Smile

20.
“Wait, you’re going to France again?!” Kaner asked as the group was hanging out at Sharpie’s house. Everyone was just lounging around, it was the whole team. The guys wanted to hang out before the season ended and the playoffs started. No one was paying attention to the T.V, it just turned to background noise as everyone waited for Arabella so explain.

After she told Jonathan her life story including the boyfriend situation. Arabella had met a guy as the summer was ending who just so happened to live in Chicago. Going out on the limb Arabella accepts his offer for her to move in with him. Their relationship was purely physical something that Arabella couldn’t do as she started to develop feelings for him. When she confessed her feelings for him; he kicked her out of the apartment saying he doesn’t do relationships.

“I leave on the 11th, right after the game.” Arabella said drawing aimless lines on Jonathan’s hand with her fingers. Originally Arabella was supposed to leave on the 10th, the same day she left for France for the past 3 years. But when Jonathan tried to hid the disappointment of her not going to their game she changed her flight. It was a home game against the Detroit Red Wings.

“But you just got back, why are you going back?” Kaner asked he was always the one asking questions oblivious to things. Arabella tensed up, she was wondering if she should tell the team what had happened to her. It was a huge part of her life and she wasn’t sure if she was ready for everyone to know. Well all the non-europeans to know what had happened.

Everyone noticed how hesitant Arabella was to answer this questions. Sharpie threw Kaner a look saying that he went to far with the question. Burish was unaware of the quietness partially due to the fact that he arrived late when he announced his arrival everyone just looked at him. He said they were boring before looking for a beer somewhere in the house. Not even Shooter had went to greet Burish, Shooter was sitting happily on Arabella’s lap.

Jonathan kissed his girlfriend’s temple and whispered that she could just ignore Kaner. It wasn’t going to be the first time that everyone has ignored him so she didn’t need to worry about hurting him. When Jonathan had asked Arabella her story she knew if she didn’t tell him then she would never end up telling him. Well right at his very moment Arabella knew if she didn’t open up to this team she would never open up to anyone else.

With a deep breath, Arabella told her story. She didn’t go into as much detail as when she told Jonathan. Arabella couldn’t look at everyone’s faces as she told the story so she just focused petting Shooter. It was nice to get everything off her chest and now with these guys it felt better that she wasn’t hiding any secrets. Arabella even told them about her ex-boyfriend, a topic she didn’t tell Jonathan.

“Our relationship was mainly physical, I guess he was sort of my escape. But after I started to develop feelings with him and I confessed; he broke up with him. He didn’t want to be tied down in a relationship, so I had to move out of his apartment. We acted like boyfriend and girlfriend but I later found out while we were together he was seeing other people. He only dated me for the money he thought I inherited.” Arabella said laughing at the thought of her inheritance. To everyone else it seemed a little evil that Arabella was laughing over the fact that a guy had used her. They weren’t to sure if they should have laughed along or not.

The girls expressed their deepest sorrows to Arabella after it got quiet again. The guys were really interested in her life now that they got to know more about it. Arabella answered all of the questions the guys have. Most of the questions though were about her relationship with Martin. The guys were wondering if she would ever hook up with him, and Arabella replied with a big fat no. They were close but not wanting to ruin their relationship they stayed simply friends.

“Here you go.” Sharpie said handing Arabella her glass of wine. She was the only one drinking wine while everyone else drank beer.

“Have you ever drank beer before?” Burish asked the little blonde girl curled up on Jonathan’s lap. He didn’t drink being the responsible one plus he didn’t want Arabella to drive at night.

“Nope, I’m a total wine person. No one in my family ever drank wine and that's partly due to the fact that we made our money from the wine industry.” Arabella said swishing her wine back and forth in the glass. Her dad and brother drank a lot of whiskey and wine but never beer. Actually she didn’t know anyone who drank beer in France.

“Well I think now that your dating a Canadian you need to drink beer.” Seabs said taking a swing from his beer. Kaner agreed with this, well Kaner agreed to anything that had to deal with drinking especially beer.

“How about this, if you guys win the Stanley Cup then I’ll drink a whole bottle of beer.” Arabella said. The guys quickly agreed to this saying she better be prepared for drinking a beer on national television. They were so serious about this Sharpie went to go and get a piece of paper to draft up a contract.

I, Arabella will drink chug a whole bottle of beer on national television when the Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup. If failure to do so will result in me going to karaoke with Kaner and Verbeauty.
x_________________________

“You guys got a deal.” Arabella said laughing as she signed the contract that the guys had drafted up. For the rest of the night was filled with laughs and teasing. For the first time did Arabella not have to worry about getting the pity party from her friends. It’s not that the guys didn’t have pity for her it was that they knew she didn’t want it, hell they hated pity parties. They treated her normal, to them she was Jonathan’s amazing way out of his league french girlfriend.