Viktoria's Secret

There was absolutely nothing I hated more than being woken up before nine in the morning, even if the wake up call was unintentional. The only fact of the matter was that I was pulled out of my sweet slumber and forced back into this lackluster world, for most likely no reason at all.

So, in the still dark October morning, I ripped the blankets off of my legs, ignoring the cold air as it brutally attacked my practically bare legs and marched right out of the room that I was lent to glare up at the boy who was right outside of my room.

My lips curved up purse as my eyes narrowed even more and my hands found my hips that were only covered by the thin tank top that I wore to bed almost every night. The tall blonde raised his eyebrows down at me as a large stretched at the corners of his lips.

“And what the hell, may I ask, is your excuse for making such obnoxious noises outside of the room that I am so obviously trying to sleep in at this odd hour in the morning?” I asked him, watching with a cranky glare as he tightened his fingers around a hockey stick.

“Well, I was testing out my new sticks,” he explained in an informative tone that reminded me of a teacher. He lifted his stick sideways, leaning towards me to give me a good look as he stared down at it lovingly while his fingers traced across the painted Easton stick. “You see, Osh bet me that it would break if I hit it hard enough against the wall, but I don’t think it will. It’s the new model and specially designed to not break after just a few slap shots.” His eyes flickered up to see if I was actually paying attention to him, but I just rolled my eyes and moved to cross my arms over my chest.

“So you decided it would be a grand idea to use the wall that is shared with the room I was sleeping in?” I asked rhetorically, shaking my head. “Why the hell are you even awake at this god damn unorthodox hour, anyway?”

He simply raised his eyebrows at me wordlessly, as he let the stick slide through his hands to its natural position before he followed through with his swing. I winced and covered my ears with my hands as he hit the wall as if it were a puck, leaving a black scuff mark to add to the many other ones on the white painted wall.

“Its seven thirty,” he answered nonchalantly, his face blank as he looked down into my glaring eyes. I rolled my eyes.

“Right, unorthodox,” I confirmed just as he smacked the blade of his stick against the wall again, surprising me that he didn’t break through the drywall. Pursing my lips once again, I shook my head again, slightly regretting agreeing coming here. Wait, no. More than slightly. “I hate hockey players,” I mumbled.

“You don’t hate me!” That oddly familiar voice chimed in while a heavy arm was laid carelessly across my shoulders, his hand falling limp next to my cheek. Turning away from his massive hand, I raised my eyebrows up at the (thankfully) shorter of the three men who were now standing in the hall way. His green eyes sparkled as he looked down at me.

“I don’t recall ever saying that,” I said, shaking my head once again, the weight of his arm pulling on my hair as I did so, causing me to immediately stop. I sighed, craning my neck to look over TJ’s hand to see Patrik who stood behind us.

“I told you not to wake her up, man,” he said with an exaggerated sigh as he smacked the blonde boy over the head. The other boy retaliated by chopping at Patrik’s shins playfully with his stick. I rolled my eyes.

“This is ridiculous,” I stated, “and now that I am up this early, one of you, uh,” I stumbled, trying desperately to remember the word in English. After stuttering a few times, I looked up at TJ who was looking down at me with a smirk fixed on his thick lips. “Assholes?” I asked for confirmation. His lips broke out into a full teeth barring smile as he nodded. “Well, one of you assholes better be making me breakfast.”

“Working on it,” Patrik informed me before turning back down the hall, probably to go back to the kitchen where he did is usual bitch work. TJ had willingly and happily explained everything that I ‘needed’ to know when I got here back when we were still in Sweden. And apparently, Patrik was the one who cooked and cleaned for all of the boys. Which is a very good thing for me considering I refuse to even put the fucking TV dinner package in the microwave. First class laziness, people.

With a sigh, I turned on my heel, shrugging TJ’s arm off of my shoulder as I started off down the hall behind Patrik.

“My name’s Erik, by the way!” My new roommate called out to me as I walked down the hall, turning into the living room. I rolled my eyes. Yeah, like I didn’t realize that yet, idiot.

