Chapter 3

“So I have an enormous favor to ask you,” Brianna said as I threw some shrimp into the skillet already filled with vegetables.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” I said in response as I began to stir the mixture.

“Well, Ryan called me. He asked me to go to the game tomorrow night and I don’t want to go alone.” I spun around to look at her.

“Are you serious right now? Did you forget lunch the other day? I don’t exactly get along with Ryan’s teammate.”

“I know and I still don’t understand exactly what’s going on there. I’m not convinced it’s all that you say it is. Why would he care so much that you broke up with a guy he used to play with? And why would you get so mad at him about it?” she asked. I wasn’t about to get into it with her. At least not right now.

“We just don’t like each other, that’s it,” I said and went back to cooking up the stir-fry.

“But you’ll come to the game with me?” she asked.

“Brianna, there is absolutely no way you will get me to go to that game with you,” I told her.

About 24 hours later I was getting out of the car and walking into the box office with Brianna to pick up the tickets Ryan had left us. Apparently after I had stormed out of lunch the other day Brianna had stayed and spent two hours talking to Ryan. They’d exchanged phone numbers and had been talking every day since.

We got to our seats and sat down. It felt like I’d hardly had time to sit down before someone recognized me. For the next 20 minutes I signed autographs and took pictures with Ducks fans. Luckily when the game started the autograph seekers returned to their seats to watch the action. About halfway through the first I noticed a small group of attractive women sitting down in the same row as us. They were the wives and girlfriends. I could spot them without any hesitation. I had been one of them after all. All four were obviously disinterested in the game and spent the better part of the second half of the period talking to each other. At intermission they noticed us.

“Omigod, are you Amelia Larson?” one of them screeched coming down the row to sit next to me.

“Yes, I am,” I said to her.

“I absolutely loved your movie and I can’t wait to see the one that’s coming out soon. You’re so pretty even off the screen!” Oh my, she was annoying.

“Thank you, that’s so sweet.” I smiled at her and pretended to care what she had to say.

“So, I’m curious. What exactly are you doing at an Anaheim Ducks game?” she asked. I leaned back and pointed to Brianna.

“My friend Brianna is sort of seeing Ryan Getzlaf and he left us both tickets for the game,” I explained. Now Brianna was really going to be in for it.

“Oh, nice! Brianna, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Ileana, Corey Perry’s girlfriend!” she exclaimed.

I just about choked on the sip of water I had just taken. Was this blonde Barbie serious? She was the exact opposite of Corey’s taste in women. Was he seriously dating this bimbo? Wait, why did I care? I smiled and nodded a lot as Ileana introduced the other girls to us and spent the better part of the rest of the game listening to Ileana talking to Brianna and telling her what a great guy “Getzy” was. Apparently Corey and Ryan were “the best of friends!” I was in desperate need of a major painkiller to get rid of the headache after listening to brainless Ileana all night. The girl did not shut up.

When the game ended Ileana led us downstairs to the wives’ room that every NHL team had for family to wait in until the guys came out after the game. While Brianna was just happy to be talking to anyone, I found myself moving towards the older wives.

“So you’re friend is dating Getzlaf?” a woman introduced to me as Maureen, Chris Kunitz’s wife asked me.

“Well, they only met recently so we’ll see what happens,” I responded.

“It looks like she’s getting an earful from Ileana,” another named Caroline, wife of Todd Marchant, said nodding over in their direction.

“I think I might have to shoot myself if I have to listen to her talk much longer,” I said before thinking. As soon as the words were out of my mouth I began to try to come up with something to say to backtrack a bit. Before I could, a couple of the women that were around started to laugh.

“Don’t worry about it, we all feel the same way,” the wife of Brendan Morrison, named Erin told me.

“We’re not sure how she’s still around. It’s obvious she’s only with Corey because he’s a hockey player with money. Rumor from our husbands is that Corey’s just looking for a hot piece of ass because some girl he was in love with broke his heart a few years ago,” another named Amy Moen said.

I felt a pang of guilt hit me at the statement. I drove him to that? I could understand him wanting someone that didn’t remind him of me, but that was a little extreme. He was the guy that used to make fun of the girlfriends that didn’t really seem to care about the guy they were dating. He swore that he could never be with someone like that, but now he was, and it was my fault.

As time passed I felt like I became just a little more stupid just hearing her voice. She was like a train wreck. I just couldn’t take my eyes off of her or stop listening to the dumb things she was saying. I even overheard her talking about how Corey had taken her shopping the day before and spent a lot of money on her for bringing him to pick up his car. That was absolutely ridiculous. How could anyone even ask their significant other to do that for them? Hearing that she had no idea Corey had an assist that night just put the icing on the cake. She wasn’t right for him, at all.

