Page 7 of Mistletoe Face Off

“Macy, honey? Mommy is going to do some work now but I'll be back real soon, okay?”

She has a worried expression on her little face, and I silently curse my ex for putting her in this situation. Herandme.

“I'll be fine, Mommy,” she says bravely, her voice quavering a little, and it gets me, right in the chest.

“What’s your work?” Margaret asks.

“I'm a journalist. I'm here to cover the Blizzard team’s involvement in their month-long Christmas events.”

“Oh, aren't you lucky? Such a pleasant and polite group of guys, and so very obliging here at the Center.”

Pleasant, polite, and obliging are not the words I would use to describe NHL players, but then I might be a touch biased against them considering my ex is one of their kind.

“Are there many of the team here?” I ask, scanning the crowd and spotting a few guys a good head taller than normal people. Yup, that’ll be the hockey players all right. Big, bulky, and burly. The three B’s of the athletic, totally self-absorbed, paid-way-too much-for-their-own-good bunch.

I know this from bitter experience.

“Oh, I’ve seen a few of them,” Margaret assures me.

I pause before I ask, “Is Harrison Clarke here?”

I can feel my cheeks heating before his name has even fully fallen from my lips. Don't judge. It's not as though I've got a crush on the guy or anything like that.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. Ididhave a crush on him back in high school when he started at my school Senior Year, but that’s only because he and I were at the same school and shared some of the same classes. He was in my face, like, alot. Not that we moved in the same circles or anything. I was on the school paper, on the debate team, and had a tight-knit group of mainly girl friends. Harrison, on the other hand, was Mr. Popular, talented hockey player, classically good looking, and boyfriend to the beautiful and sweet captain of the cheer squad.

Half our class had a crush on the guy, so it’s not like I was the only one.

And besides, high school was a lifetime ago. I’ve moved on, my crush long since forgotten.

“Do you have a particular interest in seeing Harrison Clarke?” Margaret asks, her eyes dancing, clearly looking for a juicy story.

“I need to interview him for the article, that's all,” I reply lightly, willing the heat in my cheeks to burnout—and fast.

She gives me a knowing look. “If you say so, sweetie. But he is handsome, and such a great defenseman.”

Time to end this conversation.

“Thanks for transforming my girl into a figure skater, Margaret.” I plant a kiss on the top of Macy's head. “Have fun. I'll be right over there, but you stay here till I get back, okay, honey?”

“Okay, Mommy,” she replies solemnly.

“Don’t you worry, Christmas Holly. By the time you're done interviewing those handsome young NHL players Little Miss Macy and I are going to be great friends, that I can promise,” Margaret says before she throws me a wink.

I mouth “thank you” before I scan the room once more for six foot five men wearing hockey jerseys with self-satisfied smirks on their faces.

It does not take me long.

Men like that always stand out in a crowd—not to mention they are all wearing their Chicago Blizzard jerseys over jeans, virtually screaming for everyone to look at them.

Yes, I hear it. I'm cynical. But I have firsthand experience of what these hockey pros are like. And sure, they’re not all as arrogant, self-absorbed, and disloyal as my ex, but I would bet my last dollar most of them are. I'm a hockey pro marriage survivor. I've got the badge and the T-shirt—and the battle scars.

The one good thing to come of my brief and regretful train wreck of a marriage is my daughter. The light of my life. My reason for being.

Now if only I could get her daddy to follow through on some of his promises—you know, like actually taking her Christmas shopping today when he had been promising for weeks that he would when he came to town—then we'd all be a lot happier, Macy especially.

I approach a group of three guys, surrounded by Blizzard fans. I recognize one as the captain, “Dan the Man” Roberts, another as Casey Phillips, the goalie, and the final as Liam Carruthers, a rookie defenseman with a party boy image. They'rechatting and laughing and posing for selfies, without a care in the world.

I snap a few shots of them interacting with people as I wait, hoping I've got the exposure right for the lighting, or whatever it's called on the camera. But they'll get what they’ll get. I can't become a professional-level photographer after a pimply intern back in the office showed me how to switch the camera on. When it comes to photography, I’m a point and click girl, and it suits me just fine. But it’s fair to say I won't be winning any photography prizes anytime soon, that's for sure.

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