The puck boys of fu, p.2
The Puck Boys of FU, page 2
“Come on, Ro, let’s see if you’ve still got it,” Griffin taunts, chalking his cue across the table from me, while letting his stare drink me in, and I have no choice but to do the same.
Griffin Blake is gorgeous, he always has been, but right now he isn’t just gorgeous, he’s dangerous too, just like he enjoys. He’s standing there in his loose-fitting white shirt and blue jeans that are effortlessly styled, yet still look perfect, as if he knows he’s owned my heart for fucking years and doesn’t care who knows it.
“We both know I have,” I toss back, offering Harden one last weak and empty smile, before I move to grab a cue and join Griffin at the table.
He breaks first, potting two balls one after the other, but when he lines up his next shot, I step into his sight and he falters, sending the ball wide. I pot four balls in a row after that, before my luck runs out, finishing off the bottle of vodka in my hand and feeling bolder for it.
“Fuck sake, I forgot how good you are,” Griff grumbles, as we play back and forth, soon gathering a bit of an audience, one that includes his fan girls from upstairs earlier, until I eventually win, and he moves to set up another game.
Best of three, just like always.
“I always was good at playing your games, Griff, I guess you forgot.” I ensure my smile is completely sardonic, and he watches me with a weighted stare, as if he wants to say something, but as usual his loyalty to my brother wins out.
As if my mind conjured him, Everest appears at the top of the stairs, like a king hoarding over his court, and suddenly I’m grateful for the alcohol now coursing through my veins. His shirt is open, revealing his muscular and newly-tattooed torso, and his pants are still unbuckled, as he stumbles into the basement with a joint hanging from his mouth. He doesn’t notice me, not at first, which given there are still two scantily dressed girls hanging off him, I can’t say I’m surprised. Griffin hollers his name, pulling his attention toward us, and Harden silently moves to take up space directly behind me, as the third of their trio finally notices me.
Everest’s glossy, ocean eyes widen in surprise as he takes me in, inhaling deeply on his joint, before pulling it from his mouth, as his surprise turns to anger. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he spits, and I almost smile at the familiarity of his hostility, it’s all I know these days after all, but instead I line up to break the balls of the new game Griff set for us.
“Playing with your boys, what does it look like?” I reply sweetly with a shrug, as one of the balls lands in the corner pocket, and I swear I can feel his jaw grinding from here, as I ignore the anger rolling off him, and move to line up for my next shot.
Just like I knew he would, he storms toward me and rips me away from the table by my arm, spinning me so I am forced to look at him. “I’m serious, you shouldn’t fucking be here,” he spits beneath his breath, his touch both painful and branding, and I can feel both Harden and Griffin watching our every move.
“Yeah, well, you stopped answering my calls,” I fire back, and watch as his stare softens, and just for a second he’s my Everest again, the one who chased away my nightmares and cleaned up my bloody knees, but then just as fast as he appeared, he’s gone again.
“I’m your brother, Aurora, not your boyfriend, I don’t have to return every fucking text or call,” he curses, releasing me as if I’ve burned him, and my eyes can’t help but track down his half naked torso, as the two girls he was clearly fucking start moving in closer to us.
“Please, like you know what it requires to be someone’s fucking boyfriend,” I toss back, clinging to some of my alcohol-fueled bravado and pretending I don’t feel one of the girls glaring at me in contempt.
“Oh yeah? Because I was managing pretty fine upstairs,” he exclaims, and I swallow thickly at the thought of him with anyone, let alone the two beautiful girls who have almost reached us.
“Fine? Is that what we’re calling thirty-seconds of fun with Monroe the hoe these days?” I question, and the meaner looking one of the girls stomps between us.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” she screeches, and I sigh, more than used to petty female drama between both my brothers over the years.
“It’s fine, Holly, it’s just my sister,” Everest replies without even looking her way, and the words sting more than they should.
Just my sister. Just.
