"Now he's wrapped around her finger, she's the center of his whole world. And his heart belongs to that sweet, little, beautiful, wonderful, perfect, all-American girl..."


“You drag me into the most uncomfortable situations. Press conferences, charity events, and now dinner with a hockey star.” Cassidy walked out of the bathroom with her hands up around her neck, holding a necklace in place, “clip this for me, will you?”

When she felt Jamie’s hand grasp the thin silver chain, she brought her hands down to her waist, looking down to smooth out a wrinkle on her long, navy blue dress. After the jewelry was clipped, Cassidy pulled on the charm to get it to hang evenly.

“First of all, you’re dating someone considered to be a rising star in hockey. Plus it’s just dinner with Dan.” Jamie slid a tie around his neck, looking in the mirror as he wrapped it around itself to secure it in place. “It’ll be the first time since Sochi that I’ll really have a chance to catch up with him.”

“Then you two should go out on a little man date, and not have little ol’ me there to distract you,” she turned and pressed her hands against Jamie’s chest, grinning up into his eyes.

Jamie cupped his hands on either side of her face and smiled, “I want to introduce you to him. He’s just as awkward as you; it’ll be fine.”

“And you’re supposed to like him tonight, but tomorrow night you’ll be trying to slam him into Plexiglas. Makes sense,”

“Dan is a good friend and a good guy. A job is a job and at the end of the day, I don’t really want to hurt anyone.” He backed away from Cassidy and picked his suit jacket up from the bed, sliding his arms into it. “Now let’s get going, darling. We’re gonna be late for Hammer-time,”

Cassidy groaned and grabbed her clutch from on top of the dresser, and pulled it open to make sure she had everything. It was meant to be a way for her to stall; one last attempt at being left out for the night, but Jamie set his hand on the small of her back, and ushered her out of his bedroom, down the stairs, and finally into his car.

“Usually girls don’t mind being treated to steak and wine,” he murmured, pulling out of the driveway and immediately getting onto the highway to get downtown.

“Oh, I don’t mind it at all. I love steak… and wine. But I love it even more in the comfort of my own home, with my incredibly sexy man beside me.” Cassidy looked out the window, calming herself down for a moment as she felt Jamie’s hand sneak its way onto her lap, his fingers tangling with hers. “Plus I wanted to spend our first night back in Dallas alone. Your schedule’s pretty crazy for awhile; I don’t know how much time we’ll actually have together.”

Jamie looked at her quickly before returning his eyes to the road. He squeezed her hand gently, “by the holidays things will slow down a bit. I’ll be in town for longer periods of time,”

Instead of answering, Cassidy squeezed his hand back, as if to reassure him that she knew his job was demanding. After all, she didn’t want him to leave hockey because of her. It was his dream, his passion, and she was just his girlfriend.

The steakhouse wasn’t that far away, but because the rest of the drive was relatively quiet, Jamie turned on the radio, only to add some soft background noise. And at the restaurant, Cassidy turned into the dutiful companion. She wanted to be that for Jamie, so it wasn’t much of an act, but occasionally she felt there were expectations of her. Those were the worst. They made her, a semi-socially awkward individual, even more awkward.

“Hammer, I hope you weren’t waiting too long,”

Cassidy snapped out of her daze and focused in as Jamie shook the hand of a man who was a few inches shorter than him. But telling by the way his suit jacket tugged at his biceps and shoulders, he was just as muscular.

“No of course not. Just got here,”

Jamie turned to the side, reaching back to herd Cassidy closer to the situation. Again, he placed his hand on her lower back, sprawling his fingers against the fabric of her dress to comfort her. “And this is my girlfriend, Cassidy Knox,”

Dan reached forward, just as Cassidy did, and shook her hand, “Hi. Dan Hamhuis. It’s nice to meet you,”

“You as well,” Cassidy smiled politely and looked up at Jamie quickly. She slid into one side of the booth, smiling as Dan sat down on the other side, and Jamie scooted in next to her.

And almost immediately, the waiter ambushed the table, holding two bottles of wine. Jamie graciously held his hand out to Dan, who then looked at both labels, pondered his decision, before choosing a merlot.

“I can’t believe it’s been since February,” Dan murmured, staring at his wine glass as the waiter began to pour. When he let up, and moved to Cassidy’s glass, Dan looked up at him, “thank you, sir.”

Jamie waited to respond until the waiter had finished pouring the wine, and set the bottle in the stainless steel bucket at the head of the table. “Almost a year. Three more until we’re in South Korea.”

“If I’m in South Korea. I’m gonna be thirty-five by then,”

“You’ll be there,” Jamie smiled and brought his wine glass up to his mouth and took a quick sip. “How’s the new and improved team?”

