My Hockey Alpha

Enzo

Nina and I shook hands and agreed to be “friends” for now.

“You can’t just let this happen,” Fio growled, angry with me for letting it come to this as I watched Nina walk away.

“I know,” I replied with an outward sigh, sticking my hands in my pockets and making my way toward where my motorcycle was parked.

I wasn’t going to let this happen. For whatever reason, Nina Harper was special to me and I had to have her. If being a good “friend” for a while was what it would take to get her to see that I was the best choice, then so be it; but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to try in some other ways to gain her affection, too.

I went to hockey practice that day and let out my frustrations by training harder than I had in a long time. My teammates were both surprised and annoyed by the grueling training regimen I inflicted on them, but I was too angry to care.

“Enzo, we’ve been doing drills for two hours!” Matt complained, stopping suddenly in the middle of a drill in the middle of the rink and doubling over with his hands on his knees. The other players stopped as well and started complaining, too– all except for Justin, who was the lone teammate to keep pushing through the drill, skating back and forth with all his might on the rink.

Was he punishing himself too for what he did to Nina, or was he trying to prove something?

Either way, I praised him after practice in front of the whole team.

have done better today,” I said as we got changed in the locker room, which caused a chorus of grumbles from

team and folded my arms as I watched them get changed, then shook my head with a

Justin call my name. He jogged

down, because frankly I didn’t

I said, keeping

you the other day,” he said. “I’m just angry with myself for doing what I did to Nina. I shouldn’t be taking it out on you. I’m trying to be different from now on.

in demeanor. As long as I had known him, he was always a bit of an insufferable jackass. Did Nina really have such an effect on people? I thought about how I used to be; how I used to sleep around almost every night, using girls as merely a means to let off steam and then discard them, and now I was scheming how to get this ordinary human girl to be my

Justin and patting him on the shoulder. “I’m glad to hear it,” I said, although what I really wanted to say was “Don’t you dare even try to

Justin said with a somewhat meek smile. “Well,

watched Justin walk away, narrowing my eyes as I wondered what

Justin was trying to get, because I had big plans the next day to

flannel, new jeans, and even a new pair of boots — and then made my way over to the florist. I bought a dozen

fancy pastries from the bakery. I had never noticed what sort of foods and flowers Nina liked, but how could any

heading across the quad to get lunch, so I set up a picnic blanket with everything I got for her and stood nearby with the flowers, waiting

there