Chandlier

If someone had told Tyler Seguin that he would be traded from Boston to Dallas three years into his young career, he would have most certainly laughed in their face.

He was young, probably more than a little dumb, and making a shit ton of money well before the age of twenty three. A steady stream of women had come and gone from his bed (or theirs, and maybe the occasional bathroom) and he felt invincible.

Then the trade had happened. He was disappointed at first and it definitely was not what he envisioned for his career but it was what was happening. Soon he found though that he loved Dallas, and that the girls were great, but most of all he found instant chemistry playing with Jamie Benn and something in his game clicked. It got better and he started to feel like the player everyone always talked about him being.

His career was firing on all cylinders and he was enjoying the single life. He was still young, still dumb, but undoubtedly living the life. A life that he thought was pretty great.

And then, Jordie met Stella.

When he had first arrived in Dallas, it was the Benn brothers he met first and they had bonded on ice as well as off. They liked having a good time and enjoying the life of young athletes. His first year in Dallas was full of expectations and he helped deliver with a team that made the postseason for the first time in several years.

It was his second season in Dallas when it happened. He and Jamie had zero interest in any type of committed relationship but Jordie had given one a try towards the end of the previous season. It soured over the summer and Jordie had come back to Dallas pretty bummed about it. Until he met Stella.

Stella was awesome and Jordie was lucky to find her. If Tyler had found someone as cool as Stella was, he might think about starting a relationship too. But Jordie was five years older than him and in a very different place in life. He did wonder once or twice what it would be like meeting the one and being so sure about a person the way Stella and Jordie were about each other.

The notion though was easily pushed aside and dismissed as silly. He and Jamie would go out, take home a girl if that's what they wanted to do, and that was that.

Until the start of his third season in Dallas when Jamie fell in love with Avery.

Tyler liked Avery. She was Stella's sister and had taken a job with the Stars that summer. He liked her no nonsense attitude and the way she told him exactly how it was. There was no sugar coating with Avery and he appreciated that.

The first practice back from Christmas, Jamie announced that he and Avery had gotten engaged. Tyler had been a little shocked by the announcement. After all, they had only been dating three months. Somehow though, Tyler also found that it was news he was expecting to hear. Jamie and Avery just worked and for the first time in his life, he found himself envious.

He had realized sometime since Jordie and Stella's wedding during the summer and when Avery and Jamie moved in together two months before that it wasn't fun to live up to what everyone else thought of him. He knew people thought he was a fuckboy and okay, sure, maybe was. He had done little to downplay the notion and honestly had enjoyed living up to the reputation. But there was nothing fulfilling about it.

Sure, he got to dick around with his equally fuckboy friends, hockey and non hockey playing ones alike, and he got pretty much whatever pussy he wanted, whenever he wanted it, but it wasn't the life he wanted he had come to realize. It had been fun for a really long while, when he was younger and dumber but now, now he wanted what Jamie had found.

He wanted the girl to go with the house and the dogs he already had. He wanted the person he could come home to after a road trip, after a win or even a loss and just be with.

The problem was no one took him seriously. Jordie had laughed in his face when he said he wasn't bringing a date to the team's New Years party. Jason Demers asked him if he had an STD that he was treating. Jamie predicted he'd take home one of the waitresses for the company that would cater the affair.

But Tyler was determined. A new year could mean a new Tyler. He could meet a girl, a good one, one that could see beyond his past and his for a good time call approach to life. He knew turning over a new leaf was easier said than done but if he put his mind to it, he could do anything.

He had one other ace up his sleeve.

Two really.

The Croft sisters.

If there were anyone other than his own mom that wanted to see him happy and settling down with one woman, it was Avery Croft and Stella Benn, nee Croft.

Stella was without a doubt the older sister he always needed. It felt really good to have someone who wanted the best for him and looked out for him. Avery was only a few years older than him but she gave him the tough love he needed. Not that his own sisters didn't want the same for him but they couldn't give him the swift kick in the ass like Stella and Avery could.

It was a Wednesday, the day before New Year's Eve and after practice, Tyler showered and hurried towards Avery's office. Her door was open but he tapped his knuckles on the frame before he walked in and dropped into a chair.

"Have you ate yet?" He knew Jamie had a photo shoot after practice so he wouldn't be showing up to take her to lunch which was good for him.

"No," she replied as she studied her computers screen.

"Do you think Stels has?"

"Probably not. She usually takes lunch around one." She typed something as Tyler continued.

"Do you want to have lunch with me today?"

Avery stopped and looked up at him. "Are you dying?"

"No."

"Then why are you here?"

"I need a friend, Aves. God..." He huffed.

"Dramatic much?"

He sighed. "The guys were making fun of me but you and Stella won't so can I please take you both to lunch to talk? I need a female perspective."

