#j. debrusk | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

blackandgoldandeverythingnice · 3 years ago

Text

i don’t remember me (before you) - j. debrusk [part ii]

Pairing: Jake DeBrusk x female!OC

Summary: Could it be more cliche than falling in love with your neighbor when she wasn’t exactly available? What happens when getting her to fall in love with you isn’t even the hard part?

Word Count: 9,077

A/N: so, part ii - maybe one day i’ll get good at summaries and update them accordingly but honestly, no promises. this one has a LOT of warnings and i’ll adore any and all feedback.

Warnings: adult themes, alcohol consumption, abuse [very much the abuse in this part so please be warned], shitty boyfriend/ex-boyfriend, swearing...I think that’s it

part ii

“I have travelled many miles, I don't wanna walk no more Every road and every highway led me right back to your door” -lord huron

Jake was pretty sure he’d never seen Alina nervous before. Normally she was the quintessential Russian: serious, blank face that belied nothing about how she was feeling. But right now she was tapping her foot nervously and gnawing on her bottom lip. Her hair was up in a little half ponytail thing and he forgot he usually only saw her in scrubs, his sweats or a mini dress for a night out. This version of Alina was softer, not as sexy as ‘club Alina’ but he thought he might like it better. She had on a pair of ripped jeans with a loose cardigan buttoned up, cutting in a low v on her chest. They didn’t speak much in the car ride over but Jake kept a hand on her knee, rubbing at the bare skin he could get to.

When she’d showed up at his apartment after getting ready, she shoved a bottle of wine into his hand and anxiously asked if he thought it would be good enough. Jake had managed to make her laugh when he’d snorted at her, asking how it was she thought he would know what wine was good or not.

That same bottle was now being grasped tightly in one hand, her other squeezing at his thigh tightly.

“Ease up, Leenie – you’re gonna leave a mark.” He teased, tapping her hand softly.

“Oh! Sorry, Jed.” But she didn’t loosen her grip much and he just let her keep clinging to him. He realized while she was usually a blank face to everyone around her, lately – more often than not – she was completely and purely herself around him. It’s like a wall that had been blocking back emotions before had come down and now everything she thought played clearly on her face for him to see. But only for him.

It wasn’t a long ride to get to Charlie’s and when they pulled up, Jake went to climb out of the car but realized that Alina was still sitting quietly in the back seat.

“Maybe you should just go without me. I can have him take me back home.” She nodded at the driver who was frowning and looked like he was a minute away from yelling at them to get in or out.

“Nope.” Jake responded, reaching into the car and physically dragging her out. She stumbled slightly as she hit the curb and he managed to shut the door to the car mere seconds before the driver pulled away.

“Jake…” she practically whined. “They don’t like me. I should just go, you’ll have a better time without me.”

“Leenie, if you don’t go, I’m sure as hell not going. I spend all my time with these idiots, I want to be wherever you are.” The hesitance remained on her face and he stepped closer to her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “If you really don’t want to go, we’ll go home. Or out to dinner. Whatever you want. Ride or die.”

That earned him a giggle. “Ride or die?”

“I’m your ride or die, whatever you want, we’ll do.” He nodded seriously until she finally gave him a smile, her facing turning determined.

“Okay. We’ll go. But if they’re not nice to you, I’m gonna let ‘em have it.”

“I expect nothing less.” He teased, pressing a quick kiss to her forehead. Forehead kisses had become more and more frequent. As had holding hands, cuddling and the way Alina would nudge her nose into his neck, brushing her lashes against his skin. At this point, they were more affectionate than he’d been with any previous girlfriend.

It still wasn’t enough but he instinctively knew he needed to go slow, knew that he couldn’t risk pushing her into something she wasn’t ready for. Shit, he wasn’t even sure if she felt the same as he did. All he had was a ‘feeling’ that things between them were different, that they were out of the sure footing that had been their friendship and in some weird limbo zone where they were both trying to figure out what the other wanted.

Sighing to himself, he took her free hand and pulled her towards Charlie’s building. He had forgotten to ask exactly who was going to be there and now that they were in the elevator, he felt a little panicky about what they were walking into.

While he’d deny it to her, he knew Alina wasn’t his friends’ favorite. And her desire to protect him meant she overreacted to the smallest chirp that was thrown his way even when it didn’t bother him. He only hoped that tonight would go okay.

Walking into Charlie’s apartment, Jake immediately felt like this was the wrong decision. There were at least eight couples and some of the girls were looking at Alina critically, from the bottle of wine in her hand to the way she was clinging onto Jake. Looking friendly wasn’t something Alina excelled at so the stoic look that Jake knew came from a place of nervousness or shyness, instead made her look like a mega bitch.

He squeezed her hand gently and turned his face into her ear. “Smile, babe. You look entirely too Russian right now.”

Alina snorted, squeezing his hand back and relaxing slightly, smiling at him. “It’s just my face, I can’t help it.”

Jake rolled his eyes, dropping her hand and placing it on her lower back to lead her through the room. He wanted to find Charlie and, more importantly, Charlie’s girlfriend. Kiley was one of the sweetest girls he knew and had always been kind to Alina, usually the only one she’d talk to while waiting for him after games.

Walking into the kitchen, he found the hosts putting the finishing touch on plates of charcuterie. And really, that just meant they were unwrapping the clearly pre-made platters.

“So much for doing the heavy lifting,” Jake teased, bundling Kiley up into a big hug. Charlie hit him but stepped around him to pull Alina into a hug. Jake noticed her stiffen slightly but return the hug before pulling away quickly.

“Ki – you remember Alina.” Jake gestured, returning to her side and throwing an arm around her shoulders.

“Of course! Welcome.” She pulled her into a hug before accepting the offered bottle of wine. “Oh wow, this is really nice – you shouldn’t have.”

Alina flushed slightly, waving a hand dismissively. “It was always one of my favorites so I thought I’d share.”

“Well thank you.” Kiley said sincerely and Jake couldn’t help smiling at her. Charlie really had found a good one. “I say we open this in here and just save it for the two of us.”

“Great idea.” She grinned back conspiratorially. “Can I help with anything?”

“Grab a few glasses, yeah? And are you any good at opening wine?”

“Am I ever!” she responded, grabbing a wine key and getting to work on the wine she’d brought. “I used to work in my Dedushka’s restaurant, if you fucked up the bottle, you had to pay for it but you also got to drink it.”

Kiley grinned at the story, taking it at face value but Jake’s head shot up at the sound of her talking about being younger. He’d never once heard her mention anything about working in a restaurant.

“What’s a ‘dad-kush-kah’?” Charlie asked earning a little smile from Alina who promptly corrected his pronunciation.

“Grandfather.” She got a little faraway look in her eyes but quickly returned to the task at hand.

“Come on, man – come say hi to the rest of the guys.” Charlie tried to shove him back in the direction of the living room but he dug his heels in, twirling around to escape and slide next to Alina.

He wrapped an arm around her waist, leaning down so only she could hear him. “You okay? I can stay with you.”

It looked like she was thinking about it, her gray eyes searching his before she shook her head slightly. “Go on, I’m good – I’ll be a wine opening maniac.”

Instinctively, he pressed a kiss to her temple and ignored the look that Charlie and Kiley exchanged before following Chuck into the living room. He greeted his teammates and their significant others, smiling good-naturedly as the boys all yelled his name or teased him about one thing or another. He was just happy that Alina didn’t hear them or she’d end up lighting them up in his defense.

He managed to stay in the room for all of fourteen minutes before drifting back into the kitchen. Despite Charlie saying it was going to be just couples, a few of the girlfriends had brought friends and he got the distinct feeling Charlie Coyle’s girlfriend was trying to set him up with one of them. He walked back into the kitchen to find Alina perched on the counter, chatting animatedly with Kiley. He paused in the doorway to watch her as she gestured dramatically with one hand, large glass of wine in the other, only pausing her story to take a long sip and accept a piece of cheese that Ki had handed her. The sweater she had on had slipped off one shoulder and he eyed the bare skin greedily, aching to touch her.

It was a relief to see her getting along with at least one of the girls, a light floaty feeling filled him at the sight. Baby steps, he told himself, baby steps.

