How did Erik and I meet? Now that, is a good question. One I'm sure I would wonder whenever I heard of a girl dating a professional hockey player that wasn't an Instagram model; or famous for something, herself.
Did we meet at a game? At school? At a bar? Did we lock eyes across the room? Did we go home the first night? Did we have a spark that almost burnt down the building? Or was I just the one-night stand that never left?
All of them are possibilities, I'm sure. Ways that one could meet a significant other. When it comes to meeting a professional athlete, the venues of meeting are a little different. They typically range from someone sliding into the others Instagram DMs; or a girl being the type to go to the player's frequent bars. You know the kind.
I don't know if I would call her a puck bunny, because she really doesn't care that he's a hockey player. What she does care about, is his money; and of that, he has a lot. But players have begun to learn of these women; they've become able to spot them in a crowd. So now they just bag them and then take them out with the rest of the trash.
"Um." I stammer, not sure if I should - or if I want to, tell Erik's family the story of how we met. I suppose it is one of romance; a damsel in distress meeting her heroic night. If only they knew he had been lying about who he really was.
I get why he lied; and I've quickly forgiven him but the fact that is hard to digest is that we don't have a better origin story. Something like he's the bad boy hockey player that wooed the intern who wanted anyone but him. Or the hockey player that met the one girl he couldn't walk all over and followed him for the rest of her life, just because he liked her sarcastic tone.
Ours, is much more boring than that. One that's unbelievable in some ways: that he would ever lie about who he was and that someone like me would just happen to stumble into his arms. I'm no Anastasia Steele, but I would be lying if I said that I was the one being crawled back to and not the other way around.
I mean, maybe Erik was the one that reignited our spark; that reached out and told me who he was when he found out I worked for the Pirates. But I've always attributed that to him having known my location and not knowing anyone else that lived here - other than Kayden, who doesn't exactly count. I've never really asked him about it; how he knew I worked for the team. Maybe I should.
"We met online, we told you." Erik responds, looking a little red in the face, himself. His referencing of my brief "we met online" tidbit is neither convincing nor a way to get Cassidy off his back. In fact, it sets a fuel in her eyes that seems to have only grown alive now that she's put the kids to bed.
"Like, on Tinder?" She wonders, clearly knowing nothing about online dating or how romancing online works. Erik told me her and Link met in high school and that she's been with him ever since. It must be nice to have a high school sweet heart; but seeing their dynamic, it seems like her life revolves around him. And that, I would never want.
Part of me wonders if loving a professional hockey player, makes it come with the territory. Now that, is an answer I would not want.
"No. Not on Tinder." Erik answers, making it sound as if he would never brave that world. Tinder is known for being a perpetual hookup up haven; and I do think that any true love stories they put on social media are merely exceptions rather than rules. Having been on the app before myself, I can tell you it's the lowest tier of dating apps that there is.
Granted, there isn't much better out there. Hinge; Bumble; OKCupid? They're all based off of the idea that people on the internet are honest - which is their biggest mistake. They're also full of men that want you to drive to the middle of nowhere, face full of makeup, and go on a walk date. God forbid you ask for something like coffee or a MacDonald's meal.
"Rya?" Link guesses, referencing an app I only learnt of from a recent podcast I listened to - where a YouTuber divulged the app that famous people frequent. That one is an automatic no-go for me because well, I'm not famous. Even if you consider my flashing of pancakes, all those photos have long left the internet - thanks to Erik. He paid some computer guy to erase them all; I don't even want to know how much that was.
"It was a forum, okay?" Erik snaps, playing perfectly into the role of someone that's annoyed their caring family is wanting to ask nosy questions. Don't get me wrong; I'm no more thrilled about them knowing how we met. But it's nice that they care; it's nice that they exist.
My own family may as well have fallen off the face of the earth. Minus my dad, who only started contacting me a few months ago, when news broke that I started dating Erik. And of course the only reason for that, is because he wants money - or to blackmail me. Pull some Megan Markle esk shit. Which is why I ignore him and block him on everything.
"What?" Cassidy asks, looking over at Link like how the fuck could you not tell me this? "That's so cute." She beams, grinning from ear to ear in a way that makes me wonder if she has a sixth baby on the way. That would explain the hormones and way she hasn't touched her drink.
At this point, I feel like her being pregnant would be one of those monthly newsletter that nobody bothers to read. Sorry, I'm an asshole.
"Link and I met in high school, Algebra II." Cassidy informs me, grinning over at her other half like he's the prize she won at a claw machine - or a giant teddy bear that she was gifted on Valentine's Day. The same way that I look when I see they've made my iced latte correctly at Starbucks. Venti, extra ice - but not too much, and the right color.
It seems like a simple ask - or something I could do myself at home, but it's one of my few pleasures in life. Or at least, it used to be. Pre-boyfriend. Now it seems like spending time with him gives me more joy than an iced latte ever could - which is quite troubling if I do say so myself. The fact that my mood and emotions are so easily influenced by someone, just because they've been inside me.
I wonder how others cope.
"That we did." Link grins back at her, making me sympathetic towards anyone that's ever seen Erik and I engage in PDA. He puts his hand on her thigh and the non-existent father inside of me wants to wince because it's inappropriate, father of the bride style. "And I've been the happiest man, ever since."
Okay, I need a vomit bag.
I do suppose I should be grateful that they've forgone they're line of questioning about Erik and I's origin story. One that begins and ends with the phrase R4R (and later on, the dirty kind).
It's really not the kind of story that would be made into a motion picture - unless you count one of those independent film companies that nobody ever hears about. It would get a couple bad actors that can't remember a line beyond hello. And the only place it would ever get written about would be on the Rotten Tomato blog on the post biggest flops of 2022.
"More wine, anyone?" Erik's mom asks, looking around the table at everyone but me. Probably because I haven't drank all night - and unlike Cassidy, I haven't been sliding my glasses over to the man I'm cohabitating with.
I thought it would be a good way to meet his parents: sober as fuck. I haven't drank much of anything but Erik's semen on this new medication (and water), but from what the bottle says, you're not supposed to drink while taking it. And I, never having really been a rule-breaker, am not about to try and find out what happens if you do.
Now I'm wondering whether that was a fatal mistake.
"I'll take some." Erik says, holding out his glass so she can pour some into his half-empty glass. She pours it like she's a waiter at some fancy restaurant, holding a napkin that's wrapped around the bottle and then putting it into a tub of ice after. I'll never understand rich people.
"Be careful, he's a light-weight." Link jokes, earning a laugh from Erik who just rolls the comment off his shoulders. Part of me wonders if there's any truth to it, but surely he wouldn't be coming home just to get hammered with his brother and talk about the good old times.
But it also makes me think about how I've never really seen him drunk - minus that one time over FaceTime, which we don't talk about much. I once believed that what a man says when he's intoxicated is the most truthful speech that can come out of his mouth, because those, those are his most honest thoughts.
Then I met Erik, who never hangs up the phone without saying I love you. And could hold the world record for the amount of compliments one can give their girlfriend. Sometimes I wonder if I'm good enough for him, or how he could love someone with my cold demeanor.
Sometimes, I wonder if this is all some hallucinated dream; a reality that will only last as long as the attention span of a crowd in the movie theatre. Because although I would love to be like Cassidy - still having a man in love with me after having more children than needed for a starting line up, I'm still someone that believes in the cold, hard, truth.
That I've always been much more of an ugly step-sister than one worthy of being embroidered on the sheets of a ten-year old girl.