Edge of the Water

In order to have a girls night in, Belle and Zoey had to avoid each other all day. You can only deal with so much of a person every day, and sharing a room along with sharing their work space, they tended to get bored with each other during the day—or extremely pissed off at one another.

Surprisingly, Zoey had offered to teach the two afternoon classes to give Belle the rest of the day off—and away from her. It was also her way of making sure Belle made them fantastic snacks for their James Bond themed movie night. But, when Belle went to the kitchen with the intention of making them fantastic snacks, Karl instead took her list and put her to work creating a raw food dinner, and a room service meal for player number nineteen while he cooked their girls-night-in feast. She had no idea who player ninteen was, just the list if their allergies and food preferences. Apparently one of the players called in room service and Karl had been on his way to get her.

As she prepared the healthiest pizza imaginable, Belle looked out the tiny circular window of the kitchen door. She could see through the dining hall's window and out into the Caribbean sea which was currently under a storm watch. It was raining fairly hard out on the deck and the fluorescent lights were doing nothing to convey the beautiful Caribbean sunshine that usually passed through the windows.

She put Jenna's raw food feast in the fridge alongside the raw vegan pie she had prepared, then told Karl that the pizza was in the oven before she left to venture out onto the deck.

No one else was stupid enough to go out on the deck in the middle of a rain storm, but Belle was ignoring her danger alert and sat down on the deck, hugging the railing in front of her and letting the rain wash her defeat away.

She was feeling burnt out. Doing the same thing day in and day out, not allowed to interact with anyone new, not able to do something more exciting than watch television and make food. She needed a good few days off to just sleep, and maybe sleep with her boyfriend. That was it. She was sexually frustrated and all of the testosterone filling the ship wasn't helping her.

“Belle, can you bring this to room four-nineteen?” Karl was sticking his head out the door, pizza box in hand.

She turned to look at him, body drenched in water. They both shrugged. Not like they could do much about her wardrobe now.

“Just don't let Jeff see you and you'll be fine. Tell Player nineteen I threw water on you.” Karl winked as he handed the soaking girl the box. She fleetingly wondered if her hands were too wet and would soak through to the pizza before she made her way over to the room the pizza was going to. She'd have to warn the player off of having pizza on any regular day. She wouldn't always be there to prepare it for him and their diet was important. But she was feeling particularly tired and stressed, so she put on her fake happy face and knocked on the door.

The second the door opened, she knew it was him. She knew her luck couldn't have stuck with her all day. There he was. Jonathan Toews.

“Hey,” she said, handing him the box. “Here's your pizza.”

“Thanks,” he paused. “Why are you wet?”

She looked up at him and suddenly her entire day came crashing down around her. She had woken up in a bad mood, probably because Zoey had been falling out of bed and puking all night. The sky was dark, the mood was even darker. She hadn't heard from Oliver in a couple of days, even though he said he'd call her and her parents only told her that they'd pay for her to come home whenever she wanted. And as that came crashing down around her, she burst into tears.

“Oh God!” She covered her face. “I'm so sorry!”

“Holy shit, umm...why don't you come in? I've got some warm clothes. You can just sit here and eat pizza. I promise I won't do anything or talk or anything. Jesus Christ, are you okay?” He practically dragged her into the room.

“Umm, don't sit down! Clothes...clothes...here's some sweatpants and a shirt and a pair of boxers. A TOWEL! And a towel! I'll turn around.” He was throwing the clothes on the bed beside her and still clutching the pizza box in his hand.

Belle let out a chuckled sob as he turned around to face the window, gathered all of the clothing and walked into his bathroom to change. It was difficult pulling the soaked clothing off of her equally soaked skin. It was even more difficult when the scent of boy wafted around her, reminding her that Oliver hadn't called her in the past few days.

She let out another sob, but exited the bathroom. “You can turn around now,” she sniffled out.

“I'm sorry,” she said once he looked at her. “I know crying makes boys uncomfortable. I just...I'm just...I'm having a bad day,” she said.

“Okay,” Jon nodded. “Why don't you have some pizza with me and we can just chill and watch TV or you can tell me what's up or I can shut up,” he suggested.

Belle let out a choked laugh, wiping at her eyes and running nose.

“Oh, gross. I'm so gross,” she laughed, shaking her head. “I'm sorry. I really came here to tell you to watch what you order when you're off the ship.” She sniffled again, accepting a Kleenex when he handed her one.

He stayed silent, flipped the television on and patted the spot beside him on the bed.

Belle stood there, contemplating her next actions. She didn't like Jonathan Toews for some reason. There was a part of her that just could not accept him. But she found herself crawling up onto his bed and watching the recap of an NHL hockey game anyway. She had been paying close attention to the Stanley Cup finals on her own, but hadn't known he had as well. Many teams that were put out of the running for the cup avoided the entire scenario—watching the games and seeing the happy faces of the winners flash across their television screens.

Her posture was rigid, keeping a distance from Jon.

“I didn't know you watched the games?” She said it more as a question than a comment.

“I don't watch the actual games. They just piss me off since we're off for the rest of the season, but I do catch the highlights. It's important to see who our competition for next year is,” he commented. “I might pick up on some weaknesses.”

“That's doubtful if you're only watching the highlights,” Belle commented. “You'd have a better chance at pinpointing weaknesses if you watched the entire game.”

“Oh yeah?” Jon smirked over at her. “And what do you know about hockey, Miss. Watch-the-Entire-Game?”

“I know that you need to change up your shoot-out shot. You tend toward slap shots, and any goalie who's actually paying attention will block you a good amount of times,” she shrugged.

“Alright,” he said. “And what do you suppose I do instead?”

She shrugged, smiling over at him. “I'm not the pro hockey player, why would you want advice from little old me?” she asked innocently, batting her eyelashes at him.

“You're right.” He turned from her and back at the television screen, smirking when she coughed out a scoff. “So, are you going to tell me what's bothering you?” he asked, still not looking at her.

“You're not a therapist, why would I want advice from a pro hockey player?” she countered, drawing a design in the blanket between them.

“I'm a team captain, that's gives me part therapist credentials,” he offered.

She looked at him, opened her mouth, then closed it again. “I'm supposed to meet Zoey soon,” she said instead, getting up from the bed and making her way to the door.

“Have a good pizza.” She made her way down the hall quickly, not giving a second thought to what Zoey would say when she saw her in the Blackhawks sweats and t-shirt.