COMPLETED. A university student. A professional hockey player. They've proved they can be friends. Can they be more?
Although they're both in their early twenties and living in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, their lives couldn't be more different. Cami...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I had to force myself to take a nap this afternoon.
You'd think that after the crappy sleep I got the night before that my body would welcome the extra rest willingly. Hell, even after a solid ten hours I had an affinity to doze off midday.
But no, today my mind was moving a mile a minute and it felt like my body was moving even faster as I paced around my bedroom. As much as I tried to tell the small rational part of my brain that Taylor coming over for dinner was no biggie, it wouldn't listen.
I wouldn't listen.
I was a terrible liar and that applied to the ones I told myself.
Maybe it was because the idea of meeting someone's family all at once and sharing a meal with them was my personal anxiety nightmare, so I was getting nervous for Taylor. Like, on his behalf.
Dear god, I hope he's not nervous.
Things will go south real quick if he brings any anxiety for mine to feed off.
I texted him last night to make sure that lasagna was okay, and he assured me that it was. The chance of him having a problem with it was unlikely, because in his own words, he liked everything. Still, I would have hated for my mother to go through all the trouble of making it just for someone at the table to not like it.
Yeah, my mom was cooking for tonight, not me. That was the way it had to be, unless the meal was macaroni and cheese from a box.
When I told her I had invited someone over, she didn't think much of it. At first.
"Yeah, okay, no problem. You know Angela is welcome over anytime," she had said while scrolling through Pinterest on her phone.
Okay, fine; I could see why she would immediately come to that conclusion, even if it did sting a little that it didn't cross her mind that I could have other friends.
"Um, no, it's not Angela. It's someone I met at school. His name is Taylor."
That wasn't a lie! I met him at Angela's dorm, which was on campus, which was school. Technically we met after the preseason game, but that was so brief that I decided not to count that.
"Oh, a boy?" My mom gave me her full attention at that point.
"Yes." I said, keeping it simple
That was the reaction you get when it's the first time in your entire life that you bring a boy home. Actually, that's not quite accurate. There was Nathan, in grade seven, who came over to work on a science project.
And there was that face. Oh god, that face.
See, I'm incredibly fortunate because I have a kick ass mom that I feel like I can talk to about anything. Well, almost anything. Because any time I brought up a boy—whether I thought one was cute or had a crush—she got this look like she was simultaneously holding in diarrhea and finishing a marathon.
