On Thin Ice

29

I was passing the puck around with Ian when Ryan came over to us and intercepted it.

"Fuck off," Ian called out.

"Bruins game. My place. Tonight," Ryan said, hitting the puck toward him. "Be there."

"Okay," Ian said with a scoff. "You could've just said that instead of being annoying."

Ryan and I shared amused looks before he skated away, shaking his head.

Ian was especially grumpy today, clearly not in the mood for any interactions other than what we were doing right now. I didn't mind though because I was hellbent on avoiding Josh since Trevor had told me the truth about them. If Ian being grumpy kept most of the guys away from us, it worked for me.

Since getting to know Ian, I knew he wasn't much of a talker. And although I had seen him act more light-hearted when it was just me, him, and Fox, he didn't open up any more when it was just the two of us.

"Are you gonna go tonight?" I asked as we continued passing the puck, waiting for practice to officially start.

Ian shrugged. "I have something else to do."

I wasn't going to push him further, not that he would tell me anything more if I had.

After practice, Fox stomped down the hallway in front of me, causing me to have to speed up to catch up with him.

"Why are you being so moody?" I asked Fox, raising my eyebrow in question as we walked down the hall together Friday afternoon.

Practice was short tonight because we were doing a practice and team building activity tomorrow morning. Coach said he didn't want to overwork us and I wasn't going to complain about having the afternoon to spend with Fox before we went over to Ryan's for the game.

"I'm not," he said with a pout.

I gave him a knowing look as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Fine," he gave in. "Wren and Robin are coming home this weekend for their winter break."

"What's so bad about that?"

"Nothing's bad about Robin coming home, it's Wren," he answered in an annoyed tone.

It wasn't the first time he had shown me his distaste toward Wren and I would be lying if I said I wasn't curious as to why they didn't get along.

"Why do you have a problem with Wren?" I asked.

"He's just an ass. He's hated me since I was born. Literally," Fox complained. "He's a know it all punk that always got me in trouble and had to be better than me at everything."

"You guys have never gotten along?"

"Never," Fox confirmed. "He's a narcissist and thinks he's so smart because he goes to Brown."

Fox kept a frustrated look on his face as the two of us made our way out to his car.

I didn't know what to say to him. All I knew was I definitely wasn't the right person to be giving anyone advice on sibling drama. Fox was more experienced that I was when it came to siblings anyway; he had five of them.

"He's probably already home," Fox groaned when we got in the car and he looked at the clock.

"Well, at least we'll be going to Ryan's tonight," I said, trying to make him feel better.

Fox just hummed in agreement as he began driving to his house. When we arrived there, Fox let out a loud sigh, seeing a new car parked in the driveway.

"Wren?" I asked as the two of us got out of the car.