“…I’ve been waiting since birth to find a love that would look and sound like a movie… I kissed you in a style Clark Gable would’ve admired, I thought it classic…”


By the time Marie woke up, Marco wasn’t beside her. She rolled over in bed and took a few deep breaths in, waiting for some energy to surge through her. After checking the clock, she figured he had already left for practice, which meant she had to start getting ready for the day he had planned.

She had spent the most of the previous night trying to come up with excuses as to why she shouldn’t meet the team. But all of those excuses didn’t appease Marco, and he encouraged her to be at the Xcel Energy Center by noon. Even when Marie protested by saying that she wouldn’t have any clean clothes to change into for the day, Marco had an answer for that. She’d be able to wear her jeans again; that wasn’t a big deal. But she absolutely refused to wear the shirt she had come in two days prior. So in the effort of making sure she showed up at the rink today, Marie noticed he had laid out one of his sweatshirts at the foot of the bed.

Marie sat up and looked at what she was supposed to wear on arguably one of the most important days of her life. Today was the day she’d be meeting all of Marco’s friends. It was imperative that she made a good impression on them. And she could not, and would not, show up looking like a prepubescent girl with no assets, looking like a frump in a sweatshirt that could probably serve as a dress on her.

There was a good amount of time before she’d actually have to be at the rink, and although Marco had laid out his sweatshirt so she wouldn’t have to make any extra trips, Marie found herself in her car. The traffic back to Minneapolis wasn’t too bad; nothing compared to Boston or New York. And back in her cramped studio apartment, she shimmied into the thin shower stall and freshened up. And after drying off, she sifted through the hole in the wall that had the nerve to say it was a closet, and looked for something with as few wrinkles as possible.

She eventually settled on a long sleeve v-neck shirt. It showed just enough to be appealing, but not too much to give Marco’s teammates the wrong idea about her. In all reality, she didn’t really know what she was walking into. All these guys, their personal lives, and the views they’d have about her relationship with Marco, would be pretty foreign. And all these guys were tight with Marco, so surely their opinions would matter to him.

Time was ticking down, and with each passing minute, Marie saw herself arriving later and later. She knew Marco wouldn’t be impressed with that, nor would his friends, so she tried to hurry up the process of readying up. But as her cell phone began to vibrate, she cursed at herself from under her breath, grabbed her purse, and bolted out the front door.

“Yes, I’m on my way! Just running a little late,” she panted, running out to her car.

“Oh. That’s nice. How’s the snow?”

Marie smiled and shut her eyes as she tugged open her car door. It was almost a relief to hear Jess’ voice on the other end of the line. They hadn’t spoken in nearly three days, which considering they went from living with each other to being separated by a thousand miles, was a long time. “No snow, but it is forty degrees, so it’s basically Boston all over again.”

“And here I thought you left me for better weather,”

She chuckled and started her car, turning her phone on speaker. “What’ve you been up to?”

“Oh you know, the usual… Class, work, fucking my way through Greek Row…” There was a small lull in the conversation, “what’s on the romantic agenda for the lovebirds?”

“I’m meeting his teammates,” Marie felt like the life was being sucked out of her. “Actually, on my way to the rink now,”

“Have you given any thought to what you’re going to do when he’s gone? Like when his season starts?”

“A little bit, but I’m trying to push it out of my mind, because the thought of having to be completely alone in this cold, snowy hell is kind of depressing.” She paused as she got onto the freeway. “Not that I regret the move… I’m just thinking…”

“Maybe I’ll come visit you.”

Marie smiled a weak response, but she couldn’t bear to say anything. What Jess had just said proved that they were going to drift apart. She didn’t actually mean she’d fly out to Minnesota to visit. She meant that if she ever was bored out of school, she might consider looking at flights, but then never actually book one.

“Listen, I’m almost at the rink, so I’m gonna go.”

“Alright, bye Marie.”