“Viktoria!” I hollered back as an introduction, also letting him in on a piece of information he obviously already knew, just before he once again chopped the wall forcefully with his stick. I groaned a bit, not ready for what was about to come in the next few months. Hell, I wasn’t even sure if I actually wanted to go through with this.

TJ’s footsteps followed me as I sat down at the kitchen table, and surveyed the room that I hadn’t even seen yet. It was decent sized, just big enough for a table, and a good amount of space for cooking and people to move around. Not that I’ll be cooking in here anyway.

Patrik turned the fire off at the stove, flipping the pancakes one more time before shoveling them onto the plate that was already stacked high with the fluffy pillow like breakfast with both bacon and sausage on a separate plate. He set the two plates on the table, giving his teammate a proud smile as TJ’s eyes went wide with excitement.

I watched appalled as TJ forked at least six pancakes onto his plate with countless pieces of bacon and sausage and then drenched them with butter and syrup. He didn’t wait for anything before his hands began to work, cutting a piece off with the side of his fork and then sticking the fork into the oversized bite and shoving it into his mouth.

Thankfully, I wasn’t tempted to watch TJ’s unappetizing zoo-like feeding habits anymore because Patrik set down two glasses, one in front of me and one in front of TJ before retreating to the fridge to return with the cartons of milk and orange juice. He poured me a glass of the orange delicious drink, and then poured TJ his milk. It didn’t surprise me that TJ barely mumbled out a Thank you through a mouthful before his large hand wrapped around the glass and gulped almost half of the liquid down in less than two seconds.

I shuddered, looking away so I could pull a pancake and a few pieces of bacon onto my plate as Patrik sat down across from TJ and I at the four person table and did the same. As I gave one last disgusted look, Patrik laughed and offered me a smile before he decided to dig in just the way TJ is.

I only had about half of my breakfast eaten when new roommate Erik decided to stop banging the wall (pun intended) and join us at the table. He took his seat next to Patrik and gave me a sorry smile as he took the last of the now cooling pancakes. I returned the smile, not really feeling sorry for being a bitch, but just because I knew it was probably not the best idea to piss off the guy I would be living with for only God knows how long on the first day.

It was when Erik made his appearance known by clearing his throat that the two boys looked up from their plate and straightened out, obviously sensing the suggestion for conversation. And being as pleasantly outgoing as I am, I decided to start it off.

“So,” I started casually, setting my glass of orange juice down, “why is everyone up anyway?” I asked, almost bitchily. But I have every right to be. They woke me up a short five hours after a 20 hour plane ride. Battling jetlag is like taking on those fucking Spartans in that movie 300.

“We have practice in a half hour,” TJ informed me, glancing at the Rolex watch on his wrist for the time.

“So we have to leave in about fifteen minutes,” Patrik told me, before opening his mouth wide for a huge piece of pancake. I nodded.

“And when is said practice over?” I asked motherly, twirling a piece of bacon around in the syrup before popping it in my mouth.

“Probably around one or so. We’ll be home by two, and then we’ll most likely go out to a late lunch with the boys, which you’re obviously invited to,” Erik answered this time, finishing off his last bite. I nodded, also taking my last bite, which was bacon, you know, save the best for last, right?

I stood from the table, collecting all four plates that were now empty and rinsed them off in the sink to make them easier to wash when the guys went to practice.

Patrik and Erik both went to their rooms to collect some last minute things they’d need for practice while TJ stayed in the same seat and I leaned against the counter.

“So,” I started kind of awkwardly as he just stared at me. “Excited for the season to get moving faster?” His eyes flashed with excitement as I brought up, obviously, his favorite subject. He smiled warmly, and I knew he was going to hold back from talking my ear off about hockey. Especially when I basically hated the fucking sport.

“I’m so pumped. I think we really have a good chance this year. We have a lot of talent!” I just smiled and nodded. I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. I’ve only seen the Blues play twice and that was in Sweden when I had no idea what was going on because I had way too many things going on. TJ obviously noticed my uncomforted vibe and brought up a new subject. “So what do you plan to do while we’re at practice all morning?” I shrugged, looking around the room again.

