Boy Next Door

"I FUCKING HATE MY ROOMMATE!" I heard someone scream, followed by my front door slamming. I chuckled and tossed my eyeliner I was putting on back on the counter. I was getting ready for another date with Marc. It's been about a week since he asked me to be his girlfriend, and I thought things were going great.

"What did she do this time?" I asked nonchalantly. Lauren had been bursting into my apartment constantly telling me stories of why she hates her roommate so much.

"She decided that she wanted to wipe my entire hard-drive clean. I had a huge paper due today that I needed to print out. Now I don't have it!" she explained. I had already told her to go and try to get her roommate switched, but they said no one else was willing to switch with her.

"I HAVE AN IDEA!" I screamed brilliantly.

"What?" Lauren asked anxiously.

"Why don't you move into my apartment with me? I have the extra bedroom that no one ever uses. Why don't you take it?" I suggested.

"ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?!?!" she screamed. I nodded my head. She started jumping up and down and saying that I'm the best while she wrapped me into a huge hug.

"It's no problem. Anyways, it can get kind of lonely sometimes. Now come on, let's go and pack your things up so you can move in right away," I said as I grabbed my keys off the counter.

"What about your date?" she said. I stopped in my tracks and thought about it. Would Marc get mad if I pushed our date back a couple of hours?

"Well I'll go see if I can push it back a couple of hours."

"You don't need to do that. I can pack by myself or we can just do it tomorrow," she suggested.

"No, I want to do it today. I never get to see you anymore," I insisted. Without listening to another word she said, I walked over to Marc's apartment and lightly knocked on the door. He opened the door after a few seconds. He looked down at me, due to the fact that he's a foot taller than me, and a huge wave a relief washed over him.

"Dannie. Thank god you're here. Look, I need to push our date back a couple of hours. I hope you’re not mad," he said.

"Oh no. That's actually what I came over here for. Something came up that I need to do. How about we have the date at 7 now instead of 4? Does that work for you?"

"Yeah. That's perfect," he said. He gave me a small peck on the cheek before closing the door. I turned around and told Lauren that we were going now. She happily followed after me, humming a happy tune while she did so.

When we arrived at her dorm, everything seemed normal. Even when we walked into her dorm and her roommate started cursing us off, everything seemed normal. What wasn’t normal was how angry I was starting to get at her. I mean, I’ve gotten mad at people before, but usually I can control my anger in situations like this. She started to talk about Marc and that got me angry.

“Whoever ‘he’ is, he doesn’t love you. I don’t know how anyone could love someone as ugly as you. I’m surprised he doesn’t throw up every time you kiss him. I know I have the urge to throw up every time I see you,” she said.

That just made me lose it. I literally picked her up and dropped her in the hallway right on her ass. I closed and locked the door after I screamed “FUCK YOU!” at her. I clapped my hands together. “Let’s get to work, shall we?”

“We shall,” she said, not questioning the way I just acted. Surprisingly, I never really lose my temper like that.

“So tell me, what have you and Mike been up to? I haven’t been able to talk to him lately.”

“Nothing major really. We just went out on a couple of dates. That’s it really.”

“You’re not going to give me any details whatsoever?” I asked pressing the subject further.

“Well we just went out for ice-cream on the first date. None of the other dates were that interesting either. I mean, yeah, I had a lot of fun on them, but they were nothing like Marc and yours first two dates.”

“Just give him some time Lauren. Trust me.”

It only took us two hours to pack all of her stuff. Then we went back to my apartment so I could get ready for the date I had in half an hour. I picked up my phone before we left and saw that I had a text from Marc telling me that I should dress casually, but not in sweats like we originally had planned. Now I had to pick out an outfit, and I couldn’t wear the sweats I was already wearing.

I helped Lauren start to unpack, but Marc told me to come over now instead of in a half hour like we agreed on earlier. I bid goodbye to Lauren and started my ‘long’ trip to Marc’s apartment. I knocked on the door. I waited a few seconds before I heard someone yell at someone else to open the door.

I was about to give the person who opened the door a hug, but then I realized that it wasn’t Marc, just a look-a-like of Marc.

“Marc, who is this creeper at your front door?” the look-a-like asked.

“Marc, will you please tell this person to let me in,” I said.

“Hey, I am not just some person. I’m Jordan Staal baby,” he said with the famous Staal smirk.

“Yeah, and I’m Danielle Longola,” I said as I walked past him and over to Marc. I gave him a hug and a quick kiss on the lips.

