Told you I'd let them go

I went into Charmed early the next week to check in on everyone and to get some of the yearly reviews ready to do with the staff.

"HI everyone!" I said after walking in. The store wasn't open yet and the staff was wandering around, setting up displays and doing some general cleaning duties.

They all greeted me warmly and that always made me so happy. I loved my store; I loved the people that we hired. They were my second family. Hell, they were part of my family. When I went into the store, I always felt like my problems drifted away, much of them being about my boyfriend. But...I was going to enjoy my time in the shop.

"Hey, bosslady!" Jaz said to me as I locked the door to the store behind me.

I laughed and turned, "What's up?" I asked walking towards her.

She pulled an envelope from the counter and held it out to me, "Checked the mail this morning, and you had a handwritten envelope in there!" she told me.

I took the envelope from her hand and looked at the return address, and saw the initials T.S. I was confused for a second before realizing that it was Tyler. I smiled to myself before putting the envelope into my purse. I looked up and saw everyone looking at me with dopey smiles.

I shook my head but kept smiling, "Come on, everyone! The masks aren't going to put themselves out!"

They all chuckled and continued on with their work; Sheila looked at me and wiggled her eyebrows. I shook my head and walked into the back room with her following behind me.

"Is that T as in Tyler?" she whispered to me.

I shrugged, "Probably."

"Has he texted you?" she asked me.

I smiled and nodded looking at her, "Just a couple times, like he said, just about the products. Nothing else."

"Open it!" she squealed.

I laughed and nodded, "Okay, okay," I said reaching into my purse and pulling it out.

I opened the envelope and took out the letter and tickets that were inside as well; I looked at the tickets and saw that they were tickets to see the Stars play a team called the Columbus Blue Jackets. I smirked and opened the handwritten letter.

Raeanne

So, I told you I wouldn't text you for anything else other than questions about the products. I distinctly remember not saying anything about writing you a letter. See? I'm good; I can find loopholes with anything. First place for me. Gold star.

Now that you've finished laughing at me being awesome and hilarious, there are 2 tickets to see the Dallas Moons in action! Bring whoever you want! Yes, even the boyfriend who doesn't take you places. The seats are right at the glass at our end of the ice, near the goalie. If I see the boyfriend with you, I'll try my best to pretend that I don't know you! No promises though!

And try and look the part of a die-hard Moons fan! Try and find a jersey! Go for #91, he's not bad.

Anyways, you can totally text me to thank me if you wanted to. Just so you know, though, if you do text me to thank me, then that opens the floodgates and at that point I'll be allowed to text you like a regular person. Not just about bath bombs and face masks. Up to you.

Hope to see you at the game Raeanne!

Ty

I was grinning ear to ear by the end of the letter, which I handed over to Sheila.

"Tyler's got a crush on you!" she whisper yelled.

I rolled my eyes but still smiled at her, "No he doesn't. He knows I have a boyfriend."

"So? I've seen Tyler in the store once, and I could tell already he's ten bajillion times better than Markus is!" she told me, handing me the letter.

"You don't know, you haven’t met him," I defended quickly re-reading the letter.

She huffed, "Well, I can tell by the goofy little smile on your goofy little face that you like him, and that you think he's a bit better than Markus is."

I tucked the letter and the tickets safely into my purse, "I hardly know him."

"Well, you can think what you want," she said as she checked the time on her watch, "but this Tyler guy is going through a lotta trouble to be able to talk to you and to see you," she said before leaving me in the backroom as she went onto the sales floor.

I sighed and put my purse down on the table and pulled my phone from my jeans pocket. I unlocked it and went to my contacts, looking for Tyler, which was saved as T.

I started a message to him and typed it in quickly before sending it.

You know, I tried to look up the jersey for #91 on the Dallas Moons, but no one seems to have it. I guess I'll have to stick with #91 from the Dallas Stars. Boo.

I tucked my phone back into my jeans pocket and went on the sales floor as well. Helping out customers and answering the staff's questions when I needed to.

I felt my phone vibrate after about twenty minutes, so I snuck away to the backroom to look.

From T
Shit. Well. U tried ur best clearly. He's not as good as the guy from the moons but it'll do I guess.

But for real, thanks for the tickets. I mean I won't have any idea what's happening but I'll manage.

From T
I could send you hockey for dummies...

You saying I'm a dummy lmao

From T
not a dummy. A hockey dummy. big difference.

I laughed and shook my head as I took a seat at the table.

True, huge difference! All I gotta know is that #91 better get the thing in the thing and we get a point

He sent me several crying of laughter emojis which in turn made me laugh hard.

From T
The PUCK into the NET and we SCORE a GOAL

I laughed.

See I'm a master at the hockey. I have much hockey knowledge. So hockey. Much skate.

From T
Please record urself doing commentary for the game. it'd probably be the best thing ever tbh

I don't wanna steal your hockey thunder tho...

From T
You probably would. ud be viral we'd put you on the snapchat, it’d be great. I’ve gotta run to morning skate tho, i'll talk to you when its done!

I didn't bother to respond, he was gonna be busy, and when he finished up he probably had other things to do rather than keep some dopey little conversation going.

I cleared my throat and went to my bag to grab the reviews for everyone. I had to talk with Sheila about the reviews for the staff and then I was going to go over hers.

