She paused for a beat, taking in her surroundings, and I followed her gaze. It was a beautiful summer night, but you could feel a bit of chill in the air signaling that summer was fast coming to an end. That didn’t take anything away from the beauty of the sun beginning to set though. It looked like the sky was being painted with all the colors in the rainbow- shades of red, pink, and orange around the yellow sun bled into the deepening shades of blue and purple near the moon. It amazed me how you could see the sun and moon at the same time here. Heads were bobbing up and down around the boat where the couples still in the water were talking in their own little worlds.
“Do you like it here? Up north?” Ellie asked me hesitantly.
“I do,” I replied. “It seems slower, simpler up here.”
Her face seemed to glow above the water. “It is. That’s the beauty of it. The seasons feel longer upnorth.”
“Are you from here?” I asked. I wasn’t sure why it hadn’t occurred to me to ask that earlier. How did one end up in a vacation spot full-time?
“Nah,” she looked wistfully at the sun setting. “I’m from Wixom, which is less than an hour from Detroit. My parents moved down to Florida though, after-”
She cut herself off and cleared her throat, looking suddenly surprised by giving me even the smallest bit of personal information. I wanted more though- I wanted to fully know her.
“Where are you from?” she asked. She reached toward my face and smoothed out one of my eyebrows for me.
“Am I pretty again?” I asked.
She just smirked back.
“I’m from Minnesota. I grew up at the Ice League- the same rink as Grey and Jules and all them,” I told her.
“You make the Ice League sound like a city,” she pointed out.
I shrugged. “Felt like that when we were kids. Our worlds revolved around it. A lot of memories there,” I told her. “But I still want to know…”
She looked at me inquestion.
I pinched her flat tummy and she immediately flinchedaway.
“I still wanna know what sports you were into, little lady,” I finished.
“How do you even know I played sports?” Her eyes narrowed in on mine.
I grabbed her legs then and hoisted her in the air a bit. “Oh, these babies played sports, I know it,” I grinned. “Soccer?” I asked.
She shook her head no. “Absolutely not. That’s way too much running for me.”
“Damn.”
“Guess you’ll never know, pretty boy,” she said as she placed her feet against the pontoon and kicked off onto her back to float away fromme.
The girl was a mystery… but I was addicted to trying to figure her out.
22. Ellie
After the nice boat cruise, we had dinner back at the house, and then some of the guys had the idea to start a bonfire. They had an easier day tomorrow because their schedule read that it would be focused on drills and skating rather than scrimmages, and they were starting off a bit later than usual so they could sleep in.
The only thing that jilted my night was when Sav asked when we would be settling into Detroit…
The group definitely thought TJ would make the final cut and that TJ and I were full-blown dating. Up until that point in the night, I was fine playing the part. I was honestly enjoying it. I was enjoying the attention and care he was giving me. When he handed me the can of water earlier in the day, my heart pretty much flopped around happily in my chest, telling me- finally! He could be The Someone. And after I called him out for his “babe” use, his eyes flickered with genuine hurt as he offered to stop calling me that. I instantly regretted it. I suddenly wanted that title and knew I’d probably miss it from his vocabulary if he stopped.
But after Sav asked, I couldn’t stop my brain from thinking… and pretty soon, I was missinghim.
He was sitting next to me at the fire, our thighs were touching, and I was wearing his overly large sweatshirt that he gave me to keep from being cold, but I knew his warm presence in Northern Michigan, and in my life, was only temporary. This could only ever be a fling with us, but at some point through this day, I started to hope. Now I was feeling the sting of the reality check. He’d leave for Detroit at the close of preseason camp at the end of the week, and I’d be alone again.
So, I was sitting next to him… already missing him.
I didn’t want to be that girl who complained, but about an hour into the fire, I started to shiver from the night’s drop in temperature despite the fire in front of me and TJ’s sweatshirt. TJ, noticing how cold I was, rubbed his large hands up and down my arms and told the group we were going to head out. The fact that he noticed and cared more about how I was feeling than what he wanted punched me with a bittersweetness…Because it was nice to be cared about for a change. This was what a Someone would do, but I had to remind myself that this wasn’t for real and there wasn’t any true potential with him leaving so soon.
