Part 7 - Pure Gold

A few hours later I was still lying on my bed. Sure, I’d had another shower, and was in the process of drying my hair, but my mind wasn’t on what I was doing. No, my mind was on a 17 year old boy with chocolate brown eyes. I looked at the clock. It was nearly 5:30. The guys were probably having supper. Sidney wasn’t thinking about me. I mean, I was just his teammate's hot friend.

I’d learned a long time ago that guys think lots of girls are hot. They may even think that you’re funny or cool. That doesn’t mean that they want to actually be with you. It doesn’t mean that they are willing to give up anything of themselves to make you happy. Unless they can give it to you in bed, its not worth it to them.

I know that. I’ve known that since I was in high school. Yet here I was, sitting in my hotel room, and I was acting like a 17 year old girl. With an irritated sigh I got up off the bed and continued to dry my hair. He’s a kid. I kept repeating that to myself. Trying to convince myself that the attraction wasn’t there.

It wasn’t the first time I’d been attracted to one of my students. When I did my major practicum I was only 20 years old. I turned 21 towards the end of the practicum. Many of the Grade 12’s I was teaching were 17. A couple turned 18 before I turned 21. So really, it was like if one of the 19 year old from last year’s junior team teaching Sidney. A three year difference essentially… and I learned pretty quickly that its not that big of a difference.

In fact, I had and still have more in common with my students then with a lot of the other teachers at the school. The other teachers are mainly in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, a couple are even in their 60s. So I’m fairly young. I listen to rap music. I drive a flashy car with a killer stereo, like most of the kids would like too. I don’t have kids of my own, which was one of the things that majorly separated me from the older teachers. I was younger, more carefree.

Three, four, five years… that’s really not a huge difference. So of course I’d been attracted to some of the boys. I’d admitted it, accepted it, and moved on. But with Sidney it was different. I was trying to deny it, for what reason I wasn’t entirely sure, though his parents were definitely a part of it. I worked at towel drying my curly blond hair. I had to get this kid out of my head.
Suddenly, to my surprise, I could hear my cell phone ringing in my bag. Hurrying over I answered it. “Hello?” I said breathlessly.

“Hey kiddo.” My Dad’s voice said.

“Hey Dad.” I said. “What’s up?”

“Not too much.” He said, in this voice that told me that he was totally up to something.

“What do you want?” I demanded feeling out of sorts over the Sidney thing and not wanting to beat around the bush.

“Just to talk to my little girl.” He said, still talking in that voice.

“Dad look, I have to get ready. So unless this is really important….” I trailed off and he didn’t say anything. “Look Dad, D is coming to get me soon, and I’m not dressed yet.”

Dad sighed. He knew I had him and he knew it was never a good idea to interrupt me when I was dressing unless it was really important. “Your Mom and I were talking last night and…”

“Talking or yelling?” I interrupted.

“Delreinne….” My Dad said warningly. “We were talking and your Mother and I just want to let you know that there is still time to come home.”

“I’m not going to spend Christmas with either of you.” I snapped angrily. “Until you stop this petty bickering.”

“We have a plan.” My Dad replied. “You can spend Christmas Eve with me, and Christmas Day with your Mother.”

I rolled my eyes. I knew that the minute I got back to Red Deer, if I chose to go back that was, they would start arguing again. “Let me talk to D about it.” I said. “I mean, he planned all of this for me, and he had Coach call in some favours for me. I already have tickets to all the games.”

“You could still come home for Christmas Eve and for Christmas Day.” Dad pointed out. “You’d only miss one game.”

“And I’d miss flying to Grand Forks with the boys.” I pointed out. “I’m on the flight with the team.”

“Christmas is for family.” He said stubbornly.

“I don’t have a family anymore, in case you’d forgotten.” I snapped. “Except for D. He’s the person whose been there for me through all of your guys’ bullshit. When you and Mom were so busy fighting, D was there. He’s my family now.”

“We’re you’re parents.” Dad replied. “Of course we’re you’re family.”

“You might be my parents, but you haven’t been acting like it.” I snapped. “You’ve been behaving like spoiled children fighting over a favourite toy. I will not be put in the middle of one of your pointless arguments again.”

“We are sorry… it is just a difficult situation for all of us.” My Dad said smoothly.

“Yeah, and you two were far more concerned about who got the good china then what it was doing to me.” I replied angrily. “I know I’m an adult and I should be able to deal and all, but its still not easy… especially not when you’re being treated as a possession.”

“We do not treat you as if you were a possession.” My Dad said insistently.

I snorted. “Yeah right. Look at my birthday. You and Mom argued back and forth about who I should spend it with until I didn’t want to spend it with either of you. Dion’s the only person who cares about what I want.”

“He’s a bad influence.” My Dad grumbled. “All those Rebels players are. Drew you teach some of them, you shouldn’t be hanging out with them the way you do.”

