Page 20 of The Pucking Girl Next Door

She begins, "I'm not sure why you don't want to go forward with Smith, and I won't presume to know how you're feeling. But yesterday when we were all together, Smith never took his eyes off of you. He smiled every time you did something, and he even risked his friendship with Steve by calling him. When they were on the phone, I heard him say that he wanted to be with you. You don't do things like that if you're not serious."

I roll over on to my side, propping myself up on my elbow, tears stinging my eyes. "What if I change everything to be with him and we don't work out?"

"That's always a possibility. You'll just have to decide if it's worth the risk."

"I'm scared."

"Love is scary. I was scared out of my mind when I decided to be with your brother. The idea that I would follow him to play hockey, and he would leave me behind…but he has shown me time and time again that he loves me and will never leave. Just think about it, I would hate for you to lose something great just because you're scared." She pats my leg and gets up to leave.

Taking in her words, I stop her before she exits. "How did you know?"

"Know what?"

"That Steve was worth it."

"It was the way he looked at me. Like I was his world." She doesn't explain anymore but leaves me with so much to think about it.

I reflect on our few days together. The whole time we were snowed in, he always made sure that I had everything I needed. He would cook for me, talked with me, even watched movies I know he didn't really like. Plus the orgasms. My whole body shivers at the memory of how he would touch me. A picture of him sitting at the kitchen counter comes to my mind. He looked at me like I was his universe. If that's what love is, then I need to tell him we should try to be together, even if its long distance.

I jump out of bed and get dressed. If I'm going to tell him, I'll need to hurry before he leaves for the airport. When I run down the stairs, I pause and scan the living room but don't see anyone but Steve and my oldest sister Heather. "Do you guys know where Smith is?"

"He left last night," my brother says without even looking up from his phone.

"What do you mean, he left?"

"After your conversation last night, he went back to Dallas early."

"Oh crap! I need to talk to him. Do you think he'll answer my phone call?"

My brother just shrugs his shoulders. Right then, my phone buzzes in my hand and hope fills my chest. Maybe it's Smith calling me, but that bubble quickly bursts when I see Frannie's name on my phone.

Why would she even be calling me right now? The office is closed. Because she's a crazy person that's why. Not wanting to lose my job has me hitting the accept button because Frannie would fire me for not answering on the day after Christmas.

"Hello."

"Annabelle. I need you to go into work today and write up a data summary. Josh needs it tomorrow."

"Frannie, it's Christmas."

"Actually, its the day after and if you still want a job then you'll do as I say."

Letting out a huge breath I answer quickly before I hang up. "Fine."

Chapter 18

Smith

Lacing up my skates for tonight's game, I still can't believe it's been two weeks since I've heard from Annabelle. I've tried calling her a few times hoping that I could convince her that we could make it work between us, that I would be willing to go as fast or as slow as she would like, but I guess she meant what she said.

A large hand slaps down on my shoulder, and I look up to see Steve. "Perk up man. It's the first game of the new year."

"I'm ready, man," I say standing up from the locker room bench. I don't comment on anything else because at this moment, I can't really muster up anymore energy.

We all start to shuffle out the locker room to hit the ice. "Everything will work out. Believe me." Steve says to me right before he takes off on the ice, warming up for the game. I follow him as I skate around.

Our warmup goes by fast while I keep my head down and work on my shots with our goalie John. When the buzzer goes off, I head to the team bench and have a seat as all the beginning gamestuff happens, but I don't pay attention. Any time my mind isn't on hockey it automatically drifts to the life I could've had with Annabelle, torturing myself with visions of what it’d be like.

Just as quickly as warmups go by, the first period flies by too. Thankfully, when I'm on the ice, I'm able to focus on the game. It’s nice that my heartbreak hasn't seemed to take my other love away from me. The hype of the crowd is getting louder and louder, mostly because we seem to be winning.

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