If We Ever Meet Again

May

Sitting at a table in the bar of the hotel they were staying at, Eleanor Larsson laughed along with her friends as they celebrated their 6-2 thrashing of Team USA just hours earlier. The five of them had flown out to Kosice a couple of days earlier, thankfully missing their embarrassing 5-4 loss to Norway, but just in time to catch their comeback as they beat Austria 3-0 just two days earlier.

They were all true hockey fans, so a week in Slovakia during the World Championships to watch a couple of games while they celebrated two birthdays sounded like the perfect idea. Even if several of their other friends didn’t quite share that sentiment….

Besides, Slovakia was a beautiful country and Kosice was a large enough city that even when they weren't dressed to the nines in yellow and blue, supporting their country, there were a lot of things to do. So far, they were having an amazing time and crowning a day of sightseeing with a surprisingly comfortable win over the US seemed like the perfect ending.

Rolling her eyes at her friends, Ellie excused herself from the group and stood up from her chair, picking up her empty glass before she made her way over to the bar to order herself another beer. It wasn’t really her choice of beverage, but when in Rome…. Apparently it was tactless to travel all the way out to Slovakia and not indulge at least a little in their large selection of beer.

Mumbling sorry as she accidentally bumped into someone on her way, she soon reached the bar and smiling at the bartender, she only had to show her empty glass and he poured her another one. Leaning slightly on the granite countertop, she glanced around the rest of the crowded hotel bar, taking in the scenery sort to speak.

She was single and it was something she’d been trying to fix for a long time now…

Her gaze landing on a group of guys who seemed like they’d had better days, she blushed slightly as one of them caught her watching, sending her a slight smile before she could look away. Cheeks burning in embarrassment, she leaned forwards on her forearms but couldn’t help but dare a glance back over her shoulder. He was cute…

Only now he was looking straight at her and her blush deepened even further as she took in his dark blonde, slightly tousled hair and dark blue eyes.

Sucking her bottom lip between her teeth, she reminded herself that whilst holiday romances always seemed like a great idea, they always ended badly, or at least sour. Besides, it wasn’t like they were happily drunk on a beach somewhere; half-dressed, high on sun-induced pheromones and filled with margaritas…

Closing her eyes for a moment, she thanked the man behind the bar in Slovak – one of the three words she’d actually managed to learn as they were flying out. Taking a sip of the dark liquid in the glass, she turned on her heel and almost jumped out of her own skin as she found the guy she’d been making eyes at suddenly standing just a foot or so away from her, looking strangely awkward. As well as somewhat familiar…though she couldn’t place from where.

“You scared me,” she blurted out in English, her second language which she’d become accustomed to speaking ever since they touched down in the foreign country.

“Sorry,” the man apologized quickly, a slight red tint appearing across his cheeks. “I don’t mean to be forward, but I’d been hoping I could buy you a drink,” he admitted sheepishly. “But you already have one…” he trailed off as he nodded towards the glass in her hand.

“You can buy me the next one,” she smiled as she looked at him. She’d always considered herself fairly tall, at 5’8’’ she was taller than all of her girlfriends and even some of her boyfriends, but standing next to him she found herself feeling rather short, he was all but towering over her. And he was broad, very broad with wide shoulders, a square jaw and arms that even through the white dress shirt he was wearing made her want to run her hands over them and caused less than appropriate thoughts to run through her head…

“I’d like that,” he smiled at her, looking a lot more confident than just a moment earlier. “I'm Jack,” he introduced himself, but didn’t hold out his hand to shake her, in his mind it was a much too formal move for the bar setting.

“Ellie,” she replied as she looked up at him, finding that his blue eyes were even more expressive up-close.

“Are you here on vacation?” he asked as she leaned back against the bar once again, sipping her beer.

“Yeah,” she nodded quickly. “I'm here with a few of my friends, two of us turn 25 this week,” she revealed with a slight smile, “so it’s a celebration vacation.”

“Is your birthday one of them?” he asked with a spark in his dark eyes.

“No,” she shook her head with a wide smile, her loose hair brushing against her upper arms as she did. “Thankfully it’s a while longer till that happens,” she told him. “So why are you here?” she asked coyly, hoping to get at least a hint as to why she felt like she recognized him from somewhere. His generic American accent sure wasn’t helping her.

“For the hockey,” she replied vaguely, not quite able to look her in the eye as the words passed his lips.

