The Cocky Hockey Captain

Chapter 2 ● Silver Grove

Dad and I drove in angry silence in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.

Three days of passive aggressive comments since the conversation with my brother hadn't got me anywhere but the wilderness of Alberta. Ever since we left the airport and bundled into the rental car, the scenery had been damn beautiful and it was pissing me off. For the first half hour of the drive dad had tried to use the view as leverage to convince me that this change didn't suck. Meanwhile I made sure he understood that it did. No matter the mountains that scrapped the sky, no matter the fluffy clouds that drifted above us in the blue, casting shadows above us and cutting sun rays like they were painted by an invisible hand, it still fucking sucked.

I did not want to be here.

There was no Hogwarts nearby, and even though I spent hours Googling for a boxing gym in the area we were going to live in, I couldn't find one. I'd been counting on at least the visa process delaying the imminent departure, but Canada was freaking efficient. Or dad started it early, without telling me.

Either way, I was trapped and he knew it. But it didn't mean I had to make things comfortable for him. I felt a sick sense of satisfaction as his knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel.

He cleared his throat and pushed his sunglasses up his nose. "Why don't you play some music you like? We still have quite a ways to go."

I bit my lips to stop myself from bursting into laughter.

"Sure," I said, as smoothly as possible.

I plugged my iPhone to the car and searched for the most ridiculous, strident song I had in my training playlist. I hit play on Karate by Babymetal and had the pleasure of seeing him jump out of his skin. The hardcore executive that he was, who had no problem staring down at government reps or other cutthroat businessmen like him, had a hard time composing himself at the relentless auditory attack of Japanese heavy metal sang by cute girls.

"Is uh, this the type of music you like?" he asked after a minute.

My lips curled into a poisonous smile. "You wouldn't ask if you'd paid me attention these past few years."

His knuckles turned white again, but just as I thought I had won the battle, he attacked.

"Well, the good news is that we'll have plenty of time for that now." He smiled sweetly as my jaw dropped. "Silver Grove is a small town, so there'll be little to do but to hang out with each other."

I folded my arms and didn't care that I was pouting. "If you think that makes me feel better, breaking news, papá, it's not working."

He ignored that, because he'd put a chink in my armor and thought he stood a chance again. "I heard there's only one school in Silver Grove called St. Andrews, and that they like to play hockey there. I was thinking that I could escape work sometimes to watch games with you."

I rolled my eyes. "Not interested."

"I heard that sometimes players will start fighting in the middle of games. It sounds like boxing with knives on their feet."

Okay, that did sound interesting but I couldn't let him see that. I tightened my arms around myself and said, "I hate the cold."

Dad cringed, because he hated it too. It was the curse of having been born in the tropics. Everybody complained about Central Florida in the dead of summer for being too hot, but for my family that was normal. Meanwhile we complained when it got a tad chilly in the winter. It also explained why he and I were decked in fleece from top to bottom, even though it was only September and the car heating was running. This was already too fucking cold for our Caribbean bodies.