8. Laur
Chapter eight
Laur
C offee stains my sweatshirt from breakfast when Blaine and Libby confessed to being together last night. Luckily, I had just taken a sip and my coffee cup was still pressed to my mouth, so no one, aside from my brand new sweatshirt, noticed my subtle spit take.
Shocking doesn’t even begin to describe the news.
Truthfully, it always seemed like Libby was interested in Tyler.
Just because I’m starting to warm up to Blaine doesn’t mean I want to see the troublemaker of the hockey team sleeping with one of my best friends.
But maybe she could keep him in line, and he could keep her from her habit of one night stands too.
One thing is for sure: I might have to tape my mouth shut to keep myself from grilling Libby while we finalize our first round of interviews.
Millions of questions swirl in my head: when did it start?
How? Was this the first time? Is it just sex?
How good was it? It had to have been good .
. . Sure I’ve seen glimpses of him naked, but anyone who has ever been within a foot of Mitchell when a girl is around knows how smooth he is.
The words will never come out of my mouth around Tyler, but girls flock to him more than they flock to Tyler and that’s saying something.
Girls are drawn to him. I guess everyone loves a bad boy.
Stacks of paper, notepads and laptops cover the kitchen table just minutes after we finish eating. The guys already headed off to workout before messing around with Lucas’ old hockey equipment. I’m not sure if Blaine went with them. I haven’t seen him or Libby after they abruptly left breakfast .
I’m sure Tyler is in for a great time with his pale face and bloodshot eyes. He’d clearly shown all the signs of his hangover at breakfast, slumped over with exhaustion.
Not wanting to interrupt Libby and Blaine, I shoot her a text that we need to get moving on solidifying the first-round interviewees or we won’t get any more free time on this trip.
A few minutes later, Libby comes into the living room where Bren and I are sitting. Her eyes have a slight puffiness to them, like she’d been crying. My heart throbs with sorrow not knowing what is going on with her.
“You okay, Lib?” I ask, risking sounding like the mom figure, which is typically Bren’s role to play.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Libby retorts quietly.
“Are you sure? You know you can talk—” I start, but she cuts me off.
“I know, I know. I really am fine.” She sounds more like her chipper self. “I just don’t want to talk about it. If I do, I promise I will come to you or Syd.”
“Can I just ask one thing?” Sydney inquires from the opposite couch where she’s been quietly lurking, earning her a stern look of frustration from Libby.
“Fine,” Libby snaps back.
Looking from left to right to ensure all the boys are truly out of the house, a mischievous grin forms on Syd’s face. “Are the rumors true?”
“What are you talking about?” Libby questions, her voice rising at the end.
“You know . . .” Syd suggestively raises her eyebrows a few times. “Is he really thicker than a fist?”
Thank goodness I’m not drinking coffee right now, I would have spewed it everywhere.
“People really say that?” Bren asks.
Syd nods profusely. “Oh girls say many, many things about many, many parts of Blaine Mitchell. ”
Glad I’m not part of that rumor mill. I don’t need to know details about any of the hockey team’s sexual escapades or body parts—only Lucas.’
“Well . . .” Sydney taps her fingers on her coffee mug impatiently waiting for Libby to respond. She clearly is not going to let up. She practically bounces on the couch with anticipation.
A big sigh escapes Libby before she replies, “Biggest I’ve ever seen.” A shy smile paints her face. “Now, no more questions. From any of you.”
Bren’s wide eyes and shocked expression mirrors mine.
“Uhm . . . okay.” My cheeks heat at the conversation. “Let’s get to work then.”
“Yeah, enough about Blaine Mitchell’s dick,” Bren giggles, “and more about the best new girls to help promote it.”
“brENNA!” My yell gets lost in the laughter that fills the kitchen from Bren and Syd. Even Libby lets out a chuckle at Bren’s ridiculous remark.
“I’ve got some good contenders,” Libby mutters.
“Me too!” Syd snorts, still in a giggle fit on the couch.
“Enough from you, Sydney!” I pipe up “Let us work! I’m going first. I will back this girl one hundred and ten percent. Her name is Lena.”
“She looks familiar,” Bren says, squinting at the photo attached to the application.
“Bren, I’ve known you for over twenty-one years. You’ve said that about stock photos in picture frames before,” I reply.
“True.” She sighs into her coffee. “Carry on.”
I start to run through the details. “Lena ran the social media account for her high school’s hockey and soccer teams.”
“I love the sample content she provided,” Bren interjects. “It’s witty and really engaging. She’d be the content queen for the team.”
“Right? That’s what I was thinking!” I beam. “She even has experience coordinating the soccer team’s charity gala every year. Major points for that. We need some new fundraising ideas. ”
Truthfully, I’m hoping for something unique and original since the Bellinger special edition jerseys were such a success this year. Lena is an incoming freshman, which is great since she would stay longer term. She’s the perfect candidate.
Within a few hours, we have three more applications to review and a handful more spots to fill for interviews. The “maybe” pile is rather massive, so we broke it into a “maybe yes” and a “maybe-probably not” pile. A better system would be ideal, but for now we are just rolling with the punches.
“I’m on the fence about the next girl,” Libby begins to explain as a few guys walk into the kitchen, interrupting her train of thought.
“On the fence about who?” Blaine asks.
“We can’t disclose information until the interviews are done. Blaine, get out of here.” Libby huffs at him with irritation.