Eventually, he couldn’t resist interrupting, moving towards Alina and fitting himself between her legs. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and rested her head on the top of his while continuing to talk to Kiley.

“But yeah, I’m super lucky the other nurses are so experienced and are actually super sweet. Have you been doing nights or days?”

The two girls continued the conversation around him like he hadn’t even joined and he contented himself with sharing Alina’s glass of wine and helping himself to one of the smaller trays that hadn’t been circulated out into the living room yet. They spent the better part of an hour in there, switching to a different bottle when Alina’s fancy one had been finished.

“If you’re not gonna get your own glass, you have to be the refill bitch.” She muttered in his ear, pressing an errant kiss to the side of his head before refocusing on whatever Kiley was saying to her.

He pushed back from the counter to refill from a new bottle, pouring it nearly to the brim before returning to his position. A couple other girls had wandered in to join them and Jake felt Alina stiffen slightly as the kitchen got more crowded.

“Ohh, boujee! Who brought this?” one of the girls cooed, picking up the now empty bottle that Alina had brought. “This is like 200 bucks.”

Surprised, he turned to catch Alina’s eye but she avoided his stare, cheeks flushing at the attention.

“JD’s gir – uh, neighbor brought it.” Kiley answered. Half a dozen people turned to look at Alina who just waved awkwardly and tightened her grip on him.

“That was – ” one of the girls who Jake was pretty sure was a friend of a friend paused to eye the way Alina and Jake were tangled together before continuing, “Generous of you, Jake.”

He knew what she was doing. It was something all the guys had to deal with: girls that wanted to be with a player because of the money. And if a girl was like that she usually assumed all the others were. Jake flushed with anger, opening his mouth to respond but Alina beat him to it.

“Actually, I bought it myself.” She answered stiffly, tugging the glass from Jake’s hand to take a sip.

The kitchen felt ice cold and tense, nothing like it had been when it had just been Kiley and Alina chatting. Thankfully, Chuck and Gryz came flying into the room shouting about everyone going into the living room. The girls that had just come in exchanged looks before turning to go while Alina stayed put. Kiley shot the two of them a concerned look but grabbed a few things to bring into the living room, leaving them alone.

He turned around so he could face her, placing a hand on either side of her body and leaning his forehead against hers. “Leen, ignore them.”

“I told you your friends hated me.” She mumbled, refusing to meet his eyes.

“Those are absolutely not my friends.” He nudged her nose with his. “Do you wanna go? I told you, the second you want to leave, we can.”

She was quiet for a second, fingers trailing along the sliver of skin between his shirt collar and hair. He practically melted into her at the sensation. “No, no – I need to be nicer. I do want your friends to like me…”

“How bout this: we spend another hour or so here, drink a bit more fancy wine and eat some cheese then we’ll go out to dinner – just you and me.”

That earned him a smile and her eyes brightened for the first time that night. “You’d do that for me?”

He sighed, feeling the wine loosen his tongue slightly. “Leenie, when’re you gonna learn I’d do anything for you?”

“I don’t deserve you, Jed.” She mumbled, staring straight at him, her eyes serious and intense.

“We’re not gonna do our little argument about who deserves who.” He teased but she stayed serious, eyes dropping slightly to his lips.

“Jake, I – ” he wasn’t sure what she was going to say, he wasn’t sure if she even knew because she cut herself off.

Instead, she leaned forward and pressed her lips gently to his. It caught him so off-guard he hesitated for a second but thankfully his instinct kicked in before she could pull back in embarrassment and he caught the back of back of her head, pulling her in closer.

It was like everything he’d been dreaming about but better. Alina tasted sweet like honey, her mouth hot on his as she wrapped her arms around him tightly. He wound the hand not buried in her hair around her waist, tucking up under her sweater to press his palm against her skin.

Reluctantly, she pulled back, staring at him seriously. “I’m sorry.”

“Why the fuck are you sorry, Leen? Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to do that?”

She giggled, sliding off the counter and burying her face into his chest before turning up to look at him. “You still wanna stay?” she teased, eyes sparkling.

“Fuck,” he grumbled into the top of her head. “I really really don’t but we should.”

Just as he was leaning down to steal another kiss, Charlie bounced back into the room. “Heyo, what’re you two doing? Come have some more wine before we have to switch to the boxed stuff.”

He stared at the two of them, tangled around each other and faces flushed but that didn’t stop him from continuing to egg them on about moving into the living room with the rest of the party.

“Alright, alright – we’re coming!” he yelled over his shoulder finally, shooting him a dirty look for interrupting. He turned back to face Alina, resting his head against hers. “Maybe we’ll stay for like twenty minutes?”

Smirking, she stood on tiptoe to press the lightest kiss to his lips before moving around him to go into the living room. He scurried behind her to follow, catching up easily. He wrapped his arm around her waist, feeling her relax at his touch. The move wasn’t lost on nearly everyone in the room. While officially Alina had been introduced as his neighbor, he was pretty sure a blind person could see the way he was touching her and staring at her and refusing to be farther than an inch away from her.

Alina remained controlled with her drinking, sipping wine slower than she had been drinking lately and that in and of itself felt like a victory. She did relax slightly but Jake noticed how she tended to stay close to him or Kiley. If she was ever talking to another of the girls, Kiley was also involved and if she moved along, Alina would do the same after a minute or so. She’d finally settled into a conversation with Charlie Coyle and his girlfriend leaving Jake to talk to a few other people while still keeping a close eye on her.

He desperately wanted to leave, wanted to get her alone so they could talk or make out or do more, he didn’t know. But he also wanted to give her the chance to get along with the group because he was hoping she’d be part of it soon.

“Slim! My guy! You crash any cars lately?” Khuls came blazing in loudly and Jake noticed Alina’s eyes shooting over and narrowing at the words.

He rubbed at his neck, “Er, not lately, man.”

Once the can was open, a few of the other guys started to chirp him, mostly around if he was going to grow a mullet again this year or if he’d been working out instead of going to McDonalds every night. He kept glancing over at Alina who was back to Russian Bitch Face and he was worried about what was about to come next if the guys didn’t stop.

And sure enough, Karson said something else about his driving and then Alina was at his side, threading her fingers with his. There was barely contained rage on her face but she seemed to swallow it down, instead squeezing his hand tightly.

Standing on tiptoe, she pressed her lips to his ear. “I’m ready to go if you are.”

He knew she was trying to make an effort, trying to get his friends to like her and in this case that meant not saying a word to them when they were chirping him.

He knew his face gave away everything when he looked down at her with a goofy smile. “Yeah, Leens – let’s go.”

“You guys are leaving already?” Kiley pouted and rather than admit Alina had just about had enough of being around so many people she wasn’t comfortable with he shrugged, swinging their clasped hands lightly.

“Sorry, Ki – we have late dinner plans.”

“Where are you going?” the girl that had been bitchy about the wine Alina had brought cut in and Jake was never outwardly rude so he just gave her a tight smile.

“Committee, down by the waterfront near our place.” He liked saying ‘our place’ like they lived together for real instead of just in the same building. “It’s Leenie’s favorite.” He added to get this girl to realize Alina wasn’t just some random girl that he’d brought out for a good time.

“Nice.” Chuck gave a reassuring nod, seeming to understand that it was time for them to leave. “Thanks for coming, bro.”

They made their goodbyes as quickly as possible but it still took about fifteen minutes to get out of there. By the time they were heading down the hall, Jake was thrumming with energy at getting to be alone with Alina. As they stepped into the elevator and the doors slid shut, Alina was wrapping herself around his body and pulling him to her lips for a soft kiss.

He pulled back, grinning down at her. “Do you actually want dinner?” he teased and she flushed slightly before smacking his stomach.

“I’m a classy lady, I need dinner first.” She smirked back at him, stepping up for another kiss but he pulled back so she couldn’t reach him.

“You know this is more than that, eh?” He paused, serious as he brushed her hair back off her shoulders.

She squeezed his waist, tucking one hand under his t-shirt and tugging on the belt loop with her other. “If it was just that, I would’ve taken advantage of the four times I’ve woken up to your hard cock poking me in the ass.”

“Fuck,” he groaned, flushing red and feeling his body overheat at her words. “You noticed that?”

