Confessions & Fist Fights

“I don’t know if I like it,” Kailey tells me for the fifth time.

“For the fifth time,” I sigh. “There is nothing to like or dislike about it. We hung out one night, I slept in his guest room because it was three in the morning and then I went home the next day after he had already left for practice. Nothing happened, not that you’re thinking anyway.”

It’s true, nothing happened. After Patrick had finally answered my truth, I pretended to be too tired to keep playing. I wasn’t about to let him get me back for that question, and I didn’t trust that evil look on his face. I’ve been told I get a similar look before I do something I’m not supposed to. A lot of times it doesn’t end well.

“You were there until three in the morning,” she whisper yells. “The first time I hung out with Jonathan that long we ended up making out until the sun came up.”

I snort. “You two did a lot more than make out, if I remember correctly.”

She blushes brightly, and tries to sputter out a denial. I smirk when she can’t come up with anything plausible. There really is nothing, and I know it for a fact since two of the team members walked in on them. And then proceeded to tell everyone.

“But that’s exactly my point!” she doesn’t bother whispering this time, instead gesturing wildly with her drink and shouting. A few people look over at us, but most don’t find us that interesting.

“I think you’re done,” I say, taking the vodka and lemonade out of her hand. “I should have cut you off at two. You’re such a lightweight.”

“I am not!” she complains, thankfully at a normal volume. “You just have an uncanny ability to not get drunk easily. The rest of us weren’t born with this magical power you know.”

I laugh. I love my best friend, but she’s a total lightweight, and kind of a sloppy drunk. But, I have to give her this, she’s entertaining as hell.

“And like I said that’s exactly my point. There’s no way you two were together that long without doing something,” well she’s entertaining when she’s not lecturing me. I sigh again.

“Kailey I’m telling you nothing happened. It is possible for two people to hang out and not sleep together you know.”

“Well yeah but I mean ever since Kane and whatsherface broke up I guess he’s been sleeping around a lot.”

“And so as my best friend you had so little faith in me that you thought I’d jump into bed with him like some kind of slut?” Ouch, that doesn’t feel too great.

“No! That’s not what I’m saying!” she starts tearing up, and I mentally prepare myself for the breakdown. Kailey has this weird thing where she’s not one type of drunk. She’s all of them at once. Looks like we are about to hit the weepy stage of the night. “I just mean,” sniffle, sniffle. “That he can be very charming and I know he’s your favorite player and well,” the tears disappear and the blush is back. That’s new. “I know what I was like when I first met Jonny. I didn’t exactly wait very long before we did it. I just, kind of, thought maybe, you were just having fun, and it went a little too far.”

I think about that. I guess it’s possible. And the situation doesn’t seem like the best one when I look at it from her point of view. But still, she could have a little more faith in me.

“Besides, it’s hard to believe that nothing happened with the way he’s been talking about you lately.”

“What?” he’d been talking about me? I’m not exactly thrilled to hear this, since I’ve had some bad experiences in the past. I decide to proceed with caution here. “He’s been talking about me?”

“Yeah, non-stop,” she rolls her eyes like this is the most annoying thing ever. “I swear he texts me every five minutes asking about you. And whenever he’s with Tazer and me lately all he does is talk about how much fun you two had. It gets old real quick.”

Oh, so nothing bad then. “That’s surprising.”

She snorts now. “Yeah not so much.” I must look confused, because she hurries to explain. “Jen for goodness sake you’re gorgeous and fun and guys fall over themselves to get even a scrap of your attention. It isn’t surprising at all that he wants to spend more time with you.”

I need to clarify. “So, the reason you think we hooked up is because he keeps talking about me, and because you know that you and Toews weren’t alone more than a few hours before ripping each other’s clothes off?”

She blushes again. If I didn’t know for a fact she blushed at nearly everything I would say she’s extremely embarrassed about this. “We had known each other for a week already! It’s not like he was just a random guy I slept with. You know I don’t do that!”