“Yeah, well, sister or not, watch your fucking mouth,” she warns, and I almost laugh, especially when she curls her arm around him, but he pushes her off with a shove.
“Get the fuck off me and get out of my house,” he fires back, and I shake my head at his fucking bullshit.
Of course, he can talk to me like shit, but no one else can. Well, fuck him and his double standards. I move to push past them, as the girl begins to argue with him, but he ignores her completely and follows me to the other side of the table where Griffin is, with Harden trailing not too far behind me.
“What the fuck do you want, Rora? Why are you here?” he asks, as I pot another ball, and when I rise back to my full height, which is still inches smaller than his six foot three inch frame, I find him desperately searching my stare in annoyance, and something else I can’t quite place.
I take a step toward him, knowing the other two can hear me too, and say what I have been waiting to say for fucking months now.
“I want to know what happened,” I state blandly, watching him carefully for any of his tells, but he doesn’t even flinch.
“With what?” he questions boredly, but I can tell from the tense set of his shoulders that he knows exactly why I’m here.
“With you, with them, with us,” I reply, gesturing between him and his best friends. “Why don’t you answer when I call? Why don’t you come home? Why have you been acting like I don’t fucking exist?” I rush my words out, swallowing the cry that threatens to rip from my throat, but I know he still hears the emotion in my voice, they all do.
Silence lingers at my questions, and for a second I almost think I may have gotten through to him, but then he pulls back and sneers, “Why do you even care? It’s not like we’re even real siblings,” he shrugs, and his words hit me like a fucking sledgehammer.
Not once have I ever thought of him as any less than a real brother, and I know that’s fucked up given my feelings, but hearing him say it like that threatens to shatter my heart.
My hand slaps his cheek so hard it forces his head to the side, and when he moves back to meet my stare, I see surprise in his, so much so that I don’t care that he sees the tears now shining in mine. “Fuck you, Everest. Fuck. You.” My heart is now pounding in my chest, but he doesn’t respond, just lifts his stare over my shoulder.
“Take her home, Griff,” he commands, and like the fucking lapdog he is, Griffin grips my elbow gently, attempting to guide me away.
“Maybe it is best to leave now, Ro, you’ve had a lot to drink,” he starts, and I spin around and shove him away from me again.
“Fuck you too, Griffin,” I laugh humorlessly, shaking my head in disappointment, and then I storm from the basement leaving them all behind.
It isn’t long before Harden catches up to me in the dark, as I stumble back across campus to my dorm, and just as I expected, he doesn’t say a word. The silence between us now is bitter, not like it used to be, and it makes me hate him almost as much as I love him. We don’t say anything, not as he follows me back to my room and not as he pushes inside it before I can close the door, and I want to scream at him. Beg for him to say something, anything, but what’s the point. His invisible scars run deep and even I can’t change that, no matter how hard I try.
Kicking off my shoes, I struggle with the back of my dress before giving up and dropping onto my bed with a sad sigh, ignoring him completely.
The last thing I remember before I fall asleep is warm, rough hands sliding down my zipper.
Aurora Gray is like the sun. Too big, too bright, too fucking beautiful. She’s the kind of person that people like me should avoid. I’m tainted in so much darkness that even she isn’t enough to enlighten me, no matter how hard she tries. I wish I could forget her, erase her stains of goodness from my soul where she forcibly imprinted them, but it’s impossible. She’s just too fucking perfect, and as I lay next to her, watching her sleep, I can’t help but wish she’d have withered away in the year we’ve been apart.
A year. Three hundred and sixty five days, it’s nothing in hindsight, not after a decade of friendship. Especially when I’ve spent nights in the dark where ten-minutes felt like a fucking lifetime, but I try not to think about those. Instead, I think about her, just like I did during those dark nights, and every other fucking night too. Except for the last year where I tried to force myself to forget about her, yet she plagued my mind for every fucking god damn second of it.
