Don't Let These Boots Fool You

I heard voices growing louder as I kept walking around the halls of the stadium. I stopped as I saw someone walk out into the hallway and look both ways then smiled as they spotted me. I was confused as to who it was, “Kelly?” I tried to recognize the voice and look at the face but couldn’t see who it was because they were running at me and I braced myself for a bear hug that was bound to happen.

I felt the scruff amongst the crook my neck as I was being spun around in the air. “Kelbell, where the hell have you been?”

“Holy shit, Max? How’d you get to me first?” I was baffled by the fact that he had found me before Sid or Jordan found me.

“Where have you been? Sid and Jordan haven’t heard from you since the banquet, where’d you go.” I felt bad because he wanted to know where I was but I felt bad because his confusion meant that Sid and Jordan had kept their word to me.

I was set back on the ground and felt my face flush as I looked down at my feet. “Well, can we go in and see the rest of the boys.” I tried to smile but knew it wasn’t what it should have been. I lead Max back to the locker room and pushed through the doors only to hear the chatter stop suddenly and heard all the heads turn in the room. “Hi guys,” I said sheepishly knowing I had to of hurt them all.

I suddenly had all of them surrounding me in a big group hug. I felt better about leaving them but still felt bad about it. I wanted to be honest and up front with them but knew that at the moment it would hurt them all to know I had left because I’d fallen for their captain and alternate captain within the three months I’d been there. Now I was almost sleeping with their rival’s alternate captain.

I wanted to be honest with them all but couldn’t bear to be honest with them. I turned to find Nealer looking at me with his signature smirk, “Where’d you go you southern belle you.” I smiled and looked down at the boots that were covering my feet and then back up at him. I pointed at the jersey and saw his face contort, “yeah, why are you wearing that hideous thing?”

I ducked my head back down. “Well that’s the funny thing. I’m kind of working for the flyers now.” I heard the gasps amongst the guys as I said that. I figured they thought that I had just taken time off to spend alone time and get right with myself.

Sid came strutting back into the locker room looking around at the big crowd of people. I knew seeing me would be a shock to him. He set his stuff in his duffle bag, and looked back up at our large group of people and looked confused. I must be right behind someone and only I can see him because he looked back at the group and scowled. “What are all of you doing standing around? We have a train to catch.”

I started to push through the guys hoping to make him see who it was, “Well you see, there’s this girl from Kentucky that all of them know and she kind of disappeared and wanted to make sure that all of her second family knew she was doing okay.” I pushed the rest of the way through the boys and looked up at Sid.

He immediately looked at me and back to the group of people I saw the pain in his big brown eyes. I felt like I was kicking a puppy because of the way he was looking at me. “Come on,” he grabbed my hand and pulled me out to the hallway. I felt like that small child that their parents drag them by their arm through the store. We had finally gotten to a part of the hallway that people weren’t sitting in. “Why? Why did you just up and leave I know you called and told me but I was so confused with the fact that you called me that I didn’t listen to half of what you said to me.”

I looked up at him and tried to hide the hurt because of his angry tone. “I left because of you and Jordan. You two were letting me come between your friendship, you quit trying to understand why each of you fell for me and just wanted to be with me and it got ugly.” I turned back to look at him and felt my stomach drop to the ground. Of all the people’s approval, that I wanted it was theirs, I wanted them to understand why I left and apparently, neither of them did, nor did they care.

I turned to walk back into the locker room to say good-bye to the guys who had become my family. I was furious with Sid’s behavior as well as the way he thought he could just command me. The doors were right in front of my face when his fingers wrapped around my arms and pulled me back, “Don’t touch me damn it.” His grasp on my arm dropped and I turned around to face him. “You don’t have the right to try and hear me out now. You think you can just run around and be captain all the time. The guy who listened to me tell him about my personal life, that’s the guy I fell for. The moment you called Danny I wanted to do something to you, I don’t know what but I wanted you to know how much it hurt me to know that you told Danny that I had been raped.”

Everything I saw was red; I was in such a state of rage that I knew that I would blow at any minute. I turned back around to face Sidney, “You don’t deserve me coming down here to say goodbye. I’m going to walk through that damn door. You’re going to stay right there and when I walk back out of these doors, you had better be nowhere in sight. Are we clear?” I walked away before he could answer me because I knew that hearing him trying to apologize for his mistake in telling Danny about my past was not what I wanted to hear.

