19. Smells Like Team Spirit

19

SMELLS LIKE TEAM SPIRIT

LILA

T o say things have been tense between me and Bristol is a hilariously inaccurate understatement. I haven’t spoken to him at all this week. Granted, he’s been busy with hockey, and I’ve been busy…eating my weight in cheese puffs at night to stuff the dreadfully hollow hole in my heart. I’ve spent countless hours replaying our whole confrontation in my head. I’ve spent sleepless nights contemplating what I should do next. Yeah, I’m bound by contract to uphold this whole “fake dating” thing, but after the campaign is over, he gave me a choice to protect my peace. A choice that’s looking more and more appealing the longer I’m away from him.

A hockey game is the last place I want to be right now—the garish jerseys and tacky foam fingers, the rambunctious team spirit, the nauseating image of Bristol skating effortlessly across the ice while he exhibits astounding athletic ability in front of millions of viewers. I don’t want to be in public in general. If you think a hockey environment is overstimulating, try attending a game where the paparazzi won’t give you enough space to breathe. Not only that, but I’m forced to wear Bristol’s jersey to reinforce this whole relationship thing. A hideous, clashing jersey that covers up the very cute outfit I planned for this outing!

I’m trying to be less negative, I am, but those self-help podcasts aren’t helping me at all. I’m not ready to see Bristol’s face again, and I’m certainly not ready to see it on the Jumbotron. I still can’t get over the fact that he kept his dead ex a secret from me—a dead ex who once meant the world to him. It’s going to sound ridiculous, but I feel like I’m competing with a ghost. I was the second choice. I was the backup. If I continue to keep in contact with him, I’ll always be reminded that I was never his first love. That’s not even the worst part, though. If Summit was still alive, I know that Bristol would still be with her.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to protect myself. Staying away from him will keep me from getting hurt again, but I can’t just ignore the way my heart yearns for him, the way it’s not fully whole when I’m not around him. I can’t win. Either way I’ll suffer, and I’m so tired of suffering. A year he’s perpetuated this unjust blame to pulsate in my stomach like an ulcer. A year I spent questioning what was wrong with me to make him leave without an explanation. And now, months later, I’m right back where I started, believing that maybe I’d be better off dead than to live with this incurable loneliness that’s haunted me since my father left.

There’s always going to be this darkness that lingers in the back of my mind, this uninvited house guest that’s pried up the floorboards of my brain to hide and lie in wait. This creature that feeds on the debilitating self-doubt and fear that’s never truly left my body. This creature that has the undeniable power to break the brittle bones of the only good thing I have in my life.

A family of three comes scooting by our row, bumping into my knees as they pass by, and I’m instantly transported back to the present, where overly hyper screams crescendo in my ears. The rink is filled to the brim like a teeming sardine can, bodies upon bodies shoved into uncomfortable plastic seats, some rowdy fans even taking it upon themselves to crowd the plexiglass while warm-ups are underway. Aeris and I just so happen to be rinkside—a “perk” of being a WAG—which increases my chances of making eye contact with Bristol from zero to a definite one hundred.

“If it’s any consolation, you make Bristol’s jersey look ten times hotter,” Aeris says to me.

I glance down at the baggy jersey swallowing my figure, and it feels wrong for me to be wearing it. My sprinting heart double-beats in time to the banshee-wailing buzzers, and my frosted breath refuses to inundate the tight confines of my chest. I appreciate Aeris for trying to cheer me up, but I’m pretty sure happiness is a state I can only achieve with some high-quality pot and top-shelf alcohol.

I masquerade the stress lines of hurt probably rooted in my face, offering her a smile that I doubt reaches my eyes. “Thanks, Aer-Bear.”

I didn’t want to spend the entirety of my Friday night with my best friend getting into the nitty gritty details about Bristol’s dead ex, so I settled on a vague rehash about the damage my poor heart sustained, and she comforted me while we watched women on The Bachelor cycle through the same pain I was feeling.

The thing about Aeris, though, is that she can read me like an open book. And right now, DUMB BLONDE WITH AN INFERIORITY COMPLEX is underlined, highlighted, and annotated with obnoxious doodles.

“If you want to leave at any time, just tell me and we can go.”

My gaze swings to the lumbering figures glissading across the ice, batting around pucks and shouldering their teammates. “It’s alright. I need to be here. It’s good for the press,” I respond, keeping my thousand-yard stare fixated on any player but number thirty-six. The game should be starting soon, and Bristol hasn’t come up to pester me yet, so staying under his radar is the only way I’ll get through this.

