Sparkling Hope (The Eastburgh Devils Series Book 1)

Luna was crying, and it was all because of me.

I looked into her glazed eyes before she said that she hated me. I didn’t care if Luna hated me, but I didn’t want her to cry because of me.

She was a confident girl. She knew her worth and didn’t put up with anything, but I saw her very differently just now at the swimming pool.

She was vulnerable.

I should never have parked somewhere else on purpose so that I could follow her into the swimming hall without her getting suspicious. My goal was not for it to degenerate like that, which is exactly what happened.

I was the reason she was crying, and like that, I am such a fucking asshole. Seeing her like this triggered something deep inside me that shouldn’t be there.

I shouldn’t care, but I couldn’t let her walk home. I’d be an even bigger asshole if I didn’t take her with me.

‘At least let me take you home,’ I yelled after her, but as an answer, I got a middle finger shown.

I didn’t deserve it any other way because without thinking, I only thought about my fucking curiosity and not about what she might think and feel in this situation.

My engine sounded as I started the car and drove out of the parking space, slowly following Luna, who was already a little further along. I drove my jeep slowly behind her with some distance between us, hoping she would decide to occupy the passenger seat next to me.

I couldn’t even blame her if she walked the whole way.

Luna walked from campus to my house with soaking wet hair.

A few red lights and a closed road made the distance between Luna and me even bigger, but as I pulled the car up the driveway and parked, she was just walking up the steps to the front door. I hurried, and with my gym bag in one hand and the front door key in the other, I ran up the stairs and caught up with her.

I slipped my hand past her, and while she was still looking for the front door key in her bag, I had already put mine in the keyhole.

‘Hey, Mom,’ Luna greeted her mother, who came out of the guest room when we entered the hallway.

Ruby grabbed Luna’s wet hair and put her hand on her cheek. ‘You have soaking wet hair, and why do you smell like chlorine and Weston? Why are you bleeding on your cheek?’

My fingertips touched my cheekbone, and I realized that the Band-Aid I reapplied after swim practice wasn’t even on. During what happened in the swimming hall, my wound burst open again without me noticing it or Luna mentioning it.

I couldn’t blame her.

‘Come on in for now. Camilla cooked soup,’ she kissed Luna on the forehead as Luna mentioned she was just going to shower and change into something else.

‘I guess the workout was a little more intense?’ Ruby pointed to my cheek.

Only now did I notice again how similar Luna actually looked to her mother. The thick, dark brown hair and the light brown eyes.

Only Luna had some freckles distributed on her face.

It was strange to have someone ask me every night how the training was.

My Dad didn’t care, and Camilla never started to care about me unless we had visitors, and she had to play the loving Stepmom and pretended to care about me and ice hockey.

‘Oh, that didn’t happen at practice,’ I grinned sheepishly and entered the living area where my Dad was sitting at the dining room table in front of his laptop, and Camilla started setting the table with plates around him.

‘Did you get into a fight, son?’ my Dad whispered through his gray beard, glaring at me over the rim of his glasses.

‘Kind of, yes.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘I was helping a friend, Dad.’

‘You know, Weston, I’m tired of listening to you fighting at almost twenty-one. Give it a rest, make yourself useful, put on something dry, and get your wound dressed by Camilla,’ my Dad demanded.

‘Yes, sir.’

It was nothing new that my Dad made it clear to me that he was not interested in my sport. Dad hadn’t even been to a hockey game yet. Not once did I feel like I had someone sitting around the rink for me, playing to make that person proud.

Of course, the feeling of success was when I shot a puck into the opponent’s net, the side of the arena jumped up with our team’s fans cheering and loudly announcing through the loudspeakers I scored a point for the team.

I also knew that some girls sat in the stands and later waited outside the arena to be invited to the Sigma Devils.

But I wanted to feel that feeling when you know someone was sitting in the audience for me, watching every move I made on the ice.

 Just for me.

Charles often had his twin sister Paisley sitting in the audience, always making her friends wear jerseys with his name and number.

One time we had a game on their birthday, February fourteenth, and Paisley had come up with something special for it.

She had a childhood photo of Charles printed on a huge banner and held it up with her friends during a game. Paisley had even made it into the Eastburgh newspaper, and if you googled Charles, who was already known by his last name anyway, the first thing that popped up was the article with his child’s photo.

 Little Charles sitting in a laundry basket filled with water, diving goggles, and eating a chocolate ice cream cone that was melting all around his mouth.

 Carter and I couldn’t resist then and printed it out and taped it above his name tag in the locker room.

 I didn’t know if I would want such extreme support sitting in the audience as Paisley constantly did for Charles, but some small part of me wished for just that.

 I wasn’t complaining about the support of all the girls not being insane because, by the end of the game, I definitely had a chance at some pussy.

 Pussies made me happy and satisfied me, of course.

 Pussies were good.