The talking inside the locker room had quieted down and I knew that many of them were most likely getting dressed and trying to figure out why I left. I knew that it was now or never, I had to go in now or I would never go back in there. I pushed my hands on the heavy wooden doors and heard the room go silent. “What do you want to know?”

The words were silent falling off my lips but I knew that they would all start-throwing questions my way. The families usually make the drive up here for the games but don’t stay after because the guys are home about two hours after the game. I knew how these guys functioned and it scared the living shit out of me because I had abandoned them but had to look out for my well-being.

The onslaught of questions started and my head couldn’t handle all of the questions at once. I wanted to yell at them to stop but I wasn’t yet the girl who came in demanding their respect anymore. I looked at them all one last time and sat down hoping that they would shut up, I could wait and tune them out until they wanted to listen to me. I waited as they kept asking questions I was getting sick of hearing Kris ask for the eighth time why I left. I looked at all of the guys, they were acting like reporters.

“Ya’ll can never ever say you don’t know how reporters act the way they do. Because ya’ll just hounded me for oh,” I looked down at my left wrist as if there was a watch on my arm, “twenty minutes. I am not okay with this behavior; now all of you sit down and shut up.” Their eyes got large as I started walking around the room like a shark circling its prey. “I’m currently co-heading both foundation departments for the flyers and the penguins. I was dealing with a lot of family problems and had let it affect my judgment. I have moved here and will be working primarily out of these headquarters. Now one at a time you may ask questions.”

I continued to stand in the middle of the room waiting for them to act like the men that they are and not children. I saw one of them stand up and look at the group. I hadn’t noticed who it was because I was looking down at the ground, “Why does it matter why she left. She needs to handle her life, not ours. She lost her brother about a month ago, her fiancé just left her like he had never loved her at all, and all you want to know is why she left, could you blame her? A bunch of bad things happened there and she’ll likely always remember the bad over the good.”

The voice was very familiar, I knew it had to be Jordan. He hadn’t talked to me since I had called a few nights ago in an absolute panic about why they liked me. Now I was staring at him straight in the face. “I’m glad you see it that way, I’m not abandoning you, I’m just trying to get my life together, I’ll still be around and I’ll still be a part of your lives. Now, I need to talk to Sid and Jordan, clear out.” The guys scrambled to grab their duffle bags and jog out the door to the bus that would take them back to the train station.

“I’m sorry that we forced you to leave. We shouldn’t have pushed you to that point. We should have noticed that you weren’t happy with what we had started doing.” I looked at Jordan pacing the room and then I looked back at both of them. I was trying to not yell at either one of them. I wanted to handle the situation like an adult and if they kept pushing, my buttons I would soon be right on track to yell at them.

“Look, you both are assholes. You fought over me without even asking me why I liked either of you. I lost my brother, lost my fiancé and you told my darkest secret.” I wanted them to know how I felt, “You’re both so stupid. I fell for both of you because you’re great guys, but all you can see is that you’re losing me to your best friend and have to fight each other to get me. Why can’t you grow up? What would either of you do if I told you I was seeing someone new?”

Their jaws were on the floor and looks that showed they were confused. “Let’s go dear.” I heard his voice and smiled. I turned around and saw Danny standing there with his hands in his suit pockets.

He looked amazing; I turned back to Jordan and Sid and pointed at them. “This man knows how to treat a woman. He hasn’t pushed me to fall for anything, he honestly hasn’t taken advantage of me. Now, I don’t want to hear from either of you unless I contact you and you all better be at your next event.”

Danny came up to grab my hand and pulled me back toward the door to leave. “Thanks Danny” I stood on my toes to give him a kiss before we left the two idiots that hurt me in the locker room. “Thanks superman. You’ve saved me a lot in the past few days, however will I repay you?” I joked as we walked out to his car to head back into Jersey for the night.

“For starters, go to dinner with me?” I looked over at him and saw him smiling, “Yes a date, I’m going to date you, slowly make my kids fall for you and then we can be a family. If you want that of course.” I was a little surprised by his statement but ultimately would take it because he was such a great guy.

“Of course I’ll go on a date with you.” I told him as he closed the passenger side door after me.