#feels so lonely watching stuff like top boy or snowfall sometimes

[jrueships]

i wish more ppl watched the kinda shows i do but also have the similar humor i do :(

[pillage-and-lute]

How about-Hanahaki disease? Gerald/Jaskier? Happy ending please!

Nonny! Darling you read my mind, I’m an ‘angst with a happy ending’ kinda gal. Just so we’re clear, I know nothing of flower meanings and I didn’t research.

TW: Gore

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Jaskier first coughed up a flower at age three.

Poets loved Hanahaki, it was considered romantic, and those prone to it were tragic beauties, destined to languish, delicately spitting blood and rose petals into a silk handkerchief. No one really wrote about how it could be brought on by deeply unrequited platonic love.

Jaskier coughed a violet into his little fist and brought it to his mother, who turned him away.

Fifteen years down the line and having graduated Oxenfurt with honors, Jaskier was old hat at taking care of Hanahaki. His feelings, although often unrequited, were also often fleeting. A night spent coughing tulips into a bowl and a sore throat the next mroning, but rarely more than that.

If it persisted for a week or more there was tea. Any apothecary in even a mid sized city carried it. It was putrid and thick and slid down the throat like a cup of slugs, but in the morning there were no petals, and after two or three days of the stuff, the disease was gone. 

He was almost thankful for being so prone to Hanahaki, it was romantic and lended much to his chosen profession. People gave him sympathetic looks and free drinks if he sang a sad song and discreetly spat a rose petal into a handkerchief. Most of the time he simply didn’t mind it, and considered himself twice blessed with his mobile heart.

Sometimes he had nightmares of what would happen if he found true love.

The notions of true love itself was romantic, but everyone knew that your true love, the one you were fated to, if they didn’t love you in return no tea would save you.

He’d watched a friend, a grad student at Oxenfurt, die of it. It was no delicate coughing into handkerchiefs, no poetic languishing. He’d held her hair back as she threw up petals and blood, crying as she clutched the bucket with skeletal hands because she could no longer force food down a torn throat. 

It had been so slow, she’d said between pulling thorned stems from her mouth. More than a decade of loving the boy she’d had a crush on in her small town village. She’d lived through it all, only occassionally throwing up flowers. Always snow white roses, for him, apparently. It would have been wonderfully artistic if Jaskier didn’t know how they looked covered in blood.

Then she’d gone to his wedding to the baker’s daughter and two weeks later he watched her cough out roots wrapped around a chunk of lung and screamed for a doctor knowing it was too late. The blood stain never washed fully out of the floor.

And she’d said it was worth it. That she wouldn’t have stopped loving him for the world, even as she said it through a throat full of thorns. 

Jaskier never understood it, leaping from town to town, avoiding long term connections while knowing all the while that if fate wanted him to fall in love he would. Denying Destiny only made things nastier, he knew. And then, in a tevern in Posada, with bread in his pants and a hole in his boot, his eyes met pure gold. 

It took a split second, less probably, for him to realize that, although he didn’t love the man yet, for love at first sight truly is a poet’s myth, he could love this man. And if he died for this man, maybe the love would be worth it after all.

The man was a witcher, who punched him in the gut and stank of onion and talked to his horse. Jaskier followed him anyway.

He followed him and coughed up flowers, different blossoms for different people, and he began to fall deeper in love. He wondered sometimes what flowers he would cough, as the bouquets turned into only one kind. 

What flower would represent Geralt? Not buttercups or dandelions, certainly. Perhaps if someone else were to catch Hanahaki for Jaskier those would be for him. Geralt wasn’t a dandelion. He was grumpy and spiky and after ten years wouldn’t even call Jaskier a friend. 

In the dead of night Jaskier feared it would be white roses, like he’d seen once before.

And then Geralt died in a collapsing building only to be alive and fucking a purple-eyed sorceress after nearly killing Jaskier with a djinn. Jaskier vomited flowers not twelve hours after vomiting blood.

Snow drops, tiny and delicate. And from that point forth he never coughed up any other kind.

It didn’t progress so quickly though. Jaskier had expected to die within a month of Geralt meeting Yennefer. He didn’t. Love and sex weren’t the same thing, and his love didn’t go totally unrequited either. It wasn’t the same sort of love, but in the quiet moments just after dawn it was enough. 

Then Geralt made a choice.

He wouldn’t kill dragons, he didn’t hunt sapient creatures, he wanted nothing to do with the dragon hunt, until he caught sight of Yennefer.

