Kiss My Ice

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15.

"Hey, you up for a little party tonight?"

I paused in my tracks. Was Chris actually talking to me? When he proceeded to ask the question for a second time, I knew I wasn't hallucinating. Chris was in fact asking me if I wanted to go to a party.

I titled my head to the side, eyebrows raised as I examined his face. An attempt to see if he was joking or not. The cheeky smile on his face told me that he was in fact being serious. And apparently, he was also delusional.

"Oh gosh, you are serious."

The idea of going to a party was not the least bit appealing. There were several reasons I wasn't interested, but the biggest one was that I had unintentionally drank too much alcohol and passed out the last time. Not to mention, if Chris was the one inviting me, then the party would likely involve the hockey team. No thank you.

Chris slid his hand from his damp hair. "Ah come on, Zo. Why not?"

My brows furrowed at him calling me by my nickname. It was weird. Only my family and Lucy ever called me 'Zo'. It sounded foreign hearing someone else say it.

"I don't do parties," I responded dully.

Chris frowned, rocked backwards onto his heels. "Is that a no then?"

I let out a soft sigh, my eyes narrowed onto the boy in front of me. He was being awfully persistent. "What is the party for anyways?"

"We are celebrating our win from last night," Chris beamed, a wide grin spread against his face from ear to ear. I couldn't hold back the urge to roll my eyes.

Much to my dismay, the hockey team had won their little scrimmage game last night. 4-2. It was all anyone could talk about today at the rink. All day I heard about how the hockey team was showing great potential. Everyone was high off of one lousy win.

Everyone except for me. I was sick of hearing about it.

"I'll pass."

The grin on Chris's face dissipated. "Riley will be there. She's hoping that you will come and hang out. She had fun helping you the other day."

I raised my eyebrows. Riley was easy to get along with from what I could tell, but it surprised me that she would want me to come to a party. We barely knew each other. I knew that she was good at hockey, but that was the extent of what I knew.

"Riley wants me to come?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "She wants to get to know you better. She liked that you took initiative to learn hockey on your own time to get back at Aiden."

I smirked. Chris had told me that he found it childish, and yet, it was what Riley liked. How ironic.

"So, you're the culprit who showed Lodge how to do a slapshot," Aiden quired, suddenly popping up behind Chris and me. I jumped at his voice, practically clinging to the wall next to me as if doing so would magically hide me from him.

Heat rose to my cheeks as I quickly peeled myself off the wall. Quickly gaining my composure, I turn to face Aiden with a glare. He shot me a sexy half smirk; the corners of his lips turned up just enough to show off his top row of teeth.

"Who said that I got help from anyone?"

Aiden raised his eyebrows. He was no fool. I had gone from barely being able to move the puck to being able to successfully pull off a slapshot. There was no other explanation to my improvement.