“Jesus – yeah. I noticed it.” Now she was flushing, biting on her lip teasingly and trailing her fingers down his torso. “But yeah, Jakey – let’s go to dinner first.”

She seemed to have timed it perfectly, winking up at him just as the elevator door slid open and then she slinked out, heading towards their waiting Uber, leaving Jake shaking his head like a puppy. Before the doors could close on him he hurried after her, catching her around the waist just as she was opening the car door and he hustled them inside.

The couple glasses of wine they’d both drank seemed to have made them both more relaxed and Jake spent the ride back to South Boston contenting himself with sweet, slow kisses and brushing his fingers along the waistband of her jeans. He was aching just thinking about what it would be like when they got home. It was tempting to just race home and throw her on the mattress but Jake wanted to talk about it first. Make sure this wasn’t a rebound or a hookup. He knew he wouldn’t be able to take it if they weren’t on the same page.

By the time they got to the restaurant, Jake was half hard and regretting his plan to go through dinner. The Uber driver had given them a sharp warning to stop getting handsy and Alina had just replied back in Russian angrily which seemed to scare him into leaving them alone.

They were both happy it was a Tuesday and the restaurant was only half full. Jake requested a table in the back corner and while he’d always made fun of couples that sat on the same side, it was impossible to separate himself from being close to her. So he slid in next to her, crowding into her space until she was playfully trying to push him away.

“What?” he asked, ducking in close so he could kiss her. “You think I can sit all the way over there when you’re here looking like that?”

“Like what?” she teased.

“How you always do,” Jake shrugged. “Perfect.”

Alina flushed and Jake was pretty sure he’d never seen her blush as much as she had tonight. She slid her hand along his thigh, dancing her fingertips up along his leg until he was inhaling sharply and caught her wrist with his hand.

“Why won’t you let me play?” she teased, pressing her face against his neck.

Jake had to take in a few deep calming breaths and he felt grateful when the server stopped by. They ordered cocktails and an appetizer but he didn’t think the two of them had the patience for actual dinner.

As soon as the server walked away, Alina was back to teasing her fingers along his leg and he had to get hold of the situation before he wasn’t able to think straight.

“Leenie…can we talk? For just a minute?”

She frowned slightly, pulling back when she realized he was being serious. “Um, of course. I just – you want this too, right?”

The question caught him so off-guard he was quiet for a beat too long. Alina looked up at him sadly, biting hard on her lower lip. He panicked slightly, turning to face her so he could hold her face and she couldn’t avoid his stare.

“Alina,” he started seriously. “I want this. I want you. But I also want more.”

He held his breath, waiting for his words to sink in. She was gripping on to his wrist tightly, eyes scanning his nervously. “Like…you like me?”

He huffed a breath out. How could she not know?

“Yeah, Leens. I like you. A lot. Like a lot a lot.”

“A lot a lot?”

“More than you could know.” He admitted, heart pounding in his chest. He’d watched Alina go through a traumatic relationship and he liked to think he’d helped her start to heal. Over the last year and a bit of knowing her, he’d fallen hard and stupid but it had felt like she’d been right there with him.

She opened her mouth to respond but shut it, looking shier than he’d ever seen her before. It felt like she was quiet for hours until she finally spoke.

“I – I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way about someone before.” She admitted quietly, rubbing her thumb along the underside of his wrist. “I’m – shit…I’m not easy and kind of a disaster but you make me feel good; feel like someone that deserves to be loved. I want to try this. I want to be with you if you want to be with me.”

“We’ll go slow. I don’t want to push you but I need you to know I’m not gonna give up or go away just because you get a little too drunk one night or you yell at half my friends.” He teased slightly and she gave a watery little chuckle.

“Can we still have sex tonight though?” she asked and he choked on air, glaring at her when she started laughing.

“I might hold out on you just for that.” He answered with zero truth in his words. She raised one eyebrow and just leaned back without a word before he huffed a sigh. “Yeah okay, there’s no way I’m ever going to deny you anything.”

It was obvious he wasn’t just talking about tonight and instead of speaking, Alina just leaned forward to kiss him gently.

Their drinks arrived and then the food shortly after while the two of them went back to their normal relationship, joking and teasing each other except this time there were kisses and sly touches mixed in. Jake felt like he was floating. It was everything he’d been wanting for more than a year and it was better than he’d ever imagined.

Before the server could even ask if they wanted more food or drinks, Jake was sliding his credit card over. All he wanted was to get Alina alone. The restaurant was only a block away from their building and as soon as the check was signed, he was bundling her out the door and practically dragging her along as they walked.

Alina giggled behind him and he just squeezed her hand tighter. “I’m not gonna run away from you, Jed.”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you it’s that you’re a drunk runner.”

“Trust me,” she started to say and he glanced over at her, drinking in the happy glow around her and the way her eyes were sparkling back at him. “I’m not running away from this.”

--- ---

“Holy shit.” Jake exhaled into Alina’s neck as he tried to catch his breath.

He’d collapsed on top of her and he could feel her still pulsing around him and her heart racing. He lifted his head to see her staring back at him, eyes soft and a happy little smile playing on her kiss-bruised lips. She ran a hand through his hair as he finally rolled off of her, hissing slightly at the loss of her around him.

“We’ve been cuddling for weeks when we could’ve been doing that?” she whispered, rolling into him so she could wrap around his body. He lifted his arm up to hold her close, smirking and pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“To be fair, I’ve been thinking about doing that for more than a year.”

“Oh?” she raised an eyebrow at him. “And how did you prepare? Watch some game tape?”

He threw his head back with a laugh, sliding a hand down her side to land on her ass. “Lotta nights alone in hotel rooms thinking about what I’d do if I had you in my bed.”

“Did it live up to your expectations?”

“Not even a little.” He answered, grinning at the glare she gave him. Before she could say anything he tilted her head up to catch her lips in another kiss then pulled back. “It was a million times better.”

They fell quiet, content to stay cuddled up in the little cocoon they’d made. Alina’s bed was a massive king but they stayed on top of each other, the sheets tangled around them. Jake felt like he was moving through a dream. Last night he had been arguing with his teammates about Alina and how they were ‘just friends’ and now he was in her bed with her naked body pressed against him, trailing her fingers up and down his stomach gently. He traced the length of her spine, a little smile playing on his lips.

He stared down at her, eyes drinking in her features. There was a little birthmark he’d never noticed right on her temple. Her hair was a mess, the dark waves tickling his arm. She was staring across the room sleepily, eyes hooded and a satisfied little smile on her lips. The warmth of her body and the way she was distractedly running her fingers along his skin was making him sleepy. Eventually, her movements slowed and they both dropped off to sleep.

The next thing Jake knew a loud banging was startling the two of them awake. Alina shot up into a sitting position next to him, blinking awake and alert faster than he was. The banging continued, coupled with muffled yelling.

Frantically, she rolled out of the bed, grabbing her phone before snagging his button down and pulling it on as she hurried out of the room.

“Fuck.” Jake hissed, jumping out to follow her only pausing to grab a pair of shorts he’d left at some point.

The banging was deafening in the living room, shouts coming through the door and it wasn’t hard to guess who was out there based on the language and the sheer fear on Alina’s face.

“Baby, let me – ” he moved towards the door but she got between him, pushing back on his chest.

She started to yell back through the door in Russian, clearly telling her ex to go away but he just kept pounding loudly. It was nearly three in the morning and he was going to wake up the neighbors if he didn’t leave soon. Nothing she was saying was working and Jake felt helpless. There was pure fear etched on her face and he stepped behind her to place a calming hand on her back.

“Do you want me to call the police?” it was the only thing he could think of except opening the door and telling him to fuck off himself. He was bigger than her ex but he’d always noticed there was something unhinged that reflected in his eyes. But if it meant protecting Alina, he’d go toe to toe with the guy.

“Yes – no – shit, they never help. I’ll just – I – fuck. I’m going to open the door but keep the chain on. He – he’s yelling about you.” She whispered at him, panic and fear overwhelming her momentarily and some of what she said made no sense. “There’s something on Instagram?”

Jake paled wondering what the fuck could’ve been posted in the last few hours to put this guy in a rage. He could only imagine that it wasn’t good.

