The Hockey Girl

Chapter 1

I laughed, having long ago become accustomed to his flirting ways. “I’m sure I would be, if it were a nice view in the first place. Your butt isn’t quite doing it for me.” I replied, hearing the guys behind us hoot with laughter at their insulted friend.

I could feel Riordan’s shoulder shake with laughter as well as he hoisted me off his shoulder and deposited me on the ground next to Vasic’s car.

“I’ll give you that one, Sweetie.” He tossed to me, knowing that I hated being called sweetie. People from opposite teams called me “Sweetie” in the rink during games all the time. I despised the term. I absolutely and irrevocably hated it.

I simply glared up at my friend, with him having an extra foot of height on my five five, I had to tilt my head back. He was a tall bugger, forever getting on my last nerve and hardly having to try to do so.

“Alright you two, stop bantering. How about we all head off and meet at BOOST?” Tai spoke. His voice was strong and deep.

Riordan smiled mischievously at me as he, his brother Riaz, Kaleb and Elias all climbed into his black jeep.  I shot him a smirk back as I hopped into Vasic’s car. I watched in the rear-view mirror as the rest of the boys walked to their own cars or the rides they were sharing with friends.

I turned over to face Vasic as he got into the car, “Are you alright Ali? You seem out of it today.” He asked, as he started the car and began to head toward the juice bar.

I simply shrugged at my best friend, the boy who was so much like a brother to me that I thought of him as being truly related to me. “I guess I’m just really tired is all.” I replied, resting my head against the window. I looked out the window and up into the sky. It was late Autumn here in Condor, Victoria, Australia. I loved the look of the clouds at the moment; it looked as if the heavens would soon open to unleash an unrivalled amount of rain down upon us. I didn’t mind in the slightest. I loved rain; it seemed to have an automatic calming effect on me. I sighed lightly and refocussed. The clock on the dash read five-thirty. I had no idea how it had become this late and I was more than a little bitterly disappointed that I was so tired.

“If you get too tired you can always fall asleep on my shoulder at the juice bar.” Vasic smirked, winked, and laughed after that comment. I could tell that his offer was serious though, I simply knew him too well by now.

I smiled and punched his muscular arm lightly, “Thanks Vas. I’ll see how I go.”

“Just don’t start snoring okay. ‘Cause you know if you do that, I’ll have to push you off me to wake you up.” He smiled mischievously.

I frowned up at the stupid, teasing, hockey player. He knew I did not snore. “Shut up Vas,” I laughed lightly. “You know full well that I don’t snore.” I told him, speaking my thought aloud.

He laughed; his laugh was deep, rough and very masculine. It was a one hundred percent pure Aussie laugh. I loved it.

I reached over to turn the cars’ stereo system online and was immediately caught up in a laugh as soon as I heard the song. It was a song by Cher. Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves if I wasn’t mistaken. I had great memories of Cher songs. Vasic’s mum loved Cher’s music; she’d blast it whenever she was cleaning up around the house.

Last time when I was over Vas’s, around sometime last week, we joined in on the strange obsession. Having heard all of the top hits from Cher many times over, we both knew all of the words entirely. We’d helped Mrs. D’Angelo clean that day, running around the house with feather dusters as microphones and screaming to this song in particular. It was the most fun I had had in a very long time. We ended up play ‘sword jousting’ with the dusters and not five minutes later were on the ground in hysterics, still singing.