~Pucker face~ Charlie Conway

Chapter five: The extremity

Charlies POV:

I hadn't gone home in a while, since I was staying at school in the boarding program this year. This morning, Coach Bombay called me saying he was in town and wanted to talk. I agreed, and was now at a random deli in Minneapolis to meet up with him for lunch. Sitting in a booth, I waited a few minutes when he finally walked in the door.

"Hey spazway. Fancy meeting you here."

"Yeah, yeah. What's up?"

"Well, we gotta talk. Like I said on the phone. First thing, I'm seeing your mom again."

Well, that was a serious wake-up call. My mom had seen a couple guys over the years, but nobody ever stuck around like Coach Bombay. I always had issues with my mom's boyfriends. They always saw me as a burden. More to deal with.

"Really? ....Coach that's great!"

"Yeah. That's the good news."

There's the catch. With Coach Bombay you always get both sides. Full disclosure. Nothing is left unsaid. Ever.

"So whatcha got?" I asked

"A girl who you hates a lot." He answered with ease.

I laughed wondering what the hell he was talking about. A confused look crept across my face to show him I was unfamiliar with what he was implying.

"Yeah, okay, you're clueless. Sloane Hagen. I met her last night when I went to pick your mom up from work. From what she's saying, you've become quite the.....how do you say.....teenage asshole."

A few seconds of silence followed. Me? An Asshole? To her?

"Look, she's just being dramatic. Sloane never plays by the rules and everyone on the team knows. Plus, she tried to flirt her way onto Varsity. We have a full capacity team, about 3 lines full. If more people join the team, it takes play time from at least one of us." I defended.

"Charlie. You know I'm very fond of you and the ducks, but it's just change. You accepted the change of new players for the goodwill games, and the difference of having Coach Orion instead of me. And has it ever occurred to you that since you were acting so cold towards her that she made friends with the Varsity team because she felt unwelcome on JV? Not going to fight your battles for you, because you're older now. Just implying that nothing's wrong with what she's done."

I rolled my eyes. He just didn't understand. Nobody really did. We as the ducks had great victory on our own. Sloane did things differently. Victory was only hers when she won. She tried to carry everything, and never shared with anyone. She was too high up, and I was the one to bring her down. To make Coach Bombay happy, I said I would make amends. Would I? Who knows.

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Sloane's POV

I was so sick of everything that weekend. I didn't talk to anyone, not even Connie nor Julie. Cocky Conway had ruined everything for me. I mean I could survive on my own, but at a certain point, there were so few people who were willing to defend me. Why did I give a shit anyways? They chose to act this way and so I should retaliate.

The next few weeks were full of practices where all I did was repeat snide comments to Charlie and his gang. I didn't like it, but standing up for myself was key. Insults were passed around like the puck.

On Thanksgiving day, we had morning practice because school wasn't running that day. I woke at 6:00 am, showered, got ready and walked down to the rink. Getting ready as quick as I could in the locker room, I succeeded with minimum interaction. That day, we were wearing game gear because we were doing another simulation. Goody.