When We Write the Stars

Chapter 18: Hayden

"You're the best thing I never knew I needed." – The Princess and the Frog

     Over the next month, Cassie and I fell into a routine. We hang out two or three times a week, at first it's to finish up our project, but once we finish watching all the movies and put together our presentation, we don't have that as an excuse anymore. We still watch a lot of movies for old times' sake, but we're no longer limited to rom-coms, and we take turns picking which ones to watch, always with the goal of finding one we love that the other will absolutely hate.

     She comes to all of our home games and wears one of my Seaport Hockey sweatshirts, she always brings her roommates with her and I always try to spot them during warmups so when I score I can look over and see the look of excitement and pride on her face. When we have away games, I always Facetime her after the game, which at first annoyed Coleman, who's usually my roommate, but he got used to it pretty fast.

     The first time I called her, when we were in Colorado, I just wanted to hear her voice and tell her all about our game. I knew that was leaning too much into the couple side of things, and we'd agreed to keep things casual, so I'd made up the excuse of having phone sex, which I knew she wouldn't agree to when she asked why I called. Now she never asks, instead just waits for me to tell her all about the game.

     I know hockey isn't her thing, and sometimes I feel bad for how long I spend recapping the games to her, but she always seems like she's listening and actually cares, so either I got her into hockey, or she's a really good actor. I'm really hoping it's the former not the latter.

     We don't spend all our time together, in fact, there are weeks when we're both so busy, we're lucky if we get to see each other once, but the shuffling of schedules is always worth it for the few hours we spend together in either hers or my bedroom. She still drives me crazy and challenges me on almost everything, but we've both realized the quickest way to get us to stop arguing is to have sex. When we're having sex, we're both in agreement on a lot of things. Plus when we argue now it's less two people who hate each other and more old married couple bickering, as Gibbs likes to say.

     I wasn't sure how well Cassie would get along with my roommates, and how well I'd get along with hers, and while by no means is everyone best friends, but when Cassie's there the guys are all decent, and when I'm at her place everyone but Alyssa is incredibly nice. For some reason, nothing I seem to do can get Alyssa to like me.

     Our Season's going great so far we've only lost one game, and it was against Arizona who's been surprisingly good this year but has a few losses under the belt so we're still ranked first in our division. I think I'm a bit of a hardass as a captain, we've spent more time in the weight room and doing exercises when we don't have ice time than ever before, and I've done everything I can to get us as much ice time as possible. I also watch all the game footage in advance so I can point specific things out when we watch it as a team. My free time is practically nonexistent, but I need to exit this season knowing there was absolutely nothing else I could do to poove myself to Toronto.

     Some nights, Cassie will do her astrophysics homework while I'm watching and taking notes on game footage, and it's kind of nice. It makes me imagine a different life, one that could never exist where I'm playing in Toronto, and she goes to school there and we get to actually be together for real. Anytime that notion crosses my mind though I have to stop myself. She and I will never last, but still, that hasn't stopped me from telling her things I've never really told anyone else.

     Most people who know me well know that my little sisters and I were raised by our grandparents, but that's kind of the extent of their knowledge, Cassie knows the whole story about our Mom leaving and in return, I know things about her. The type of things you don't share with someone that's just a casual hookup. But that's all we are, I remind myself that every time she sends me a random text or something she finds funny, every time we hang out for something other than sex, and when she asks me to teach her how to skate.