“Maybe I’ll go back to sleep,” I suggested to myself. TJ let a broad grin peak through as he nodded his head slightly.

“That’s what I’d do,” he urged me on just as the two boys entered the kitchen with duffle bags hanging from their shoulders.

“Ready Osh?” Erik asked, causing TJ to nod and stand from the table. As Erik and TJ bid farewell to me before making their way towards the door, Patrik neared me, kissing my forehead.

“Call me if you need anything, I’ll give my phone to someone who can answer it,” I nodded, “speaking of which, we’ll go get you a new phone and number later today,” he finished, kissing my forehead once more before running off towards the door.

With the apartment eerily quite, I sighed. In my head, I battled myself. To do the dishes, or go see what’s on TV. The dirty dishes seemed to taunt me. So I glared at them and paraded myself right out of the kitchen. I stopped at the wide doorway to stick my tongue out tauntingly at the sink, but with just my luck, my foot twisted around the kinked up carpet, sending me flying face first into the floor.

I groaned, cursing bad karma out loud as I lifted my self from the floor and made my way to the couch where I could collapse without looking back at the evil sink full of dishes that obviously have magic voodoo powers.

My eyes traced around the room, looking for the remote to the huge plasma flat screen TV that hung off the wall like you see on MTV Cribs. Something slid half way out of the entertainment system made a grin come to my face and I rushed up to hook up the Super Nintendo that already had Super Mario lodged into the top.

The familiar sound of the coin chinging to begin the game echoed as I grabbed one of the controllers that were lying idly on the floor. I rolled my eyes at the boys’ messy lifestyle. But I guess I couldn’t complain because it was only going to get worse with me around. If they thought I was going to come here and clean for them they were sorely mistaken.

It was amazing how good I was at the game, even when I had so much other stuff on my mind. Mainly Patrik Berglund.

It boggled my mind how he could be so mellow around me after I left him at the fucking alter and then never spoke to him again for two years. You think that that would affect someone, right? There’s no lying my way out of this one, of course I wasn’t over it. Now, I was over him, but that doesn’t mean that the whole situation didn’t bother me. You think I wanted to leave the love of my life alone at our wedding? Of course I didn’t. Like I said, love of my life.

There were reasons that I would never dare to tell another soul. Illegal reasons, personal reasons. There was more reasons why I left Patrik. But they were reasons that I didn’t even tell my mother when she was crying because I left. Reasons that I didn’t tell my Daddy when he sat down at the edge of my bed while I was sobbing. But they did know one reason. And I’d like to just keep it at that. Maybe if they just think that it was the only reason, they’ll leave me alone about it and never expect a thing. And that’s just what happened. Two years later, everyone forgot about the wedding mishap and moved on with life. Until now.

It’s been so long since I even had the energy to sit around and think about my past, especially with Patrik. Everything just seemed so long ago, and maybe that’s why Patrik isn’t showing any signs of awkwardness, or hurt, or bitterness. Let’s be honest, you’d be pretty bitter if someone left you high and dry, right?

Maybe it’s just another sign that Patrik is different from everyone else. Not that I didn’t already know that or anything. But he had every single right to hate my guts. Hell, if I were him, I would have made some sick voodoo doll to try to kill him off (well, at least his dirty dishes are doing the job.)

This got me to wondering how much of our past Patrik filled his teammates and friends in on. They didn’t seem to hate me, which was always a good sign. But then again it was none of their business and Patrik was never the kind of guy to make his business someone else’s.

At this point, I had returned to the kitchen with a root beer popsicle and back to the living room to plop myself onto the couch to return to my intense game of Mario, where I had made it to World Six in only twenty or so minutes.

I closed my eyes tightly, pushing back the tears as I realized something. The game, the popsicle. This is exactly what I did for months when I was… fuck.

Heartbroken.