Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
S he was coming to the game. I could still feel the hammer of my heart in my chest from hearing her response. If I pushed her, I would see signs of the old Maci. Maci was always the person who didn’t back down from a challenge. During our freshmen year, she and the rest of the freshmen hockey players almost got arrested for attempting to steal the letters from a fraternity house. It was a part of their freshmen “scavenger” hunt. It didn’t matter how ridiculous the challenge on that list was, she was determined to do it all.
Jackson and I spent the day mulling through our classes. We were both business majors and shared a majority of our schedule. My parents were upset that I didn’t want to become a teacher like them, but I watched them struggle financially my entire life. They were overworked, underpaid, and constantly talking about how horrible parents were to them. My mom taught kindergarten teacher and dad high school history. Even with the giant age gap in grade levels, they had the same complaints. My upbringing wasn’t horrible, but I could tell when my mom or dad would go without something to make sure my hockey fees were covered.
I couldn’t ever live like that. They loved what they did and were two of the happiest people I've ever known. I just wanted more. Plus, a business degree would be beneficial after retiring from the NHL. As a senior, thinking about the draft wasn’t unrealistic. A few scouts and agents reached out to me recently, and there was a potential for my name to be called in the first or second round. The same went for Jackson. Coach Grimes sat a few of us down recently and if we kept playing the way we have been, the draft would be a breeze.
A lot of people thought that if you weren’t drafted out of high school, you didn’t have a chance, but it’s really the opposite. Choosing college gave me the opportunity to grow and develop my skills in so many ways. Not to mention my muscular growth. I would’ve been shit out of luck if I drafted at eighteen like Connor Bedard did with Chicago. Sure, people are titling him the next Patrick Kane, but the sheer amount of pressure that comes with that? I would take the three years of development in college over that in a heartbeat.
Jackson drove us to the hockey rink, and I quickly checked Maci’s location. I had hacked Jackson’s Life 360 app in order to clone it on my phone. Their Dad had set up the app when they went away to college, making the location sharing a given. Jackson shared that he and Maci agreed to keep the app after he died, just on the premise of knowing each other’s locations. When I stole Jackson’s account, I modified the settings to get all access to her phone. An app meant to help parents patrol their spawn’s online tendencies became my own personal playground. Maci’s entire phone was at my disposal. I could see every text message, every photo, and every safari tab, even her incognito ones. My girl had a bondage fetish that I can not wait to indulge her in.
At the moment, she was being a good girl and attending her art classes. On Thursdays, she had a couple-hour block in the afternoon of devoted studio time. I came to realize that she kept two separate portfolios. There was the stuff she turned in for grades—which were all fake recreations of whatever she thought would appease her professors—then there was the home collection. That was her genuine work. The cameras I had installed didn't always allow me to see what she was working on, but based on what I did witness, her work was twisted. She painted whatever flew around that pretty little head of hers. Scenes of blood, anger, and destroyed self-portraits. I loved them. On multiple occasions, I caught her stuffing pieces under her bed or in her closet. The genuine tragedy being that those pieces were her best work. Art is supposed to be tortured, isn’t that why all the famous artists were crazy? Cutting off their ears for pro but I know to her it would be too personal and raw for anyone else to see.
She also doesn’t know that I see how much she drinks and abuses painkillers. It’s another thing I plan to rectify soon. I have a plan. My little ray of sunshine just doesn’t need to know it yet. When the perfect time comes, I will leap and own her in a blink of an eye. My cock grew hard at the thought of it. I glanced over at Jackson, who didn’t notice my activities, and steered my mind away from thoughts of Maci. The last thing I needed was to have an erection walking into the locker room. None of the guys wanted to see that.
Jackson parked his car and was already getting out of the vehicle by the time I closed out the app. Practice would help him get his mind off of his debacle with Maci. She would forgive him easily, but I wouldn’t. A few extra hard checks in practice today would help me get the aggression out. He’d think I was just messing with him. What I really wanted to do was to punch his lights out for touching her. He had no right, and I heard their conversation. She didn’t even say anything too Earth-shattering. Jackson needed to man up.