“Different. I came back and didn’t recognize too many people. Vancouver kind of cleaned house after Tortorella.”

“And Desjardins,”

Cassidy took a deep breath in and looked down at her hands. She felt unimportant to the dinner conversation. Why was she here if they were going to chat about hockey business?

“Taking some crap for not being a ‘sexy hire’, you know? People are wondering what type of person turns down the chance to be head coach for the Pens, but comes to Vancouver guns blazing.”

Once again, the waiter appeared, taking their orders efficiently. As he left the table, Dan nodded towards Cassidy, catching her attention.

“Cassidy, what do you do?” He tried not to sound prying, and even know his question seemed to come out of the blue, he managed to make it sound polite and unforced.

Cassidy smiled and looked up at Jamie, blushing as she already saw him staring at her. When she looked back at Dan, he was waiting for her answer. “I’m still a student, but after this semester, I’ll graduate with a bachelor’s degree in business management.”

Dan offered a small smile, “you want your own business?”

“No,” Cassidy murmured, looking at Jamie again as he set his arm around her shoulders. “I’d like to get a job out here, ideally. But I may have to go back to Nashville for personal reasons… that’s where I’m from.”

Jamie leaned in and kissed the side of her head, pulling his arm away from her shoulders, “I’m gonna use the men’s room; excuse me,”

He slid out of the booth and as he disappeared, Cassidy picked up her glass and brought it to her lips as she now found herself in an awkward situation, with a man she barely knew.

“Jamie really loves you,” after a short paused, he grinned and continued, “I can tell by the way he looks at you. Because every time he looks at you, it seems as though he’s never seen something so beautiful; like he can’t believe you’re in front of him. I don’t know what you’ve done, or how you’ve done it, but you’ve got him wrapped around your finger. And I think it’s a great thing… Jamie needs someone like that,”

Cassidy looked at her glass, intimidated to look Dan in the eyes, “it’s all so strange to me; things like this don’t happen for girls like me.”

“Girls like you? You mean ones with a good head on their shoulders?” Dan looked to the side, noting that Jamie was on his way back to the table, “between you and me, I think it’s more like, things like this don’t happen for guys like him. NHLer or not.”

---

The family suite was different than usual. With Rich being out of the lineup, Nathalie was no longer regularly attending games. Cassidy entered the suite for the game against the Canucks, and her breath caught in her throat when it became clear she had isolated herself to Nathalie, and failed to create bonds with the other women.

Anxiety built inside her, until she spotted another woman sitting with her back to the rest of the women. Cassidy looked upwards, silently thanking a God she couldn’t see, but then approached the woman, pointing down to the seat beside her.

“Is someone sitting here?” The woman shook her head quickly, and Cassidy sat down, “I don’t believe we’ve met? Cassidy Knox, I’m Jamie Benn’s.”

The woman smiled and giggled, taking Cassidy’s hand in her own and shook it gently, “Jennifer. I’m Jason Spezza’s.”

“Oh, welcome to Dallas! I haven’t met Jason either, but Jamie’s spoken about him. Quite a transition,”

Jennifer sighed and nodded, looking back down at the ice as the teams skated out. Jason was out there on a line with Tyler, and when the game began, Jennifer looked back at Cassidy quickly. “Being a hockey wife is not for the faint of heart. We have two young daughters, and having to relocate them from Ottawa to Dallas has been difficult. I just hope this team sticks as long as the Senators did.”

Looking back down at the ice, Cassidy immediately spotted Jamie, just as he laid a hit on a Canucks player, and then skated away after the puck as it went up the ice and past the offensive blue line. She didn’t want to be like Jennifer, just a wife along for the ride, following her husband around North America.

Granted Jamie and Jason meant very different things to the organization. One was the face of the team, and the other was just a recent acquisition. One would have to prove himself, and the other would be given benefit of the doubt. Out of the two situations, Cassidy felt she was in the better one, but stranger things had happened before. The Flyers had traded their once beloved captain, Mike Richards to the Kings. Hell, Edmonton had traded Gretzky.

And even more than that, there was nothing tying Jamie to Dallas. Nothing like a no-trade clause in the contract; but what did that even mean? More than once in the offseason, she had heard sportscasters going on and on about how Ryan Kesler was pushing for a trade despite his no-trade clause. And now, he was enjoying sunny southern California with the Ducks.

That’s when the realization set in for Cassidy. At any moment, the organization could turn their back on Jamie, leaving him out and at the mercy of the team who was willing to offer the most.

“How long have you and Jamie been together?”

Cassidy was pulled from her own thoughts, and she looked around as she now noticed the other woman had sat down to watch the game.

She turned towards Jennifer, “November will be nine months.”

“Are you expecting a ring anytime soon?”

