Skid Marks and the Selby Slammers

by April Ryder

  Why was he getting down on his knee?

  "Hayley," he said and pulled a small jewellery box out from somewhere.

  Oh my God.

  "Will you—"

  The doorbell buzzed, shattering the moment Paul had been trying to create. Props to him though for getting an actual engagement ring. That was something we hadn't been able to afford when he had originally popped the question—at the laundromat. It had gone something like this: You want to get married? Sure!

  "Curry!" I announced gleefully. Never before had I been so glad for the arrival of the food delivery guy. Considering how much I—platonically—loved the food delivery guy for bringing me noms, I was fucken ecstatic!

  I threw the door open and accepted the bag of Indian food. "Coke?" I asked after checking everything was there.

  "Uh…here," the guy said, handing it over.

  He kept staring behind me, so I turned to see at what and found Paul still knelt with box offered to where I had been standing. Frozen in mid-proposal.

  "Ah, sorry for interrupting," he said, embarrassed. "Congratulations though."

  "Oh, I've not accepted," I told him before shutting the door.

  It took Paul until I had finished eating the spring rolls to get back to his feet and cautiously approach. "I guess I deserve that."

  I nodded. He really did.

  "I'm not going to give up though," he said as he placed the still-closed box on the table before me. "Your mother was right. I've got to prove myself to you. So I'm going to do that."

  "How are you going to do that?" I wondered out loud.

  "I'll apologise to you every day. I'll get a job in Auckland. I'll take you out to dinner. I'll…do whatever it takes. Whatever you want. I'll do it, Hayley."

  I opened the container of chicken korma and spooned it out onto the bed of rice on my plate. "What if I don't want you to? What will you do then?"

  "I'll…keep trying until you do. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, Hayley."

  I sighed. "I've got too much on my plate right now."

  "Is this the skating thing?" he asked.

  "It's not the skating thing, Paul. It's roller derby. It's a sport."

  "It's dangerous. I don't know how you can like it. It's not like you at all."

  In a quiet, yet calm voice I pointed out, "Maybe you just don't know me that well."

  Unsurprisingly he doesn't know how to respond to that. Awkward silence—and the noise of me eating curry—filled the apartment. I think they marinate the chicken before they cook it. It has a yummy smoky flavour. And the garlic naan, it just melts in your mouth it's so good. So much butter and garlic. Mmm…Homer Simpson drool.

  Paul cleared his throat and I looked up, expectantly.

  "I'm going to go out and look at a place to stay. You think about us while I'm gone," he said and tapped a finger on the box he'd left on the table. "I really mean it, Hayley. I'm going to make this right."

  And with that he left.

  I broke off a piece of naan, swiped up some korma and rice with it, and shoved it in my mouth. The box stared at me while I chewed. Daring me to open it. I'd told Paul I didn't need a ring when we got engaged. It was an unnecessary expense and I wasn't big on jewellery anyway. But it would have been nice if he'd not agreed with me quite so quickly.

  I scowled at the box. No piece of bling was going to sway my mind. Paul had dumped me. It had been so sudden. He had just sworn that he hadn't left me for another woman. Instead, he'd left me for a job in Wellington, one that hadn't panned out. So here he was, slinking back with his tail between his legs and apologising for making a huge mistake.

  Still, I was curious. What kind of ring had he bought? Was it something cheap with a fleck of cubic zirconia, or something more substantial and pricey? Wouldn't the kind of ring tell me what he really thought of me? Did he really know me at all?

  I wiped my garlic-buttery fingers on a serviette and picked up the box. A sudden fear gripped me as I remembered the pregnancy tests I had hidden from Paul earlier. What if I was pregnant? What if it wasn't the Dick's but Paul's?

  "Screw this," I muttered and lifted the lid on the box…

  "Holy shit."

  There, sitting neatly in the plush box cushion was my grandmother's sapphire ring. The same ring that Grandma had said Paul couldn't have to give to me. She really didn't like Paul, but he didn't like her either so I guess they were even.

