Stubborn

The night blazed with the lights of downtown Pittsburgh. Beams of red, white, and blue from overhead buildings were reflected in the river, creating a magnificent show of blending colours. I kept up a steady pace next to Emma who had her arm wound around Aaron’s. Aaron was a relatively tall guy with wavy dark hair and piercing blue eyes. His smile was always friendly and welcoming, but his overall vibe was like a reincarnation of John Lennon; cool, calm, and composed. Emma had definitely lucked out with someone as good and nice as him.

The cool September air blew through our hair as we swerved around oncoming people, all walking hand in hand or arm around arm. It seemed like I was the third wheel to everyone tonight. Apparently, there was an underrated bar somewhere in the midst of downtown, which Aaron had only recently begun spending time at. He wasn’t a partier or the type of guy to get piss drunk out with friends; he just knew how to have fun.

“You sure this place actually exists?” I asked jokingly, peering over Emma to look at Aaron.

He smiled then moved out of the way of a few more people before looking back at me. “Yes, I’m positive this placed isn’t just a fragment of my imagination.” Emma chuckled and shook her head hopelessly. As much as I hated being the third wheel whenever we went out, I had to admit that hanging out with them was always fun. They weren’t the type of couple to keep me out of the loop or show disgusting public displays of affection. If I didn’t know any better, I would have just thought that the three of us were single friends, out to have a good time in the Burgh.

“As long as we’re not aimlessly searching for some place you made up,” I said, gaining another laugh from both of them. Other than being a great boyfriend to Emma and a funny friend to me, Aaron was always trying to play the role of my own personal cupid. He had friends, lots of them, who he thought the majority of would suit me perfectly. He was wrong ninety-nine percent of the time. It’s not that I didn’t like his friends. On the contrary, I thought they were all a laugh and easy going. But I just didn’t want a boyfriend. I wasn’t ready for the responsibility and time it entitled having one. I could barely cater to my own needs, let alone a guy I’m supposed to get to know during a course of time and figure out if he could be ‘the one’.

I could tell, though, that Aaron was torn between two emotions. One was pity at seeing me always alone, tagging along with him and his girlfriend. It was obvious he felt bad having to include me in conversation involving inside jokes that I usually didn’t understand. And the other half was annoyance at the fact that he never seemed to be able to find me someone I was happy with. I wasn’t a picky personal, nor did I think I was better than anyone. I just didn’t feel like wasting my time with guys I knew wouldn’t last in the long run.

I was comfortable. Just like this bar Aaron was always raving about, solitude is an underrated place.

Finally, Aaron stopped in front of a bar I had never really noticed all the other times we were downtown. In fact, I would have gone through the rest of my life completely oblivious to it if Aaron hadn’t pointed it out. Above the doors was a sign reading: The Tavern. It seemed old on the outside, but the inside was remodelled to look just as new as any other place in the area. In the background was the soft sound of rock music and the comfortable warmth enveloped us as we walked through the doors.

“Three beers?” Aaron asked as we took off our light coats and placed them on the back of out chairs. Emma and I nodded and he walked to the bar, leaving us in silence.

“So,” Emma began, turning her body in the seat to face me, “are you going to tell me what’s been bugging you?” I furrowed my brow. “Oh, don’t give me that crap. There’s something putting you on edge. Granted, you look like that a lot of the time, but more so today.” I shoved her lightly on the shoulder and she laughed, swaying in her seat.

I licked my lips and watched Aaron talk to the bar tender as he uncapped three beers. “Nothing’s bugging me,” I said. “You know, just the usual stuff. School, work, stupid people.” She laughed and I joined in. Together, we watched Aaron pick up all three beers, but instead of directly coming to our table, he stopped at a table near the other end of the room. I squinted, trying to get a better look at who he was talking to. These were inevitably the friends he was meeting tonight and, undoubtedly, the new contestants on Let’s Find Alex A Boyfriend.

He was talking to a group of men, most of them seemingly near our age, but a few slightly older. Though, both Emma and I were trying to be discreet, it was obvious we were trying out hardest to see who he was talking to. Suddenly, the entire table stood up and began making their way towards us. And then I noticed it; the dishevelled blonde hair and blue eyes. Aaron didn’t know it, but he was definitely cruising for a bruising.

A smile spread on Jordan’s face as he approached us, followed by the other guys at the table. It was now that I realized they were all from the Pittsburgh team. Great. Aaron looked at me, then at Jordan, then back at me before sharing a confused look with Emma.

“You?” I said in Jordan’s direction. My voice had almost come out as a whine this time. All of the guys had begun pulling another table towards ours, making it twice as big to easily fitting all of them.

Jordan ran a hand through his hair before pulling out a chair and sitting down opposite me. “You really have to find something new to call me,” he said before taking a swig of the beer in his hands.

“You know each other?” Aaron said, sitting down next to Emma and putting an arm on the back of her chair.

“Yeah,” Jordan and I replied simultaneously. We looked at each other, thinking the same thing; that we were being stalked. The function, the bookstore, now the bar. Fate must be having a riot watching all of this unfold.

“Oh, right,” Emma said, coming to some sort of conclusion. “Alex works at the banquet hall where the Penguins have some of their functions.” Jordan looked at me and smiled at the knowledge of my name. I’d hoped that would have been kept a mystery.

“I remember you!” called a voice from the end of the table. I looked over to see Max Talbot smiling with the beer brought up close to his mouth. He took a quick sip then put it down. “You were the girl being harassed by Paul.” There was a faint trace of an accent in his voice. It was somewhat endearing on him. I nodded and a few of the other guys began laughing too. Among us were Marc-Andre Fleury, Kris Letang, and Sidney Crosby, though he didn’t seem as involved in the conversation as the rest of them. His head was bent down, looking at the screen of his cell phone and smiling; a girlfriend on the other end, no doubt.

