Chapter 17

“Alright so… let’s get this show on the road!” Dean shouted from the podium clapping his hands together. The cafeteria was disgustingly tense today; so much was going to change in the next hour.
I had gotten almost no sleep the night before. Mattie and I had arrived back to the room around 5am, and were up three hours later to get ready for the final day of training camp. I was a bundle of nerves, holding Mattie’s hand firmly in mine, my forehead slumped onto the table. Carrol was still drunk and Marty was twitching his leg so bad it was moving the table. Consti was cool-as-a-cucumber, or so the expression goes, filling himself with a mound of food; in a room full of people to stressed to eat.
Mattie was subdued. He sat expressionless; one hand wrapped protectively around his stomach, the other still in my hand, was clammy and shaking slightly. It pained me to see him so upset, hopefully this would be over soon.

“We’ll do the individual awards first. Position, the extra awards and then the presentation of the championship trophies.” Dean explained, extending his arm to include the table of trophies set up behind him.
“First off. Over all best performance by a goalie, goes to… Adam Rennie!” I pulled my face off the table and clapped politely.

“No real surprise there…” I whispered to Mattie. Rennie shook Dean’s hand before carrying his trophy back down to his table.

“Over all best performance by a defenseman, goes to… Carter Vessey!” The giant 6’7” defenseman strutted up to the stage to get his award. Unsurprisingly Consti seemed nonchalant about the whole thing. I looked over at Mattie, he smiled weakly at me.

“Over all best performance by a forward, goes to… Carlie Simone!” I clapped my hands, continuing to look at Mattie.

Mattie looked back at me then started laughing, pushing me out of my seat. I looked around to see everyone looking at me. “Oh!” I blushed, heading up to the stage.

“Congratulations Carlie.” Dean said quietly as I shook his hand.

“Thanks Dean.” I smiled, carrying my trophy back to my seat.

Dean handed out a few more awards. Best play maker, went to Mattie; I embarrassed him by whistling when he went up for his award. Most Improved, went to my recent team-mate Aaron Turner. MVP went to Jake; and I was honoured with Most Points Scored Overall.

When it came time to hand out the final trophies, the training staff carted around some boxes of souvenir shirts to hand out to everyone that was left. I joined the rest of my team up on stage for the final award; the first place trophies. I couldn’t even bring myself to be excited anymore. I knew that the team cuts were about to be announced after this and that was the only thing left on my mind. As I stood on the stage beside Aaron, looking over the group of guys, I felt sick.
Luckily Dean was quick and I was able to return to my seat after just a few minutes. Now the real trouble started.

My friends and I sat in silence while Dean pinned up the single sheet of names on the back wall.
As De ja vu took over, Consti was the only one to get up and check. He strutted over to the wall, laughing as his finger traced down the names. He turned after a minute and marched back to where we were waiting.
“Picked number 7th over all… not too bad.” He smiled to himself before picking up his fork and continuing his breakfast.

“And…?” Carrol asked, leaning over the table.

“And what?”

“And were we on there?”

“Not all of you…” He sighed and looked up at Carrol. Carrol continued to stare at him; Consti shook his head, showing disappointment for the first time. “Carlie and Mattie made it… but...” he looked over at Marty, “you weren’t on there either man… sorry.” Marty nodded, staring down at his lap.

I was so excited I thought that my chest was about to burst open. Mattie was holding my hand under the table and squeezing it in quick pulses. We were both dying to celebrate but I could tell by the way he stayed at the table that these feelings would have to wait… right now Carrol and Marty needed us more.


Mattie and I were the last to leave the cafeteria. We sat quietly at our table, 4 awards shared between us, as we contently smiled at each other. Mattie tore his eyes from me and glanced around the room.
“We should probably head back now babe…” He said quietly, rubbing the back of his fingers along my cheek. I nodded and we both got up, grabbing our awards.
I hugged mine closely to my chest as we headed to the back of the room. We walked up to the list of names and read it over for ourselves.
My name was the first name on the list. I could feel the tears forming in my eyes and I took a deep breath, willing myself not to cry. I continued reading; Mattie was right after me, followed by Jack. Aaron was further down the list, as were a few other names I recognized. I couldn’t keep my excitement in any longer; I had made Team USA, I was going to Russia to compete in a world-renown event, and best of all, Mattie was coming with me.
I felt hot tears rolling down my face as years of hardship and struggle washed over me in the form of vindication. Mattie saw the tears and spun me to the side so we were face to face. He looked concerned until I gave him a wide smile; he returned it then tossed his trophy over onto a nearby table, pulling mine out of my hands and tossing them too.

