Uncover

I sighed as I walked into the arena. It was only my second time at my voluntary work and I loved it, but I knew that this day was going to be a tough one. I had just come home from school, which is about a one-hour drive from home, and within thirty minutes, I had to leave to go to work. Not only was I exhausted, but I was also told that the match was sold out so I knew that it was going to be hectic.

“Hello,” I greeted the few people I walked by with a smile.

I went straight to the room in the very back of the foyer, only to take off my warm and cozy winter jacket and replace it with a thinner fleece jacket and a neon orange vest on top of it. I took my phone from my jacket and unlocked it, and notice that I was here forty-five minutes too early. I sighed and decided to go into the arena to check up on what my duty of the day would be.

“Hey Andrea!” someone said as I was standing with my back towards them.

I turned around and saw a man running in the opposite direction. I took a closer look and immediately recognized him, “Hey Eske.” I smiled as I saw one of the hockey players on the elite team who belonged in the arena, Michael Eskesen.

Michael had for a long time meant a great deal to me. As soon as I started showing up in the arena he had treated me like an angel, but then again he did that with everyone. However, I could for sure say that as soon as I started talking to the regular supporters and started coming to all the events that included the players, he had started talking to me.

In the arena, I was working as a steward, where I had to check up on people entering the V.I.P. and business sections and make sure they followed the rules within the area. While doing this I also had to supervise the entire arena, and still had the possibility to watch the match. The arena belonged to the best team in the league, and is placed in the Southern part of Denmark, which also was the country where I lived.

After about thirty minutes, the other volunteers started showing up and soon we were all standing in front of the head of security, Morten, who started giving assignments to everyone and tell who were to be where in the arena.

“Andrea and Sophie you are going to be working hard today. I want you girls to stand by the first table,” Morten said with a smile, causing Sophie and I to give him a dead glare. Nobody wanted to stand there when it were sold out, because it meant that it was going to be busy.

“And while I am at it, we are short on staff today so could you girls please run down to Ceman and Simioni with some papers?” Morten quickly added. Dan Ceman was the head coach for the home team whilst Mario Simioni was the rival’s head coach.

As soon as we got the papers handed to them, we left for the locker rooms but not without Eske stopping us when we were halfway there. He did not say anything, simply smiled and put an arm around my shoulder.

“So Andrea… Karoline and I are having a dinner with Kim and Malene tomorrow, and we decided to invite some other people over as well. We were wondering if you wanna come over, too?” Eske asked, making me smile by the thought of Michael’s amazingly sweet wife and the team captain and his girlfriend as well.

“Yeah, sure thing. Who is gonna be there though?” I asked with a small smile. I meet a lot of people during every game at the arena, but normally I am not good with many people simultaneously, especially not with strangers.

“Besides the four of us it’s just gonna be Darcy, Tyler, Grace, Cory and Rebecca. That’s it!” he said, mentioning some of the players on the team.

“Count me in then.” I smiled softly.

“Great. Just meet up and Kim’s place around six.” Eske smiled and gave me the address before he left to take one last run around the arena.

Sophie and I got to the guests locker room and softly knocked on the door. The door opened and we quickly handed the paper to the head coach, seeing as he was in the middle of a speech to the team. We went straight to the back entrance to the home team’s locker room, just to avoid going into the room where the players change out of their own clothes. I opened the door to the team’s entertainment room and went to walk into the room but immediately bumped into someone.

“Shit I’m so sorry,” I quickly said and looked up. I met a pair of eyes that looked down on me with a sweet smile.

“Don’t worry about it. Are you ok?” he asked softly making me nod with a shy smile on my lips. “I’m Henrik,” he said and offered me a smile.

“I’m Andrea,” I said softly. I took a look at his clothes and noticed he was wearing the same workout suit as Michael, and I rapidly remembered that I had heard about this Henrik guy before. He was a player on the team. “Could you maybe give this to Ceman, please?” I continued.

“Yes, of course. I gotta go back though. Take care!” he smiled and walked away towards the locker room.

At that moment, I had never imagined the same sweet smile would be my savior at the worst date I had ever had.

Sophie and I went back to their post in the arena and within five minutes, people started wandering in, and we quickly got their heads in the game and started checking people’s access allowance to the area they were entering.



This far the day had gone by quickly. It was about 4:45 PM when I decided to go take a shower and get finished—I only lived a five minutes’ drive from Kim and Malene’s place, however I decided that I was going to walk there. After my shower, I went to my room to put on some nice clothes. I had decided to put on a pair of simple blue jeans along with a dress-like black shirt. I looked around on my desk and let out a frustrated sigh, as I could not find my Daniel Wellington watch. I gave up searching and instead I decided to put on some of my matte merlot-colored lipstick, before I put on some of my Dior perfume. I took one last look on my desk and noticed my watch right away.

When I looked at the clock, I saw that it was about time for me to leave and with that, I picked up my small cross-body bag and grabbed my phone and my lipstick to put it in the bag. Then, I went to put on my fairly new black Chelsea boots and my jacket before I got out of the apartment, locked everything up and started walking. Fifteen minutes later, I arrived at Kim and Malene’s place. I parked the car, locked it and went to knock on their door. It was only about a few seconds before the door opened and Kim stood with a huge smile on his face.