And that left Geralt and Jaskier, on top of a mountain, as Geralt screamed into the wind that Jaskier meant nothing to him. Jaskier felt the roots set in.

He wasn’t going to get the story from the others. He could barely breathe, the pain was so sharp and intense and he could feel it growing, feel the flowers growing. Little snowdrops had no right to be so painful.

He wasn’t going to make it off the mountain.

Jaskier took a different trail down, and then wandered into the forest a little way, coughing blood and stems the whole way. He collapsed under a tree, blood staining his doublet. He wished he had a friend to clutch his hand, hold his hair back and rub his back like he’d done more than twenty years ago. 

There wouldn’t be a funeral though. No one would know what had happened to Jaskier the bard. Worse, no one would know what happened to Julian, the person, the man. As he threw up a clump of flowers and blood he felt very much like the scared little boy who threw up a flower for the first time. 

It hurt. It burned and shredded his throat and he wanted a friend and he didn’t have any. He’d thrown all his eggs in one basket twenty years ago and Geralt had kicked that basket off the mountain. 

Jaskier leaned his lute up against the tree. It’d be such a shame to get blood on the lovely girl. He curled up next to it, in a fetal position on his side as the coughs wracked his whole body. 

His friend had lasted two weeks, he thought. But her rejection was a wedding. Not her best friend and the love of her life telling her never to see him again. That he was a burden. That if life or Destiny could give him one blessing it would be to take Jaskier off his hands. And Destiny was going to deliver. She had made Jaskier love Geralt, and she would kill him by it. 

Still, Jaskier would have given anything for the comfort of his friend right now. He began to cry, snot and tears and blood and petals all mixing. He couldn’t even breathe, his lungs burned so bad. 

His vision was blurry.

He could hear noises, tromping through the forest and who knew what awful creatures lurked here. Just like Dame Destiny to have him disembowled while dying of Hanahaki.

It was dark, but it had been noon on the mountain. Black clouds swirled and closed in his vision.

A strangled noise.

No monster made that noise. That was a man-made noise. It sounded very much how Jaskier had felt on the mountaintop. He retched up a flower and tasted pollen and iron.

“Jaskier!”

He didn’t remember hallucinations being part of the final stages, but the brain played funny tricks.

“Jaskier!” There it was again, and he was being bundled up tight to a chest that was not at all comfortable and smelled of horse and leather and sweat and onion. A buckle of Geralt’s armor dug into his cheek. Jaskier’s mouth was full of stems and roots.

GLoved fingers dug in, pulling snowdrops from between his lips and then Geralt kissed him. It was entirely awful and unsatisfying. 

Dimly Jaskier came to the realization that it was not supposed to a kiss, but Geralt trying to blow air into his flowering lungs. A nice gesture but unhelpful.

He lolled his head to the side to throw up another clump of root, not wanting to throw up directly into Geralt’s mouth. 

A shudder ran through the chest he was pressed against, like a tremor before an earthquake. Then a sob.

It was quiet. The worst sobs are. 

Geralt lay Jaskier down on the floor, one hand cupped beneath his head, gently cradling. Then the witcher curled next to him, face pressed against a pale neck streaked with blood, and cried.

Jaskier wanted to comfort him, to stroke a hand through soft white hair one last time and thank him for not letting him die alone. He just didn’t have the strength.

Another wretched, tiny sob, then, “I’m sorry, Jaskier. I’m so sorry.” Oh that wasn’t fair. A tear leaked from Jaskier’s eye.

“I’m sorry,” Geralt continued, face pressed into Jaskier’s collarbone. “I didn’t mean it, I was angry and tired and I’ve hurt you but please,” the voice faded to barely a whisper. “Please don’t leave me, I didn’t mean it, I love you don’t leave me here alone.”

Don’t leave him here alone. Jaskier though. Destiny owed him, owed them both for all she’d put them through. Don’t make him lonely, he prayed. I don’t want to leave him alone.

Geralt held Jaskier tighter, pressing even closer like he was trying to meld them into one. “I love you,” he said. “I’m sorry, Jaskier. I love you.”

The world went white.

Jaskier blinked his eyes open with blood in his mouth. It didn’t seem to deter Geralt, who kissed him so thoroughly his head felt light. Then Geralt pulled him upright. There was blood on the ground around them, some even streaked into Geralt’s hair. 

