CALISTA
I’m late. This week’s goal was to work on punctuality, but the universe is conspiring against me.
My dance class went over time, so I had to cram a twenty-minute drive into a measly eight minutes. I’m surprised my car even covered that much distance within such a small time span since it’s on its last wheels.
I promised my little brother, Teague, that I’d be on time today. Another broken promise to a little kid who deserves so much more. With my father out of the picture and my mother bedridden, Teague is my responsibility. An eight-year-old, adorable, bad-mouthed ball of responsibility. But I wouldn’t trade that responsibility for anything in the world.
When I pull into the massive parking lot, somehow every spot in the vicinity is occupied. Sure, Riverside is a big hockey city, and if you arrive at the arena after three o’clock, you’re guaranteed to endure some traffic, but this is preposterous. And my brother is inside that teeming sardine can, where a simple “I’m here” text won’t be enough to compel him out of the door.
If I’m going to get my brother home, cook him dinner, and get back to the studio for my final dance class of the night, I’ll need to run in and get him. Right now, that’s looking like the equivalent of voluntarily running into crossfire. But I have no choice.
Whipping my head around, I try to search for the nearest “parking space” that won’t get me a ticket or my car towed. I can’t park against the sidewalk because there is no fucking sidewalk, and I can’t park in front of the rink with my hazards on because I’d be blocking the mouth of the parking lot entrance. I’m panicking. It’s a mild panic, but panic, nonetheless.
And then, breaking through my figurative haze—and a literal foggy one—is a single spot calling to me from the hockey team’s reserved parking spaces. Home to the Riverside Reapers. One of the best professional hockey teams in the league. And Riverside’s pride and joy. We got close to the playoffs last season, and now everyone and their mother thinks we’re going to win this season.
Look, I’m not blind, I know what the signage says—RESERVED PARKING. But I’ll be out in less than five minutes. I highly doubt a team member is going to arrive in the next five minutes, find that I’m in his designated parking spot, and get me towed. Plus, this is the closest spot to the arena.
Kiss my ass, time management class I should probably be attending! I’m in control, and I’ve got this.
I pull haphazardly between the white-painted lines, kill the engine, and jump out of the car quicker than I think I’ve ever moved in my twenty-two years of life.
My threadbare shoes squelch in puddles of murky rainwater, and crushed autumn leaves disintegrate into muted hues of fiery crimson against the soaked pavement. The sky is the color of dragon’s breath, with nebulous clouds shrouding the parking lot in a disquieting darkness—one that makes the rink look a lot more foreboding than usual. Cold licks up my spine, raising goose bumps on the exposed flesh of my arms as I try to circulate some warmth with my palms.
I push through the double, weatherproofed doors and into the arena. My eyes start to tear up, and my nose stings from the acreage of subzero ice in front of me. To say that the rink is packed would be an understatement. Hundreds of skates and little legs. A cacophony of shouts that ricochet off the tall, hollowed walls. Pucks zinging around like miniature missiles.
I bear the chill of the atmosphere, wishing I’d had a chance to slip on a jacket before entering the goddamn arctic. Dance attire wasn’t made for a hockey rink. All I have on is a black bralette and booty shorts, and despite them covering all the necessary areas, I still feel like I’m going to contract hypothermia.
“Teague!” I shout from behind the plexiglass, waving my arms overhead like a lunatic.
My brother glances in my direction and says goodbye to his friends before skating over to me. The messily illustrated fire symbol on his helmet sticks out in a snowscape of white, and he steps off the ice with his hockey stick gripped tightly in his gloved hand.
“You’re late,” he says, jutting his lower lip out.
“I know. I’m sorry, Squirt.” I sit him down on a nearby bench and start to untie the laces of his skates, all while he glowers at me with sharp eyes. “I ran over time. It won’t happen again.”
Teague sheds his gloves, then removes his helmet, unveiling a mess of sweat-slicked spikes on the top of his head. “You always say that. And it always happens.”
My fingers falter in the polyester strings. I feel terrible. I do always say that, and nothing ever changes. I’m trying to juggle so much at one time. Teague is my main priority, but so is keeping a roof over his head and food on the table.
