Cal Sanderson has fought tooth and nail to play professionally for the California Cyclones. Where others have had it easy, he's had to endure years of pain working his way up the ranks to obtain his level of success. Nothing else seems to stand in h...
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In all my twenty-six years of life, this is surely the stupidest fucking thing I've ever done, and considering all the messed up shit I've partaken in during my adolescent years, that's saying something.
Glancing around the bedroom, I curse myself at the sight of it. Pink walls, pink bedspread, pink...everything. Hell, there's even a pink stuffed animal giraffe I threw in the cart, thinking it would go along with the decor, but maybe I should have chosen another color to offset all the...pink.
Christ.
It's a lot of pink.
"Wow," Aria muses, standing beside me with grocery bags in her hands. "You weren't kidding, Cal."
"Fix it," I mutter. I'm not a man of many words, but I have to use them in this situation. I've utterly fucked this up–the one thing I thought I'd handle myself. It's a bedroom for crying out loud. It shouldn't be that difficult to decorate, but all I've managed to accomplish is a Hello Kitty hairball. "She's going to hate it."
"She's not going to hate it," she replies. Her lips form a thin line, contemplating. "Okay, she might hate it at first, but that's what makes this arrangement so fun. She'll get to decorate it herself and make it her own."
I'm not sure why I didn't think of contacting my teammate's fiance before I designed this monstrosity of a room. Well, that's a lie. Females and I don't mix. I avoid them like the plague, but Aria is one of the few tolerable to me. Plus, it helps she's a mentor for the fourteen-year-old I decided to foster in my home.
Some might view it as a spur-of-the-moment decision, but it's not their decision to understand. Monique and I previously met before I took the classes I needed to foster, but our history isn't for anyone else's ears. I'm not naive enough to think she hasn't confided in Aria about our past, given they spend at least three afternoons a week together in the Big Sisters of America program. Aria is someone she looks up to, which is partly the reason she's tolerable to me.
"Luckily for you..." Aria distracts me from my thoughts by dragging out some stencils and jabbing a thumb over her shoulder. "I've got some paint buckets in the trunk, too. When does she get here?"
"In two days."
Her eyes widen before she wooshes out a breath. "Okay, then. I'll...I'll stay and paint the room if that's okay with you."
"Really? You don't have anything better to do with Holden?" The two of them are inseparable. Wherever one goes, the other follows. Couldn't pry them apart even if you tried. Normally, displays of affection would disgust me, but Connor Holden—center and team captain of the California Cyclones—is one of the few people I trust. He's the only person on the team who knows about my backstory before I accepted a trade here, and the only reason I told him was that if a situation were to arise and I felt uncomfortable, he'd understand why. He's the captain, and communication on the ice is key. Nonetheless, he kept my story to himself, so I respect the hell out of him. Who am I to judge his happiness if he went and got himself engaged to our team's photographer in less than a year?