There were no stems though.

The forest floor had been carpeted for ten feet all around them with snowdrops, planted firmly in earth instead of lungs. They were so close together it looked like a sudden snowfall, trailing to fewer and farther between at the edges of their little pool of white. 

“I...” Jaskier said, letting Geralt pull him to his feet. He wasn’t sure what to say but it turns out he needn’t say anything. Geralt was clutching him like a lifeline and tucking a snowdrop into his hair.

“I smelled blood,” he said, lips brushing into Jaskier’s brown fringe. “I smelled blood and was so afraid. I haven’t been truly afraid in so long and then I found those wretched flowers.” Geralt took a shaky breath. 

“I truly thought it was too late.” He pulled back and looked into Jaskier’s eyes. Geralt’s own yellow ones were dry but the emotion was clear. “I thought I had lost you, my love.” A gloved hand, only slightly bloody stroked Jaskier’s cheek. “I thought I had lost you, my life’s greatest gift. And I wanted to lay down beside you and die as well.”

Jaskier chuckled wetly. “You overdramatic sod,” he said between watery sniffles. “What a ridiculous notion. And I can’t believe it takes me dying to turn you into a romantic.”

“Almost dying,” Geralt said firmly. There was panic written plain across his face, as if he was terrified that time would slam into reverse just to take Jaskier from him. Another embrace, just this side of bone crushing. “Almost dying, my love.”

“Not dead, my love,” Jaskier responded. 

As they made their way down the mountain snowdrops bloomed in their footsteps, but they were too busy looking at each other to notice.

[blackholeofprocrastination]

So I came across these pics of Tom Hopper picking up sack of grains and boxes and stuff and I was imagining what if Dickon escaped to North/WF and Sansa gives him residence bc noone deserves to be burnt to death but obviously he has to take up an alias. He helps in restoration of WF. He totally falls in love w/ Sansa bc who wouldn't. She's the best. And he keeps calling her queen and highkey trying his best to make her smile or life easier for her etc. And he's muscled like a bull

Super buff Dickon throwing sacks of grain around Winterfell? You’re talking my language nonny! I’m fashionably late to the Dicksa party but here’s some silly ‘What if Dany Didn’t Barbecue Dickon’ AU fic for ya. (Ignores the shows current Stark Sister drama cuz…who’s got time for that nonsense?)

The Snow It Melts The Soonest When The Winds Begin To Sing

Winterfell has become a near constant raucous of shouts and sounds. 

Outside it’s walls, the Winter town is filled to bursting with smallfolk from every inch of the North, clambering to Winterfell for protection from the war and winter to come. Hovels and tents are thrown together alongside the existing thatch-roofed homes. Their camp is a lively one, men and women and children and livestock all huddled on top of one another. At night, their voices carry over the thick walls of the keep as they gather together, seeking warmth from meager peat fires.

For most within the keep, the flagging daylight hours are spent in the yard, the singing of steel upon steel ringing out as Brienne leads those who can hold a sword through their paces. Sometimes Arya is with them. She moves through the lines, quiet as a shadowcat, offering the occasional encouragements to soldiers and shepherd boys alike. 

More often Arya can be found in the smithy, perched on an anvil, watching the smiths with a queer almost forlorn sort of attentiveness.

She worries for Jon, Sansa suspects.

The first sledges bearing dragon glass had arrived two moon’s ago. Since then, the fires in the forge have been kept stoked at all hours, hammers falling in a steady rhythm, shooting off sparks as spears and swords and pikes are fashioned out of the peculiar black stone. Sansa prays it will be enough.

Inside of the keep it is no quieter. There are more mouths to feed than ever (and increasingly less with which to feed them). The kitchens are a flurry of wooden spoons scraping against great cauldrons of porridge and broth. Dough smacks against wide-planked wood tables. Roasts of what the huntsmen bring back from the Wolfswood crackle as they turn on great spits. 

What women who are not busy, armed with a spear or ladle, gather around the fire in the great hall, spinning and knitting wool, their heads bent close, their voices like a low hum of a beehive. Sansa watches them sometimes. It makes her heart ache, bringing to mind simpler afternoons spent sat close with Jeyne Poole, their noses buried in their stitching. 

There are days when the Lady of Winterfell wants to escape it all. Wants to hide away in the silence of the godswood (as Bran has done since Meera Reed rode out from their gates). 

Still, there are more days when she is grateful to be surrounded by the chaos and the noise. She had not thought to see this again. 

