by Kat Obie
Jenna smiled. Corey was right. She wanted love like that, and just to be madly in love. While she really liked Corey, it wasn’t true love yet. She hoped that things would continue to go in that direction. She knew that she needed to spend more time with him.
“So what were you thinking about dinner?” asked Jenna.
“Since you like Italian, I figured that we could go to one of my favorite places in Little Italy. Then we can meet up at Alice and Scotty’s for drinks after.”
Jenna was touched. He was listening to her and had planned what sounded like a perfect evening. She followed him out of the airport. She wasn’t too surprised to see he had a fancy black SUV. She realized that would probably be one of the few times she would have a chance to be in a Bentley.
The dinner was delicious and filled with easy conversation. The restaurant was a busy but lovely spot. The conversation just seemed to flow, like it did so many evenings in a row. If she wasn’t careful, she would be falling in love with him.
Corey
Corey almost dreaded driving toward Scotty’s place. It would mean their evening would be ending soon. While he hoped that Jenna would come home with him, he knew that she was technically staying as a guest at Alice’s place.
He looked over to Jenna. She was quiet but had a large smile on her face. Her brown eyes were shining. He asked, “Going into a food coma?”
“Maybe. That was soooo good. Thank you.”
Corey laughed and said, “No problem. If you don’t want to hang out with Alice and Scotty, we could just go to my place.”
“No. I want to go there if only to borrow the car and see Alice a tiny bit. Let’s not stay there too long.”
“Deal.” That actually made him think that she would come to his place after all.
As Corey pulled into the gated community, he slowed down. He wasn’t sure why he was nervous. He hung out with Scotty, and even Alice, a lot. The fact that Jenna and Alice were close friends wouldn’t change that dynamic. But he was honestly used to going there as a single guy. Now he was bringing his new girlfriend to the most perfect couple that he knew, it was intimidating. What if they couldn’t match up in the same ways? Trying to keep his mind off of his silly fears, he asked, “Did Al warn you about the dogs?”
“Yeah. She loves them but said to let Chloe warm up to you first.”
Corey laughed and said, “She warned you about Chloe? Chloe is so well behaved and just an absolute sweetie. It’s Backup that you have to watch out for. He’s insane. Between his desire to play or his mistaken belief that he’s a lap dog, you got to keep an eye on him.”
“Seriously? I know he’s hyper but Alice mentioned that Chloe could be skittish around women.”
“That’s what Scotty keeps saying, but other than Bridge, Chloe loves everyone.” It was weird, Chloe seemed to hate Bridge. Scotty tried to say it was all women but Bridge said it was only the one person.
“Bridge?”
He was so used to using nicknames all the time, he forgot that anyone else wouldn’t know who he was talking about. “Lager’s wife.”
“Wait, I knew that. It’s a lot of nicknames. Wait a minute, what’s yours?”
“Coaches call me CC but the guys typically say Cor or Corey. I know it’s a lot of names to learn but it should be just the four of us tonight.”
He pulled into Scotty’s driveway and parked the car. Then the two of them hopped out and went to the main door. Without even ringing the bell, Alice opened the door with one hand and the other hand was holding on to Backup’s collar to keep him from running out or tackling them with kisses. Chloe was also close to her feet too but safe from running out or tripping them.
As Corey entered, he said, “You need backup for that one.”
Corey reached down to pet the wild puppy. Which led to Backup trying to leap onto Corey’s chest. Fortunately Backup wasn’t able to take him down to the ground since the puppy hadn’t reached his full size yet. Corey just pushed the two legs down and then the two of them through the door even though Backup wanted all the attention in the world from him. That got both Jenna and Alice laughing. Fortunately, Jenna was allowed to get through the door without any problems.
While Backup was still trying to get Corey to play with him, Chloe sniffed the two of them and quickly walked away.
“Come on in. Make yourself at home,” said Alice as she led the way for Jenna and left Corey to continue to deal with Backup and his attention seeking. Alice knew that he knew the way around the house. “What would you like to drink?”
