe it was just because he noticed me, even if it was for bad reasons.

Maybe he was just the one person that I didn’t have to pretend to be perfect around.

I mean, let’s face it, we already showed our worst selves to each other.

The problem was that the two of us were always the last to leave the rink, and each night, we sat at two different picnic tables in painfully awkward silence.

I checked my watch every two seconds, wondering why the hell Gwen was consistently so late to drive me home.

“This is stupid,” he finally said one day, throwing down his pencil. “I’m sorry, okay? I dumped the stupid blue icee on you, and—”

“Ah, so now you admit it?” I snapped.

“I didn’t mean to! And you punched me and messed with my treadmill!”

“Oh, don’t be dramatic.”

His eyes bulged. “I could’ve been killed!”

“And you could’ve killed me with your clear tape prank. ”

“Yeah, well, I’m scared of what you’ll do next.”

“You should be scared.” My eyes narrowed to slits.

He tugged at his hair and let out a frustrated growl. “Let’s just be done. We’re even. I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to dump the icee on you that day, I swear.” He pressed his lips together.

While I didn’t necessarily want to forgive him, I knew it’d be in my best interest to do just that. Our little war was becoming too distracting, and I needed to focus on my skating. I blew out a breath. “Fine, yeah, whatever. I’m sorry, too,” I murmured, rolling my eyes.

His mouth twisted. “Truce?”

My eyes drifted to the two girls playing Dance Dance Revolution, then down to my phone. Where the hell was Gwen? I needed to tell my mom about this.

“Piper, truce?” he pushed.

“Sure, yeah, whatever.”

His eyes darted from my phone back to the Dance Dance Revolution game. “Do you…wanna play?”

My face immediately heated as I shook my head. “Don’t have any quarters.”

He smirked.

“What’s funny now?” I asked with a sigh, too exhausted after the long day of skating to feel frustration.

“Nothing it’s just…” He smirked and raked a hand through his hair.

“Your name is up on buildings, isn’t it?

But you don’t have any spare quarters?” He must’ve noticed my irritation because he dropped his neck back and groaned.

“Sorry, I never say the right thing to you. I think it’s cool that your name is on buildings. ”

My eyes dropped to the rubber floor, to his beat-up Nikes.

“My last name,” I quietly corrected him.

I should’ve said names, as in plural. My mother’s family owned the Wyndell hotel chain, my dad’s family owned the Hamilton hotel chain.

In their war against each other, my parents took over every corner of the world.

When my dad worked with Disney to open a new hotel, my mom started work with Universal.

When the Hamilton company won a bid to remodel a historic hotel in Quebec, the Wyndell company bought the hotel made of ice located in Old Town.

“My parents work hard for all of it, but…” My eyes drifted to the concession stand where Teresa was closing down the shop.

“But?”

“Nothing, never mind,” I said tightly. I felt stupid for even thinking what I was about to say.

Pulling up his hood, his eyes went back to his textbook.

But for some reason, I wanted to keep talking to him. Closing my eyes, I gathered up my courage. “It’s cool that…” He looked up at me with his dark eyes. “It’s cool that your mom watches you skate. That she’s…around,” I forced out.

I suddenly felt like I was shrinking on the spot.

There’s no way I should’ve handed him that little piece of vulnerability.

I didn’t want anyone’s pity. I mean, I didn’t deserve pity.

I had no room to ever complain. I got everything I wanted.

Everything except…time. But that was fine.

My parents had work to do, they didn’t need to see me face-to-face just to tell me they loved me.

Suddenly he was right in front of me. His large, calloused hand gently grabbed my wrist, pulling me from my thoughts.

“C’mon, let’s play,” he said, tugging me out of my seat.

“W-what? We don’t have to,” I stammered, looking around as we crossed the lobby to make sure no one would see us.

“You wanna play, we’re gonna play,” he mumbled while fooling with the game’s settings.

The machine loudly announced, “Let’s go!” making me flinch.

He took his place on the arrows and grinned at me as the song “Jerk It Off” started playing.

I stared at him dumbly. Were we really doing this?

“Don’t look at me! Look at the screen.” Kappy laughed. “On second thought, stare at me as much as you want.” He shot me a wicked grin. “Because then I can brag that I beat the best ice dancer at dancing.”

“I’m not the best,” I said with an eye roll, but I stepped up on the dance platform and started following the directions on the screen.

He scoffed as he jumped on the front and back arrows. “Yeah, you are.”

My mouth twitched into a grin. I was glad he was so focused on the screen so he couldn’t see the way his words made me blush.

While he was a quick dancer, the machine still announced, “Player 2! Winner!” and he gave me a little bow.

Smoothing back my ponytail, I struggled to hide my grin.

“Wait here,” he said, then jumped down from the game and dashed to the concession stand for more quarters.

We started playing duos after that, and it felt like I was living out a scene from a movie. By the time my ride home arrived, we were sweaty, laughing, and had second place on the machine. Kappy wrote our team name in the leaderboard as ViperDick, which made me genuinely laugh.

When my phone rang for the fifth time, I finally blew out a sigh and texted Gwen that I’d be out in a minute.

“I better go,” I mumbled.