He pulled my up against him roughly and I was surprised by the force of his hands and mouth as he pressed his body against mine, but these thoughts didn’t last for long.
I smiled into the kiss as he deepened it bringing his tongue inside to find mine. I wrapped my arms around his neck, winding my hands into his hair; insuring he couldn’t pull away.
With strength I was unfamiliar with he brought his hands down to the back of my thighs, lifting me off the ground. I wrapped my legs around his waist and stifled a moan. He moved forward easily, until my back was pressed against the wall firmly. Brining his lips from mine, he moved down to my neck; one hand coming off of my thigh to explore the small of my back, moving up inside of my shirt. His hand worked it’s way under my bra so that his thumb was massaging my breast, causing my breathing to accelerate as I grabbed at his shoulders till my nails began to dig in through his t-shirt.
He started to lower me back to the ground, laughing at my groan of protest. His face was red and kissed me a few more times before pulling away.
“We should probably relocate this babe…” he trailed off in a husky voice. I watched his delicious lips as he spoke, sighing with the knowledge he was right.

“Fine, but we go now!” Mattie laughed at my exuberance and grabbed my hand, half-dragging me out of the cafeteria towards our dorm.

His phone buzzed half a dozen times as we dashed across the lawn and up the stairs. He threw open the door and shoved my roughly down on the bed before pulling off his shirt and climbing on top of me.

“Ok… stop everything! I’m gonna need some popcorn for this!” Consti quipped from his side of the room.

“If you don’t wanna see anything you should go cause I’m not stopping.” Mattie retorted.

Consti sat on the edge of his bed, “On second this, I don’t really wanna be here to watch Mattie fail at something besides hockey… I’ll be upstairs.” He dashed out of the room without a backwards glance.
Mattie’s phone went off again and he reached out a hand to hit it off the bedside table.
“Maybe you should get that…” I trailed off, hoping he would ignore me.

“Maybe…” I sighed and he reached down to the floor. He looked at the caller ID and flipped the phone open. “What? No… I don’t know… no… why? Does it have to be now?” I could hear a female voice screaming at him from the other side of the phone. “God! Ok! Fine… calm the hell down I’ll get him… Jesus!” He moved the phone away from his ear. “Babe, she might skin me alive I don’t give this to Consti… apparently he’s not answering her calls.” I mopped back, not bothering to hide my disappointment.

“Alright… but come back quick k?”

“I’ll just throw it at him… be right back!” He dashed off not bothering to put his shirt back on. I laughed at the scratch marks that were already forming on his shoulders.

I glanced around the room from my vantage point on his bed, smiling to myself at Mattie’s apparent change in demeanour, apparently making the team had been very good for his confidence. I sat up and looked around at the room, I wonder how different our relationship will be once we’re back in the real world. Real world relationships weren’t that great for me… I was 0 - 1 the last time I checked. At that thought I turned and looked to my left. Well that’s awkward… I lost my virginity with my boyfriend, under a poster of my ex… Suddenly I felt disgusted with myself. I hopped up and pulled the poster down, unceremoniously rolling it up and tossing it over with the rest of our things. I glanced around the room and decided I might as well take them all down.

I was rolling up the last poster when Mattie came back in. “Well,” he sighed exasperated, “he was not happy to get that call!” I laughed back, tossing the last poster with the rest.

“Oh… you took them down…” Mattie said slowly, glancing at the empty spot above his bed. “Why?”

“Well… we’re leaving today…”

“Oh yah… yah that’s right… you’re taking them home with you.” He nodded to himself and I froze. His eyes were still on the place where the poster above his bed use to be.
He knows!
No he doesn’t… that’s crazy. He has no reason to even think that was your ex-boyfriend.
He’d say something… for sure he would…
Right?

“Nope, tossin them out… I figure at the rate I’m going I’ll be an NHLer soon and it’d be bad for endorsements to have posters of the enemies on my wall.” I laughed, trying to mask the hysteria in my voice.

“You’re really throwing them out?”

“Yah…” I nodded, trying to make him feel foolish for asking that. “Geez Mattie, they’re just posters.”

“Yah… I just know how much you love your Pens.” He shrugged, licking his lips. I hopped off the bed and walked over to him, wrapping myself around him again.

“Yah I do… but nothing compared to how much I love you.” He smiled down at me, a smile that lit up his eyes, as wrapped his arms around me. He flopped back down onto the bed with me beneath him, and we continued where we left off.

I knew there was no way he could possibly know about my secret, but even so; I wanted to make sure he knew what I had just said was the truth.
I was positive I was over-reacting, but I couldn’t help is as I held onto him tighter, and kissed him with all the passion I had… just in case.