Catch Up With Fate

Both Abby and Patrick were understanding of the fact that I didn’t want to attend or watch the game. Abby did go after I finally managed to convince her that I’d be fine on my own. Because curiosity killed the cat I did tune in for the odd minute here and there but it wasn’t really anything worth watching. The Hawks won, but C.A. didn’t score. So much for CC being the key to ending the scoring drought, right?

After the game a couple of the guys and girls texted me, asking if I wanted to come to dinner with them, but I didn’t. I wasn’t in the mood to have to answer a lot of questions and to explain how things were. Even less I was in the mood to run into CC and C.A.. Another day had passed with no change or progress. It would be a while until I’d be ready for any of that.

The next morning began earlier than the previous one, mainly because the night had also begun earlier and I didn’t need to catch up on sleep anymore. I helped Abby make breakfast and it was a nice round, because we kept up a good conversation, far away from any of my troubles.

“I’m not such a travel person actually,” I pointed out as we were talking about travelling and seeing the world. “I’m a home body, I love being at home where I know everything, where I’m comfortable and so on. I could never have a job where I’m jet setting like you guys. Vacation somewhere nice, sure, but not all the time.”

“It’s part of the job, I guess. I enjoy it most of the time,” Patrick shrugged. “You chose the right job though, teacher is pretty solid.”

“I guess,” I nodded. “They give you a pretty big range of what schools you could work at though, so it can be a pretty massive commute sometimes. There was a teacher at my high school that lived about two or three hours away, I think. She was usually late, because the train connections weren’t that great. Still aren’t.”

“And you get to deal with cheeky, snarky high schoolers every day!” Abby pointed out with a chuckle.

“That I do. But it’s not so bad if you find a way to deal with them. You got to find a balance of discipline, rules, fun and keeping them interested then it works. The good teachers are the ones that manage to run the class and still let the students have fun and keep their motivation up. Learning is easy when you’re having fun and are interested.”

“You’re going to make a good teacher, Tasha, I’m sure,” Abby smiled at me warmly.

“I try,” I nodded lightly. I’d never expected things to be easy and a piece of cake when I started to study to become a teacher and I wasn’t going to let myself believe the illusion either. Still it was nice to hear that other people could see things in me that I sometimes had trouble seeing myself.

.

Abby and Patrick of course had their own things to take care of throughout the day and because I was a ‘guest’ Abby refused for me to help her around the house. That left me with literally nothing to do but to waste time on my computer and watch mindless TV. I usually didn’t mind not having anything to do but this time it sucked, it left me with too much free brain space to think. When Elina texted me and asked if I wanted to hang out for dinner, I agreed although I knew that Niklas was also going to be there and I would probably get another question and lecture session, just in Swedish.

Hanging out with the Swedes always proved to be a challenge if only for the fact that they took my (stupid) request for help with improving my Swedish very seriously. I had gotten tons better which surprised no one more than myself honestly, but I wasn’t up for having to explain myself in a language I wasn’t completely comfortable with and fluent in using. When I got to Niklas and Elina’s apartment I wasn’t the only guest though. Viktor was also there which hopefully would put a cap on any uncomfortable conversations that would likely have come up, if I’d been alone with some of my closest team friends.

Dinner consisted of a simple, but very delicious combination of pasta and fish and the company was good. Talking in and listening to Swedish kept my brain just busy enough to not think about other things for a while. That wasn’t for long though because Niklas had to bring up my sleeping arrangements.

“Ska du tillbaka till Sharpie plats senare?” (Are you going back to Sharpie’s place later?) he asked and I nodded quickly. Abby had surprisingly let me borrow her car to get to Niklas’ place which made the travel a lot more comfortable and hassle-free.

Niklas and Elina were used to the fact that I didn’t have a car though. C.A. had gladly taken up the job of playing chauffeur for my sister, which had often extended to me as well, but I figured that privilege was gone now. As if I was up to asking anything of him anytime soon, yeah, right.

“Varför är du inte gå hem?“ (Why aren’t you going home?) Viktor seemed confused.

I let out a little sigh. “I can’t stand being there right now, there may actually be some dead bodies in the end,” I explained darkly and he didn’t bring it up again. Niklas did though, wanting to know how that was going to work out beyond a couple of days. I told him how it was, that I had no idea and that I was going to ask a couple of college buddies if they had any free spare rooms I could occupy. That seemed to leave all of them a little thoughtful for some reason but we soon moved on to something else.

It was good to spend some time with my friends but that didn’t change the fact that the problem was still there. Another night spent at the Sharp’s guest room meant another right away from home.

.

I skipped the next game as well and I didn’t feel at all bad about the fact that this time I didn’t know they’d lost until Sharpie got home. Maybe it was mean but I didn’t give a shit about anything Blackhawks related right now. It was hard though, they were very involved in my life at this point and would probably be until we left in June.

Nothing had changed regarding the non-scoring streak and I almost expected life to be enough of a bitch to hold the streak until at least Monday, so that the early return would have been for nothing. If that happened, I doubted I could forgive C.A.. If all this drama was for nothing, because CC coming back early didn’t end the drought quicker, then nasty things were going to happen to the team captain. He’d better get on top of that scoring or he would have to face even more fury than he already had.

It was an arguable point whether CC really mattered in the scoring drought or not. Knowing you had someone’s support went a long way, but she had always been there before New York and that hadn’t made a difference, so I didn’t see how it would make one now. In the end it wasn’t in my hands though and this was a part of the situation that I had absolutely no control over. It didn’t seem like there was much I had control over. Not anymore.