Alina cracked the door slightly, hissing back in Russian as her ex pushed hard against the door trying to snap the chain. She jumped back in fear and there was zero-way Jake was going to let this continue.

He stepped forward, pushing Alina behind him. The second her ex caught his eye, his face turned red and he shook the door harder.

“Stay fuck away Alinochka.” His words were followed by another hard bang as he tried to muscle through the chain.

“You need to leave.” Jake shot back, forgetting he was standing in just a pair of shorts while Alina was wearing his shirt which was only making the guy angrier.

He switched back to Russian, yelling angrily at Alina who was responding but her voice was shaking.

“Leen – this isn’t okay, I’m getting rid of him.”

The fear grew on her face and she grabbed his arm frantically. “Jake, no. You can’t get into a fight because of me.”

“He’s a piece of shit, I don’t want him anywhere near you.” He squeezed her arm softly before turning back to the door and inhaling deeply, trying to control his own temper. He threw the door open and thankfully her ex was smaller than he remembered. Definitely still an angry maniac who hit women but Jake was stronger.

Her ex tried to barrel through the door, attempting to get by him and to Alina, shoving into Jake who pushed him back. “Not gonna say it again, man. Get the fuck out of here. And don’t fucking come back.”

He tried again to get past Jake who muscled him back. He had tunnel vision, entirely focused on getting her ex the fuck away from her. He really didn’t want to get into a fist fight in the middle of the night but he would if it meant keeping her safe. Another shove and this time Jake was knocked back into the apartment. Alina gave a little shriek of panic and he heard her on the phone, giving their address and begging for someone to come quickly.

Again, her ex barreled towards him and this time, caught him around the waist. Jake fell back with a thud and just barely had time to get his arm up to protect himself from a punch. The second one landed, cracking him dully on the side of the head. Going off instinct, he pushed his hands on his chest, shoving as hard as he could to get him off of him.

The move managed to allow him to scramble up and reposition himself in front of Alina who looked like she was having a panic attack. But he barely had time to glance at her before returning his focus to her absolute fucking psycho ex who was preparing to take another swing at him. Ducking from the blow, he managed to hit him squarely in the face, hearing the satisfying crunch of a broken nose. Blood started to drip onto the floor and it slowed him down long enough for two cops to come barreling into the room, one grabbing her ex and the other pushing him back.

One cop tried to get control of the screaming Russian who was spewing blood all over the place while Jake immediately threw his hands up defensively to show he wasn’t doing anything. It only took about thirty seconds for the cops to recognize him.

“Jesus, DeBrusk?” the one that had initially tried to restrain him before realizing he wasn’t the problem. He was an older guy, maybe his dad’s age while the guy trying to hold onto Alina’s ex was younger and beefier, practically a John Cena clone.

“Yeah – can you guys get this asshole away from my girlfriend?” he snarled angrily, stepping over to snag Alina’s hand and pull her close to him. He was trying to calm his breathing, shaking out his hand that was already killing him while pulling her into his side.

“Okay, let’s all calm down here. Jesus – does this guy speak English?” the other officer said, still struggling to control him.

“Sir, officer, I’m sorry – he does but his English isn’t great.” Alina managed to get out, her voice cracking slightly. “His name is Mikhail Drozdov.”

Mikhail’s eyes flashed dangerously at Alina and he tried again to lunge forward to grab at her.

“None of that.” Officer Cena clone grunted, using one hand to twist Mikhail’s arm back behind him at a painful angle to snag his handcuffs before finally restraining him and plopping him down on the floor. “Stay. Does he understand ‘stay’?”

Alina hissed at Mikhail, her words sounding harsh and bitter. He was still glaring at the way she was tucked protectively into Jake’s side. The longer he was sitting there, the stronger the scent of vodka grew and Jake realized the guy was completely obliterated.

“Now that he’s restrained, can I ask you two a few questions?”

“Yes, sir.” Jake said, turning to his media training. He was going to get lit up by the front office if this got out but he was just happy he’d been here to protect Alina and now he just wanted to focus on getting everyone the fuck out of her apartment. “Can we grab some clothes first?”

The officer smirked at the pair of them in their state of undress. Alina was trying to cover herself and Jake made a point to shield as much of her body as she could.

“Go ahead, kids. We’ll try to interview Igor over here while we wait.”

Jake turned carefully, still keeping her as covered as he could as he nudged her back towards her bedroom. The second they were in the room Alina burst into tears and threw herself into his arms.

“Holy shit, Jake – I’m so sorry. So so fucking sorry.” She rambled into the crook of his neck, her tears soaking into his skin. “I don’t know what happened. He was yelling about something on Instagram? What does that even mean? How did he know we were together?”

Jake’s stomach flipped. Someone from the party had to have posted something that showed the pair of them together. He didn’t think it would be from the restaurant, that would take a lot to find but if it was in the background of one of the guys’ stories, it was possible.

He drew back so he could look at her, pushing her hair off her face and pressing a quick kiss to her nose. “I don’t know, baby. Maybe one of the guys shared something? And we were in the back? I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened.”

“How much trouble are you going to be in?” she asked, focusing her worry on him. It made his heart hurt a little to think about the fact that some asshole had just physically tried to assault her and she was worried about him. Carefully, she brushed at his eye where the punch had landed. “I bet the cops would let you go back to your place. You don’t have to be involved. It’ll just be me and Mikhail.”

“Leen, I’m not leaving you. We didn’t do anything wrong. I’ll talk to Bergy in the morning. He’ll help but right now we have to go talk to them.”

Nervously, she nodded through wide, watery eyes. He hated seeing the terror on her face so he pulled her in for a kiss, pressing his lips to hers and holding her tightly for a long moment. When he released her, they quickly got dressed; Jake pulling on a Bruins sweatshirt of his that Alina had stolen a couple weeks ago while she dragged on a pair of yoga pants while keeping his shirt on. The buttons were crooked and only two of them done up so he paused to carefully fix it for her.

Finally they emerged from her room to find two more cops had arrived and Mikhail still on the floor, spitting an angry stream of Russian at those around him. When he spotted Alina he snarled and tried to move forward.

“Where’d you find this guy?” Cena clone asked, kicking at his leg slightly.

Alina ignored him, walking back towards the first cop they’d talked to. “I’m Alina Agapov.”

“Yes, ma’am. We pulled your info. I’m Sergeant McDonald. Let’s take a seat in the kitchen, okay?” It was like a switch had flipped, the police officer turning into a kindly uncle as he led Alina and Jake towards the kitchen island where the two of them sat down. “Looks like you have an active restraining order against Mr. Drozdov.”

Jake shot a surprised look at Alina. He had no idea that she’d taken her ex to court and he hated himself for not having been around to help her through it. And that she hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him about it.

She swallowed hard, moving closer to Jake and he wrapped his arm around her, letting her lead the conversation.

“Yes, that’s right. We just had the hearing a few weeks ago. He – he’s not supposed to come near me.”

“No, ma’am. We’re going to bring him into the station and hold him. He’ll have the option of bail but the more times he breaks the order, the worse it’ll be.” Sergeant McDonald said softly but his words did nothing to calm Jake’s anger.

“‘More times he breaks it’? What the fuck does that mean – he’ll just keep trying to attack her but bail will go up?”

“Calm down.” He said sharply, shooting Jake a stern look.

Alina squeezed his leg. “Jake, please. It’s okay.”

“No, it fucking isn’t.” He huffed under his breath but fell quiet as they were asked more questions. They recounted the night, explaining that they’d been asleep when Mikhail had showed up screaming then all that had happened to get to this point.

Jake chanced a glance behind him to see two of the officers hauling Mikhail out of the apartment. He sighed slightly, pulling Alina in tighter to him. After another ten minutes of answering questions, the officer finally seemed satisfied and offered a card to Alina.

“This is where we’ll be holding him and that’s where you can get a copy of the report. Recommend you call your lawyer in the morning, he’ll know what to do next.” He looked awkward, unsure of how to deal with a girl that was so clearly emotionally drained and then slid his gaze to Jake. “Listen – we, uh, we don’t have to put your name in the report or anything.”

Surprised, Jake looked at him. “That – that doesn’t seem right. I broke his nose.”

