It's All About Love

The next morning, Katie woke up and went to work like she did every morning. She got dressed in tights and a leotard, pulled her hair into a neat bun, and tied her pointe shoes around her ankles. After teaching her first class, she checked her phone and saw a text from Corey.

To Katie:
I’ll be back. I promise.

The words ‘I’ll be back’ replayed in her head over and over. Corey had said them to her last night, and she knew she almost cried at the sound of them. She knew he most likely saw her tears forming. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him about what happened the last time someone told her that they’d be back. Those were the last words she would ever hear her best friend say. Her mind slipped back to that terrible day 2 years earlier when Ben, her best friend, was deployed to Afghanistan. She’d cried and told him not to leave, but he just kissed her forehead and said ‘I’ll be back.’ He was killed in action, and he never back.

She knew Corey didn’t have a choice whether or not to leave, and she knew he’d be leaving many times in the future, but as she read those three words on her phone screen, she was unsure if she could handle hearing him say he’d be back every time he left. Thinking about it made her head hurt. She sat down and rested her head in her hands, thinking about what she had gotten herself into. She decided to be mature and work through her problems. She picked up her phone and started typing a message back.

To Corey:
I know. One week.

To Katie:
One week ☺

Katie went on with the rest of her classes. Even on her worst days, she couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her students being inspired to dance. There was no better feeling. After a long day, she packed her things, and went home. She took a long shower before throwing on a pair of pajama shorts and one of her brother’s old shirts and settling in on the couch to watch the Blackhawks play the New York Islanders. The Blackhawks won so she pulled out her phone to send Corey a congratulations text.

To Corey:
Congrats on the win, you guys played great!

To Katie:
Thank you. Can I call you later?

She told him to call when he was ready. She brought Puck into her bedroom and curled up under the blankets, waiting for his call. As she struggled to keep her eyes open, her phone rang.

“Hello?” She said as she yawned. She heard Corey laugh on the other line.

“Tired, eh?”

“Mhmm. Long day.” She realized that lying in bed was a bad idea because she could barely keep her eyes open. They talked for maybe ten minutes before Corey had to get on the bus and head to the airport and Katie had to go to sleep.

~

The rest of the week went the same way. Katie would go to work, come home, watch the game if there was one, and wait for Corey to call. When Corey had days off, they’d talk maybe twice a day and text more often. Corey had one of his jerseys delivered to Katie’s apartment and convinced her that it would be good luck if she sent him a picture of herself wearing it. She did, and he got a shutout that night. They decided that she would have to send him a picture of her in his jersey every game day. The week passed quicker than Katie had expected it to.

One week later, Katie was interrupted from cleaning her dishes by a knock on her door. She opened it to find Corey standing there, in a sweats and a t-shirt, holding flowers. She welcomed him home with a sweet, gentle kiss. Walking inside, she placed the flowers in a vase with water and made her way to the couch. She flipped on the tv and sat down next to Corey. Within a few minutes, he was having trouble keeping his eyes open. She ran her hand through his hair.

“You should’ve gone home to sleep.” She said quietly as she watched him drift to sleep.

“But I promised.” He mumbled without opening his eyes. She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his chest. He tightly wrapped his arms around her, making her feel safer than she ever had. As he drifted in and out of sleep, she took in his scent, the feeling of his shirt, the sound of his breathing. She understood perfectly well that she would have to let go soon, but she wanted to make this moment last.

~

Corey knew he would have a hard time staying awake after their long road trip, but he felt like he needed to see Katie. She had almost cried when they talked about him leaving, and he promised he’d be back. As he rested on her couch with her head on his chest, he felt more at peace than he could ever remember. Every bit of stress and tension that had built up inside him during the past week slipped away as she held him and played with the material of his shirt. So, he let himself relax into the couch. His life was stressful and the comfort he felt was refreshing. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when Katie woke him.

“Corey, your phone has been ringing like crazy, I think you should check it.” She said quietly. She was standing in front of him now.

“How long did I sleep?” he asked as he stretched his arms over his head.

“An hour maybe.” Katie watched as he flipped through multiple text messages. He rubbed his hand over his face and put his phone down. “Everything okay?” she asked, rejoining him on the couch.

“Yeah, it’s just some of the guys are at dinner right now. Just group message stuff.” He laced his fingers with hers.