“You’ve been gone a long time. We got a lot done!” I tell Lucas as he comes to greet me.
Lucas kisses me on the cheek, sweat dripping from his forehead and almost landing on my face. “We played some basketball after the gym.”
“Which Donato sucks at, by the way.” Ryder chuckles, dropping his bag in the living room.
“He’s much better on skates.” Tyler raids the fridge, looking for something to snack on and settling on some string cheese.
“Fuck off,” Lucas jokes, snagging Tyler’s unopened string cheese. “We’re going to chill in the pool for a little bit before we mess around with my old hockey equipment. Any ideas on dinner?”
“What about a friendly competition for dinner? Then shooting drills after?” Ryder smirks.
“What did you have in mind?” Lucas raises an eyebrow.
“Have you heard of the show Chopped?” Ryder asks.
An uncharacteristic squeal slips past my lips. “My mom and I love that show!!”
Ryder explains in depth how his mom is obsessed with the cooking TV show that I have seen probably every episode of.
There is a secret ingredient that all teams need to add somewhere into their meals, which includes a main dish and at least one side, but they don’t know until after they get all of their other ingredients.
He suggests we set a budget and have teams shop for ingredients for dinner not knowing what the mystery ingredient will be.
“The girls would be the judges then?” Blaine questions. “We would need to make sure they don’t know who made what, so it’s not biased.”
“No offense, Laur, but we know you’d vote for Lucas,” Tyler jests. “Some of the guys could be judges too. What if we just do three teams of two.”
“I do love a man who can cook . . .” I remark, batting my baby blues in Lucas’ direction.
Lucas eyes narrow, putting his steely game face on, so serious about this little competition now. “What if we go to the store in about an hour?” he asks, and I nod my head in response.
“That should give us enough time to wrap up what we need to for the PR and marketing team,” I confirm.
“Great.” Lucas smiles. “I promise you we don’t want Keith cooking. He can get the secret ingredient with whoever else isn’t cooking.”
Eagerly, they rush into the backyard. They shout and divulge the details to the rest of our friends.
Ryder bounces with a gleeful grin, his arms flailing with enthusiasm as he explains the rules.
It reminds me of a little kid sharing a story.
Who knew they would get this ecstatic about a cooking competition.
“This is going to be entertaining,” Bren says. “I can’t wait to tell Liam about who the worst cooks are. He would definitely be with Keith on special ingredient duty. I miss him . . .”
“I know you do.” I grab Bren’s hand and squeeze it firmly. “What if we FaceTime him later while the guys are cooking?”
She gives a weary sigh. “I’m sure he’s busy, but we can try. Let’s get back to the applications.”
“Right,” Libby picks up where she left off. “So this girl I am on the fence about.” She hands me the application .
“Hold on, isn’t this the girl you were all about before we left? We talked about her. No hockey ties but amazing charity event experience?”
“Yeah, Raven,” Libby attests. “I’m not sure though. Something just seems off about her.”
“She looks familiar . . .” Bren tilts her head slightly.
I roll my eyes in response. “We already established that someone looking familiar to you means nothing! What are you on the fence about?”
“Something just feels weird, I’m not sure,” Libby tries to clarify.
“But her experience?” I flip through her application again.
“Is what we need,” Bren declares, “or what you will need. This year is going to be really important to try to do some type of new charity fundraiser.”
“Exactly. She has that expertise.”
“If you’re sure . . .” Libby’s eyes dart back and forth between Bren and me.
My stomach knots at her apprehensiveness over selecting this girl to interview.
“If something is off with her, we’ll find out when she interviews,” I justify, trying to calm my new nerves. “But we need this type of skill on our team, so fingers crossed she interviews well.”
“I think she will be an asset,” Bren affirms.
There is one last spot for our first-round interviews to fill. Delight replaces the worry in my gut knowing we are in the home stretch and one step closer to finalizing the group of newbies that will support the hockey team this year.
“Hey, can we interrupt?” Ryder interjects from the patio. “We need help with figuring out what the teams are.”
Bren rolls her eyes. “These boys, they can’t do anything without us.”
“We can play hockey!” Blaine retorts, while a few others mutter disapproval at Bren’s comment .
“But you won’t look as good to the outside world without us,” Libby scoffs.
“Touché! Now help us!” Blaine jokingly brings his hands together, pleading for help.
As I jot down the names of the eight guys that are going to participate, Libby instructs Blaine to give her his hat.
“Ew,” she scoffs. “It’s sweaty.” Blaine tuts his tongue at her as she puts the eight folded up pieces of paper in the hat. “Ryder, as the newest member of the hockey team you pick first.”
“Tyler,” Ryder reads off the name on the paper. “Wait, what if someone pulls my name? How does that work?” He furrows his brow in confusion.
“Easy,” Bren takes the hat from Ryder and goes through the names, removing one slip.
“See this is why you would be lost without us,” Libby giggles.
Blaine ends up picking Lucas’ name, which leaves Blake Hursh and Silas Harlan as the last team.
“Don’t forget to text Keith the secret ingredient!” Ryder calls to us as the boys scramble off to the store.
“I know we need to choose one last interviewee, but what should the ingredient be?” Libby whispers as if they are still in the house.
“I have an idea!” Syd jumps off the couch and rushes over to the kitchen table.