“We can work around that, son. The guy is gonna go to jail regardless, your girl has like seven police reports filed against him so it shouldn’t be a hard decision for the judge.”

The fact that Alina had filed so many reports hit him like a truck. It had clearly been far worse than he’d even realized. In a daze, knowing the cop was giving him an out because of who he was, he looked down at Alina.

“He’s right, Jake – this can fuck things up for you.” She said softly, her gray eyes pleading with him to think about himself.

It didn’t feel right. He was worried if there was anything that wasn’t right in that report, Mikhail would be able to work around it and get back at Alina.

So he shook his head no. “Just – write it as it happened, sir. I’ll sign it or whatever but it should be right.”

Sighing, Sergeant McDonald flipped his notebook closed. “Okay…we’ll do our best to keep it quiet though. And uh, good luck – you’re playing like a beast.”

He gave him a tight smile. The fact that they were talking about his play when a guy had just violently gone after his girlfriend didn’t exactly sit right with him.

But he walked him to the door, saying goodbye to the other cop who was lingering as well, staring curiously at Alina. This had been a nightmare of a night and there was still blood all over the floor. As he shut the door behind them, he leaned against it, tapping his head lightly against the surface.

He squeezed his eyes tightly before turning to face Alina. Her face was pale, quiet tears streaming down her cheeks. He rushed towards her, dragging her into his arms and holding her as she cried.

What a fucking night.

It was almost five in the morning. He had practice in a few hours and he knew he’d need to go in early to let management know about what had happened but right now all he could think about was holding Alina.

He rubbed her back gently, tilting her face up to his. “Baby, let’s go to my place – we can lay down for a bit longer.”

She sniffled, wiping her nose with his sleeve. “This is humiliating. I’m sorry, Jakey. Maybe you should just go – ”

“Stop apologizing. And there’s no way I’m going to leave you. I told you earlier I wasn’t going to give up on you. On us.”

“You called me your girlfriend.” She said softly, hands gripping his waist tightly.

He smiled down at her, “That’s because you are. At least, I want you to be.”

“So much for slow.” She managed to tease through a watery smile. “I like it. I like you.”

“Then come on, girlfriend. Let’s go home.”

Trying to ignore the blood on the floor, he told her he’d call someone to clean it tomorrow when she tried to pause to take care of it. He kept a tight hold on her hand as they walked the length of the hall to get to his apartment. It was quiet and peaceful in his place compared to what they’d just walked out of. He didn’t want to push her but he had more questions than answers at this point. There wasn’t anything she could do that would make him not want to be with her; that didn’t mean she could cut him out and not tell him things.

Alina went straight into his bedroom, pulling him along by his hand. She slid out of her yoga pants but kept his shirt on as she crawled into his bed. He pulled his sweatshirt off then slid in next to her, wrapping around her body.

“Can we talk, Leenie?” he whispered in her ear. “I need you to talk to me.”

She inhaled sharply, sniffling as she did and he felt her shake slightly. He wasn’t sure she’d share but then she started to speak softly. “We – we started dating when I was fifteen. My uh – my parents died when I was ten. That’s why I moved to the States. To be with my Dedushka. He lived in this neighborhood in Brooklyn that was mostly Russian and I met Mikhail there. It just – it was easy to talk to him, he knew what it was like. Leaving home and being in a place where people glared if you fucked up your English.”

Jake felt his heart pounding as she shook slightly in his arms. She pushed back into him to try to get closer and he just hugged her tightly, pressing a kiss to her head as she continued.

“I’d spent five years barely talking to anyone. Too scared to speak until my English was perfect. Then Mikhail showed up. He was always with his dad when they came to my Dedushka’s restaurant. He made me remember where I’d come from. His parents were from the same city I’d grown up in. He was familiar in the most comforting way.”

She paused, trying to catch her breath. Jake ran his fingers down her arm so he could lace their fingers together.

“He wasn’t always so terrible. My Deduskha would’ve kill him, that’s for sure.” She gave a watery little chuckle before continuing. “But then…” she paused and Jake could hear her sniffling again, a little whimper slipping from her lips.

“Baby, come’re.” he whispered against her head, loosening his grip so he could turn him towards him. Her eyes were filled with tears and he used his thumbs to wipe them away. “I’m sorry, if it’s too much – we can talk la – ”

“No,” she said sharper than he expected before her features softened. “I – I know I haven’t shared a lot with you. And you deserve to hear this after tonight.”

He leaned forward to kiss her gently, nudging his nose against hers until she smiled. It was harder for her now, facing him as she spoke. She stayed quiet for a long moment before finally staring up at him and continuing.

“My Dedushka died when I was nineteen. And then it was just me.” She whispered.

Jake swallowed hard. No wonder she never talked about family: she didn’t have any. He rubbed her back lightly as she tried to swallow back her tears.

“He was all I really had left. I’ve never made friends very easily and my whole life was in that little neighborhood in Brooklyn. But…well you saw him. The older he got, the more controlling. He expected us to get married and me to be his little wife and have babies but I didn’t want that.

“I wanted to be a nurse. I wanted to see what else was out there beyond the little corner I knew. We made a deal that we would go to Boston for a couple years and if he did that for me, I’d marry him.”

Her voice was so soft, he barely heard her but the words hit him like a truck. The idea that he would’ve never had this made him sick. But he stayed quiet, rubbing her back gently as she talked.

“He got a job in Boston easily with this international accounting firm, managing the Russian relationships. He settled in better than I did – going out with the guys he worked with constantly. I was studying and working so much, exhausted all the time but I noticed how bad his drinking got. He’d come home sometimes just…so fucking angry for no reason. He didn’t get rough until a year or so ago. But it was a pattern I’d seen from Mikhail’s own father. His mama was so…broken. I started to see that becoming my future.

“It just kept getting worse. The cheating. Yelling. The hitting. But then I met you.” She smiled slightly, looking up at him and pressing a quick kiss to his jaw. “And you just…were this light, funny, perfect guy. Who was soft and gentle with me and I started to fall for you but I didn’t know how to get away from Mikhail.”

“I wish I’d – I…” he struggled for the words, feeling lost and a little blindsided. “I didn’t know how to help you.”

“Jake, you did help me.” She swore, brushing his hair back off his forehead. “You couldn’t fix everything, I needed to fix a lot of it myself first. And I made mistakes by letting Mikhail back in so many times but he was my past – the closest thing I had to family and that was hard to let go.”

“Tell me about the restraining order.” He asked softly, bracing himself for how hard it would be to hear what she had to say.

“I did the right thing – the thing you’re supposed to which is report the abuse. So I started to. He was…it was usually the worst when you were out of town. It’s like he waited until you were gone then he’d come over raging like you just saw. I almost got evicted over the summer from the number of times they had to call the cops but the management company was surprisingly good about it.”

“Jesus, Leen – why didn’t you tell me?” Jake asked, trying not to get upset.

Her eyes filled with tears again. “It’s humiliating. All the neighbors hearing him scream at me and throw things then the cops showing up at all hours. I didn’t want you to know that about me.”

“I would’ve come back. I would’ve helped.” He drew her in closer, squeezing her against his chest.

“I know you would’ve, but you deserved your summer. Deserved time with your family and friends.” Her voice was muffled into his chest and she was crying softly again.

“Hey now,” he whispered, grasping her chin to turn her face up to his. “No more crying. Let’s get some sleep, you’re exhausted. This is still the best night of my life.”

That earned him another little laugh as she angled up to kiss him softly. “You haven’t had a very good life then, babe.”

He scoffed. “I’m in the NHL. Very important and cool and do a lot of things. You’re still the best thing I’ve ever done.” He pressed kisses along her face as she giggled and swatted him away.

“Oh, so now I’m just something you’ve done?” she raised an eyebrow at him and he groaned, flopping his head back on the pillow. She kept a smile on her face as she rolled on top of him, straddling his waist.

He caught her hips to keep her steady, rubbing his thumb along her skin. “This is a nice view.”

Leaning back, she grabbed for his right hand. “You okay?” She pressed a kiss to each knuckle, frowning at how red they were before focusing on his face. Gently, she brushed her fingers along his tender cheek. “Do you need ice? I think this is gonna be a black eye.”