“Hi Andrea! I’m so glad you could come!” he said and pulled me in for a hug, which I returned without doubts.

We talked for a little bit before we went into the kitchen where both Malene and Karoline greeted me with big smiles on their faces. They quickly ushered me to go join the others in the living room, not that I minded though. I went to the living room and noticed Kim, Michael and Darcy standing there. I greeted Michael with a hug and right after he introduced me to Darcy whom I had only met one time, and that was barely a meet.

“What about the others? Are they not coming?” I asked Michael and Kim in Danish forgetting everything about

Darcy who clearly did not understand a word of what I was saying. “Oh sorry Darcy, I forgot you didn’t understand me!” I shot him an apologizing smile.

“Oh don’t worry about it, it is fine.” Darcy secured me with a sweet smile.

“Both the Gotto’s and the Quirk’s will be here soon.” Kim said with a smile.

Within a couple of minutes, the rest of the people arrived and shortly after, we sat down at the table outside on the patio and started eating. The food the other girls had made was delicious; it was just a simple grilled steak, which was perfectly seasoned along with some potatoes, some gravy and a delicious salad. It was really just something I could eat every day.

After some time people started indicating that they were done eating, so Karoline told the men to grab themselves another beer and stay on the patio, while us girls would clean the table and just have some girl time. With that, we cleared the table and brought everything to the kitchen to wash it off and clean up a bit.

“Oh Andrea you have an admirer.” Tyler’s girlfriend Grace said with a huge smile on her lips and I swear, if people could show the heart-eyes emoji, Grace would have done so.

I could not help but laugh at her, “what are you even talking about?”

“Darcy haven’t stopped looking at you tonight and I know that the girls will agree with me.” Grace giggled while the other girls eagerly nodded their heads. “But I got to give it to him, you look amazing tonight girl!” Grace continued.

I could feel my cheeks heat up a little bit and I could not help but look at the men out on patio, and my eyes drifted towards Darcy right away. I had to admit that he was indeed a very good-looking man, and really charming as well. I looked back at the other girls when I heard someone blow a low whistle, and I who thought my cheeks could not get redder than they already were—well, I just proved myself wrong.

When we had cleaned up the kitchen and made sure that nothing was left to clean, we grabbed ourselves some ciders, and went outside and sat down with the boys. I did feel like a little teenage-girl having her first crush, when I sat down next to Darcy and felt my cheeks redden.

The night went by fast and I had gotten over my minor teenage-moment and started talking prober to Darcy, who turned out to be a super great and easy-to-talk-to kind of person. However I probably had too much to drink, but hell we all had except Rebecca who wanted to stay sober for when Eva, her and Cory’s little one and a half-year old daughter, came home the day after.

At 2:30 AM, I decided that it was probably about time to go home. Rebecca and Quirk had already gone home. I stood up and looked at Michael and Karoline.

“Do you guys have a place to stay for the night? Or are you going home?” I asked them, as I knew that they lived about two hours away.

“We’re going to stay here with Kim and Malene. Thanks for asking though.” Karoline said before she got up from her chair and gave me a hug, “Thank you so much for a nice evening.”

I received hugs from Michael, Malene and Kim as well and all thanked them back for having a great night. As I was about to say goodbye to Tyler and Grace, they stood up and said that they were leaving too, followed by Darcy who was also ready to leave. I did not hug them goodbye though because I knew that we all had to go in the same direction to reach our homes.

We all bid our goodbyes and put on our shoes and jackets before we left for our own places. Tyler and Darcy were walking ahead of Grace and myself, before we were near the street where both Darcy and I had to turn onto to reach our homes. Tyler and Grace walked hand in hand in the front, and I could not help but smile at them and miss having a boyfriend.

When it was time for Darcy and me to go onto another street, I hugged both Tyler and Grace goodbye and Darcy did the same. “So Andrea may I ask, how old are you?” Darcy smiled.

“I’m twenty, turning twenty-one in just about three months. How about yourself?”

“I just turned twenty-nine a couple of days ago.”

“Oh happy belated birthday then!” I said with a small grin on my face, causing Darcy to let out a whole-hearted chuckle and saying a thank you.

“This is me.” I said as we slowed down. I looked up at Darcy and smiled.

“It was really nice meeting you Andrea!” Darcy smiled. “So, uhm, I was thinking... Would you maybe wanna go on a date with me?” he asked a little insecure.

His sweet smile suddenly reminded me of the way Henrik smiled at me two days ago

I could feel myself starting to blush, “I would love to!” “That sounds great. So what do you say about Saturday?”

In two days? I could most definitely deal with that. “Saturday is fine.” I smiled softly at him.
He opened his arms as a motion for giving me a hug, which I agreed on right away and slowly stepped into his arms and returned the hug. I let him wrap his arms around me and, I tell you, he smelled good. I took a fairly deep breath to take in his amazing scent and slowly let go of him.
I shot him a soft smile and bid a goodbye before unlocking my apartment and going inside. I couldn’t wait for Saturday.