"Tyler Seguin needs female perspective? This ought to be great. Let me call Stella, okay?"

Tyler nodded and leaned forward as Avery picked up her phone. "Hey, Stella, Ty wants to take us to lunch. I dunno but he says he needs female perspective and that the guys laughed at him so I assume that means Jamie and Jordie were the loudest."

"And Daddy," Tyler spoke up.

"I am not referring to Jason as Daddy. Gross," Avery said to him. "You guys are so weird with nicknames." She turned her attention back to her phone conversation. "Anyway, he's buying so I'm in if you're in. Do you want us to come to you? Okay, give me like fifteen minutes to finish what I'm doing and we'll come pick you up. Bye."

She hung up and looked over at Tyler. "I have to finish this tracking before I leave today and I was planning to leave early. You can amuse yourself on your phone or you can come back in fifteen but I need silence, got it?"

"Got it."

It took twenty minutes but Tyler didn't mind waiting as Avery finished what she was working on and emailed it to her boss. She walked out with Tyler and they parted ways to their cars. He had called Stella to let her know they were running behind and they agreed to meet at the restaurant instead.

Stella pulled in right after Tyler and Avery and when she stepped out of her car, Tyler's jaw dropped. "That's really not a good look unless you're taking up a second career as a blowup doll," Avery told him.

Stella approached with a smile and hugged Tyler. "You're pregnant!" He blurted out, staring at her midsection. Her bump was small but unmistakable.

"Sixteen weeks," she answered, touching her stomach. "Jordie didn't tell everyone?"

"No. How come you haven't told us?"

"We were waiting to get through the first trimester and we wanted to tell our families first. We told them over Christmas. I assumed Jordie told you guys once we got back."

"He was waiting for the party tomorrow night," Avery spoke up. "Because everyone will be there. Act surprised, Ty."

"Okay," he nodded.

"I believe I was promised lunch," Stella said. "And I'm starving."

They had ordered before the sisters both looked at Tyler expectantly, waiting on him to explain his need to have lunch with them. He fidgeted nervously under their gazes and Stella reached across the table to squeeze his hand.

Tyler sucked in a breath and exhaled his words in a rush. "IwantwhatJamieandJordiehave."

He took a calming breath and started again as the two women smiled at him. "I want an actual, adult relationship with someone. I want someone who could maybe understand me and put up with my crazy life and would want to be a part of this. I want to find a girlfriend, and not one that has already been with one of my teammates, or is after some perceived glory that comes with being with me. I want someone real, who doesn't care about Tyler Seguin hockey superstar and wants to know Tyler Seguin, Canadian living in Texas."

"You're growing up, Ty," Stella said warmly.

"Why did the guys laugh?" Avery asked.

"I told them I wasn't bringing a date to the New Years party, that I was going to come solo and that I was going to change."

"I gotta be honest; I find it a little hard to believe too. You're in your sixth season and your reputation has been the same since day one."

"I don't want to be my reputation."

"You're not," Stella assured him. "You're cocky, sure, but you're also kind and sweet and you love your mom and your sisters. You'd do anything for the people you care about and it goes without saying that you're very attractive. You have all the qualities a girl is looking for."

"You think I'm hot," he smirked.

"God you're a twat," Stella answered, rolling her eyes.

"This is why the guys laughed at you," Avery said. "Look, I am all for you finding someone, but let's be real. Are you going to abstain from being you while you look for her?"

Tyler frowned. "Do I have to?"

"If I'm helping you find a girlfriend you are. You can't be a manwhore while trying to win a girl over. She'll throw a drink in your face."

"You should have never invited Avery to lunch," Stella told him.

"No, because you tell me the good and Aves tells me the bad. That's what I need. So, no more fuckboy ways. That's step one. What comes after that?"

"You gotta delete all the girls from your phone that aren't what you're looking for," Stella replied.

"Questionable morals need not apply," Avery added.

He passed his phone to Avery. "So basically every girl that isn't you, Stels, my mom, or my sisters then."

Avery started deleting contacts from his phone. "Do I even want to know what some of these abbreviations and numbers are?"

"No."

"You rated them, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Don't do that. It's gross."

"Why does this one say dickmatized?" Stella asked.

He grinned easily, sitting back in the booth. "She dropped whatever she was doing every time I called. If I didn't find someone to take home at the end of the night or if I was bored, I called her."

"Do you even know her name?"

"Megan? Or Mallory? It starts with an M."

"Gross," Avery declared as she deleted her information. She cleared his recent and missed calls lists and then his text messages before handing the phone back. "Done. Dirty girl free."

"Thanks, I guess?"

"You're welcome. Now, about the party tomorrow; let's talk about how to keep you from taking home a catering waitress."

Tyler groaned. "You sound like Jamie."