Strawberry | Hockey Rivalry 1 [Completed]

Two | Valerie

I walked out of class with Wren, who wanted to set up a time to meet for our year long project. "I think if we meet tomorrow night we'd be good to go." He said looking over the calendar in his phone. "I'm just not sure when you skate."

He looked over to me, his black hair swooshing in the wind. "I can share with you my skating schedule on your calendar if you want. I share my calendar with my dad and my team so they all have it."

His blue eyes caught his smile. "Yeah, that would be cool. How do I do that?" As we walked through campus I helped him set up the calendar of my skating time. "Jeez! You skate for long periods of time."

"It takes dedication to make it to where I am."

"I get that. I didn't know we even had a skating team."

"This college does, but I do Olympic Skating. I head out in February, so my training is really amping up."

Wren turned to me with wide eyes. "You OLYMPIC figure skate. No shit, Val. No shit." I laughed and walked over to the parking lot with my car in it. Wren stalled in his spot, seeing as he's parked in another lot. "Okay so would tomorrow between my practice and your skate time work?" I nodded and waved to him.

"Yes! Just text me where to meet you."

"Would my place be okay? I don't want to rush and waste time smelling good." Laughing as I walked away I gave him a thumbs up.

"Just text me, Wren."

I got to my car and drove over to Brock's apartment. Parking in the driveway, I sighed. He managed to find a house for rent with other football players here at M State. I was nervous at first, not knowing the scene, but I knew it would be hard trying to find a place to live with such short notice. Especially with the hockey team. My heart ached knowing I'm in the same location as Reilly, but knowing he probably wants nothing to do with me. The Football team is out at the weight room right now, Brock was going to head over himself, but he has practice in a few hours.

I walked inside the house and down to the basement to Brock's room. "Hey, Brock." He looked over to me from his bed where he was reading a book and smiled at me. "How are you today?"

"Fine."

"Really. Fine?" I gave him a soft glare. "You have your first practice today."

"Yeah." He wrote something down and then looked up to me. I haven't sat down yet. "I mean. I'm not sure how Coach is going to push me today. I don't want him to treat me differently, but he knows the situation I'm in. I've been training like hell all summer to get back into shape."

I sat down on the bed beside him and rested my head on his shoulder. "I know you have." We were silent for a moment before he rested his hand on my knee.

"Thank you for making this happen." I grabbed his hand in mine and gave it a squeeze.

"You made it happen with your hard work, Brock. I just put you with the right audience."

"Val... you've... sometimes I think I don't deserve your support." I sat up and looked into Brock's hazel eyes. "You've lost so much by standing by me."

"Brock, I'm here. I'm your family. I'm not going anywhere." He gave me a soft smile and I punched his shoulder lightly. "There's nothing you could do to get rid of me."

"Speaking of family... dad sent me a text. He knows I'm on the M State team somehow." He frowned down at his phone and I peeked over to see the message. I sighed and pulled the phone from his hands, deleting the message.

"He can eat shit." I looked back to Brock and he didn't look so sure. "I don't want you to think about how he views you, because you'll never be satisfied. I want you to focus on how the scouts and agents are going to view you, because they matter. Coach matters. Your team matters. Not your dad. You know?" My heart hurt for Brock. While Reilly might have lost his father in a mission, unknowns upon unknowns, Brock lost his father when he began to compare Brock and Reilly to each other.