Out of the corner of my peripheral, I can see Aeris wring her hands together in her lap. “Li, I know this campaign is important to you, but you’re not…overextending yourself, right?” Her voice is quiet, threaded with a squeaky nervousness that she only uses when she’s too afraid to hurt my feelings. A pre-Band-Aid rip.

I blink a few times, trying to comprehend the weight of her question. “Of course not. I’m fine. This campaign has been great, really. You don’t have to worry about me.”

She frowns. “But I do worry about you. It’s my job to worry about you.”

I’m about to turn and look at her when there’s a bang on the plexiglass that makes me flinch. Bristol’s somehow found me in negative two business days, and he’s looking even hotter in his full hockey uniform, which is basically the equivalent of military-grade weaponry for any woman with a working vagina.

“Hi, girlfriend,” he greets, pretty much vibrating like the Energizer Bunny. There’s no trace of the tortured, haunted man who cried and held onto me for hours. So either hockey players snort a line of crack before each game, or he’s playing it up for the cameras.

Even though it stings, I dip into those acting chops of mine, heeding the voice in the back of my head that whispers condescendingly, None of this is real.

I feel the corners of my lips tip up into a smile—and it’s unfortunately not just a byproduct of this whole “show.”

“Hi, boyfriend.”

Bristol’s brown eyes peer at me through a canopy of thick lashes, hooded with a pinch of lust and an itinerary that tells me there’s an afternoon of bad decisions waiting for the both of us. “You’re going to distract me the entire game, you know that?”

“Why? Because I’m wearing your jersey?” I flirt.

He leans on the butt of his stick with a groan. “Because you look like a fucking goddess wearing it.”

Hello, Mr. Ego Booster.

My tongue darts out to swipe over the front of my incisor, and I pretend to contemplate my next set of words. “Would you like it better if I took it… off ?”

Trust me, the attraction is still there. I remember the sex vividly. I remember the way he split me open on his huge cock and talked me through it with that huskier-than-hell voice of his. I remember the way he filled me up with his cum, marked me as his, and left me with a soreness in my pussy that I felt for days later. I remember the way he ate me out like he was the master of his goddamn trade.

A pained look dances across his face. “Don’t tempt me, angel. If it’s coming off, I’m gonna be the one taking it off you.”

Whew. This definitely isn’t appropriate talk for a hockey game. If I wasn’t being photographed by a ton of cameras right now, I’d break through this damn plexiglass and take what’s rightfully mine. Bristol has always made it hard for me to stay mad at him. He drives me so crazy that I should be locked up in a padded room somewhere.

The other players on the ice mill about—stretching and chatting—and I can feel the intensity of the atmosphere soar, anticipation burning like the last lit coals of a dwindling bonfire. Fans are getting antsy, paparazzi are getting cutthroat, and Aeris is watching raptly as we flirt shamelessly with one another.

“How many goals do I need to score tonight to get a kiss from you?” Bristol asks, inching just the tiniest bit closer to the fogged-up partition .

None. I’ll kiss you right now. I’ll make out with you right now. I’ll literally throw my panties at you!

Whoa. Chill, girl.

There’s an anxious twitch in my belly that stretches my resolve like Laffy Taffy, and instead of standing my ground and allowing him a single peck on the cheek, I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. “One goal equals one kiss.”

There’s no way Bristol will score more than one goal this game, right? Some players don’t even score at all during a game. That was a good answer. More than one kiss can be disastrous for me, especially in the weakened state I’m in.

Thankfully, the buzzer goes off right on time to signal the start of the game, and my dignity is saved by the bell. If he kept grilling me and saying all the right things, there’s no telling what could have transpired. All Bristol does is wink at me before skating off to join his teammates, which seems like a terrifying response compared to a normal agreement.

I plop back down in my seat, staring at the residual scraps of overpriced food begriming the ground.

“Wow. That didn’t… look …fake,” Aeris comments.

My throat cinches tight. “It didn’t feel fake either.”

The Riverside Reapers are up against the West Valley Wolverines, who, according to Aeris, are formidable opponents. She’s become a hockey pro after being with one for a few years. I know my fair share of the game, but I was a bit more enthusiastic about it when I wasn’t “dating” a pro hockey player. I’ve watched Bristol play a couple times. He’s good—quick on his feet, confident, and has a foolproof technique that allows him to skate circles around his opponents. More-than-one-goal good? I guess we’ll find out tonight.

The faceoff starts with Bristol at center ice, a sheer mass of muscle hunched over in an intimidating position on the other side of the puck. His opponent is lither from what I can tell, but he matches him with fierce competition blazing in his eyes. When the whistle chimes, a sea of blue and yellow jerseys clash into one another, merging into one frenzied coalescence. The riled shouts from the ice, the strongly opinionated voices from the crowd, and the announcer’s boisterous commentary all work together to feed the chaotic fire.

