Page 1 of Pucking Snowed In With My Ex

CHAPTER ONE

SKYE

This is crazy.

My hands tightened on the steering wheel as the wipers whipped back and forth, trying to keep the snowflakes at bay. The heavy, wet snow was coming down so fast that my headlights could hardly penetrate further than a few feet. I’d only been up to Hayley’s cottage a handful of times, and with each twist in the road, panic set in a little more. It was unbelievably dark, and the tall, looming trees blocked out any potential moonlight that could help me see. Then again, maybe not seeing the sheer drop on the other side of the guardrail was best.

My phone rang, and I jumped, my poor heart pounding hard. I hit talk, not taking my eyes off the snowy road.

“Hello?”

“Skye, are you there yet,” Hayley asked, her voice sounding as panicky as I felt. I could hear her turn signal clicking through the speakers.

“No, but I’m close. It’s really bad and slow going. I’m freaking out here,” I said.

“Like how close?”

“I don’t know. I’m crawling along. Maybe ten minutes.”

“Okay, good. They’ve closed the roads, and I’m turning around.” With those words, my heart sank. I’d been driving for three hours already. “Head on to the cottage. It’s way too dangerous for you to turn around. I’ll see what the roads are like tomorrow and head out then. In the meantime, I’ll talk to you until you get there.”

“So much for a relaxing girl’s weekend for Christmas,” I said, holding my breath as I crested the top of a hill, praying I didn’t slide.

“I know, eh? It’s okay. I already had your gift sent to the cottage,” Hayley said, and I smirked.

“It better be bottles of wine and lots of them. I’m gonna need them after this drive.” We’d agreed on no gifts this year since we were both poor college students, or at least I was, but Hayley never listened. Last year we said no birthday gifts, but what did Hales do? She hired a stretch limo to take us downtown Edmonton to party all night. The girl was as crazy as a loon, but I loved her to bits.

“Girl it is me we are talking about, there is definitely wine,” Hayley said, and then she was off on a tangent about her boss, who she was in love with, and the latest fiasco at work. Hayley always fell in love with the wrong person, but who was I to judge?

I stared at the glowing sign at the end of the driveway, proudly announcing the Reeves Family like a beacon of hope. Her family had always been a big deal since her dad was a coach for the NHL. But, they became the darlings of the area after her brother Callum started playing in the Alberta Junior Hockey League at fifteen.

I tried hard not to think about Callum, a.k.a. my ex. Growing up next door to the Reeves family was like a little sapling trying to grow in the shade of a massive maple tree. Not to mention my crush on Callum. I’d loved him for as long as I could remember. How could I not? He was a year older, tall with dark hair and the most vivid blue eyes I’d ever seen. The fact that he played hockey, had a million-dollar smile, and had the best sense of humor only added to his appeal.

In my mind, he had been off-limits as my best friend’s brother, but Hayley was just as excited as I was when he asked me out the summer before grade nine. Stupidly, I thought we would spend the rest of our lives together. I went from the girl in the shadows to the most popular girl in school overnight. I can’t say I hated it, but it would be a lie to say I loved it.

High school had been one gigantic battle. If I wasn’t fighting off my growing insecurity, then I was beating off the actual girls who thought they could steal Callum from me. Then there was the ever-increasing homework load, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, my parents’ divorce, the online bullying and my sister’s spiral into depression. All of which contributed to me spinning out. The icing on the shit cake was when Callum said he wanted to break off the summer before grade twelve. I suspected that he found out something about what happened at Tyler’s party, but he wouldn’t talk to me. He said he was going to some school in the States and wanted to focus on his hockey career.

Lesson learned…never date your best friend’s brother. It makes for very awkward situations when things fall apart. Luckily, Hales hadn’t turned her back on me.

Flicking on my signal, even though no one was around to see it, I pulled into the cottage’s driveway. The trees here felt like a magical tunnel in the summer but not so much in the winter. Broken branches were all over the place, and if the wind picked up, I bet more than a couple of these trees would come crashing down. I only hoped Hayley sent enough food for an extended stay.

“I’m here,” I said, cutting Hayley off before she could get into what she did in the supply closet. “Um…why are the lights on, and why are there like seven cars?”

“What,” Hayley asked. “What do the cars look like?”

“I don’t know. They’re all covered with snow.”

“Shit,” Hayley mumbled. “So…listen. I may have done something, and I’m not sure that keeping you both in the dark was a good idea.”

My hackles went up. “What did you do, Hayley?”

I stopped the car at the mouth of the driveway and had a terrible feeling that I knew what she would say next.

“I may have been trying to get you and Callum back together, and I may have told him he could use the cottage when he asked.”

I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle her.

“Hayley! What the hell? What if he’s in there with a girlfriend, or worse, seven girls? Oh my god, this is a disaster. Why would you do this to me?” If I thought driving the slippery roads made my heart race, they had nothing on the thought of having to stay under the same roof as Callum and whatever team of girls he was planning on fucking.