Walk in the Sun

I was frozen in my spot for a few seconds until TK brought me out of my trance.

“Hey, Steph, you still there?”

I shook my head and cleared my throat. “Yes, sorry. I spaced out there for a second.” I shook the bimbo Vanessa’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

She hardened her stare as her hand met mine. “You as well.”

I was still in shock, but I shrugged it off as I felt an arm wrap around my waist. I turned my head to see the smiling face of Sid. I smiled up at him as he looked around the circle of people. Marc-Andre breaks the silence that I couldn’t wait to get out of.

“So Sid, we’ve all just met your little squeeze here.”

He chuckled. “Oh yea? Well I hope she hasn’t said anything bad about me yet. I’ve only been gone for like 3 minutes.”

We all laughed, and Vanessa spoke up.

“She didn’t say anything actually. Why don’t you tell us how you guys met?”

I could almost feel the daggers digging into my eyes as she spoke. Sid squeezed my shoulders as he smiled to his group of friends.

“Uhh..well,okay.” He looked down at me, as if asking for approval. I nodded as he continued.

“We met in a parking lot at Tim Horton’s back home in Halifax.” The bimbo snorted a chuckle. I snapped my head at her. I noticed that everyone else looked at her as well. She looked like a deer caught in headlights.

“Oh, come on. That’s kinda funny. The spokesboy for Tim’s find the ‘love of his life’ in the parking lot of…. Low and behold, Tim Horton’s.”

Everyone shared a little chuckle at that. After the laughter died down, Sid continued. I was half listening to him, half studying the body language of Vanessa. I could tell what she was doing. She was trying to find a loophole in trying to prove that I’m puck bunny.

By the time Sid got to the part about him taking me to his childhood arena, I couldn’t take the stares anymore. I didn’t want to cause a scene, so I just lightly pulled on Sid arm. He paused his story and looked down at me. Everyone else in the circle focused their attention on me. I blushed for a moment, then spoke up.

“I’m sorry to just walk away, but I have to use the little girls room. Excuse me.”

Everyone nodded and I walked away. I was on the hunt for Kaitlyn. I needed to tell her who had shown up to this shin-dig. Finding her standing beside Kris as he chatted with Jordan, I pulled on her arm. I pulled her into the kitchen. Kaitlyn chuckled a little bit when I finally loosened my grip on her arm.

“Seriously? The kitchen? Did Sid tell you there wasn’t enough food or something? Come on, there’s enough food to feed an….oh my, your face is telling me this is something serious.”

I nodded. “It is. You’ll never guess who is at this party.”

She raised an eyebrow at me and looked like she was holding back more laughter. “Uhh…Steph, you knew going into this that the Pittsburgh Penguins would be here. Hell, you’ve been dating the captain for months now.”

I shook my head angrily. “Kaitlyn, you don’t get it. I’m not talking about the guys. You remember the bimbo that called us puck bunnies?”

Her face turned to stone. “…no!”

I nodded. “Yea, she’s apparently TK’s girlfriend.”

Kaitlyn raised an eyebrow at me. “Wait a minute, you mean to tell me that the girl who tried to tell us that we’re just trying to sleep our way through a hockey team, is dating a hockey player herself?”

I slowly nodded and sighed. “Yeah, so I thought I’d tell you, just in case she comes up to you at all throughout the night.”

Kaitlyn nodded, “yea sure, thanks for telling me. God! What are we gonna do now?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know. Just carry on the way we did before, I guess. We don’t wanna cause any tension between the boys. That’s not right. Let’s just live our lives and if she says anything, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Kaitlyn nodded. “Okay well we sho---“

“Well, well, well.”

We both turned around to see the bimbo herself. She smirked at me.

“You know, Steph, the story that Sid told us about how you two met was just so adorable,” she walked closer to me, “how did he have to pay for that one?”

My eyes widened. “Are you …”

“Guys, come on! We’re about to have a beer pong tournament.”

The three of us looked at the walk-way to see Vero staring at the three of us. “Vanessa, you were supposed to bring them out 5 minutes ago.”

She looked at Vero and gave a sweet smile, which I could tell was fake.

“Oh sorry, we were just having a little girl talk.”

Vero gave us a small smile before us four girls left the kitchen. Kaitlyn and I shared a look before we met to stand with our “men.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The tournament was made up with the teams being mostly couples. The boys that didn’t have girlfriends/wives/fiancés or a date paired up. In total there were 12 teams. I was shocked at how it was possible, but Sid managed to set up 4 tables in his living room. They must have set everything up while Kaitlyn and I were in the kitchen.

The final round came down to me and Sid against Max and Jordan. During the previous rounds, I didn’t drink much, so I was ready to win this thing. I was having way too much fun. Max went first. He missed all three shots due to losing 90% of his hand-eye co-ordination. I was up next. I was just about to throw the ball, when the one voice I tried to avoid all night spoke.

“Hey! Since we’re now at the final round, shouldn’t we decide what the winning team gets?”

I rolled my eyes, as Max yelled in his drunken stupor. “Yea!! I say the person who throws the winning shot gets to kiss Steph!”

I laughed out loud. “What if I throw the winning shot?”

Max gave me a drunken sloppy grin. “Well, you would kiss yourself of course. It’s a win-win.”

I chuckled as I asked the rest of the group. “Any other ideas?”

I saw Kris pop his head out of the crowd. “The losing team should streak down the street and the winning team should film it.”

Sid chuckled from behind me, “of course you’d say that, Tanger. You’re not in this position.”

“Yea, and I don’t want to film Max naked.” I added.

Everyone chuckled as Max gave me a sloppy pout. I walked around the table and gave him a bear hug.

“Oh Max, don’t be sad. It’s okay.”