“Well, did you want to go with them? Because you can, it’s only 9 o’clock.” She said looking in his eyes.

“No. What I want to do sit right here, with your dog next to me, and talk to you about things we’ve never talked about.” He said while petting Puck and squeezing Katie’s hand.

“Okay, well what things do you want to talk about?” She said moving closer to him. He wanted to ask her why she got upset when they talked about him leaving, but something told him it wasn’t something she wanted to talk about.

“Tell me about your family.” He decided to start with something simple.

“Okay,” she moved her free hand to play with Corey’s hair, “well, as you know, I have four brothers. My oldest brother, Adam, is 25, and he lives about 20 minutes away from me with his girlfriend. Then the next one, Josh, is 23, and he lives in New York, but he’s probably moving home soon. Then there’s Justin. He’s 19, and he goes to University of Missouri. And then my youngest brother, Max, is 17 so he’s a junior in high school still. Okay, your turn.” She smiled at him.

“I’m the youngest of three. My brother’s the oldest, and we’re really close. My sister is married with 2 little kids so I don’t actually get time to talk to her that much. My parents and my brother and sister live back in Montreal, so I don’t see them a lot.” He actually couldn’t remember the last time he spoke to his family, other than his mom. She nodded to let him know she was listening and kept playing with his short hair. “Okay, you get to ask me something now.”

As Katie thought of a question, Corey’s phone rang again. He ignored it at first, but when it kept going off, he rolled his eyes, as if to apologize, and picked it up. Katie listened to the one side of the conversation she could hear.

Corey listened for a few seconds and said, “No, Jon, I can’t pick you up.” He went silent again, then said, “Well you dropped me off at Katie’s, buddy.” There was silence again. “No I don’t know where you put your wallet, call someone else to pick your drunk ass up.” Corey looked at Katie, shrugging his shoulders while he said, “I know I’m your best friend. Jon,” Katie grabbed Corey’s arm to catch his attention.

“Cor, I can pick him up and bring him home. I really don’t mind.” She offered. Corey shook his head no, but she knew it would be helpful. “Sounds like he really needs his best friend right now. Let me help.” She said with a smile. Reluctantly, Corey nodded. Katie stood to get her keys and a jacket while Corey told Jon that he’d be there soon.

In the car, Corey seemed nervous and worried. He made a habit of checking his phone every few seconds to see if Jon was calling or texting him. Katie placed a hand on his leg to try to calm him down. “Corey, is Jon okay?” she asked while stopped at a red light.

“I don’t think so. Jonny never gets drunk, he’s always the responsible one. It’s not like him to do this, especially by himself.” He was obviously concerned for his friend. Katie just nodded and started driving faster. When she pulled into the parking lot of the bar where Jon had said he was, Corey told her to stay in the car. Sure enough, a few minutes later, she saw Corey leaving the bar. He was basically carrying Jon through the parking lot. She got out and opened the door for him. As they got closer, she noticed that Jon was crying.

Corey helped Jon into the car and said, “Don’t worry, bud, I’ll take care of things.” He told Katie where they lived, and she started driving. Jon was quiet the whole way there. As she got close, Corey surprised her when he told her to park in the garage.

“Park?” She asked confused.

“Yeah, I think I could use your help with, uh, this.” He said pointing back towards Jon. She just looked at him, still confused. “Girl troubles.” He added. “Unless you just want to go home, that’s fine too.”

“I’ll stay.” She smiled as she pulled into the parking garage and gave Corey’s hand a light squeeze. She parked and they slowly made their way upstairs to Corey’s apartment because Jon had lost his keys. Katie expected that Corey would live somewhere fancy, but she never would have guessed how it looked inside. As he opened the door and brought Jon to the couch, Katie looked around her. She guessed that there were at least 3 bedrooms. It felt empty, even cold, though. He had only hockey jerseys hung on the wall, very basic furniture, and nothing personal. Corey walked out of his bedroom with some clothes and tossed them to where Jon was sitting.

“Change. Then we’ll talk.” Jon nodded but closed his eyes instead of changing. Corey grabbed by the wrist and pulled her into the kitchen. “Listen, there’s something that he might say, and I want you to hear this from me before he says anything.” She nodded. “So, about a year ago, I was dating this girl, and we’d been together for a really long time, since we were 16. We had talked about getting married and having a family, so I started planning out a proposal. Then, the night I was going to propose to her, she blindsided me, and told me she’d been cheating on me for 2 years. I was a mess after that. We can talk details another time, but until I saw you, I couldn’t even look at a girl without feeling the pain that she put me through,” He spoke quickly and quietly.

