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Christmas is the worst. Don’t come at me, I have my reasons. But I stand by my statement: Christmas. Is. The. Worst.
Almost every single year without fail, crappy things always happen to me, all within a week or so of C-Day. So, after a while, everything about Christmas just turned sour and it became one giant bad omen for me. Guilty by association, I guess. Sorry, Santa.
Looking back, I can see that he was the CEO of Six Flags and every last one of them was red, but it’s hard seeing that when you’re in the thick of it. Or maybe you do see it, but you don’t want to, so you make excuses or tell yourself you’re overreacting or imagining things, somehow make it your fault and make yourself colorblind.
I love hockey more than almost anything on the planet, but there’s one thing that I love even more that requires me to stay in Seattle. My life can’t work anywhere else.
Dimples are like my kryptonite. Don't ask me to explain it.
Rizzo and I have been nearly inseparable since freshman year in college, and I always joke that he couldn’t survive without me so he had to follow me all the way to Seattle. He of course claims that I would be nothing without him and so he took pity on me and came with.
“I love Christmas. The lights and the music and the food. Ah, God, is there anything better than a Christmas cookie fresh out of the oven?” “You know you can make those cookies anytime, right? They aren’t regulated to Christmas time only.” I shake my head. “Nope, they don’t taste the same any other time of year. It’s science."
Our gazes lock and I get one of those instant connection feelings. Not love at first sight or anything like that, I’m not an idiot, but just when you know you mesh with someone on some weird cosmic level.
The way Rizzo stares into the camera and runs his thumb across his lower lip is going to get someone pregnant through the screen somehow. Don’t ask me to explain the physics, but it’s going to happen.
He might look like he would fit in with a dangerous motorcycle gang, but I get the feeling Connor is kind of a teddy bear. Goofy. Fun. Easy-going. There’s something about him that just draws me to him, makes me like him, and I don’t mean physically, though obviously there's definitely that aspect. I just feel like I could hang out with him, eat pizza or binge watch movies, bitch about work or play beer pong. So, yeah, I think I’m going to take him up on his offer sooner rather than later.
Does he really need all of those? I mean, I know people are hitting pucks at him, but…can they actually hurt him? Like really hurt him? Even football players don’t wear that much padding and they get bulldozed by three-hundred-pound tanks on the reg. Maybe goalies are just big babies, I think with a wry grin, imagining saying just that to Connor and seeing his reaction.
I was born and raised in the church of the pigskin. That game I understand. Hockey? Not so much.”
I’d gotten the feeling that he’s a teddy bear before, but now I’m convinced that he’s a teddy bear in all aspects except for two: the ice and the bedroom. In those, I’m fairly sure he was very similar: intense; aggressive; unwavering; way too skilled.
“High-sticking,” Jules says, chiming in. “When one of y’all hauls off and whacks another one above the Mason-Dixon line like a heathen.”
“To the Vipers Sin Bin! May it ever be full of our depraved, sinning selves.”
“Well, that’s that then. I’ve officially made it my mission to make this Christmas your first good one.” She snorts. “Good luck with that.” “I’m serious. I’m going to fill this holiday season with so many great memories, you and Santa will be besties by New Year’s Eve.”
People always say that time heals all wounds, but I don’t think that’s true. I think time just gives you the opportunity to learn how to live with them, to learn to survive around the pain.
Dear God, Connor Shepherd really is one of the good ones.
“You’re a good man, Shep.” He holds my gaze for an endless moment, but eventually nods, giving me a heart-stopping smile. “I made you fall in love with me a bit just now, didn’t I?”
"When she has yellow hair, she is Hannah?" Nowski yells over the music to Mowser. "But she is same person as with brown hair, but has different name? Is she spy? This is children’s show?”
there’s something between me and Connor that’s hard to explain, something more than friendship. It’s heavy and intense and holds the promise of something terrifyingly epic.
I feel like all hockey players were polar bears in a former life.
Wait, do adults get crushes? Is there an age-limit cut off for that term? Like once you’re past fifteen, they aren’t called crushes anymore? What are they then? Passing fancies? Oh my God, shut the fuck up, Shepherd.
“Maybe you’re just growing up,” I offer. “I’ve done no such thing!” he says, looking aghast. “Balls. Farts. Boobies. See—no grown-ups here.”
When he told me to watch him? Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the Great Pumpkin. It was the hottest, dirtiest, sexiest thing that’s ever been said.
It wasn’t love at first sight with Connor, but it was connection at first meeting which I think is just as monumental, maybe even more so.
