Disclaimer - I do not own anything even remotely related to The Mighty Ducks. I only wish I had thought of them first…
Italics indicate character thought.
"So, you're doing okay then?" Rachel was sitting on the flatbed of a truck in the middle of a dense woods, her legs swinging back and forth. She smiled when Beau sighed in frustration at her.
"I'm not dying of anything, you know." Beau looked at herself in the mirror, brushing the stray hair out of her eyes and trying her best to picture Rachel on a deciduous forest conservation team in the mountains of North Carolina. Her friend scoffed in her ear.
"Coulda fooled me. You've sounded like death the past few months, especially when Charlie's name comes up. You still haven't heard from him?" Rachel and Fulton had talked about it more than either of them was probably willing to admit, but they both continued to be surprised that Charlie was still keeping his distance. What Beau had done had hurt, sure, but she had poured her heart and everyone knew he was still in love with her.
Beau stretched out on her bed and looked at the piles of hockey gear lying around her. "Rach, can we talk about something else?" She grinned. "Like you and Fulton and how many nights a month you're driving down to Raleigh to see him?"
She listened as intently as she could as her friend launched into a diatribe about the long drive from Asheville to Raleigh and Fulton's busy schedule and his lack of interest in 'roughing it' as he called visiting her team's cabin in the woods. Over Rachel's words, a beep sounded in her ear. "Hey, Rachel, I've got another call. Hang on a sec."
Without waiting for an answer Beau clicked the flash button and waited to hear the line pick up. "Hello?" She was answered with silence. "Hello?" After another moment of silence she raised her voice to a sing-song level. "Last chance…hello?" When she got no answer she shrugged and hit the button again, returning to her friend. "Sorry, back."
Rachel had gotten up to get a drink of water and brushed the dirt off of her butt as she walked. "Who was it?"
"No one. Hung up. So tell me more about this job."
"Are you really really really sure you want to do this?" Cole was sitting at the table, his hands folded and his chin resting on top of them.
Beau exhaled noisily for the hundredth time during the conversation. "How old are you, Procida? Quit whining like a child." She aimed at his face and flicked her fingers, sending a balled up piece of napkin careening into his nose. She nodded with resolve. "Yes, I'm sure."
They were discussing her decision to remove her name from professional league scouting lists during their final year of playing hockey, which had begun several weeks ago, and Cole couldn't understand where she was coming from. They had watched Charlie, Adam, and Fulton go pro and Jesse had just recently left for open training camp in an attempt to get picked up by one of the teams who had decided not to draft him. Of course their new roommate was Atkins, a sophomore hockey player who had dreams of going pro. She tried, again, to explain.
"I love hockey. You know that." As usual, he interrupted.
"No shit. It's been your life for the past seven years."
Beau reached out, clamping her fingers over his lips, hopefully preventing him from speaking any more. "Let me finish." When he nodded earnestly, she released him, tousled his long hair, and continued. "But this writing thing, especially because it still involves hockey, has become so important to me. I have all of these stories running around in my head. If I don't write them I think I'll go crazy." She smiled at Guy as he drug himself in from a long day of teaching and kicked a chair out for him with her foot. As he sat down she gave him a long suffering glance.
"Are you guys still discussing this?" He looked surprised, turning to Cole. "Procida, do you still just not get it?" Guy, of all people, understood.
Before Cole could launch into a tirade Beau jumped in. "I don't know that we're discussing, really, because I'm not changing my mind. But, yes. I am still trying to explain this to Blockhead over there. So, Cole, I just don't want to play professional hockey. I don't want to travel that much. I want a base. Do you get it yet?"
Cole leaned back, pursing his lips, and raising his hands and his eyebrows, indicating that he thought he wasn't allowed to speak. Beau threw her entire napkin at him. "Just say it, Cole!"
He leaned forward again, elbows on the table and looking very serious. "Okay, fine, Beau. I understand. I just think it's a shame you're going to waste your talent!"
Hearing that he still wasn't getting it, Beau threw her arms up, making a sound of disgust and stomped out of the room, leaving Guy laughing behind her.
She got to her room and closed the door, sucking in a deep breath and reveling in the sanctity of her small room. Her publisher was on her case to find a place of her own. To "be a real writer" as they had so tactfully put it. They seemed to think her three male roommates were a distraction. And the hoity toity lawyers and publishers couldn't understand why she didn't want to spend the money she was now making hand over fist on some more feminine and organized space.
Her parents, though, well they were thrilled to have her stay right where she was. They felt safe knowing she had three male roommates. They felt like she was protected, and she knew that was important to them after what had happened to Parker.
As for her, yeah, the boys could most definitely prove a distraction – when they wrestled in the living room, when they were screaming over a video game, when they waltzed into her room for help on a paper without knocking, when they left piles of shoes in front of the door so she tripped on the way in and busted her knee, and most definitely when they taunted her out of her room to engage her in a pick up roller hockey game. They were a distraction to her studies, to her writing, and to her life. And she loved every single minute of it and wouldn't give it up for the world.
Thinking those thoughts she grinned and settled in at her desk to do some work. She had finished with proofing her history paper – a study of the Viking women – before moving onto some business emails. She was drafting a letter to her illustrator, trying her best to describe every aspect of Guy so that he could be translated into ink for The Mighty Ducks #5: Miles and the Girl Across the Blue Line. She was typing quickly about his introverted personality, looking at a picture of the team from her freshman year for inspiration. The phone rang and she ignored it, turning up the music in her room to help her focus, assuming one of the guys would get it. Of course she was wrong.
It rang five times before the poor schmuck on the other end of the line finally gave up. She sighed, hoping whoever it was left a message. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was dimly aware of the sound of NCAA college football coming from the living room. The phone started ringing again and on the fourth ring she groaned, smacking her stereo to turn it off, and grabbing the cordless off of the cradle. She hit the power button and screamed towards her door, not even bothering to cover the mouthpiece. "It's okay you guys! It's not like I'm doing anything important in here!" She sighed again, turning back towards her computer in anticipation and finally speaking to the person on the other end of the line. "Sorry about that. Hello?"
She waited a beat, expecting her mother or maybe Cole's. When she didn't hear anything but soft breathing she dropped her shoulders and ran a hand through her hair. It was the fourth hang up call that week. "Hello?" The caller still didn't say anything. "Look, buddy. I don't know if you're casing the place or what, but I'm telling you right now there are four people that live here that all know their way around a hockey stick, so I'm thinking you ought to try somewhere else. Or get a freakin' job…" Then she hung up. She looked back at her screen, realizing her train of thought was completely shot. "Shit."
Johnny: Thanks for reviewing and I'm glad you like Charlie and Beau. I'll try to keep the updates coming so you don't have to wait for too long for some resolution.
SugarStace: Thanks and I know that feeling when you see a story you love at the top of the page, so I'm glad I could take care of that for ya!
Hockeygirl90: Thanks as always!
Duckfluff: Glad you approve of the evil Casey. I kind of like her like that. I like how I think Charlie would react to her. As for the writer's block, thanks. I think I'm back in the swing now.
BellaLou: I love how specific your reviews are. Thanks! I'm not sure how many more chapters, but after I get some resolve for the lovely Beau and Charlie, I'm going to end it. I'm toying with the idea of a companion story on Connie and Guy with appearances by everyone else, but I might not. I'll just have to see.
Cc: Do you know how much you rock? Thanks SO much!