Chapter 12 Love Potion
Nina The locker room was pitch black. Had we lost power? I didn’t dare to move in case I would accidentally bump into Enzo and give him the wrong idea. He was still hovering over me, his hand on the locker above me and his muscular body shielding me. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t fantasize about taking advantage of the dark and kiss him, letting him run his calloused hands all over my body and fuck me up against the locker…
But before any of that could happen, a light flicked on at the end of the row of lockers. Just a single light, beaming down like a spotlight from the ceiling. Enzo quickly moved away from me. There was the sound of shuffling in the darkness, then someone stepped into the light. It was Justin. He was holding his guitar.
Everything in my whole body cringed when he started playing his guitar and singing. It was a song that we had listened to the first night we hung out, and it was the song that we had our first kiss to. Under any other circumstance, I would have found this gesture sweet. But now, it just made me even more embarrassed. When he finished singing, the lights turned on and the rest of the team flooded in while Justin gazed at me with sorrow in his eyes. “Please take me back,” Justin said. ” I’m so sorry, Nina. I’ll make it up to you.”
I stood there biting my lip, unsure of what to say. My face felt hot, and grew even hotter when the rest of the team – excluding Enzo, who was sitting on the bench next to the medical tools as if he had never gotten up from his seat — started chanting. “Forgive him!” they chanted. “Forgive him!”
I squirmed uncomfortably in my spot, avoiding Justin’s gaze. The chanting grew louder as the team closed in on us, urging us to get back together. “Alright,” Enzo said, standing. No one listened at first until he raised his voice. “That’s enough!” he shouted.
The team went silent. Justin’s eyes flickered back and forth between Enzo and I. I could tell that he was starting to put two and two together. It didn’t seem like anyone heard my conversation with Enzo or saw him leaning over me at the locker, but maybe something about our body language was giving it away.
“This is hockey practice, not a lovemaking session,” Enzo said. ” Enough with the high school antics.” One of the team members scoffed. ”
You’re so boring, Enzo,” he said. Enzo folded his arms. “I was gonna make everyone do 25 laps after this shit show, but now I’m thinking that you in particular should do 50, Jared.”
Jared’s shoulders dropped and he hung his head, embarrassed. “Go on,” Enzo said to the team. “25 laps. Now. All of you.” He gestured to the door, and as the team filed out, grumbling to themselves, he followed them. He cast one last look over his shoulder at me before leaving me alone in the locker room.
Letting out a heavy sigh, I looked at the clock and realized that my shift was over. I packed up Tiffany’s supplies and lugged the heavy medical bag out of the locker room, just happy that I could go home and not have to see Enzo or Justin for the time being.
When I left the locker room, the hockey players were running laps around the outside of the rink and complaining. I didn’t see Enzo among them; when I looked around, I realized that he was standing off to the side and talking to someone. That someone was Lisa.
She seemed aggravated and was gesturing frantically, although I couldn’t hear what she was saying. As I approached the exit where Tiffany stood waiting for me, Lisa glanced over. When she saw me, her eyes shot daggers and her face twisted into even more of a scowl.
“What is she doing here?” I heard her say as I walked past, trying my best to just ignore her. I didn’t hear Enzo’s response.
“Interesting first day, huh?” Tiffany said as I approached. She held the door open for me and we stepped out into the rain. It was more of a drizzle now, and there was a bit of a fog on the campus. The chill in the air felt nice after being cooped up in the smelly locker room all morning.
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said as I followed Tiffany back to her office. “No one even got hurt in the arena earlier,” she said with a chuckle. “It was all a setup. I take it that Justin boy is the ex you were talking about?”
I nodded. Tiffany stopped in front of her office door and took the medical bag from me, which she carried with a lot more ease than I did. The woman was stronger than she looked.
“If you want me to have a talk with him, I will,” she said with a smile. “I know those boys pretty well at this point.” I shook my head. “No,” I replied. “It’s alright. I’ll deal with it on my own.”
Tiffany reached out and squeezed my shoulder reassuringly. “Tomorrow will be better,” she said. “No hockey team. Although, you might find that the football players can be just as obnoxious.”
Tiffany was right. The next morning, we did the physicals for the entire football team. Granted, it was a lot easier than the hockey team without the drama between myself, Justin, and Enzo, but the football players still acted like high school jocks.
During their practice, Tiffany and I would pull out players individually to perform their physicals. It was all going well until two players collided into one another, then both held their ankles in pain.
Tiffany and I ran over to the field to check on them. My first instinct was that they were being a bit dramatic, but maybe I was just too inexperienced with sports injuries to fully understand what happened.
While Tiffany started checking the ankle of one player, I took the other. “Um, can Nina bandage me, actually?” the player that Tiffany was helping said. Tiffany looked up and threw me an amused glance.
“No, Nina’s bandaging me! Buzz off!” the football player that I was helping said. Just then, the other player stood as if the “pain” in his ankle had suddenly disappeared.
“C’mon, man, you always steal the cute girls!” he shouted. The player who I was helping stood up, too, nearly knocking me over in the process. “I don’t steal the cute girls. You’re just ugly!” The two players suddenly started fighting, tackling each other and rolling around on the ground.
“Stop!” I shouted, but they weren’t listening. Fists were flying, and suddenly, a rogue helmet that got knocked off by a punch flew directly toward my face.
Right before it hit me, a hand shot out of nowhere and caught it. I looked up to see none other than Enzo standing beside me, holding the helmet. What was he doing here?
Enzo threw the helmet to the ground and angrily stormed over to the boys, grabbing each one by the backs of their shirts and dragging them to their feet. “I knew the football team was immature, but not this immature,” he growled. “You almost hit your doctor!”
The football players looked at me, then at the ground with embarrassed expressions on their dirty faces. Enzo let go of their jerseys and picked up the stray helmet, shoving it into the arms of the player who lost it.
“You should consider yourselves lucky if I don’t talk to your captain,” Tiffany suddenly chimed in. “Go on, get back to practice. And next time you just happen to collide, maybe I won’t be so quick to think you actually got hurt.”
As the football players walked off sullenly, Tiffany cleaned up her supplies and started walking back to the sidelines to continue physicals.
I went to follow her, but Enzo stopped me ca we talk ? He said.
