Page 11 of Necessary Roughness

They both jump as I barge into the kitchen.

“N—Natalie!” he stammers, pulling away from the girl, who has her panties down at her ankles. “We were just—”

“It’s fine, Rick,” I say. “I was coming here tonight to tell you that I just made a big mistake—that I sort of cheated on you and that we were over. I felt terrible about it too!”

There’s nothing more to say. I whirl on my heels and march away from him, back through the door and through the dance. Seconds later, I hear the door slam open behind me and the sound of Rick’s footsteps chasing after me.

“Hey!” he shouts. “Hey, where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

His voice is so loud that half the formal stops what they’re doing and turns their eyes on us.

“Stop!” he roars. I know I shouldn’t, but I do. I stop in the middle of the dance floor as the crowd steps away from me, forming a circle. Rick, red-faced and clearly boned up, strides right up to me like he’s about to hit me. “You cheated on me?!”

“You cheated on me!” I shriek back, pointing at the girl cowering behind him by the door. “You really want to act all innocent here?”

“I only cheated because you won’t put out for me, you bitch!”

“Bitch!?” I snap. It takes everything I have not to slap him in his smug face. Suddenly, I can’t even remember why I started dating Rick in the first place. “You know what, Rick? This is over. We’ve probably been over for a long time now. Good bye!”

That’s that. What I did was wrong, but this was a long time coming. I’m almost out the door when I hear Rick shout one last jab at me.

“Yeah, well guess what? I’ve been fucking her for months now!”

If I ever loved him, my heart would have broken. But all his admission does is make me realize just how little I feel for him. I wonder if I ever did.

The wind on campus is cool on my face. I don’t go back to my dorm; I just walk from building to building as I try to calm down. I feel lost, like a boat with no sails, drifting in the ocean with no destination.

I’m single now, have an article due Monday on a man who I hated two hours ago who I then ended up giving my virginity to. Oh, and I might have just gotten myself pregnant.

What the fuck?

8

Bobby

Keep your mind on the game, Bobby.

Ice sprays against my cheek as number-6 on the Red Wings carves hard beside me, aiming for a big hit. I scoop the puck and dodge left, causing him to whiff and sail headfirst into the boards. I five-hole Jack, their team captain, and take a hard slap shot at the goal. But my shot’s off. It clanks off the post just as the buzzer blares announcing the end of the game.

“Shit!” I curse as I slide to a stop.

“Nice shot,” Jack laughs as he skates past me.

“We still won!” I call after him. 4-1, with two of those goals being mine. On any normal day, I would have hit that shot, but today is not a normal day. Today I have one thing on my mind: Natalie.

It’s been two days since the party—two days since I’ve seen her, and they’ve been the hardest two days of my life. Even harder than the first two days in the NHL, when Coach was working me to the bone to make sure I understood that I wasn’t in college anymore—that I was in the big leagues.

I called the Daily Press, but her prick of an editor wouldn’t tell me how to get in touch with her, so I did something a little sketchy; I hired a private investigator to find her. I know, I know, it’s a little much, but what am I supposed to do? Never see her again? I have to know why she was so upset after we had sex. If I did something wrong, then I have to correct it.

After I shower and change, I check my phone and see that my PI came through; there’s a dorm name and room number in my text messages. Taking a deep breath, I head for my car and drive to campus. I have to handle this right; there’s a good chance she’s going to freak out when she sees me, but if I can explain that I’m only here to make sure she’s okay, maybe I can at least just not make things worse. Fuck, this is going to be hard.

It’s like a strange flashback when I step out of my car and walk across campus; it feels like only yesterday that I was here as a freshman, having the time of my life, big dreams of making it to the NHL swimming around in my mind. But when I reach Natalie’s dorm, all those thoughts are instantly brushed away when I see her.

There she is, looking like an angel, framed by the window of her room, her hair glowing from the light of her desk lamp. The last time I saw her, she was dressed like a professional; now she’s dressed like a college girl, in a pair of athletic shorts that barely cover her bangin’ booty, and a worn T-shirt…

…wait a minute. That’s my T-shirt!

Maybe I didn’t fuck up so bad after all. Maybe she had something else going on that upset her that wasn’t me.

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