A Little More You (Jonathan Toews)

Chapter 26

Summer had flown by. The airline miles had racked up on Jon's credit card, flying between Winnipeg and Nashville.

It was October, tonight was the first game of the season. Preseason had been good, he felt better than ever about the team, and life in general. Mati and him had been making their hectic schedules work so that they still got as much time together as possible.

"Bye babe, I love you." Jon told Mati as he kissed her.

"Good luck tonight baby, I'll see you after. Love you." she told him back and gave him one last peck as he disappeared into the locker room.

Mati still had 2 hours before she even had to head towards her seat. She wanted to get dinner with Jamie beforehand but she had to report with the players, in case one of them hurt themselves being an idiot before the game.

The week before, Jon and Mati had both invited Pat and Jamie to dinner one night and made them awkwardly surprise each other. It was so obvious to everyone in the City that they were made for each other....except the two of them. Jamie mentioned something casually that they had been talking since that night, and Mati wanted details. It would have to wait though. 

 She finished going through her itinerary for her week and a half trip back to Nashville. She was working on her first full album and it was another 10 days of recording and rerecording for 12 hours a day. She honestly couldn't wait. She had pushed back her flight to a red eye tonight to be at the first home game. The team was leaving for a road trip in two days which ended in Nashville, and Mati had conveniently been asked to sing the anthem at Bridgestone that night, so at least she'd see Jon in a week.

During warm ups, she caught Jon's eye and he started making faces at her. He always made her laugh. She blew him kisses, which earned her dirty looks from the girls around her. Mati mentally rolled her eyes.

She cheered as loud as she could when the Captain was announced...the atmosphere was intoxicating. Anyone who had anything bad to say about hockey had obviously never been to a game before.

Unfortunately, her cheers turned to groans of disappointment as the Hawks lost the game 3-2. Jon had been so close to tying it up but Lundqvist was just too damn impenetrable.

She knew Jon wasn't going to be happy, but she wasn't expecting a reaction like the one she got. Since they had ridden together, Mati had to wait for Jon to be done with media. When he emerged from the locker room, she stepped forward to greet him but she kissed his cheek and wrapped her arms around him with no return. He mumbled hi to her and kept walking towards the car. She struggled to keep up with his pace but didn't feel like telling him to slow down and opening that up.

They rode back in silence with the occasional sigh from Jon.

He finally opened up when they stepped into their home.

"Jesus...for fuck's sake we lose the first game of the season at home? Why have we even been practicing since we all obviously forgot what the fuck we were doing out there." he vented.

"Babe it sucks but there's 81 other games left...and it was so close. You were so close."

He gave her an icy look.

"Close doesn't win games, Mati."

She just closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"But you tried-"

"Stop saying such stupid stuff. Close and try don't win cups." He cut her off. "Can we just go watch a movie or something? I just want to lay down and try to forget about this."