"What's going on?" Lindsay asked as Teodora continued to scowl. "Is everything alright?

The group stopped as Alex tucked his hands in his pockets. "Teodora's ex boyfriend's back in town. Indian guy named Dev. Dated for..." he shrugged. "Some time. Not like a yearlong thing but it was past five months I think."

The girls gasped as Yoshi blew out. "That'll be fun for Dev. Meeting Captain Spazz Pants. Wonder if he'll still have a head after meeting DZ."

Lindsay's voice fell to a hush. "Why? What happened?"

"Okay, so. Course you know Teo's parents are originally from Afghanistan," Alex explained as she nodded. "India and Pakistan kinda have a beef with each other after Gandhi led the uprising to kick out the British. So the Muslim population pretty much branched off into Pakistan and the rest had India and there's always shit going on between the two countries. Dev's parents are proud Indians, come from good families like lots of people do at Columbia."

"Right," she agreed.

"Dev was in Math with her and Kurt and my roommate Johnny first semester," Yoshi said, taking over the story. "He was a decent guy. Hung out with us for awhile before asking out Teodora. They dated a few months, no big deal. Then the parents came over from the UK where they live parts of the year. It's not a white thing," Yoshi said before Lindsay could ask if that was the break-up cause. "It gets better."

"Assholes brought our Teo out to dinner. Still no big deal," Denise went on. "Introductions were made, they started to talk. First things out of those motherfuckers mouths were so this is the girl whose parents are Pakis."

Lindsay blinked as Alex explained, "Real derogatory. Essentially like the N word meant for people from Pakistan. Even though her parents are Afghan." His nostrils flared with anger as she gasped, now getting it. "Which when I caught wind of this, I nearly left school to go bust a hole in that motherfucker's head. Like, seriously! Her parents are cool as shit!"

"That's so awful!" Lindsay gasped in horror. "Oh my God! I can only imagine your reaction."
"Did mention that my parents were Afghans. Through many curse words of course," Teodora replied coolly. "But still. We don't need blood spilt so DZ doesn't hear word of this. I'll confront Dev...but I should get someone to back me up. You know, to make sure he stays lost?"

"Boogey?" Yoshi immediately chimed in hopefully.

"I said no blood spilt. So Boyle's out for sure. Prust too," she said and started to muse. "Probably no Hankie or Artem. Brandon Dubinksy might get heated. Ryan Callahan might too..."

Lindsay tapped her mouth with her finger. "How about Marian?"

"Marian Gaborik?" Teodora considered this and nodded. "Yeah. He'd still be big brother-y but not snap someone's neck. Think he'd do it?"

"Oh sure. Any of the boys would. You're like the team's little sister," Lindsay smiled at Denise and Taeyeon. "You girls too."

Denise shrugged. "Some of the single boys I wouldn't mind not being little sisters to." Alex was taking a swig of his bottle of pop and spat everywhere, causing everyone to cry out in laughter. Smiling victoriously, Denise said, "I was waiting for him to drink cause I know his reaction to girl stuff."
Alex rubbed his nose as they started walking again. "Ow my fucking nose," he complained. "Pop came out of my nose even!"

Mood now better, they walked to meet Eric. Marc, who had a little boy on his shoulders brightened at the sight of them. "There they are!"
The popular rumor in the NHL was that you liked all Staal boys. Considering Eric's smile, Teodora knew he was as cool was Marc was. "Nice to meet you Teodora," Eric smiled. "So I hear you got stuck with DZ?"

"Not stuck, I mean. He's a cool guy," Teodora said and caught Marc's gaze. Pointing at Alex who was glancing around the locker room, she mouthed, put him by Torts! No doubt he was fiery about something about the game so Marc smothered a smile and loudly announced for Alex to follow him to meet Ranger players. The girls and Yoshi immediately followed them as she snorted. "They're gonna go mess with Alex. The Asian guy without that huge mane of hair."
"Nice," he laughed as a bubbly looking blond approached them. "This is my wife, Tanya. Marc took off with our boy Parker."

Teodora nodded. "Yeah, I saw your little guy. He's a cutie. Makes me miss my little brother Joey. He's four."
Eric blinked in surprise. "Wow! Your parents have another kid so young?"
"Well, they were in their early twenties when they adopted me. I was eight," Teodora replied as his wife softly reminded him she was adopted. "And you know, I have an inkling they're trying for another. I think they want another girl."
"See now, that's exciting!" Eric exclaimed. "I know my parents will never have another kid. No way in hell. But that's gotta be so fun to see your mom pregnant at your age."
"Well. I remember last time I was asked if I wanted to be in the delivery room," Teodora said. "Which would've been cool, if she didn't scream from the contractions. Like, neither of my parents are delivery doctors, but I know what goes down."

Tanya beamed at her. "So where'd you grow up? American I assume."
"Um, born in LA. Lived in Long Beach for just a bit, Van Nuys and then moved out to San Francisco when I was eight," she said, successfully skimming over her foster years. No need for nice Eric and his equally nice wife Tanya to hear about foster system abuse, gangs or the race riots. "Then I came out to cold and snowy Manhattan."

"Bet you wouldn't survive in Canada," Tanya teased her.

