Who Wouldn't Want To Be Me

When our plane landed we all shuffled onto another bus, and I felt my eyes bug out when we pulled up in front of our hotel. It was a huge, beautiful hotel that no doubt was incredibly expensive.

“Pretty swanky, huh?” Matty asked, elbowing me playfully as I took it in.

“Yeah,” I eagerly agreed, making a few of the older guys laugh. They were used to this sort of thing, and as we were given our room keys I realized this could be a problem.

“Hey roomie,” Jordan grinned as a bunch of us got into the elevator.

“Hey,” I forced a smile back for him. I hadn’t really thought of how this would work out. Jordan was fairly quiet until we got to our room, when the only thing he said was that he called the bed closest to the door.

“Sounds good to me,” I said, and put my bag down on the other bed before flopping onto it, letting out a yawn. We had a late practice tonight, but we had most of the day to kill. Jordan turned the TV on, and surfed through every channel there was, without finding anything he really wanted to watch. So instead we settled on some music station, and he laid down as well.

“Are you ok Cam?” he asked suddenly.

“Yeah, I’m fine,”

“You sure? You just seem off… you know if you ever need to talk or want to talk or anything I’m here for you,” he said, and I felt my cheeks turn red. Something about him was making me do this lately, and it was scaring me as much as it was angering me. I shouldn’t be having this kind of reaction to him at all, the loss of words sometimes, the fact that I seemed to blush at almost everything. It was getting ridiculous and I didn’t know what to do about it. Becka’s words kept haunting me, her voice asking me if we clicked ‘that way’. We couldn’t, it just couldn’t be possible for me to have feelings for him.

“Thanks Jordan, that means a lot,” I said, and he must’ve been able to hear that I was being completely honest with him, because I heard him let out a small content sigh, as he seemed to relax completely.

I must’ve dozed off, because the next thing I knew someone was knocking at the door. I looked over to see Jordan asleep, curled up around his pillow and oblivious to the loud sound. So I stood up, stretching and yawning and opened the door.

“Hey Cam! How are you?” I was surprised to see Jordan’s older brother at the door, and he greeted me as if we’d known each other forever rather than just having spoke on the phone once.

“Good, good. Come on in, how are you Marc?” I opened the door wider and moved to the side to let him in. It was about a thirty-minute drive for him to come out here, and I knew that Jordan missed his brothers more than he’d openly admit during the season.

“I’m good! Are you excited for our game?” he asked, eyeing his sleeping little brother.

“Yeah, I’m really excited; we’re playing on my birthday,” I told him, and he turned to me.

“Really? That’s awesome! You’ll have to come to my place after and we can celebrate; Lindsay makes the best angel food cake,” he said, making me laugh.

“I don’t know, the guys seem bound and determined we’re going to celebrate,” I warned him.

“Hey, maybe tonight you guys can come out to our place! Then we can celebrate early and you can meet Lindsay,” he suggested, and it was obvious how much Lindsay meant to him; his smile grew wider and his eyes lit up when he so much as mentioned her name.

“That’d be cool,” I agreed, and moments later I was surprised when the huge defensemen lunged at his brother. Jordan woke up with a scream, scaring himself right off of the huge bed and onto the floor while Marc laughed. I couldn’t help it, I burst into laughter moments after and couldn’t contain myself. Jordan pouted at me before sending a glare his brother’s way.

“Marc! Jesus Christ just phone or something!” he grumbled, standing up and sitting back down on his bed. I managed to get to my bed, my laughter still not subsiding.

“I thought about it, but I thought surprising you would be better. I knocked loud enough to wake the dead,” Marc explained, and Jordan raised an eyebrow.

“I heard it,” I shrugged, and Marc chuckled.

“Apparently Jordy you sleep deeper than the dead,” Marc teased him, and then they were wrestling. It was cool to see the two of them together; as much as they might tick each other off they were so close it didn’t seem to matter.

“So, I have a proposition for you,” Marc said, clearing his throat.

“What’s that?” Jordan asked, looking to me to see if I had any knowledge of this.

“After practice you and Cam come out to my place so we can celebrate Cam’s birthday,”

“Yes! That’d be awesome! Lindsay makes the best angel food cake ever!” Jordan exclaimed, making me grin. Apparently Marc wasn’t just talking up his wife’s baking ability when he’d told me the same thing.

“All right! What time does practice go to?” He asked, and after texting a couple of the guys Jordan concluded we were done at eight thirty.

“So I’ll meet you two in the hotel lobby at ten to nine and head out to my place,” Marc decided, and we both nodded.

We ended up spending the entire afternoon with Jordan’s brother, and by the time he decided he’d go visit a few other friends while we went to practice it felt like I had grown up with Marc. He treated me the exact same way he treated Jordan; like a little brother. It was really cool, the way that he just accepted me because Jordan and I were so close.

“See you guys in a couple of hours,” he said, and we walked towards the rest of the team as we waited for the bus.

“How was your afternoon?” Sid asked, having calmed down considerably since this morning.

“Good; Marc drove out, so we spent the afternoon with him,” Jordan replied. We got on the bus and headed out to the restaurant. After supper we had forty-five minutes before practice, enough time to digest so we wouldn’t feel sick when we started skating.