The Cocky Hockey Captain

Chapter 13 ● The Road To Hell

"Ahh," he said at last, taking deep breaths. "This is so precious."

"Shut your yap," I told him, frowning even though he couldn't see it. "What do I do?"

"Well, you made the plan, didn't you? Go on this date, bore the girl to tears by talking your friend up and come back with your lesbian maidenhead intact."

"I hate you. I don't know why I told you any of this."

A low chuckle came from the other end of the line. "Because you couldn't contain yourself any longer. Good luck, chiquita. Or should I say little bro?"

We hung up. I walked over to the bed and picked up a pillow. I put my face in it and screamed my throat raw. Then I dropped it and clapped once. I was ready.

I picked her up at the diner that Thursday night. I decided to make the date on a school night so that I had that excuse going for me to call it a night early. I was sure she'd dressed nicely under the super thick layers of winter clothes, and she blushed either because she was excited or because it was cold. Maybe both. I glared behind her at the booth full of boys giving me all sorts of gestures. Brian was by far the most mature and he just gave me a thumbs up. Hunter glued his face to the window as he pointed at himself, a reminder for me to follow through with the plan. Shane was behind him pretending to hump the air as Pace laughed his head off. The only one not doing anything was Dean. He was sipping from a milkshake and looking at his phone like nothing was amiss.

And nothing was, I reminded myself. I had to be like him, cool as a cucumber.

I took a deep breath and asked her, "Shall we?"

We walked together a short couple of blocks to the town's theater. It had the multi-purpose function of being a theater, cinema and events room. Everybody in here seemed to do more than one thing at once to make some money. I shivered as the cold bit through my clothes.

"Are you cold?" I asked her with a rasp to my voice, wondering if she was as affected by the freezing temperature as I was.

"A little."

As she said this she shifted closer to me and I wondered if she was expecting me to put my arm around her. Snowball's chance in hell. Even though it was mean, I moved away from her until the original distance separated us. I didn't want her to get any further ideas.

We made it to the theater and I bought both tickets. This earned me a sweet, big smile and I could have kicked myself. I had to remember that I wasn't here to impress her. I was here so that the guys thought I was a man's man.

"So," I started, scrambling my brains to see how I best introduced to the topic of Hunter and kept it firmly there for the whole rest of the date. "Do you know the guys?"

Boy, I was lame at this.

We got in line to buy some popcorn behind an elderly couple. She took off her red hat and blinked at me from behind her glasses.

"I know the Bears, yes. Everybody in town does."

"They're pretty cool." I rocked on the balls of my feet. "I'm kind of confused about why you're not dating any of them."

My comment startled her. She looked down with a little frown. Lena Lee peeled off her gloves and stuffed them in the pockets of her coats. I sighed softly, missing the days when I didn't have to wear eight layers of clothes to go to the corner.

"They're all the same," she said as the elderly couple started finally placing their order. "Obsessed with hockey in a town that worships them for it. I... want something different, I guess."

"I get it." After I said this I realized that by that she probably meant I was different. She had no idea just how much, and she had to stay in the dark. "Uh, but they're good guys, the lot of them. They adopted me into their group pretty easily, even though I'm the uh, son of the town's enemy."