I turned around after I shut the door behind Michael, with tears behind my eyes threatening to fall again. I wiped my eyes, intent on not crying any more over this situation. When I looked up at James his expression was a mixture of anger and pity.

"I can't believe he did that to you. Cheating on someone is bad enough but with your best friend? I'm so sorry that you ever had to be around people who would do that to you. You don't deserve that Cass." There it was again, the nickname that he'd become accustomed to using for me in the day that we'd known each other. I loved it, it made me feel like he actually liked me as a friend and wasn't just putting up with me because of guilt or pity. In my 2 years going out with Michael he never gave me a nickname, he didn't even call me babe or boo, just plain old Cassie.

"Thanks, for everything. I'm sorry that you had to deal with him, he doesn't like listening to what people tell him to do so sometimes it's hard to get through to him." I said as I started walking to the kitchen with James by my side. "Now let's eat breakfast then if you want we can go to your place and pick up some of your things. Oh we should get you a copy of my apartment key too just in case of emergencies."

"Sounds good." He replied.

When we walked into the kitchen James realized that he was in the middle of making breakfast when he answered the door and that was a good 20-25 minutes ago so we were left with some severely burnt french toast. It was completely black on one side, and it didn't look very appetizing.

We both looked at each other and spoke at the same time. "Denny's?" We laughed and I turned off the burner so the french toast wouldn't burn the apartment down, then we were off.

We just got to his car when I remembered that mine was still at CONSOL. I told him that we needed to get it somehow and he quickly had a plan figured out. He decided that one day he would get a ride to practice with Pauly then drive my car home. He was going to get some pretty weird looks driving that thing, but I figured why tell him when I could have a little fun and hear about all the shit he'd get from the boys.

By the time we got to Denny's it was almost 12. The second we walked in the door, the smell of pancakes hit us like a brick wall. It was heaven on earth. My dad would take me and my sister to Denny's every weekend when we were little so the restaurant made me feel at home.

James asked for a table in the back, so we wouldn't be disturbed with fans while we were trying to eat. I guessed it was to avoid press too because he wouldn't want to have any pictures taken of him with some random girl since they loved to manipulate stories and start rumours.

Once we were seated the waitress came over not long after to take our drink orders. She had her blouse unbuttoned so people could see her cleavage and she was trying to flirt with James but failing miserably. I don't know if he just didn't notice or he wasn't into her but it was pretty funny watching her try so hard when he was just blank faced and not responding to any of her passes. I had to hold back my laughter until she left to go to another table, pretty unhappy about her rejection.

"What are you laughing about?" He asked inquisitively.

"Could you not tell how badly she wanted in your pants? It's funny how oblivious you men are sometimes."

"I could tell but I honestly think Crosby's ass is hotter than her." I lost it. I was doubled over at the table laughing the hardest I had in a while. I didn't stop laughing for at least two minutes and when I did tears were forming in the corners of my eyes from laughing so hard. Luckily I
pulled myself together just as she came back with our drinks, a milkshake for me and a fruit smoothie for him. Then she took our orders, both of us got french toast with bacon on the side.

"Never have I ever?" He asked leaning over the table slightly with both of his arms rested on it beneath him.

"The last time I played that was in high school, and if I remember correctly it's a drinking game." I said playing with the straw in my milkshake.

"Oh come on just go with it." He said and I thought it could be fun, plus I already knew one I could say that would make him drink.

"Fine but you have to go first." He nodded his head in agreement then took a minute to carefully think out a good question that he thought would catch me.

"Never have I ever kissed a guy." He said with a stupid smirk.

"Not fair! That's obvious!" I whined but he stood his ground and made me drink anyways. If he was going to do those stupid easy ones I could fight back with easy ones too that would have his drink gone in minutes.

"Fine if you want to be like that. Never have I ever had a one night stand." He hesitantly picked up his drink seemingly a bit embarrassed then tried to get me to drink more. He thought he'd get me for sure.

"Never have I ever had sex with a guy." Not this time Neal. He looked at me surprised.

"Why is that so surprising?"

"It's just.. you were in a two-year relationship so I figured.." He trailed off.

"He only ever tried to do stuff with me when he was piss drunk and we were at a bar or a party. I just didn't want my first time to be like that." I was surprised at how easily I'd told him that. The only other person I'd talked with about that was Nicki. He just made it easy to trust him.

He looked at me a bit stunned, then thought for a minute before he nodded towards me as if to say "your turn".

"Never have I ever had sex with a girl." I grinned and he glared back taking another swig of his smoothie.

"Playing dirty is my favorite game James, you started it so now I'm finishing it."

"Whatever. Never have I ever gone to University."

"You got me" I said before drinking more of the delicious milkshake. I actually enjoyed getting caught so I could drink some more but I had to beat him, I was not going to lose.

"What are you studying to be?" He asked suddenly curious.

"I want to be a Nurse at a Children's Hospital. I love kids so I want to help them as much as I can." I said, my eyes glazing over at the thought of my future.

"That's amazing, doing something you love is really important." He said with that huge toothy smile of his showing. Just as he said that the waitress came back with our food. Both of us were really hungry by then so we dove right into our meals.

I had a bit of trouble trying to eat with my left hand and James found that hilarious. I was dropping food all over myself, I was completely covered and I was sticky from the maple syrup. Once he was done laughing at the comedy show I was putting on for him, he decided to help me. He took my fork and put some food on it for me then handed it back so I could put it in my mouth. We repeated that process until we were done eating and the embarrassment was over. We probably looked really strange to the other customers, but what else could we do?

