Regency Romance: A Duchess in Disguise (Historical 19th Century Victorian Romance) (Duke Fantasy Billionaire Romance) (55 page)

1.

I was having difficulty concentrating on my
book;
it could
be said
that it was a little bit my
fault,
though; reading at a sporting event is always difficult.  The crowd is always jumping to their
feet
or hollering about a goal. 

Kathy sat next to me, cheering her lungs out. 

“Isn’t this just the most fun you’ve had in your life,” she quipped. 

“Right, fun,” I replied, trying my best to concentrate on my reading. 

There are so many places you can visit and adventures you can have; all of these things while sitting in a comfy chair while drinking tea.
  I don’t think Kathy
really
understood how much fun I had while reading.

“Seriously, Casey.  You’re a real downer right now with that book,” she said.

I rolled my eyes behind the pages of my book.  It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that.  The school room assignments saw fit
to randomly place
an introvert with an extrovert.  I was reaping the rewards of having a roommate more outgoing than me. 

Kathy snatched the book from my hands and gestured to the ice rink in front of me.

“This is all the action you need right now, come on Casey.  Give it a try for just ten minutes and I won’t bother you again for the rest of the night,” she pleaded.

I took my book back.

“Do you promise,” I asked snidely.

“If you can manage after enjoying all this action,” she said. 

I stuffed my book into my purse and turned my attention to the athletes providing the entertainment. 

The two teams flurried about, doing their best to attack the puck.  Our star player was on the field, heading down the ice towards where Kathy and I sat, with the puck shuffling back and forth on his stick.

For a brief
moment,
I could make out the baby blue in his eyes, and I felt his stare shooting at me.  Everything fell
away in
the
moment;
the crowd
cheered,
but I was deaf to their tune, as though nothing else mattered.

Then a rival player smashed him hard into the glass that I was sitting near.  I held my hand to my mouth, feeling his pain shoot through my head. 

It didn’t seem to faze him much; he just turned my direction, smiled, blew a kiss and shuffled the puck from the corner. 

“I think he saw me,” Kathy said. 

I could see her already begin to swoon.  More times than I could count I’d returned to the dorm room with a sock waiting for me
on
the door.  It was the standard signal for me to get comfy at the local coffee shop until she told me it was all clear. 

I wouldn’t say that she slept with a lot of different people; she just liked
to sleep with
the same people very often.  I would always do my best not to judge her choices, but
honestly,
none of the boys held much interest for me.  Most of the men around here reminded me of home, and that bothered me to consider.

In the small amount of time I watched, I witnessed two different fights on the ice.  The referee would always back off for the briefest of seconds as the idiots would have a go at trading blows.  I did my best to avoid giggling at their stupidity, but even so it was hard to suppress.

“I hear they’re having a party after the game, we should go, it’s Friday, could be fun!”

As she continued to talk I-having fulfilled my requisite time watching-returned to my book.  She scoffed, but I didn’t care.  I just wanted to finish the chapter before the game was over so I wouldn’t have to remember my place on the way home. 

“Okay, that’s it.  You’re staying for the party.  You need to get out and meet people,” she said.

“Not interested,” I replied.

“If you
come,
this time, I promise I won’t bother you for at least a month,” she suggested.

The idea of being able to
be left
to
myself
was tempting, but
definitely
not enough.

“How about, if I go, you won’t have sex in the dorm for a month,” I suggested in jest.

“Deal,” she responded all too quickly.

“I was just
kidding, really
.  I don’t want to go,” I said.

“Too bad, we have a deal.”

I slumped into my chair, wishing I hadn’t said anything at all.  Before long, the game time had
elapsed,
and our team ended up the victor.  This party had all the sudden become a victory party, and I had an inkling of what that might entail.

2.

‘Come to the party,’ she said, ‘we’ll have some fun,’ she said.  Why do I always get stuck being the person she drags to these stupid things.  I’d rather just be curled up at home, reading a book, and getting to sleep early.

That’s what I get for having a roommate that can’t do anything by herself.  She just has to pull me along, until she finds someone more interesting to talk
to, and then
she forgets about me.

This would
be the fourth party in recent memory that this has happened.  I watched her from afar, chatting with a
couple of
boys, whom I’m sure she had every interest in sleeping with tonight.  It wouldn’t be the first time.

They held the party at the now empty ice rink where our local hockey team had just won.  I wasn’t much of a hockey fan.  When I was a little kid, my dad would have the games on in the den, sitting beer in hand, while shouting excitedly at the T.V.  I never minded curling up nearby while he watched, I’d just read a book and forget what silly things the boys said at school. 

I still remember when he got me into skating; he wanted a son more than a daughter, but
he
did the best with what he had.  He tried getting me into hockey; its popularity never waned through all of
elementary
school.  Instead of getting into that sport, I found myself oddly taken by figure skating. 

He rolled his eyes at the idea, but never once said a bad thing about it whenever he’d take me to practice.  I miss him, even though we never
really
saw eye to eye.