  I stared at the impractical ring, the gem cut in a way that required the setting to be high above the thick golden band. It would catch on everything and piss me off. But I had always adored it. I had to hand it to him, the man did pay attention once in a while.

  "Holy shit."

  * * *

  Paul hadn't pressed the proposal after he returned from looking at a place to stay. In fact he didn't mention it. I guess he was waiting for me to bring it up. Maybe he thought that if I tried the ring on I'd be likely to say yes, which was exactly why I had resisted slipping it on my ring finger. But the past two days had been awkward. Yes, more awkward than the few days before, after his initial return.

  I did my best to ignore him, but I couldn't ignore all of the cleaning he had done around the apartment. He was even doing my laundry. I guess since he wasn't ready yet to face his friends and he had nothing else to do while he was at work, he had thought doing chores would endear himself to me. Dammit if it wasn't working!

  No matter what he did though, I owed it to myself to go out on my date with Jake. Paul had been the only man I had been with—other than the Dick that is—and I didn't have much to compare him with. So even though I had decided to skip today's practice—so I could go to Family Planning and find out once and for all if I was or was not pregnant—I was still going on that date.

  "Ow," I complained and glared at the nurse taking my blood. Vampire.

  "Sorry," she said for the eleventy-billionth time, "but your veins are so hard to find."

  I looked down at my pin-pricked krelbow—the other side of my elbow—and stared at my veins. Maybe she was blind. Did I really want a blind nurse to keep sticking me with needles? Whatever I drank tonight would leak out of my krelbow. Not a great impression to make on a first date. Still, it was the only way to know for certain if I was pregnant. Schrodinger's baby was getting tedious.

  "There's one," I said helpfully but regretted it.

  "Sorry, sorry," she said. "I just can't remember where I left my glasses."

  "They're on your head," I grumbled, irked at being right about her being a blind vampire bat.

  She reached up and with an embarrassed smile pushed them onto her nose. "Oh there's a vein. Well at least I was close."

  I tilted my head back so she wouldn't see me roll my eyes and thought of what I was going to wear tonight. Thankfully Jake and I had exchanged numbers at the last practice so I had been able to tell him I wouldn't be there but would meet him at the restaurant at seven. The stupid grin I wore at the thought of being on a date with a hot guy at a posh restaurant was wiped from my face when the nurse suddenly swore.

  "Oh my God," I agreed when I looked at her.

  With blood sprayed across her face like that she looked like she was in an early Peter Jackson splatter movie. Wait a minute…that's my blood!

  "We got a gusher!" she yelled.

  A small team of nurses barged into the tiny room, ready with mop, bucket, and Band-Aids. Good thing I hadn't inherited my mother's inability to look at blood without fainting.

  Once they had patched me up, told me to eat a lot of iron, and let me know that it'd be a couple of days before the results would be back but that they would text me as soon as they were, I was sent on my way. Back into the real world. Luckily for me Paul wasn't home when I got there so I was able to search through my closet for something to wear for my posh dinner with Jake.

  It didn't take me long to realise I had no idea what I was doing so I called my bestie. Adam came over immediately.

  "I already know what little
we have to work with," he said as I let him in. "But luckily for you sweetie, I can work miracles."

  "Gee, great," I muttered, not sure if I should be insulted or grateful.

  "First, where are your sexy undergarments?"

  I love Adam, I truly do, but his inability to say anything related to female anatomy or lingerie really annoyed me.

  He snapped his fingers at me and said, "The sexy things you said you wore for your deflowering."

  We stared at each other, both horrified and red-faced. I didn't have to look in the mirror to know my face had gone a bright shade strawberry.

  "Uh…" I managed. "In the back of the dresser."

  "Get them out," he ordered.

  I rummaged through my drawers until I found the lingerie I had worn for my—as Adam had so eloquently put it—deflowering.

  "Give them a shake," he said and I obeyed.

  He disappeared into the bathroom and returned with my Hello Kitty deodorant spray—the bubble gum flavoured one—and proceeded to fumigate my lingerie with it. I wasn't a fan of Hello Kitty but I did like the fake bubble gum smell.