As soon as we were done we left a tip for the waitress on the table then headed for the counter so we could pay. When I pulled out some cash he told me to put it back in his purse, that he'd pay for it. I didn't want him to pay for the whole thing so I stood my ground until he let me pay for something. He eventually agreed to let me pay for the drinks, of course, the most inexpensive part of the meal. I knew I was being slightly stubborn and he was just trying to be a gentleman, but I felt bad when I let other people pay for me while I had the money to do so myself.

"A tie eh? I don't like the sound of that. I'll get you back for it later, I never lose that game." We were walking out to his BMW in bliss from the delicious brunch.

"Well I'm a different challenge, so you'll have it harder." I said, confident that I could beat him as we got in his car.

"I don't know how you've gone your whole life without realizing how wrong you make things sound." He started laughing as we drove to our next destination: The Neal Residence.

"Oh get your mind out of the gutter! You wouldn't realize it either if girls weren't all you single men thought about day in and day out." I rolled my eyes.

"Hey! We don't always think about girls!" He said with a fake expression of offense as he put a hand to his chest dramatically.

"What else then?" I said, disbelief apparent in my voice.

"Sometimes it's just one girl, not girls." He said nonchalantly.

"Oh that's muuuuch better." I said looking out the window as I scrunched my face in disgust.

"It is when there's only one you want." He looked at me as he said it in a soft but serious tone.

"Yeah and how often does that actually happen?" I asked but it wasn't really a question because I thought I knew the answer, but he surprised me.

"More often than you think, trust me. Guys just have a hard time saying anything when it's the right girl so they try to distract themselves with someone else who doesn't mean anything to them." He said with a hint of something in his voice but I couldn't pick out what it was. After that we were silent the rest of the car ride to his apartment.

I wasn't sure if what he said was true or not, I mean tons of guys had girlfriends, but then again who said it was the girl they really wanted to be with? I could pull from experience there. Were guys really as shy and insecure as girls when it came to the right one? It was kind of a weird thought. I pictured a guy being shy and insecure standing in the corner at a dance just looking at the girl he loved from afar. It was different, that's for sure. I always thought of the majority guys as people who went after everything they wanted, especially girls they wanted. I guess they're just better at hiding their feelings than most girls.

He drove us to one of the fanciest, most expensive apartment buildings in Pittsburgh. I couldn't say I was surprised though, he was a millionaire after all.

Once we reached his apartment he welcomed me in and told me to feel free to look around while he went and got some of his stuff. When I first walked in there was a big wall across from me with floor to ceiling windows. It was amazing. You could see all of Pittsburgh through it and I could only imagine how beautiful it must have been at night.

To my right was his kitchen area that had a marble island with wooden bar stools on one side and on the other side, the fridge, oven, dishwasher and other appliances were there.

Just past the kitchen there was an archway to another room and I decided to explore in there. Through it was a nice living room with a huge flat screen TV and an Xbox hooked up to it. Of course he had an Xbox, every man I'd ever met had one.

The wooden mantle beneath the flat screen had a few family pictures. There was one of him with his brothers and sister at a lake somewhere all of them looked like they couldn't have been happier, and there was one with his whole family dressed to the nines at a wedding. The last one I noticed stuck out to me though. It was him and some girl dressed up at a fancy event, they looked comfortable and happy like they were together but as far as I knew, he didn't have a girlfriend. I made a mental note to ask him about it.

I decided to sit down for a bit while I was waiting for him because god only knew how long he'd take trying to find all his hair products. I almost nodded off until I heard him walk into the room and start unplugging his Xbox. Once he got that done he put a few movies in his bag then plopped down next to me on his couch.

"Got everything?" I asked.

"Yup it's all in those, I'm leaving my hockey stuff here because I have to drive by my place to get to Consol anyways so it's easier than bringing it all to your apartment." I nodded in agreement to his plan.

We sat there for another couple of minutes just too comfortable to move.

"Who's that girl?" I pointed to the picture I was looking at earlier and noticed a glint of sadness cross his face when he looked at the picture but he quickly composed himself. He stood up and walked over to the mantle taking the picture in his hands.

"Remember that girl I told you about?"

"Yeah..the shirt ruiner?" I decided to say instead of 'gold digger', afraid that it would make him feel worse.

"Yup that's her. We broke up a couple weeks ago, I guess I just didn't get around to taking the picture down." He took the picture out of the frame, balling it up and tossed it into the garbage.

"How long were you guys together?" I asked carefully, hoping I wasn't prying too much.

"A year. We were happy together until I found out that she tried to get with Sid because he's getting more money and has more fame. He didn't want anything to do with her though."

"Oh my god that's terrible. I'm so sorry James, I shouldn't have asked about it." I ran over and hugged him. Being a gold digger was bad enough but going after his teammate? If Sid had gone along with it, James would've been in hell for the past couple weeks. Thank god The Kid had some sense.

We broke apart shortly after, then decided we would go get him a key to my apartment then head back to my place.

As I was walking out of his apartment I tripped over a blanket that had fallen on the floor. Just before I hit the ground I felt his strong arms wrap around me and pull me up, thank the lord. That would've been pretty bad if I fell and hurt my arm more.

"It seems that I'm saving you a lot lately." He said looking me straight in the eyes.

"My Prince Charming thank you for coming to my rescue." I said dramatically with the back of my left hand rested on my forehead.

"It was a pleasure Princess. Shall we venture off into the sunset?" He said as he held his hand for me to take.

"Lead the way." I took it and we walked amicably through his apartment building and down to his car.