I knew I wouldn’t get over her, Aurora Gray isn’t the type of girl you just get over. No, instead she is the epitome of hope, and I’m fucking hopeless. She has given me nothing but sunshine from the moment I first met her, and when I spent my entire childhood molded in the dark, I can’t help but be fascinated by her bright burn.
It’s why I’m here, it’s why after almost a year of no fucking contact, I followed her home under the guise of making sure she was safe. A thought that’s laughable really, because how safe can she be when I am laying by her side? I couldn’t even protect myself, so how could I ever hope to possibly protect her?
She was already half asleep as I helped her out of her dress and tucked her into bed, thanks to all the vodka she drank. An unusual feat for her, but sometimes going toe to toe with Everest requires some liquid courage. I should have left, I know that, I should have turned around and walked out and kept this dark, barren hole between us, but like I said, sometimes the warmth is just too tempting.
Now here we are, her tucked into my side yet still not touching me, as if even in her unconscious state she can tell I can’t bear it. And me pretending this small slither of time with her is enough to cure the heavy ache of emptiness inside of me. Her head rests on my shoulder as my fingers dance along her arm, stroking the smooth expanse of skin she has on display and committing it to memory, because this is all I can ever have of her. Not because I don’t want her, and not even because of my loyalty to my best friend and his once drunken admissions and demands. No, I can’t have her because the light and the dark were only ever meant to coexist, not collide, and I refuse to drag her down to hell with me. Not when I’m already there in every sense of the word.
Once the sun starts to filter through her curtains it isn’t long before she starts to stir, a hazard of all her early mornings spent volunteering over the years, and I quickly snatch my hand away and settle back onto her other pillow. I know the moment she senses someone else in her bed, because her body tenses as she stretches out, her panicked eyes flying open to meet mine.
“Harden,” she whispers in surprise, no doubt trying to remember how we got here, she never was a good drinker, and I have to fight against the feelings my name on her lips evokes.
Like it means something, like I matter.
I walked you home. I quickly sign, her eyes rapidly following the movement like always, as the tension slowly leaves her body.
Sign language is my main form of communication with everyone, choosing that over speaking ninety nine percent of the time, and for the most part it’s easy. Everyone close to me learned to sign at the same time I did, making it easy for us to still talk without actually talking if we need to. I can talk, like physically I am able, there is nothing wrong with my vocal cords, but I’ve learned the hard way that physical injuries don’t always cut the deepest. So for the most part I remain silent, more than comfortable in hiding in the background and being overlooked, except when it comes to her.
Aurora has always crossed the boundaries I set, choosing to take it a step further, leaving me notes that quickly turned to letters as we got older. Our own secret way of communicating, and I don’t think she will ever know just how fucking silent my world has been without them. It doesn’t matter how many times I read the old ones that I keep in a box under my bed, my mind still yearns for more.
“Right, yeah, of course you did,” she sighs, scrubbing her hands down her face, as if trying to pull the memories of everything that happened last night to the forefront of her mind. “Well, I’m sorry I fell asleep on you.” She adds as an afterthought, as she takes in our proximity and pushes away from me instantly. She doesn’t realize that lying beside her, with her head on my shoulder, is the safest I’ve felt in years. “But you shouldn’t be here,” she rushes out, her tone a little sharper, as she pushes off the bed and quickly grabs a robe from her chair, giving me her back.
I follow suit, pushing off her bed and rising to my full height, as she continues to avoid my gaze, and it hurts more than I should allow, especially given how used to pain I am. I move until I am back in her line of sight so I can sign to her again.
We’ve had sleepovers before, Aurora, it’s no big deal.
She scoffs at the reminder. “I think we are a little past the midnight movie marathons we once shared, Harden.” She shakes her head as if that version of me doesn’t exist anymore, when the truth is, I’m not sure any part of me exists outside of her, or them. Before I can sign anything else she moves to her door and holds it open. “You should go, I’m sure my stepbrother is wondering where you are.”