“Yeah, yeah,” I wave off her explanation, more interested in the answer to the question. “But is that why you are so sure that I slept with Patrick?”

She looks annoyed for a second, but lets it go and finally nods. “I mean to me it’s logical. You have a hot hockey player who is also nice and funny who is interested in you. You are alone with him and also interested. You’re both adults,” she shrugs. “Like I said to me the conclusion is logical.”

I’m still a bit offended. “Is that the logic you used when you jumped your boyfriend?”

“Yep,” she doesn’t acknowledge my bitchiness, rolling with it instead. “And look what happened. We dated, fell in love, and are moving in together.”

“All in a matter of a few months,” I mutter, not quietly.

“Oh my god tell me you’re not still upset about that,” she says, taking the bait. I shrug, relieved to have her attention off of me for a moment—hopefully longer than a moment actually, her lecture is getting more and more annoying—and on her own relationship. “You need to get over that!” she yells. This time only the two guys at the next table look over. “Look I know you’re having trouble with how quickly this is moving, but we aren’t. We’re happy together, why can’t you just let it go?”

“Because you’re not even twenty and you’re in a more serious relationship than a lot of people a decade older than you!” I meant this to be a distraction, but now I’m really getting upset. “You’ve had one relationship before Toews, only slept with one other guy. You two were barely serious and now you’ve gone from that to this in a matter of months!

“You’re nineteen,” I stress. “You should act like you’re nineteen. You don’t need to move in with your boyfriend. You should still be sneaking out to meet him and get drunk! You shouldn’t have to plan your life around his game schedule and worry about him hooking up with groupies while he’s on the road. You should be worried about how you’re going to handle having a boyfriend and managing your study schedule not having a boyfriend and dealing with his career. You shouldn’t have to think about anything serious for another five or six years. God at this rate you’re going to be married before you’ve even gotten a bachelor’s degree.”

She stares at her drink silently for a few minutes after my rant, and I wonder if I’ve gone too far. When she looks up at me with guarded eyes I know I passed too far about ten stops back.

“Well,” her voice is hoarse like she’s holding back her anger. Or her tears. “Why don’t you tell me how you really feel?”

I feel so bad for making her upset, especially since this is supposed to be a fun girl’s night. But I’m not going to take it back. “I’m just looking out for you,” I tell her. “I’m only saying this because I care about you.”

“I know,” I can see the fight drain out of her. She looks up at me with a sad expression. “But I love him.”

She says it like it explains everything, and I guess it does. To her at least. As someone who’s never been in love I can’t see why she would let this cloud her judgment this much. But it is her life, and I’ve been the overprotective friend enough tonight, so I’ll back off.

“Fair enough,” I tell her. “Look I’ll stop if you will ok?”

“Fair enough,” she smiles at me, and I know I’m forgiven. We can’t stay mad at each other long, we’re too good of friends for that.

We talk about nothing for a few minutes, before getting on the topic of the game earlier tonight.

“Okay but that last hit was such a dirty one,” I tell her.

“I missed it,” she says bitterly. “But I don’t doubt it for a second. There was a lot of dirty playing tonight on both sides.”

“We weren’t as bad as they were though,” I tell her. It’s true, too. The game was messy and bloody. The penalties were frequent and the retaliation was often. But the other team took it bad when we kept pushing through to the end. “I thought they were going to lose it when Shaw scored that last goal.”

“They did,” Kailey says, still not thrilled. “At least, that’s what you told me since I missed it.”

I feel for her. It was game one of the first round of playoffs tonight, and probably the most nerve-wracking one all season for her. When Toews went down halfway through the third I thought she was going to have a panic attack right here in the bar. She’d had to go outside and call him, just to hear his voice and reassure herself that he was ok. I guess she’d left a voicemail, since he went right back on the ice for the next shift. It was a dirty hit though, and I can’t blame her for having such a bad reaction.