For so long, she had supposed Winterfell lost to her. Memories of direwolf banners draped along it’s walls, of the warmth from the fire in the Great Hall, of the courtyard just after a snowfall when the ground was fresh and new…they had been her comfort in those lonely years in the South. She dreamed of it. Prayed for it. Home.

It is a shadow of what it once was. There are too many ghosts that dwell here to be truly happy. She is grateful just the same.

Sansa is making her way to the Great Keep, having spent a tedious morning consulting with the head carpenter and mason on what is needed to restore the glass gardens, when a startling sound catches her attention near the granary.

At first she thinks it only the low murmur of men’s voices as they see to their work, but as she draws nearer she realizes it is something she scarcely believed she’d hear within these walls again. Singing.

“Afield, afield, afield, I be,When a maid did smile at me.‘Twas fair Jenny, the goatherd’s daughter,Sent to fetch a pail of water.”

Sansa used to pride herself on knowing all sorts of songs and stories. Not just the dark tales Old Nan would spin before sending them off to their beds or the songs her mother would sing when she brushed her hair. Sansa remembers how she used to plead with her father every time a singer or minstrel came to their gates, begging that they might stay just a sennight longer. Long enough that she might learn their songs by heart.

But this is song she does not know.

“My lady?” Podrick asks when she lingers too long at the granary door. Sansa offers the squire an absent smile.

“Would you see the steward receives the estimates for the glass, Podrick?”

“Right away, my lady.” Pod bows, taking the offered ledgers and scurrying towards the Great Keep.

Sansa watches him leave before pushing through doors. Several men are occupied moving sacks of barley and oats out of sledges and wagons into the granary. They are Southron men. Soldiers, some of them even knights.

She has no illusions to why they are here. They are meant to be a gift of goodwill from this dragon queen. And while Sansa knows the North will not be so easily bought (no matter what Jon might have promised), she is not in a position to refuse the additional hands and stores that came with the arrival of the Reach men to Winterfell.

She is startled when she sees their commander is among them. Dickon Tarly is a difficult man to miss. He is easily the tallest man in Winterfell (taller than Brienne even), as well as broad and comely. Striking. The sort of man one can’t help but notice.

His arrival at Winterfell has proved a disruption to her household. More than once, Sansa’s come across a serving girl neglecting her duty in favor of idling by the practice yard, pink cheeked and giggling while the Reach knights train. And though Sansa has given her share of stern warnings on the matter, that hasn’t stopped a few of the bolder ones from batting their lashes at the young lord while serving him supper in the Hall.

Once, Sansa might have also looked on him with admiration. But Sansa is not that girl anymore. She has known the ugliness of this world, seen it lurk behind pretty faces, and she wants no part of it.

“A plea, a plea I made with she,That she might linger there with me,She offered me a drink of water,Did Jenny fair, the goatherd’s daughter.”

She’s close enough to pick out his somewhat unpolished baritone amidst the singing. It is a pleasant sound. Warm and deep and cheerful.

Sansa watches him with curiosity. She knows he is now the lord of Horn Hill. His father was sentenced to dragon fire, a fate the young lordling is said to have barely escaped. And his elder brother, Jon’s Samwell, is a sworn brother of the Night’s Watch, and unable to inherit his father’s seat. Yet for all that, here he is with his common fighting men, singing and shouldering sacks of barley alongside them and seemingly happy to do so.

Winter has come but you wouldn’t know it from inside the granary. It is stifling, much too close to the hot springs which heat the walls throughout the keep. Already the snow has melted in Sansa’s hair and the fur mantle that had barely kept the chill from creeping into her bones outside, now seems absurdly heavy. 

Many men have removed their cloaks and tunics, stripping to the waist. Sansa is long past being scandalized by such things. Still, something uneasy settles in her stomach as she watches Dickon Tarly heft another sack out of a wagon. Sweat slicks his skin, rivets leaving visible trails down the sharp lines of his chest and stomach.

Muscled like a bull.

That’s what she’d overheard one of the serving girls say when Sansa had caught them hovering near the practice yard. Sansa thinks she’s beginning to understand what the girl had meant now.

She feels even more uncomfortably warm than before. She should go. But before she can retreat back to the keep, she is noticed by one of the Reach knights.

“My lady!” he hails, pausing in his work to offer her a bow. The sentiment is echoed by the others, as dozens of eyes turn to her.

