Griff was my twinflame.
Griff knew me more than I knew myself sometimes. And as a lover, he gave his all like he was playing in a championship game. We kind of had a playful game of competing over who was in control…
As soon as the elevator released me, I carefully made my way to the seat that Duke purchased for me, and I cheered hard for them as they took the ice for warm-up.
They skated around without their helmets for the first couple of minutes, and I quickly spotted Griff. His beard was getting a bit out of control now, but if he freshened it up, it could definitely be a look, especially paired with his messy foehawk hair. The facial hair was a traditional playoff superstition– the guys all stopped shaving until their team was knocked out.
But poor Duke– he barely had any facial hair at all. He just turned twenty, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone… but the guys still made fun of him for it. I think they caught on that an angry Duke– aka when he turned into a “little ball of hate”–became a scoring machine… So every third period, the “baby face” chirps started flying his way.
When Duke spotted me, he gave a huge smile and jumped into the glass in front of me. I had a feeling he also wanted to be seen by the group of girls sitting a couple rows down from me…
When Griff skated by, I put a hand to my chest and gave a deep breath, hoping he understood that meant I was super nervous for him. He just shook his head with a smile on his face and gave me the “calm” sign with his hand that he always gave Duke. It actually became known through the entire hockey community that Griff did that… There were tons of memes of him doing it with his signature stern look, and every time one of the Crewmen was sent to the penalty box, they played a clip of Griff doing it on the jumbotron, which made the entire stadium crack up.
“Oh man,” I rubbed my stomach again and grinded my teeth against pain. “You must not like the nerves, huh, buddy?” I whispered to my belly.
The teenage boy beside me looked at me like I was crazy for talking to myself, but his bubbly girlfriend leaned closer to me. They looked like seniors in high school.
“You okay?” sheasked.
“Everyone’s asking me that today,” I laughed. “I’m good, I promise.”
“You’re huge,” the boy muttered.
His girlfriend elbowed him hard in the stomach.
“Oof. What’s that for?” he yelled down at her.
“You don’t say that to pregnant people, you idiot,” she snapped.
He looked at herdumbfounded.
“Apologize to her!” she commanded him, and he jumped at her voice.
“Jeez, Jenny, okay!” He looked at her with wide eyes then slowly turned to me. “Sorry,” he offered kinda lamely.
I just laughed at how her teeny self was bossing him around. I liked her.
“It’s all good. But I might be a bit of a crazy fan, so I apologize in advance. My brother and boyfriend are out there,” I told the two of them proudly.
The boy looked at me with a bit more respect then and the girl squealed in delight and wanted to know all about how I met Griff.
_____
After a rough first and second period, Duke was able to tie the game up 2-2 with a goal off Griff’s rebound.
I echoed Kelly Whitmore’s thoughts from earlier- why couldn’t they ever secure the win early?
The other problem: Going into the third period, the pains were starting to come more frequently… and I was finally starting to doubt that these were just Braxton Hicks contractions…
I cried out several times, but tried to play it off as just being a big fan.
When there were five minutes left in the period, Griff was skating down-ice on a break-away, and I hoisted myself up out of my seat for a clearerview.
But I missed it… because right then, my water broke all over my shoes.
Everyone around me was too preoccupied cheering. And I felt horrible that I missed his goal…
To make matters even worse… When I looked back at the jumbotron to watch the replay, I realized the camera was trained on me, trying to get my ‘happy reaction’ to his goal.