She tapped her phone until the call ended, and then shook her head until her hair fell away from her face. Although she was a bundle of nerves, she wouldn’t let it overwhelm her. There was too much on the line today, too many people to impress. She exited the freeway and got lost on the streets until she finally found the rink. This was unchartered territory for her, so every little emotion that she had while still at her apartment, was now heightened.

Marie sat in her car and stared at the steering wheel. She could do this. She was a strong, and educated, and independent woman who didn’t need to worry about what a bunch of athletes thought about her. Only she did. Finally, she willed herself out of her car and walked to the front of the building. Marco was leaning against the wall of the hallway just inside the doors, and Marie skipped up to him.

“I thought I was being stood up,” Marco grinned and clutched onto her shoulders to kiss her lips. Marie smiled and kissed him back, reaching out for his hand. “This isn’t the sweatshirt I laid out for you,” he picked at her shirt and began walking down one of the long hallways.

Marie looked up at him, noticing that his hair was wet, and judging by the slight smell that permeated off of him, it wasn’t because he had showered up. “Yeah, I went home to change into clean clothes,”

“My sweatshirt was clean,” He squeezed her hand tighter as she shot him a glance. “Listen, we just got done with practice, so the locker room isn’t going to smell particularly nice, but we’ll only be in there to meet them, and to lace up the skates.”

“I’m really nervous,” she murmured, clinging onto his arm tighter.

“I told you, you have nothing to worry about. The guys are going to love you.” Marco bent down and looked around to make sure no one was in earshot, “let’s also pretend like we never had a threesome with Charlie.”

Marie felt her face get hot, and before she could collect herself, Marco pushed open the locker room doors revealing an array of men in various states of decency. She felt her stomach jump up into her throat, and just as she was staring at all of them, they were all staring at her. Thankfully, the entire team wasn’t there, namely Charlie. Apparently some of them had already left, so she wouldn’t have to meet all of them today.

“Sutes,” Marco walked up to one of the stalls. Marie followed, standing slightly behind him. The guy they were now standing in front of, looked up and offered a friendly smile, his focus shifting from Marco to Marie. “This is my girlfriend… Marie Thatcher,”

The man smiled wider and held out his hand, “hi.” He shook Marie’s hand and then reached down to pull off his skates, “Ryan Suter. We’ve heard quite a bit about you. Scandy can’t keep his mouth shut,”

“Good things I hope,” Marie grinned, trying to be pleasant. It was getting progressively harder for her to get words out.

“Wonderful things. Are you going skating today?”

Marie nodded, “I think he’s going to try to make an ass out of me.”

“He tries to make an ass out of everyone…”

“Okay you two,” Marco interjected, smiling playfully, as he tugged Marie away. “Enough fraternizing,” he led her to his own stall, and kneeled before her.

“What about everyone else?” Marie smiled as she watched Marco begin slipping a smaller pair of skates onto her feet.

“We can meet them after… I just told Ryan he had dibs on meeting you first,” he mentioned as he started lacing the skates up. The way his fingers moved skillfully was enough to get Marie riled up, and she looked away in order to calm herself down.

When he finished making sure her skates were good to go, Marco sat up beside her and pulled on his own skates, quickly going through the motions of getting ready to go back out to the ice. Marie could tell he was moving quicker than usual, but still that didn’t keep some of his other teammates from coming up to introduce themselves.

And as Marie got more comfortable with meeting them, it seemed Marco was becoming more and more undone. Finally when he couldn’t sit comfortably anymore, he tugged on Marie’s hand and led her down the tunnel and to the ice. At first she was a little unsteady on her feet, walking along the matted floor, but soon she went right on waddling behind Marco.

As they got to the ice, Marie looked out at the entire arena and tried to put herself in Marco’s shoes. It was surreal to look around at all the empty seats, and imagine that during the season, those seats would be filled with cheering fans. Now, Marco was stepping out onto the ice, spinning around to face Marie as she stood, holding onto the door. Judging by the smug grin on his face, he expected her to stumble into his arms, looking like a newborn foal.

“C’mon clumsy,” he giggled like a child.

