Unrequited

"So. This is the Scotiabank Saddledome?" Jolene asked, looking over the hockey rink with a swooping sort of roof. "Huh."
Ashley shrugged and then laughed. "That's right American you haven't been to a hockey game yet. Maybe don't tell them that. Ow! Stop!" Ashley giggled and fought her off as Jolene did her best to a swat her in the head-a habit due to three older brothers, an older sister and two younger brothers. Poor Ashley lived a more safe and calmer life with one older sister who was calm and loving. "Just because you can't terrorize your brothers and sister doesn't mean I get to be your target!"
"You know you love me Canada!" Jolene laughed. "Where's your boy toy?"
Covering her face, Ashley just laughed. "Liam my boyfriend is meeting up with a few of the guys he knew from the minors. They're doing some private fan signing thing right now."

"Sooo...you go see Liam. I'll deal with this," Jolene said and patted her briefcase. She patted a stray curl back into her pinned up hair and continued walking on...and on...and on. "Fuck. I'm lost," she sighed. Up ahead, she noticed a group of taller guys that had to be hockey players and went up to one brunette haired girl who was surveying the scene. Jolene straightened up her spine, cleared her throat and started, "Hi, I'm-,"
The girl smirked. "I am so sorry!" She simpered to her. "But this autograph event is only for season holders."
Jolene wanted to smile but didn't. This was obviously one jealous wife-no, girlfriend by the lack of ring. Instead she remained composed and respectful. "Oh no hun, more like I'm meeting with upper management. Tax stuff," Jolene said sweetly, letting her slight Southern drawl come through a little. Everyone was charmed by the Southern accent when she kicked it in.
"Oh. Oh," the girl gasped, eyes widening. She composed herself and then straightened her posture. "I'm so sorry!" She cooed. "I'm Kat by the way. I'll take you where you're supposed to go."
Jolene did her best not to laugh at the sudden attitude change. Kat probably was in fear that Jolene would go straight to Twitter to put her on blast.
"I didn't catch your name. What's your name?" Kat asked, touching her arm.
"Jolene Yearwood," Jolene replied.

"Jolene? Jol-eene! Oh! Pretty name! Different! I really do like it!" Kat gushed over her. "So are you an accountant then? Must be interesting-oh hang on!" She gasped and dashed over to guy Jolene assumed was a hockey player, giving him a big messy kiss. "Hey baby!" She fussed over him, fixing his hair a little.
"Never mind, I can find my own way. Thanks," Jolene called but Kat caught her and pulled her over.
"Baby, this is Jolene Yearwood? Isn't that a cute name?" Kat asked. "Jolene, I'm sure you've heard of Lance Bouma."
Lying, Jolene said, "Oh I think so. Nice to meet you." For a moment, she took in the very unfamiliar work surroundings. She was used to being neck high in paperwork or especially before in the US, observing court. Here, she was surrounded by the star athletes of Calgary accompanied by their primped and styled girlfriends and wives all decked out-everything designer of course.
A brown haired player with hair that looked like it was styled from a Hollister or Abercrombie & Fitch catalog grinned at her. "You coming out with us after this event?" He asked her.
"Oh I'm not a girlfriend or wife," Jolene said, noting the squints from the girlfriends and wives. "Just a paralegal running an errand."
"Good," he grinned back at her. "Kat, invite your friend."

