“You want me to come with you.” Margo groans as she paints her fingernails.
“Yes!” I shoot out of my closet, “Will you please?” I pulled out
two different colored beanies.
I hold both of them up as Margo points at the white one instead of the blue.
Juliette walks in with a bowl of cereal plopping down on my bed as Verina puts on mascara.
“I thought you had a date.” Juliette says with a muffled mouth. “I do.” Margo yawns.
“Margo!” Juliette turns to face us. “What?” She says defensively.
“We all know why you want to go to the game and liking hockey is not the reason.” Verina twirls the chair.
“I love hockey!” Margo gets up.
“You mean you like hockey boys.” I add as she frowns. “No.” Margo gets up rolling her eyes.
“You know that day that I flashed an old couple when I was really drunk on campus?” She mentions as we nod our heads.
“Well, I have to earn community service for the university. So, my dad thought it would be a great idea if I was helping the hockey team with their physical therapy.”
I nod my head slowly, “So like if they get injured you would have to tend to their wounds?” I look at Margo as she gags.
“Yes, but also… this is a great way to meet many guys, even from different schools.”
“More like she likes guys that won’t ever like her back.” Verina laughs as Margo throws a glare at her.
“Says the one making it a decided plan to make Christopher Florence fall in love with her.” Margo takes a scoop of cereal from Juliette who then swats her hand away.
“Isn’t he hot though?” Verina smiles, “Very mysterious!”
We all gave each other a look before laughing, Juliette continued to talk even with her mouth stuffed, “If by mysterious you mean you caught him with your greedy eyes all by his lonesome at the party, then yes.”
“Chris is beautiful.” Verina falls on my bed besides Juliette. “Don’t get attached to him.”
I walk over pulling her back up, “Grayson mentions that Chris is not looking for a girlfriend. He keeps to himself a lot.”
Margo runs over to us, “Oh so it’s Grayson now?” She sat on the bed next to Juliette.
“I’ve called him Grayson before,” I point out as they all send knowing looks at each other.
“So you were talking to Grayson?” They say in unison with smirks, as I roll my eyes.
“Very mature.” I mock, “ But yes, well we were locked in the janitor’s closet, and forced to talk to each other.” I say quickly.
“Oh, I know, I was watching the door as it banged multiple times from you trying to open it.” Juliette winks.
My eyes swarmed her.
“I sat on the other end and eavesdropped for my whole study hall period then told Mrs. Benson to let you two out.”
I smile, “I know you’re joking because Mr. Hoffman was the one who opened the door, but nice try!”
Juliette stood up, placing the bowl down on the table, looking back at us, “You guys are ridiculous, men don’t deserve our time and attention,” She runs over wrapping both her arms around all of us, “We are all we need.”
I sigh, “I couldn’t agree more.”
Margo pulls away first, “Jules, you know I love you, but one day you’re going to fall in love, and you are going to know how it feels to be in love
and you will never wish for it to end.”
Juliette laughs, “Maybe when I’m dying, I’ll wish for love.”
“You would fall in love with the unexpected.” Verina gets up twirling like a princess.
“Someone quiet and he wears glasses, he would have brown hair, maybe goes to your church on the weekends and volunteers to help orphans!” She continues.
“NO!” Margo gets up to join her, “Juliette will fall in love with a business boy, like the typical type of men that our fathers want us to marry. He would be proper and would know how to play the piano beautifully, like me!”
They sounded ridiculous.
Juliette shouldn’t be with a guy if the guy doesn’t let her do what she wants.
But if I had to wager a guess…
I shot up next to Margo and Verina staring back at Juliette who looked like she wanted to end us.
“You both are terribly wrong.” I yawn, “If both of you know Juliette, she doesn’t want a relationship!” I continued, “So this guy would have to be consistent!” I walk around, “He would be everything that Juliette wouldn’t expect, he would be a boy written in one of the books that her nose is always in.”