I had a feeling I might
be roped
into an after party, Kathy always knew how to pry me out of my shell.  Having brought along my old pair of ice skates, I thought now was as good a time as any to get back on the ice.  A smattering of other partygoers had already convened on the Ice and had started playing games.  I hadn’t much interest in their brand of fun, so I did my best to avoid their gaze.

I stiffly started to skate about before finding my stride.  I could feel the
cool
air stinging in my nostrils, as I sped along the outer edge of the rink.  It had been a while since I’d been on the ice myself, but I felt the memories of all my old lessons coming back to me. 

I started skating
backwards
, as I
was taught
, and I felt a surge of adrenaline course through my veins.  It was a feeling I always had before I did something that felt right, but was usually stupid.  It felt right enough to me, as I pushed off the ice and did a quick spin in the air, narrowly landing without falling. 

It took me a second to catch my breath; I hadn’t done any figure skating since before my dad died.  Even so, landing that jump brought back a few memories that I wish had stayed buried, as I felt a
couple of
tears begin to form at the corner of my eyes.

A small bit of applause began to roar from the center of the ice.  My skating had garnered their attention, against my better
judgment
.  I turned to them and took a quick bow, to appease their cheers, skating backward the entire way.

Then I bumped into him.

I lost my footing and fell over
backwards
, my
legs
flipping over my head, making me land face first on the ice while still sliding
backwards
.  Then a hand shot out to stop me, which
was, at least,
a modicum of solace.

I couldn’t make out who was helping me, but was thankful that I was
being helped
up at all.  I barely needed to do any of the work, as it seemed he felt intent to pick me all the way up.  In fact, he did, cradling me in his arms for a moment while laughing. 

I rolled my eyes and pushed off, finding myself standing back on the ice and more than a little woozy from the fall.

“You know, you should watch where you’re going when there’s a crowd on the ice,” he said between laughs.

I scowled at him for a second before responding.

“You could have gotten out of my way!”

“Yeah, but then I wouldn’t have seen you do a backflip.  Did anyone tell you that you’re cute when you’re angry?”

I flared my nostrils and began to skate away.  He followed after me, to my chagrin.

“Why are you following me,” I asked.

“I wanted to make sure I was there to catch you if you tripped over someone else,” he replied.

“I can see where I’m going, just go away,” I said, steering out of the way of the group
on
the center of the ice.

“Are you sure,” he asked, coyly.

I stopped and wheeled around to confront him.

“You’re the worst kind of
jerk
,” I started, “at least
normal
jerks stop bothering me when I ask them to.”

He laughed.

I hadn’t had a good look at him before, but now that I was looking at
him
face to face, and not woozy from falling over, he was
actually
a little attractive. 

A smattering of thick stubble surrounded his chiseled chin, as his thick unkempt hair tousled around his head,
falling down
to his forehead in wavy circles.  He was taller than me, even though I was on skates.  I couldn’t see much under his puffy, thick, winter jacket, but he wore it well with
a strong
stature. 

“Didn’t I see you at the game, earlier?” he asked.

Now that I looked, I saw the same icy blue eyes staring back at me that I’d seen during the game earlier.

“You’re the player that got shoved against the glass,” I said.

He tousled his hair with his hand.

“Yeah, I still feel that one,” he replied, “are you enjoying the party?”

I looked over at the group gathered around the
keg;
they laughed as though being drunk were the best thing in the world. 

“I was enjoying it in my
own
way, until you decided that I should be doing backflips instead of skating,” I said.

He laughed.

I didn’t know I was a comedian.

“Considering how sober you are right now, you must come with me.”

I stared at him quizzically.

“Just follow me, it’s important,” he said, beckoning me to follow.

My curiosity was taking over, and out of instinct and adventure I followed.  He led me to the other side of the arena, to the group gathered around the keg.

“I have the other person for my team,” he shouted.

The crowd let out a collected cheer, and I was regretting wearing my ice skates right now. 

“Okay, here’s the game.  It’s team style beer pong; the winning team gets to choose a suitable punishment for the losing team.  Standard rules, no rebounds.”

I felt like an idiot joining in on this inane game.  An excuse to drink and throw things around was all it
really
was,
and thinly veiled at that.

A ping pong ball
was thrust
into my hand.  I leaned over to my partner and whispered in his ear.

“What do I do,” I asked in earnest.

He leaned in to explain.

“Throw the ball into their cups, if it goes in they have to drink the contents of the
glass, and
the same goes for
us.  If they run out of cups, we win.  You’re pretty
sober,
so I’m hoping you can throw straight.”

I flicked the ball around in my hand before lining up my shot.  It landed right in the
front
cup.  I felt a surge of excitement as the boy on their team picked up the glass and guzzled down the brown liquid.

My joy
was short lived
as he answered right back by splashing me with the beer in the cup in front of me.  My partner gestured to the
glass,
and I begrudgingly took the glass and
drink
heartily.