Don't Let These Boots Fool You

I watched Mike as he looked up from his phone again while we were still at dinner. My palms were starting to sweat as I waited for him to tell me he would go to the coast with me. The words never came from him. He was silent.

As much as I hated myself for doing it, I kept looking over his shoulder at Jordan. I had put on a nice dress to be ignored by my boyfriend. “Mike I have a question for you.”

“Yeah babe?”

“Look at me please” I was pleading with him now. I was almost a step away from begging him to look at me. I wanted to go home but I was afraid I had lost Mike for good this time. As Mike looked up at me I knew I had lost him. “Do you even love me anymore, because this guy in front of me isn’t the Mike I used to know and moved out here for.” I was seconds away from tears.

He just looked at me with a surprised expression across his face. I think I knew my answer because he started to say how much he loved me but all I could see was his eyes saying no. They didn’t light up at the fun times we used to have. I couldn’t take it anymore I deserved anything better than him apparently.

I stood from the table and scooted my chair to its rightful place and looked down at Mike, “I’m leaving, go ahead and invite your side girl. If you decide you want me you can try and grovel at my feet, got it?” I couldn’t believe I had called him out on having another girl and I didn’t even know the facts of the story.

I walked out of the doors and stopped to look at the surrounding people. I was so lost, I could barely find my way in the daylight around this part of town I didn’t know how I was going to do it in the dark. I decided to turn left because I could vaguely see the outline of one of the tallest building, which was the direction of my house.

My heels were beginning to shake with each step I took until I heard loud footsteps coming from behind me. I turned to see a large figure jogging after me. I knew who it was and started walking quickly. I hated people to see me vulnerable and right now I didn’t need his satisfaction to follow me out of the restaurant.

“Would you please quit walking? For a woman in heels you move quickly” He panted as I kept up my brisk pace.

“Please tell me you didn’t leave because of me. I mean sure those were the intentions of my text but I didn’t think you were the type of girl to just walk away from something.”

I stopped walking and turned around quickly. “Where’s your girl, I mean what’s it matter if I left,” I looked at him and knew that he felt bad. I was really beginning to get annoyed with his bipolar moods. I decided now was a great time to just accept defeat. Why they hell not. “Take me to my house I’m lost, I’ve been walking in this general direction for the past five minutes.”

He nodded as pointed to his car a block back. I was thankful as I got into the car and sat in silence. I felt horrible as it was for walking out on Mike but I felt betrayed he had never acted so uninterested with me. Usually we could talk for hours and we used to too.

I put my head in my hands as I tried to figure out where I went wrong. It had to have been my fault. Maybe I was too plain for him, not famous enough. Then I remembered Jordan’s girl, “What’d you do with your girl?”

“Well I just picked her up honestly but she seemed to know the guy you were with pretty well. That’s all she talked about. I let them eat together and left after you. I know I’m an ass, and the text I sent you wasn’t supposed to be like how you took it. It was supposed to be a joke after all of my bad press.” He sheepishly looked over at me and slammed the breaks. My hands flew up to cover my face at the sudden stop.

Thankfully we were in the outskirts of town near my house and many people don’t drive the roads that are close to my house. “What are you doing slamming the breaks like that Jordan?” I asked looking through my hands that were still covering my face. I saw the shimmer of the Silver band on my left hand and realized he had seen my engagement ring.

“Fuck” I muttered leaning further down in the seat and feeling even worse. I dropped my hands from my face, I couldn’t look over at Jordan. I felt the car start moving again as the silence set in. I knew this would get out eventually, but I was hoping it would wait until Mike and I got married.

“Start explaining I’ve got you in the middle of the woods now you won’t find your way back now.” He said as he put the car in park and leaned back from the steering wheel. He grabbed my hand and looked at the ring closer, just shaking his head from side to side. “You’re engaged?”

I nodded my head, “well at least I was engaged. I’m not sure after tonight. I started to realize that he’s been ignoring me for the past few days. He’s been more secretive. He wouldn’t even take a few days away to go to the coast with me next week. I’ve failed already. I don’t belong up here.” I was breaking down and I didn’t care anymore because I had been hurt. I left the rings on hoping I wouldn’t have to say good-bye to the man that I had grown to love so much in the past year. Could it really end that quickly?

