A Second Chance at Love

I was sitting in the locker room laughing at Kris trying to breakdance when Jeff came in. He looked like he had been up for forty-eight hours and survived World War III. “Yo dude, what the heck happened to you?” Mike yelled above the music.

“A redhead happened to me, damn gingers.” He grumbled.

I looked up at him. "Shouldn’t you be happy if you got some and it wore you out that bad? I questioned.

He turned bright red and put his head down. “I didn’t get lucky, two hours of work on my part, she was happy, I got nada in return. I didn’t get back to my place until 3 am and I feel like I will explode right now. “ Most of the guys laughed and headed out on the ice.

Mike looked at me with a knowing smile. “Dude why didn’t you call one of your girls to come over and help you out?” he asked him.

Jeff didn’t even bother answering. “So when are you seeing her again?” I asked, giving Mike a high five.

“Tomorrow- screw you two” he yelled walking towards the ice.

Practice was exhausting. My legs felt like lead as I walked to the car. Claude had left ahead of me and headed towards the kids school to pick them up. I texted Raina to see if she was up for some dinner. She replied that she had already cooked for all of us. I let her know we would be over around five and started towards the house.

Carson ran up to me the minute they got home. “Daddy, why is mommy mad at Rainy? She told me I wasn’t allowed to talk to her.”

“Buddy, its ok. Mommy was wrong. I’ll have her call you later and explain that.” I took the phone and headed into the den. Fifteen minutes later she agreed to leave Raina alone. I threatened child support, alimony and custody, but she seemed to relent a little. She knew I was mad and 100% serious. The boys were starting to grow attached to Raina and there was no way I was letting her interfere with that.

All five of us headed across the street. Ryan answered the door and ran back towards the kitchen. She was in the process of laying the food out when we got there. Dinner was really good. She definitely had a knack for cooking. We ended up leaving the dishes and playing Wii with the boys. We had fun. Claude offered to take the boys home and get them into bed when it got late. She went up to put Ryan in bed while I loaded the dishes into the dishwasher. She came back down about fifteen minutes later, wrapping her arms around me.

“How was your day sweetheart. Did practice go any better this time?” she asked softly.

“It did, the guys look a lot better. Why didn’t you tell me my ex gave you a hard time?” I asked.

“I was going to, I wanted to wait for us to be alone. Honestly I have had the worst day. I don’t care what she says to me, I’d just rather her not do it in front of the boys. Then I come home to a wonderful gossip article being emailed to me by random people calling me a homewrecker.” She let out a frustrated sign.

“I’m sorry love, I knew it would not be easy. It will die down once we have been together for awhile. People will lose interest. I promise though no matter what, I will be here for you through anything. Just don’t give up on me because people are ignorant. It’s me and you together now.” She leaned her head against me. I knew I would do anything to make her happy and it scared me. I didn’t know if it was possible to love somebody so much, so soon.

The rest of the week went rather quickly. She cooked both Wednesday and Thursday. Us guys were getting rather spoiled. Each night we would eat then the boys would play video games or shoot pucks around and Raina, Claude and I would watch a movie. Claude told me he would personally kill me if I ever left her. Practice was becoming grueling and I loved nothing more than to put the boys to bed and sneak back across the street to lay on the sofa with her.

I was starting to feel like we were one big family. I was happier than I have been in a long time. Most of the guys had noticed. Heck, even Lavy had commented. I couldn’t explain why we worked so well together. I just was thankful I had met her and hoped things would stay well between us.

Notes

:) Comments would make my entire night. This story has fifty-nine chapters. I will try to get at least two or three a night posted for you.