Emma, mid-laugh, nudged my in the arm. “You didn’t tell me about this.”

“Well, there are a few things about that night I’d like to forget.” I looked at Jordan who took another swig of his beer. An hour passed where we all just kept up a steady conversation, talking about hockey, school, and just Pittsburgh in general. Invitations to games were thrown out here and there from Aaron’s new friends, making everyone agree in unison. I kept my gaze away from Jordan; difficult considering there were only a few inches wood separating us and I would occasionally feel his long legs kicking me from beneath the table. All in all, I tried to keep quiet and stay calm. So, naturally, when Emma declared that we all needed more drinks, I was the first to offer to get them. I just needed a few minutes alone to convince myself that this night would soon be over and everything was going to be okay.

I walked up to the bar tender and tried as best I could to remember what everyone at the table was drinking. Most had beers, so that was easy enough. The bar tender nodded at my request, shot a quick look over to our table, and then began pulling out beer bottles from seemingly nowhere. I wondered if he was a hockey fan. If seeing Emma, Aaron, and I hanging out with the Pittsburgh Penguins’ top players made him jealous. It shouldn’t. Actually, I was already beginning to dread it.

“Need some help?” I heard a voice say from behind me. Rolling my eyes and running my tongue over my top teeth in annoyance, I turned around slowly to see Jordan leaning casually on the bar; one hand holding one of those plastic swords that came with drinks up to his mouth, bitten and deformed. He chewed on it as he waited for my reply.

“I’m fine,” I said, turning back around to face the bar tender. He eyed us curiously as he placed the opened bottles of beer in front of me. “He’s with me,” I told him in clarification. Though he probably already knew who Jordan Staal was and that we were all together, it felt good showing that I wasn’t at mercy to his celebrity status.

“Am I now?” Jordan asked with a smile. Did Mr. Hockey think that this charm act was going to save him from a slap in the face? Did the blonde hair and innocent-looking blue eyes entitle him to some sort of cockiness? There were so many other guys out there that didn’t find the need to annoy women to death (or, should I say, annoy me to death because he seemed pretty polite and decent with Emma). Guys like Casey, for instance.

My mind immediately returned to our afternoon at the bookstore and my body swivelled towards him. “What did you mean with what you said at the bookstore?” The bar tender was out of hearing range now, so I didn’t feel the unnerving sense of being listened to.

Jordan’s brows knit together in a line of gold, dented in the middle as he thought back to our encounter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He continued chewing on the plastic sword with his other arm supporting most of his wait on the bar counter.

I sighed. “About Casey.” His brow remained furrowed. “Mr. Bookstore?” A smile broke out on his face. I nodded, knowing that would jog his memory. “What did you mean by it?”

He rolled the sword back and forth along his lips with his tongue before plucking it from his mouth. “You can’t seriously be asking that.” I was serious and I hoped my expression made that clear. His ice-like eyes stayed on me, searching for something. “You really have no idea?”

I gave a tight, agitated smile. “Obviously not.”

He chuckled, tilting his head back and letting his golden hair blow in the wind coming from the front door as more customers walked in. “He’s got the hots for you.”

I scoffed. “The hots? Does he think I’m swell too? Maybe we’ll go to a sock-hop later.” I snorted and looked over at our table, hoping they weren’t getting annoyed with the lack of drinks.

Jordan just stared at me in a way that made me self-conscious. Like he was trying to figure out something more than what I wanted him too. I didn’t like that feeling. “You really have to learn to take a compliment.”

“I’m sorry, was there a compliment somewhere there?”

He reached next to me and grabbed one of the bottles of beer left by the bar tender then took a sip. “All I’m saying is it’s weird you don’t think he’d like you.” Okay, maybe that was leading to a compliment. “That’s what’s wrong with girls.” He seemed to be going into a reverie and I rolled my eyes. There was always something wrong with girls; we PMS, we don’t like sports, we talk too much. And guys were just the unflawed gender. “They’re too reserved. If they acted more like guys then everything would be so much easier.”

I folded my arms over my chest. “For who? Guys or girls?” I asked.

“Both,” he replied, turning to look at me with those light eyes.

“So, you’re saying,” I began, sneaking another look at the table. They didn’t really seem to notice that we were taking longer than necessary, “that instead of girls always being the ones to refuse dates or dances or cheesy pick-up lines, we should just give into it?”

Jordan nodded, taking another gulp of beer and smacking his lips together. “The world would be a much more enjoyable place.”

“Uh-huh,” I said unconvinced. “Well, until that day comes, how about helping me with the drinks.” He licked a bit of beer from his top lip before asking the bar tender for a tray and placing all the bottles on top of it. Together, we walked back to the table only to be greeted by a chorus of ‘finally!’ and ‘did you get lost?!’, or my personal favourite: ‘took you long enough!’. We took our seats across from each other and watched everyone grab their drinks.

“Alex was just telling me how much she’d love to go to a game,” Jordan said, loud enough for everyone at the table to hear. Emma turned and smile at me as though I had made some sort of breakthrough. Jordan smiled at me, somewhat devilishly. “Front row, right?” He leaned forward on the table, inching his face closer to me. “So you can smell the sweat dripping off of us.” A few of the guys laughed and I crinkled my nose in distaste.

The funny thing was that I was one hundred percent sure Jordan wasn’t kidding