“Right,” she nodded once. “Then this would probably be a bad time to admit that so are we,” she saod softly. “We were actually at the game against you guys tonight,” she told him, a sheepish smile across her naturally plump lips. In her mind there was a time to gloat and rub a win in someone’s face, and another to rise above and be a humble winner…this definitely fell into the latter category.

“Yeah, that…” he trailed off, surprised that she didn’t seem to know who he was.

“Didn’t mean to bring that up,” she said sympathetically, glancing up at him through her long lashes.

“Don’t worry about it,” he assured her simply. “Losing always sucks,” he shrugged slightly, watching as she sipped her drink. If she knew who he was, she was doing a very good job of hiding it…

“True that,” she nodded once.

“So are you and your friends staying here at the hotel, or are you just here to celebrate?” he wondered as he took a drink from his own glass, watching her closely. There was something about her that just drew him in…




Finishing her beer, Ellie let Jack buy her another one and moving over to one of the tall tables just a few feet away from the bar, conversation had continued to flow freely between them. Of course there were a few moment of awkward silence from time to time when they didn’t quite know what to say, but they quickly got passed them, talking about nothing and everything.

Some of Jack’s friends passed by at one point, telling him they were heading back up to their rooms for the night, but the two of them stayed in the bar, drinking a bit and talking a lot more.

They quickly established that they led quite different lives and that they didn’t have all that much in common, but still, they clicked. Jack currently lived out on the American West Coast, California to be exact; he led a rather scheduled but still fairly free life whilst Ellie lived in her country’s capital, worked close to 70hours a week and didn’t have time for much of a life outside of her office. They were practically polar opposites…

It was getting close to 1am when Jack glanced at the watch on his arm and he swallowed a curse as he realized he was out way passed curfew, but he still didn’t want to leave. Despite cheering for his latest opponent, and opponent who’d handed them their collective asses just a couple of hours earlier, she was fun and he enjoyed her company, listening to her telling stories about her friends and her work.

“You're fidgeting,” Ellie smiled softly as she looked up at him. She was buzzed, that was obvious, but she want slurring her words yet and she could still control all of her limbs. “And glancing at your watch every few minutes,” she called him out. “Do you have a wife to get back to?” she joked slightly, but from just watching her he could see the slight worry shining in her blue eyes.

“No, no wife, no girlfriend,” he shook his head, smiling slightly. “Not here or back in the states,” he added for assurance. “But I do have to head back up to my room to get some shut eye,” he reluctantly told her. In that moment he’d much rather stay with her than head up to the room he shared with Wheeler, listening to him snore the night away… But he had practice in the morning and he wasn’t looking forwards to participating in that with a hangover as well as being dead tired.

“Right,” she nodded understanding, glancing down at the table between them as she reached up, and timidly pushed her hair behind her eat. She could admit it to herself at least; she liked him, she wanted to know more about him, spend more time with him…

The innocent that surrounded the simple move made him want to reach out and kiss her, but he chickened out. “How long are you staying for?”

“We leave Sunday night,” she told him. It had been cheaper to just go to the prelim-rounds and most of the qualification games than to the actual elimination games, besides; they never know how far they would go in the tournament. And Kosice was a lot cheaper to stay in than Bratislava. “Right after the game,” she added almost as an afterthought.

“Right,” he nodded slowly, reaching out and pushing a stubborn strand of hair behind her ear, brushing the pad of his thumb over a barely there scar on her cheek.

“Would you…do you…” she stumbled over her words, a blush appearing on her cheeks as she looked away from him for a second. “Do you want to come back to my room with me?” she decided to just throw it out there, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth as she looked up at him through her lashes.

“Absolutely,” he nodded quickly, a slight smile spreading across his lips as neither of them moved for a second.

Grabbing his much larger hand in hers, wrapping her fingers around his, she left her half-full glass on the table and pulled him along as she headed across the bar, towards the tables where her friends were still sitting, a lot more intoxicated than when she’d left them.

“Someone’s getting lucky tonight!” Tim hollered as she got closer to them.

“Shut up!” Ellie brushed bright red as she from the corner of her eye could see that whilst he’d heard him, Jack had no idea what her friend had just said.

“Only you,” Tessa smiled as she shook her head slightly. “Only you would go on vacation to Slovakia of all places and still manage to get yourself a hot holiday hookup.”

“Maybe so,” Ellie’s blush didn’t lessen at all, “but you're still bunking with Tim tonight,” she added with a wide smile before she turned and all but pushed Jack towards the lobby.

If she hadn't been sharing a hotel room with her friend, she wouldn’t have passed them on their way out of the bar because she knew that they were never going to let her forget about this. But she just really didn’t want to be interrupted…