Jenna’s interest was piqued. “You know you have to show me what you have.”
“Follow me.”
“I’m going to check in on Scotty. Can you grab me an IPA?” asked Corey.
Jenna laughed. “You might be out of luck. That’s not a style Alice likes and she doesn’t usually keep them in stock.”
Alice made a face for a moment as she tried to recall what she had in the refrigerator and said, “I think I might have two. A Christmas doughnut IPA and a watermelon one. Although I might have finished that. I can’t remember.”
Corey shook his head. Both sounded intriguing but way too sweet for him.. “Just give me something not too sweet and true to style.”
“Got it,” said Jenna.
Corey headed toward the living room to join Scotty. The whole time the oversized puppy kept weaving in and out of Corey’s legs. As soon as Scotty caught sight of Corey and Backup, Scotty immediately snapped his fingers and called, “Come here, Backup.”
Immediately Backup peeled away and leaped into Scotty’s lap. Scotty gave a slight oomph sound before he started to rub Backup’s ears. Corey sat down on the opposite end of the couch. He noticed that Scotty had the Flyers game on, most likely for Alice. At the same time, Scotty being such a hockey nerd, he might have been watching it for himself.
Corey asked, “How’s things? I feel like you’ve been a ghost lately.”
“Exhausting. It feels like some days I’m barely home. It’s been good though. I’ll be glad to be done with the scouting after one last trip. The doc gave me the go-ahead to start skating a couple days a week so you should be seeing me in a couple days.”
“Awesome.” Corey was excited to hear that he might be returning to the ice again.
Finally the girls came into the room. Alice handed Scotty a drink and Jenna handed Corey one. “Hopefully this is okay,” said Jenna as he appraised the label of a lager from a brewery he never heard of before. Jenna immediately sat on the loveseat close to him, but he wished he could have pulled her toward him. With Backup taking space on the couch near Scotty, Alice sat on the chair across from him.
Corey had to laugh when he heard Alice say “Fucking hell” as she noticed the score.
“Calm down, Al. It’s only one goal,” said Scotty with a laugh. The look she shot back at him was so dirty that Corey wanted to laugh. She was practically daring Scotty to say something else, which broke him into laughter.
“Is she always like that?” asked Corey.
“When Flyers hockey is on, yup,” said Scotty. Backup climbed off the couch and joined Jenna on the loveseat, which stirred up several emotions in him. Corey realized he was jealous of the damn dog because he got to cuddle up with Jenna instead of him. He knew he should have joined her when he had the chance. Scotty turned to Alice and said, “Come on and sit with me, babe. Please, try not to scare our guests.” Alice immediately sat next to Scotty and he wrapped his arm around her.
Jenna laughed with the one of the sweetest laughs he’d heard as she said, “It’s nothing I haven’t seen or heard before. Don’t forget we go to games together.”
After a moment or two, Backup got up from the loveseat and started to chew on one of his toys. That’s when Corey decided to move to sit next to Jenna. Even if Jenna wasn’t there, he would have moved over if only to give the two lovebirds more space. But he loved when Jenna just leaned into him. He happily wrapped his both arms around her.
; It didn’t take long for Corey to realize that Alice never stopped swearing. Didn’t matter if it was good or bad plays. Corey heard less cursing on the ice than what she was saying tonight. It didn’t help that Scotty was feeding into her swearing by pointing out the flaws of the play or just teasing her the entire time.
While Alice was the vocal one, it didn’t take long to see how invested Jenna was in the game. She would mutter under her breath or turn into Corey’s chest from time to time in disappointment. After what seemed like the dozenth time of her turning toward him after a busted scoring chance, he made his move and kissed Jenna’s lips. They were like silk and he pressed into them more and more since she was completely reciprocating.
When he pulled back, she had a sweet smile and her eyes were half closed. He knew she was elated. She whispered, “If you do that every time they miss, I might want them to lose.”
