𝐈 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐮

Jonesy

  My fist came in contact with Jensen's face and I swear I heard her nose break. The other girl's head snapped backwards and she pressed her hands to her face as blood dripped down in a steady stream.

"Jesus, what the fuck, Jones?" She growled under her breath. I laughed before wincing, the pain in my hand growing stronger.

I had no idea why or how the fight even started; no doubt one of the sophomores started it. It didn't matter to me, I didn't care. I liked fights.

"You started it," I replied. It was probably true; Jensen Booker was infamous for starting off ice fights. And I was infamous for somehow ending up in the middle of them and then quickly putting an end to them.

"I didn't fucking start this!" Jensen exclaimed, her hands still catching the blood that poured from her nose. "Georgiana or Bela did."

I groaned and scanned the sea of messy, sweaty, tangled bodies, looking for my co-captain. Spotting Bela's dark head wasn't difficult considering she was one of the tallest players on the team. She really put my 6'1 self to shame.

After a few seconds, we made eye contact and a quick look later, she raised her hands to her mouth, cupping them so her voice carried. "Eyes on me!" Almost immediately the noise subdues and the rink becomes quiet.

Bela had that effect; her voice was enough to clear any room. That and the fact that she was nearing 6'4. While we were technically co-captains, she always seemed more of the leader and I was more than welcome to follow her lead. I was more of the bite while she was more bark.

Players pulled themselves away from each other, still shooting glares and snickers. Soon all twenty-two of us were divided into our teams again. Maybanks Serpents and Maybanks Pistons.

Yes, one school, two separate women's hockey teams. No one knew there would be so many girls actually interested in hockey when the school first introduced the idea of a female team, yet here we were.

Bela Baek and I were co-captains of the Serpents while Jensen Booker and Addison Palmer were co-captains of the Pistons. The dynamic worked for us, even if we considered ourselves rivals.

"Parker, if I see you raise your hand one more time, I swear to God I will have you benched for the first four games." Bela shot one of the sophomores a look; the other girl reluctantly tucked her hands behind her back. "Look, we came out here to have one friendly game, the way we have for the past several years; it's tradition. Why is it every single year, one of you ass hats has to start shit that Jonesy and I have to clean up?"

Bela gave each player a solemn look and the girls grumbled under their breath in return. Several started whispering to each other when she turned away.

Because we were a two team school, we didn't have any games against each other; so instead, every year before the season officially started, we had a "friendly" game. After this game we would start a tally and see which team could win the most games each season. The winner would not only get recognized by the whole school as Maybanks official women's hockey team, they would also get the bigger ice rink.

The loser would be forced to share the second smaller rink with the figure skating team. And no one hated figure skaters more than the girls on my hockey team.

The girls continued to grumble and shuffle their feet while Bela cleared her throat. "Now, the Pistons won last year's tally so they own the rink this year." Disgruntled shouts and acclamations started to rise from the players and Jensen shot me a smirk, blood drying above her lip.

God only knew how badly I wanted to smack that grin off her face. I wanted to hit her again but that would be unsportsmanlike. True, the Pistons had won the tally last year but only by one game. Some would say it was my fault they won, but that was an entirely different issue.

Jensen's girls started puffing out their chests and shouting insults at my girls and I could feel my blood boiling in my skin. Serpents balled up their fists and it looked as if yet another fight was bound to break out if I didn't intervene.

I pushed myself off the rail of the rink and into the middle of the cluster where the fighting was beginning to build. "That's enough." I grabbed hold of both players' jerseys as the two sophomores yelled at each other, arms clawing like wild animals. I sent a warning glance at my player, knowing I had little to no authority over Jensen's.