My pops was all I needed, just me and him.
And of course, Bishop.
When I left for practice in the morning, he'd meet us at the rink, always ready to push me. While my father was the supportive role, the one who never pushed too hard, Bishop was the drill sergeant. I think it's why we fought so much. B wanted my best every second I was on the ice. He pushed perfection, and I loved him for that.
By age six, I was playing for a league. At age nine, I was ahead of the game. I never wanted to stop though, that's why Bishop said I was so good because I had the heart of a champion.
Women weren't treated on the same playing field as men, but I was going to change that.
"Hey, Pops." I sigh, wrapping my arms around his waist and burying my face into his chest. The comforting smell of Old Spice tells me everything will be okay.
"Having a good birthday?" he asks.
I nod looking up at him with a smile.
"Good." He kisses the top of my head.
"SULLY! Will you please come tell this twat waffle why we, Chicagoans, don't eat ketchup on hot dogs?"
The guests burst into a united laughter, including me. Aurelia Elizabeth Montgomery Riggs. What a fucking mouthful.
She was born into a world of socialites and old money, but you'd never know it when you met her. Riggs was gifted with the type of beauty people deemed, Lucky magazine cover, Victoria’s Secret model, pretty.
Except with beauty came pain, and no one knew that better than her. Her dad was a politician and her mother was a southern debutante queen. I assume when they had Aurelia they were extremely excited to dress their little princess up and make her into the perfect daughter. I'd give anything to know what their faces looked like when she asked for a pair of skates instead of a dress.
A sport designed for men and the complete opposite of pageants like her mother had imagined for her little girl. Once they tossed her a pair of skates, she became nothing but an object to them. They never came to practices or games. They were shitty fucking people.
It's where all the anger came from on the ice, Riggs was a hurricane out there. If she went one game without ending up in the penalty box, I'd worry something was wrong with her. Hockey wasn't a love for her like it was for me, it was a way to let out all the anger she had built up inside of her.
I make my way towards her, letting her throw an arm around my shoulders.
"How is it that Bishop has been around this long and still eats that tomato diarrhea on his food?" she states watching B eat with a disgusted look on her face.
Riggs has zero filter, isn’t afraid to tell you like it is. It's what makes us so close, we are honest with one another.
Bishop takes a huge bite of hotdog, chewing it and humming just to piss her off. They argue like siblings, always. They never get along, ever. I think it's mostly because Riggs has never been easy to love, and she rejects it most of the time. Bishop just isn't the type to back down so easily.
"Fucking delicious. Maybe you shouldn't concern yourself with my eating habits so much, Aurelia," he points out, and I roll my eyes. Great, now she's going to be pissed.
She shoots him the middle finger. "Stop calling me that, Maverick. If your eating habits didn't make me want to vomit, I wouldn't fucking mind, dick face."
"Don't call you what? Your name? Aurelia," he pushes, his smirk growing as her anger rises.
"You motherfu─"
"Children, let's rein it in, it's time for cake!" Pops states from behind us, stopping Riggs from ripping Bishop a new asshole. Bishop covers up a laugh, while Riggs stares daggers at him. I shake my head laughing.
This home is filled with love and support. My favorite people in the entire world gather to celebrate my life and that makes this day worth all the pain it brings. My life was not perfect, and neither was I, but I had people in my life who made it worth living.
All of this is possible because of two things.
Love and hockey.
I seriously need to cut this fucking mop on my head, and my beard needs a major trim. I make it a point to not cut it during playoffs, but now that the season is over, it's time I stop looking like an angry lumberjack.
I can go from clean cut to scary Bigfoot real quick. I push the hair out of my eyes the best I can and continue my workout.
Five cones are set up on the ice in a large five-point star formation. I make my way through them guiding a puck along the way. Making tight movements around the cones, exploding open, and making sure I'm able to change directions quickly.
Always need to make sure I'm quick on my feet. It's the key to a great defense.
But man, I fucking hate agility days.
I've hated them since I started. Which is stupid because almost every day was an agility day. This is hockey we are talking about. Maybe I should've played something less physically demanding, like baseball or chess.
My calves are burning, lungs are aching in the middle of the rotation. And now my peaceful practice is destroyed by the loud voice of Pat Benatar blasting through the arena speakers. I jump slightly not expecting the sound invasion. Imagine that. A six-feet-something grown man getting startled by "You're a real tough cookie…"
How fitting.
A smile breaks onto my face, and I shake my head, mostly because of that image in my mind, but also because of who just skated on the ice bobbing her head like a professional ’80s singer. I personally prefer to practice during the off-season in silence. Just me and the sounds of skates on ice. I don't need anything else.
However, there is only one person I know who practices, warms up, hell, even listens to eighties rock music anymore. It gets her in the right mindset, she says.
"Are you trying to cause me to go deaf, Vallie?"
Valor Sullivan.
She looks up at me, her freckled face breaking into a grin. I watch as her beautiful long legs skate towards me. She's such an old soul. What fifteenyear-old do you know to listen to Eddie Money, Queen, and Mötley Crüe? Most kids her age are warming up to some rapper with a rainbow grill and face tattoos.
But not Val.
She's her own damn enigma. A confident, insecure girl with a whirlwind of red hair. Even with all her quirks, including her obsession with Lemonheads (They are disgusting.) and band T-shirts, she's still one of the coolest people I've ever met. I just hope she stays that way. Pure, untouched, not broken by the world, and hopefully, she doesn't let Riggs corrupt her. Her helmet is tucked under her arm as she starts to speak a few feet away from me.
"Don't insult Benatar like that. It’s not my fault your taste in music sucks ass." I don't think we could go a day without insults or bickering. It was coded in her DNA to bitch at me.
"Just because my music was made in the last five years doesn't make it bad, it makes it popular," I counter with an eye-roll.
"Yeah, yeah, spare me. I'd rather gauge my ears with a rusty pop can than listen to that electronically manufactured donkey shit."
I laugh loudly, pushing my hair back out of my face completely. Maybe it's because she was raised by only a father who played hockey for years, but she has the worst mouth. Sailors would blush. I'm not joking either. As she’s gotten older it’s only gotten worse.
Her hair is in a messy braid, pieces of curls fly out. I imagine they are angry for trying to be detained in a lethal knot, sorta like her. She has on a school practice jersey and regular hockey attire, the gold pendant hangs from her neck, standing out from everything else.