When I looked up from staring at my own ring I noticed that Jordan was staring me down. I couldn’t take his stares, his comments or anything if he was going to be the same person he was in the pictures. “I’m sorry. Had I known I wouldn’t have said those comments.”

I lost it when I heard those words come out of his mouth. How could someone act like they cared when in all reality they were just saying shit because the media wasn’t around to ruin their lives. “No Jordan don’t lie, you’re the same in front of the media as you are behind closed doors.”

“No I’m not. I really do try and play up the ass hole persona because it protects me on the ice and from other people. I’m not asking you to understand but seriously. You should have told me that you were engaged, I would have left you alone.”

I sat in silence as I looked out the front window hoping that he would start the car and take me home. I felt like shit and didn’t need to have him see me at my worst any longer. I hadn’t noticed him take out his cell phone and start texting and calling people I just chalked it up to him spreading the news.

I felt the car move and was hopeful that we were finally going to head back to my place. I could almost feel the Ben and Jerry’s melting in my mouth with a really bad adventure move on the T.V. The direction we were driving was not towards my house, the scenery looked unfamiliar. I was getting nervous and scared staring out the wndow.

“Sorry, we have a detour to make.” He said in a matter of fact tone as he pulled into a long driveway and pulled into a garage. He opened his door and I stayed in the front seat thinking that he was just running inside for something. He stopped at my door and looked at me. “Please get out.”

I shook my head I was not going to be getting out of this car. “No you run and do what you’ve got to do.”

“Kelly, please come inside.” He was pleading with me now and I felt bad. I huffed as I got out of the front seat and followed him into a large room that was pitch black. The lights flipped on and I almost collapsed.

“What the hell are y’all doing here?” The whole team, well most of them anyways, was sitting in Jordan’s living room. All of them smiling smirks at me, that’s when I knew they had a diabolical plan.

“Well we make you happy. Movie night for friend.” Geno said standing up and dragging me further into the room. I laughed a little because all of these guys were sitting in a room on a Friday night they had off with me.

“Why though? You all have lives aside from the game.” I was seriously questioning their sanity at this point how could these guys want to protect me already.

“You’re apart of the team. We might harass you but only we’re allowed to do that.” Marc spoke up from his spot on the edge of the couch.

“You deserve a bunch of attention, Gronk said that you clearly weren’t getting that tonight when you uh—” Sid quit talking abruptly. I figured he felt he over stepped his boundaries.

I kicked off my heels and looked at all of them in comfortable clothes and was jealous. I stood back up and walked through them all and noticed every single guy had on sweat pants and a t-shirt. “Do I get some sweat pants and a t-shirt too? I mean hell y’all have on comfortable clothes. Don’t I get any?”

The room erupted in laughter as a bunch of clothes got tossed my way. All of them shirts with their names on the back but one was handed to me. It had my name on the back with the number 13 my lucky number. I smiled and immediately felt like I had been accepted. Now I just hoped the guys would respect my rules a little more than they had before.

“Thanks guys. I’ll be back.” I walked into another room and hid myself in a corner as I changed into the shirt that fit just right, a little baggy but not so baggy I got lot in it. I found a pair of sweats piled in the ground and pulled them over my hips and walked back into the room and heard the hollers come from the guys and smiled.

“Do I fit in now?” I asked smiling at them with my arms held wide.

The cheers nearly lifted the roof and I felt like this was way better than my night with Mike. I looked down at my hand and started to cry. I hadn’t realized I’d failed at my relationship until now. I thought I was doing better than my friends who had all gotten divorced before they were 25. This was alarming me. I started to have a panic attack, okay not really but still I was freaking out.

“Can we start the movie now?” one of the guys in front asked. I smiled and nodded my head.
Someone in the back shut off the lights. I was thankful for the darkness; it masked my silent sobs that were shaking my whole body. I hadn’t cried about this before, although I hadn’t known that this day was going to come. Mike had always talked about moving out here and us becoming a family and starting a family that we could take back to Kentucky when he was done with Baseball.

My life just took an unexpected turn tonight I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle this but I sure as hell knew these guys would stand beside me through it all. I felt a hand on my shoulder and was pulled into a firm body. I couldn’t fight the person I needed the comfort more than anything right now.

“It’ll get better I promise.” It was Kris. I never pegged him for getting heart broken. I just let him hold me as the opening credits rolled by for the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

“Hey this is my favorite movie.” I muttered under my breath.