| Brielle looked herself over in the mirror at home before making a face at herself, sticking out her tongue at her reflection and sighing. She wasn't used to wearing skirts, she usually wore her workout clothes for practices with the team, or jeans when she wasn't practicing. When she had to be dressy for any team events, a khaki skirt usually did the trick. She was used to the skirt, and she even sort of liked it. But this... She had decided on wearing a short black skirt with a light blue tank top over it. Her hair was up in a butterfly clip, and what was sticking out was curled. She was actually wearing makeup for once, and was wearing something other than skates or sneakers on her feet. She shrugged her shoulders at herself and grabbed her purse. She locked her apartment door behind her and began searching for the directions Toby had given her to Brews Brothers, eventually finding it in her dashboard. Ten minutes later, she was walking in the door of the bar. She looked around to see that the place wasn't too crowded, that most of the guys were sitting at the bar, or at tables, and a few of them were playing pool. So much for a party. She didn't quite know where to go, and for a few seconds she strongly considered walking out of the bar and going home. Until Kris Beech spotted her. "Woah, Brielle, is that you?" he yelled, letting out a low whistle. He was obviously buzzed, if not completely drunk yet. "Damn girl, were you always this cute and I just didn't notice it?" Brielle laughed, walking toward the table where he, Toby and Brooks Orpik sat. She noticed about a dozen beers on the table, most of them about half-full. "Kris, you're drunk," she said, smiling. "But you're cute!" he replied, his eyes a bit watery. "I know. So how many drinks have you three downed so far?" she asked the table as a whole. Toby just grinned, and didn't say a word. Kris looked to the table and tried to count, but couldn't come up with a number. Brooks seemed to be sober enough, "I only had about three," he claimed. "Okay, Brooksey," Brielle said, not really believing him but dismissing it and heading to the bar to greet the rest of the team. Part of it, anyway. Eric and his roommate and fellow right wing Tom Kostopolous were playing pool against Colby and Shane, and she wasn't about to interrupt their game quite yet. "Brielle! I figured out how many I had!" Kris said, suddenly appearing by her side out of nowhere. "Oh?" She asked, letting Kris put his arm around her shoulders. "How many?" "Sixty-nine," he replied with a slight grin. Brielle laughed. She had been to too many parties with male hockey players to take Kris's advances as anything other than public drunkenness and his own drunken stupidity. He was sure to ask her what he had said the next day, the way things were going. And he had only been at the bar for about an hour and a half. "Okay, Kris," she said as they got to the bar. With his arm still around her, Kris said to the bartender, "Our new assistant coach here needs to catch up with the rest of her team. And I think a beer would be a good start, right Brielle?" "That it would, make it a Labatt." From the corner of his eye, Eric saw Brielle walk into the bar and over to Toby and his table. He also saw her walk over to the bar with Beech, his arm around her, and saw her start drinking down a Labatt that Kris had obviously ordered for her. "And so it begins," he said under his breath as Kostopolous took his shot. "What was that?" Tom asked, scratching because Eric had distracted him. "Nothing," Eric replied, quickly turning his attention away from Brielle and back to the game of pool he and his teammate were losing. Tom wasn't blind; he could see that Eric either loved the girl or hated her, he just wasn't sure which quite yet. "What the fuck is up with you?" he asked, getting annoyed. "Do you love her or hate her?" "I hate her," Eric said through clenched teeth. He took his shot at the two ball and it went in the corner pocket with a loud crack. He passed Tom when he went to take his next shot. "I hate her, end of discussion." His next shot scratched. ~*~*~ "Colby?" Colby looked up to see Brielle standing by the table he had sat down at, holding her bottle of Labatt. She had apparently pried herself away from Kris's arm when Colby wasn't looking. "Mind if I join you?" Colby didn't say anything, only pulled a chair from the table behind him for Brielle to sit. She hadn't said a word to him since after the fight; she appeared to be thinking about what he had said since then. "I'm proud of you," she said after sitting down. Colby blinked. "You are?" he asked, clearly surprised. "Of course I am," she said, putting her hand on top of Colby's. "You fought Dennis Bonvie... Dennis the Menace... Bonvie the Bully... I'm well aware of the risk you took in doing that. And I am very proud to say that my rookie kicked Dennis Bonvie's ass." She paused. "For me." Colby frowned slightly. "I'm your rookie?" He looked from Brielle's hand on top of his back to her eyes. Brielle hesitated before answering. "This might be the alcohol talking, but..." She paused and sighed. "When I dated Chris, everything went wrong because he had a superority complex. He couldn't draw the line between coach and girlfriend. And I don't want that to happen to us." "Brielle, I-" "And if we keep that line drawn, I don't think there's gonna be a problem," Brielle said, interrupting Colby. Colby was confused for a second. "Does this mean... that... you'll go out with me?" he asked. Brielle smiled. "Yeah, it does." |
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