Insert Cheesy Love Title About Mr. Johnny Toews

“I cannot believe this!” I shouted, stomping around our childhood house up in Canada. “You both got traded!” I hit him with the newspaper I was carrying. “You both are dumb as a pole!”

“It’s not my fault!” he told me. “Or Steeger’s for that matter!”

I sighed loudly as my phone burst into song. “What?” I answered grumpily.

“I heard,” came the soothing and familiar voice.

“Jon,” I smiled, walking away from my brother, lounging outside and making gagging noises.

“What was that in the background?” he asked.

“Andrew’s pissed that he’s leaving Rose,” I interpreted.

He sighed. “I can see why. I’m sorry babe, that really sucks.”

I sighed. “I feel worse for Rose. She’s going to live in that house all by her lonesome self.”

“You’re not moving back in to keep Rose company for a few months before she goes and chases after Laddie.”

I laughed. “He doesn’t think she will. Says she’s too happy in Chicago.”

“Duh. Cause your idiot brother happened to live there. And when she moves to Atlanta she’ll love it there too.”

I shrugged. “Probably. Still, that sucks.”

“Life sucks sometimes.”

~~~~~

It was start of the 2011-2012 season and life was pretty damn great. I expanded my store by knocking out the empty store next to mine and now I could have more items of more teams. Lexi, my hired help was glad about that; she was an avid Penguins fan and when she heard that I was upping the count of items on other teams, she went ballistic.

“So,” Jon stuck his head inside our bedroom. “What are you doing tonight?”

“The usual. Party it up like the party girl I am,” I pumped my fist for emphasis.

“So did you hear?” Jon belly flopped on the bed. “Kris has a girlfriend, only he doesn’t know it.”

“What?” I laughed, already grabbing my phone, dialing his number. “KRIS!” I shouted, to wake him up. “We aren’t even in the same state and I know about your new girlfriend, before you.”

“Wha. . .?” I could tell I had caught him asleep. “DAMN! NO! IT’S A LIE!”

I hung up, laughing. “Still so much fun to annoy.”

“You’re terrible, you know that?” he laughed, falling on the bed next to me, rubbing his eyes.

I shrugged. “Yeah well, he’s not here right now so it doesn’t matter. He’ll forget by tomorrow morning.”

“Tess?” Johnny asked, looking up at the ceiling, an intense look on his face.

I turned over on my stomach and propped my chin up with my hands, staring at him for an answer. “Yes?” I prompted, when he didn’t answer.

“What do you think about marriage?” he asked awkwardly.

“Hm,” I thought about it. “Depends.”

“On?” he asked, glancing over at me.

“Who are we talking about in this marriage conversation?” I asked.

“Hypothetically. . . you and me,” he said casually.

“Well how long have we been dating in this hypothetical situation?”

“Let’s call it at nine months and friends for a while before that,” he said, looking over at me.

I turned over onto my back so we could lay side by side and I nodded at the ceiling. “So we obviously love each other. That’s always good in a marriage.”

He laughed. “Normally yes Tess.”

“Okay. Let’s take this hypothetical situation further,” I said. “Let’s say you ask me to marry you. I say yes. What would we do then?”

“Well,” he said pausing, thinking. “I’d go buy you a ring. Any ring you wanted and then we’d get married.”

I smiled, looking over at him. “Right away? Like tonight?”

It was like a lightbulb went off over his head. He sat up fast and I followed suit and waited.

“That’s it Tess. Come on!” he pulled me up off the bed.

“Where are we going?” I asked as he dragged me downstairs and tossed me my shoes.

“We’re going to get you a ring and then to get married.”

I stared at him.

He looked terrified, probably because of my face.

“The City Hall closed two hours ago,” I said.

He laughed, bending down to breathe. “It took you that long to say that?!”

I threw up my hands. “Well I’m sorry you’re paranoid! I don’t want to be running all around Chicago trying to get married when everywhere’s closed!”

He came up to me, kissing me, his hands roaming all over my body. “I can’t sleep,” he declared. “Let’s run around Chicago until City Hall opens.”

I laughed. “What has gotten into you?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know! You? Marrying you? Looking at you? Just being around you,” he said.

That was all it took. “I need to go change.”

I changed into black leggings and a short sweater dress before grabbing my white knee high boots and running back to the man of my life.

We ran all around Chicago that night. We never stopped, never felt tired, never even thought of anything else but each other.

And that morning, we were the first into City Hall and the first to get married that day, me in my white sweater dress and him in black slacks and a blue button down shirt.

We were walking down the steps of City Hall and I stopped. He turned around, curious as to why I was stopped. “What is it?”

“What are we going to tell everyone?” I asked, really thinking through what we had just done. “They’re going to be pissed.”

It dawned on him as well and we walked arm in arm through the morning rush of Chicago, thinking about a solution. “Well, we could pretend like we’re not married and have a reception like thing in the summer,” Jon started.

“So we’ll have a wedding?” I asked, confused by his plan.

“Nah. Well unless you want one,” he backtracked quickly.

I grinned. “I already had my wedding. It was half an hour ago and with the man of my dreams.”

He smiled too and we arrived back at the house. “Then we’ll just tell them we got married October eighth at the end of the reception and we run.”

“We can disguise it like an engagement party,” I snapped my fingers.

“That’s good. This is going to be great!”

“We need a getaway car,” I sighed.