Marie glared at him, and stepped onto the ice slowly, making sure she didn’t eat shit immediately. That was the worst thing she could imagine happening. But when she didn’t, she looked up at Marco and smirked. “I bet I could beat you in a race to that end of the rink and back,”

“You can barely stand,”

“Just humor me, okay hun?” She skated over to the end boards, and held onto it with one hand. Reluctantly, Marco skated over beside her, setting one of his hands on the boards as well. “On go. One… Two… Three… Go,” she bolted from the boards, getting a slight head start as Marco stood frozen at the boards, surprised that she actually knew how to skate.

Once he realized that he was now losing the race, he followed suit and chased after her, catching up within a few strides. They reached the other end of the rink at about the same time, but on the way back, Marie felt her lungs starting to burn. That was where Marco’s conditioning came in. He was like a workhorse, just pushing through it, no matter how much his lungs stung and his legs burned.

He ended up getting back first, but Marie wasn’t a slouch, and she skated up just a few moments after him, already sucking wind. But when she looked up at him, he was beaming down at her.

“I find you so attractive right now.” He grinned boyishly as Marie blushed, “seriously… Can you just bend over the net so I can fuck you real quick?”

Marie’s jaw dropped and she folded her arms over her chest, shrieking, “Marco!”

“What? C’mon,” he chuckled, grabbing onto her waist and carried her over to the back of the net, playfully bending her over it.

She smiled and fought against him, shrieking again when Marco lifted her up and sat her on top of the net. She coiled her arms around his neck and smiled, setting her forehead down against his. “I love you,”

“I love you too,” Marco kissed Marie’s forehead. They both looked to the left as pounding on the glass caught their attention. A few of the younger guys on the team had taken it upon themselves to poke fun of one of their own.

And when Marco looked back at Marie, his cheeks were bright red. She leaned in and kissed his cheek, “you mind if I show off real quick? It’s not everyday I get to impress a group of overly–confident hockey players,”

Marco backed up, and Marie hopped off the net and rubbed her hands together. While Marco skated to the bench and leaned against the boards, his teammates joined around him to watch what was going to happen next. She took a deep breath in, and summoned everything she remembered from ice skating lessons. It wasn’t going to be anything spectacular, but considering they expected her to not even be able to skate, she knew they would be impressed.

So she glided, and spun, and squatted down in different positions, hearing the chatter and whistles from the boys every time she passed by the bench. And when she felt her lungs burning again, she skated back up to the bench and lifted her on the edge of the board, stretching out. Of course she noticed the boys staring at her, and the way Marco punched them in the arm, to get them to behave themselves. She wasn’t trying to put out or anything, but merely wanted to show his teammates that Marco could get a girl like her.

“So you skate,” Jason murmured. Marie remembered him from Montreal, and now Marco hit him in the chest as he tilted his head to stare at Marie.

“Not for awhile. I took ice skating lessons from three to fourteen though. You should stop assuming every girl’s some ditzy thing that can’t even stand in skates,” she stuck her tongue out and winked. Marco brought his hand up to his mouth, trying to suppress small laughs as she was doing a pretty good job of busting their chops.

“Flexible too,” Jason chirped.

“You better shut your mouth,” Marco smiled. “C’mon, get out of here, all of you.”

His teammates left the bench and Marco skated up closer to her. With her leg still up on the boards, she smiled at the feeling of him against her. He cupped her head in his hands and looked down into her eyes unwaveringly. “I really want to fuck you right now,”

She offered a tight-lipped smile, “but we just got out here.”

“I don’t care,” he laughed and drifted his hands down from her head to her hips.

“I’m kind of liking being a good girl,” she smirked and swiveled backwards, out of Marco’s reach. She swayed her hips with each push away from him.

“You’re a tease,”

“You’re thinking with your penis.”

Marco groaned and skated out to her, chasing her around the rink until he could pin her up against glass, keeping her in place. She looked up at him, waiting for an answer. “Do you not want me to?”

Notes

"Clark Gable" by The Postal Service.

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