I stared down at my phone, my mind a blank slate. Six days ago I met her, four days ago I left her my favorite jersey, yesterday I sent her flowers, today she was finally answering me, and now the noodles of my brain didn’t want to connect enough to form a coherent sentence. I felt like an awkward fifteen-year-old kid trying hard not to fuck it up.
Smiley face. She put a smiley face—I might have a shot. I would have felt better about my odds if it were one of those winky faces, but I’d take what I could get.
Here goes nothing…
YOU’RE WELCOME, I’M GLAD YOU LIKE THEM. MAYBE NEXT TIME I GIVE YOU FLOWERS, I CAN DELIVER THEM IN PERSON WHEN I’M PICKING YOU UP FOR DINNER?
My heart pounded in my chest. I had never asked a girl out via text before, and it definitely wasn’t my preferred method, but at this point, I’d take what I could get from her. It was forty-five minutes before my phone beeped again. Okay, it was really only two, but it felt like forty-five.
K: ABOUT THAT … IT WOULD BE FUN TO HAVE DINNER, I’M JUST REALLY BUSY RIGHT NOW WITH SCHOOL AND THE GIRLS.
Bullshit.
SO, YOU DON’T EAT DURING THE SCHOOL YEAR? THANK GOD IT’S SUMMER.
K: OF COURSE I EAT, I’M JUST KINDA TOO BUSY RIGHT NOW FOR DATING.
DATING IN GENERAL OR DATING ME?
Please say dating in general, please say dating in general.
K: I KNOW THIS IS GOING TO SOUND REALLY BAD, BUT I HAVE TO BE HONEST. YOU ARE GREAT. I REALLY LIKE YOU. I JUST DON’T HAVE THE TIME TO INVEST IN SOMETHING THAT WILL LEAD ME DOWN A DEAD-END ROAD. DOES THAT MAKE SENSE?
Ouch.
That was the first time a girl had ever referred to my advances as a dead-end road and it was a kick in the balls. Why was I so damn determined to get this girl to go out with me? She clearly had some deep scars and should be easy to walk away from, but instead of running the other direction I wanted to scoop her up, clean her off and make her world good again. I felt defeated.
YEAH, I GET IT. FRIENDS?
K: OF COURSE! MAYBE THE GIRLS AND I CAN COME SEE A GAME SOMETIME. :)
Fuck you, smiley face.
I was annoyed. She closed the door before I even got to it, and then locked it … twice. She knew nothing about me. How could she decide that quickly what should and shouldn’t be? That day at the inn outside in the rain, there was a moment when we were hovering over a puddle, her arms around my neck and it was there. She felt it; I felt it, even if I was the only one willing to admit it. I saw it in her eyes. Now here she was, less than a week later feeding me a line of bull about why it wouldn’t work. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince me, or herself.
The stale air in my condo was suffocating and I needed to get out, work off some of this frustration. I snatched my cell phone from the coffee table. “Hey, you busy? Wanna meet me at The House in twenty minutes? Okay, see ya then.”
One of the perks of being a professional hockey player is having a state of the art fitness center and an ice rink available to me just about any time I wanted. In the locker room a few seasons ago, one of the guys referred to the stadium as “The House” and the nickname had stuck ever since. I pulled my truck into the parking lot and made a sharp left, stopping next to Viper, who was sitting in his truck on the phone, his driver’s side door wide open.
“Fine, do whatever the fuck you want!” Viper threw the phone across the cab of his truck, watching as it shattered when it bounced off the other side. “Fuck!” he yelled, running his hand through his shoulder length blonde hair and slamming his door.
“What’s up, Murphy?” He shook my right hand and grabbed my shoulder with his left.
“Um, well…” I nodded toward his truck. “You’re going to need a new phone.”
“Yeah, second time this month I’ve broken one.”
“What’s going on?” I asked as we walked toward the stadium.
Viper sighed. “Same old shit. Kat thinks I’m cheating, so she’s moving out. What else is new? I don’t care anymore, she can go.”
“Are you cheating … again?”
A shit-eating grin spread across his unshaven face as he looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “Maybe.”
I reached around and smacked the back of his head. “You really live up to your name sometimes, Viper.”