The Ice Queen

Chapter Sixteen

“AJ!”

“What?” I muttered, gathering my stuff and throwing it into my bag.

“Who’s ‘hubby’?” Mike asked and I sighed.

“It’s just a friend on the Bruins; it’s a joke between our friends,” I said and then threw my bag over my shoulder, “Nothing to worry about.”

“All right,” Mike said, but I knew he and the others didn’t want to give up on this, and I really didn’t want them to figure out who ‘hubby’ really was.

“I have to go, I’ll see you guys later,” I said and then waved towards the boys and walked out of the locker room, wanting to get home and watch the rest of the Bruins game.

-Mike-

We beat the Rangers on the 28th, we beat the Sabres on the 30th, we beat the Blue Jackets on the 31st, spent New Years in Ohio, came home and then beat the Flames on the 3rd. The team’s been playing really well, more importantly; Alyssa’s been playing really well. I don’t what happened, but she’s been a whole different player, she seems angrier on the ice, but Alex doesn’t care, she’s getting her job done, and she’s making goals.

It’s January 6th, everyone’s meeting at the arena so that the bus can take us to the airport, we’re going to be heading to California to play against the Sharks and Kings. Alyssa’s excited to get to some heat because it’s been mighty cold in DC lately.

On the plane ride to California, I watched as Alyssa played poker with some of the guys and robbed them of their money. I decided to play against her, and lost a hundred dollars and a new watch. Alex played her, managed to win my watch back for me, but that’s it.

“Damn girl, who taught you how to play?!”

“My Gramps,” she smirked and then shuffled the deck of cards, “Anyone else?”

“No way, you’ll make us broke,” Nick said and Alyssa laughed and I smirked because I liked her laughed.

“How ‘bout a game that we don’t have to give up money for?” Cody Eakin said and Alyssa shrugged her shoulders.

“What do you have in mind?”

“You ever hear of the game kemps?” Cody asked and I didn’t know, but I saw Alyssa’s face light up, guess she has.

“I haven’t played that game in years!” she smiled brightly, “Oh my god, we have to play!”

“All right,” Cody laughed, “Marc, you in?” Cody asked Marcus Johansson.

“Yeah why not,” Marcus said and then walked towards the table.

Alyssa looked around and smirked towards me, “Mike, you wanna be my teammate?”

“You’re gunna have to explain the rules to me,” I said and she smirked and nodded her head.

“All right,” she said and I sat next to her, “Well first off, you’ll be sitting across from me, but we have to make up a signal,” Alyssa said and I looked at her confused.

“All right, I wanna play winner!” Nick said and we looked at him.

“Do you even know how to play this game?” Cody asked and Alyssa giggled.

“No, but I’m listening to AJ explain it,” he said and Alyssa nodded her head.

“You need a partner,” she said and Nick looked at our Captain and patted his shoulder.

“Got one.”

“I don’t know how to play,” Alex muttered and Nick shrugged his shoulders.

“Neither do I,” he said and Alex sighed and nodded his head and listened to Alyssa explain the rules.

“The object of the game is to have four of a kind, all the sixes, sevens, kings, queens- Whatever, you just need all of them. Each team needs to make up a signal, they can have more than one, but they can’t use words, needs to be hand gestures, body movement, anything but saying words. There can be more than four players, so really you and Alex can play,” Alyssa said and Nick nodded his head, “We’ll just have to move the seats around,” she said and the guys nodded their heads, “Because your teammate needs to be across from you, whether it’s in a circle or a square…”

Alyssa went on explaining how we can call Kemps on other players, when we believe that they have four of a kind, if we’re right, we win, if we’re wrong, they win and we get stuck with a letter, the first team to spell out the word ‘Kemps’ loses the game.

Cody then explained that each person needed to have four cards in their hand at all times; he said that the dealer would place four cards on the table and we would need to trade the cards. Four cards needed to be in our hands and four cards needed to be on the table.

“This sounds like fun,” I smirked and Alyssa nodded her head and then stood up.

“We gotta make a signal,” she said and I nodded my head and brought her towards the back of the plane, while Nick and Alex went towards the front of the plane and Cody and Marcus stayed at the table.

