As he greeted people, I couldn’t help but realize how we were such opposites in almost every way. Where I was all anxiety, he was calm; where I was the introvert, he was comfortable talking to any human in front of him.
“How long have you known these guys?” I asked to double-check he really did only have one meeting with them.
“Well, the hockey world is pretty small, so I’ve known a lot of their names and played against some through the years, but most of them I only met for real today. I recognized Griff earlier today because he refereed at the Ice League back home, but I never met him before today,” he said. “I remembered the blueeyes.”
I nodded; those light baby blues would be pretty memorable. But I was still shocked that he could be accepted into a group so easily while I’d only made a single friend up here in five years.
“And… Why do they keep calling you Vinny?” I inquired. I was pretty sure I hadn’t gotten his name wrong. I was the one who painstakingly wrote out all the name cards for the wedding, after all.
He laughed at that. “Well… Coach said it earlier today, and I didn’t want to correct him,” he shrugged. “He can call me whatever he wants, so long as I get to play.”
“Makes sense to me. Don’t piss off the bigguy.”
“Exactly. I guess he does it a lot, and now I’m a bit confused on what to call a couple of the guys even though I know their actual names.”
A guy who was tatted up on his entire right side interrupted us then by yelling across the lawn: “Ellie! We need your man for Spikeball!”
TJ squinted down at me, as if asking permission. This was yet another innocent look of his. It was almost like he was a little kid and his friends were coming up to knock on the door to ask if he could play outside with them.
“Go for it,” I nudged him. “I’ll go sit with the girls. Maybe not shake a baby.”
He leaned down and pressed a kiss into my hair, shocking me yet again today. No one had ever publicly shown affection to me like that, and the move felt more intimate than making out. It felt beyond fling territory…
“Better not, heard they explode sometimes,” he grinned. “I’ll just play one game. It goes to 21.” Then he was gone, jogging over to a round net on the ground with three men surroundingit.
20. TJ
“Mine!” Campbell yelled, and I moved for the optimum place to take the next spike. The game was pretty fast paced. One person threw the ball into the bouncy net, and the next group had to hit it twice before throwing it back to the net to pass to the other team.
After a perfect set from Campbell, I hit the ball hard onto the net and Duke and Griff couldn’t return it.
“Wooo!” Campbell let out a signature hockey guy yell and moved to smack me five. “Nice work, rookie.”
“Thanks, man,” I said, but my focus was not on the game. I craned my neck to try to catch a glimpse of Ellie while the other two were retrieving the ball. She looked like she had the ginger-haired baby on her lap, and she was genuinely smiling at the little thing.
Campbell stood next to me, trying to look at what I was seeing.
“Oh man! Your girl looks awfully comfy holding that baby,” he shoved me in the gut.
“She does,” I saidquietly.
“Gonna need another diaper party here soon, boys!” Campbell yelled. A diaper party was the male version of a baby shower, except instead of a classy event with wrapped up gifts and cute, little desserts hosted in a nice dining hall, all the guys just brought boxes of diapers, and everyone would drink cheap beer all night in someone’s garage. I usually would’ve cracked a joke back at this, but I wished everyone would just shut up about it. They didn’t realize how much I wanted that kinda life, but how jumpy Ellie would probably be about the topic.
Woah, I needed to slow down.
We hadn’t even gone on one successful date yet. Then again, did we even need official dates? Today was going well…Maybe I could just swing this into us hangin’ all the time and then it would just happen?
I know other guys would tell me to keep my options open and not get so hung up on one chick, especially going into this hockey season… but I had this nagging feeling that it had to be her. There was something addictive about her that pulled me in. I’d fallen into her orbit, and that’s where I wanted to stay. I just hoped she wouldn’t shove me out on my ass.
“Shit, Ellie looks like she could be Indie’s mom with her hair,” Griff said after coming back up to the net. “Is that Ellie’s natural color? We think the ginger is from my side of the fam, but no real way to really confirm it.”
“Uhh,” I thought for a moment and drew a blank. That was something I hadn’t thought to ask her. But it was also because my mind was so captured by seeing her so happy with Indie that I couldn’t think of anything else past that. She was helping the baby stand on her little chunky legs on her lap while she held her tiny hands.
Yellow swished past my face then, and I dodged the spike ball from almost hitting me at the very last second.
“Dude!” They all laughed at me. I forced myself to chuckle back. I was distracted, completely, because at that moment I was thinking of how I could move from where I was in life to where Griff was: An old guard guy on the team, with a beautiful wife and kids in tow. At least I’d know where to go for advice in Detroit.
After Campbell and I won the game, I turned down the next round and tapped little Johnny in over the other hockey guys standing around watching.