Jerking her thumb back towards the Rangers locker room, she laughed. "You have no idea! Both Alex and I. My buddy Kurt who couldn't come is a Connecticut boy so he was the good guy and tried to teach us both how to drive in the snow. First patch of ice we hit, we both bailed outta the car."

"Hilarious," Eric chuckled.

They continued to chat as Marc finally came back. As Teodora finally got her chance to coo at how sweet Parker was, Marc flashed her a thumbs up. "Nice," she laughed in approval. "He absolutely deserves it."

"So. Who gets in more trouble. Michael or Alex?" Eric asked.
"Alex by far," Teodora replied without hesitation. "Speaking of which, I should go check to make sure the punk isn't burning the place down. Nice meeting you," she waving goodbye to the Carolina Staals. Before she reached the hallway, she heard a noise off to the side.

"Ahem."

She spun to face Marian. "Jesus, that girl talked to you already?" She laughed low. "Anyways, its an odd request. I'm really sorry-,"

"Don't say sorry," he cut her off. "Contact the little bitch so he can learn to leave you alone for good. Or else."

Oh fuck, she sighed. Marian was a bad choice after all. Maybe she should've gone with Yoshi's more milder roommate. Sure, Johnny came from Boston and was bound for law school but he knew to keep a cool head. She emailed Dev and then pocketed her phone. "So, did they get Alex pretty well?"

Marian chuckled. "I think Torts knew you wanted to mess with Chung so he yelled a lot. Even though we played a good game. Dubinsky nearly blew it, he kept smiling and then forced himself not to smile. I like your friends. Well, I like all your friends..."

"But the Columbia group's more behaved. San Francisco crowd's a different story," she laughed, happy the conversation quickly swung to something funny. Once everyone was ready to go, she quietly made plans with Marian to meet up tomorrow and briefly talked with Alex.
"I like this for the situation you're in," he nodded in approval. "I like them. Not only DZ but everyone is good here. I know I can trust them despite having Lina gone."

Teodora agreed. "Yeah," she said and was cut off when Brandon and Yoshi called for them. "See you man. I'll try to have DZ and I visit you at Brown if we can."

The next day, she made her excuses of the typical studying and slipped away to meet up with Marian. "Now remember you," she lightly scolded him. "No violence." He made his grumbles of protests but still agreed as they reached the coffee shop.

She and Marian stepped inside. Scanning the shop, she saw Dev sitting towards the side. He had a slight five o'clock shadow with the same thick and black tousled hair. Gorgeous as usual. He really could make a living being an actor or a model if his parents didn't have their way. Teodora felt no real emotion, but of course they never got that far into being serious.
Upon seeing her, Dev shut his laptop and glanced at Marian when he pulled up a chair. "Teodora. I wanted to talk to you alone," he replied softly.

"Doesn't work that way," she replied promptly. "You know my views very well on racism and your parents crossed that line."

He shifted in his seat. "I know what they said was terrible. To your adopted parents. To you had to go through the LA riots growing up." Marian glanced over and her heart stopped a little. She had no clue what Slovaks knew about US history, let alone what went down in the 90's. "I know racism offends you greatly. I just feel that we shouldn't have ended like we did."

"Well, that's just how things work because I'm not going back to you." He started to make a noise. "I'm not going back to you Dev! I don't like you or your parents so if you can't deal with it. Cause if things advance, then you'll have to deal with him and his friends."

Dev seemed to ache to reach for her hand but didn't. "I wanted us to try again. I feel we can make it Teo."
Curling a lip, she replied honestly. "Eh, no. You know Jirayu and Imran were my serious boyfriends. Don't kid yourself into thinking we had something special." Scraping back her chair, she said brightly, "I think we're done here. Just find someone else Dev." She bit back from retorting a racist Indian like your parents but said nothing.
Marian followed her out and said, "Ahem." She halted and made a face. "Teodora," he said in a warning tone.
She turned to face him with a cringed expression. "Alright. Boogaard knows, Boyle knows and now you know too. This doesn't get to anyone else. I grew up with abusive foster parents that did this," she gestured at her hearing aid. "My street had to rival gangs and LA had the riots in 92. The Rodney King riots if you know essentially what happened."

He frowned. "Maybe I've heard of this. It sounds familiar"

"Essentially it was a group of idiot as fuck cops that beat a black guy while being recorded along with a stupid female Korean store owner that assumed a black girl stole juice and ended the struggle by shooting the girl. It was stupid morons that caused racist tensions to escalade and riots to spring up. The National Guard came in, there was curfews which is unheard of in America..."

Marian studied her. "I understand why this relationship offended you. Though I don't feel you should hide this foster care business from us."

"Look, it's nothing against any of you," she assured him. "I mean, I was adopted by a great family. Same with Jerome and Manny got put with his uncle and aunt. We understand what happened but we're okay with what happened. No one has anger or emotional issues. I guess we just don't think its a huge deal but people can think its a big deal. Which is why DZ doesn't know."

Teodora seemed to make a habit of dumping her crummy past on her poor Rangers friends. They were great guys-the best really. She loved them dearly but this needed to stop. From now on, she was only telling everyone the positives of her life so no one became weepy and protective over her.