Chapter Fifteen

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...this is a short one

Ch. 15

I got a text from Alex around lunch time on Wednesday.

Alex: See you when I get back from road trip.

I looked at it and furrowed my brows.  Road trip?  How did I not know he was leaving for a road trip today?! Ugh. I really needed to at least look at the schedule so I knew what was going on.  I was slightly bummed knowing that I wouldn’t be seeing him for at least a few days, but it was probably a good thing.  I was becoming aware of the direct correlation between the time spent with Alex and how quickly I was falling for him; so some time apart was probably just what the doctor would order for someone who didn’t want things to stay in hyper drive.

Wednesday afternoon, Faith came dancing into the shop with a garment bag in hand.

“Do you want to see my costume for the Halloween Party?!” she asked, yet not really giving me time to say yes or no before pulling the zipper down on the bag, revealing a short, gold sequined dress with a plunging neckline.  Hanging from the hanger was a bag with what looked to be dark hair inside.

“What the hell are you going to be?” I squinted as the lights reflected some terrible glare off of the gold mirror ball of a dress.

“Snookie!” she said proudly!  John is going to be The Situtation!” she squeaked.  “Get it, he’s from Jersey?!”

“He is?”

“Yeah…”

“Huh...”

“What are you and Alex going as?”

“Going where?”

“Didn’t he ask you to the team Halloween Party?  It’s on Sunday night…he should have said something so you could get a costume soon!”

“He said nothing about a Halloween Party,” I said slowly.  “In fact, he said nothing about the road-trip until he texted me this afternoon.”

A confused look covered Faith’s face and we both stood there staring at each other for a minute, both obviously miffed.  “Well, maybe he’ll say something when he calls you tonight,” she said in a lesser enthusiastic tone, telling me that she was thinking things that probably weren’t so positive at the moment.

“Maybe,” I shrugged and forced a half smile.  “So you and Carly?” I asked, quickly changing the subject to something that wasn’t about me.  Faith’s eyes lit up again as she nodded her head excitedly.

“Yeah, I guess so,” she smiled.  “He’s a little all over the place and slightly young, but I like the younger ones,” she winked.

“Plus, I’m sure it helps that he plays for your beloved Capitals,” I laughed.

“Just a little,” she giggled.

I never got a phone call from Alex that night, nor the next, or the next.  In fact I didn’t even get a text from him.  It’s not that I expected him to contact me, because he did say in his text that he would see me when he got back, but that didn’t stop me from becoming a little bummed about it all.  It probably didn’t help that Faith was bouncing around the house every time John texted her.

When I got home Friday night, Becky was waiting for me at the door.

“We are going out!” she announced.

I dropped my messenger bag on the floor and looked up at her with a skeptical look.  “Why?”

“We haven’t gone to see Footloose yet and I’m getting the drift that you are more than a little bummed about Alex not texting or calling you…”

“It’s not a huge deal,” I shrugged, attempting to side-step her.

“You’re lying.  I know it bothers you.  Hell, it would bother me!”

“I’m not the type to get all psycho…”

“I know you’re not.  But I also know that this is a far from normal relationship for you, or for any other girl for that matter,” she pulled me into a hug.  “Besides, that’s what Faith and I are here for; to make sure you don’t get all mellow dramatic while we wait for Alex to either tip the boat one way or the other.”

“That’s a good way to put it,” I laughed easily.  Despite the random dates or amazing bed sessions, I was still probably left more clueless than before on where it all was going.  Dwelling on it was not something I wanted to do.  “A movie sounds like a great idea,” I sighed happily. 

“Oh holy shit, I’m in for such an amazing night on Sunday!” Carly exclaimed after looking at his phone.  I went to grab for it, to see what he was looking at, but he snapped it back and waved his finger at me.  “You can’t look.  If you see the picture then you are going to know what my Halloween costume is!”

“Faith sent you a picture of herself?” Mikee asked.

“Yup!” Carly answered, dramatically clicking his IPhone dark, to show that no one was going to get a view.  It always drove the guys nuts when someone would brag but not show the goods.

“You and Lana have something figured out?” Mike inquired with his mouthful of breakfast.

“I have idea, but I don’t know if I am going to ask Lana to go or not,” I admitted, sitting back in my chair.

“Why wouldn’t you bring her?” Brooks piped up, looking at me curiously.  I swear the man could have been a human lie-detector machine if he didn’t become a hockey player.

“I don’t know if she likes things like that,” I answered, grasping for any excuse that sounded legit.  The fact of the matter was I wasn’t sure how to feel about everything that was going on between me and her.  Brooks just gave me a strange look and went back to eating his food.

Later on in the hotel room Sasha got involved.  “She is making you have feelings you are scared of,” he said simply in our native tongue.

“You’re full of shit,” I laughed at my friend.  “She’s just another girl…and a plain one at that.”

“I’ve seen you staring at your phone a couple times already since we left yesterday, but you don’t call or text her.”

“Because there is no need to,” I flopped down on my bed, stretching out.

“You’re afraid of getting attached.”

“You’re acting like you know it all,” I growled.

“I just know that the Great Sasha Ovechkin is afraid of settling down…”

“You of all people know that I want to find the right woman and have a family with her,” I said simply.

“Yes, this is true, but the right woman you always picture is Russian and Lana is not.”

“Exactly.”

“She seems sincere and sweet enough,” Semin observed in a tone that the wheels were turning in his head and that he was not agreeing with my ideas.  Sasha was always good at the mind games.

“It doesn’t matter.  I can find that in another girl.”

“Ah, but you dote on her.  She’s comforting to you.”

“She’s just been a challenge.”

“You can call it what you want,” he said before popping in his earbuds for his I-Pod.  His attitude pissed me off.  Everything I said, he had to come back with a counter-remark.

My frustrations continued to mount with our game in Edmonton.  We took our first loss of the season.  It shouldn’t have felt like the end of the world, but I felt like it was just the tip of a growing ice-burg.  Once again, Bruce and I were at odds and the tension was beginning to fester inside of me.  Add-in the fact that there were no text messages from Lana, I pushed back a thought of disappointment and as soon as we hit Vancouver.  I’m not even sure why I would have expected anything from her to begin with, but with the mood I was in, I was looking for any excuse to be pissed off.

“You’re in a foul mood,” Sasha commented as soon as we got into our Vancouver hotel room.

“I just need to get out,” I said, shrugging on a t-shirt and throwing on my leather coat.  “You can come along, or you can stay.”

At that, there was a knock at the door.  When I opened it, Mikee and Carly were standing there.  “Let’s hit the Roxy!” Mike grinned.

Whatever we found at the hockey whore house, I had already decided I was going to fuck the shit out of.  Tonight, I didn’t want a challenge.  I wanted something easy and at a place like that, it wasn’t hard to find.  Within 20 minutes, I had two girls on my arms and about and hour later I was fucking both of them.  This was my life.  Being treated like a superstar and getting easy ass.

By 4am I was back in my own hotel room and catching a few hours of shut-eye before practice. 

The disaster of a road-trip only got worse.  Saturday night in Vancouver, I scored 2 goals and we still fucking lost. 

I was ready to get back to DC and get things back to normal.  Single.