  Adam had me swish my undergarments through the air to take the edge off while he set to work rummaging through my wardrobe.

  I smiled at what he came up with. The same denim mini skirt and sparkly cowl-necked top I had worn to my first roller derby and inline hockey game. The night I had first laid eyes on Jake—and the Dick—and been introduced to the world of adrenaline-filled female-empowered derby girls. He also managed to find some sparkly sandals to match the ensemble. They were four years old and the material on the upper sole had been destroyed, but no one would notice unless I took them off and even then only if they had a shoe fetish.

  Once I was dressed and primped up as best as I could manage—remember I don't wear makeup—Adam gave me the thumbs-up.

  "You're a hot, young, curvaceous roller derby chick and you're going to take that hockey stud home and do things to him that I want to hear all the juicy details—minus the female bits—about tomorrow."

  I nodded once, surprised at how confident I felt. The knowledge that Jake's previous girlfriend was just as big as I was and that he seemed really interested in me was all I needed. Nothing could go wrong tonight.

  "Do you have condoms?"

  Except that. "Er…"

  "Not to worry. Your Fairy Godfather came prepared," he said and upended the bag he had brought with him.

  Dumbfounded, I stared at what seemed like hundreds of condoms as they spilled out onto my bed.

  "I know a chemist," Adam explained.

  I gaped as he pointed out each kind of condom. I had no idea there was such a variety: ribbed for her pleasure, glow in the dark, bumpy bits—presumably also for her pleasure—chocolate-flavoured, strawberry-flavoured, mint, banana and vanilla flavoured, ones with spermicide, extra thin ones…the list went on.

  "You can't leave them there!" I said, panicked that if I did bring Jake home he'd so get the wrong idea about me.

  "Well, put them somewhere," Adam said, using logic against me. "Somewhere nearby, like in the bedside table."

  I yanked the drawer out of the beside table, put it on the bed, and transferred handfuls of brightly coloured condoms into it. As I did I idly wondered if Paul knew there were condoms designed for her pleasure.

  As if he could read my mind, Adam asked, "Where's the ex?"

  I shrugged. "Out somewhere. He told me not to wait up."

  Adam clapped his hands together happily. "Excellent. That means you're all prepared for a night of sexy times."

  "I really wonder about you sometimes," I said and didn't care that had been out loud.

  "I'm going through a dry spell so I have to live vicariously through your newfound sex life. Just remember—"

  "Leave out the female bits," I said.

  "Yeah, but I was going to ask if you could get dick pics."

  This was insane. Here I stood outside Liberace—the posh restaurant—waiting for lucky Number 7 to take me inside and…do what I wasn't sure. I knew what I wanted to happen after dinner. Thanks to Adam I was over-prepared. But I hadn't thought about what would happen on the date itself. Sure there would be eating, but I'd have to maintain eye contact and make small talk. The latter was the problem. It wasn't that I couldn't make small talk, it was more my inability to stop talking. Tonight I knew I would babble like a brook. How embarrassing.

  "Hey Princess!"

  Jake's familiar voice warmed me and I looked up to see him jogging toward me with his gear bag slung over his shoulder. In my eagerness to see him again I hadn't given him enough time to get to our date after practice. My bad. Whatever I had been about to apologise to him for fled my mind as the perfect specimen of the male species stopped in front of me and grinned his perfect grin. I smiled dumbly back as I took in his still-damp dark hair, his gorgeous eyes, and his pure lean manliness.

  Oh. My. God.

  "Sorry I'm late," he said and took my hand. "Had some issues at practice."

  I noticed the brief flash of anger that marred his beautiful face when he said that. Something had happened and I was eager to find out what I had missed. That was in the back of my mind though, as the front of my mind was fixated on the fact he held my hand. Not only was he hot to look at, but hot to the touch. I couldn't help myself and immediately imagined his warm hands skimming over my cold flesh, seeking all my intimate places that longed for him.

  Down girl! You still have dinner to get through.

