I Won't Give Up

"Please come with me," Tanya begged and I couldn't help but laugh a little, even though she was being completely serious.

"I don't think so."

"Please. Please please. Pleeeeeeease," she continued to whine and I just stared at her with an amused look on my face, shaking my head.

"I'm not a Hurricane girlfriend. I'm not invited," I stated and got up from my spot at the kitchen counter of my brother's apartment.

It was getting close to Christmas so I decided to leave Pittsburgh and spend the last week before Christmas with Eric and Tanya and then fly back to Thunder Bay with them.

"You know you're more permanent than anyone else there. They'll all welcome you with open arms."

"E, can you tell my future sister-in-law that she's being ridiculous? The wives and girlfriends are really nice people, she has nothing to worry about," I explained as I plopped down on the seat next to Eric on the couch in the living room. I had done a lot of work with these women. The wives had basically begged Eric to bring me around during his rookie season so I knew most of them pretty well. I wasn't lying, all of them were incredibly nice.

"Shortstack's right, sweetheart, they are going to love you with or without my sister there holding your hand through everything," Eric encouraged with a supportive smile lighting up his face. Tanya then huffed, stomped her foot, and turned to march back to the bedroom in order to change and get ready to meet the Hurricane's wives and girlfriends for the first time. Eric then turned to me with a scowl on his face. "And will you knock off future wife comments? You know I plan on asking her to marry me when we're back at the Bay. I do not need the constant reminder that I haven't yet."

*~~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*

"Please come with me," I pleaded as I was literally down on my knees, in front of Claude's couch, begging Claude's roommate's sisters to go with me to meet the Flyers' wives and girlfriends. Claude and Brayden Schenn were standing behind the couch supposedly playing ping pong, but were actually just laughing at my behavior. I was far from proud of what I was doing.

"Not a chance," Madison, the older of the two Schenn sisters, chuckled while continuing to stare at the TV, not even giving me the time of day. Macy, the youngest Schenn, on the other hand, was looking at me with sympathy in her eyes. She was so close to caving I could taste it.

"Come on, Macy," I continued and painted on my signature, charismatic smile. I heard Claude muttered an 'uh-oh' to himself but I chose to ignore him. He could smell my manipulation from a mile away. "We would have so much fun. I'll take us out to get massages afterwards. And you don't really want to spend the whole day cooped up here with those to goobers, do you?"

And then a small smile started to form on the young girl's face.

"Well, maybe..."

"No no no no no!" Brayden stormed over to us and lifted Macy over the back of the couch to get her away from me. "Stop using your evil Staal mind powers on my baby sister." That had the whole room laughing.

"They aren't going to eat you, Joella," Claude announced as he leaned casually against the ping pong table. "They are actually really excited to meet you. They've been yelling at me for not bringing you around sooner." Yes. That is totally the way to make me want to go. Tell me that they think I'm a bad girlfriend for not being around more.

"Talbot's girlfriend is going to be there," Brayden added, thinking that would make me more comfortable.

"Max may be one of my closest friends, but I have yet to meet his girl. So she's just another woman that I have to impress."

"Ma chérie." The words fell from Claude's lips with so much concern behind them. When I looked up to meet his eyes, he tilted his head in the direction of the hallway that lead to the other part of the apartment. I got up off my knees and followed him like a lost puppy. We didn't even make it halfway down the hallway before he turned on his heel to face me. "What's this really about?"

"I'm not good at impressing people, Claude," I mumbled and avoided eye contact.

"Bullshit."

"I don't know what you want me to say."

"Double bullshit."

I finally looked into his eyes and the concern that was in his voice just moments before was nowhere to be found in his eyes. They were hard, but not in an angry way. They were challenging me. He knew I was bluffing and he was calling me out on it.

"This shy act you are putting on is so far from the Joella that I know. My Joella would go to this wives and girlfriends meeting and kick the door down. She would go there, glowing confidence, and not let anyone's opinion phase her. And all of those women would admire her for it. Where's that girl?"

"We've got so much going against us already," I argued, staring him down. He wanted confident Joey? He was going to get her. "I have yet to meet a single person that thought we were good together. That's all fine and dandy when it's my brother's teammates and their opinions don't really matter. It's even alright when I hear it from my brothers because I know it's just based on hockey rivalries and they just like to pick on me. But now it's getting to your team, your life. If those girls don't think I'm good enough for you, they are going to go home and form the opinions of your teammates. I'm just afraid that you are going to let their chirping and trash talking get to you and you won't want to be with me anymore."

He pulled me into his chest after that. I couldn't help but wrap my arms around his torso as I deflated against him. The kisses he was placing on the top of my head were comforting.

"That will never happen, mon amour, I promise. I am one hundred percent crazy about you and nothing is going to change that." With that, he put a hand under my chin and tilted my head up to connect my lips with his.

*~*~*~*~*

Text Message from JJ
Did you survive? Or are you dead? That sure would complicate things for me.....

Text Message to JJ
Yeah, JJ. I'm dead and you're thinking about yourself. Thanks.

Text Message from JJ
You're dead? So who am I talking to? Your ghost?

Text Message to JJ
Yes. And you should know better than to anger the spirits. They can make things happen to you.

Text Message from JJ
Sorry spirit.

Text Message from Erictacular
How'd everything go? You still alive?

Text message to Erictacular
I literally just had a convo with Jord about my dead evil spirit coming back to haunt him, so can we skip those jokes?

Text Message from Erictacular
That bad, huh?

Text Message to Erictacular
No, it actually went really well. I'm on my way to dinner with a couple of the girls now.

Text Message from Erictacular
You make a couple of new friends and forget the Flyer exists. Nice :P

Text Message to Erictacular
Chicks before dicks

Text Message from JJ
Eric just told me you called the Flyer a dick. Welcome to the dark side.

I locked the screen on my phone after that and left it to rest in my lap. I was in a car with Max's girlfriend, Matt Read's girlfriend, and Sean Couturier's girlfriend on our way to one of the most expensive restaurants in town. They were all fairly new to the wives and girlfriends group as well and completely understood my nervous state when I had met them all. We had come to the conclusion that the only real way to feel better after all of the stress was to spend our boyfriend's money. Hence our expensive dinner outing.

"You telling Claude about how evil we all are?" Sean's girlfriend questioned in a playful tone and a smirk on her face from her seat next to me. Matt's girlfriend was driving and Max's was riding shotgun.

"Nah. It's just my idiotic, protective brothers checking in on me," I answered causing the car to fill with laughter.

I checked my phone one more time as the girls and I piled out of the car and made our way into the restaurant. There were a handful of ridiculous texts from Eric and Jordan. Nothing out of the ordinary. And then there was one from Claude.

Text Message from Claude
Reader and Talbs just came over bringing food. Thanks for telling me you weren't coming home, sweetheart. But I'm glad to hear everything went well and you're making friends.