Just As Long As You Stand, Stand By Me

I get a call and Brandon says he is parking the car and will be up soon. I get a jacket and my purse and start to head down the stairs. I go to Brandon's car and get in. He turns down the radio and looks at me. "You ready for this bonfire?" He says. I say I'm not, but I am scared of which "boys" are going to be there. Brandon starts to leave and I start playing with the radio stations. I come up to a song that I love, "Simple Man" by Lynyrd Skynyrd comes on. I start to him some of it then start to sing it. After Simple Man comes a whole bunch of Queen, The Beatles, Aerosmith, Guns and Roses, Red Hot Chile Peppers, Creedance Clearwater Revival and more to which I know most of the songs. I feel a lot less scared and Brandon looks surprised considering he thought I only knew country music. We pull up to Ben's place and I can see the soft orange glow from the fire coming from one side. "Ok you ready?" Brandon says. "Yeah sure," I say as I get out of the car. My feet hit the soft ground and I immediately go towards Brandon. I reach for his hand and find the warmth of it to be soothing, even thought it is pretty much taking over my whole hand. I can hear the faint sounds of people talking and music playing and it gets a lot louder as we get closer up. Brandon starts to say hi to people right away and I start to space out and drown out all noise. I feel a tap on my shoulder and look towards Brandon. "Alli, this is Jonathan Toews," I finally hear. "Oh it is wonderful to meet you," I manage to say and I see a lot of other plays and their wives and girlfriends sitting around the fire. I see Patrick Sharp, Patrick Kane, Marcus Kruger, Ben Smith (of course), Kris Versteeg, Corey Crawford, Nick Leddy, and Johnny Oduya. Corey has already been drinking, or as it seems by some of the empty bottles on the ground by him. I search the rest of the chairs the guys are sitting in and see that most of them are like that. Brandon introduces me to most of them and Marcus says a small "hi" and goes back to watching the fire. Most of the wives and girlfriends are happy to have me there but I feel so weird sitting there. All these women could be supermodels and I am just short of average. Brandon guides me to some chairs next to Nick Leddy and Kris Versteeg. I sit next Nick and stare at the fire. I hear muffled voices all around me as I am mesmerized by fire. That is how I have always been around fire and it won't ever stop anytime soon. I feel a nudge and look at Nick, who is pulling his hand away from me. "Why are you just staring at the fire? It's kinda weird." He says. "Oh sorry," I start to say and realize I was going to explain in full detail why I do that, "I just like fire a lot," is the only thing that manages to come out. Nick laughs and looks at the fire and says, "yeah its kinda cool I guess." I feel like an idiot. An average looking idiot. Then I realize that Brandon mothafuckin Bollig chose me to date out of all of the women on earth. My spirits lift up a little bit then. I see Kane walk up with a bottle, pop the top off and yell, "ok everyone. You GOTTA take a sip," and passes it to his girlfriend then back to Sharp and it makes its rounds. It gets to me and I take a sip and it is actually pretty good. When Brandon has taken a sip I take the bottle to see what it is. I see it is a bottle of red stag and take another sip then pass it back to Nick. It goes around again and again until it is empty. Kane pulls out another bottle and we do the same thing. I look and he has about 5 more bottles, all different. I am excited. I want to get drunk real fast and don't want to take any more time in doing so. Nick gets up and Corey steals his seat. He took a bottle from Kane and we share it. It is good. I can tell it is Jaeger the minute I drink some and Corey is surprised I don't make a weird face every time I drink some. "That's because she is a Jaeger drinker! She can pound down a whole bottle in no time!" Brandon chimes in. Corey laughs and passes me the bottle. He is slurring and swearing. I laugh when he tries to talk because it it so funny hearing what he has to say inbetween all of the "fuck"s and " shit"s he says. All of a sudden Chelsea Dagger starts to play and everyone starts to sing. "Hey Kaner!" Corey yells, "it fuckin sounds like the fuckin shit that is fuckin played every fuckin home game cause of you, ya shit!" Everyone starts laughing cause no one has really any idea what Corey is trying to say. While I am still laughing I feel my hands being grabbed and pulled up. I open my eyes to see Brandon smiling and holding me hands. Everyone starts dancing and so do we. Corey takes another sip and joins the dancing. He is getting in between couples and shaking his ass. Brandon is turning me all around and picking me up and spinning me. I don't ever want to stop dancing. I hear a horribly sung Chelsea Dagger as everyone is dancing. There are gasps and no one is singing well. I keep dancing and I start singing. Another song comes on and everyone is still dancing. The songs that are playing are great songs. Even Marcus is dancing and singing. It is such a great night and I never want it to end.

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