Sparkling Hope (The Eastburgh Devils Series Book 1)

I choked on my cocoa and tried to suppress the coughing and not let it show.

‘Are you okay?’ Aria gently patted me on the back until I could breathe properly again.

I knew she meant Henry and, therefore, Weston’s cousin.

While the two share a last name, luckily not have the same shitty and selfish character because Weston already does that for both of them.

Aria and Henry have some classes together, and when they were put in a group for a project last month, it must have developed exactly what she just told me.

‘Do you guys even really know each other?’

‘That’s not what it’s about. It’s just about the sex,’ Aria replied.

I didn’t really know Henry. She has told me a few things before, but that the two of them turned a project in English literature into a project in bed was new to me.

He made a nice impression.

Henry was also the reason why we got into the Sigma Devil in the first place because they have such a bullshit rule that people only got in by invitation from one of the hockey players.

Despite showering and washing my hands thoroughly, I still had the stamp with a devil on the back of my hand.

‘What are you guys doing now?’ I asked, confused, blowing on the rim of the cup.

‘Nothing,’ she began to explain what may or may not be between Henry and her, ‘after Jack, I am not in the mood for a relationship,’ she continued, describing her no strings attached fuck friendship with the Eastburgh Devils goalie.

Jack was Aria’s ex-boyfriend.

The two were in a long-distance relationship because he attended college in Easthill, a small New Jersey shore town.

The two met in elementary school and got together in high school, and until two months ago, they still wore rose-colored glasses.

Aria was still wearing them because it turned out that Jack had already cheated on her a few times.

I could have sworn until this point before it came out what an asshole he was that they would be mirroring this perfect storybook family shortly.

That’s how quickly everything could change.

‘How is it with Weston?’ She deflected from the subject.

‘It’s terrible. I hate him.’

‘That doesn’t quite explain what makes him so awful now, though.’

‘He’s breathing.’

She looked at me, confused with her light blue eyes.

I’ve expressed quite well what makes Weston so exhausting.

 Just the fact that this guy was breathing ruined my day.

‘He just barged into the bathroom when I was half naked. This guy can’t even knock on a fucking door,’ I said, stunned.

The first encounter was not only the worst but also the most embarrassing.

‘You should try to flirt with him.’

‘WHAT?’ I hissed.

‘After all, you live under the same roof. He has what you want, and you have what he wants. Besides, I hear he’s pretty good in bed,’ Aria whispered as if others were here.

Stunned, I looked at her and realized she really meant what she said.

I would even guess Weston started that rumor himself.

‘You’re not serious, are you?’

Please let Aria’s idea be a joke.

‘I never slept with him, but that’s what some in my psychology class say.’

I really do live under the same roof with a wannabe sex god.

‘So give it a try,’ she prodded me.

She really meant it.

‘Anything but that.’ I slid down from the stool, picked up my empty cup, set it in the sink, and grabbed my apron from the storage room.

I knotted the ribbons of the apron at my waist into a bow, and as   I tied my hair, Aria explained what we needed to do. ‘We need to decorate the windows for Halloween and prepare salads and smoothies for Monday. I will bake the Muffins and cookies tomorrow night so they will be fresh.’

She handed me a list of other things we needed to do today, and I was still unsure if this list was stressing me out or reminding me that it was finally Halloween.

Aria’s and my absolute favorite day.

There was also nothing better than horror movies, and Aria loved them as much as I did.

We both loved that tension, that tingle in the stomach, when the killer started to hunt the main characters.

We desperately needed a costume since next week is Halloween, and we were invited by Henry to the Halloween party at Sigma Devils.

Aria and I shared a Pinterest pin board where we collected ideas for twosome costumes.

Pinterest was a reflection of my soul.

But before we could think about what we would wear to the party, the cafe had to be decorated.

We weren’t required to make the place look like a creepy cabinet, but Aria loved decorating the cafe to match the holidays.

On Valentine’s Day, she would hang little hearts from the ceiling with ribbon in the middle of the night.

Aria would sell her soul to make this cafe look perfect, and she already did.

She renovated the cafe during spring break with Jack when they were still a couple.

Even though I hated him with every bone in my body, I’m sad to admit that the two of them really made something out of the cafe.

There were three of us waiters in total.

Aria, Landon, and me.

She was here the most. Usually into the night and baked everything fresh for the day after.

Landon had only been there a short time, and we tried to split the shifts fairly as best we could, but sometimes it was so busy that one of us would call in a panic and ask for help.

Most of the time, it was just the students who had noisy roommates or met in study groups in the cafe anyway.

Then we had the professors who kept the coffee fund ringing when they pulled out a coffee and something for lunch during their breaks.

We didn’t take in the measures of money, but since Aria took over significantly more than before, it was enough to pay for the food, electricity, and our shifts.

Aria said that she doesn’t expect that much profit at the end of the month because she just enjoys baking.

She baked like a goddess.

Last but not least, we had the hockey players who spent the most time in the cafe because the ice arena was only a few minutes away from campus.

They were the ones who stayed the longest, ordered the least, and left nothing in the coffee box.

From how the team showed up, whether the practice had gone well or poorly was always obvious.

The Eastburgh Devils were carried on their hands, especially our college leader Mr. Thornton was proud of this team.

When they won a home game, they usually hung out in the bar only a few minutes from campus.

If they lost a game, they would walk by this building, and if practice went well, they would usually meet here.

After a while, little ghosts and spiders were hanging down all over the ceiling, garlands with pumpkins on the big windows, and a colorful string of lights around the thick concrete pillar.

‘Done,’ I climbed off the ladder and looked up at the little ghosts I was taping to the ceiling over the counter.

‘Me too,’ Aria called out, still hanging the last plastic spider in the spider web by the coffee machine.

So at the latest, when you enter the store now, you know it’s Halloween. I didn’t know if the kitschy, over-the-top decorations were inviting or more off-putting.

Aria rummaged around in her bag. ‘I have something else for you.’

She put on a white hairband with a feather-covered halo and handed me a hairband with two little red glittery horns.

‘We’re going to wear these during our shifts now on Halloween, are we? Because if we do, I’m afraid I’ll have to quit.’

‘You would never do that; otherwise, you will be banned from the cafe and from having cocoa,’ she argued.

I would kill for cocoa.

‘This will be our Halloween costume,’ she proudly announced, unlocking her phone to show me a picture she had saved.

‘I’ve already added us to the list so our costumes won’t duplicate.’

Thousands of imaginary question marks formed around my head.

‘List?’

‘At the Sigma Devils Halloween party, they just don’t want duplicate costumes.’

The Sigma Devils was the self-proclaimed fraternity of our college’s hockey team, and it was routine for a party to be held there every weekend.

I had only been to the Sigma Devils last night.

I had heard quite a bit about the parties, and they knew how to throw real parties, so people are still talking about it on campus a week after.

‘What would you think about me ordering the stuff for our costumes?’

I nodded.

‘I was starting to think we’d have to wear those headbands during our shifts,’ I breathed a sigh of relief because I thought Landon and I would have absolutely hated that idea.

‘You gave me an idea,’ she gloated.

‘And that would be?’ I asked, puzzled, pulling my jacket over me.

‘You’ll find out on Monday,’ she smirked and typed something on her cell phone.

‘If you order tacky hair bands now, Landon and I won’t be showing up for our shifts,’I warned her.

‘You’ll see,’ she grinned provocatively.

I can still accept her penchant for tacky Halloween hair bands as long as I don’t run into the young version of Brad Pit or any of the three Spider-Mans for some inexplicable reason here at the cafe.