Sansa insides churn, as she cannot help but feel she has been caught doing something she should not. But that is foolish. This is her keep. She may go where she likes.

“Please!” she says. “I did not mean to interrupt your work. Carry on.”

She is relieved when another chorus of ‘my lady’ is murmured around the room and the men all return to their tasks…all but one.

“Lady Stark, is there anything you need?” Lord Tarly asks, crossing towards her. He has hastily pulled a tunic over his head, but the ties are undone revealing a stretch of collarbone that Sansa tries tries to keep her eyes from focusing on.

“No…no,” she stammers, feeling foolish. “I heard the singing and I…no.”

Silence stretches between them. She hopes that Lord Tarly will return to his work as the others have done, but he remains.

“That song,” she says, when she’s gathered enough wits and courage to speak again. “I’ve not heard it before.”

Color floods the lordling’s face, as he ducks his gaze away from her. Sansa is not the only one to be caught out, it seems.

“It’s from home.”

“Oh.”

“The smallfolk…they sing it when it’s time for the haymaking.”

There is a bashful smile on his face that leaves Sansa’s traitorous heart quickening in her chest.

“And what happens then?” she asks. “To your goatherd’s daughter?”

He is flushed to the tips of his ears now, Sansa notices with some amusement, and from the way he will no longer meet her eye, she suspects the answer must be something he deems too bawdy for a lady’s ears.

“I’m not sure I remember,” he mumbles, confirming Sansa’s suspicions.

“Pity,” she shakes her head in disappointment, fighting the sudden urge to smile. “I’m very fond of songs.”

He blinks, thrown for a moment. Good.

“If that is true, my lady, then perhaps…” he pauses, something uncertain and eager dancing in his eyes. “perhaps you would honor me with a song someday?”

She smiles for true now.

“Aye, my lord. Perhaps.”

[madminniefics]

Six months after graduating from Tulane University, Sadie Neal is on a one-way trip to Buffalo, New York to start her first real, big girl job with the local professional hockey team, the Buffalo Sabres. The problem? Sadie knows next to nothing about hockey. They use pucks, not balls. They wear skates, not cleats. And they play on ice, not grass. That’s it. How is she supposed to represent them on social media when she doesn’t even know what icing means outside of baking?

Louis Tomlinson (#91 / RW) is coming off a career high season (79 games, 20 goals, 30 assists, 50 total points) that he’s trying to recreate. The goal: Lord Stanley’s Cup. There’s a magic in the locker room that feels like it could be their year. He stays focused by keeping hockey and his personal life separate. Everyone knows that.

Everyone except Sadie.

Bright Eyes / chapter one

When Sadie got off the airplane, the freezing air blowing in from between the cracks of the jet way made all her little hairs stand on end. The breeze blew snow up from the ground, swirled it around the windows, before dropping it back to the concrete and starting over. She shivered, rubbing her bare hands together, as she walked to the baggage claim. She was a long, long way from home. It was almost a different country.

A long way from sun beating down on her skin, warming her entire body as she tilted her head towards it, welcoming the heat. A long way from bikini’s in November and shorts year-round. From sipping fruity drinks with your toes in the sand and sunglasses on your face. Did it even get warm in Buffalo?

What she wouldn’t do to be back home in the unbearable heat and humidity. Matter fact, what she wouldn’t do to be somewhere in the middle. Not too hot, not too cold. But noooo. Have an adventure, Sadie. Do something different, Sadie. Do it while you’re young, Sadie. If she could do the last six months over, she would. Was it too late to turn around and go back to New Orleans? Surely the Saints were hiring.

Her hot pink suitcase was easy to spot five minutes after the bags began dropping onto the conveyor belt. She set her light blue backpack down next to her leather duffle bag so she could wrangle her massive suitcase from the baggage platform. It had been a graduation gift from her momma and it was its first time she’d had a chance to use it.

Sadie pouted when she noticed the huge, black stain across the front of her suitcase. Brand new and already ruined. That’s why she hated flying. Humans weren’t meant to be all up in the sky like that. If they had been, people would have evolved to have wings.

Struggling to carry all her bags, she walked slowly towards the door that advertised taxis were waiting outside. Before she knew it, she was in the backseat zipping through the highway towards her hotel. According to an email she received from a ‘Harry Styles’ in human resources, the hotel the Buffalo Sabres were putting her up in for a week was in walking distance from the stadium and it was clean. The second part scared her a bit—to be real, the first part did because it was colder than ice cubes in January and she hated to walk in the cold—because she wasn’t trying to sleep in a dirty bed. Just thinking about what other people did in hotel beds made her want to gag.