.

Abby and Sharpie were great friends and as such they hated to see me at home moping. So what else did that leave them to do to cheer me up with than to set me up on a date? They had moved to different grounds this time though, they had shifted to setting me up with teammates now after all.

It was no secret that I was a nut that Patrick Kane would never crack. From him being the kind of guy I could only tolerate to be friends with, if anything at all, to how he had gone about pestering me for a date in such an annoying and persistent way, that was something that was just never going to happen. That didn’t mean that this applied to all Blackhawks. As Sharpie had once said there had to be someone (single) that tickled my fancy, so to speak, and he was right, there was. But that was the exact reason I had my no dating rule, because I had known before hand that there would surely be someone I could or did like. Temptation if you will. Many of the Blackhawks were married or taken but there were also some that weren’t. Corey Crawford included.

I probably should have known they were up to no good when they told me ‘we’ were going out for dinner and that my baggy shirt and jeans weren’t going to cut it. When Corey stood there by the front door, giving me a small, awkward smile, and everything clicked into place, I had half a mind to create a havoc scene but I didn’t. Corey was nice, sweet and funny, I already knew that much. Sharpie wasn’t that far off picking Corey, I guess, but I was furious he had set me up like this. I didn’t want to be responsible for any more Blackhawks player(s) starting to suck. Abby could tell what was boiling beneath the surface when I put on my coat and boots without complaint, but her husband definitely didn’t notice.

“I’m sorry Sharpie sprung this on you, I thought you knew,” was the first thing Corey said once we were out of the house. “If you don’t want to go, it’s fine.”

See what I meant with sweet and nice? I let out a sigh, a small hopefully inaudible one. “It’s okay, Corey, let’s go.” It wasn’t his fault and because I already knew what the outcome of this ‘date’ was going to be, it wasn’t a threat. Beyond that Corey was great company. He had good manners and paid attention as we were talking during dinner, but even as we were laughing and telling stories the spark was very obviously missing. I wouldn’t let myself start thinking about whether it was missing naturally or because I wasn’t allowing a glimmer of hope.

It seemed like I wasn’t the only one that noticed, too, Corey was really making an effort and surprisingly I was not turning out to be the ice cube I had once been called. Hopefully Corey wasn’t going to be (too) crushed after this and we could continue to be friends. He was very pleasant to be around and I needed friends like that right now, even if they were on the same team as my ‘enemy’.

“Do you want to do something else now? Go for a walk, catch a movie or something? Or would you rather I take you home?” he asked when we left the restaurant with well filled bellies and a small dent in his credit card (he refused to let me share the bill). For the sake of our friendship and to not seem like a bitch, I knew I could not go with the latter at least not right away.

“A walk sounds nice,” I told him. Neither of us knew the city very well but this part was nicely lit and a short walk did sound nice. We didn’t link arms or anything as we walked a few blocks down the street next to each other. Corey should have won an award for being an awesome conversationalist, he had us talking about this and that almost the whole time.

“I guess this didn’t really work, did it?” he mused after a small silence.

“What do you mean?” I asked slowly although I was almost sure of what he meant. “The date?”

“Yeah,” he nodded.

“Not really,” I said quietly. He’d gone through this like a trooper, never giving up that there might be something there, but even sweet, attentive Corey had to admit defeat - that he couldn’t crack the nut either. I briefly wondered how many more ‘suitable men’ the Sharps were going to pull out of their magic hat.

“It’s not that I don’t think you’re nice or sweet or anything,” I felt the need to explain.

“You just don’t want to date,” he finished for me. “I know.”

Then why did you let Sharpie talk you into this?! I wanted to ask but didn’t. “Yeah,” I sighed. “Is that so hard to understand?” It was more of a rhetorical question but Corey answered anyway.

“You’re a great girl, Tasha,” Corey said simply, like that explained it all. To me it really didn’t.

How was it significant that I was a great girl? It didn’t change the fact that I wasn’t going to date anyone. Great or not, the rule was no dating and it would stay like that.

The other question was whether I was really all that great. Surely there were a lot of people who would argue that, topped off by me and probably closely followed by C.A.. It wasn’t great that I was so easily hurt by this and stubbornness might not be a character trait one would necessarily describe as ‘great’. Something was wrong with these North American boys if they all thought I was oh so great. Really, I should have capitalized on it, German boys were rarely really interested for reasons that I didn’t understand.

I should have locked a big fish like Patrick down and been done with it. But I hadn’t and that was the point. I wasn’t after a Mr. Right Now, someone that was a big meal ticket maybe but all sort of wrong in every other aspect. I was after Mr. Right, The One, even if that may be an outdated concept.

As I thought about that, a thought occurred to me. CC had told me a few times that she felt that C.A. was that person for her, that they were two pieces of a puzzle that fit together. If she had found her One here, what if I was shutting exactly that person down with my rule? The thought was just as disturbing as it was terrifying.

“What are you thinking about?” Corey’s calm question got me out of my head and back to earth.

“I’m... not quite sure,” I answered slowly and it was the truth. I wasn’t quite sure what my sudden realization meant but I would have to figure it out.

“How can you not be sure what you’re thinking?” Corey chuckled.

“When you’re not sure, what a thought is going to lead you to?” I tried to explain and he smiled.

“A lot going on in your head, huh?”

Don’t you know it, Corey? “Yeah,” I sighed. Man, there was a lot of damn stuff going on in my head and it made me feel like it was about to explode.