Chapter 16 #2
They arrived together at my apartment around dinner time on Saturday so we could get ready together.
During skating season, I rarely got the chance to join in their gossip sessions before heading out to a bar or to a party somebody was throwing.
I always felt like I was missing out, so it was nice to get to be a part of the ritual this time, even if it was cramped to have three of us squeezed into my bathroom to do our hair and put on makeup.
“What colour?” Alexis asked, holding out two tubes of lipstick. “This one is more festive,” she said, raising the cherry red in her right hand, “but this one would be better if I can convince someone to make out with me.”
“Someone or Zain?” I asked as I redid the loose curls that framed my face with a curling wand.
“Preferably him, but I am willing to reconsider,” she said. After comparing how each of the colours looked on her lips, she settled on the red. “Screw it. Red is classic.”
By the time we were ready to leave my apartment, big, fluffy snowflakes were falling.
I held a gloved hand out from under the awning of my building while we waited for our ride to show up.
“This is fitting.” Knowing Dom and his friends, the snow was going to make the outside look much more festive than the inside of their house, even though they claimed the party was for Christmas.
Sure enough, there were hardly any signs of the impending holiday at Dom’s house.
Other than a wreath with pinecones and red berries on the front door, their house looked the same as always.
I let myself in as directed and kicked off my snow encrusted booties next to the messy pile of shoes by the front door.
It was crowded inside with people in a strange mixture of Christmas sweaters and outfits meant to draw the attention of people they flirted with.
After making my way out of the entryway, I made eye contact with Wyatt.
He was standing with an arm over a willowy blonde and a few other people I recognized but couldn’t name.
With his other hand he held a red cup, his name scrawled on it in black Sharpie.
“Dom’s in the kitchen,” he said from across the room.
He used the cup to gesture to the kitchen unnecessarily.
I found Dom standing with his back to me, next to a counter laden with snacks and red Solo cups.
He had his hands shoved in the back pockets of his jeans while he listening to something the woman in front of him was saying.
Based on the way she was fiddling with a strand of her hair and making eyes at him, I had a feeling I knew what she was aiming at.
I squeezed past a couple of guys, both of whom were nearly a foot taller than me. “Hey Dom!” I said, perhaps louder than necessary, as I came to a stop beside him. I turned to the woman and said, “I’m Hazel.”
“Emily,” she said. Her heavily lined blue eyes were shooting daggers at me. She pressed her full lips together and stood up straighter. Turning back to Dom, she said, “It’s so cool that you get to travel all the time. You must get to see so many things.”
Clearly, I was not wanted in the conversation. Before I could decide whether I wanted to back down and let them talk privately or not, Dom’s eyes met mine. “It’s mostly hotels and the insides of rinks, isn’t it, Hazel?”
Dom either not getting the hint or choosing to ignore it made me feel oddly happy. I didn’t know many people here, so it was nice that he wasn’t pushing me away to flirt. “Yep,” I agreed, “mixed with jet lag.”
“Can’t forget the jet lag,” he said with a groan. “The glamorous part of travelling. But at least by the time everything is done and we actually have time to check out the local sights, we’ve adjusted to local time.”
Emily made a couple more attempts to freeze me out of the conversation, but Dom wasn’t having any of it.
After a few minutes she was visibly exasperated and excused herself to get another drink.
I waited a few beats so I could be sure that she was out of earshot and told him, “She was hitting on you and you scared her away.”
He turned to lean on the counter. “I know,” he said. He seemed completely unbothered by that fact. On the contrary, he sounded rather pleased with himself. He looked me in the eyes as he said, “I have no interest in her.”
I felt weird with him practically staring me down like that.
It was dumb, considering we had spent the last couple months with Mark instructing us to stare at each other with more passion.
It must have been the change in environment.
Standing in his kitchen with him in a Henley and me in a fitted green top my friends insisted brought out the colour of my eyes was a far cry from being at the arena in workout gear.
Here, things felt somehow more different and more real than they did at work.
