The Hat Trick (ON HOLD AS OF 2/17/16)

Chapter Twenty-One: Bailey

I suck. I'm a horrible, mean-spirited person for making you guys wait this long. The best I've got is that I'm sorry. This chap proved to be the most annoying and filled to the brim with Writer's Block Angst, that I seriously contemplated scrapping this whole thing and starting anew. But, my dear friends I trudged on because there were shining little gems of hockey goodness in here, so I persevered. Here it is, a month overdue. Sorry again my Dears.

Brooke

“You look exhausted, what’s up?” Kade remarked under his breath so our professor wouldn’t hear. Throughout the whole hour and fifty minute class period Kade had been sending me strange slash worrying looks, and he just now decided to ask how I was when class was almost over. I’ll never understand how his mind works.

I sent him a sharp look, what was that rule where it’s impolite to tell someone that look like death warmed over? I mumbled something incoherent, knowing all too well what I looked like and that was not the normally chipper and bubbly Bailey Summers he was used to. I was a lackluster, run down, and tired as . . . as whatever’s extremely tired. And I miss J, but that’s a whole different answer that I can’t give Kade. So, he’ll just have to accept my answer being I overloaded myself this semester because I want to graduate in May. 

“Long nights of studying will do that to you,” I mumbled resting my chin in my hand. I blinked slowly finding it hard to stay awake in Professor Abdelkader’s lecture class today. I normally enjoyed listening to him; he had everything I wanted in a career, except being a teacher, I don’t think I could teach a bunch of college kids.

“Are you sure?” he whispered leaning across the table we shared. Feeling his scrutinizing gaze I straightened in my seat, rolling my neck side to side the tight joints popped and cracked releasing some tension from the past sleepless nights I’ve encountered lately.

I nodded slightly, my jaw working in aggravation to his third degree questioning. Yes, I was extremely sure that my long nights of studying till all hours of the night have caught up to me, but it wasn’t just studying. I was also trying to have a relationship that seemed to be more long distance than anything. I couldn’t begin to explain to Kade how I felt like I was turning into one of those girls who gets a little clingy because she doesn’t see her boyfriend every other day. How can I tell him that when I haven’t even told Harper and Emma that I have a boyfriend? I’m not even sure if I’m supposed to say anything to either of them, so I haven’t.

And can I just say how sucky it is that neither mine nor J’s schedules have been able to work out together since that night in his apartment two and a half weeks ago, what was that the beginning of February? Yeah, extreme suckdom happening right here. I closed my eyes briefly wanting to slam my head onto my desk on repeat, but that would draw questions and a strait jacket, two things I’m positive would not be helpful.

It’s a good thing that the boys have been doing so well against some of the heavier teams of the league. They’re on a winning streak of seven games, managing to just barely beat out the Chicago Chiefs in a shootout two nights ago. Their winning streak hasn’t been this good in several years, so everyone’s excited and amped but they’re cautious, the guys are very cautious and don’t want to get to far ahead of themselves. Their motto so far is just one game at a time.

Rubbing the back of my neck I picked up my long forgotten pen and looked down at my notes, and wanted to shoot myself in the foot. Somewhere between writing my initials and the date at the top right corner of my notebook and Kade starting his Sherlock Holmes inquisition, I totally spaced out and wrote J’s name down half a dozen times, his full name. James Thomas Matthew Dillions. Snapping my notebook closed I slouched back into my seat flicking my pen towards my bag, I really needed a nap.