I didn’t like men who hit women. I don’t care what their reasoning is, because there never is a good reason. The whole situation hit a little too close to home for me. My mom was married before my dad. Technically, Jim is my stepdad, but he’s the only father I have ever truly known. What I remember of my birth father, Heath, is no good. He was a vile human who liked to use my sweet mother to take his frustrations out on. My mom has been a teacher my whole life, and when I was really little, she taught middle school. I can still remember watching her cover up the handprints on her biceps with sweaters and long skirts. She didn’t want anyone to suspect what went on at home. Heath thought he was a smart man. He never touched her face.
Jim, the man I see as my true dad, came into the picture when I was six years old. He got hired as a history teacher and they instantly bonded over their love of Doctor Who. I don’t know the explicit details, but at some point, Mom told him what happened at home. It all went really fast from there. One day, he showed up and helped me pack a bag of my favorite things and we moved out. He told me that Heath was going to go away for a little while. I didn’t ask what happened to him. Personally, I hoped he gave him a slow death, beat him to a pulp, and then while he was still barely alive, tied weights to his feet and threw him into a lake. That’s what I would have done.
I entered the locker room to a chorus of hellos and fist bumps. The locker room was one of the few places on campus I felt like I could breathe. It was just the team, our equipment, and whatever music was the flavor of the day. I let my guard down here. These guys had my back through and through, and whatever I asked of them, they would support me. Hell, I could tell them I wanted to try out figure skating, and they’d cheer—and some of them leer—me on. We spent the last three years building this team dynamic through blood, sweat, and beer. Back when Jackson’s dad was still coach, he placed a heavy emphasis on creating a family for our program. I heard this was his philosophy for all of his teams and he treated them as such. Jackson came into the program already knowing his father’s expectations and antics to get us to that familial level of bonding.
What Jackson didn’t know, he soon learned from the rest of us rookies. There were a slew of traditions that we still upheld by our former coach. The man behind the whistle may have changed, but the boys on the bench didn’t. People talk about how special our lines are, and how we move as one. It seems like we all have supernatural powers out on that ice, because in a way, we do. We spent so much time together learning each other's quirks and tells that we can read each other no matter what the situation is.
Jackson will stick his tongue out before attempting a slap shot, or Axel will skate left when trying to avoid an icing call, and how Crew flings his stick down to avoid high-sticking calls. The list could go on and I will be sad when next year I have to dive into a new team with new dynamics. I don’t think anyone in the NHL runs a program in the same way at BU.. It’s a damn shame too, but down in the collegiate world, you can’t be traded on the whim of an owner. Once we committed, this was it for us.
We spent the next two hours getting our asses handed to us in practice. As of late, Coach Grimes worked us harder than we have in the past. It’s general knowledge that he’s trying to establish his dominance on the team. He had the biggest shoes to fill, and no one had given him a chance to forget it. So, he took that anxiety and fear out on the team. Luckily, Jackson and I worked outside of practice to keep the morale of the guys up. We both agreed after his dad’s funeral that no matter what, we’d protect the bonds of the team. We continued the tradition of going to The Pub after games and hosting Hockey House Saturdays. Hockey House Saturdays are magic. We host a party every Saturday night that we don’t play. We go all out—there is a theme, and we sell wristbands the week beforehand to pay for the alcohol and clean-up crew. My favorite is when we set up the mud wrestling pit in the backyard. Watching Maci work off some of her anger in a kiddie pool of mud with a few other coeds? That fantasy going in the spank bank for sure.
“Dude, why did you check me so fucking hard? It’s practice,” Jackson griped while we were changing out of our pads.
I shrugged my shoulders, a knowing smirk spreading across my lips. “You need some perspective. As much as I know you regret what happened last night, you don’t hit girls.”
Jackson frowned, and I’m sure he felt like shit about the entire thing. We hadn’t talked a lot about my childhood, but I alluded to the fact that my dad was my stepdad.
“It won’t ever happen again,” he said with finality.
I nodded, “Good, because next time, it won’t just be me checking you a little too hard.”
Jackson didn’t respond, instead he changed the subject to the upcoming game. We bantered back and forth as we finished up and packed our gear away. I let my anger dissipate, focusing on the fact that he would heed my warning.
Exiting the arena, I turned to Jackson. “So any chance of setting up that mud wrestling pit for Saturday?”
He chuckled, “Fuck yes.”
I smiled, now to convince my girl to come to a Hockey House Saturday.