He finally broke the silence by asking, “Do you want me to grab you a drink?”
I looked around him at the row of bottles on the counter. They were in varying stages of emptiness and none of them were very expensive, but that didn’t bother me in the slightest. They were beside a variety of soft drinks for mixing. “I’ll make something when I decide what I want.”
Dom disappeared for a while, pulled off in a conversation with two men’s singles skaters who had just arrived.
Not wanting to get in the way, I mixed myself a drink before heading to the living room.
I wanted to track down my friends again.
I didn’t get out often. I had no intention of spending most of the evening with strangers.
Kendra was in conversation with a couple people I didn’t recognize, chatting animatedly.
Alexis was at her back, sitting on the arm of a couch and leaning forward as she talked with a couple of people, Emily among them.
She had somehow gotten a hold of a beer, even though I hadn’t seen her in the kitchen.
I tried to ignore the eye roll from Emily, but I decided maybe it was safer to join Kendra’s conversation just the same.
The conversation seemed to revolve around one of many iterations of a trashy reality show I knew nothing about, so I couldn’t contribute much.
Thankfully, the conversation pivoted to real life relationship drama instead of what I sincerely hoped was semi-scripted drama for the sake of everyone involved.
One by one, the others started offering up their worst stories about their exes or the drama they had caused.
“The guy I dated the entire winter term last year tried to insist that he was faithful and that I was just paranoid. What he didn’t know was that the only reason I’d gotten the nerve to confront him was that one of my group mates in my lab showed me the texts he’d sent her.
” Kendra rolled her eyes and, after a dramatic pause, added, “The idiot still tried to tell me I was crazy after all that.”
The woman beside her said, “At least you weren’t together that long.
I had plans to move in with my boyfriend and we had been looking at apartments.
We found this really cute place – near school, big windows, updated bathroom, the works – so I told my roommates I was moving out.
Then, the day before we were supposed to sign the lease, he told me he had second thoughts.
Not just about moving in together, but about being together, period.
So not only was I heartbroken, I had to go through the embarrassing fiasco of telling my roommates that I was staying after all. ”
They continued to trade war stories. After a while, Kendra turned to me and said, “What about Brandon?”
My stomach clenched. “What about him?” I asked. I knew what she was getting at, but the idea of sharing it with these near strangers made me uncomfortable. It was hypocritical when I had been finding a perverse sort of pleasure in hearing about their gossip, but I couldn’t help it.
“You know, the night you dumped him,” Kendra said. She seemed oblivious to my discomfort.
I was temporarily saved by a hand on my shoulder. “What did you end up picking?” asked Dom’s familiar voice.
“Just a vodka cranberry,” I said, choosing to answer him rather than respond to Kendra.
“You are so predictable,” Dom replied.
Even avoiding eye contact didn’t convince Kendra to back off. On the contrary, she said, “Oh, Dom can help tell this story.”
“What story?” Dom asked, suddenly focused on the group as a whole rather than just me.
“The night Hazel broke up with Brandon. Everyone is telling stories about their exes and the terrible things they did.”
He sighed. “What about it? That he was a possessive creep who didn’t understand the concept of a skating partnership? Or the fact that he thought it was a good idea to sucker punch me in the face?”
“Well, you could have at least tried to tell more than just stating the facts, but yeah,” Kendra said sulkily.
She did not approve of Dom's to the point storytelling. “Most of the other stories don’t have the whole knight in shining armour thing going for them, but at least that one does. Not you getting punched in the face or him being such an ass, obviously, but you standing up for Hazel and being willing to go to bat for her.”
Dom’s face went red. “Well yeah, I didn’t want him losing it at her, but I also needed to stand up for myself. I couldn’t take the insults lying down. Or let him get a second swing in. Plus, I’ve been told I need to protect her repeatedly.”
It was my turn to get embarrassed. “Yeah, on the ice. Nobody meant you were supposed to protect me when the asshole I was dumb enough to date let the jealousy get the best of him.”
