The More Boys I Meet

It was weird. For the rest of break they were super nice and I couldn’t take it. “Stop!” I shouted at them. “If you don’t go back to being normal again I will kill you all. The whole ‘kill someone with kindness’ thing? Yeah that shit is real because I’m ready to kill myself or you. Go back to normal or suffer the consequences,” I said, rubbing my temple.

They all stared at me.

“Forget it. You guys have the attention span of a fly,” I sighed, going upstairs to change into my Patrick Kane jersey for the game. I hesitated and sighed. Before Christmas I had one jersey to wear to every game. But of course the guys just had to go out and get me more jerseys so now I had a Stalberg, Kruger, and Crawford jersey as well. And now I had to decided which to wear and which to offend.

“Johnny?” I called downstairs. “You still here?”

The front door opened and closed. “Now I am!”

“Come here!”

He came in my room, dressed in his nice suit. “What?”

I pointed to the jerseys which were flipped over so the Indian head was showing. “Pick one for me to wear.”

He laughed. “That one,” he pointed to the second on the left and I picked it up and showed him his prize. “You picked none other than the lovely Marcus Kruger to be my jersey for the night. Please note that any hate from the discarded players will be directed to you.”

He hung his head. “That was low Ells.”

I shrugged and slipped it over my black long sleeve shirt. “Hey now. It sucks to be you.”

After the game against the Coyotes which ended in a victorious win. . . in a shootout, some of the guys made their way back to our house. “Do you rent out your rooms or something?” I asked. “Because we never hang out at any other house but our’s.”

“You can go hang out at our place,” Viktor shrugged. “I don’t care. Marcus went back there to change. He’s so picky sometimes about what he wears that diva.”

And that was exactly what they did. Pat dropped me off at their house and left and I shook my head laughing.

I walked in. “You still here Marcus?” I called out.

He poked his head out of the bathroom, dressed only in a towel and I couldn’t help but stare. “Yeah, but why are you here? No offense,” he added on. “It’s just that we never hang out here. Are the guys here too?”

I laughed, walking over to his fridge. “No. I made a comment about how they never leave our house and they dropped me off at your place.”

He laughed too and walked out in a tee shirt and a pair of shorts. “What are you making?” he asked, looking at the ingredients I was pulling out of the cupboards.

“Cookies,” I said.

He looked at me like I had grown wings. “You can make cookies?” he asked slowly.

“Yes,” I said. “They’re not that hard to make you know. Come on, I’ll show you.”

We made chocolate chip M&M cookies and it was the most painful seventeen minute wait while they baked.

We were sprawled out on the couch, eating the fresh out of the oven and still too hot cookies, deciding on a movie to watch.

“Ellie?” Marcus said my name and I turned to face him, our faces inches apart and I fed him part of a cookie.

“Yes?” I asked.

“I’m going to take you on a real date,” he stated.

“No you’re not,” I said without thinking.

He raised an eyebrow. “And why is that?”

“Because I don’t want to,” was my reason and I laid my head on his chest.

“You’ve never been on a real date, have you?” he asked after a few moments of deliberation and another cookie.

I paused and thought about it. I’ve had a few one night stands. A few stand ups, but no real dates. “It doesn’t matter.”

He sat up which of course meant I had to sit up too. We sat facing each other as he studying me. “You really haven’t been on a real date? Ever?”

I shrugged, brushing crumbs out of my bra. “I wasn’t very popular in high school and I didn’t have time for anything except a few one night stands in college. So no, I guess I have not been on a real date nor do I wish to start twenty two years later either.”

“Well it doesn’t matter because I am taking you on a real date.”

I stared at him, eyes cold and narrowing, hoping he would give in. It was useless on him. He just sat there, blinking at me with those big, doe like brown eyes. I gave in. “Fine!”

He smiled, satisfied. “Thursday at eight. I’ll pick you up. Wear a dress.”

My mouth dropped open in shock and I threw my hands up, not in surrender but in frustration of his guidelines. “That’s it. That’s the deal breaker. I’m not going!”

He chuckled, pulling me back down on his chest. “Shut up. You’re going. You’ve worn a dress, haven’t you?”

“Yes Marcus,” I snapped. “I’ve worn a dress before.”

“How long ago?” he asked.

I paused. “My freshman year in high school.”

He sighed, absentmindedly rubbing his hands up and down my bare arms. “This doesn’t surprise me much.”

I didn’t actually watch the movie he turned on. I couldn’t even tell you what movie he chose. All I could think of was that I was going on my very first date and that I didn’t have a dress to wear.