Juliette smiles, “He would be tall, I would say a jock. He would be everything that she wants but is too stubborn to admit.”
Juliette gets up, “I don’t care if he’s tall, I don’t care if he helps orphans, or even if he plays the piano beautifully.” She turns around, “I care if my father thinks he is worthy enough.”
“It doesn’t matter who I like unless my family accepts them.” “Love doesn’t shy away because of your parents.”
I walked up to her, “Love is a beautiful thing that should always be embraced.”
“Not if I dishonor my family.” She laughs off.
Juliette was always a hard person to figure out. Her family is very strict and very religious, I wasn’t really sure if she was, I mean she would always follow her family values and decisions, but what does she really want to do?
The doorbell rings as Margo smiles at me, “The Prince has arrived!” She pulls me toward the door as I roll my eyes, mouthing help to Verina and Juliette.
Juliette gets up, “I was thinking of going to the bookstore anyways.” Verina groans, “I don’t want to go to a bookstore!”
“You don’t have to come, you know.” Juliette laughs.
Verina follows her anyway, “Yes, but I wouldn’t want you to have to force yourself to have any conversation with someone random who isn’t me.”
Juliette smiles, “Oh, thank you so much for thinking about me!”
Verina blows her a kiss, “And maybe we can find a hot boy for you who is mysteriously reading a book all by himself drinking black coffee.”
“Why black coffee?” I ask.
Verina smiles, “Guys who drink black coffee have big dicks.”
Juliette stops to analyze the sentence, “Please tell me you don’t plan on homeschooling your children.”
“Of course not! I’ll call you!”
Margo and I approached the car upfront, only that it wasn’t one of Grayson’s cars. Margo ran back inside to get her lucky lip-gloss while I walked next to the car, knocking.
It was Liam.
He rolls down the window, “Grayson had an emergency to take care of that’s urgent, I was told to pick you up.” He says while staring off to the front of the car.
Liam was very popular in Hawthorne; I mean he is Grayson’s best friend so it would be very understandable. Everyone knew what game he was playing as he was always with a different girl every night and was quite popular with his… abilities.
Margo and he had a one-night stand, but I mean she’ll get over it. “What’s the emergency?” I ask, I don’t know why, it’s not like it’s any
of my business.
Liam looked uncomfortable answering the question, making us worry, even if I shouldn’t.
“He always makes it in time for practice.” Liam dodges the question. I simply nod, I can ask Grayson about it maybe later.
Liam smiles, “Well, hop in!” He gets out of his seat, running over to open my door.
“You didn’t have to really,” I flash a smile as he rolls his eyes,
Liam raises his eyebrows, “I didn’t have a choice, Princess. You’re Gray’s girlfriend. You would get the same treatment from anyone in the damn state, not that you would have different treatment.” He looked over at my house, which was a full-blown mansion.
Acting like he wasn’t loaded himself.
I couldn’t help but itch at the idea of punching him. “Now let’s get going! I wouldn’t want to be late,”
I pause, “Wait!” I stop him as he tilts his head, “Margo forgot something in my house, she’ll be back down soon.”
Liam’s face turned red. “Margo?” He almost panicked.
I nod, “Yes, well she’s getting her lucky lip gloss,” I turn around as Margo runs over, “What took you so long?”
I ask as she smiles, “My bra keeps unclasping, so I switched.” She looks over at Liam who seems to be looking anywhere but her.
“Well, let’s go.” He forces out as she climbs on the seats in the back. “Why is he taking us?” Margo asks.
I roll my eyes, “Prince couldn’t make it.”
“What do you expect us to do while you guys are skating around like figure skaters?” Margo groans as I grin.
Liam stares at the road ahead, “Talk like you guys always do.” He smirks, “That shouldn’t be a problem.”
“You can flirt with the players.” I turn over to Margo who winks in conspiracy.
“You bet.” I turned over to Liam who looked agitated. “You have no shot against the boys.” He laughs.