Cassidy shook her head quickly as if she thought the question was absurd. No; she and Jamie hadn’t even really talked about marriage. Well apart from his confession many months ago about one day marrying her. But actually sitting down and having a conversation about the important aspects of a marriage… that hadn’t happened yet.

“Jason and I hadn’t dated much longer than that before he proposed. Granted we knew each for awhile before we began dating… We had mutual friends.”

Jennifer stood up and began cheering. Dallas had scored, but Cassidy sat frozen. Everything that came out of Jennifer’s mouth sounded like a prophecy. What if Jamie was planning on proposing? Although he hadn’t become distant, and boys did that, right? Got nervous and distant as getting hitched got closer and closer?

And the fear buried itself in the back of her mind, rearing its ugly head later that night. Jamie was nursing a beer, flipping through the channels, as Cassidy came back downstairs after changing into her pajamas, which consisted of his ‘Kelowna Rockets’ sweatshirt and a pair of his boxer briefs.

The win had left Jamie emotionally charged. He chattered the entire way home but didn’t really focus on any one thing in particular. Even now, his act of flipping through the channels seemed innocent enough until he opened his mouth to speak.

“If we were to get married and have children, you’d be okay if one of our kids was gay, or had some sort of physical or mental disability… or had a Siamese twin growing out of their side, right?”

Cassidy collapsed beside him on the couch, not knowing how to respond. Oh no… these were the important things to talk about before getting hitched. These were the things you had to agree on before spending the rest of your life with someone. He was bringing them up.

“I mean you wouldn’t disown our kid if he or she had down syndrome or autism or something…” he looked over at her questioningly.

She shook her head and tucked her knees closer to her chest, “no. I mean it’d be a challenge, but if you and I were in that situation, I suppose it’d be easier knowing that we’d have each other for support and parenting.” Cassidy wrapped her arms around her legs, “what’s bringing this up?”

Jamie finished off his beer and shrugged as he set it on the coffee table in front of them, “we’ve been together for awhile now, and we’re serious about each other. I wanted to make sure we were on the same page about certain things that could potentially be in our future.”

“Like marriage and children…?”

By the look on Jamie’s face, he could tell she was hesitant about that being a part of her future anytime in the near future. He began stuttering, looking for ways to backtrack, asking her to ignore that brief conversation.

Cassidy set her hand down on his arm, calming him just for a moment. “If you came to me a year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to take care of a fish. I’m twenty-one, and you’re asking me to take care of a relationship… a marriage, and children.” She paused and leaned into his shoulder, pressing her lips against it, “I love you Jamie, but I don’t know if I could do that.”

“What are we doing this for if you don’t want to marry me?” He watched her carefully. And with each moment she didn’t answer, she felt him getting more and more anxious.

“Do you want to have to pressure a girl into marrying you, or do you want her to just know she wants to spend the rest of her life with you?”

“I’m not pressuring you…”

“You just asked me if I’d be alright with our kid being gay or having a disability,” she interrupted, pulling away from him.

“It was just a question,”

“And a loaded one at that. Listen, for me you’re the ideal guy to have as a husband. And I’d love to be married to you… eventually. Give me a few years to grow up before I commit myself to you,”

Jamie nodded and pursed his lips, “fine.” He stood up from the couch, grabbed his beer bottle, and disappeared into the kitchen.

Only when she heard shattering glass, did Cassidy turn around, seeing that Jamie had taken the liberty of slamming the bottle into the recycle bin, breaking it into tiny pieces. Without a word, he passed back through the living room, and moved up the stairs quickly towards his bedroom.

Cassidy dropped her head into her hands and groaned, flopping over onto her side. Another fight over something petty. This time it was about age, but maybe it meant something else. Like by the time they had to start worrying about important things, they’d argue all the time. Maybe this was a sign to get out.

But getting out would have to wait. She was exhausted from the day. Apparently anxiety and worrying took a lot out of a person. The relief of closing her eyes was thwarted sometime later as she was being gently shaken awake, forced to peek through heavy eyelids.

“C’mon, let’s go to bed,” Jamie whispered, taking her hand in his to urge her up.

But instead, Cassidy groaned and turned on the couch, wanting so badly to drift back to sleep. Only now she did notice the pain in her neck from the way she had fallen asleep. Without moving much more, she felt Jamie’s hands snake beneath her, one arm around her mid back and the other underneath her knees, scooping her up off the couch and cradling her against his body.

He moved carefully but efficiently, kicking is bedroom door open wider, and then set her down in his bed, waiting for her to get comfortable before he crawled in next to her. He may have still been upset, but Cassidy turned for him, resting her head against his chest when he lay beside her and pulled the blankets up over them.

Notes

This chapter is titled after "All-American Girl" by Carrie Underwood.

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