Love is Blindness

Chapter 17; Go Fish Plus a Life Story

"Okay, boys. This is our first game of the new year! Let's make this work!" Babs yelled through the locker room. The team got up, all pumped and headed to the ice. The girls and I headed for our usual seats.

At 12:01 in the first, Dan Cleary scored to put us up one. At 7:28 in the second, Mule scored making it 2-0. 4:32 in the third Dallas Drake scored making it 3-0 then Pav scored. Shortly afterward, Colorado's Scott Hannan scored but that would be the only goal for Colorado. We won 4-1. We walked back to the locker room to celebrate.

I gave high fives to every teammate I passed on my way in. I looked over to where Chris was undressing. He looked up to every guy who congratulated him but then looked down again. I so desperately wanted to go and congratulate him too but I knew it wouldn't be right.

The same group of four walked to the bus together. When we got to the hotel we went to Val and Jon's room to hang out for a bit before closing up for the night.

"So what do you guys wanna do?" I asked when we all sat down on the beds.

"We could just watch TV," Juliana said.

"I have a deck of cards," Jon offered.

"Sure let's do that. I'm not in the mood to watch TV," I said.

We all sat in a circle on the floor. I watched as Jon shuffled the cards. Wow, he could do that fast. It takes me like five minutes to do a good shuffle. He gave us each five cards so I assumed we were playing Go Fish.

"Um, how are we going to play this with four people?" Juliana asked.

"We'll just go in a circle. I'll start by asking Hannah, and she'll ask Flip, he'll ask you, and you'll ask me. Simple," Jon replied in his Swedish accent. I noticed myself starting to like the sound of his voice. It was so different then the usual American and Canadian accents.

Jon looked to me, "Hannah do you have any 5's?"

I looked at my cards, "Nope go fish." He reached into the pile in the middle and pulled out a card. I looked at Val, "Got any Aces?" He looked down at his cards and 

frowned.

"Yeah..." He pulled out his ace and handed it to me. I laid them on the floor in front of me.

We continued the game until Jon won.

"What the hell! That's not fair!" I shouted a bit too loud. I waited for the banging on the walls like when Sam and I were screaming and Hank got annoyed.

"Would you like a rematch?" Jon asked with a devious smile on his face.

"YES! And this time I will kick you ass."

"Well we're gonna watch TV now, so Hannah, you and Jon have your fun," Juliana said, rolling her eyes.

I watched in amazement as Jon shuffled the cards again, perfectly. He gave us each five cards and so the war began.

"Have any 2's?" I asked.

"No, go fish." I reached into the pile and pulled out, to my delight, a two. I placed them in front of me.

"Have any 6's?"

"Ugh... Yep. Have any Queens?"

"Huh... yes... Any 4's?"

"Jeez, you're catchin' up," he said as he handed me a 4. I smiled as I studied my last card.

"Have any 8's?"

"Nope, go fish!"

"Got any 9's?" I asked hopefully.

"Oh my God, you cheated!" Jon said as he handed me his 9. I lifted my arms into the air in victory.