Margo leans in between the seats, “Why not?” “They are way too focused on the season.” Margo only smiles, “I sense a challenge.”
The tension between Margo and Liam is setting the whole car on fire. I, for one, don’t care about what Margo does in her love life.
Margo knows that Liam and the rest of the elites are off limits. “The arena isn’t far from the mall.” Liam says.
I look over at him with an annoyed look, “Grayson wants me to watch.” “Grayson also wants a Bugatti, but his father will flip his shit if he buys
another car.”
Margo snorts, “Like that would create a dent on his card.”
“No, but Grayson tends to splurge on things he doesn’t need.”
“And you don’t?” Margo’s powerful gaze meet with his on the rear- view mirror.
It was like watching an intense staring contest, I certainly felt like I was breeching some sort of privacy.
“No,” he smirks, “I tend to resist the things I want.”
“Too bad maybe that thing you want will end up being sold out.”
We finally reached the hockey arena, seeing Grayson parking, my eyes found his as he pulled his hockey stick out of his trunk.
“There he is.”
I jump out of the car, walking over to Grayson who smiles at me, “Hey Dove, how was your ride?”
“Where were you?” I ignored his question. “I had something to take care of.”
“Which was…” I question.
“You worried about me, Dove?”
I felt my face turn red, “No, I was just asking, nothing to dig too deep in.” I snapped, his eyebrows furrow.
“It doesn’t matter anyways, I’m here, I just had something to take care of.” I nod.
Still wary and curious but, I had no right to know about his whereabouts, it was none of my business, no matter what ever happens between us.
Not that anything was going to happen between us. I had to keep remembering that it was just a plan, and it was just for three months.
“You have something on your lips.” His nose scrunches. I smile, “It’s lip gloss.”
“It’s shiny.” He retorts back.
I laugh, “Good, it’s doing its job.”
Grayson had a cool exterior, that’s for sure, but small conversations just simple as this one makes it seem like he’s so much more than what I predicted my whole life.
He was still human. I often forgot because I consistently compared him to a rabid animal or even a troll.
“You know you’ll be late if you stay out here chit chatting, captain.” Liam interrupts as Grayson’s eyes glared at him.
“Yes, I know Brookshire.” He gives Liam a dismissive hand gesture while leading the way to the rink. The whole team staring as they skate around waiting for their one and only captain.
“You can sit over there.” He points at the seat nearest to the benches.
“I don’t want to just sit around while waiting for you to finish up.” I scowl.
Grayson faces his team then at me, “Dove, can you just listen to me for once in your life.” I smiled, almost a smirk, but I did find that I loved that he noticed that my daily mission was always to defy him.
“I want to go to the other rink.”
I look over to the other rink as he smirks with confusion written all over his face, “You know how to skate?”
I lift my head up, “You underestimate me.”
Grayson’s eyes looked cautious, “I don’t want you to get hurt or anything.” He warns.
I turn back to him, “Careful, Prince you almost sound like you care.” Grayson pulls me closer, his mouth close to my ear, “Got to act the part,
right?”
“You get on the rink when I’m with you.” He warns, “Don’t fucking step foot on the other rink.”
Grayson was odd… I did sometimes find myself staring, it wasn’t hidden that Grayson Prince was admired at Hawthorne University. He never cared much about relationships. At least that’s what I thought. He kept his girlfriend a secret from everyone else.
“Please be careful.” I didn’t even think about letting the words slip out of my mouth to make sure he was fine.
Grayson turns back around to me, his eyes a bit questionable.
He didn’t say anything, instead he quickly put on his helmet and skated away.
I sigh, I felt jittery, like my arms were jelly and my face was pale, it only really took a second for Margo to notice and bring me over to the bathroom.
Tears started streaming down my cheeks as she looked at me, kneeling. “You didn’t take your pills?” She said pleadingly as she pulled out the emergency pills from her bag.
I didn’t say anything, one look she knew, she’s my best friend. She was the only one that really knew anything.
