As I opened the door, the other women that I’d met at the team bbq shouted out their hellos to me, and I instantly felt welcomed.
It was funny, by hanging around TJ, I felt like I’d somehow been invited into a club, and it felt nice to be included for once.
Sav rushed over with Indie on her hip and gave me a hug.
“Girl! Tell us everything! I filled the ladies in on what I knew,” she said with a seriousface.
“Hi!” Johnny, who was standing close to his mother like a built-in shadow, said with a bright smile. He looked extra adorable today with his spiky brown hair and jersey that read “Daddy” on the back.
“Hey! Nice to see you again,” I greeted him.
“Are you married to TJ Vonnie, number 25?” he asked me curiously.
I bit my lip and shook my head. Sav shot me an apologetic look, but I didn’t mind. This cutie was going to be a heartbreaker one day.
“I’m just a friend of his,” I told him and ruffled his hair, then Sav led the way toward the bar seats that overlooked the ice below.
As soon as we were seated, the interrogation began.
“So what did your boy do?”
The question came from a black-haired girl wearing a leather jacket and ripped black jeans.
“I’m Adrienne, I missed the shindig up north. Nice to meet you,” she said with a blank face and an outstretched hand to shakemine.
“Hi,” I greeted. About seven other ladies were now gathering around to hear what I had to say as well, so I plowed through it. “TJ just does this thing he calls ‘coach mode’ where he basically insults me to try to motivate me…and I didn’t realize that’s what he was doing,” I huffed. “Let’s just say he laid it on a little toothick.”
The women all started chatting around me then, agreeing and explaining what their guys had done in the past to piss them off.
“I fully dumped Griff once when we were dating,” Sav admitted.
“I once trashed Brody’s car,” Adrienne said, cutting through the rest of the women and making them crack up and want more details. She looked like the kind of girl who could mess up someone’s car. I couldn’t help but think that I was definitely a weak bitch compared to her.
“Ah! I almost forgot!” Sav yelled and ran toward her purse in the room.
When she reappeared, she was holding a jersey that read #25 on the back and had the name “Vonnie” stitched over top of it, and she was carrying it toward me.
I felt my face getting hot at the attention, but gladly accepted the jersey.
“TJ repeated to me like five times this morning- ‘Don’t forget to give her my jersey, pretty please Sav.’ It was actually so sweet,” she admitted.
As happy as I was to wear his jersey, I felt a ping of jealousy that all these women didn’t have to travel four hours to be able to wear one.
I also knew that most of these women were in a way different position than I was. They would be together all season. They had the rings, they had the security, some of them even had babies. I, on the other hand, had a couple of nice days of an attractive NHL rookie feeling protective of me.
This jersey and these women including me in their little fan club made me wantthings…
The announcer’s booming voice advertising raffle tickets cut off my thoughts then.
“It’s almost warm-up time, ladies!” One of the girls called as she brought out a pitcher of some kind of mixed drink.
I felt my stomach nervously flip and caught Sav’s eye.
She promptly leaned over to whisper to me. “Don’t feel pressured at all. And TJ told me to tell you that this box suite has a shit load of security. There’s even a security guard specifically for us when the gamestarts.”
I nodded and chewed the inside of my lip. I accepted a drink from one of the women and participated in their cheer, but the whole time, I was questioning how TJ could possibly see through me so easily. How was he able to know what I needed and still provide it for me when he wasn’t even with me?
35. TJ