She laid her head on the window as she watched the scenery speed by. The traffic was minimal, it was almost 10pm, and they made it to the hotel in less than 20 minutes. What she’d seen of the city before moving there was via the satellite option on Google Maps. So, not much. There was so much green space. It made her happy even though she knew it would all be covered in snow in a few weeks. What surprised her the most was that, at least in the area where her hotel was, was an actual city. It looked like any other city she’d been to. Maybe Buffalo wouldn’t be so bad.

“Thank you so much,” Sadie said as the taxi driver removed her bags from the trunk. He nodded at her before getting back in the car and speeding off. She took a deep breath, grabbed her bags, and walked into the lobby to check in.

There was a busy week ahead of her. So far on her to do list:

Find an apartment and move in within seven days

First day of real work

Learn hockey

Shouldn’t be hard for someone who graduated with honors…right?

///

In the morning, Sadie learned, the hard way, that she’d forgotten to leave the heater on. She huddled under the thin, cheap, hotel comforter for an extra half an hour trying to extract all the heat from its threads. That only left her shivering against cold blankets. At least she’d slept with socks on the night before; something she’d never done before in her life.

Once she got out of bed, though, Sadie cranked the heat as high as it would go (75-degrees) and took the hottest shower she’d ever taken. Her skin was still slightly pink as she walked into the offices in the bowels of KeyBank Center. The walk had been nearly 20 minutes from the hotel to the stadium, partially beneath a highway, which she didn’t consider “walking distance.” She added ‘Talk to Harry Styles about what ‘walking distance’ means’ onto her mental to-do list.

And, to top it all off, her toes were freezing thanks to a freak snowfall the night before. There was less than an inch on the ground and everyone was going about their normal business. Sadie was amazed. Back home, every store, school, and office would close. One inch meant road closures and, sometimes, the whole city shutting down. But in Buffalo, it was just another day. Sadie sighed and pushed her cold feet out of her mind. Before knocking on the door in front of her, she shook her head and replaced her disgruntled look with her signature smile.

The familiar face that appeared from behind the door made Sadie feel just the slightest bit better about her morning. Gabe Sanders, Marketing Director for the Buffalo Sabres, looked like he was having a worse morning than Sadie. She felt for him. She couldn’t imagine how long he’d been living in Buffalo, but she imagined if she had been living there for as long as he probably had she would have that same look on her face all the time. That ‘Why-am-I-here, what-am-I-doing-with-my-life’ type of look. All dead, red eyes, stubble, and bags under his eyes.

“Sadie, hey,” He said, punctuated by a large sigh. Sadie felt his breath on the exposed skin of her hands. She made a mental note to buy a pair of mittens. “Come on, I’ll show you to your cube.”

She struggled to keep from bouncing as she followed Gabe back into a room off the main corridor. There was a multitude of cubicles—too many to count—some with a head popping out, some not. It reminded Sadie of whack a mole. Gabe stopped next to a cubicle with a plastic plaque that read ‘H. Styles’ on the outside and knocked twice. Sitting in the chair was a man with short brown hair pushed back from his face, a white button up Oxford shirt, and brown khaki pants with some sort of brown, casual work shoe. So much brown.

“Harry, this is Sadie, it’s her first day. If you wanna, hook her up with her log in and stuff, I have a meeting,” Gabe said as soon as Harry turned around. “Let me know if you need anything, Sadie.”

She nodded and Gabe took off. She had trouble keeping her emotions off her face. He was just going to leave her like that? On her first day? She knew she sold herself on that Skype interview but…for real? Harry laughed at the anxious look on her face and she blinked.

“I’ll help you log in and direct you to Vic Stephens, one of the marketing assistants. She’ll be able to help you with all the other information you need.”

Sadie let out a breath in a whoosh. “Thank you so much.”

“No problem, follow me,” He said, standing from his chair and walking two rows over to an empty cubicle with a plastic plaque that read ‘S. Neal’ on the outside. She bit her lip to keep from squealing. Baby’s first cubicle! She made a mental note to take a picture of herself with the sign later, to send to her momma. “Here’s your cube. You can put your jacket and stuff down and I’ll show you to Vic’s cube.”