“I thought I could go a day without it.” I mutter as she frowns, genuine worry plastered her face.
“I know you think you can beat anemia, but you can’t.” Margo scolds.
She puts the pills into my mouth, pulling out a water bottle from the fancy fridge in the bathroom.
This was a time I was so glad our parents paid good taxes for this private university.
“I want you to keep taking your pills.” She pats my arm as I nod. I know it seems like it’s simple, and that I’m like a toddler who doesn’t want to eat her broccoli.
“Now let’s go, before your boyfriend thinks something is wrong.” She pulls me away from the sink.
“He’s not my real boyfriend.”
Margo pauses, “Will you stop saying that!” “Margo, it’s true.”
“I don’t think you should completely ignore the clear signs of him flirting with you.”
Margo never shied away from telling me the truth, she always explained her thought process whether it was her own life or mine.
We walked out of the bathroom to see two girls sitting at the seats that Grayson told us to sit in. The average puck bunnies have camped out to watch my boyfriend skate.
Margo tensed as well, I began to head to the seats, and stand over them they smirked.
“Problem?” One with pink hair had crossed her legs, almost kicking me. I smile, “It’s a closed practice.”
“It doesn’t say that.” She stands up as her blonde friend stays seated. “No, but I do.”
“Listen, you don’t own the rink.” She tries to vouch for herself.
“Oh, I wouldn’t have a problem if you were using the rink, but you’re not.” I felt eyes on me even Grayson’s cold gray eyes.
“I’m watching the practice; I’m not bothering anyone.”
You’re bothering me by sitting here watching Grayson, I wanted to say. Margo panics, “How about—”
“—No,” I interrupt, “I can buy this damn rink with a call, just so you can be told to move.”
“You don’t want to fight me.” She says her eyes look like she just awoke from the dead, only I felt my blood boil and my eyes narrow. The boys rally from behind me, Grayson’s figure came to view as the pink haired girl pulled away.
“Hey Grayson!”
“Daisy, what are you doing here?” He says in a hurried voice. Daisy.
Of course, Grayson knew her, I sounded stupid now, he’s been sleeping with her and now I look like the girlfriend that had been cheated on.
“You have a crazy fan girl.” She shrugs over at me as I couldn’t look Grayson in the face.
I felt my hands shake from embarrassment.
It was only two days ago we said that we wouldn’t be sleeping with anyone else and the thought of him touching her infuriates me.
This whole thing infuriates me, since when did I care who Grayson Prince put his hands on? Maybe it was because of my lack of relationships, he was my first boyfriend. Well, fake boyfriend. I don’t know how relationships work.
I’ve never been in a real one where I was shown off. Brooks always made it a big deal that I would ruin everything for his parents company if he ever went public with me, his father is running for mayor. He’s seriously running against Verina’s dad, and he said that if he ever were to tell people that he was dating me it was a “conflict of interest.”
I could argue that I deserved better than what I had with Brooks. And I can even accept the fact that I was blinded by the attention that was always given by Brooks. He made me feel like shit, but in private he made me feel like I was the most precious girl in the world. Everyone always treated me like that.
Except for Grayson.
Is that why I’m so keen on getting his attention? I admit it, I care about what he thinks.
“Well, are you going to let her speak to me like that, Grayson?” She yells, she was off the rails, throwing her drink into his face.
I almost laughed.
“I’m his girlfriend.” I smiled at her as she brought her hand up and smacked my cheek. I felt warmth and a sting hit me as she pulled back.
Is this the fucking back lash I get for dating this six foot, five inches ripped, blonde hockey player that has always had it out for me?
Joke.
“Did you just slap me?”
Daisy’s eyes didn’t look at mine, instead they looked at Grayson’s. He looked about ready to throw something in the glass window.
I always knew he had a temper, mostly because I was always the fuse. “Not only are you a slut, but you’re also a liar too.” She spit back at me
as I took a second to look at her eyes.
