Catch Up With Fate

Waking up Tuesday was a little strange. Everything was the same, but then everything was also different.

I had slept really well, in my ‘own’ bed, without Viktor, but it had still been great. It was early morning and still I felt amazingly well rested. Maybe that was because it had been a long time since I had slept so carefree. Just thinking of the happy look on Viktor’s face last night when I’d given him the ticket for ‘safekeeping’, made my heart flutter and I grinned into my pillow, almost laughing out loud. If I could keep feeling like this for a little longer before the real world had me back, or if I could bottle the feeling for awful days in the future, I would have. The real world, where things between CC and I were still unresolved and where I would have to grovel to my bandmates to hopefully get them to take me back.

I was in the middle of my little grinning fit, when the door opened and Viktor tiptoed in, though he dropped the quiet act when he saw I was already awake.

“Good morning,” I greeted his blurry figure and laughed when he climbed into the bed and under the duvet with me.

“Good morning indeed,” he grinned, wrapping his arms around me.

“What time’s practice?” I asked while I snuggled myself into his shoulder.

“Have to leave in 10,” he told me with the grin still audible in his voice.

“Are you fully dressed?!”

“Yep,” he laughed and squeezed me a little. “Right, I forgot you can’t see anything without glasses.” He tapped the tip of my nose with his index finger.

“I can see your face just fine,” I retorted.

“Well, that’s the most important part anyway,” he joked and I laughed. “You going to class?”

“Maybe, not sure. Would probably miss the one at 10 anyway.”

“Not if you get dressed in 10 and we get you some breakfast on the way.”

“Ugh,” I groaned and now it was his turn to laugh. “Can’t I get some kind of allowance for today? The last few days were pretty exhausting.”

“Your own fault,” he pointed out with no sympathy.

“I know,” I sighed with a deep frown.

“I can’t even tell you how glad I am that you’re staying,” he told me, playing with the ends of a few strands of my hair.

“And I can’t tell you how thankful I am that you convinced me,” I replied. Sometimes patience really did pay off.

Viktor smiled and kissed my forehead. “Promise you’ll be here when I get back?”

“Of course,” I nodded seriously. “I’ll stay right here and unpack.”

“That sounds good,” he told me and crawled out of my bed. “I’ll pick you up for lunch.”

“I could cook something...”

“Nah, I wanna take you out,” he smiled and left after one more, soft kiss.

The rest of the morning I spent unpacking my suitcases. There were a few boxes that also held some of my stuff, but there was no space to put it, the wardrobe was overflowing with the amount of clothes I had put in it already and I still had more. You never know how much stuff you actually have until you plan to move, it’s insane.

When Viktor returned, he was happy to see me, but for just a split second I could see that fear in his eyes when he came in. The fear that I had left after all. But I hadn’t and that brought one of these completely unfair smiles to his face. I had no choice but to stay seated, because my knees had turned into jelly. Just a little bit.

We went to a nearby restaurant for lunch. My phone kept beeping with new text messages from his teammates, who probably had been able to read the good news right off Viktor’s face this morning. The rest of the day we just relaxed, took a nap together and recuperated a little.

.

Wednesday I knew I had to return to class, which was going to be a little weird. Fortunately I hadn’t notified the school of my departure, so I didn’t have hassle with them to take me back. That was going to be different with my job though, I had given Mrs. Schu a call on Saturday to tell her I was leaving. Hopefully she would be nice enough to let me have my job back.

In my first class I didn’t meet anyone from the band, Diane, or anyone else that had been at the party Monday night. That changed in the second class after lunch break though, which I shared with Miss ‘Sucker Punch’ Diane.

“I thought you’d be gone!” she walked right up to the desk I was sitting at. “Are you staying?!”

“Yes,” I nodded and couldn’t help but grin. It may have been the only time that I heard her sort of squeal as she reached over and hugged me over the desk awkwardly.

“I knew loverboy could do it,” she smirked and sat down next to me. “He had that whole devastated puppy look down perfectly.”

