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“Let’s
talk about how Dean is a pussy-whipped bitch.”
    “Pussy-whipped?” Dean’s reputation for
being a lothario often preceded him. “I’m
pussy-whipped?”
    “Meow.” Zach added.
    Dean went around the table and pointed
to his friends. “Married, girlfriend, and you…you….” He pointed
towards Kyle.
    “Me? What about me?”
    “You’re entertaining the biggest thot
of the year,” Dean said to laughter around the table, “and I’m
pussy-whipped?”
    “Staring at your phone….the moment you
hear from her, your face lights up…” Kyle shrugged and took a swig
of beer. “…I know the lovey-dovey signs.”
    “Next thing you’re going to be sending
her flowers.” Caleb added
    “And not them cheap shits, neither.”
Zach shook his head and his teammates agreed. “You better be
chipping in some money for a few dozen.”
    “Meeting the parents?” Caleb added.
“Yeah, that’s always fun.”
    “Buy liquor and cigars for the dad and
roses for the mom.” Kyle advised. “That’s too easy.”
    “And you better remember every single
birthday, holiday, and first moments or you will never hear the end
of it.” Zach stated.
    “That’s why I’m single.” Kyle
commented.
    “Does your girl know this?” Zach asked
and Kyle shrugged.
    “So when are you going to bring her
around?” Caleb asked. “Seems like you like her.”
    “Well after the three of you scared
the hell out of me, I don’t know if that shit’s gonna happen,” Dean
chuckled. “But in all seriousness, I don’t know. We’re still trying
to coordinate something and I just don’t know the what, when, and
why of it.”
    “I hope she’s special,” Zach replied.
“I haven’t seen you like this in a minute.”
    Dean sipped his beer. He was acting
like a lovesick schoolboy, though he kept his focus on the ice when
he was at practice and during game time. But after each practice
and every game, his second phone call was to Sydney. His first was
always to his mother, just to make sure he could still talk with
all of his teeth.
    He told Sydney he was going to fly her
down during Christmas so she could watch him play in person.
Christmas wasn’t that far away and Dean was becoming increasingly
anxious about her arrival, despite not having any plans set in
stone.
    Now he knew why he never fell in love;
he truly hated not having any control of his emotions.

 
    Eleven
    She felt like throwing up.
    Her stomach was in knots and kept
getting increasingly tighter with each passing moment, as if
someone was squeezing the life out of her by some messed-up torture
experiment they do to POWs at war camps. Every breath she took,
hoping to calm the rapid beat of her heart down, only made it
worse.
    Sydney was about to see her man. And
she was going to break up with him.
    It had been almost a month and a long
one. Video chatting, text messaging, and several creative Skype-sex
sessions could only do so much before the feelings of jealousy and
angst reared their ugly heads.
    Now there she was, walking down the
seemingly long corridor from the plane to boarding area. Her nausea
simply increased with each step.
    The plane ride from San Francisco to
Los Angeles was short and relatively uneventful. She could only get
a small handful of days off and rather be the good daughter who
spent every holiday with her family, while they politely (was it
really?) remarked why she was still the single one of out her
friends, she took Dean on his offer and flew down to L.A. He wanted
to fly her first class but she wouldn’t have it, shocking them both
at the request. He did, however, buy her a business class ticket
and well, it was too late to argue.
    In less than five minutes, she was
going to see him.
    She swallowed the big lump in her
throat and let out another deep breath as she breezily walked
through the airport and to baggage claim. Sydney knew how important
the trip was on many levels. One, it was testing the waters of how
realistic they were being on a