“I’m fine. Come’re,” he urged and pulled her down to him so he could thread his hands through her hair to pull her down to his lips. “Want a kiss. Then it’s bedtime.”

“Shit – what time do you have practice?”

“Eleven. I’m gonna go around ten though. I need to talk to Bergy and figure out who to talk to on the team.”

Alina frowned. “I told you I was a train wreck. It’s not too late to – ”

Jake cut her off, leaning forward to kiss her before pulling back. “Leen, I mean this is the nicest way possible – shut up. You’re my girl.”

“Thank you, Jakey.” She whispered, sliding off him and nestling back into his side.

He pressed a kiss to her temple. “Go to sleep, I’ll wake you up before I go.”

She mumbled something in Russian, pressing her lips to his chest and then she was out like a light. He lay awake for a while after she’d fallen asleep, holding her against him and thinking about the night. Everything she’d told him about her life made things so much clearer: the way she was so strong and stubborn yet had continually gone back to an abusive boyfriend, how she never talked about her past or her family. He wished she’d told him sooner but he knew he couldn’t have dragged this out of her until she was ready.

The sun was just starting to peak through the windows when he finally dropped off to sleep, dreading what waited for him at practice later but still happier than he’d been in a long time.

#jake debrusk #jake debrusk fic #hockey fic #hockey fanfiction #writing #hockeyblr #nhl #nhl fic #hockey writing #boston bruins #bruins #boston bruins fic #so here is two!#I hope it's okay #and yes #darker than the first part

30 notes · View notes

hockeyboysiguess · 4 years ago

Text

eight maids a-milking -> eight pucks a-slinging | j. debrusk

a/n: a christmas fic at 10 am? sure. there are no rules about time in 2020. rest of the series linked here.

word count: 3,046

warnings: none. pure christmas fluff

You sighed as you slammed your car door closed with your hip, your movement jostling the box you were carrying, causing the bells inside to ring among the garland. Luckily, the contents of the slightly overfilled box stayed inside. You let out a sigh of relief and headed inside the arena, box in tow. The Bruins were doing some charity thing that involved decorating a tree and Jake forgot his box of decorations at home this morning, so he asked you to bring it by on your way home. It was just one more thing to do in your already incredibly busy day. Jake was always forgetting things, his wallet, his phone, his keys, his coat, everything, constantly. You frequently had to drive to the airport, ten minutes behind him, hot on his heels, with his passport in your passenger seat, so he could actually get into Canada for a game. Picking up Jake’s forgotten things was something you were used to now. It had become a habit, part of your daily activities.

It was something you did for him, because of the thousands of things he did for you. Jake was the one who told you when you were trying to carry too many things, when you were stretching yourself too thin, he always noticed before anyone else and shifted weight to himself to lessen your burden. He never let you push yourself too far, to the point of fully expending yourself to exhaustion, something you did far too often before him and something that was so easy to do this time of year. Work piled up, tasks upon tasks to finish before the end of December to be completed, along with pressing from yours and Jake’s family with activities and travel and gifts to buy, it was all too easy a time to forget to put some things in Jake’s lap to take care of. He might be a tad forgetful, but he never failed to step up to the plate if it made you happy. If there was nothing he could take on, no burden he could share, then he used every ounce of him to try and be a bright spot in your day. Jake was positive in the face of anything, incapable of holding a grudge or letting negativity rest on his mind for more than a fleeting second. He was a forever kid at Christmas, loving each present more than the last, no matter the cost or its contents. His love of it came from love for the person who bought it for him and in the intent of giving it, not in the material item.

That purity of the way he loved, as fresh as snow that has just fallen, was why you didn’t mind coming to the arena after a long day at work with a box of Christmas decorations. Because Jake would do the same for you, with an even bigger smile on his face than the one he gave you when he saw you coming down the hallway with that box in hand. He looked at you like he hadn’t seen you in ages, even though he’d kissed you goodbye hours ago when you left for work. He scooped the box out of your hands while placing a quick kiss to your cheek.

“Thank you, as always,” Jake told you, relief evident in his voice.

You never felt underappreciated with Jake, even if part of the reason he appreciated you so openly is because you were always the one tying his ties and making sure the back of his dress shirt was tucked in properly. Jake didn’t have much polish about him but you had plenty to spare and didn’t mind sharing. Relationships were a series of compromises. You tucked in shirt tails and Jake made sure you took breaks, used your paid time off from work, and always threw your towels in the dryer in the last ten minutes of your shower so he could wrap you up in a warm one when you were done, even if he forgot until you shouted his name in search of your towel. You missed the warm towels and your far too warm boyfriend when he was away.

“No problem. Happy to do it.”

And you were. You were genuinely happy to do it for him. Anyone else, and you couldn’t stand the forgetfulness of the small things, but it was Jake’s biggest fault. If your partner’s biggest fault was forgetting their wallet, you were pretty sure you’d won the lottery.

“So,” you sighed, running a hand through your hair as you did, “where is this tree we’re decorating?”

“We?”

He raised his eyebrows at you in a challenge, but Jake could only hold an expression that wasn’t a smile for so long. It fell apart and gave way to that smile you saw across the table during your first date and realized you wanted to see it for the rest of your life if you could, if he allowed you to.

You rolled your eyes, which only spurred a small laugh from him, “Yes, DeBrusk. We. I didn’t come this far out of my way during rush hour to not decorate a Christmas tree.”

Jake smiled at you broadly, then nodded softly, “Okay, okay. We’ll do the tree then. Come on.” He turned away from you, sticking his hand out behind him for you to take, “Follow me to your Christmas tree.”

You followed Jake through the arena, hand in his leading the way. You waved to a few familiar faces as you passed, who waved back more excitedly than usual. You attributed to a large majority of people’s favorite holiday being right around the corner, and the annual Christmas party tomorrow where the champagne would be flowing tomorrow night. Jake gave your hand a tug when you fell behind trying to wave to one of his teammates and you took a few long steps to catch up to him.

“You’re eager,” you pointed out as you had to practically jog every few steps to keep up with his ungodly pace.

“Always eager to do things with you,” Jake replied smoothly, but he ruined any ounce of smooth he might have had with a giggle after.

You loved that he couldn’t keep up a straight face, or really any sort of false face. What he felt and his intentions were drawn perfectly on his face every single moment of every single day. You never had to question what he was feeling. It was another reason among the many as to why you loved him.

He pushed open a door with the box on his hip and guided you in, dropping your hand to put his entire self into his best impression of a doorman. You thanked him with a tip of an imaginary hat and that smile you loved more than Christmas morning spread across his face. Jake dropped the box onto a nearby table next to a lit, but undecorated Christmas tree you assumed would be your joint task together. The room was set up for the annual Christmas charity event they did with local kids. There were different game stations set up around the large foyer of the arena, some you recognized from last year and others that were new. The largest addition was on a wall covered in netting and trimmed with red piping designed to look like a hockey net with balloons taped to it in a grid, each balloon red or green or white with a different letter printed on the latex.

“That one’s new from last year,” you noticed.

Jake smiled one of the widest you’d seen from him in a while, a smile that seemed to tell you something had just fallen perfectly into place for him. You couldn’t even begin to fathom how Jake’s mind worked, so you let what you thought his smile might have meant pass without comment. You could spend your time and energy trying to figure Jake out, or you could spend your time and energy being with him and enjoying him and the results of his less than linear thoughts. You chose the latter as Jake dumped a crate of pucks out onto the ground.

“It’s for the kids,” Jake told you as he grabbed a stick leaning against a nearby wall, “but I don’t think they’ll mind if I show you, as long as we fix it after.”

He separated one puck from the rest, handling it back and forth across the floor effortlessly. He jerked his head, motioning for you to come over and join him. A bright smile came across his face when you moved to comply with his silent request.

“So the whole point for them,” his hands continued to mindlessly shift the puck back and forth across the floor as he talked, “is to spell words by popping the balloons. There’s glitter and candy and stuff instead for them if they can do it.”

“Ah yes, the herpes of crafts,” you noted in response to the word glitter.

Jake’s ever familiar laughter rang out through the lobby in response to your statement, bringing you right along with him. No one made you feel brighter and lighter than he did, even on your heaviest, darkest days.