I chuckled and just smiled, he really did. “Do you think the guys would take me back?”

Diane looked up from typing a text on her phone. “Pretty sure, yeah,” she nodded. “I'm texting Hayden, let’s see what he says.”

The reply that came only a little later made Diane and I laugh, which was unfortunate because class had already started. After replying to our professor’s dirty look with two innocent ones, we kept grinning at each other.

Hayden: WOOOHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! :D

.

“They’re hanging out at Adam’s place, let’s go,” Diane grinned happily after class had finished. The entire car ride I thought about what I would say to them, but I didn’t get much further than saying sorry and admitting that I’d been completely stupid.

“They’re going to kill me,” I fretted, following Diane up the stairs. Apologizing like this made me uncomfortable, but there was a huge apology due, so I’d just have to suck it up.

“Shit, you’re really still here!” Adam laughed and gave me a hug that squeezed all the air from my lungs.

“Not for much longer if you keep squeezing like that,” I wheezed and he finally let go.

“Let’s get you inside, Lady Sunshine!” He pushed me through the apartment until I stood in front of the rest of the band. What I hadn’t expected was for another girl to sit with them, one I vaguely knew as Melody from some old pictures I’d been shown.

“You’re here!” Hayden jumped up and gave me a hug, too, but the rest of the band wasn’t as enthusiastic. Jared gave me a smile, but Jay and Dillon just looked at me.

“Uhm, hey,” I said slowly. “I'm Tasha,” I said to Melody, but she ignored it, just giving me a dark look.

“You don’t look much like you’re in Europe now, do you?” she said almost snippily. For a moment I just stared at her, but then I squared my shoulders. It was a little hard to believe that the guys were talking to Melody to come back to the band, at least that was what I assumed, but then again I couldn’t blame them for wanting to get shit sorted out quickly.

“No,” I said calmly, but firmly. “I’m staying. Some really smart people made me realize that staying here would be the better decision, so here I am. I’m sorry I left you guys hanging in there, that wasn’t my intention. I was hoping you’d forgive me and maybe take me back?” I looked at each one and almost laughed at how Hayden, Jared and Adam were grinning widely.

“Are you serious? You think they’d take you back like that after you just dumped them,” Melody huffed.

“What made you think we were going to take you back just like that?” Dillon threw at her. “At least she apologized, you just waltzed back in here like you’re the queen.”

“How about a vote?” Diane threw in before Melody could say whatever bitchy words seemed to be on the tip of her tongue.

“Who’s for Melody?” After a few moments no one had lifted their hands, so Diane went on. “Who’s for Tasha?” Hayden, Adam, Dillon and Jared immediately threw their arms up and after receiving a few pointed looks, so did Jamison. “Guess that was pretty clear, huh?” Diane grinned at Melody, who grabbed her stuff and just stormed off, ranting to herself.

“Thank you,” I told the guys. “I really am sorry for how things went, my head just wasn’t on straight.”

“As long as it’s on straight now, it’s fine,” Adam said. I gave him a thankful smile, feeling very fortunate that I had such forgiving friends.

“You gotta make it up to us though,” Hayden threw in with a grin.

“With what?”

“Can you get tickets to tonight’s game?” Everyone laughed after that.

“I can try,” I chuckled. “You all wanna come?” Various confirmations could be heard, so I took out my phone and made a call, changing my mind about who I would call at the last second.

“You’re lucky I just got up, Natascha,” Jon grumbled through the line and I grinned to myself.

“Sorry, didn’t think of that,” I told him. “You owe me, right?” Maybe two days after was a little cheeky to cash in on some favors that Jonathan most definitely owed me, but I had an idea and it wouldn’t work if I asked Viktor for the tickets.

“What do you want?”

I grinned. “7 tickets to the game?”

“Jesus,” Jon sighed. “Box or seats?”

“You guys wanna sit in a box or in the crowd?” I passed the question on to my again bandmates.

“Both?” Hayden looked like an excited kid on Christmas morning.

