The Year We Hid Away (9 page)

Ponytail Katie spun around and pinned me with her gaze. “They wouldn’t be joining us then, would they? Duh! Tonight is a hockey game. The preseason scrimmage against Brown.”

Oh, crap
. “But… I don’t go to hockey games,” I whined.

“Scarlet,” she protested, hoping I was not about to bail. “We’re
here
already.”

And so we were. Defeated, I followed them into the arena where I’d always expected to compete.

It made for a much more depressing evening than I’d bargained for, to say the least. And that’s the only reason I drank from Spunky’s flask whenever it was passed my way. It was filled with some kind of fruity schnapps, a flavor so sweet that it made my teeth itch. I thought it was weird that football players would want to get drunk on a sissy thing like schnapps. At least, it seemed weird until I got toasted on it. And then I figured out that’s probably why they’d brought it.

Tonight I was really not on my game.

The Katies bought popcorn, and I ate a bunch of it to try to cushion the schnapps. The Harkness men’s team was skating really well, and it made for a very exciting game. Tied at 1-1 for most of the first two periods, Harkness came out swinging in the third. The team captain sent a Howitzer right over the goalie’s glove and into the net, and I was on my feet with the rest of the cheering crowd.

This had once been my whole life — watching the puck whip across the ice, critiquing the plays, and scanning for a breakaway. I missed it. Terribly.

Given the chance, I would have distracted myself with a little conversation. But in spite of his name, Spunky wasn’t a talker. And I couldn’t even fidget with my generation’s favorite escape — my phone — because I’d left it behind in my dorm room by accident.

With four minutes left, Harkness drew a penalty, and the entire stadium leaned forward to see whether Brown would be able to make anything happen during the two minute period when one of our defensemen sat in the sin bin. Both teams amped it up, skating fast, checking hard.

We survived it, the Harkness players ragging the puck until their man was freed. And when the buzzer rang, Harkness had won, 2-1.

By the time we stood to leave, I was drunk on schnapps and the achingly familiar sound of the puck smacking the boards. Tipsily, I followed The Katies and their thick-necked men toward Hannigan’s Bar, where the doorway was jammed with hockey fans. I waited with my roommates, wondering how they planned to get past the bouncer. None of us was twenty-one. Maybe that didn’t matter?

But when the crowd before us cleared, Blond Katie stepped up to the bouncer. As I watched, she and all the others pulled IDs from their pockets.

Fake IDs.

Crap!
This was going to be embarrassing. I didn’t have a fake ID, nor did I have a clue where to get one. On the other hand, I now had the perfect excuse to leave without them. I leaned over to Ponytail Katie. “Sorry, I can’t get into this place. I’m outie.”

Then, just as I turned to go, my eyes swept the bar. As the crowd moved, I caught a pair of familiar eyes looking back at me.

Bridger was there, sitting on a barstool.

My mouth fell open. I wanted a closer look, but shifting bodies blocked my view of his end of the bar. Feeling awfully drunk, I wondered for a half a second if I had imagined it.

“Let me see some ID, miss,” the bouncer demanded of me then.

“I…” Shaking my head, I turned for the door. What had just happened? Bridger, who was too busy to ever see me on the weekend, was chilling at the bar. I felt as if I’d been slapped.

The wintry air outside was bracing. I stopped just beyond the bar, trying to get a grip on myself. I felt my pocket for my phone, once again remembering that I’d left it behind. If I texted him right now (“Hi Bridge, how’s work?”) I wondered what he would reply.

Betrayal made my throat feel hot.

“Where are you going, pretty girl?”

I looked up to find Spunky the football player. “G… gotta go,” I choked out.

“You could stay here with me,” he said, taking a big step forward. In response, I took a staggered step backward, my bottom colliding with the brick building. The guy put his big hands on my shoulders, pinning me there. “It’s early,” he whispered. “Don’t run off.”

Now I was actually trapped, and feeling afraid. The rush of hockey goers had filtered into the bar, or down the streets. There was nobody but me and the big galumph holding me to the wall.

