Chapter Four

A few proposals and a couple hours later I was finally walking out to my car.  Somehow I ended up mingling with the whole Washington Capitals team and their significant others.  I gave away all of my extra business cards.  If everyone was being truthful, I was going to be a very busy girl over the next few weeks between holiday parties and fundraisers; business was going to be booming.  Of course I had one person to be thanking for this and that was the mysterious Russian with the goofy smile.

His stick straight, yet unruly hair was sticking out all over the place, and he had a 5-o’clock shadow that defined his chiseled face.  His crooked nose gave away the fact that he had been in his fair share of fights.  The missing tooth in his smile was slightly perplexing to me since I was sure he could probably afford either an implant or a partial to fill in the gap.  Overall his face had this hardness about it, but along with that, there was softness that caught my attention.  His sparkling blue eyes gave it away that he was possibly a guy who spent a lot of time laughing.  By far he wasn’t Patrick Dempsy handsome, but something made me want to pay attention to him.  Maybe those intense blue eyes.  I even found myself being slightly bummed when a girl showed up a little later seemed to be a little more than friends with him.  She had no problem touching him when they talked and they had no problem whispering secrets between each other in Russian.  I heard someone call her Alyonka and she was definitely know well by most of the people in attendance, but I was in the middle of an intense game of Uno with Nicky, Brooks, Carly and Mike to be too worried by any of it.

As I climbed into my fall chilled car, I sighed and squeaked in amazement.  I kept myself from fretting about the fact that my beloved Chevy Cobalt looked terribly poor in the midst of all these expensive foreign cars I was parked amongst.  Never once did I think I would feel so comfortable at a party where I knew absolutely no one.  Sure, I had “known” Brooks and Mike from coming into my shop, but in no way could I consider them to be friends.  Add onto the fact that I never had an easy time making friends with guys, especially for my non-interest in sports, everything seemed totally absurd.

Now I had to get home and try hope I wouldn’t have to tell the hockey twins who I just spent my evening with.  I was fairly sure that if they were aware who I spent my evening with, I would be sleeping outside in my shed for the simple fact that I would never hear the end of it.

The pastries were an obvious hit, but the big surprise was how much of a hit Lana was with the guys.  Not that it was a huge surprise for them to make friends with a girl, but most of those girls were the ones that threw themselves at us.  Lana was not that way at all.  She was probably one of the more genuine women I had met in a long time.

“So you watch a lot of hockey?”  I asked her at one point.

She looked, scrunched up her nose and shook her head adamantly back and forth.  “No way.  In fact if I wouldn’t have been told about Brooks and Mike being hockey players by my roommates, I would have never known.”

“So you have no interest in the sport?”

“Nope.  I’m not really into sports unless you count the rodeo or NASCAR,” she smiled shyly.  “My bakery takes up a huge amount of my time…”

“You need to have more fun,” I winked.

She smiled and nodded once, as if it wasn’t the first time she had heard the same statement.  “Well, if it wouldn’t be for people calling me last minute with orders, I might actually be able to do that once in a while,” she chided back.

I couldn’t help but laugh loudly at this one.  Her comment actually surprised me, she had what seemed to be a shy demeanor, but there was definitely feistiness about her that I found to be very attractive.  Once I stopped laughing I popped a cookie into my mouth and left out a moan.  “Where did you learn to bake like this?” I asked with a full mouth.

She was still giggling at my reaction when she answered.  “A lot of my recipes are from my Grandma, actually.  I used to spend my summers with her.  I felt like it was one of the only constants in my life…” she faded off and bit her lip, like she was embarrassed by divulging the last bit of information that was seemingly personal.

“A crazy childhood?” I inquired, suddenly finding myself very interested in what made her tick, despite not really knowing why I even cared.

She shrugged and smiled.  “My father is a doctor in the military…”

“Ah, so you move around a lot,” I finished.

“Yes.”

I understood completely where she was coming from with having a whirlwind life and needing a constant to hold onto.  Hockey took me all over my country and then all over the world.  My constant was going back to Russia every summer and spending time with my grandmother.  “Do you still go and visit her?”