I think she’s more pissed about the fact that she missed the response goal while she was outside though. Again, nothing I can blame her for since it was a damn good goal. The fight that followed was brutal though, and I know she’s mad she missed badmouthing the other team about it.

“Excuse me ladies, couldn’t help but overhear your conversation,” the blonde guy from the next table leans pulls out the empty chair at ours. His friend takes the empty seat on Kailey’s side of the table and smiles at us. Clearly, they both think that we’ll be happy they joined us.

Try the opposite.

“Um, actually you could,” I tell them. “So if you don’t mind…” I trail off, waiting for them to get the idea and leave. They pretend not to understand.

“So, you girls are hockey fans then?” the friend asks, still smiling away.

“Yes,” Kailey answers stiffly. She’s sitting very still, and I wonder what’s going on on that side of the table.

I’m distracted from my thoughts when blondie puts his arm on the back of my chair. “That’s cool,” he says. “So, how well do you know the game?”

He’s actually kind of cute, in an overly confident way. If it weren’t for the pushy attitude and Blues jersey he’s wearing I might actually be interested.

“We know it pretty well,” I tell him. My tone very obviously says I’ve answered your question now go. They still aren’t getting the message. I’m starting to think they’re not pretending and are just plain dumb.

“I’m sure you girls know it very well,” the friend’s tone says the opposite though. I’m not sure which offends me more, his obvious assholeness or the fact that he and blondie thought we would be interested in that.

I’m distracted from my musings when Kailey jumps out of her chair. “I think we should go,” she says to me. “I promised the guys that we wouldn’t drive out of the city tonight, so we should probably start heading over to Jonathan’s place.”

I get up too, slower though. As soon as I’m standing the boys are too. “We’ll go with you,” the friend says. His smile is just a little too happy for my taste. I feel my guard snap into place.

“No thanks,” Kailey says to him. “We’re good, really.”

“Come on, two girls walking alone at night in the city?” blondie shakes his head. “That’s just asking for trouble.”

“Yeah, well your friend’s hand on my ass is telling me that we’d have more trouble with you than without you,” Kailey says. I take a second to process that before I try to head over and punch that jerk. She beats me to it.

“Hey!” he shouts through the blood streaming down from his nose. “What the hell was that?”

“A warning,” we say at the same time.

“There’s no need to get violent,” blonde boy says, clamping a hand down on my shoulder. I grind my teeth together to resist breaking it.

“Let go of me now,” I tell him. “Or you will lose that hand.”

He laughs like I’m joking. A second later he lets out a high pitched wail when I reach back and break three of his fingers.

“Bitch!” he screams, before lunging at me. I step out of the way easily and he crashes into the next table.

“I did warn you,” I tell him. He starts to come at me again when suddenly there’s a body in front of me blocking my view of him.

“I think you should go,” the human shield says. I don’t see blondie’s face, but I know it isn’t a happy expression he’s wearing. Still, he listens and a moment later I hear the bar door close.

I look to my left to see how Kailey fared with her problem. I’m not surprised to see him lying on the ground and clutching himself. I look around and see the entire place is staring at us with shock on their faces.

Kailey shrugs when she realizes everyone is watching us. “They asked for it,” she tells them.

No one questions her, and we make a quick exit before the bartender can kick us out. I’m not surprised when the human shield follows us outside. Toews is waiting on the corner, just hanging up the phone when we reach him.

“Fun night?” he asks. When he gets a good look at his girlfriend’s bloody shirt, he freaks out. “What the hell happened?”

“Yeah,” Patrick says from my left. I peek up at him to see that he’s staring hard at me, his expression unreadable. “I’d like to know the same thing.”

A/N: hi! so I hope you like the update. I also hope that you're enjoying this story so far :) I know the update schedule is weird, but I'm glad that this is getting such a good response. I would love to hear what you guys think, so please comment! Also vote for this story if you enjoy it & add it to your reading lists :) thank you so much for reading and I hope you like the update :)