“God, I love you,” he breathed out as his laughter slowly came to a close. “Anyway, so it’s just like this.”

Effortless, Jake pulled a puck back with his stick on the floor, then sent it sailing forward effortlessly. The puck collided and popped a red balloon with the letter “B” printed on it, causing glitter and candy to rain down onto the previously spotless floor below. Jake didn’t hesitate before repeating his actions, targeting and successfully popping a green balloon with the letter “E” emblazoned on it. Jake paused, leaning onto the stick and gesturing for you to go retrieve your candy. He’d seen the look on your face when one of your holiday favorites had dropped to the floor with the second balloon he popped. You pressed a quick, grazing kiss to his lips before shuffling to retrieve the candy he’d freed for you, happily opening your favorite immediately and sighing with relief when the taste hit your tongue.

“Hey, get out of the way!” Jake teased you when you didn’t return to him, too focused on your candy to realize you were in his way.

“Oh, you’re still going?” you asked him as you headed back over to join him, candy in your mouth muffling your words a little.

He nodded to you as you returned to your place beside him, “And you better be paying attention to what I’m spelling. There’s a quiz at the end.”

“A quiz? After my long day of work? With your spelling skills?” You were smiling as you teased him, and he was smiling back. You were allowed to tease him whenever you wanted because he knew it came from a place of absolute and complete love. “Seems like cruel and unusual punishment.”

“It’s not too long, promise,” he informed you. “Also, it’s three words, just to help with your spelling a little bit.”

“Three whole words?” you gasped, words heavily coated in sarcasm. “However will I manage to keep track?”

Jake didn’t answer. He just laughed lightly before, just as easily as the first two, slinging a third puck against the wall, popping a balloon with the letter “M” on its surface, showering the floor below it with glitter and candy. He followed it up quickly by popping his first white balloon with a “Y” on it, more candy and glitter joining the rest on the floor. You mentally tallied up the letters so far. B, E, M, and Y. You decided it was most likely as simple as it looked, just “be my.” Jake’s hands slipped on the fifth puck, sending it wide of whatever balloon was his target, leaving a black mark on the wall instead.

“Whoopsie,” he giggled a little. “Nerves are getting to me I guess.”

“What are you even nervous about?” You laughed a little as you talked, hands fussing with your second candy wrapper that was putting up a hell of a blockade between you and Jake’s favorite Christmas candy, which had become your second favorite after all this time with him. “It’s just me.”

“Have you ever seen you?” he joked, glancing back at you so you could see his eyebrows raise. “You’re always going to make me just a little nervous, baby.”

You rolled your eyes at him as your cheeks heated up a little in response to his words. With a wave of your hand, encouraged him to get back to spelling whatever he was so insistent on spelling for you. You figured it was probably, knowing Jake as well as you did, something incredibly cheesy and Christmasy, so sickeningly sweet you’d definitely roll your eyes again when he finally got to the end. You knew his intentions were nothing but pure, just him trying to bring a smile to your face. He didn’t need to go to all this trouble to do it though. His smile did the trick itself.

Jake separated another few pucks from the pile, setting himself up for his remaining word. He took a deep breath and bounced on his heels, spinning the stick in his hands as he did. He settled down and set himself up for the next shot in one motion, letting the puck fly forward. Another balloon, this time with a “W” detailed on it, burst on the impact from the puck. You suspected it had something to do with winter, a suspicion further upheld with the next green balloon to fall victim to one of his pucks with a spray of its contents to the floor had the letter “I” drawn on it. He took a pause with the next puck, spending a little extra time lining himself up, stick swinging back and forth for a moment in the motion of his shot, but not actually letting it content with the puck. Jake took a deep breath before letting it go. You were expecting an “N” to continue with your winter theory, but the puck made contact with and bursted a red balloon with an “F” on its surface, the now familiar sound of candy hitting the floor rang through the foyer after. Now, all of your theories were thrown out the window. Whatever he was spelling, you were done guessing because you weren’t going to be able to align your thoughts with his.

Jake hesitated another moment, as if waiting for you to have put the pieces together already, but when you didn’t respond, he lined up another puck. His hands shifted on the stick for a moment, finding the perfect positioning again before pulling his stick back, then letting it snap forward to send the puck toward the wall. You watched as another balloon burst, no candy or glitter raining down this time, no newly familiar pings of candy hitting the floor following it. Instead, all you could hear was your heart beating in your ears and your body forcibly pulling air in and pushing it back out of your lungs. It was an “E”, the final balloon. B, E, M, Y, W, I, F, and E. Be my wife.

“Jake…”

He set the stick down before turning to you, dropping to one knee as he did. Your hands flew up to cover your mouth as he opened the box in his hands. He was breathing as hard as you as he watched you take in the ring he had been agonizing over, designing and redesigning, for months. Jake’s hands were shaking, the box shaking a little along with it, and he didn’t even notice because it felt like his entire body was shaking as nerves ravaged him. All you had said was his name.

“It was, um-” He paused to clear his throat because the first two words had come out choked. Jake took a deep, centering breath before trying again, “It was, ‘be my wife,’ in case you missed a letter or something. I don’t know. I didn’t actually get to do a practice run of this or anything. But, baby, I love you. You’re the most patient and incredible person I’ve ever met. I- I feel like sometimes I annoy everyone else on the planet, but I’ve never felt like that with you. You make me feel so loved and appreciated for being me, exactly how I am, and I can only hope I make you feel the same way because how you make me feel is something I wish everyone could feel at some point in their lives because it’s the single most incredible thing I’ve ever felt. I want to spend my life trying to make you feel like you make me feel and you make me feel like I’m your favorite person and I feel like, maybe just me here, but you should probably try and marry your favorite person. You’re mine and I’d really love it if I got to remember Christmas for the rest of my life as the time when my favorite person said she’d be my wife. So, what do you say? Will you marry me?”

You couldn’t speak with every possible emotion built up in your throat. You had to nod as your answer, and shakily extend your left hand to him. The smile that came across his face was the broadest and best you’d ever seen from him, and it warmed you from the inside out. The cool metal of the ring sliding onto your finger contrasted the warmth you felt inside and the warmth of his hands. It was yours now, the ring Jake agonized over for months, and he was yours now, soon-to-be forever yours. He stood on shaking legs to press a soft kiss to your lips. Forever was an odd concept at a time of year that was inherently limited, but the warmth of Christmas would hang in your heart forever, and on your left hand forever, and in the bed you shared with him forever. Christmas lasting forever, like Jake DeBrusk, was a dream come true.

#jake debrusk #jake debrusk fic #jake debrusk imagine #jake debrusk fanfiction #nhl fanfiction #nhl fic #nhl fanfic #nhl imagine #Hockey Fanfiction #hockey fanfic #hockey writing #hockey imagine

120 notes · View notes

hockeyholidays2024 · 3 years ago

Text

Sorted list of nominations for Hockey Holidays 2021

This list is long, going behind read more. Any errors are mine. Conventions used:

Women's hockey nominations are together because there were not very many of them.

NHL players who played on a team together are listed under that team even if they no longer play there.

NHL players who have never been on the same NHL team but reasonably might have played on a national team together are listed that way e.g. "National: Team Canada".

Other situations (e.g., Nico Hischier/Nolan Patrick, Sidney Crosby/Alex Ovechkin) are listed under "Other cross-team".

