“Oh boy,” Niki said, shooting her eyes over to me. I bit my lip and forced a smile.
“True, they are very much in love. Like I’ve never seen two young people before,” Marcel added, putting his arm around his wife. “Much like us, mon amour.” He gazed down at his wife and grinned.
The interviewer asked a question, “I see. Will the rules be changed for the rest of the players now?”
“Non, non, there are always exceptions to the rules, but we have rules there for a reason. The rules remain.”
Relief filled me as it went to a commercial break. I looked at the clock on my wall, surprised at how little time had passed. What had only been minutes, felt like an hour.
“True love, G?” Gianna asked in an all too sarcastic manner. “Yeah, you truly love Beau’s manly body.”
Everyone cackled and a few of them whistled loudly, teasing the shit out of me. “Lay off, ladies.”
“We’re happy for you, G. We’re just also extremely jealous,” Niki said as she laughed and grabbed a handful of grapes from the platter on the coffee table.
Jillian scooped up a puppy and hugged him. “Anyone with eyes can see you’re perfect together,” she said, giving the doggy loud smoochy kisses.
More useless chatter went on until the show came back on. “Now that the owners have explained, let’s take a closer look at these two lovebirds, shall we?” Lola said, swinging her arm to the huge screen behind her.
It showed me and Beau in the hot tub the first time, when he’d rescued me from Jillian’s burning curlers. Luckily, it only showed me after the curlers were gone. “Where I come from, you dunk someone, you get retribution,” I said to him. It was so weird seeing us on TV.
Then it showed me dunking him and the resulting chase. And of course, when he’d kissed me the first time. It looked just as sexy as it had felt.
A few of the girls gasped, even though that kiss had already been all over social media.
Lola’s voice commented, “From the very beginning, it had been obvious these two had something going on.” Pictures of Beau leaning into me against the wall—when he’d dragged me out of the photoshoot—showed next.
“Raising puppies together should have been our first clue at how serious this is,” Marco said as the audience oohed and aahed at a quick montage of some of the puppy pictures and videos.
Suddenly, my team appeared on the screen. They were in the dressing room. It looked like it had been after a practice. Everyone’s hair was sweaty, and most were downing their waters like crazy.
“Why did you guys choose Gigi as your captain?” Lola asked my girls.
“G’s always the captain. First off, she’s probably the best player on this team,” Gianna said, and everyone nodded.
“Even though she’ll tell you otherwise,” Niki said.
Jillian joined in. “Gigi’s the most organized person I’ve ever met in my life. Her ability to plan and execute her life as well as all of ours is bar none.”
“She cares about us. Not just as her teammates, but she’s genuinely concerned about our lives—on and off the ice. If she can help you with something, she will,” Niki said sweetly.
A clip of us on the ice during a practice played. Mae—one of our younger players—screwed up and chucked her stick down the ice, frustrated as hell. I remembered that day well. I skated up to her, removing my helmet. “Take five,” I yelled to everyone before I escorted Mae to the other end of the ice.
“Can I help?” I asked in a low voice, knowing something was eating away at her.
She shook her head vehemently and sniffed. “I got back together with my boyfriend and just saw pictures of him out at a beach with someone else.”
“Oh, girl, that’s shitty. I’m sorry. You done with him now? Finally?” I asked, shaking her shoulders with my hands. They’d been on again, off again for so long I honestly lost track of where they currently were in their cycle of destruction.
She nodded, tears falling down her cheeks faster now. I gave her a big hug, which was more than difficult when you were both padded to the neck, but not impossible.
“Good, I’m proud of you. You’re too smart to hang around with someone who doesn’t appreciate you for you. There’s so much good out there, just waiting for you. You ready to take it?”
“Yeah, G. I’m ready,” she sobbed and just hearing her sad voice again made me tear up here, in the living room, days later.
“Good,” I said, then I yelled down to the other end, “circle of friends!”
Thus started our ritual. If one of us was down in the dumps about something, we all circled around and filled their heads with positive stuff to replace the bullshit filtering through there already.