“Who, my grandmother?” she asked, seemingly surprised by my question.

“Dah.”

She looked down at her pink-toe nails and smiled sadly.  “No, she passed away a little after I turned 21.”

“I’m so sorry,” I commented quickly.

Lana looked up at me and shook her head.  “It’s okay.  Life moves on and you just focus on all the good memories you spend…” she paused, “Like tonight.  Thank you for allowing me to stay and crash your party.”

“I have no option.  Anything to keep the guys happy,” I winked.

A few moments later Nicky came over and got her for another round of cards, making it the last time I’d get to talk to her that night.

One of the biggest things I noticed and appreciated about the guys, was the simple fact that despite playing the game for a living, they did not feel the need to incessantly talk about it.  Heck, Becky, Faith and now my date, Garrett, talked more about it in 15 minutes than I heard all 3 hours I was amongst the team.

“If we win tonight, we’re going to be 4-0 to start this season, which would be absolutely amazing!” Garrett grinned excitedly as we took our seats at the pizza shop he insisted we eat at before the game.  Not that I was against pizza, but the place was filled with loud, rowdy Caps fans and it wasn’t exactly an ideal “first date” atmosphere, but whatever, I was along for the ride and ready for something new and exciting, right?  Right.

“That’s good, right?” I asked and smiled before taking a bite of my BBQ chicken pizza.

“Hell yeah!” he said way too enthusiastically with a broad hand gesture that totally caused him to spill his beer across the table.  The heavy jersey that Faith insisted I wear, seemed to soak it up like a sponge.  Oh, just great.  “Oh shit!  I’m soo sorry, Lana,” Garrett cried, immediately grabbing napkins and making the situation very awkward when he began trying to pat down the material that covered my boobs.  He didn’t seem bothered by it, but I was just slightly mortified.  I politely took the napkins from his hands, pulled off the jersey before it soaked into my dark blue, long-sleeved cotton shirt I had on underneath and got up from my seat.  I’m going to see if I can’t dry it under the bathroom dryers, I informed him before practically running away.  This situation called for an emergency phone call.

“Do I have to go to the game with him?!” I cried into the phone as soon as Faith answered.

“Of course you do!  Why?!  What’s wrong?!” she practically belted into my ear.

“Well besides him only talking about hockey and then spilling his beer all over the front of me, I can already see this is not going to work!” I cried while punching the dryer button.  “I should have known this was not going to go well…”

“Lana, you haven’t been on a date in almost a year.  Give Garrett a chance!  He’s a smart guy.  Okay, so he might be a little obsessed with hockey, but so are me and Becky and we get along like whoa…”

“I’d rather go to a tractor pull or something,” I whined.  Of course I said this when some girl came walking out of the bathroom stall and shot me a look that seemed to be questioning what the heck I was talking about.  Despite moving around a lot as a military brat, I never seemed able to lose my whole southern whims.  Even though DC was below the Mason Dixon line, the people here didn’t understand the term southern living, even if it hit them in the face.

“Well get your jersey dried and get back out to your date.  You have to at least make it through a hockey game, in person.  I am willing to bet you $10 that when you watch the game in the stands, you will get a whole different perspective on hockey,” Faith spoke sincerely.  “Go!  Be the flirty, sexy woman I know you can be!  Make Garrett want to take you home to his bed tonight!”

I snorted and shook my head at her absurdities.  “I don’t think I’ll be hopping in his bed anytime soon, Faith…”

“Well, then at least make him think that he’d want you there…” she sighed, further cementing the fact that I was a hopeless case in the dating world.  “Besides,” she continued, you didn’t seem to have such a problem being a social butterfly with your rich client from last night,” she ribbed.  Of course I told the girls all about my night at Alex’s house.  But like I had planned, some small details were left out.  I figured these were not necessary details to divulge.  In the end I was able to flawlessly thread my story together without the mention of these facts and sleep without being worried about death threats showing up on my breakfast plate.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I’ll talk to you later on.  Look for me on TV!”  I joked and touched end call on my phone.