Nodding, Sadie dumped her black shoulder bag and her dark green, faux fur lined parka on the chair. She retucked the back of her mint green blouse into her straight legged black pants. Three cubes down sat a woman with long, bright purple hair. She turned around with a massive grin after Harry did a special knock on her cube. Her eyes widened when she saw Sadie.

“New girl?” She said.

“Sadie, yeah.” Harry said.

“Yes! I’m so excited,” This she said towards Sadie. “Marketing is such a boy’s club.”

Sadie chuckled because she didn’t know what else to do. She didn’t want things to be awkward on her first day and she really wanted to make friends with her coworkers. She didn’t know anyone in the city and that would get real lonely, real quick.

“I’ve got a bunch of stuff for you,” Vic noticed how Sadie’s eyes widened. “To help you get acclimated! Not huge work stuff, not yet. Just some manuals and ‘how-to’ type stuff. They’re in your email already.”

“Perfect,” Sadie beamed. “Thank you.”

“No problem, I’m here for you if you ever need anything.”

Sadie nodded as Harry wrangled her back to her cubicle. He helped her set up her computer and email log in information before leaving with a ‘Let me know if you need anything!’ Looking around at the bare walls of her cubicle, Sadie took out a tiny picture, in a gold frame, from her purse and set it next to the computer. The picture was of a dark skinned man with an impressive afro, in his late-twenties, holding a seven-year-old girl, dressed head-to-toe in Barney clothing, that looked like a clone of the man. Sadie smiled at the picture before pulling her phone out and taking a selfie.

To: Momma

First day 😬

She attached the picture before sending it. Her momma, a notorious early bird, texted back almost immediately. Sadie slipped out of her Vans and wet socks in favor of her gold, sparkly work-appropriate flats before checking her phone.

From: Momma

Hockey 😬

Sadie choked back a laugh. Her momma had made her thoughts on Sadie’s choice of job, location, and organization no secret. Everyone knew that Sadie’s momma wanted her to hold out, to find a job in New Orleans, to stay at home with her forever. But, just as everyone knew that, they also knew that Sadie didn’t want that. She wanted to leave, find her own way, and that meant Buffalo. She’d made a promise and she intended to keep it. And that started by leaving Louisiana.

Setting her phone to the side before she did something ill-advised, like text her momma talking about how much she missed her already, she opened her email instead. There were five messages, all from Vic, all reading URGENT in the subject line. Her breakfast, if one strawberry Danish and a cup of orange juice could be considered breakfast, threatened to make a reappearance. She took a deep breath to calm herself before opening the first email.

///

Sadie was leaning into her computer screen, eyes flickering back and forth as she read through the employee manual that Vic emailed her, when she heard a noise behind her. She snapped around on her rolling chair—her favorite kind of chair—to see Harry and Vic standing in the doorway of her cubicle. She smiled.

“We were wondering if you wanted to go have lunch with us,” Harry said. Sadie furrowed her brow and looked at the clock. She couldn’t believe it was lunchtime already. Nodding, she grabbed her phone, tossed it in her bag, and tossed that over her shoulder.

“Do I need my jacket?”

“No, we’re just going to the cafeteria,” Vic said.

“Cool,” Sadie said, following closely behind Harry and Vic. She looked down each hallway as they walked beneath KeyBank Center. Her lips pursed and she stopped as she looked down a hallway that led to the ice. Players sped in an out of her limited viewpoint through the double doors. How could they skate that fast, not fall, and remember the rules? Sadie could barely rollerblade in a straight line without falling over.

One of the players skated into her eyesight. The way he stood, legs slightly spread, on the ice made Sadie wonder if it was as easy as it looked. Because that man looked graceful there with his large frame being held up by two glorified knives. As if he could sense that she was staring, he turned his head towards her. Shameless, she kept staring. He had an intriguing look about him. She wanted to know what color his eyes were.

Harry noticed Sadie wasn’t walking alongside them anymore and looked back. He placed a hand on Vic’s hand so that she would stop walking before calling Sadie’s name. She shook her head and jogged up to catch up with them without giving the man on the ice another glance.

“They have open practice tomorrow, if you wanted to watch. Call it research for your posts,” Vic said, winking at Sadie. Her face flushed but it was a good idea. While Vic and Harry talked about what they were ordering for lunch, Sadie was thinking about the Sabres player with the captivating stare.