I pulled Sheila in to the backroom with me and we went over everything, read each review and wrote in our comments. We were at it for about two and a half hours.

I finally leaned back in my chair and groaned, "Oh my God, my head is pounding."

She moaned, "Don't even talk to me about it. I can't see straight."

I laughed a little bit, "I know. But you're done at least; I still have to work on yours!"

"All the raises, all of the bonus'," she told me.

I smiled, "I dunno," I mused with a small laugh.

She laughed too, "Alright, I'm getting back to work. Have fun back here."

I sighed as she went back onto the floor, I took my phone out to see if my lovely boyfriend texted me back, but he hadn't. Tyler, however, had texted me three times.

From T
Done with my skate! Are you at the store today, wanna get lunch?

From T
oh man too far? Sorry!

From T
lets get back to when we were joking about you being a hockey dummy! Forget my other texts!

I laughed and typed out a reply to him.

Lol don't worry about it! Sorry I took so long to reply, I was working on some stuff at the shop!

From T
so ur not pissed at me?

Not currently!

From T
thank god! in that case, did you wanna grab some food or something? I can educate you on hockey.

I don't think that's the best idea...boyfriend, remember?

From T
I remember just thought you'd like to get some hockey facts from the man himself...

I'm smiled to myself and bit my bottom lip, looking at his message. I could have friends. Guy friends. Markus didn't have to know everything. It wasn't like this was anything. Just friends. Having lunch. That's it. Swear.

My fingers began flying across the phone screen quickly.

Maybe, just maybe, you could come to the shop and sit with me in the backroom. I'll do work and you can ramble on about the hockey.

From T
I can be there in 20!

BRING FOOD!

--

"So they just let you fight?" I asked surprised from my seat right next to Tyler, all of my work abandoned on the other side of the table.

Tyler laughed and clicked on another video from YouTube showing me some more hockey fights, "Yeah! They let us get it over with and then they pull us apart if it gets to be too much or goes on too long they pull us apart."

I crumbled up the tinfoil from the burrito Tyler had brought for me and tossed it to the other side of my table where it landed on my planner.

"Can't you guys get, like, seriously hurt? Hasn't anyone broken their nose or something?" I asked, watching intently as the teams skated onto the ice from their benches to join in on a fight happening.

He laughed loudly, shaking the phone that was in his hand playing the video, "What?" I asked incredulously.

"Some of the guys have broken a lot more than just their noses, Rae. Burnsy lost his two front teeth and has just never gotten them replaced. Huh, I got my Achilles heel sliced in April."

"Wait what?" I asked looking at him, then looking down to his feet area, "Are you okay?" I asked.

He smiled and laughed a little bit again, "I'm good! I've been playing and everything! It was rough when it first happened, I missed the rest of the season and the whole time we were in the playoffs. That was the worst part I think."

"So do you guys win something at the end of the season? Like how they do it in football?" I asked him.

He nodded and locked his phone, lying it down on he table, "Yeah something like that! The top three teams in each division go to the playoffs, so twelve altogether. Then there are the wildcard teams, so two teams from each division get a shot too. So then at the final one team wins and gets the Stanley Cup."

I nodded, not really understand, but not totally missing it.

"Have the Stars won?" I asked him.

"Last time was back in 1999," he said with a small nod.

"So you've never won before?"

He smiled and looked down, reaching for his phone, "I have won, actually! I used to play up in Boston, on the Bruins. We won it up there a few years ago."

"So you've been playing for a while then?"

"Professionally yeah, technically for most of my life to be honest. I don't know what I'd do without hockey," he said, scrolling through his phone before clicking on one to enlarge and show me, "Here's when we won," he said handing me the phone.

I took it and looked down at the photo, not believing that was the Tyler sitting next to me. He wasn't as big and definitely didn't have the scruff on his face.

"That doesn't even look like you," I told him, after looking over the photo of him and the trophy.

"No?" he questioned with a small smile.

I shook my head and smirked, handing the phone back to him, "You look a lot smaller there."

He laughed and took his phone back, "Yeah, well, that was my first year in the NHL! What can I say?"

I shrugged with a small smile as I checked the time on my phone; it was 1:58pm. And, unsurprisingly, no missed messages from Marcus.

"I should probably get going," Tyler said, standing up and taking his trash to the garbage can near the door leading back to the shop.

I stood up too and tossed my garbage lazily into the can, "Well, thanks for stopping by and trying to teach me things."

He smiled at me, "No problem. I hope you'll kind of understand what's happening tomorrow night, then."

I laughed and shrugged, "Honestly, I'm just gonna look for number ninety one and pray he gets the puck in the thing and scores like, thirty points."

He laughed and shook his head, "Each point is only worth one!"

I titled my head and squinted, "Really? Well, is it too hard to score that many times in a game?"

He doubled over in laughter which made me laugh next to him, "It...yeah it's pretty hard to score thirty times in one game!"

"Well I don't know!" I said throwing my hands up.

"You'll see," he said with a small wink.

"Thanks for lunch, I really appreciate it," I told him, as he put his phone into his pocket and put his hat back on.

"No problem," he said genuinely, "Let me know if you wanna do this again."

I nodded, "I'll keep you posted."

"I'll talk to you later?" he asked, reaching for the door to go out the back way.

I smiled and nodded once, "Definitely."

Notes

Let me know what y'all think!!!!!!!!!!!!