That got Corey smiling. He didn’t want to embarrass her by being crass in front of Alice and Scotty, so he whispered right back, “Oh, I know ways to make you very, very happy and distract you if they lose tonight.”
“What if they win?” asked Jenna.
“You have to make me very happy.”
“Is that so?” asked Jenna, almost daring him. She may have wanted it but she wasn’t going to be submissive or be told what to do. She was going to make Corey work for it and that was alright by him.
“They are going to lose, so I’m not worried about it,” said Corey a tad cockily and a little louder than he should have. Immediately he received a hard elbow to his abs from Jenna causing him to say, “Ooompf.”
Scotty laughed and said, “I thought you knew better than to say anything like that in this house.” He looked down at Alice to remind her what team he was rooting for before he kissed her temple.
“You never mentioned there could be violence,” joked Corey.
“That’s cause I only rile her up with stuff that can’t be denied. Besides I know to restrain Alice and have a damn good reason to tell her that the Flyers suck. I won’t lie, I’m half surprised Alice didn’t throw her beer at you too.”
“I didn’t want to waste a perfectly good beer,” piped in Alice while she looked down at her beer.
At that point everyone was laughing. Scotty was right, he should have known better to say that the Flyers would lose and not expect something to happen. Everyone knew Alice was a die hard fan of the team and he knew that Jenna was just as much a die-hard Flyers fan.
He looked toward Jenna and said, “I’m sorry, babe. Well, sorta.”
“Sorta?” Jenna shot him a look. “How are you only sorta sorry?”
“I don’t like upsetting you, but I will stand by my prediction,” he said with a smile, hoping he wasn’t going to take another elbow. Fortunately, he didn’t get that second elbow. He kissed Jenna very tentatively hoping that he had made enough amends that she returned the kiss.
As the game went on, the Flyers started to turn up the offense. Corey realized that Alice had gone quiet. At first, he assumed it was because she was happy the game was turning in her favor but he realized that Jenna wasn’t saying anything or moving either like she did earlier in the game. He looked down to see she was out cold in his arms. So Alice must have noticed and was trying to let her friend sleep. While he loved how good it felt, he realized the possibility of having her come home with him was gone.
Alice got up to refill everyone’s drinks during one of the TV timeouts late in the third. When she was out of earshot, Scotty asked, “So what’s your plan for tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
“You can stay here. Camp out on the couch until she wakes up.”
Corey wanted to scoff. As much as he would have liked to stay, the idea of sleeping on Scotty’s couch or having sex in his guest room was a huge cockblock. Almost as if Scotty was reading his mind, he said, “Dude, you know Al and I are going to do it. I don’t care if you do it. It’s not like we don’t know what you’re planning, so who cares if it’s at my place or yours.”
“I care.”
Scotty shrugged but didn’t say anything more. Alice returned with drinks. She handed water to the guys while she held on to the beer. Scotty pulled her onto the couch next to him into a tight hug. The three of them were pretty quiet trying to let Jenna sleep in peace.
Late into the third period, the Flyers scored the go ahead goal causing Alice to explode in happiness with a loud, “Fuck yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.”
Jenna woke up and gave him the sweetest smile as she took in her surroundings, but she seemed confused. Then she looked at the score. He had to kiss her soft lips again. As he did so, he said, “Hey, babe.”
“Hey. Looks like you were wrong about the game.”
“Yeah. But I’m happy to be proven wrong. So what do you want to do tonight? You were out pretty good.”
Jenna started to think. It was clear that she was debating her options. Corey hoped it was going home with him. “Don’t hate me. But I think I want to go to bed pretty soon.”
“Trust me. I won’t hate you. I may not love it, but I understand.” He leaned down to kiss her one more time. He moved the kisses toward her ear so he could whisper, “Scotty said it was okay for me to stay the night if you wanted me to.”
“That seems nice. Are you sure you’re okay with that?”
“For you, anything.”