Katie didn’t know what to say, so she just wrapped her arms around him and hugged him. He hugged her back. She figured the girl he was talking about was Liz. Then another thought popped into her mind, “Wait, why would Jon tell that story tonight?” she said against his neck.

He pulled away from her and sighed, “Jonny’s been with this girl for a while that no one really likes. She doesn’t treat him well, and he told me earlier that she cheated on him.”

Before Katie could say anything, they heard Jon calling Corey from the couch. “Crawford, I swear to god, if you don’t come help me up right now I will puke on your couch!” The look on Corey’s face told Katie that he wasn’t okay with the idea of someone puking. She told him to get Jon to the bathroom, and then she’d deal with the puking part. He kissed her then ran to get Jon off the couch.

~

Katie sat on the bathroom floor, rubbing Jon’s back for at least thirty minutes before he said a single word to her.

“I’m so sorry,” was all he managed to say before tears were rolling down his cheeks again. For a moment, Katie was unsure of what to do. He looked so helpless sitting there, crying. She hugged him. He seemed surprised at first, but then he relaxed and let her hug him. “You’re really nice.” He said into her shirt. She laughed. “You’ve never even met me, and you just watched me throw up for like and hour, and now you’re hugging me. That’s nice. Thank you.” She let go of him.

“You’re welcome.” She noticed that the shirt he was wearing was now dirty with a combination of his own puke and spit. Then she realized that whatever was on his shirt was also on hers. “Why don’t you take that shirt off, and I’ll get Corey to bring you a new one.” He nodded, and she left to find Corey.

He was in the kitchen, taking out water and a piece of bread for Jon and eating a piece of pizza. His eyes widened as she got closer. “Katie, thank you so much for doing that, but please do not come any closer to me with your shirt on,” she stopped. “I’m sorry, I just really can’t…” even though she hadn’t taken one step closer, he started gagging and turned towards the sink.

“Okay, okay. I’ve had enough of that for tonight, so you better not.” She said as she pulled her shirt over her head, throwing it in the garbage.

“Okay, I’m-” He turned around to find her standing there in her bra, “Damn.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “Why would you do that to me? Oh my god.”

“Well don’t stare! Can I please borrow a shirt?” he nodded and gestured for her to follow him into his room. “You should grab another one for Jon too.” He stepped into his closet, grabbed 2 shirts, and tossed her one. She slid it over her head while he watched. He swallowed hard, and handed her the other one to give to Jon. She walked past Corey, kissed him quickly, and he followed her to the bathroom. Jon was standing shirtless in front of the mirror. Katie couldn’t help but stare at his perfectly sculpted body.

“Hey, don’t get any ideas here!” Corey said as soon as he realized she was staring. He grabbed the shirt out his hands and threw it at his friend. “Besides, I have muscles too, we both play hockey, remember?” he whispered into Katie’s ear. She turned around to kiss him. “If you’re hungry, there’s some stuff in the fridge. I don’t have much but you can have whatever’s in there. We’ll be out in a minute.” She took the hint that Corey wanted a minute alone with Jon and headed back to the kitchen.

Once she was gone, Corey could finally try to figure out what was going on. “Jonny, what the hell happened tonight?”

“I got a text from someone with a picture, and I was right. She was cheating on me. So I called her and she didn’t deny it. Hell, she didn’t even say sorry. Then all the guys went home and I started drinking. I don’t even know why it hurt me so bad, I knew she was no good all along.” Jon explained. He sounded like he might cry again.

“I’m sorry, Jonny. It hurts because when someone cheats on you, you feel like they’re telling you that you’re not good enough. But you have to realize that cheating makes them a bad person, not you.” Corey said, hugging his friend.

“I’m very drunk right now.” Jon realized. Corey agreed and they went to meet Katie in the kitchen. She was putting on her shoes and getting ready to leave.

“You leaving?” Corey asked, meeting her by the door. She nodded yes. “You don’t have to, you could stay.” He offered.

“Thank you, but you already saw me in my bra so I think we’ve had enough firsts for tonight.” He pulled her in for a kiss, and by the time she left, Jon was already asleep on the couch. Corey sighed and went to bed.