Chance Encounters of the Canuck Kind

“Eat something, Marky”
Bo pushed some toast towards Jacob, who was sitting opposite him. Jacob looked visibly tired and as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Sutter sat beside them, placing a cup of coffee in front of the goalie.
“Here, bud”
“Thanks, Suttsy.” Jacob said with a weak smile. He was exhausted, he had suffered a fitful night’s sleep, his argument with Juliette had been swirling around his head without relent all night. He took a long sip of the coffee, savouring the flavour as it burned his throat on the way down.
“So…” Bo began tentatively, “Sutter told me you and Juliette had a fight?”
Jacob shot Sutter a wounded look, he didn’t want his business being the talking point of the team, even if it was the reason he’d played like shit last night.
“It wasn’t like that, man” Horvat added. “I asked Sutter what was up, I was worried about you. We all were. We weren’t gossiping.”
“It’s cool” Markstrom replied nonchalantly after a brief pause. “We fought, yeah.”
“Have you talked to her yet?” Brandon asked.
Jacob shook his head slowly, “not yet.”
“What stopping you?” Bo queried.
Jacob didn’t answer. In truth, he didn’t really know what was stopping him. His own stubbornness? His irrational fear that they wouldn’t be able to work things out?
“Marky?”
“I don’t know, bud. I guess I wanted to just get breakfast out of the way, I’ll probably take a walk around Buffalo, go somewhere quiet then I’ll call her.”
“That’s probably for the best, you need to do it sooner rather than later though” Sutter reasoned.
“Yeah…” Jacob finished his coffee and got up from his seat. “Thanks for the coffee guys, I’m gonna head out. Maybe meet later for something to eat?”
Horvat and Sutter watched Jacob leave.
“He didn’t even eat anything” Bo said to Sutter worriedly.
“I’d more worried if he didn’t have any coffee. He’ll be fine, they’ll work it out, I’m sure.”
***
Juliette was laid on the couch with Pickle, her head pounding from the night before. She wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol or the after effects of her panic that had caused her predicament but it didn’t do much to change the fact she was wallowing in her own self-pity. She had divulged all of the previous day’s events to Suze (the argument with Jacob and her run in with Ben), whom after telling Juliette “I told you so”, had gone on a mission to find Ben, wherever he may be, and castrate him.
“Jesus Pickle,” Juliette murmured to the cat, “what a fucked up 24 hours it’s been.”
Her phone flashed on the coffee table. Jacob was calling. Juliette groaned, deliberating whether or not to let it ring off; she wasn’t in any mood for another argument with him. At the last second, for better or worse, she pressed answer – but didn’t speak immediately.
“Juliette? You there, babe?”
His tone was calm, almost sad.
She cleared her throat, “Yeah. I’m here.”
Juliette could hear Jacob’s deep sigh of relief. God, she missed him.
“Babe…” he started.
“I’m sorry!” she interjected. “I’m sorry for everything I said last night, I was a Grade A bitch to you. I would have graduated the Bitch Class with honours based on last night’s performance.”
“Älskling” Jacob’s voice was soft, melting away all of the fears that were in Juliette’s heart. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I was awful to you last night. I was frustrated because of the game and I took it out on you. That’s not okay. You only responded the way you did because I was an asshole to you first. I know why you didn’t want to tell me what was going on and I appreciate your concern but promise me you won’t keep things from me? I can handle it, babe. Your happiness is more important to me than anything else.”
His response only exacerbated Juliette’s guilt. ‘How is he so fucking perfect?’ she thought.
“So come on…” he added, “tell me what’s going on.”
“It all seems so fucking irrelevant now” Juliette said, feeling stupid.
“It’s not irrelevant to me. Come on babe, you can tell me.”
Juliette fell quiet, trying to find the right words to say. She didn’t want to make it sound like she’d gone snooping for all that stuff Suze and her had been reading; after all, she hadn’t.
“Suze found some stuff online and she showed me. She was just being a friend, she didn’t want me to be in the dark about it, I guess. She didn’t know that we’d talked about me avoiding it all. But it was fucking horrible, Jake, the things they were saying about us. About me.”