6
Corey
Corey was enjoying his time up on the second line since Scotty went down with the knee injury. It was the sucky part of the job, but sometimes opportunities came at the expense of a friend’s health. Fortunately, there was no question about whether Scotty could make a full rebound. It was more about how long it would take for him to get healthy againg. Everyone knew Scotty would go back to the top line, but there was a solid chance of him remaining on the second line if Corey continued to score. During the last few weeks, he had solid performance and had about seventeen points over the last ten games.
He was well on his way to get an apple as he was flying through the zone. He knew it wouldn’t be a goal since he relied on Hartsy to make the shot since he had the angle. Almost simultaneously, he pulled the goalie to the right side as he sent the puck onto Hartsy’s tape. Instead of being able to really see what happened to Hartsy’s shot, he got crushed into the boards by the Senators player that was defending against him.
Corey let out the instinctual “Fuck” as he got himself back into the play.
Of course, the asshole from the Sens immediately chirped, “What, I can’t hit you?”
Corey didn’t say anything since there was a loose puck to be had. Besides he knew anything he said would just feed the asshole’s taunts. Fortunately, he was faster than the Senators’ defenseman and he had the puck on his stick again. But he didn’t really have control of the puck and it got trapped between his feet. He was starting to look down to locate it, which he knew was super risky this close to the boards, yet that was the only way to find the puck again. He jabbed the puck with the backhand of his stick if only to send it loose towards the net in hopes that Hartsy could get to it again. This time the cross-check was even later and his head pounded into the plexiglass.
“For fuck’s sake,” Corey said as he used his hand to realign his helmet. The whistle blew, so he knew it was time for him to get off the ice. He was in no shape to play at that moment but a quick rest would help. He wasn’t even sure if he was skating in a straight line toward the bench, nor did he really care. His bell just got rung twice in the same shift.
As he was climbing over the boards, Coach Berman asked, “You okay, CC?”
“Yup.”
“You sure?”
“I’m 200%,” said Corey with more bravado than he felt, but if he didn’t give off the bravado, Berman would have immediately benched him. He was fine, at least he thought was, but it was hard to tell this close after the hit. He just needed not to get sent off.
Berman just gave him a look like he was a d
umb shit. Corey didn’t care. Andy, who was next to him, just said, “Really? 200%? You expect me to think you’re okay?”
“Yup.” Corey turned his focus down toward the ice where play was happening. He was trying to pretend that he wasn’t getting woozy. He really didn’t care if Andy believed he was okay. He just cared that Berman did.
It seemed like all too soon his line was being sent back out on the ice. His head was pounding. Somehow he was able to get the play off despite the feeling in his head. He had two shots on goal. But he did kick himself for shooting five hole since if he had been paying attention, he could have had an empty net if he went for the top shelf.
As he got back to the bench at the end of the shift, Doc said, “CC, dark room now!”
Corey was pretty sure Doc wanted to say a few other things after that especially since Doc had his number. It would be highly unlikely he could return in the game, but he refused to give up just yet. He kept all his gear on as he sat in the dark room. As he started to go through the concussion protocol, it was clear the trainers didn’t like his results. They made him take off his stuff and he tried to stay still. As he felt the effects of the hit, he just hoped that Jenna didn’t see it.
Jenna
Jenna was following the Sound game. The start of the game was going well for Corey and she was loving seeing him play so many more minutes. He was playing hard and free-wheeling and starting to rack up the points. It seemed like he was on a tear initially but then he got boarded.
Almost immediately, she called Alice. She needed a friend at this moment. Fortunately, Alice picked up the phone almost immediately and said, “Hey. What’s up?”
“Aren’t you watching the game?”
“I am. How about you?”
“I am and I hate seeing Corey get boarded like that.”
“Yeah. That was nasty. I’m honestly surprised the guy didn’t get a penalty. He will have a fine. That was a clear head shot.”
“Think Cor’s okay?”
“Yeah. They are showing him on the bench talking. So he just had his bell rung.”