“What do you want the signal to be?” I asked and she turned her back towards the others.

“We can have more than one, we can try to trick them, look at our watch, run our hands through our hair, bang our knee on the table- Anything.”

“Well, you have a habit of chewing on your nails when your thinking about something,” I said and she looked at me confused.

“I do?” she asked and I smirked and nodded my head.

“That could be a signal,” I said and she smirked and nodded her head.

“All right, that will be my signal,” Alyssa said and I nodded my head, “What about you?”

“Scratch my arm,” I said and Alyssa nodded her head.

“Make sure you add some fake ones in there too, we want to throw them off.”

“I’m really liking this game,” I smirked and Alyssa laughed and rolled her eyes.

When everyone was ready, we walked back to the table and moved it out more, Alyssa, Marcus, Alex, myself, Cody and Nick all sat around the circular table and saw that some of the other guys were interested in seeing where this game was going.

Cody shuffled the deck and then handed four cards to each player, I looked at mine to see that I had the four of diamonds, King of clubs, King of hearts and nine of spades, ‘…Guess I’m going for Kings…’ I looked up towards Alyssa and saw her smirking at her hand, ‘…Guess she has a good hand…’

Cody placed four cards on the table, ace of hearts, five of clubs, eight of diamonds and the Queen of diamonds. I didn’t need anything, but I figured that I could trick everyone and grab the five and put the four down in it’s place. Marcus and Alex fought over the ace, but Marcus ended up getting it first.

“Sorry Cap, gunna have to be fast than that,” Marcus smirked and Alyssa giggled.

“Everyone finished?” Cody asked and everyone nodded their heads, so Cody pulled the four cards on the table away and placed four new cards.

Alyssa quickly snatched the three of spades and three of hearts on the table and placed the King of diamonds and the four of hearts down. I smirked and grabbed for the King, but Cody grabbed it first and I mentally cursed, ‘…At least I know he has the other King…’

“Oh sorry Green, we’re you going for that,” Cody smirked and I rolled my eyes.

“Put down a damn card,” Alyssa growled and I smirked when I saw him put down the three of clubs, Alyssa snatched that up and laid down a Queen spades, which Alex snatched up. I looked at everyone; they were looking at their cards.

‘…Does she only have three?...’ I thought and then watched as Cody cleaned the table and replaced the four cards, I kept my head low, but looked at Alyssa, she looked at me and then brought her thumb to her mouth, “Kemps!”

“What?” Nick asked and Alyssa smiled brightly and laid her cards on the table, all four threes.

“Yes!” I cheered and then high fived Alyssa.

“This is an intense game,” Alex Semin laughed and I leaned back in my chair and enjoyed the round one victory.

“What now?” Nick asked.

“You four finish the round to decide who gets the letter,” Alyssa said and they nodded their heads and Alyssa and I watched.

-Alyssa-

“Kemps,” I called on Cody and Marcus and Cody growled and threw his four ones on the table.

“You’re supposed to be paying attention!” he yelled to Marcus.

“He was, I just said it faster,” I smirked and Mike chuckled and high fived me.

“I can’t play card games with you, you’re like good at every game,” Nick growled as he threw his cards on the table since before I called Kemps on Cody and Marcus, they take another letter.

“Thank you,” I smirked.

“I needed one more five and I would have had them all,” Alex growled and I smirked and showed my cards.

“This five?” I laughed and Alex sighed.

“Yeah, that five,” Alex grumbled, “All right, I don’t want to play anymore.”

I laughed and shook my head, “Why? Because you’re not winning, at least these guys have more letters than you,” I said talking about Cody and Marcus because they had ‘K-E-M’ while Alex and Nick had ‘K-E’ and Mike and I had only ‘K’.

“How much longer until this flight is over?” Marcus asked and turned in his seat while Mike collected the cards.

“About three more hours,” someone said and the guys sighed.

“All right, might as well finish it,” Alex said and I smirked and watched as Mike passed out the cards after he shuffled them.

“We can make this interesting,” I smirked and the guys looked at me, “Money-“

“NO!!!” they yelled and I laughed because they knew that I would win it all from them.

‘…Thank you Gramps for teaching me how to gamble…’