Thank you! It’s such an honor.
Then Elson, a rookie player for the Condors, gave up the puck behind his own net, accidentally passing it out front to Nilsson of the Canucks, who instantly scooped it into the Condors’ net for the first goal of the game.
Jordyn tweeted, OMG OMG OMG what was that, Elson???
I could feel the pain in her tweet. That was a gift to Vancouver.
No shit. OMG. I can’t believe he did that.
Mistakes happen.
We kept watching and then Jordyn tweeted. LOL I can’t believe Paterson just said that!
What did he say? I apparently wasn’t paying attention to the TV network commentary.
Keddie’s still on his knees in front of Blake Morand.
I laughed out loud. Morand was the Condors goaltender.
He always says things like that. Once he said about you…Chase Hartman just took a pounding.
I blinked, but that amused me too. OMG
Just listen.
Jordyn was a dirty girl. I liked that.
I paid more attention but it wasn’t until the third period I picked up on something Rex Paterson said. “And Joseph was squeezed off by Coppola…”
With a grin I tapped in a tweet but Jordyn must have been doing the same at the exact same time, as our matching tweets came up simultaneously. I laughed again as she replied to mine with a bunch of exclamation marks.
Shaking my head I fell back into my couch cushions. Was she laughing too? Having as much fun as I was?
I’d totally forgotten the frustrating conversation with my parents earlier.
Chapter 6
Chase
CHICAGO
DECEMBER
Leafs vs Condors—it’s on baby! I smiled at my phone.
Jordyn’s response made me frown. What do the Leafs and the Titanic have in common?
What?
They both look good until they hit the ice!
Ha. Very funny. You obviously haven’t been paying attention this year.
Last year my Leafs had taken the number one draft pick, and the kid was amazing. With some other changes, they’d been playing some good hockey this season.
I’ll bet you the Condors win.
A bet? Hmmmm. What are we wagering?
I don’t know…
How about this. If the Leafs win, you go on a date with me.
I sat there staring at my phone. I’d typed that and sent it before I’d really thought about it. Fuck.
I was going down in flames. Crashing and burning. I’d just asked Jordyn Banks out on a date and there was no fucking way she was going to agree to that. I wanted to hurl my phone into the fire burning in the fireplace in my condo and never look at Twitter again so I wouldn’t have to live through the humiliation.
All right, hockey dude, you’re on. It’s a bet.
Jesus. Jesus fucking Christ. She’d agreed to it.
I just needed the Leafs to win.
Christ, I’d never been so on edge during a game I wasn’t playing. This was nuts.
We tweeted back and forth during the game, a little trash talk, another dirty comment by the commentator (“Egorov slides his hand down his shaft when he needs to…”) which had us both cracking up. The Condors went ahead by a goal early in the first period, then scored again at the beginning of the third. My stomach was knotted, and I was bouncing my knee up and down as I watched the Leafs get possession of the puck and rush toward the Condors’ net. I pumped a fist in the air when the puck slid over the goal line. “Yeah!”
Okay. One more goal and it would be tied. I tapped my fingers on my coffee table. It took until there were only three minutes left in the third period, but they did it. This time I actually jumped to my feet.
Shit. How the hell would I take her on a date? We lived in different cities, on opposite sides of the country. I was on a road trip next week and who the hell knew what her schedule was like. And even if we could find a day to make it happen, what would we do? Go out for dinner? A movie? Phht. How the hell did someone come up with something special enough for Jordyn Banks?
It might not happen anyway. The Leafs needed to score, or it was going into overtime and that was—yeah! I stared at the TV openmouthed. They did it! They fucking did it! Forty-two seconds left in the third period. They had to hang on…
And they did, winning the face-off and killing time until the horn sounded. Game over. Leafs won.
I grinned. So. I guess we have a date.
A deal is a deal.
Hopefully she knew I really meant this too. I wasn’t just screwing around on social media. I was going on a goddamn date with Jordyn Banks.
I sent her a brief message: DM
We’d been doing this all in public, and I knew people were seeing it and talking about it, but they weren’t going to watch us plan our date. That was going to be done privately. I hope you know I’m serious and intend to collect on my bet.
And I intend to live up to my end.
I nodded. Okay, when are we doing this?
And where.
Right.
We were off to Dallas tomorrow, home for a game, then to Washington mid-week. Then we had a Friday night home game but Saturday off. I sent her these details.
She responded, I have to be in New York Dec 10 for the Mistletoe Magic concert on Dec 11. I guess I could fly to Chicago on the 9th then go to New York the next day.
December 9 was my Saturday off. And it was just over a week away. Holy shit. Really? You’d come here? Cause not sure when I could get to LA. We didn’t have a West Coast road trip until March. We did have a five-day stretch in January with no games, but that was a fuck of a long way off.
I think so. Would that work for you?
Yeah.
I’ll confirm ASAP.
My phone beeped with an incoming text message. I switched screens and saw it was from Brick.
Do you seriously have a date with Jordyn Banks????
I grinned. Yep.
Holy fuck, man! The whole world is talking about this.
Ah, shit. I went back to Twitter and scrolled through it, gnawing on my bottom lip. Oh hell, my mentions were blowing up hard. I closed it down and messaged Brick back. It’ll blow over.
When are you taking her out?
Next Saturday.
Holeeeeeeey shit!
No big deal.
Bullshit! You’re probably freaking the fuck out.
Yeah, I kind of was. Wasn’t about to admit it though. Just chillin’. Hey, Leafs won.
LOL
* * *
—
I was freaking the fuck out.
It was Saturday. The day of my date with Jordyn.
I’d discovered that she’d grown up in Chicago. How had I not known that?
I’d learned this from some of the blog articles that had popped up online since our very public Twitter bet. Reporters had been hounding me all week, asking questions about it, trying to find out when and where our date was going to be, but Jordyn and I had agreed not to make that public. People were probably going to find out, but we weren’t going to tell them and have a huge crowd watching us. So I kept my mouth zipped shut and just laughed off their questions. Even so, they wrote shit and posted it, speculating all kinds of things about us.
Knowing she was from Chicago made the pressure so much more. She knew Chicago, so I couldn’t take her somewhere touristy. And I couldn’t take her somewhere she’d be swarmed with fans. It was December so not exactly weather for an outdoor date, although it was pretty nice today for Chicago in December. And it wouldn’t be very exciting if I took her somewhere she’d been a million times.
The guys had laughed at me all week, giving me crazy-ass ideas like taking her to the Sears Tower, or Portillo’s for hotdogs, or suggesting I make dinner for her at my place. (I can’t cook.) Bomber suggested taking her to a karaoke bar. That was met with my middle finger. “Maybe I should come with you,” Brick had said. “Like, on a double date.” I’d turned down that offer too.