Oh boy. "I've got papers to drop off. Bye," she told him. "Kat, I think I figured out where the offices are, thanks," she told Kat and walked briskly to the safety of the upper management offices and found someone she guessed was some sort of secretary. "Hi I'm Jolene-Lien Yearwood," she said softly.
"Of course, the girl from the business law office. Down the hall," she gestured with a pen.
Jolene politely tapped her knuckle on the door. "Hello," she greeted Pete, the Calgary personnel she had been told to go meet.
"Miss Yearwood. Awesome," he said and got up. "This is Bob Hartley, our coach." He took the files Jolene handed over and said, "Our tax information. Making sure everything's updated."
"Jolene-Lien Yearwood," she greeted him. "Yeah usually its emailed but we're having office work done," Jolene apologized. "Wifi's a little twitchy at the moment."
Coach Hartley laughed knowingly. "Yeah we've had to do a little of that ourselves. I'm sure you were told about the lower level of our rink being completely flooded a year or two ago."
"I wasn't in Calgary yet but, yeah. I heard stories from my roommate and her boyfriend," Jolene said. Knowing she was cutting in on whatever they were discussing, she politely excused herself. "It was nice meeting you both. Good luck on the season."

After excusing herself, she walked down to where her roommate was with her boyfriend who was recently retired from the OHL. "Sup Ash all done," she poked her in he arm.
For a moment, Ashley turned to smile and then she suddenly glared. "Liam don't you dare!"
Jolene turned and raised an eyebrow at Liam. "Wanna try something?" She dared but then beamed at him.
Liam just laughed and tried to wrest her briefcase from her. "Sup Joley. Damn what's in the briefcase? Bricks or something?" He demanded and let out an oomph when she smacked him hard in the side.
"No! Doofus its papers!" Jolene scoffed with a smile. "Though who are you to talk? You had to haul around those smelly ass duffel bags."

"You're back!" Kat greeted her. Jolene smiled as Ashley and Liam glared at her suspiciously. "We're all going for drinks later if you want to come. Liam and Ashley, of course you can come!"
Liam noted coolly, "Sean already invited all of us."
Cutting in, Jolene smiled. "Guess we'll see you for drinks then. Ash, let's go drop our things off," she said sweetly and steered them away. "You two clearly don't like Kat," she snorted once they were a safe distance from the group.

"What'd Kat do?" Ashley asked with narrowed eyes. "She's blatantly sucking up to you."
Jolene just laughed. "Thought I was a girl sneaking in, trying to get lucky with a player."
Neither Liam or Ashley thought it was funny like her, nor laughed. "Yeah. That's typical of her," Ashley scoffed. "Jols, she only works as an entertainment reporter for one of the stations in Calgary and a sometimes newscaster when the regulars are sick or on vacation. She's a loser that did manage to latch onto Lance."
"I'll make sure to tell Lance," Liam said wearily. "She's done this before."
"Oh I don't care!" Jolene laughed. "Honestly. I sort of talked over her and then she realized she messed up."

Venomously, Ashley said, "Probably thought you'd go to Facebook or Twitter. I'm right, aren't I?" Jolene pointedly looked above in another direction, causing Ashley to swat her in the head. "You'd better watch her!"
"For what?" Jolene yelped with laughter. "Is she going to spread a rumor about me?"
Later on, Jolene walked in behind Liam and noted the group of players that had just arrived before them. "So that one. Abercrombie & Fitch. That one told Kat to invite me."

"Hmm. That's Sean Monahan. Our big draft pick from last year," Liam said. "One of the guys I played against...before my knee went out." Having seen the photos of that incident and hearing about the doctor visits, Jolene grimaced and nodded. "Sean! This is my girlfriend's co-worker Jolene. We dragged her along," Liam called to Sean.

"Jolene Yearwood," Sean grinned at her. "Right. I definitely remember. Though Liam's never brought you around before."
"Yeah? Maybe I'm new," Jolene smiled back at him.
"Let me guess. Obviously not Toronto. Prince Edward Island?" Sean asked. Liam barked with laughter. "What? It's not like she's from Montreal with that accent."
"Tennessee and California," Jolene replied. "With family in Boston too."

"So...did you cry when Tyler Seguin got traded to Dallas? I bet you did," Sean asked.
Jolene looked at Liam and Ashley. "Am I supposed to know him?" Liam groaned as she shrugged. "Whatever brat," she retorted back to Liam. "Why is that important?"
"Just checking out the competition," Sean replied.
"Who said I was interested in you?" Jolene teased. Sean laughed as more people started arriving. "Kat," she greeted the girl from earlier.

