Status: Work in progress.

Inexperienced

Muscles and Jump Ropes

“What the hell are you doing here? Are you stalking me now?”

The guys looked at each other, confused and other mumbled “What the hell is going on?”

I stood there frozen in place, struggling to get a sentence out.

“I…uh…I’m-”

Thankfully, Jarred spoke up and looked at Jonathan, confusion written all over his face.

“Jon, this is Karen Evans.”

“Yea, I know, we’ve met. But what is she doing here?”

Fucking jerk. I couldn’t take this anymore.

“I’m one of the new fitness trainers you dick.” I looked him straight in his eyes and heard a few snickers behind him.

“Feisty. I like this one.” I looked to my left and Kris Versteeg was leaning against the wall, smirking. He shot me a wink and I swear I died a little.

“Fitness trainer?” He looked up at Jarred and then back down at me.

I saw his face fall and his eyes looked anywhere but me.

“Yes, fitness trainer. Q hired her a week ago,” Jarred said. “Now how exactly did you two meet?” He looked over to me with his eyebrows raised.

Jonathan could barely speak so I told Jarred the short version without taking my eyes off of Toews. “We met this morning outside our apartments. I’m his new neighbor.”

His eyes still avoided mine.

I heard something behind Jonathan and looked behind him to see Patrick Kane run up to us and shove Jon aside.

“Wait, you’re our new neighbor?” he said, said scanning me up and down. Cue the self-conscienceless.

“Sweet!” He wagged his eyebrows and gave me this cute yet creepy smile.

We are definitely going to get along just fine.

He walked towards me and catching me off guard, he scooped me up in a bear hug that was just like my brother’s.

“I like you, Curly,” I said awkwardly petting his head.

He gently set me back down on the ground and looked me dead in the eye.
“I can already tell that this is the start of a beautiful friendship.”

I smiled and rolled my eyes. I definitely liked this kid.

“Alright Kaner, stop harassing the girl.”

Patrick Sharp came over to our little group along with Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, Andrew Shaw, and Kris Versteeg following behind him.

Patrick Sharp came over to me first and introduced himself.

“Hi! Karen, right? I’m Patrick Sharp, but you can call me Sharpie or Sharp or whatever clever nickname you come up with to tell me and the weirdo apart,” he said with a beautiful, breathtaking smile.

Holy shit. He was even more beautiful in person.

“Hey Sharpie, nice to meet you,” I said smiling like an idiot.

Duncan Keith came next and shook my hand and introduced himself, followed by Seabs, then Andrew, and finally Verbeauty.

I couldn’t believe this was actually happening.

“Look Duncs, she looks like a little kid in a toy store,” Seabs told Duncs, teasing me. “Are you a fan?”

“Hell yes. Since I was a little girl,” I said. They nodded, impressed.

“Huh, so the girl knows the game?” Andrew Shaw said, winking at me. “I like that.”

I was trying to stay calm but it’s kind of hard when your favorite athletes that you’ve grown to love are standing right in front of you and are sort of complimenting you.

“Who’s your favorite? It’s obviously me, right?” Kaner asked, putting his arm around my shoulder.

“Idiot, it’s obviously To-es. She’s wearing his shirt right now,” Patrick Sharp said with a wicked gleam in his eyes.

What are you up to Sharpie?

“Nah, I just wore the first Hawks shirt my hands touched and it happened to be this one,” I said, glancing at Jon who was still avoiding my gaze.

“So who’s your favorite player then?” Sharpie asked.

By now, the rest of the team had surrounded us.

I looked around at everyone and saw some players smirking at me, waiting for my answer.

“Uh… Bobby Hull,” I said. I knew they wanted me to tell them which player from this current team was my favorite but how can they make me decide like this? I loved everyone on the team! Of course I did have a few favorites, but there was no way I was telling them who it was.

“Nuh uh, who’s your favorite on the current team?” Sharpie asked.

Everyone was still staring at me. What the hell was I going to say? I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

I had to avoid this question.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” I said, smirking.

Everyone complained and tried to get me to say who it was. “Honestly guys, it varies day by day. You’ll probably know who it is by the shirt I’m wearing.”

Jon glanced up at my shirt and I swear I saw the smallest hint of a smile forming on his face.

But I didn’t care right now. I barely got a chance to introduce myself and he had already managed to piss me off.

Q came in and told us what we were going to be doing for the day. Even when they started working out, I would walk around and some players stopped me to introduce themselves. Everyone was so sweet and welcoming and that just made my day a thousand times better.

Jon still hadn’t spoken to me and I wasn’t going to confront him about it any time soon. All I know is that he owes me an apology, so he better man up and do it soon before it’s too late and things end up being awkward between us.

