Chapter 4 Bitter Pill
Chapter four
Bitter Pill
Jameson Sinclair
The ice has always been a reprieve for me.
Something about cutting across the cold, unforgiving surface turns down the roar of my thoughts.
Over the last few months, I’ve used hockey to escape Marigold.
Seeing her red hair in the stands today cements what I’ve secretly known all along: I’ll never escape Marigold Belmore.
She’s poring over her tiny notebook, glancing up every now and again.
I don’t know what she could possibly be writing.
We haven’t even officially started practice yet.
But Marigold sees things differently than most. She puts words to emotion and atmosphere in a way that I’ve never read a reporter do.
“Sinclair, you know anything about the cute redhead in the stands?” Nash, my teammate and roommate, asks as I skate up to where the guys have congregated to wait on Coach Rhodes.
I laced up a half hour early to do some laps around the ice. Something that usually gets me in the right headspace for practice. Marigold was here when I came out, so it ended up being pointless.
“She’s a reporter writing an article about the team,” I say, trying to keep my tone neutral.
If I overreact to him calling Marigold cute, I’ll never hear the end of it.
“So you know her, then?” Conrad asks with a raise of his brow.
“Would be weird if I didn’t, considering we’re both on the paper.”
Conrad narrows his eyes. He crosses his arms, making the C for captain on his practice jersey bunch up.
“You’re in more of a mood than usual.”
I give him a flat look in reply.
“Did she reject you or something?” Nash asks. “I told you, girls don’t like it when you glare all the time. Maybe if you smiled at her—”
“No.”
“No to her rejecting you?” Conrad questions.
“Or to smiling?” Nash adds.
I glare at both of them. “Just no.”
“Sounds like whoever is opposite Sinclair during scrimmage should put on some extra pads,” Porter jokes from nearby. A few of the guys chuckle. Unfortunately, they are rarely deterred by my glares and short sentences.
A whistle blows, blessedly ending our conversation.
“Warm-up!” Coach Rhodes shouts from the player’s bench.
“Five laps, then meet at the face-off circle to stretch,” Conrad tacks on as he pulls his helmet over his head.
I take off as soon as he finishes his sentence, putting as much distance as possible between me and my teammates.
“This is warm-up, not sprints,” Nash says when he catches up to me. He’s the fastest skater on the team, so it’s not surprising that he did.
“I already warmed up while you were staring at yourself in the mirror,” I grouse.
Nash chuckles. “I think I need to shake this girl’s hand. She must be something else to have you so riled up.”
I clench my jaw. Nash is a good guy, but the idea of his overly flirty self sauntering up to Marigold and touching her makes me want to drop my gloves.
“If you don’t tell me who she is to you, I’ll ask her myself,” Nash teases.
I turn my head to glare at him through my face shield.
“Alternate idea: you leave Marigold and me alone, and I’ll refrain from gluing your face to the plexiglass.”
Nash snorts. “You’d have to catch me first.” He knocks into my shoulder as we hit our third lap. “So her name’s Marigold.”
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
“You never want to talk about anything,” Nash counters. “You’re allergic to conversation about anything other than what happens on the ice.”
“That’s …” I huff. “I’m not allergic to it..”
The only person I had deep conversations with is shooting daggers at me from the stands. At least, I assume she is. I glance up as I skate past her. Yep. As to be expected. Nash looks up when I do.
“Yikes. She looks like she wants to stab you with her pen.”
I grunt in response.
“What’s that about?”
We turn and skate to the middle of the rink where the face-off circle is. The rest of the guys file in after us. Conrad leads the stretch routine, as always.
“It’s complicated,” I say to Nash after a minute of silence. “Not the place to get into it.”
He bobs his helmet.
“Can I date her?”
I give him an incredulous look. How did he go from sounding like a concerned friend to being an absolute idiot in less than five seconds?
“Answer me, and I’ll drop this for now,” he says, much too calmly for a man risking his life.
“No,” I grind out.
I catch the flash of his dumb grin.
“That’s what I thought.”
I come out of the locker room and almost trip over my own feet when I see Marigold leaning against the wall across from the doors. She smiles at Nash, and the sight feels like someone just checked me into the glass. Her gaze lifts and the smile drops off her rosy lips.
“I was just telling Marigold here about how I can skate laps around you,” Nash says with a grin.
His blue eyes sparkle with mischief. I scowl.
“I have strength. I don’t need speed,” I say as I approach.
Marigold’s previously relaxed stance stiffens into something statuesque.
“Then why were you doing laps before practice?” she asks, her pen poised over her notebook.
“He’s jealous, of course—”
I palm Nash’s smirking face and push him backward.
“Go bother someone else,” I growl.
Nash bats my hand away with a laugh.
“Now why would I do that when you’re conveniently right here?”
I glare at him. He lets out an exaggerated sigh.
“Fine, I’ll be on my way, but only because I have a date, and gentlemen are never late.”
“You are the furthest thing from a gentleman,” I say.
He grins. “But she doesn’t know that.”
I shake my head. He dips his chin in Marigold’s direction.
“Nice meeting you, Red. Hope you give my boy here a run for his money.”
My brow furrows. What does that even mean in this context? Marigold must not have the same question, because she laughs. Laughs. At him. My hands clench into fists.
This is going to be a long season.
Nash disappears around the corner, and I turn my attention fully on Marigold.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming to practice today? A little warning would have been nice. I could have organized some interviews with the guys.”
Marigold rolls her eyes.
“First, I can organize my own interviews. And second, how was I supposed to warn you? It’s not like I have your number in my phone.”
I ignore the way her words tear through my chest like a bear’s claw.
“We’ve both had the same phone numbers since sixth grade. We memorized each other’s that year.”
Her lips twist into a sardonic smile.
“Huh, funny, I would have thought if that were the case you would have called and told me about the internship before I found out on my own.”
I run a hand over my clenched jaw.
“Charlie wants us to work together,” I remind her. “We can’t do that if you don’t communicate.”
“Fine. I’ll email you when I think I can come to practice.”
“Email me? Are you serious right now? Goldie—”
“No.” Her voice has enough vitriol to make me freeze. “Do not call me that. Ever again.”
The finality of her words brings back the feeling of spinning out. I might as well be upside down in a ditch with the way my heart is pounding.
“I’ll email you my notes and when I’m coming to practices or games,” she says after a beat of choking silence. “I’ve already got contact info for my initial interviews, but I’ll let you know if I need anything else.”
“Okay,” I rasp.
For a second, it seems something like regret flashes over her features. But as fast as it appeared, it’s gone, and her with it. She stalks down the hallway and out of sight. Leaving me to swallow the bitter pill she just shoved down my throat.