Kat stopped and then smiled brightly at the sight of her. "Oh hello Jolene! Just get here?" They shared a brief one armed hug and Kat sat down to order a Jack and Coke. "So did your meeting go well?"
"Oh," Jolene grinned. "That? Work? All I had to do was hand over a few papers to the hockey people."
"As compared to...what exactly?" Kat asked curiously.
"Being holed up in a room for hours. What we call a War Room actually," she says, and Kat laughs. "Yeah not bashing your job but at least you don't have to read through hours of paperwork. I swear those stacks of papers and the boxes seem to just multiply after awhile." Jolene was about to say more but she stopped when she considered things.

"Well if you don't feel like looking through papers I could use you as a model for some of the makeup reviews I do for our morning show," Kat said.
"Oh sure," Jolene beamed. "That sounds fun!"
Suddenly, Kat leaned in to whisper. "You know Sean keeps looking over at you."
"Maybe. He heard I was partially from Boston and said something about a Tyler Seguin," Jolene said.
Kat snorted. "A Tyler Seguin? You know who that is, don't you? Wait...no! You're not from here, are you! You're American!"
"You make it sound like I have a disease," Jolene joked. "Have you even been there?"
Kat admitted, "Not really. I've only traveled in Canada. So...where should I go? Lance said he'd take me somewhere this year."
Promptly, Jolene said, "Nashville! LA!"

"Biased much?" Kat joked back and her eyes slid over to where Sean was. "Oh look. Bimbo number 3 is back."
Glancing over, Jolene looked over the slim little blond sliding up to Sean's side. "There's a Bimbo number 1 and 2?"
"I think there's up to 6 regular sad attempts?" Kat replied.
Jolene put down an American five dollar bill. "Bet you she starts feeling up his arm."
Kat giggled. "No bet."
"I bet she's gonna touch his hair too," Jolene added. Both doing their best to contain themselves, they watched the scene and nearly lost it when the girl squeezed his arm. "Ooo those muscles!" She said in a nasally high voice, imitating the girl. Kat laughed into her hands as she continued. "Like...how many smack shots do you do?"

"Slapshots!" Lance cut in and sounded pained by Jolene's ignorance. "What are you girls doing?"
"I tried to bet your girlfriend five dollars in American money what this girl would do. I would've won if that means anything," Jolene grinned.
Lance glanced over. "Oh yeah. That's Candice," he said indifferently. Kat narrowed her eyes at her boyfriend.
"So!" Jolene said loudly, distracting the both of them before words were said. "You both will have to tell me what to do around here. Not that Ash and Liam haven't been showing me around, you two might know secret spots they don't."
Lance smirked over his beer. "Or I could teach you about hockey."
"Yeah," Jolene agreed as Kat laughed. "That too."

"Hey," Sean greeted them eventually and sat down next to Jolene. "So, Kat. Why've you been hiding this friend the whole time? I've never seen her before," he complained.
"We just met this afternoon, actually. Jolene's American-and no I don't mean it like you have a disease!" Kat said quickly before Jolene could crack any jokes.
Jolene swallowed her drink and nodded. "Right, I just moved to Canada a few weeks ago. Came from Tennessee. Obviously none of you are far from America. God I'm not used to this!"
"So...why did you move from Tennessee to Calgary? You hear about me breaking records of Dion-never mind. You don't know who that is," Sean asked.