///

What did one wear to an open practice? Was office attire too formal? Was it cold inside the arena? Did she just need a sweater, a long sleeve shirt, a coat? Were a beanie, mittens, and earmuffs too much? Important questions that Sadie had no answers for that morning as she prepared for her second day of work.

In the end, she dressed casually that day in the hopes that she would fit in both at practice and among her coworkers. A pair of navy blue, skinny, cropped khakis paired with a cream button up blouse and a grey cable knit sweater over that. She wore the same flats she had the day before, mostly because they were her only closed-toe, work appropriate shoe. She had a countdown on her phone till her first paycheck. She was going straight to the mall that day.

After she paid her loans, rent, and miscellaneous bills, anyway.

She smiled at coworkers whose names she didn’t know as she walked down the row to her cubicle. Sadie set her bag down on the desk to remove her jacket and scarf. She fixed her blue accent necklace, a gift from her Auntie Donna for graduation, she hung her jacket and scarf on a little hook on one wall of her cubicle and turned her computer on. Practice began at 10 that morning so she had time to check her email and get her things together before heading over to pick a perfect spot.

The supervisor wanted a mockup of social media posts for the next month by the end of the week. Perfect. Sadie decided to take her phone to take pictures to go along with her posts. They would feel more like fan photos rather than professional and Sadie thought that would be good to make the team seem more approachable.

At ten till, Sadie tucked her notebook and favorite pen into her bag and turned the computer screen off before walking over to the stands. She snagged a front row seat, right by the glass a few feet from the goalie, and got comfortable. Placing her bag in the seat next to her, she grabbed her notebook, pen, and phone out.

There were players’ families all around her. Women holding children by the glass while they spoke to their corresponding player. Fans, too. They were sat on the other side of the stadium, though. Sadie smiled as she snapped pictures. She belatedly hoped that it wasn’t weird that she was taking pictures of people without asking. She would look up the specific players’ names later and send emails asking permission.

She snapped a few pictures of the goalie—Payne, number 35—as he stretched and drank some water. Growing bored, she stood and began taking pictures of the other players as they talked before practice started. She was looking through her pictures when she realized two players had skated up to her.

Looking up, her eyes widened when she saw the Man with the Eyes from lunch the day before. He, and his friend, had yet to put their helmets on. She gave his friend—Horan, number 13—a quick once over before settling her gaze on Mr. Bright Eyes. The smirk on his lips combined with the stubble on his face made him look dangerous.

“You looked lonely,” Left-winger Horan said, leaning an arm against the glass. “We thought we’d come keep you company till practice started. I’m Niall.”

“Oh, no I’m fine, thank you! Just doing some work,” Sadie said, fixing them with her blinding smile. Niall blinked twice, mesmerized. “I’m Sadie! I would shake your hands but…”

She motioned at the glass panels between them and shrugged. Niall nodded and opened his mouth to speak before the goalie called his name. He sighed instead.

“Gotta go. Until next time,” He said, nodding at Sadie. She waved cutely before setting her gaze on Niall’s friend. She looked from his eyes to his lips and back before deciding that she didn’t want to be fired on her second day of work. She focused on his eyes instead of the devilish smirk lingering on his lips. She still couldn’t decide what color his eyes were. Blue, that much was obvious, but what shade? It was killing her.

“I’m Louis,”

His gruff, deep voice combined with the British accent hit Sadie straight between her legs. She swallowed hard and took a soothing breath before responding. What would it look like if she was stuttering and stammering in response to his accent? She’d never been thirsty like that and she wasn’t about to start then.

“Nice to meet you,” She smiled, just as the coach blew his whistle. Louis looked back for a moment before training those eyes back on Sadie. She placed a hand on the glass to steady herself under the weight of his gaze. His eyes flicked down to her hand before looking her straight in her eyes.

“See you around, Sadie,” Louis said, winking before skating backwards away from her. He got to the middle before he turned. Sadie bit her lip, shook her head, and sat back down. She picked up her notebook and pen and wrote:

needs to get done

find an apartment and move in within seven days

one month mock up schedule

learn hockey

talk to harry about walking distance

emails asking for permission for pictures

furniture shopping

what color are his eyes???

Tearing the page out of her notebook, she tucked it away in her bag before paying attention as practice began. Whenever Louis skated past her he would look in her direction with a smirk or a nod, making the family members turn to look at her and whisper. She heard a kid ask their mom who she was and blushed. She couldn’t help but think her job just got a lot harder.