I’d planned to come into the WNHL with my head down, or at least I tried to. That plan went to shit after I broke my fourth record at Chicago U. Sports networks from all over were on me like white on rice. My face was across ESPN. I was talked about on podcasts. Everything I did was under surveillance when it came to hockey.
I didn’t want people to think I had let the press get to me, or that I conceded. I wanted them to know me for the player I was on the ice, not the image the media painted. I never referred to myself as the daughter of a legend or a hockey prodigy. That was stupid.
I was just a girl who loved hockey and wanted to change the game for women across the globe. I was just Valor.
But apparently my success had pissed off my new teammate. What a great way to start the season. Go me!
Everything about this place felt different. For the first time in my hockey career, I wasn’t confident in myself. I’d always prided myself on being a leader, but here? I was at the bottom of the food chain. I had to grovel to get respect from these women.
I think a big part was the fact I missed Riggs playing with me. I’d find myself looking around the ice for her at practice only to realize she wasn’t here. Aurelia had hung the skates up after a knee injury in our junior year of college. I was probably more upset than she was.
But that was Riggs, always afraid to show too much emotion. After we graduated, we moved in together. I think we are going to be living together in our eighties. We both are going to have three cats by then, and we are probably going to be arguing about who stole the last bit of oatmeal. But I didn’t want to be old and gray with anyone else.
Riggs had landed a public relations job with Chicago Golden Media. She was an agent with the company, and she represented some of Chicago’s biggest athletes. Including me. Much to her disappointment, I hated media attention. Even though she begged for me to do a photoshoot with a magazine, I still denied. To be honest she probably hated being my agent.
I decide that keeping my mouth shut and not replying to Jane is my best bet. I quickly pack my stuff up into my duffle bag, hoping to avoid the rest of this conversation. If they want to talk shit behind my back after I leave, more power to them.
“Did you hear me, kid?” she says stepping in front of me. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to head-butt someone so bad in my life. But I refrain from violence.
For now.
“I hear ya, Jane. I’m just not listening.” I’d noticed that Jane didn’t like me the day of my first practice when she back-checked me into the boards twice, slipped a slew foot in, and then hit me with a suicide pass that got me laid the fuck out by a defenseman.
I wasn’t a teammate to her, I was a threat.
She grips my forearm. “You think you’re hot shit, bitch?” She leans closer to me, and I so badly want to tell her she needs a breath mint. “Be sure to remember that I’m not losing my spot to a rookie, especially one that got here because of her daddy's last name. Okay?” She gives me a sideways smile.
I rip my arm away from her grasp. I need to start breathing and praying to Buddha and do some Namaste shit or I’m going to rip her face off. I clench my fists, digging my fingernails into my palm to keep me from laying hands on this fucking bitch.
At this time I realize I have been friends with Aurelia Riggs for too long.
I take another step closer to her, smirking. “You think I’m scared of you?” I scoff, rolling my tongue. “It’s going to take a hell of a lot more than a bitch with a bruised ego to run me off. I’ll take your fucking spot and skate circles around you while I do it. Don’t threaten me.”
I don’t wait for a reaction. I just turn on my heels, and head out of the locker room. Once I am out of the view of her, I try taking a deep breath. I run a hand down my face when my phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out quickly, glancing at it with an aggravated sigh.
Preston: Hey, don’t forget we have dinner at my parents at 8, wear that dress I like, the black one. I’ll be there to pick you up at 7.
Preston Alexander Huntington the Second.
Yes, he is just as preppy as he sounds.
The son of a Wall Street lawyer and professional stay-at-home wife. He was raised by dirty money and high standing morals. He hadn’t even stepped into a hockey rink before, rarely cussed, and used more product in his hair than I did.
I would like to say I had no clue why I liked him, but I knew, I knew before Riggs called me out on it the night I met him.
“Riggs, I don’t want to be here,” I complain for the hundredth time. I hated parties, she knew that. Riggs thrived for these frat house raves. It was her element, not mine. I didn’t even drink that much, but she had been tossing down tequila shots like it was water all night long. How she had not passed out or vomited was a mystery to us all.
It was the summer before my junior year, and I still hated parties.
“I’m going to whoop this guy’s ass in beer pong and then we will go, okay?” she says pouting her bottom lip and widening her brown eyes giving me her best puppy dog look. We’d been here for almost three hours, but I knew she was having fun. She had been having a rough few days with her parents up her ass. She’d slept all day yesterday, and I knew she needed to have some fun.
I roll my eyes, smiling. “Fine, go. Make it quick, run the table on his bitch ass.”
I watch as she sways her hips on the way to her side of the beer pong table. The guy she is playing against checks out her ass the entire time. And I shake my head resisting the urge to call him a pig. But if I were to get angry at every guy who checked Riggs out, I’d be pissed at the entire male population.
“Maybe if you’d stop staring at my ass you’d have a chance at winning,” she comments to him as she takes another shot of tequila. “Here,” She rolls the white ping pong ball his way, “you can shoot first. You’ll need all the help you can get.”
I lean my back on the wall, holding my solo cup of water, watching her work her magic. Riggs played men like puppets. She could pull one string and they’d fall to pieces in front of her. It was a superpower all women wish they had. I looked at her short skirt and simple camisole that makes her look like a model about the walk down the fucking runway.
My eyes fall onto my own outfit. My simple skinny jeans and cropped hoodie don’t seem as cute as it did when I left the dorm. My kinky hair is in messy curls down my back, and I’m tempted to pull it up. I move my eyes around the party, glancing at couples dry humping and frat boys chugging beer. Then my view of people watching is blocked by someone.
“I need you to pretend to be my girlfriend, really quick.”
Is this guy on something? I lift my gaze to his face, noticing that he is only a few inches taller than me. My first thought is this guy looks like he has money. If I didn’t get that from the blazer he is sporting at a frat party, I’d pick it up from his perfectly sculpted brown hair that has a deep side part. There was not a single hair out of place.
“I’m sorry, what?”
He gives me a smile that looks like it cost years of braces to make that straight. He has a very aristocratic face. It’s a timeless handsome that reminds me a lot of Chuck Bass from Gossip Girl. I bet he plays something like polo or cricket. His frame is lanky, the kind of abs you don’t have to work for, just naturally blessed with an athletic body. Hollow eyes the color of obsidian framed with dark eyelashes that look longer than mine. I’m almost so distracted by how perfect his eyebrows are that I forget the conversation at hand.