“She’s not fucking lying Daisy. She’s, my girlfriend.” Grayson growls in frustration, this was embarrassing.
Daisy’s eyes then turned from red to just normal, but water started to build up, I almost felt bad.
But a bitch that slapped me, does not deserve my pity. “I can’t believe this; you don’t do girlfriends.” Grayson laughs, a chuckle, “Then what do I do?”
“Me.” She refers to herself like an object. It was sad.
“I’ve been throwing myself at you, and you slept with me every week, you’re telling me that wasn’t leading to a relationship?”
Grayson took a deep breath. “No, it was not.”
“I’m sorry, really Daisy if I seemed like I led you on, but I’m very happy in my relationship right now. How do you expect a relationship when you slept with Liam on the weekends?” He gave a shrug. Margo tensed next to me, looking over at her certain dark-haired fantasy.
Daisy lifted her bag off my seat, her eyes never leaving mine.
“She won’t satisfy you.” She looks back at Grayson, “Once you get a taste of her virgin pussy, you’ll get bored.”
It was all she said before exiting and her friends following without another word.
“I should just put your name on that seat.” Grayson mutters as I look down.
It was humiliating, I’ve never talked about my sex life to anyone and even if the girl Daisy didn’t know if I was a virgin, I knew I was.
I always thought about just handing my virginity to someone, so the pressure of when I would finally give it to someone would be gone, or the burden of the thought that a guy is just with me for one thing.
Did Grayson completely just ignore the girl’s last sentence or am I the one hearing things?
“No need.” I smile thickly.
Grayson’s stone-cold exterior was never weakened so he just looked at me with no sympathy, not that I was looking for some.
“I’m going home.” I say, my voice a bit shaky.
Grayson runs up in front of me, “Let me take you home.” He pleaded, maybe he had forgotten that he still had his uniform and skates on.
But at that moment it seemed that he didn’t even care.
“You have practice.” I look back at his team skating drills. “Shit, you’re right.” He whispers under his breath.
I smiled; a small laugh traveled. Grayson catches a wind of my lips curving upwards.
For the first time ever his face looked warm, not pale. But blush covered the spots that I could see through his helmet.
“I can go home by myself.” I start to walk away again as he runs in front of me again.
“I don’t trust you going home by yourself.” He says, I don’t even think he realized he said it either.
“Margo’s with me—” I smile as we both look over to Margo flirting with one of Grayson’s teammates taking a water break. “I’m a big girl, I can handle myself.”
Grayson picks me up by the waist, pulling me over his shoulder, and setting me back down on my seat.
“Forty-five minutes until practice ends,” He looks at the clock, “I will take you home.” He looks over at Margo, “You don’t come home with anyone except Margo or me.”
I begin to open my mouth, “And Liam was instructed by me to pick you up today, that doesn’t count.” He smirks.
He knows me too well.
“What if I’m dying?” I inch closer to his face. Grayson uses this moment to take off his helmet, staring at me in the eyes.
“I hope you don’t expect anyone else to give you CPR other than me.” He licks his lips, my stomach heats, and I feel my core pooling.
I breathed in his musky scent; he smelled like mint and cold weather combined. That doesn’t make sense, but it does to me. And that was really all that mattered.
Grayson let his smirk travel, and puts his lips gently on top of mine, I breathed out, opening my mouth more, my hand traveling up to the nape of his neck, wanting to pull him back towards me.
But noticing that we were still in a public setting. He pulls back, turning to Margo, “Do you mind?”
I smile as Margo rocks her expensive heels against the paved floor, “You guys are so believable that you even need to kiss when August isn’t even here!”
I swallow, pulling my hand away from his neck, Grayson coughs, pulling his helmet back up.
We didn’t even notice or cared if anyone was watching, the temptation of his lips close to mine was good enough.
“Forty-five minutes.” He says returning to his cold tone, I nod. I could feel my cheeks heat, but I was way too stubborn to believe it.
“Forty-five minutes.” I breathe out.
