‹ Prequel: No Place I'd Rather Be
Sequel: Love for You

Too Much of a Good Thing

Chapter One

The meeting. The family drama. The move. The festival.

It all happened so fast that there was not really any time to take a second to think about what was going to happen next. James and Jo had managed to get through a week of house hunting while visiting various pet stores and dog pounds to find themselves a new member to their little family. After their time at Lollapalooza and their priorities following that trip, they got right back to business.

Still living in James' temporary apartment, Jo stayed at home all day, working from her computer and on the phone, managing her business back in Los Angeles to the best of her abilities. James, on the other hand, was starting his summer work out sessions and getting ready for the new upcoming season. It was important for James to get himself mentally and physically prepared for his second year with the Predators. Last season wasn't too much of a let down for him but he knew there was still a lot of room for improvement.

But it hadn't been all that easy managing work, getting their new house ready, still being dogless, and still trying to connect with each other by the end of the day. The couple would be exhausted by the time the night comes. One would either be too busy to eat or sleep while the other would be too tired from a day of working out to stir up a conversation.

James and Jo expected that bump on the road in their blooming relationship but what they didn't expect was a conflict that would test how much their relationship could stand.

-

James woke up in the middle of the day. It was finally his day off yet he had spent most of it sleeping. He peeled off the blanket off of his sticky, bare skin. All the curtains were drawn in their bedroom and the blazing, hot sun of Nashville bled through. He could've gotten a tan, while in bed, if he had slept a little longer.

Getting up, he wasn't surprised to see that Jo wasn't next to him. They had another huge fight the night before that was left unresolved. It had been their third fight within the last two weeks and things weren't getting any better. Suddenly, the bathroom door opened and he saw Jo in a towel, headed to their walk in closet.

"Hey," he greeted, testing to see if she was in a talking mood today.

She ignored him and walked on by towards their closet. James stayed seated on the edge of their bed and waited until she was done getting dressed. A few minutes later, she walked out of the closet, fully dressed, and looked like she was ready to go out somewhere.

“Where are you going?” James asked.

She ignored him again and headed for the door. He took two giant steps and blocked the door to stop her from going wherever the hell she planned on going.

“Would you please talk to me?” James nearly pleaded. He was trying his best not be such a wuss and completely breakdown out of frustration in front of her. “Can we please talk about what happened last night?”

Jo stopped and crossed her arms. “There’s not much to say. You’ve said how you feel and I’ve said how I feel. End of story.”

“No, not end of story,” James uncrossed her arms and tried to get her to embrace him, desperately trying to make her feel that what he said last night was a result of his anger. However, Jo didn’t budge. She slapped his hand away and continued to cross her arms.

“Jo, please…” He started. “I was just mad. I mean, how would you feel if you found out that I was talking to one of your friends? To Edith?”

“Did you just hear yourself? You just said ‘talking’ which is exactly what I was doing with Paul. Just talking.” Jo countered. “You had no right to call me names and accuse me of something I didn’t do!”

“I know and I’m sorry,” he tried to calm her down, “I just...I just didn’t know what to think. I just thought it was a little weird that you’ve been texting each other without me knowing.”

“I texted him once,” Jo snapped at him. “I texted him once and it was about that challenge I saw him do on the Penguins website! He nominated you, didn’t you know? It’s for a good cause.”

“Oh.” Was all James could say. He had heard about the ice bucket challenge going around to raise awareness for ALS but he didn’t know that Paul had nominated him to do it.

“I was just trying to be friendly, James.” Jo said, finally calming down. “You’re the one who told me that you wanted me to be comfortable and be friends with your friends. I’m sorry if you thought I was trying to come onto them.”

“No no no,” James said quickly. “I don’t think that way about you. I was just confused. You never had to take your phone with you when you leave the room. It just felt like you were hiding something from me.”

“I don’t even know why I did that,” Jo looked down on the carpet, wiggling her toes against the softness of it. Of course she knew why she did it but she wasn’t going to start something with James right when things were slowly getting patched up.

Like how he felt the night before during their fight, James felt like she wasn't telling him something. He felt like she had been acting shady, keeping secrets from him. He didn't want to start having doubts about rushing a relationship with her.

Pushing those thoughts in the back of his mind, he asked Jo again where she was going.

“I’m meeting up with a couple of potential partners so I could open up a store here in Nash.” She said. “I would’ve told you about it last night but you know…”

“I really am sorry, Jo. I was just tired.” James reasoned.

Jo nodded, understanding what he meant. She was also tired and the heat of their new location didn’t help either.

“Let me go with you,” he said all of a sudden and started to take out clothes from the drawer.

“No!” Jo said a little too quickly. “It’s fine. I’m fine going by myself.”

James stopped rummaging through his drawer full of his t-shirts.

“I just thought maybe we could spend some time together.” He folded his black 412 t-shirt and tucked it back with the rest of the pile.

“I’m working, James. I won’t even be able to talk to you during the meeting.” Jo said.

James turned to her, this time folding his own arms across his chest. “When will there be a time for us to hang out? We hardly talk. We hardly see each other.”

“Ugh! Not this again!” Jo huffed, finally deciding to just head out without hearing another word from him. James let her go. He was just too tired to have another argument with her.

He got dressed and checked his phone for any calls or text messages. His mom had called him twice and left a voicemail. Pass. He got a couple of texts from his friends. Pass. Scrolling further down his messages, he saw that one of his friends, Melanie, had texted him about an event she was covering, asking him if he wanted to go. He read that it was tonight and figured he might as well go since he was sure that him and Jo wouldn’t do much talking at all once she got home.

He replied back to Melanie with a yes and went on to the next thing he had been planning on doing since his fight with Jo last night: Call Paul.
♠ ♠ ♠
aaaaaaaaaaaand we're back!

Don't let the pretty colored background fool ya. Lots of drama already headed your way!

This sequel will also be a short story with a maximum of 10 chapters. Just a couple of things I wanted to get out of the way to prevent any confusion in the later chapters:
-This story fast forwards (obviously) to James' second season with the Preds, therefore, I'm pretty much making everything up the whole way through.

-I originally wasn't planning on having some sort of "romantic" conflict happen but as I was writing the first chapter for this sequel, I subconsciously started to write about Paul Martin. I would have to thank midnightmssuki for her story, Three, for inspiring me to include Martin in this mess that's about to happen. Her story features her original character, James Neal, and Paul Martin. It's really awesome and you all should check it out if you haven't read it! It's one of my favorite stories on this site.

-As for Melanie, I don't usually follow the rumor mill or whatever it is that's happening between the players and their WAGs but as I go on twitter more frequently, I've been seeing a few pictures of her with James so I just thought I would include her somehow into this story.

-I promise the excessive notes won't happen too often. Haha!

Do you guys think Jo is acting shady as well? If so, what do you think she's hiding? What do you think James will say to Paul?

I hope that you all are excited as much as I am to continue Jo and James' journey. Let me know what you think!