“Okay, before Hayden dies from excitement... I think we’ll take the crowd for now, I can get passes off of Viktor some other time,” I told Jon.

“Why didn’t you ask him in the first place?” he wanted to know.

“’Cause it’s supposed to be a surprise.”

“You’re going to kill that boy one of these days, Tasha. I thought he might burst from excitement yesterday morning. If he doesn’t get a hat trick tonight, I don’t know when.”

“If you just jinxed him, I’m going to kill you,” I let him know. “7 crowd tickets, yes?”

“Yes,” Jon chuckled. “You and your sister, you’re going to give me grey hair early.”

“That’s the idea,” I grinned. “Don’t tell Vik, okay? Oh, hey, do you think you could get me his jersey?”

“You don't have one? He’s slacking. I’ll see what I can do, anything else, Your Majesty?”

“You can pay for the drinks,” I suggested cheekily. He let out a deep breath. “Thanks, Jon.”

“You’re welcome. May I get back to my game day routine now?”

“Of course. At least you’re not as superstitious as Crosby, I heard he doesn’t talk to his Mom on game days cause he got hurt once.”

“He doesn’t,” Jon commented dryly and I snorted a laugh. “See you later, Tasha.”

“I’ll know where to find you,” I joked and hung up. “Done.”

“Jesus, I love you, Natascha,” Hayden grinned from ear to ear. “One phone call and we’re in! You’re gonna have to do that a lot in the future!”

“That’s okay, I think the guys can do with the extra fans,” I laughed.

.

A few hours later we were picking up the tickets at will call and Hayden had another freak out about sitting in the fifth and sixth row. We matched in our Blackhawks jerseys, him Sharpie, me Stalberg, the latter courtesy of Jon. Adam had a Blackhawks hoodie, Diane a shirt and the rest had borrowed some of Hayden’s stuff, so that we made for a great group of fans.

“Oh my God, I wasn’t actually serious,” I laughed when I pulled a few vouchers for the concession stands from the same envelope that had contained the tickets. “He’s going all out.”

“Gotta milk him then,” Diane joked and linked arms with me. I was a little confused that she wasn’t attached to Dillon, who was in front of us with Adam and Hayden.

“I’ll try,” I chuckled. “Guys, you want beer?”

“Fuck yes!” I just laughed at Hayden’s very obvious over-enthusiasm.

Once we had gotten the beers and some nachos, we found our seats. Diane and I took the three in the fifth row with Hayden, while the rest sat behind us.

“You didn’t wanna sit with Dill’?” I asked her when we were all settled in.

“Nah, it’s okay,” she shrugged.

“Can you take a picture of me with your phone?” I turned to Adam.

“Sure,” he nodded and photographed me as I half turned to the ice, so you could both see my face and the back of my jersey. “And now?”

“Now you send it to my boyfriend,” I grinned, purposely omitting his name. Adam and the rest laughed. I had told Jon to tell Viktor to check his phone a little bit before warm ups, which the captain hadn’t been too happy about, but promised to relay the message. To make my surprise perfect I’d told Viktor I was hanging out with the band, but not that we’d be hanging out at the UC.

A little later I got a text from him, letting me know the picture and Jon’s message had reached him.

you’re here after all! Nice jersey!!!!! Thanks for coming! :D He didn’t usually use so many exclamation marks, so I knew he was pretty excited.

You’re welcome :) Hottest player on the ‘Hawks, that #25 ;) Good luck out there, we’ll be the ones cheering our heads off in row 5&6 I replied and put my phone away, but not before Diane had read it over my shoulder.

“Stop sexting, he’s supposed to focus on the game, not you!” she teased and Adam, who had the seat directly behind me, kicked me in the back.

“Stop distracting the players, Natascha.”

“Shut up,” I rolled my eyes and pulled my hands into the sleeves of my jersey. It was huge on me, but I was glad that Jon hadn’t sent a girl one. After this I was definitely going to ask Vik for one from him. And I was going to draw a damn circle above the ‘a’, like it should be correctly! The name was Stålberg, not Stalberg!