It’s the first time she has ever referred to Everest in that way before and I know his words from last night have cut her deeper than she will ever admit, and she isn’t wrong. Everest has been blowing up my phone all night, with Griffin even texting me too, to try and do his dirty work, but I left both of them on read.
I don’t care about him right now. I sign furiously, suddenly feeling desperate not to leave her, not after not seeing her for so long, but of course I forgot that even though the moth loves the flame, they still get burnt when they get too close.
“And based on the last year you don’t care about me either, so just go home, Harden, I am not in the mood for any games today,” she snaps, glancing between me and the door, and I have no choice but to walk through it, the void feeling even bigger than ever, especially as she slams the door behind me without a second thought.
Not that I should be surprised, we were just as quick to leave her out in the cold.
Campus is quiet as I make my way back over to Hockey Row, where I live with Everest, Griffin, and our friend, Bishop. We all went to high school together and outside of Everest, Griffin, and Aurora, he’s my only real friend. Of course given the early hour the streets are quiet, and I expect the house to be the same, except when I push inside, I find Everest sitting at the bottom of the stairs, sipping from a bottle of liquor.
Drunk, unforgiving blue eyes snap to mine, and it’s as if the weight of the world lifts off his shoulders in my presence. “Is she okay?” he asks, the words sounding almost desperate, as if they could ever be such a thing coming from him, and it reminds me of the night he told us to stay away from her.
Is she okay? Is she fucking okay? That’s his question? I’m not sure if he’s stupid or just delusional, but anger churns inside of me. We stood by her side for ten fucking years, helping her through every stage of her life, protecting her when she needed us most, and then abandoned her because he couldn’t fucking handle what all that meant. Of course she’s not fucking okay.
“Do you even care?” I spit out, startling us both, but the fury inside of me is too much to contain, to try and focus on why I allowed those four words to slip out. No, she’s not okay, Everest. I sign, and if possible his shoulders slump even further. We did what you asked and stayed away, but we can’t fucking avoid her forever, not when she’s here now. I add, and he nods solemnly as his eyes track my hands as they move.
“Don’t you think I know that?” he snaps, throwing back more of the whiskey, his knuckles turning white from how hard he is gripping the bottle. “Hell, I have my mother on the phone almost every fucking day asking why I haven’t been home, and my brother knows there is something up, but can’t work out what it is, and what do you suppose I tell them?” he laughs with a shake of his head, reminding me so much of Aurora that it causes me physical pain. “Avoiding her is the only thing I can do to save my family, so I don’t need your fucking bullshit right now.”
Griffin appears at the top of the stairs, no doubt pulled from his slumber by the volume of our friend's voice, and I watch as he takes in the scene before him. “Is everything okay?” he asks, always the one to both encourage and tame our good friend here, but Everest only shakes his head, pushing to his feet and shoving past me, storming right out of the front door without looking back.
When Griffin looks at me I shake my head. Don’t fucking ask. I sign, moving up the stairs toward him until I can head to my room. Of course he follows me, slapping his hand on my door as I try to shut it, not letting it close until he is on the other side of it with me.
“How’s Ro?” he asks, following me as I strip off my shirt and undo my jeans, before shoving them down my legs.
Sad. Mad. Upset. Pick your fucking adjective. I sign, pulling back my covers and sliding into bed until my spine hits the wall. It’s the only way I can get any sleep, knowing no one can sneak up behind me and with my eyes on the bedroom door. A habit I haven’t been able to shake since I was six years old, no matter how hard I try.
“And more fucking beautiful than ever,” Griffin grumbles, throwing himself onto my bed beside me and folding his hands behind his head.
Griffin has been my best friend since I was five, no one in this world knows me better than he does, and even though he doesn’t know my deepest, darkest secrets, the ones too terrible to share, it’s as if his instincts sense them. He’s always here when I need him, silently offering me the support I am too weak to ask for, and I will forever be in his debt for it.
Do you think she will forgive us for pushing her away? I force myself to sign, even though I’m afraid of the answer, and Griffin turns on his side to meet my stare.