At that point I was just praying that Ryan would get there soon so that Brianna and I could leave. The longer I heard Ileana talk about money and all the nice things Corey got her, the angrier I got. He didn’t deserve to be treated that way. I never would have thought about asking him to buy me anything in exchange for doing something nice for him. In fact, I couldn’t remember ever asking him to buy me anything at all.

I was steaming and having a hard time keeping my mouth shut when Corey walked into the room. His eyes locked with mine before he even saw Ileana. I felt like he had just sensed that I was there. He had an uncanny ability to do that while we were dating. Even though he never knew where my seats were he always found me at his games. He could also find me in seconds in the most crowded location saying that he just felt where I was.

Ileana jumped up when she saw him and ran over to hug him, breaking his gaze on me. She then introduced him to Brianna even though I had distinctly remembered Brianna telling Ileana that she’d met Corey when she met Ryan. Then she pulled him over to introduce him to me. My jaw clenched as I waited to hear what scathing remark he was going to have this time.

“Nice to meet you, Amelia,” was what he said instead. He held out his hand to shake mine just like he’d done with Brianna seconds before. I put my hand in his and it lasted just a little bit too long.

“Nice to meet you too,” I replied pulling my hand out of his grasp. I caught the confused look on Brianna’s face at the exchange. If we knew each other why were we pretending we didn’t in front of his girlfriend? I only wish I knew.

“Are you ready to go, hon?” Corey asked her pulling her to him and planting a kiss on her forehead. He did it on purpose to upset me and I knew it. It also worked.

“Hey, Ileana, I’ll bring Jordan sometime so you can meet him,” I told her like we were friends. We’d discussed the fact that I was dating Jordan during the game and she had gushed about how cute he was.

“Who’s Jordan?” Corey asked before Ileana had a chance to respond. I heard her giggle.

“Jordan Kellar. He’s Amelia’s gorgeous movie star boyfriend, silly,” she explained to him. I saw the anger and the jealousy cross his face and smiled at him with self-satisfaction at getting him back. He’d clearly had no idea I was dating someone like he was.

“Nice meeting you, Amelia,” he said tightly. Then he turned to look at Brianna. “Ryan said he’ll be out in just a minute. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again soon.” He smiled at her and then turned, practically pulling Ileana out the door behind him.

“Okay, something is going on between the two of you,” Brianna said to me the minute they were out the door. “Are you going to tell me why he pretended not to know who you were in front of his girlfriend?”

“You’re guess is as good as mine.”










She had a boyfriend? Well wasn’t that just fan-fucking-tastic. She’d obviously moved on with her life, but what did he expect? She obviously hadn’t cared about him nearly as much as he’d cared about her if she’d been able to just up and leave without a word. Corey scolded himself for being as upset as he was. Didn’t he have a girlfriend? Yeah, one who thought Amelia’s boyfriend was “gorgeous.” It made him want to vomit.

“Are we going to stop someplace to get something to eat?” Ileana asked breaking into his thoughts.

“I’m not hungry,” he said to her. They rode in silence for a few minutes, which was odd because he never knew Ileana to run out of things to say.

“You’ve been a jerk lately,” she finally said. He rolled his eyes even though he knew he had.

“I’m sorry. I’ve just been playing poorly lately,” he lied.

He knew he’d be able to get away with the lie. Ileana never paid attention to the games and even if she did she’d have no idea what was going on. If he’d tried to lie to Amelia about his play she would have jumped all over him. She knew the sport and was always willing to talk to him about games afterwards. And more often than not her assessments of the game were spot on.

“I thought you had an assist tonight,” Ileana said obviously confused. “Isn’t that good?” He looked at her surprised that she’d noticed. It was more likely that someone had mentioned it to her and that was the only reason she knew.

“Yeah, but I played poorly defensively.”

Another lie. He’d actually played a great game but seeing Amelia again had upset him and it was easier to blame a part of his game that Ileana didn’t understand than to go into his history with Amelia.

“So Amelia is so pretty. I can’t believe I got to meet her tonight. She’s such a sweetheart. Sometimes you wonder if someone who is famous is going to be nice or just completely stuck on themselves, but she was so nice,” Ileana babbled.

She continued to talk about spending the game with Amelia but he tuned her out. It was bad enough that he’d run into Amelia twice this week. He didn’t need to hear about how much his current girlfriend liked his ex too.