Spellbound

''No, dad I'm not going. You suck'' I yelled as my dad told me for the millionth time the news I just did not want to hear.

“Don’t speak to your father like that, dear, it’s not very nice”

“Elodie, you are going and that is that. Our word is final”

My parents were moving to the other side of the country to take early retirement and weren't sure what to do with me, so they had decided that I was moving to Pittsburgh to go live with my cousin, Max. Ok, so part of the reason may also have been because I got sacked from my job in an office the other week. Apparently tipping the contents off of my desk and screaming 'screw this' is not an appropriate response to my boss asking if I could go down the street to get her a bagel and a coffee. So now I have “anger issues”. Whatever though.

Even though I'm 22, my dad is certain that Max can teach me to be more grown up and able to handle my responsibilities. He clearly doesn't see through the mature front Max puts on at family gatherings.

So here I am sitting on a plane to Pittsburgh, mostly dreading what's about to come. The 10% that's looking forward to this though is looking forward to it because of Max. My cousin, Max Talbot, is a hockey player with the best sense of humour ever. He is such a joker and never fails to cheer me up, so I'm pretty certain my stay here won't be too bad. Max and his fun and games can take my mind off the fact that I'm going to miss Tom so much.

That was the 90% of me that was going to hate living in Pittsburgh – not being with my boyfriend Tom. Tom and I have been dating now for two and a half years. We're childhood sweethearts; best friends since practically birth and we finally got together a couple of years ago after school had finished. He is my soul mate; we are destined to be together.

Tom is a director for a small electronics company back in Canada, his dad owns part of it so he just followed him into the family business after we finished school. It lacks the ambition and spontaneity I like in people, but hey, if it's what he wants to do then I guess I don't have a problem with that. My mum and dad completely love Tom, they treat him as though we are already married. Sometimes I feel he is closer to them than I am, but then I’ve never really felt that close to my family.

I guess Max was the only person I got on with really well, we just ‘got’ each other; maybe because we were similar ages and were left to play together when we were younger while the adults drank wine and did other adult stuff. Even though all our families holidayed together when we were younger Tom doesn’t get on with Max. Max says Tom is no where near good enough for me, which is the only thing we disagree on, while Tom just hates Max for no apparent reason. Whenever I ask him why he just refuses to answer me.

''Cabin crew take your seats. Ten minutes to landing'' This was my favourite part of flying, the 'controlled crash' where they just slam a plane into the earth at a couple of hundred miles an hour and through some piece of engineering it just glides onto the runway as smoothly as anything.

About 40 minutes later I stepped into the arrivals hall with my two massive suitcases in tow, after all I was moving here so I bought just about everything I could with me. Through the crowds of couples kissing and families hugging I couldn't see Max. My heart sunk. I took a step back and scanned my eyes slowly around the hall, then just as I was about to give up hope I spotted a tall dark haired guy, probably about my age, holding up a sign, ''Elodie Talbot...this is your life!'' it read. I chuckled to myself and made my way over to the mystery man behind it.

''Hey, I'm Elodie. You're one of Max's friends right''

''Yes,'' is that an accent I detect? ''He sent me to pick you up because he was taking his girlfriend shopping.'' Yep, there’s a definite accent, Russian maybe. ''I will take you back to his place though''

''Wait a second, Max has a girlfriend?''

Whoever this mystery guy was pulled a face and then nodded. I immediately didn't like Max's girlfriend, whoever she was. If, wait a minute, what's his name?

''And your name is...?''

''Oh. I am sorry, my name is Evgeni, but you can call me Geno''

''Oh right, thanks'' So, if Geno didn't like Max's girlfriend, then neither did I. I only wanted the best for my Maxy boy, and from the face this guy pulled this didn't seem like it.

Geno took me back to Max's place, which was full with some of the other guys from the team. I was introduced to the ones that were there; the only names I could remember were the tall brunette called Sidney, a smaller quiet guy called Marc, another dark haired guy called Kris and then Jordan, a very flirty blonde. Sid said I'd meet the rest of the team at practice one day, it was a given that I would be turning up at practice as often as I possibly could. Max knew full well that hockey was my life, watching and playing. That's probably why he accepted me down here, he knew he could palm me off onto the rest of the team and I'd be perfectly happy, while he could go prance around with his new girlfriend.

We all hung around watching TV for a while; I got to know the guys a bit better, Geno in particular. He seemed so sweet, quite shy until you got to know him, but once you did he was great fun. I could tell we'd end up being great friends. Sidney and Jordan also seemed to be great fun; I could see why Max was friends with them. In fact, everyone I met tonight was pretty great. I was going to enjoy staying with Max after all, even without Tom here.