Great.

I squirmed to the side, but he stopped me. He put his feet between mine. There was no way to finesse this, other than the obvious. So I put both my hands on his chest and gave a mighty shove. “Back off,” I said.

“Be nice,” was his response. He leaned in to kiss me. I gave another great shove and craned my neck away from his alcohol soaked breath. He only grabbed my arms and pinned my wrists against the building.

That’s when I really began to panic. “OFF ME!” I screamed.

And then he was gone. I felt the cool air of freedom, and registered the sound of a heavy body falling to the sidewalk. “Aaaarrgh, fuck!” the guy hollered. When I looked down, he was curled up in a ball, holding his nuts.

And Bridger was standing over him. “What part of
off me
did you not hear?” he growled. He wound up for another kick, but the guy rolled away, flopping over onto his other side, still protecting the family jewels.

“Bridge,” I gasped, tasting bile in my throat. I was still stunned to see him. If only the world would slow down for a few minutes so I could catch up with everything that had just happened.

The sound of my voice seemed to change his focus. He wheeled away from Spunky and stood before me. Bridger took my hands in his, inspecting my wrists. He pulled me into a hug. “Did he hurt you? Jesus, I’ll kill him.”

That’s when the tears began running down my face, and Bridger wiped them away with his thumbs. But I wasn’t really afraid, just overwrought. About everything. And Bridger had no idea. Angry, I pushed him away. “No. Don’t touch me.”

He stepped back, shock on his face. “Christ, Scarlet. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“You,” I squealed. “Why are you here? Why were you
there
, in that bar? With who? I’m just your Tuesday and Thursday girl…”

I broke off, gasping now. Even as my sobs gathered steam, I knew I was making an ass of myself. But I was too drunk to reign it in. I stood there, right on Elm Street, having an ugly cry.

“Where is it, Scarlet?”

Bridger was trying to ask me a question, but I was too busy sobbing to hear him. I wiped my nose on my sleeve.

He wrapped an arm around my back, and I let him. I allowed it, because crying while very drunk wasn’t as easy as you’d think. The ground beneath my feet had begun to sway in unpredictable ways. But Bridger held me tight, and it felt so freaking good. And that only made me cry harder. Damn. It.
All
.

“Your
phone
, Scarlet. Did you lose it?”

“At home,” I gulped. “Why?”

“Because I’ve been calling you for
hours
,” he sighed. “I got an unexpected free pass tonight. So I started calling you before seven, right up until the minute I saw you in that bar. Go look at your phone. You’ll see.”

“Ohhhh,” I moaned, the word long and shuddery.

Bridger pulled me to his side and started to lead me down the sidewalk. “How did you get into such a state? Do you always get wasted on Friday nights?”

I shook my head violently. “Never. Which is why I feel so… urgh.”

“Let’s get you home, then,” he said, steering me across the street. “You have your key card?”

I nodded with my whole drunken body. The way a horse nods.

“Okay,” he chuckled. “Come on.”

We’d almost made it home when a war broke out in my stomach. As we walked across Freshman Court, the schnapps began fighting the popcorn, and I couldn’t tell who was winning. But I, for one, was losing. “Bridger, I think… ugh.” I swerved away from him, took two staggered steps, and managed to aim my vomit into the shrubbery. “Oh,” I wailed, as much from the humiliation as from the discomfort.

Bridger gathered my hair together and held it for me. “You’ll be okay,” he said, with actual humor in his voice. “We’ve all been there.”

“Not me,” I said. “I don’t do this.”

Behind me, he let out another enormous sight. “Okay, you know what? We’re going to write off this entire night.”

“Are we?” I stood up again, fishing through my pockets for a tissue. No such luck. The best I could come up with was a receipt for a cup of coffee I’d bought. So that’s what I used to wipe my mouth.

Sexy.

