Goodbye Girl

Jamie sat at the island in the kitchen. Emily came down, giving him a small smile. She opened the fridge, scanning it for what she wanted to eat. Tyler came down next, walking behind her. He rested his head on top of hers while he looked at the stocked fridge.

Jamie spooned some cereal into his mouth while watching the two. It was an adjustment he didn't care about, but it was still going to take time. Tyler reached over Emily and grabbed a Gatorade. He pecked her cheek before going to sit beside Jamie.

"Do you two want a western?" She offered.

"Please." Tyler replied after chugging half his Gatorade.

"No, thanks. I gotta go get ready. I'm gonna head to practice early to work out." Jamie explained.

He placed his bowl in the sink before making his way out of the kitchen. Tyler finished his Gatorade before he shot up. He tossed it into the garbage and walked over to Emily's.

"I'm going to join him, but I'll take a rain check on the food." He grinned, pressing his lips to hers.

"I work from the end of your practice until seven. I could come early and we could do lunch?" She suggested as he walked out of the kitchen.

"Sounds perfect." He agreed, treading up the stairs.

Tyler walked upstairs, knocking on Jamie's door. He heard a faint 'yeah' so he walked in. Jamie looked over from his bed, where he was sitting as he put on socks.

"Is it alright if I come with you? I'll be like ten minutes." Tyler said.

"Yeah, whatever." Jamie shrugged.

Tyler could tell something was wrong. He watched as Jamie stood up, walking over to the small mirror he had in his room. He pulled his hat off, brushing his hair back with his hand, and putting the hat back on.

"Are you good?" Tyler asked him.

He shrugged again. Truth be told, he didn't know. He was so angry at everyone and he didn't know why. He couldn't tell anyone either, or he'd end up taking it out on them. He walked past Tyler.

"I'll be in my car." He called.

Emily heard Jamie coming downstairs from her spot on the couch. She smiled at him. He rolled his eyes before walking straight out the door. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion before she follows him out. He was sitting in his car, parked driveway. She walked over to the passenger's seat and climbed in.

"What's up, Jamie?" She sighed.

"Nothing." He spat. "Can you please to back inside?"

Emily nodded, climbing back out of the car. "You know I'm here if you feel like talking." She cooed.

"If I feel like talking, it won't be to you." He hissed.

She stared at him, with furrowed brows. She was angry but confused with his actions. She let out a huff and slammed his car door. She walked back into the house, right up to her room. Tyler caught her before she walked in her door.

He held onto her hand. "Hey, are you okay?" He breathed out.

She kept her angry expression. "Jamie hates me and I don't know what I did." She explained, her expression changing.

She felt tears building up. Tyler noticed and pulled her into him. She let a few slip well he held her. She pulled away, frowning up at him. He gave her a small smile and pecked her forehead.

"He's probably just having a bad day. Give him time." Tyler reassured her.

Emily nodded. "Thank you." She pushed onto her toes and gave him a quick kiss. "Go before he gets into an even worse mood."

Tyler took off down the stairs and out the door. Emily got herself together while she sat on the living room couch. She scrolled through her twitter and saw James had tweeted for the first time in weeks. It was a picture too.

@jneal_18: mustn't disturb the queen penguin while she sleeps @aroberts27 pic.twitter.com/eiHGjBgCEN

It was him, Beau, and some girl, obviously, on a plane, due to the small window beside her. Beau was above her seat, smiling like an idiot. James was beside her, clearly taking the photo, with a single finger pressed to his lips. She was clearly asleep, hood pulled over her head.

Emily clicked the user and saw the girl was Amber. Her most recent tweet was to James. Emily favourited it. Amber got the notification.

Emily Vellucci favourited: @jneal_18 wait until I shave your head when you're sleeping #yourenothingwithoutthathair

"Emily favourited my threat to you." Amber spoke as the guys ate.

She was eating as well. Actually, she finished before them. James put his fork down. He swallowed the mouthful he had before washing it down with some beer.

"Yeah. She thinks you're nice." He explained.

"Because I talked to her when you called her while shoving your dick up so far up my roommate that she's had jizz coming out of her ears since." She shot back.