Bristol hurtles across the rink at a speed I can’t even keep up with, gaining momentum as he plays an advanced shell game with the puck flitting between his stick. It dips in and out of his legs, evading the other incoming players, and bolting for a straight line toward the Wolverines’ goal in record time.

I scoff to myself. “There’s no way he’ll make this.”

His teammates are quick to tail him, but it’s the other team’s defense that intercepts his clear shot. He instantly turns around, collides with the body of a yellow-clad player, and swings his stick low to the ground. The puck flies across the surface of the ice, aims for the bottom lefthand corner of the goal, and skims right past the goalie’s ankles. There’s a delayed attempt to block it, but the net’s already billowed back with disc in tow, and the stands come to life with raucous cheering.

I can’t believe this. There goes my one kiss. How did he do that? What evil demons did he summon to make a goal that seamless, that quickly? This…this is some sick joke. I bet he sold his soul to the Devil. Or drank the blood of a bunch of innocent orphans to give himself superpowers.

Aeris is just as shocked as I am, slack-jawed and eyes frozen open. “Damn.”

I hate that he just scored a goal—a goal that I can assume won’t be the last one of the night. And I hate it even more that my body’s getting ready for some yummy Bristol action. If I wasn’t wearing this potato sack, I’d be flashing everyone in the nearby vicinity with my hardened nipples .

When Bristol glides over in my direction, he holds up one gloved finger and gives me the biggest shit-eating grin.

A sigh flutters out of me as I turn to face Aeris, placing my hand on her shoulder. “Aer-Bear, remember the strong woman I used to be.”

She nods her head. “Don’t worry, Li. If the Bristol Brenner was wooing me, I’d probably fold too.”

I’m fucked. Oh, I’m so fucked.

The game, as I predicted, progresses in the same manner. A lot of back and forth between the players, some cringe-worthy body slams, and pucks zooming around with so much force that they could probably take out some poor spectator’s eye if it wasn’t for the plexiglass. Bristol’s a beast out there. He’s not super aggressive, but he’s self-assured, and he doesn’t back down from a fight. He’ll end one, but he’ll never start one. Something about that tickles my lady peach, if you know what I mean.

Oh, and not that it’s newsworthy or anything, but he’s also managed to score four more goals. That’s five kisses. FIVE. There’s no way I’m getting out of this. Please, God, have a tornado break through the ceiling and suck me up so I don’t have to suffer through this embarrassment.

We’re on to the last period of the game, the score is 8-5, and the Riverside Reapers are definitely taking home a win tonight. I’d argue that Bristol’s taking home a little more than just a win, though. A few girls down the row have this huge sign plastered to the glass, and they both sporadically scream out Bristol’s name, each of them adorned with his jersey number on their backs. I’m not sure why, but this wick of jealousy lights inside me, and I have to suppress the urge to make physical contact with both of their faces.

There’s thirty seconds left on the clock. Everyone’s suspended in nerve-racking anticipation. Bristol’s only missed one out of the six shots he’s taken tonight. The Reapers have been playing their asses off the entire game. Number sixty-five, Kit, has ironclad possession of the puck, careering through Wolverines like they’re a bunch of brainless bowling pins. He zeroes in on the goal, but the defense flocks to him instantly, and he ends up passing to Hayes, who’s teetering on the outskirts waiting for an opening.

Ten more seconds.

Hayes grabs the puck, narrowly dodges an incoming lunge from his adversary, and covers a few more feet before taking a shot. When he gets knocked up against the boards, the puck’s trajectory falters and slingshots somewhere to the side, but it doesn’t matter. The buzzer blares victoriously as the final score—8-5—flashes on the neon scoreboard, inciting roars of euphoria from the audience. Bristol and his teammates flood toward the center in celebration, forming a huddle and cheering with their sticks thrusted high in the air.

Aeris and I both rise to our feet and clap, and my heart swells with undeniable pride. It rivals the commotion around me, and everything happens in a rapid fire of events. One second Bristol’s laughing and shouldering his teammates, and the next, he’s skating over in my direction, exiting the side passage, and taking his helmet off to kiss me. The cameraman follows him just in time to catch my surprise on the Jumbotron, but it’s quickly succeeded by the feverish rush of his lips on mine, broadcasted for the entire world to see. I don’t resist him. I don’t hesitate. I melt on the spot, letting him rob me of breath and rationale, and my hands move treacle slow to cup the sweaty side of his face. In a non-fairy-tale-esque sequence, I’d probably tell him to go shower first.

But right now, all I can think is:

Never stop kissing me.