With some expert detangling and tugging, I manage to yank his skates off, mentally chastising myself for being the worst sister on the planet. With a feathery exhale, I rise to a stance, gripping a fistful of laces. “I know you’re mad, T, but we really have to go,” I tell him, unable to ignore the disappointment seeping into his expression.
He doesn’t argue with me. He doesn’t say much of anything, actually—which is unlike him. My brother’s usually a bundle of untold stories waiting for an ear to listen. But I don’t push him to talk to me, and the silence that follows is deafening.
I burst out of the rink, fumbling for my keys as he slogs behind me, when I’m accosted by the blinding sight of a bright red Jaguar sitting horizontally behind my car, boxing my little Honda in.
No, no, no.
A scream thunders from my throat, loud enough to garner shocked looks from families milling about the parking lot. “Fuck!”
Okay, think, Cali. Just…just go inside and ask the owner to move his car. And also pretend like you didn’t drop the F-bomb in front of your eight-year-old brother.
I set Teague’s skates down before grabbing him by the shoulders and forcing him to look at me. “I’m going to be right back, okay? Please, please stay here. This will only take a minute.”
“Why can’t I come with you?” he whines.
“It’ll be less stressful for everyone if you stay here. And I mean it, Teague.”
My brother opens his mouth, but no protest comes out.
My eyes flit over the obnoxious license plate as I scoff at the sheer idiocy of the personalized words emblazoned on the aluminum. Of course this person would be the biggest asshole out of Riverside’s three hundred thousand population.
I turn on my heel, march back into that godforsaken rink, and politely ask the attendant at the front desk if he could be so kind as to call out the license plate to the red Jaguar parked illegally out front.
With a sigh, his monotonous voice bellows over the loudspeaker, “Will the owner of the red Jaguar please come to the front? I repeat, will the owner of the red Jaguar please come to the front? Uh, license plate: HUGE STICK.”
Impatience cracks through me and sizzles along my ribs. I’m going to show this dipshit that he messed with the wrong woman. He couldn’t wait a few seconds before boxing me in? Seriously? The world doesn’t revolve around him.
A few minutes pass before there’s any movement in the sea of hockey helmets, and then, sauntering over is a man nearly half a foot taller than me. He’s dressed from head to toe in hockey gear, exuding a nonchalant air about him that triggers that fight response boiling inside me.
He has the decency to take off his helmet, and what I’m greeted with is a handsome face, much to my misfortune. Shaggy, brown hair parts down the middle, a few strands falling into green eyes. His long, dark lashes tickle his brow bone, his seemingly flawless face complete with a chiseled jawline, angular cheekbones, a set of pouty lips, and a nose too straight to belong to a hockey player. He has a face made to be seen, a face that could cure cancer, a face that could do some serious damage to me if I don’t treat this situation with the utmost caution.
“This better be important. I’m in the middle of practice,” he snaps, pinning his arms over his chest. A muscular-looking chest. Or maybe that’s just his hockey padding.
Who does this guy think he is? He’s acting like he’s a goddamn gift from the gods and I should be blessed for simply existing in his presence.
The attendant immediately livens. “Oh, I didn’t realize it was your car, Gage. You want me to deal with this lady?”
Excuse me?
Gage shakes his head, glaring down at me from his stupid, towering height. “I’ve got it, Ernie.”
From the parking lot to the rink, I’ve had plenty of time to gather an arsenal of insults for the douche in front of me, and I’m ready to send those suckers flying like bullets from a machine gun. “You boxed me in, you fucking prick!” I shout, torrents of anger pouring through my veins as opposed to the usual trickle.
“Whoa, there. You’re the one who parked in my parking space.”
“I was only going to be a minute!”
“You can read, can’t you? Those spots are reserved for team players. And last I checked, you’re not on the team, sweetheart.” Gage gives me a condescending head tilt that makes me want to pop said head off his spinal cord.
I’m fully aware of the audience we’ve amassed from the volume of our altercation, but I couldn’t care less if someone gets my meltdown on camera. This dick needs to be knocked down a peg.
