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Tuesday, December 20th
I sat on the bench by Elbel Field waiting for Ethan. I promised to meet him here so I could walk him to practice again. This time, we needed to talk about his family since I knew nothing about them. If we wanted it to be believable, I needed to have a basic understanding of his family.
Ethan came jogging toward the bench I sat at with the same gear he had last time I saw him here. "Hey," he smiled.
I smiled back, "Hey." I got up from the bench and we began walking. "So what's your family like? Are your parents together? Do you have siblings?"
"Well," he started, "my parents are Tara and Lee Edwards. I have one brother named Brett and he plays hockey for the University of Denver." He looked down at me.
I nodded my head, "so are you guys a hockey family because you're canadian or...?"
He laughed, "first of all, Fuck you. Second of all, yes. We're a hockey family." He ran his fingers through his hair with his empty hand. "Just know, my mom is very nosy. She will probably ask a lot of questions about your family, about us being together, and your major. She did the same thing to Mark when he came to Canada and I guarantee she'll do the same to Brooklyn."
I nodded my head, "noted. We're still sticking with the same story about us meeting at a party?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said. "Oh, speaking of parties. One of my friends on the hockey team, Rutger, is throwing a Christmas party before we all split for the holidays. The team thinks you're my real girlfriend so they want me to bring you. Would you wanna go?"
"Sure," I agreed. "When's the party?"
"Tomorrow," he answered. "And Rutger asked for the couples to wear matching ugly Christmas sweaters. We could go shopping with Brooklyn and Mark when practice is over."
Why did you wait to tell me this now? I thought while keeping my best poker face. "Uh, okay. Kind of sudden but sure." I shrugged.
"I know, I'm sorry. It just hit me now," He frowned.
When we approached the Yost Ice Arena, we saw a big crowd of people holding signs wishing the UMich hockey players happy holidays and Merry Christmas. "What the hell?" I muttered to Ethan, looking over at him.
"I also forgot about that," he muttered unamused. "Basically at every last practice before we get sent off for winter break, fans and students gather around the arena and wish us a good farewell before the holidays... and paparazzi."
"Shit," I muttered. "What should we do?"
"Follow my lead," he grabbed my hand and led us closer to the arena. Someone yelled Ethan's name, causing the attention to fall onto us with cheering fans. "Alright, I'll see you later." He smiled, lightly pecking my forehead before walking into the arena. When he walked past the crowd outside, some of the crowd looked at me and began whispering.
Why did he do that in front of everyone? I just walked the other way toward my car like nothing happened, but my mind was racing. I tried to forget about it as I grew closer to my car. Now, I need to go shopping with the three of them later today and I have to go to a Christmas party tomorrow. I was just hoping to relax before we had to go to Canada, now that wasn't gonna happen.
🏒🥅
Brooklyn and I met Ethan and Mark at the mall. Surprisingly, they were there before us. I really only had my mind focused on one thing and that was those ugly Christmas sweaters.
Brooklyn and Mark walked around the mall while holding hands. Ethan and I just walked side by side while looking around. "You see anything?" Ethan asked. We were only window shopping, so there wasn't a wide selection.
"No," I replied. I pointed at Macy's and looked at him. "You wanna head in there?" I asked him.
"Yeah, sure," he responded. He looked over at Mark and Brooklyn, "you guys wanna head inside Macy's with us?"
Mark stopped walking and turned around along with Brooklyn. "Nah, we're gonna head somewhere else," he said. "Have fun though."
We entered the store and left Brooklyn and Mark alone. "What kind of ugly sweaters are we looking for?" He asked as we made our way to the Christmas sweater section.
"Well I preferably want it to be maroon so I can wear it with a black skirt and we should get matching reindeer ears or Santa hats!" I chippered. "We'll be the cutest couple there!"
"Fake," Ethan noted. "You forgot to say fake couple. Are you breaking rule 1?" He smirked.
I aggressively shook my head. "No!" It sounded too defensive and I could feel my cheeks burn. I looked away and spotted an ugly Christmas sweater with a reindeer and Christmas lights on it. A sticker on the sweater said "I Light Up!". "Holy shit," I gasped. "It's perfect!"
I grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the sweaters, "woah!" He yelped as I hauled him around like he weighed nothing. "You have a strong grip."
I could see him rubbing his hand when I looked back at him. "Sorry!" I frowned. I looked back at the sweaters and held them up to both of us. "Should we get them?"
He stared at them blankly, "they're hideous." His eyes met mine as a grin tugged at his cheeks. "It's perfect."
Now that we found the perfect sweaters, we needed reindeer ears. "Where would we even find ears?" I muttered to myself while searching around the large store.
Ethan hummed, "We could try the girl's section. They might have some." We ventured off deeper into the store to find the girl's section in the even larger kid's section. "I'll go this way, you search down there." He punted off to a random direction for me to go in. I decided to go ahead and go in that direction.
I searched for a minute, wondering if little kid ears could fit his or my head. Even if it didn't, we had to commit to the part. We were going to be a matching couple. FAKE matching couple.
All I could find were Santa and elf hats. I let out a frustrated groan as I continued my search. "Are these it?" Ethan asked from behind me.
I turned around and there he was holding the perfect reindeer ears. "Yes!" I exclaimed, throwing one of them on my head. I grabbed the other from his hand and got on my tippy toes. I placed the headband on his head while smiling wide. "You look adorable!"
"You're getting a real kick out of this, huh?" He asked as he made his way over to a mirror.
"Ask me during the party when everyone sees you in reindeer ears," I giggled. I pulled out my phone and pulled up the camera, taking pictures of Ethan.
He didn't notice I was taking pictures of him, he just kept looking at himself in the mirror. He finally turned around and saw what I was doing. "Stop!" He said through laughter and reaching out for my phone. I laughed in response and held up my phone.
We took off the ears and bought the items before leaving the store to find Brooklyn and Mark. We made our way down to Aerie and found Brooklyn in there shopping while Mark waited outside with her bags. "What, are you her personal maid now?" Ethan asked while laughing.
Mark cracked a smile, "nah. I just didn't want to be seen inside a store with bras." He answered. "Esme, can you hold these while I go to the bathroom?"
"Yeah, sure!" I smiled and took them from his hands.
"Yeah, I'm gonna go too. I'll keep the bag with me though." Ethan added before him and Mark walked away.
I walked into Aerie. "Hey," I said to Brooklyn.
She turned around and smiled. "Hey, Esme!" She then looked down and saw I had her bags in my hands now. "Where's Mark and Ethan?"
"Bathroom," I replied. "Ethan and I got our things for tomorrow. They're super ugly!"
Brooklyn laughed in response. She peered her head over and said in a low voice, "Okay so! What are you planning on getting Ethan for Christmas?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, tilting my head to the side. I hadn't really thought about getting Ethan anything.
"If you're his fake girlfriend and you're going to his parents' house for Christmas, you need to get him a gift. So, what do you think you're gonna get him?" She grabbed a couple of her bags from my hands, they were really heavy.
"What am I supposed to get him?" I asked while frowning.
She hummed, "Well what does he like?"
"Um," I muttered while looking at my feet. "Hockey."
Brooklyn nodded her head, "Okay, good start." She bit the tip of her tongue while thinking. "What about a beanie? I've only ever seen him wear the black Carhartt one."
"What's with everyone and their genius ideas today?" I teased, I thought about where we could get him a beanie. "What about Zumiez?"
Brooklyn's smile grew, "yes! Perfect!" She ushered us out of there and we hurried to find the Zumiez on the other side of the mall.
We entered and went straight to the hats section. They had a lot of bucket hats, but they had some variety of beanies. I ignored all the black beanies and tried to find something more colorful. I didn't really know what he liked, so this was me just assuming here. I grabbed a beige Adidas one and showed it to Brooklyn. "What about this one?" I asked her.
She shrugged, "You've gotta figure this out on your own. If I pick it out, it's like he's getting a gift from me and not you." I let out a huff and went back to searching. I picked up a white Vans one and frowned, trying to imagine him wearing it. Nah. Then I found it. A knitted cupcake beanie. It was perfect. I held it up to Brooklyn with a wide grin on my face. "That's... amazing!"
That was it, that was my gift. Now I had both things checked off my list for what I needed to come here for, our FAKE matching couple's outfit and a christmas gift for Ethan.