I rolled my eyes. “Dad, I don’t “hang out” with any of the kids. I hang out with D and Colin most of the time. As for Team Canada, Cam and Sid are the only guys, who AREN’T at least 19 on the team, and I’ve never taught either of them, so who cares?’

“Your Mother and I care.” My Dad snapped. “We want you home for Christmas.”

I sighed. “Well I’ll talk to D.” I said, knowing full well that I wasn’t going to go home at this stage in the game. “And I’ll get back to you.” I said hanging up. “Bye Dad.”

As soon as I’d hung the phone up, I turned it off. I knew my Dad… I knew he’d call back immediately to yell at me for hanging up on him. I didn’t need that right now. I needed to get ready to go to a hockey game with a 17 year old boy that I couldn’t get off my fucking mind and he probably hadn’t been thinking of me at all. I didn’t need a lecture from my Dad.

I hurried to get dressed. I couldn’t help it; I wanted to look hotter then hell tonight. I was sticking with the short black flared skirt that D had chosen for me for lunch, but I changed my top. I searched through my bags. I’d brought enough clothes to last the entire trip, because I figured the shopping in Grand Forks would be even shittier then the shopping in Red Deer.

Finally I found what I was looking for. A negligee style top, silk and edged in lace, a deep blue the colour of my eyes. It looked hot. It showed perfect cleavage with my water bra. I had on the same pair of open toed stilettos that D had chosen for me earlier in the day. Since I wasn’t exactly wearing Canadian colours, I decided to toss on D’s leather Team Canada jacket from last year (he’d gotten a new one for this year and gave me the other one). It would keep me warm AND it would cover me up a little.

I took my time doing my hair and make up. I figured a little more make up was allowable tonight. D would forgive it. I glanced at the clock. It was getting close to 6:30. The game was at 7:00. D was going to be here soon, or at least he’d better be. I would kill him if he forgot about me.

Finally, at 6:30, someone knocked on my door. I opened the door. To my surprise it wasn’t Sidney or D, but Brent standing at the door. “Hey.” I said with a grin. “What are you doing here?”

“Not happy to see me?” He replied, trying to look hurt.

I elbowed him in the stomach. “Of course I am.” I said, smiling up (and when I say up I do mean up. He was at least ALMOST as tall as D, and I am not a particularly tall person) at him. “But I was expecting D or Sid.” I added.

Brent laughed. “Your big brother is currently giving the kid a lecture about how he needs to tell his parents to get off your ass.”

I shook my head. “D doesn’t need to do that. Sid and I talked about it already.”

Brent laughed. “Well Neufy said they gave you a rough ride.”

I shook my head again. “Nothing I haven’t dealt with before. I’m sure if D had actually introduced me to his parents before he was 17 they wouldn’t have liked me very much either.”

“What do you mean?” He asked.

“Well you guys are all like 3 to 4 years younger then I am.” I explained. “When I met D I was already 19… he was 16. He introduced me to his parents when he was 17 and I was still 20. When you’re 17 year old son is hanging out with a 21 year old, most parents would have problems.”

Brent nodded. “I guess. Plus in Darryl’s case I think a lot of girls go after him because of who he is… not WHO he is you know?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I get that they’re protective and all.”

Brent shrugged. “Anyway, I guess Neufy decided that Darryl apologizing to you wasn’t good enough or something. So he’s talking to the kid, I’m up here getting you, and we’re all going to go over to the game together.”

I shook my head. “D is a moron.” I laughed. “And you, you are no help to me at all.” I informed him. “Last time you told me I looked fine, D made me change my pants.”

Brent shrugged. “I’m not a fashion consultant.” He said.

“Making you a very bad replacement D.” I informed him as we made our way to the lobby.

Brent just laughed. “Something tells me that in your world Drew, no one can replace Neufy.”

I smiled. “What can I say? The boy is irreplaceable.”

The doors to the elevator opened and D and Sid were standing there. Neither of them looked overly angry or anything like that, so I knew that D had gone easy on the kid. The last young Rebel to have a serious thing for me ended up getting sent down to Midget. D swears he had nothing to do with it, but I know him well enough to know that he had something to do with it on some level.

D enveloped me in a hug. “Good choice.” He said, referring, of course, to my fabulous outfit.

I however, couldn’t help looking at Sidney. He was dressed casually; jeans and a Team Canada t-shirt, but he looked so… well good. It almost wasn’t fair for him to look that good. “So umm, Sid are your parents cool with you coming with us?” I asked.

D looked slightly insulted, but said nothing. Sid however looked me over carefully. Apparently, D’s lecture had done very little good in this particular case and I felt guilty for being secretly relieved. Sid smiled. “They aren’t coming.” He said. “They’re taking my sister out to do something.”

“Oh.” I said visibly relieved. “Then I guess it’s just us for the night then huh?”