Souls made of scars

Chapter 3 (Valentina's POV)

What an idiot!

Classic hockey idiotic small-brained parasite!

But damn he was gorgeous.

I was right. Those eyes were pure perfection.

And his black hair looked messy in a way "I just got out of bed".

He was also tall. And if I am saying that you know it must be true since I am 1, 80 meters tall. He had to be close to 2 meters.

And all yummy muscles. Since he only wore a long-sleeved shirt all his muscles were pretty much on display and sadly I must admit it wasn't the worst view.

But like it happened with every hockey player it happened with this one as well.

He ruined everything the second he opened his mouth.

Why the hell would anyone call me princess?

Like some on man! I am wearing a not-really-flattering pair of jeans and a hoodie that I'm sure has some spots of dirt on it. Give me a second to check. Yep. I found at least two flecks.

So I was the furthest thing from a princess that ever existed. But did mister stupid care? No, he did not.

Even though I called him an old timer I knew he was just 3 years older than me. But who cares? He was in London for less than half an hour and he was already getting on my nerves.

What I didn't understand though was my body's reaction to him.

I mean my n*****s were as hard as a stone and I was most definitely feeling something between my legs…

Weird.

But we will get back to that later. Right now I had to take mister stupid to his house.

You are probably wondering how I even landed in this mess right?

It was like that.

A nice sunny morning looked perfect from my living room while I enjoyed my first coffee of the day, but my peaceful setting was suddenly disturbed by my buzzing phone. Whyyyyy?!

It got even worse once I saw who the caller was.

Coach Irving.

I respected and loved the old man like my own father, but if he was calling this early in the morning it could only mean one thing. He needed a favor. And I owed him big time for all the help and recommendations he gave me so I got my job and managed to keep a roof over my head with my paychecks.

"Yeah, boss. What good did I do to deserve your call so early in the morning?"

Do you think my sarcasm was thick? You should hear it in person, it was even worse. And I knew Irving knew I was sarcastic. But he was used to me being…well…me.

"Hello, there, my beautiful reporter lady Valy. How are you this morning?"

And that's the point where I realized the shit was serious.

"Ok, Irving. Just spit it out already."

"Could you please pick up Madox? I would send one of the guys but they need practice badly or we won't have any chance to win our first game this weekend."

A sigh escaped me because u knew there was no way out of it. I knew boys needed all the practice they could get before the first game of the season. But that doesn't mean I had to like it.

"Fine. But this time you owe me one old man!"

He chuckled, but I knew it was from relief. Usually, I don't give in so easily. But this morning I just didn't have it in me to negotiate.

"You got yourself a deal, Valy. I'll send you the address to his house and you just make sure he gets there and knows how to get to the ice rink in the evening ok?"

Well in my defense, it didn't sound like a hard task at that moment so I agreed to it. But right now I am regretting it.

As we approached the car that would be his until he bought a new one he already caught up to me. And of course, he had a new idiotic pickup line at the tip of his tongue.

"So princess, are you taking me to a nice dinner first before you take me to your bed?"

God help me!

"Didn't your mother teach you that sometimes it's better to keep your mouth shut?!"

The moment I said those words his face changed and I knew that for once I was the one that was being an idiot.

His next words confirmed my suspicion.

"If she would still be alive I'd ask her, but since she is dead I guess you are out of luck princess."

All the things I could say and I had to say the worst one.

"I am sorry. I didn't mean it like that."

A soft smile spread across his lips and damned it to hell but he looked really gorgeous when he smiled like that.

"It's ok princess. But it seems you didn't do your homework as well as you thought either."

At those words I had to laugh because he was right. For once my tongue landed me in to trouble

"You are right. I still don't like you. Not even one bit. But I'll give you a point."

And there it was. That arrogant smirk. And he would ruin all the progress we made in 3, 2, 1.

"You can be pretty cute when you pull that stick out of your ass."

Well, you can guess any trace if a smile or laugh vanished from my face.

"And you are still an idiot with his stick buried so deep, there's no chance of anyone ever pulling it out of your ass."

The idiot actually laughed at my words! He fucking laughed!

And I was officially over.

I turned away once more and picked up my pace to get to the car as fast as possible.

"I come on princess, don't be like that. I was just joking."

Just joking my ass!

It was no secret that people thought I had a stick up my ass and was an uptight bitch. But what they didn't understand is that I didn't care anymore what anyone thought! I am who I am. My life wasn't perfect. Difference between me and Mr. Madox here was that he at least knew his mother. I had no idea who my mother was. She left me in the hospital. So I grew up traveling from one orphanage to another. From bad parents to worse parents. I admit sometimes it was my fault it didn't turn out in a good way. But I was just sick of the system and all the moving. The worst one was when I landed in a family with 6 kids. Well it was kind of the worst and the best one at the same time.

Parents were nasty drunks. But the kids were not so bad. Well 5 of them weren't bad. The youngest one Anabele was just a year older than me, which was 17 at that time. We became best friends in no time and my life looked a bit better. But then there was the devil. The oldest one Damon was his name, was pure evil. And guess what? He was a hockey player! On the night I turned 17 he tried to rape me and I smashed a beer bottle into his head. Up until today I can't bring myself to regret what I did. And I know it's kind of wrong but ever since that night I hated all hockey players just because they chose the wrong sport. Somehow they all reminded me of Damon. Like I said before, there were some exceptions, but they were rare. What good came from the short time in that family was Anabele. We were still best friends, and she was also my roommate.

But Nathaniel reminded me more and more of Damon with every passing second.

I reached the car and jumped in on the driver's side. What? You thought I would let this asshole drive? No way in hell!

He was lucky I waited for him to put his luggage in the back and got in the car.

I was tempted to just drive away without him, but I didn't feel like lying to Irving today.

But I was a mean woman and sped out of the parking lot before he managed to put his seatbelt in place.

"Wow woman! Slow down would you? I would like to stay alive!"

A dark chuckle escaped my lips. They don't call me a bitch for no reason.

"Well, you are a big boy so you better hold tight."

"Look, I am sorry if I offended you somehow. Just drive by the laws please."

Somehow I could detect a bit of fear in his voice so I pushed a bit on the brakes and adjusted my speed.

At that moment I realized we might not be as different as I thought under the surface.

The difference was only our way of hiding things.

I hid behind my bitchy attitude and he hid behind his arrogant hockey player persona.

So I gathered my courage and asked one thing that I shouldn't if I wanted to keep my walls intact and hatred in place.

"So what's your real story? The one behind escaping Canada and traveling across the world to Europe?"