Pausing to play with her straw, Jolene said simply, "Ashley's Uncle needed another paralegal. Getting experience you know before I go on from Harvard to Yale."
Of course these prestigious law schools meant nothing to hockey players or a girl that did entertainment work for a news station. Jolene was about to open her mouth to say something when Kat waved eagerly. "This is Deryk Engelland's wife Melissa, Megan's married to Mason Raymond, Tori's dating TJ Brodie, Allie-," Kat listed off but stopped and giggled. "Oops. I mean, this is Melissa, Megan, Tori and Allie."
Jolene waved and said, "I'm Jolene." She was met with a wall of uninterested looks. Ouch, she thought, not really caring too much.
Mason seemed to sense this so he gave her a helpful smile. "So you're Kat's friend?"
"We met today. I ran an errand for my law firm plus my roommate's dating Liam who was in the minors before his knee went," Jolene said.

Sean draped an arm around Jolene. "She's been keeping me company this whole time."
Tori smirked a blatant oh really. "So...Jolene. Do you work with Kat? Maybe you're one of her little assistants?"
Kat rolled her eyes so Jolene wondered if there was animosity between the two. "Uh, I guess I might be a guinea pig for one of her segments but other than that I do paralegal work at a business law firm."
"You're a lawyer?" Tori squinted as others seemed pleasantly surprised.
"Not quite. Need to pass exams and do some more schooling first," Jolene laughed. "Essentially I handle legal writing, research, handle documents for the lawyers," Jolene explained. "That kind of thing."

"So, what's the biggest thing you've done so far?" Sean asked, fingers trailing up and down her spine.
A little farther down, Jolene saw that Ashley and Liam were deep in their private time. Ashley caught her gaze and gave her a small smile. "I can't exactly say. No offense," she answered honestly.
No one seemed bothered by this and dove right into talking about some guy with a Cajun sounding name. Claude Geeroux or something like that. "I'll be back," she said and disappeared into the bathroom. Megan followed her in and gave her a small smile as they went into stalls, neither saying a word.

"I'm surprised you aren't throwing yourself at Sean," Megan said once the two were at the sinks and touched up her lip gloss. "Or Mason."
Jolene wasn't bothered by the first one but she shook her head in amazement at the second one. "Your husband?" She echoed back in confusion. "That Mason?"
"Girls think its a competition to get at the married ones," Megan smiled thinly.
"Nooo," Jolene breathed. "I do not believe you! That's...just..."
Megan giggled. "Well thanks for not doing that. Though it wouldn't kill you to flirt with him you know."
"Who...Sean?" Jolene asked.
"Yes, Sean. Who else?" Megan asked. "Unless you're angle is playing hard to get."
Slowly, she breathed out. "It's been awhile since I've done the whole flirting thing."
Megan's eyebrows shot up. "Oh. Sorry."
Bitterly, Jolene said, "He cheated." Megan tutted with sympathy as she continued, "So I'm taking it a bit slow...if things do happen between me and Sean."

"Well if you don't do it quick, someone else will. Like Candice for example. I'm sure you've met her," Megan said.
"Oh the chick that kept feeling up Sean's arm? Yeah I tried to talk Kat into betting me that he would," Jolene laughed.
For the first time, Megan lit up and laughed with her. "Kat's smarter than that."
"Yeah she is," Jolene agreed and they laughed again.

The door opened and Kat stuck her head in. "Hey. Ashley and Liam said they were leaving."
Alarmed, Jolene left the bathroom to see Liam limping towards the door. "Sorry Joley. My knee's acting up," Liam grimaced.
Jolene stood on his other side in case he wobbled. "I've got Epsom salt at the store yesterday. That could help," she said helpfully.
Ashley looked astonished. "Wait you're coming with us? I thought you'd want to stay with Sean and Kat?"
Huffing out, she replied, "What kind of roommate and friend would I be if I didn't make sure he was okay! Let me get my purse," she said and went back to the bar. "Sorry. Liam's hurting," she apologized as the boys nodded with sympathy.
Kat opened her purse and uncapped a pen. "Number?"
"Yeah, number?" Sean asked. First, Jolene scribbled down her number for Kat and then Sean. "I'll call you," he told her.
She gave him one nod and waved to the rest of them. “Nice meeting everyone."

Notes