Dom shrugged. “Then consider it me protecting myself. I wasn’t trying to do this heroic thing, I was just trying not to get punched in the face a second time.
” He seemed uncomfortable with the conversation, even though it was praising him.
He attempted to change the subject. “Wyatt was looking for people to play beer pong with in the basement, if anyone’s interested. ”
Kendra and Alexis wanted to play, so I went out with them.
They insisted they were a kickass beer pong team, having played together many times at university parties I was rarely able to attend.
Yet another thing that I missed out on thanks to early morning practices, travelling for competitions, and needing to take care of my physical health to stay in peak condition.
A drink or two was fine, but the beer pong tournaments where the goal was to get as drunk as possible rather than to win was an entirely different story.
I would have to settle for observing everyone else playing.
The temperature drop was noticeable in the basement, even with people milling about.
Wyatt and his partner were in the middle of a game, with only three cups in front of them, while the team opposite had two.
There was a cheer as the ball swooshed into a cup.
Wyatt’s partner cursed as he picked up the red cup to drink its contents.
Wyatt looked over his shoulder before taking his next shot. “You want to play?” When Kendra and Alexis nodded, he pointed to some of the other spectators and said, “You can play them next round. Then the winners face off.”
My friends made quick work of their opponents. The second game was much closer, but eventually they lost. Kendra hadn’t even finished her drink when Alexis was calling out, “Rematch! Rematch!”
By the time it was their turn to play again, it was clear that the game was going to take a lot longer.
Everyone had finished at least another drink in the meantime and it affected in their aims. They were all long past the point of their accuracy being improved by a drink or two.
They were missing shots one after the other, while their speaking volume steadily increased.
While they were arguing about whether or not the last shot should count, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked over to see a tall guy with light brown hair looking down at me. “You’re Dom’s skating partner, right?”
“Yep,” I said. “I also go by Hazel."
“Mike,” he said. “I guess you have to do a lot of tough athletic stuff, huh?”
That was the understatement of the year, I thought. Rather than being snarky, I replied, “That’s right. Competing internationally is a full-time job.”
“I bet,” he said, swirling around his cup. “Not many people can lift their legs over their heads or whatever.”
“Yeah, that takes a ton of practice. Dom’s lucky that he doesn’t have to do that, but the tradeoff is that he’s stuck picking me up and carrying me around.” They were both difficult, but for two very different reasons.
“He’s a lucky guy, getting to pick you up,” Mike said.
The innuendo and his tone of voice made me cautious. I tried to sidestep it by poking fun at myself. “Well, he has to do a lot of heavy lifting. Not really my idea of a good time.”
There was an extra beat or two before he replied. “So, he only gets to pick you up on the ice?”
“I don’t think he would enjoy picking me up any other time,” I replied.
It was probably true in both senses. He wouldn’t enjoy literally picking me up and carrying me around off the ice.
He was strong, but carrying a fully grown adult wasn’t easy, even if she was as small as I am.
Figuratively, he’d never attempted anything either.
He had been very emphatic about that, not only with Brandon, but with everyone else who brought the subject up.
“Then he shouldn’t mind if I give it a try,” Mike said with a smirk.
“I’m flattered, really, but I’m not in a good position to date right now.
” That was a good way of putting it without getting into details.
He didn’t care that I had no free time and was worried about finding myself in another Brandon situation.
Plus, you never knew how a guy was going to react when you turned him down. Better to keep it vague.
He lowered his voice and leaned closer when he said, “That’s nice and all, but who said anything about a date?”
Ugh. “Thanks, but I’m not interested,” I said firmly. I didn’t give him a chance to reply before walking to stand next to my friends. “I need another drink. We should head up when you’re done with this game.”
“Absolutely,” Kendra said, far louder than necessary. She turned back to the table unsteadily. Despite her body wavering, she looked focused as she took aim. I watched in surprise as the ball went straight into a cup at the other end of the table. “Suck it!” she yelled at her opponents.