  Jake thanked the waiter who had seen us to our table. We were near the back of the already filled restaurant, tucked away in a dimly lit corner. A red candle sat in the middle of the table and illuminated Jake's Adonis-like face. Well, it would have if he weren't scowling. Instead, the candlelight exaggerated his displeasure by casting long shadows across his features. For a moment I swear he looked a lot like Jafar from the animated Disney movie.

  "What's wrong?" I ventured, suddenly worried I'd done something to upset him.

  He sighed and shook his head. "Don't worry, it's not you. It's that jackarse. He's trying to ruin everything for me."

  "Who is?"

  "Rick," he spat the Dick's name with more anger than even I felt for the guy.

  "What's he done?" I asked taken aback by the primal hatred that rolled off him in waves.

  Jake ran a hand roughly through his hair, pushing the curl that had fallen over his eye aside. "He's always been an asshole, but now he's out to get me or something. You know that there's going to be a scout at our game?"

  I nodded.

  "The scout came out to watch us practice and, as it turns out, the scout and Rick know each other from when Rick was playing on the ice. As soon as I heard that I knew I didn't have much of a chance—"

  "Why not?" I said, interrupting him. "You're great at hockey. You score heaps of goals and you're awesome."

  "Thanks, Princess. But while I'm glad you like me, it's obvious that Rick doesn't. Which means the scout doesn't either."

  "Just because Rick doesn't like you doesn't mean—"

  I lost my train of thought when he placed a finger against my lips. God how I wanted to lick that finger and suck on it…

  "Let me explain," he said, and I honest-to-God whimpered when he took his finger away. "Josh overheard them talking. Apparently the scout thought I had the potential to try out for the national side—"

  "That's great!" I said hoping to be physically shushed by him again. No such luck.

  Jake smiled and I almost didn't hear what he said next because I was too busy being lost in his eyes.

  "Yeah until Rick told him all these lies about me. Said I was arrogant and full of myself. That I had a temper, was immature, and didn't have what it took to play in the big leagues."

  "That jerk!" I said, surprised that someone would do something like that and indignant on Jake's behalf. I reminded myself that this was the Dick we were talking about, and making other people miserable—except during wild passionate bathroom s
ex—was what he lived for.

  I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, unsettled by the dampness in my knickers. "Did you confront him?"

  "Yeah I did. And do you know what he said?"

  I shrugged.

  "He admitted to it. Said he didn't think I had the maturity required to represent New Zealand overseas. Can you believe him? He's just jealous because he'll never get there again."

  Hello Kilty had filled me in about Rick after my first practice. He had once been on the national team for ice hockey but his career had come to an end when a fatal car accident had left him too injured to play. It was a sad story and I felt a pang of sympathy for him whenever I remembered. He had lost a brother and could no longer participate in a sport he was passionate about. Playing inline hockey probably paled in comparison. I don't know what I would do if I couldn't be in the derby, although according to Pretty I would break bones to ensure my spot.

  "Maybe he's angry?" I suggested quietly.

  "If he is he should see a therapist or something," Jake said as he picked up the menu and glared at it. "But if he does something like that again he's going to regret it."

  Thankfully that was the end of that conversation. After venting, the Jake I knew and lusted after returned. He apologised for what he had said and told me to order anything I wanted. Price was no problem. The rich certainly had no problem splurging on extravagant meals. I just wish the meals were as big as the price tag. I declined a second offer of dessert even though I really wanted it, along with a Big Mac and fries. No wonder a lot of rich celebrities were skinny. They didn't eat!

  Outside the restaurant Jake took me by the hand and pulled me into his arms. My breath caught as we stared deep into each other's eyes and I swear time stood still. He slowly closed the distance between us and I gasped as he gently pressed his lips to mine. The kiss was delicate, yet still curled my toes as the traffic on the road passed by, car lights silently illuminating us before disappearing somewhere into the city.

  The most romantic moment of my life was ruined by my cell phone. If I had remembered to turn it off before our date, Jake wouldn't have ended that soul-warming kiss. Could he be my soul mate?