“Oh, so you’re the famous Danielle Longola. Marc over here couldn’t stop talking about you all summer long,” he said following me into the kitchen where Marc was. I saw Marc blush out of the corner of my eyes.

“Well of course you’ve heard of me. I mean, who hasn’t? Oh and I think I’ve heard of you a couple times,” I said. I looked up at him and saw him smirk. “On the police report.” He looked shocked by my comeback, then put his hands up in defeat.

“You picked a good one Marc.”

“Okay, well now that Jordan has gotten out his cocky remarks, let’s do something,” Marc said, finally getting some input on our conversation. Jordan and I nodded our heads in agreement. “Um… let’s go ice-skating. We can have some extremely intense competitions then. And I can get the local rink cleared whenever I want,” Marc suggested, since he knows how competitive all three of us are.

“Let’s do it!” Jordan agreed.

“Um guys. I don’t know how to ice-skate,” I admitted.

“Wait. You’re telling me that you’ve lived in Canada all your life, and you don’t know how to ice-skate,” Marc said, shocked. I nodded my head and let out a small chuckle. “Well then I’ll just have to teach you.”

“Okay,” I said perkily. “Just let me go put on some warmer clothes.” The guys nodded their heads understandingly, and I left the apartment.

“Wait, where are you going?” Jordan asked. “We can just drive you to your apartment.”

“Well, if you drive me to my apartment, you will probably get arrested,” I said, messing with his head. He looked at me completely dumbfounded. “I live across the hall,” I said after a while. His lips formed an “o” shape and Marc and I burst out laughing. I ran across the hall, still laughing, and went into my apartment. I quickly changed into a pair of baggy black NYU Soccer sweatpants and one of my own New York Rangers sweatshirts. I had a very bad habit of stealing Marc’s.

I walked back across the hall and told the guys I was ready to leave. They quickly followed me as I started walking towards the elevators.

I was shocked when we arrived at the rink. It was huge, and probably had three separate ice-rinks inside. We walked inside and Marc rented me a pair of skates Jordan and Marc had their own skates. I put the skates on and started to lace them up. I stared at the laces and started to lace them the way I would lace up my soccer cleats. Marc looked at me disappointingly. “You do it then!” I said as I threw the laces down. He laughed at me and laced up the skates with ease.

“Better now?”

“Yes. Now help me up. Coach will kill me if I twist me ankle,” I said as I stuck out my hand.

“Good to know,” he said as he helped me up.

I held onto him as we walked the short distance over to the ice. We both stepped onto the ice, but I was soon left alone. I saw Marc chasing after Jordan on the ice. I gave him a death glare, and then felt myself falling backwards. I quickly regained my balance, and skated towards center ice. I was almost there when I fell right smack on my face. Marc quickly skated right next to me, and Jordan went to go get some ice. I rolled over on my back and started laughing.

“You just fell down, on solid ice, right on your face, and are laughing?” Marc said confused.

“Yup, I’m just cool like that.” I started to get up, but quickly fell down on my butt I tried again, but this time Marc helped me up.

“I got the ice,” Jordan said as he skated up to me. I took the bag of ice and tossed it into he stands.

“What? Do you think I’m weak just because I’m a girl?” I yelled at him.

“I uh… I uh…” he stammered.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Jordan Staal has finally met his matched!” Marc announced. Marc and I laughed and Jordan started to get frustrated.

“Whatever. I can still skate better than you,” he said as he skated away from me.

“Don’t worry, I’ll teach you to skate better than him,” Marc whispered in my ear.

Within a few minutes, I got the hang of it. Then they tried to teach me how to shoot a puck. Marc helped me at first and I got it in the net, then he told me to do it by myself. When I shot it, it nearly hit Jordan in the head.

“Hey! Don’t hate me just because you’re not good at it!” Jordan yelled at me.

“Oh please Staal! I could whoop your ass at soccer any day,” I said.

“Oh we’ll see, but that will have to wait till the next time I see you.”

“You’re on.”

Nothing much went on after that. We skated around and shot some pucks for about 45 minutes. Then we had to go home because Jordan he had to get back on the road to get to Pittsburgh (He stopped by on his way to training camp).

We got back to Marc’s apartment and Jordan immediately left, leaving me alone with Marc.

“Hey Marc, can I ask you a question?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“My sister’s wedding is in three weeks, and I kind of need a date. I’m her maid of honor. You don’t need to come to the ceremony, just the rehearsal and the reception so I don’t look like a loner.”

“I didn’t hear the question,” he joked. I smacked him on the arm. “I would love to be your date.”

“Thank you.”