Angels of Long Island | Mathew Barzal

~14~

Eventually, we pull up to a house in Garden City. It's a decent sized house but you can definitely tell someone rich lives there. Even from the front of the house, I can hear music echoing from the back. Mat gets out of the car and walks around the front of it and takes my hand. We walk inside the house, which is bumbling with people. We're barely in the house before someone spots Mat and comes over, saying hello. I just smile politely as we weave through people out to the backyard of this house, which was beautiful.

Once outside, Tito finds Mat and comes over to us. "You got her to come! Good job buddy!" They both laugh and then a blonde girl comes over to us as well and gives Mat a small hug. Once she lets go, Tito puts his arm around her waist and his hand in her back pocket. I'm guessing it's his girlfriend or the gesture would be a little weird. "it's good to see you again Barzy!" The blonde says. "It's good to see you too, Laur." He says. "Lex, this is Tito's girlfriend Lauren. Lauren, this is Lexi." She steps forward with no hesitation to give me a hug. "It's so nice to meet you! Are you keeping this one in shape?" She asks, pointing her thumb towards Mat. "I'm attempting to." I say, laughing. "Anthony said Mat said you're in college?" She asks. "Yeah, I'm a journalism major at Stony Brook." I tell her. Mat and Anthony take this moment to leave us and go talk to more of the guys. "That's cool! That's not far from here. My cousin went to SBU." She explains. "It's a nice campus." I say. "So how long have you and Mat been together?" She asks, sitting down on a chair, patting the one next to her for me to sit on. "We're not actually together, we're kinda just hanging out but it's been a month or so." I tell her. "Wait, you guys aren't dating?" She asks. "Nope." I smile. "Girl, I'm sure it's coming." Lauren says, laughing. "Were you nervous about coming?" She asks. "A little." I say, looking at my surroundings and noticing Mathew isn't anywhere to be seen. "It's ok, being a hockey girlfriend can be intimidating. I know you're not actually a girlfriend yet but the guys don't bring just anybody to these. Don't worry, I was scared when Anthony brought me for the first time too, but everyone is so nice. All the girls are super cool. They'll all be here tonight." Lauren explains. I give a shy smile. "Don't worry, they'll all like you." She reassures me. Just then, Anthony and Mat return. Lauren and I stand and Mat asks me "Do you want a drink?" "Sure!" I say. He takes my hand and leads me over to the table where alcohol bottles are lined up and there's a keg under the table. Mat hands me a cup and I make myself a drink while he pours himself beer from the keg into a red cup. He takes a sip before we walk around the backyard. He introduces me to a couple of the guys and their wives or girlfriends including Sydney and Matt Martin, Jordan and Lauren Eberle and Tanner Fritz. For most of the time, Mat has a hand on my lower back when talking to people. Lauren was right, all the wives and girlfriends are really nice, they all gave me hugs and told me who nice it was to meet me.

People started to get in the pool before the sun went down and the weather got cold, including Mathew. I was sitting in a lounge chair talking to Lauren and Cassie Clutterbuck and Mat, who was sitting at the end of my chair. Anthony asked him to go for a swim and he stood up and took his hat, shoes and sunglasses off and handed them all to me. Next was his shirt; he grabbed the back collar of his tshirt and pulled it over his head, leaving him in his swim trunks. And let me just say, wow! I tried not to flip out cause the girls were sitting next to me but he certainly was fine. It seemed like every muscle in his torso was defined and his arms were perfectly toned. He turned around for just a moment but his back muscles were just as defined as the front of him. I also saw the necklace he was wearing was a smallish cross on a silver chain. I bit my bottom lip to keep myself from beaming ear to ear. He looks back at me and tosses me his shirt. "Hold onto that for me, eh?" He smirks at me and then dives into the pool. "Goddamn." I mutter to myself as I'm sticking his things in my bag so they don't get lost. "It's ok if you want to say he's hot." Lauren says, laughing. She heard me. I laugh too and Cassie says "It's not like we'll judge you, he's not our boyfriend."