Beau spit food everywhere as he started to laugh hysterically. Rob Bortuzzo began choking on his drink. Sidney looked at Amber in shock. Geno laughed, putting an arm around her.

"She's funny." Paul Martin stated.

"Yeah, she doesn't deal with your shit, James." Tanner Glass laughed with his comment.

"I like her. I say we keep her around." Marc-Andre said, his accent full force.

Amber smiled, triumphantly. James looked at her from across the table. She was giving him an evil grin. He rolled his eyes, picking his fork back up. His eyes met hers one last time. She still had a smirk on her face.

"So how did you two end up hanging out?" Tanner asked.

"He fucked my roommate and then asked me to fly out to Washington with him. Total asshole, right?" She exclaimed.

"That is a dick move, Nealer." Matt Niskanen agreed.

"I didn't realize I had more interest in her than her friend until after I was balls deep in blonde." He explained.

All the guys laughed. James looked up at Amber with a smile. She had her eyes narrowed at him. He gave her a wide grin. She just rolled her eyes. She wasn't about to let his smooth talking trick her.

They finished their dinner and headed back to the hotel. Ten o'clock curfew. James offered his bed to Amber, but she refused, knowing sleeping on a cot wouldn't help him in the game tomorrow. Being 'so Minnesota', like Amber teased him for, Matt offered to room with someone who had no roommate so she could have his bed. She thanked him about forty times, which led him to a comment about how she was 'so Canadian'.

James and Amber laid in their separate beds. He would look over every few minutes and just see her back. Amber was turned away from him, but wide awake. She was doing all she could to stop the bad thoughts take over. She either needed to call Sid or start a conversation with James, who was burning a hole into the back of her head right now.

"James?" She whispered, rolling over to face him.

"Everything alright?" He asked while he sat up.

"Yeah. I just have a question." She said.

"Shoot."

"What happened with you and Emily?" She questioned.

James swallowed hard. He didn't want to tell the girl he had yet to impress that his ex dumped him and he continued to be nothing but a complete douche to her. He took a deep breath.

"It's a really long story." He stalled.

"Then you should probably start it." She smirked.

He rolled his eyes. "I don't want you to think any different of me, because the guy who was with Emily isn't the guy I want to be anymore." He explained.

Amber threw the blankets off her legs. She climbed off her bed and sat on James's, sliding her legs under his comforter. He looked over at her.

"I won't judge you for your past if you don't judge me for mine." She said while staring right into his eyes.

He'd never noticed just how chocolate like her eyes looked. He examined the beauty marks all across her face. He saw the small hoop she wore in her nose. He saw the beauty mark that was on the top arch of her left lip. Her lips looked pink and plump. He was tempted to attach his to them. She was beautiful. The most beautiful girl he had laid eyes on since Emily.

"Deal." He replied. Her eyes crinkled when she smiled. "I met Em when I was seventeen. She's three years younger so at first, it was kind of weird."

"I'm four years younger than you." She piped up.

"But we're both legal." He stated. "I was twenty and dating and seventeen year old at one point."

"So you two dated for how many years?"

"Seven." Amber's eyes bulged out at his count. "I thought, for sure, I was going to marry that girl." He chuckled. "I got traded here and when I told Emily, she was so upset. When I got home, she basically said she wasn't coming with me from Dallas so we were done. It crushed me. She was my first and only love."

"I know how it feels to get your heart crushed, believe me." Amber scoffed.

"I wanna hear your story after." James pointed a finger at her and she nodded. "Back in Dallas, Em lives with my ex teammate, Jamie, and this new guy who got traded there."

"She lives with Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin. What a dream." Amber sighed.

James glared at her. "Anyways, I started being a total asshole to her because I was convinced she was fucking Tyler behind my back. Even if she was, I had no right to be mad." He shook his head at himself. "So I started being a huge dick to her and making her feel like shit. I kinda hate myself for it now. I made her so upset, then I got injured and guilted her into coming to take care of me."

"Jealousy because you still cared. Understandable." Amber shrugged.

"Yeah, but she already told me nothing was going on with them." He said, reluctantly. "I deleted some gay text from him when he messaged her. We were talking one night about how we felt back in Dallas and shit when I got traded, ended up making out. She found out I deleted the text and got pissed. She told me how we couldn't be together and why we couldn't be and it suddenly all made sense. We were doomed from the start."