Jacob felt a mix of anger and guilt well up inside of him. He anticipated that something like this would happen, it had happened to so many other guys on the team. He had hoped that they’d be able to have a relatively low key relationship, despite the fact he was well known; but hearing Juliette’s words brought his fantasy crashing down around him.
“Remember what I said to you, älskling, you’re all I want and all I need. In a thousand different lives I’d choose you, every time. I want you, Juliette and only you. No amount of bullshit on some fucking forum is ever going to change that. I’m sorry that you had to read that stuff, I’d hoped to protect you from it. I know it’s not easy and I promise I’m going to keep our relationship as low key as possible.”
“I don’t want to have to sneak around with you, Jacob” she said sadly.
“That’s not what I meant, sorry that came out wrong. What I mean is we do this your way, okay? If you want to stay out of the spotlight, that’s fine. But if you want to come to team events and stuff I’d be down with that too. Maybe you should meet some of the other girls? Sutter’s wife is real nice. I know the guys want to meet you too. I don’t want to hide you away, Juliette.”
“I think I’d like that” Juliette replied quietly. She knew she needed to tell Jacob about what happened at the club last night, better to hear it from her than read it online and she especially wanted to avoid another argument with him.
“Listen, Jake, in the interests of being honest…”
“Yeah…” Jacob’s stomach dropped.
“I went out last night, to The Cobalt, and I bumped into my ex. Things got a little ugly, he sort of came on to me…”
“HE FUCKING DID WHAT?” Jacob’s temper flared. The thought of another man’s hands on Juliette sent him into a rage that wasn’t becoming of him.
“I’m fine, Jacob! Nothing happened. A friend from high school was there, he helped me out and made sure I got home safe. I didn’t want you to see anything or read anything online or hearing stuff from someone else. There was a lot of people there and I don’t know how much anyone saw. I know it’s a really narcissistic view to have, I don’t really think anyone in there gave a fuck who I was, but I don’t want to risk you seeing something bad before I have chance to tell you what happened.”
“What did he do? Please tell me he didn’t hurt you.” His voice had lowered in volume, but the anger was still very much there.
“He didn’t hurt me,” Juliette lied, looking at the bruise that had now formed on her upper arm where Ben had grabbed her, “he was just being an asshole. He’d had too much to drink and…” she chose her words very carefully, “tried it on a bit.”
“He tried to force himself onto you, didn’t he?” Jacob said quietly, but nonetheless threatening.
“It wasn’t as bad as that” she was trying desperately to diffuse the situation but was failing miserably.
“You’re a shit liar, Julie” he growled. “If he ever comes near you again, I’ll be making sure he’s eating soup for the rest of his miserable fucking life.” The venom in Jacob’s voice was evident and Juliette had no doubts that these weren’t empty threats.
She was keen to change the subject and pull Jacob out of his anger.
“Where are you off to next? Nashville, right?”
“Er.. yeah. Flight leaves at 9 tonight. Game tomorrow, then straight out to Dallas for a game the following day. After that it’s an early flight back to Vancouver, so I’ll be back in the city on Wednesday. Maybe you could stay at mine Wednesday night? My apartment is close to your work.”
Juliette’s tactical distraction seemed to work.
“Just let me know what time you want me over” she said.
“I’ll pick you up on the way back from the airport and then I’ll take you to work in the morning, okay?”
“You don’t have to, you should sleep in” Juliette protested.
“I want to” he replied firmly.
Silence fell between them, but neither felt uncomfortable. They were content in just knowing that the other was there, at the end of the phone. It was Jacob who broke the stillness.
“I’d better go, babe. I’m going to explore the city a little bit and the guys are wanting to meet and get food before we catch our flight.”
“Oh, okay.” Juliette tried to hide her disappointment. “You could always look for some crazy golf. They have crazy golf in Buffalo, right?”
Jacob laughed. “We’ll talk later, I promise. And Julie?”
“Hmm?”
“No more fighting, I don’t like it.”
“Agreed.” She replied with a smile.

Notes

I'm not sure when the next update will be but will try not to let it be so long next time!