I heard a quiet mumble come from Vanessa. I turned my head to face her. She had a little smirk on her face. I didn’t catch what she said, but judging by the look on Kaitlyn’s face, it wasn’t something I would want to hear. I walked back over to Sid and picked the ball up again. I was about to throw it again, when Vanessa spoke up again.

“Wait! We still haven’t decided a prize!”

I huffed and turned to Vanessa.

“Well how about this? The losing team has to dress up as chickens during the next practice? Is that suitable enough for you?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “It could work, but I was thinking something a little bit different.”

I raised my eyebrow. “Oh?”

She nodded and walked closer to me, “I think that the winning team should come up with a dare for the losing team.”

I shook my head, chuckling. “Okay, that sounds fair.” I turned to Max and Jordan, “you two okay with that?” They nodded. “Well, that’s settled then,” looking back to Vanessa, I asked, “can we continue to play?”

She nodded, smirking at me. “Sounds fair.”

I nodded and threw my ball. Before I threw my second one, I glanced at Kaitlyn. If looks could kill, Vanessa would be dead right now with the glare that Kaitlyn was giving to the back of her head. The rest of the game, I couldn’t help but wonder what that mumble was that caused Kaitlyn to see red.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By some God-given miracle, Max and Jordan won. Before they announced the dare to me and Sid, I excused myself to go to the bathroom. When I came out, Vanessa was standing outside the door. I raised an eyebrow at her.

“Can I help you?”

She smirked. “No, not really. I just wanted to escort you back to the living room.” She looped her arm through mine and pulled me down the hallway.

My jaw dropped a little bit and I didn’t really know what to say. “Uh… okay. Why, exactly?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, no reason really. I just wanna see the smile on your face when Max dares you to sleep with him.”

I pulled my arm away from hers. “What the hell?!”

She let out a dry chuckle and whispered. “Come on, sweetheart. You may be able to fool everyone else, but you can’t fool me. I told you once before and I’ll tell you again. I know a puck slut when I see one.”

“…That’s it!”

Next thing I knew, Kaitlyn had jumped on Vanessa. I was frozen in my spot. I didn’t know what to do. I was standing there, in the middle of Sid’s hallway, watching my best friend slap and punch the girlfriend of one of my boyfriend’s teammates.

“That is the last time that you will call me or my best friend a puck slut, you hear me?!”

Kaitlyn had pushed Vanessa onto the ground and began to punch her five ways to Sunday. Vanessa tried to fight back, but all she could do was pull on a chunk of Kaitlyn’s hair a few times, but her grip didn’t last long. Vanessa didn’t look like she had a chance in hell, but her mouth seemed to never give up.

“You’ll never last with him, you puck slut. You’ll go back to wherever you came from in that shitty-ass country and he’ll move on. Same goes for you, you gold digger.” She glanced over at me, “Sid will never put up with someone like you for long. He needs a real woman, not a little slut who will squeal every time he steps on the ice.”

My annoyance level had reached its breaking point. At first, I didn’t want Sid to know that any of this was going on, because I didn’t want tension between the teammates. But this was the last straw. She had almost blown her own cover by confronting me in the hallway of a house full of hockey players.

Kaitlyn may have been good with the fists, but her mouth was going a mile a minute too.

"She is happy with Sid!" *punch* "How dare you suggest that she sleep with Max?!" *punch*

My eyes widened That must have been what she mumbled!! What the hell?!?!

I watched for a few more seconds as Kaitlyn continued to do a little more damage. I know I should feel guilty for this, but it was the only way to shut her up. I wasn’t going to allow her to make me walk on egg shells around my own boyfriend.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sid’s POV

I was sitting in my living room with the guests that stuck around after the beer pong tournament. We were waiting for Steph to come out of the bathroom so we could hear what Max and Jordan were going to dare her and I to do. I was looking around the room and noticed that Vanessa and Kaitlyn had left the room as well.

Then out of nowhere, Steph came running into the living room. By the look on her face, I could tell that something was wrong.

“Steph! What’s going on?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Vanessa made a comment about me being a puck slut and then Kaitlyn went all ape-shit on her.”

We got up out of our seats and looked down the hallway at the two girls fighting. Kaitlyn had Vanessa pinned to the floor and was slapping her what seemed like every millisecond. Vanessa screamed for Tyler as she grabbed onto Kaitlyn’s hair.

“TYLER! GET THIS PUCK SLUT OFF OF ME!”

Tyler went to go grab Vanessa, but Kris stopped him.

“I’ve got this. You can grab your girl after I grab mine.”

Kris pulled Kaitlyn off of Vanessa and TK picked Vanessa up off the floor. Vanessa had a bloody lip and her hair was a complete mess, while Kaitlyn didn’t have a scratch on her. Vanessa was trying to lunge at Kaitlyn through TK’s grip.

“Tyler, let me go. I need to teach this little puck slut a lesson.”

Tyler turned Vanessa around in his arms. “Why the hell are you calling her a puck slut?”

Vanessa scoffed. “Oh come on, it’s so obvious. Both of these two are sluts. I mean they come to a game wearing the jerseys of the man they’re still hanging off of and all they can do is talk about how they can’t believe that they’re actually at an NHL game? You can’t tell me you’re buying this, Tyler.”

I looked over at Kaitlyn, who was still trapped in Kris’ grip. She was still seeing red and if Kris loosened his grip ever so slightly, she would pounce on Vanessa once again.

“Kris, let me go. I’ve heard her call me and my best friend puck sluts for the last time.”
Kris whispered something into Kaitlyn’s ear and carried her into the living. I followed him, grabbing Steph’s hand, pulling her with me in the process. Max and Jordan shortly came into the living room after we were all back sitting down on the couch. Jordan let out a long sigh.

“I guess that’s the end of Tyler and Vanessa.”