“I’m just asking you to move your car. I have somewhere to be, and none of this would be happening if you just waited for me to move.”
His tone drips with sickly sweet sarcasm. “Oh, I’d love to stop what I’m doing right now for your benefit and move my car. In fact, I’ll ask Coach to stop practice until we get this whole thing resolved. Do you want monetary compensation for your time too?”
A growl rumbles in my throat. “You think the world revolves around you just because you’re a hotshot hockey player?” I hiss.
“You think the world revolves around you just because you’re a stuck-up brat?”
That’s it. I’m going to kill him and make everyone in the rink a witness to murder.
“Move. Your. Car. Before I shove it up your ass and gun it.”
Gage steps closer to me, magnetizing grin and all—perfect, blindingly toothy, with just the right amount of confidence to churn a storm of butterflies in my stomach.
He’s so close to me that I can feel his breath plume over my face, can smell the intoxicating hint of pine in his cologne, can practically anticipate his touch on my skin if he moved slightly north.
“She has a bark,” he drawls, impressed.
Our eyes clash for a moment—a world of arctic blues and forest greens meeting each other for the first time—but I smother the attraction cresting inside me. Any nonviolent feelings will be immediately terminated upon discovery.
Don’t get too close, Cali. Long-term Gage exposure could result in radioactive poisoning.
My glare has enough venom in it to paralyze a single person, and it’s reserved for Gage only.
“You couldn’t handle my bite.”
Something in him changes. It’s fleeting. And thanks to being up close and personal with him, I can see how blown his pupils are, how the brown from his inner irises have somehow widened in diameter underneath the harsh, recessed lighting, drowning out the previous green.
“Wanna put that theory to the test? I love a girl who bites.”
Something about the way he just said that makes the lower half of me tingle. That shouldn’t be a normal bodily response, especially not with him. I tamp down whatever the hell is budding between my thighs and try to ignore that warm, oozing, honeyed lilt in his tone.
Ugh! He’s so infuriating. Gage is the rudest, most arrogant, and most conceited person on this fucking planet. I’d rather have a Pap smear performed by Wolverine than be within a ten-foot radius of him.
My heart punches against my ribs, indignation streamlining to every part of my quivering body. “Fuck you!” I spit.
“That’s all you got? Come on, I know a spitfire like you really wants to give it to me. Go ahead. Do your worst.”
“If you don’t move your car, I’ll…”
You’ll what, Cali?! What can you do that isn’t illegal?
Everyone’s staring at me. The whole rink has quieted. No scuffle of blades or clink of pucks on ice. There aren’t even any whispered comments about how utterly embarrassing this whole interaction is for me.
The words die on my tongue, and my confidence goes with them.
Gage pastes on a too-wide smile that has pearly enamel twinkling underneath the fluorescents. “That’s a shame. Looks like you’ll be waiting to get your car back until after my practice is done. It should only be a few hours,” he drawls. “It’s not like you have anywhere else to be, right?”
Shock drives my precursory fury all the way to the state line. “I—”
But he’s gone. He’s turned around, gotten back on the ice, and resumed practice like he didn’t just singlehandedly ruin my entire day. And everyone stood by to watch while it happened.
So, pushed to the brink of madness, I do what any reasonable person would do in this situation. I force myself to retain some semblance of calm, and I walk out the door with my head held high.
Teague perks up as soon as he sees me, anxiously shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Is he going to move his car?”
I navigate my way around the crimson complication, opening my Honda’s passenger door for my brother. “Nope.”
“Then why are we getting in the car?”
“Because we’re going to get out of here another way.”
Gage doesn’t think I have the balls to do anything, does he? I’m going to prove him wrong. I’m going to prove him so wrong that he’ll regret ever speaking to me like that. In fact, if I ever see his smug face again, I’ll make sure to rearrange it with my fist.
As I get myself situated—with that wicked plan of mine forming in my head—I stick my key in the ignition, make sure Teague’s seatbelt is tightly secured, and then brace my hand over his chest before propelling backwards into Gage’s expensive car.