“Henceforth,” he said, “we shall refer to this as The Most Pointless Night Ever. It’s just one more example of my good luck. Getting this one night’s reprieve…”

“And me not answering the phone,” I mumbled. “It’s all my fault.”

“Not at all,” he sighed. “I should have known about tonight before, but I didn’t read the… never mind. Let’s get you upstairs before that happens again.”

“Again?” I whimpered.

“Probably.”

Since the Katies were still at the bar, my room was dark and quiet. Bridger walked me into my bedroom. “Where are your PJs?” he asked.

Not willing to act helpless, I grabbed my sweats from a drawer. Bridger turned around to give me privacy, and I couldn’t decide whether or not I appreciated the gesture. In my recent fantasies, he was less of a gentleman. Maybe I was such a repulsive drunk that he didn’t want to look.

Getting out of my jeans was proving very difficult for some reason.

“Scarlet,” Bridger said as I flailed in the dark, “you should probably take off your shoes first.”

Right. That would help, wouldn’t it?

“Okay, all set,” I was finally able to say. “Now I want to brush my teeth.”

“I’ll bet you do.” He picked up my bathroom caddy and pointed at the door.

The fluorescent lights of the bathroom were an assault on my eyes. “Ouch.”

“Ouch,” Bridger agreed, handing me my toothbrush. There was toothpaste on it already.

“Thank you,” I sighed.

“Now, hop in there,” he said a few minutes later, pointing at my bed. Bridger had filled a cup of water, which he set on my nightstand.

“Only if you’ll stay for a minute,” I whined. Even as I said it, an ache began to creep across my temples.

He tossed his coat onto Katie’s bed and kicked off his shoes. Then he actually dropped himself over my prone body and into the space between me and the wall. He put his nose in my hair and his arm around my waist.

“Nice,” I said.

He kissed the back of my head in reply.

It was dark, and Bridger was in my bed. In spite of my foul stomach and the beginnings of a nasty headache, I craved his touch. Wiggling in the tight space, I flopped onto my back and then turned to face him. His chest was warm and firm under my hands. I stroked the scruff of his whiskers, then pulled his head towards mine.

He gave me the gentlest of kisses, and then pulled back.

Unsatisfied, I hoisted my floppy body onto an elbow, leaned forward and planted one on him, square on the lips. If only to defend himself from my assault, his big hand landed on my ribcage, his thumb grazing my breast. This time, Bridger gave in and kissed me back.

The dark, his warm body, and a drunken lack of inhibition all crested at once. When our tongues met, a jolt of desire shot through me. The moan I let out was probably not very ladylike, but it had the intended effect. Bridger deepened our kiss.

Suddenly, it was no longer okay with me that I was trapped under the comforter and he was not. I slid out of the bed and then dropped back on top of it again, climbing onto Bridger as he rolled onto his back. Kissing him, I settled onto his hips. His big hands cupped my bottom, pulling me in tight. Spread out over his warm body, each point of contact made me tingle. I could feel him under my breasts, my knees, my thighs. My…
everywhere
.

And he felt it too. Never mind that he was still kissing me in a way that was more polite than I wished. His body gave him away. As unfamiliar as I was with male desire, there was no mistaking the solid form of him, pressing against the fly of his jeans, lying just between my legs. My hips, acting without my conscious consent, rolled closer to him. My body wanted contact, right now.

Bridger groaned deep in his throat. Then he rolled me off of him, putting some space between us. Panting, he said, “let’s stop.”

“Don’t want to,” I said. The room was spinning. But I managed to find the fly of his jeans with two hands.

“Oh no you don’t,” he sighed, catching my hands in his own. “Not tonight, Scarlet. Not when we’re both drunk.”

“You’re drunk? I can’t tell.”

He laughed. “I’m better at it than you. But seriously, we can’t.”

“
Why?
” I’m pretty sure it came out as a whine.

He pushed my hair away from my face, and the gesture was so sweet that I felt my eyes tear up. “Because,” he whispered. “When we do,
if
we ever get to, I want you to remember it the next day.”