We sit there for a little while, watching the guys play basketball. Since he wasn't paying attention, I kept my eyes on Mat, admiring how fit he was and how good looking he was even with his hair all wet and wrestling with his team in the pool. Eventually the game died down and some of the guys went into the hot tub. "Lex!" I look away from my conversation with Lauren to see Mat waving for me to join him. I stand up from my chair and throw my hair up in a bun so it doesn't get wet. Even from across the yard, I can feel Mathew's eyes on me as I take off my shirt first and then my shorts, leaving me in my suit. I turn back in the direction of the hot tub and see Mat staring. I stride over to the hot tub and step in carefully. I go to sit down next to Mat, who had other ideas. Just as I go to sit, he puts his hands on my hips and pulls me onto his lap. Once I'm seated, he wraps his arms around my middle. "Smooth." I mumble in his ear. "You look really good." He whispers in mine. After a few minutes, some of the other girls join in the hot tub. A couple sitting on their man's lap, like I was. I had my arms around Mat's shoulders, one hand running through his wet hair.

"So Lex, tell us about yourself." Jordan Eberle speaks up. "Well I'm from Roslyn Estates Village. My parents still live there, I'm getting ready to graduate early from Stony Brook and I have a brother who's a lawyer." I explain.

"Her dad is a sales rep for CCM." Mat speaks up. "Oh that's cool! Is he the one who fitted me for skates?" Lehner asks. "Yeah" I laugh a little nervously. "I was there that day." I add. "I remember seeing you." Rob says. "So how did you meet Mat?" Sydney asks. "I was at Starbucks one night after a game with my roommate and mat paid for my drink. Pretty boring." I joke. Everyone laughs. "Well, nevertheless, welcome to the Isles Crew, for as long as you're here!" Tito speaks up. Everyone mini cheers and we spend more time in the hot tub. Lehner gets out and offers to get drinks for anyone. "Barzy, want one?" He shakes his head no and says "I have to drive." I don't know why, but even him saying that simple line was attractive. "So Matty, guess who decided to conveniently bump into me at Aura last week." Lauren says. "I can guess." He responds, a tad annoyed. "Yeah, Abby made sure to make her presence known that she's back." She says. "Sorry Lex." She adds. "Not a problem. We saw her there a couple weeks ago too." I say. I could see the annoyed look on Mat's face out of the corner of my eye so I put my hand on top of his, which was on my thigh and slide my fingers between his. His tense hand, which was squeezing my leg loosened when I held his hand.

Eventually, people got back in the pool; myself and Mat included. I managed to not get my hair wet when floating around with him. At one point, we backed into the edge of the pool deck and I had my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist and back against the wall as he stood in the water. He had his arms around my waist. Everyone else had gathered at the other end of the pool. Mat just spent a few moments looking in my eyes and all of a sudden he put a wet hand at the base of my neck, moving his face just centimeters from mine. He was going to kiss me. Just as he was about to, I heard splashing and yelling coming towards us and he pulled back just in time for Tito to shove him underwater, getting me wet in the process. We laughed when he came back up.

It was getting late when Mat decided it was timeto go. We had both been sitting by the fireplace, getting dry and I stood upoff his lap when he announced we were leaving. Lauren was the first to hug megoodbye and then Cassie and Lauren Eberle and Sydney. Rob Lehner even stood andhugged me too. "Thanks for coming Lexi! Hope we didn't scare you off." He says,chuckling. "No no no! It was so much fun, thank you for having me!" I said. Matsaid his goodbyes and we headed back over to the chair where my bag had ourclothes in it. Mat handed me my shorts and shirt and pulled his tshirt back on.He slid his sandals on and fished his keys out of my bag. We yelled one lastgoodbye before he took my hand and we headed back out to the car. He unlockedit and we got in. Just as he was sitting down and putting his seatbelt on, heyawned. I looked at the clock on his dash and it read 12:36 am. "You know, bythe time you get me back and you get home yourself, it'll be like 2:30 or 3 o'clock." I say. "Yeah." He says. "You gonna make it?" I ask, chuckling. "I'msure I'll be ok." He says, yawning again. "I think not. Don't you live aroundhere? Just take my back to your place and I can have Sophia come get me." Isuggest. "Or you could just stay." He mumbles, thinking I didn't hear. "Or Icould do that." I say. He looks at me, almost shocked. "Really? I was kidding,you don't have to-" He rambles. I put a hand on his thigh across the centerconsole and say "It's fine. I don't mind. Besides, tomorrow's Saturday." I say."OK, my place it is then." He says, putting the car in drive and driving away.