I didn’t want that to happen. I didn’t want one of my most favorite players avoiding me. I didn’t want things to be awkward between us especially since we’ll be seeing each other a lot now that we’re neighbors.

Being in a room filled with sweaty hockey players in tops so tight, you can clearly see how muscular their arms and chest were, was very distracting.

I had worked around guys at my previous job, but this was different.

I couldn’t think about that right now of course. I had to be professional.

Still, I couldn’t help but notice Jon’s huge arm muscles as he worked out.

Jarred asked me to help Jonathan with something while he went to talk to Paul.

Oh, great.

I timed Jonathan and checked his heart rate while he was on the bike and gave him some tips. We still hadn’t spoken a word about the incident but I could tell he really wanted to say something to me.

When I was done with him, I walked over to Kaner to measure his jumping distance.

On my way over there, I heard Patrick Sharp talking to Jon.

“Hey man, what’s the deal with you and Karen?” Sharpie asked.

My back was turned to them so I couldn’t see what they were doing but I could feel their stares.

Jon mumbled something that I wasn’t able to catch.

“Well you better do it soon,” Sharpie responded and said something else but I ignored them and focused on Kaner who was now lying flat on the floor.

“I think I shouldn’t have eating those burritos for breakfast,” he groaned.

Kaner just lay there, holding his stomach and groaning every five seconds like a little kid. Shaking my head, I held my hand out to help him get up.

“Alright Curly, I think that’s enough for now. Why don’t you take a five-minute break, huh?” I gave him a pat him on the back and he nodded and walked away.

It seemed like everyone was doing fine, so I hopped on one of the treadmills and started with a light jog for about twenty minutes. After that got boring, I picked up a jump rope and started jumping while throwing in a few tricks here and there.

I’ve always loved jump roping. I would always have a jump rope in my hand when I was a little girl and I would have competitions in middle school. I was pretty good.

After about ten minutes, Andrew Shaw made his way over to me and picked up a jump rope.

“Damn, you’re pretty good,” he said, “How about a little friendly competition?” I stopped jumping and he smirked at me. “Unless you’re too scared that a guy is going to beat you at jump roping.”

Sharpie and Duncs walked over to us, intrigued.

“I don’t know if you wanna do that Shawzer,” Sharpie said, “we’ve been watching her and she’s freakin amazing.”

Duncs chuckled, shook his head and turned to Sharpie. “Nah, let him do it. I wanna see Karen kick his ass.”

I winked at them and turned to face Andrew. “Alright, let’s do this.”

All of the guys stopped what they were doing and looked over at us.

“Alright, whoever messes up and stops, loses. Got it?” Sharpie took his phone out and set up the stopwatch.

“What do I get if I win?” I smirked over at Shawzy.

“Hm…how about a date with me?” He winked and all of the guys cheered.

“Uh. How about no.”

The guys laughed at Andrew who raised his eyebrows at me.

“Alright we won’t call it a date. If I win, you buy me dessert, if you win, I’ll buy you dessert.”

I smiled and we shook hands. “Deal.”

This should be a piece of cake. Ooh, cake. We should definitely get that when I win.

“Alright. Ready…Set…GO!”

And with that, we started jumping.

After about two minutes, I decided to get fancy and added some crisscrosses.

Some guys whistled and started cheering.

I could tell that Andrew was starting to get a bit tired once his jumps were a bit off.

And I was just getting started.

“What’s the matter Shawzy? Getting a bit tired?” I wagged my eyebrows and decided to have a little more fun with this so I started speeding up.

Andrew started speeding up too and pretty soon, we were both going at full speed.

Shawzy lost his momentum for a second and didn’t pick his foot up in time so the rope ended up hitting his leg.

I stopped jumping and everyone cheered. Some guys came over to me to give me a high five and others laughed and made fun of Andrew who was currently sitting on the floor with his head down.

Laughing, I walked over to him, knelt down and hugged him.

“Aw Shawzy, you were great.”

“Thanks. I want a rematch though.” He stood up and gave me a hug even though we were both dripping with sweat. “But you were pretty amazing.” He smiled down at me and walked away, putting the jump rope back. “Can’t wait for our date. Just tell me when.”

“It’s not a date loser!” I called out to him but he just laughed and shot me a wink.

“Sassy and feisty,” Sharpie said, “I like it. We’re gonna get along great.” He high fived me and started talking to me about being his new sidekick for his pranks. Everyone that overheard that groaned.

It’s barely been a day and I definitely loved working here.
♠ ♠ ♠
So what do you guys think?
I'm always open for suggestions:)
Stay beautiful!
xx
-A