"You actually didn't mean to accept her call?" Amber looked at him.

"No. I would never stoop that low. Why would I want to hurt her?" He furrowed his brows. "It was a freak accident."

Amber exhaled, resting her head on James's shoulder. He rested his head on top of hers. They sat like that for a bit before James sat up.

"I want to be a different man. I don't want to be known as some womanizing dick. I want to go back to something like I had with Emily." He expressed.

"Then find a girl who will put up with this hockey shit and do it. Stop being a whiny bitch." Amber rolled her eyes, climbing out of James bed.

She crawled back into hers. She pulled the comforter up to her chin. Her back was to James again. They both laid in silence. James knew exactly who he had in mind when Amber told him who he needed to find. It was her.

"You know how you said you thought you were going to marry Emily? You still always could." Amber stated.

"Nah." He shook his head. "I don't think I want to anymore. I have my eyes on someone else."

Amber rolled her eyes. She was definitely over James making passes about being into her. She was flattered that he might have liked her, but she couldn't do that to him. She had too much going on in that pretty, little head of hers to get involved with any guy. Especially a hockey player, at that.

The next morning, Amber woke up to a loud TV and loud voices. She got out of bed and saw Geno sitting on James's bed. He smiled at her. She gave him a small smile before walking over to the washroom. James was standing, shirtless, fixing his hair. He turned towards her. Her eyes trailed over his body. She looked over his chest before seeing the sleeve on his arm. She had seen him shirtless before, but never noticed the 'NEAL' on his upper arm.

"Morning." He smiled.

"Hi, I need to pee." She explained.

"Oh, yeah." He nodded, walking towards the door.

He walked out and caught a laughing Geno. He gave him a look before he walked over to where his suit was hanged.

"You like Amber, yes?" Geno's voice boomed.

"I want to but I don't think it's going to be that easy." James explained.

"Good. 'Bout time you work for girl." G stated. "I like her. She keep you grounded."

James nodded in agreement. Amber walked out of the washroom. She heard the entire conversation, but pretended she hadn't.

She couldn't deny that she was interested in James. It amazed her that a man with everything he had was trying to suddenly remake himself. He didn't have to stop his provocative ways, but he was trying. She admired him.

She pulled out of her thoughts to the sound of the door closing. She looked up from her seat on her bed and saw James downing a bottle of whatever. Geno was no where to be found. James smiled at her as he walked over to his bed. He laid back.

"You never told me your story." He spoke, his arm covering his eyes.

Amber looked over to him. "I don't have a story." She shrugged.

He sat up. "Everyone has a story." He stated. "You said you 'knew how it felt to have your heart crushed', what happened there?"

She let out a growl. "I dated this guy in high school and he fucked me over pretty badly. He moved away for some scholarship in hockey but he was shit so he went no where with it." James chuckled at her comment. "But he just fucked off. He didn't say goodbye or anything. I was more angry than anything. So he came and found me like three years ago, and I took him back because I'm a dumb bitch." She shook her head. "I had some shit going on with me and he didn't know how to deal with it so he left me again." She shrugged.

James stood up. He sat down beside Amber and pulled her into a hug. She hugged him back. The fact that he was shirtless was making her cheeks red. She was surprised she didn't start sweating. They broke apart.

"Any guy that wouldn't deal with whatever shit you have going on is a fucking idiot and you deserve so much better." He said, holding her face.

She rolled her eyes, getting out of his reach. "I wouldn't have put up with what was going on with me either." She admitted.

"And what was that?" He asked.

Amber felt her heart drop to her ass. She hated telling people. Sid had found out by complete accident. They were neighbours before he moved into his giant house. He came home to her crying with her door open. He went in and read the letter she was holding in her hand.

"Promise you won't treat me any different?" She looked at him with pleading eyes.

"Never." James argued.

"I have major depressive disorder. I've learned to deal with it but when I'm down, I'm down." She explained.

James frowned before pulling her into another hug. "If you ever need someone, I'm there, Amber. I think you're an amazing girl and you don't deserve to be like that." He kissed the top of her head.

"Thank you. Shit like that means a lot to me." She smiled.

Notes