Women's Hockey RPF (All)

Anya Battaglino/Madison Packer

Jillian Dempsey/Kayleigh Fratkin

Julie Chu/Caroline Ouellette

Taylor Crosby/Amanda Kessel

Tera Hofmann/Saroya Tinker

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Anaheim Ducks

Anaheim Ducks Ensemble/Trevor Zegras

Jamie Drysdale/Trevor Zegras

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Arizona Coyotes

Mikkel Boedker/Oliver Ekman-Larsson

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Boston Bruins

Jake DeBrusk/Charlie McAvoy

Jake DeBrusk/Matt Grzelcyk/Charlie McAvoy

Matt Grzelcyk/Charlie McAvoy

Patrice Bergeron/Brad Marchand

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Buffalo Sabres

Rasmus Dahlin/Casey Mittelstadt

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Calgary Flames

David Rittich/Matthew Tkachuk

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Carolina Hurricanes

Carolina Hurricanes Ensemble/Sebastian Aho (b. 1997)

Martin Nečas/Andrei Svechnikov

Sebastian Aho (b. 1997)/Rod Brind'Amour

Sebastian Aho (b. 1997)/Teuvo Teravainen

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Chicago Blackhawks

Alex DeBrincat/Dylan Strome

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Colorado Avalanche

Cale Makar/Conor Timmins

Erik Johnson/Gabriel Landeskog

J. T. Compher/Tyson Jost

J. T. Compher/Tyson Jost/Alexander Kerfoot

Nathan MacKinnon/Cale Makar

Ryan Graves/Cale Makar

Ryan Graves/Nathan MacKinnon

Ryan Graves/Nathan MacKinnon/Cale Makar

Tyson Barrie/Gabriel Landeskog

Tyson Barrie/Gabriel Landeskog/Nathan MacKinnon

Tyson Barrie/Nathan MacKinnon

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Columbus Blue Jackets

Patrik Laine/Jack Roslovic

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Dallas Stars

Anton Khudobin/Alexander Radulov

Braden Holtby/Anton Khudobin

Dallas Stars Ensemble/Jason Robertson

Dallas Stars Ensemble/Miro Heiskanen

Denis Gurianov/Roope Hintz

Jake Oettinger/Jason Robertson

Jani Hakanpää & Miro Heiskanen & Roope Hintz & Joel Kiviranta & John Klingberg & Esa Lindell

Jani Hakanpää/Miro Heiskanen

Jani Hakanpaa/Miro Heiskanen/Roope Hintz/Joel Kiviranta/Esa Lindell

Joel Kiviranta/Joe Pavelski

John Klingberg/Esa Lindell

Michael Raffl/Tyler Seguin

Miro Heiskanen/Roope Hintz

Miro Heiskanen/Tyler Seguin

Roope Hintz/Joel Kiviranta

Roope Hintz/Tyler Seguin

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Detroit Red Wings

Sergei Fedorov/Steve Yzerman

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Edmonton Oilers

Connor McDavid/Mike Smith

Connor McDavid/Ryan Nugent-Hopkins

Edmonton Oilers Ensemble/Connor McDavid

Jordan Eberle/Taylor Hall/Ryan Nugent-Hopkins

Leon Draisaitl/Connor McDavid

Tyson Barrie/Zach Hyman

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Florida Panthers

Aaron Ekblad/Sam Reinhart

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Los Angeles Kings

Quinton Byfield/Alex Turcotte

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Minnesota Wild

Jonas Brodin/Mathew Dumba

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Montreal Canadiens

Alex Galchenyuk/Brendan Gallagher

Jesperi Kotkaniemi/Nick Suzuki

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Nashville Predators

Pekka Rinne/Juuse Saros

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: New Jersey Devils

Dougie Hamilton/Jack Hughes/Nico Hischier

Jack Hughes (b. 2001)/Damon Severson

Jack Hughes (b. 2001)/Damon Severson/Ty Smith

Jack Hughes (b. 2001)/Ty Smith

Nathan Bastian/Michael McLeod

Nico Hischier/Jack Hughes (b. 2001)

Ryan Graves/Dougie Hamilton

Taylor Hall/Nico Hischier/Jack Hughes (b. 2001)

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: New York Islanders

Anders Lee/Brock Nelson

Anders Lee/Matt Martin

Anthony Beauvillier/Joshua Ho-Sang

Casey Cizikas/Cal Clutterbuck/Matt Martin

Casey Cizikas/Ilya Sorokin

Casey Cizikas/Matt Martin

Mathew Barzal/Anthony Beauvillier

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: New York Rangers

Alexis Lafrenière/K'Andre Miller

Chris Kreider/Mika Zibanejad

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Ottawa Senators

Tim Stützle/Brady Tkachuk

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Philadelphia Flyers

Cam Atkinson/Derick Brassard/Joel Farabee

Cam Atkinson/Kevin Hayes/Carter Hart

Carter Hart/Keith Yandle

Carter Hart/Kevin Hayes

Carter Hart/Kevin Hayes/Travis Konecny

Carter Hart/Travis Konecny

Claude Giroux/Jakub Voracek

Claude Giroux/Nolan Patrick

Claude Giroux/Ryanne Breton/Joel Farabee

Claude Giroux/Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick

Danny Briere/Claude Giroux

Joel Farabee/Carter Hart

Joel Farabee/Jakub Voracek

Joel Farabee/Michael Raffl

Joel Farabee/Morgan Frost

Joel Farabee/Nolan Patrick

Joel Farabee/Oskar Lindblom

Joel Farabee/Scott Laughton

Joel Farabee/Scott Laughton/Michael Raffl

Joel Farabee/Travis Konecny

Joel Farabee/Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick

Joel Farabee/Travis Konecny/Oskar Lindblom

Karly Girard/Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick

Keith Yandle/Kevin Hayes/Carter Hart

Kevin Hayes/Oskar Lindblom

Nolan Patrick/Ivan Provorov

Oskar Lindblom/Ivan Provorov

Ryanne Breton/Claude Giroux

Ryanne Breton/Claude Giroux/Joel Farabee

Ryanne Breton/Claude Giroux/Nolan Patrick

Ryanne Breton/Danny Briere/Claude Giroux

Scott Laughton/Michael Raffl

Scott Laughton/Nolan Patrick

Sean Couturier/Nolan Patrick

Travis Konecny/Ivan Provorov

Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick

Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick/Ivan Provorov

Travis Konecny/Oskar Lindblom

Travis Konecny/Oskar Lindblom/Nolan Patrick

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Pittsburgh Penguins

Brian Dumoulin/Kris Letang

Jaromír Jágr/Mario Lemieux

Jaromír Jágr/Mario Lemieux/Nathalie Lemieux

Kasperi Kapanen/Brandon Tanev

Marc-Andre Fleury/Kris Letang

Mario Lemieux/Marc-Andre Fleury

Sidney Crosby & Marc-Andre Fleury

Sidney Crosby/Anna Kasterova/Evgeni Malkin

Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin

Sidney Crosby/Jack Johnson

Sidney Crosby/Marc-Andre Fleury

Sidney Crosby/Marc-Andre Fleury/Veronique Fleury

Sidney Crosby/Mario Lemieux

Sidney Crosby/Mario Lemieux/Nathalie Lemieux

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: San Jose Sharks

Mario Ferraro/John Leonard

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Seattle Kraken

Haydn Fleury/Jamie Oleksiak

Jamie Oleksiak/Brandon Tanev

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: St. Louis Blues

Ryan O'Reilly/Vladimir Tarasenko

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Tampa Bay Lightning

Alex Killorn/Brayden Point

Mikhail Sergachev/Andrei Vasilevskiy

Victor Hedman/Steven Stamkos

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Toronto Maple Leafs

Alexander Kerfoot/Mitch Marner

Frederik Andersen/Auston Matthews

Frederik Andersen/Connor Brown

Frederik Andersen/Mitch Marner

Jake Gardiner/Morgan Rielly

Kyle Dubas/William Nylander

Mitch Marner/Ivan Provorov

Mitch Marner/John Tavares

Mitch Marner/William Nylander

Zach Hyman/William Nylander

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Vancouver Canucks

Bo Horvat/Nils Hoglander

Bo Horvat/Tanner Pearson

Brock Boeser/Bo Horvat

Brock Boeser/Elias Pettersson

Brock Boeser/J. T. Miller

Brock Boeser/Jason Dickinson

Brock Boeser/Quinn Hughes

Brock Boeser/Quinn Hughes/Elias Pettersson

Brock Boeser/Thatcher Demko

Eddie Lack/Roberto Luongo

Jason Dickinson/Nils Hoglander

Nils Hoglander/J.T. Miller

Oliver Ekman-Larsson/Nils Hoglander

Quinn Hughes/Elias Pettersson

Thatcher Demko/Quinn Hughes

Thatcher Demko/Quinn Hughes/Jacob Markstrom

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Vegas Golden Knights

Alec Martinez/Shea Theodore

Brett Howden/Nolan Patrick

Dylan Coghlan/Nic Hague

Dylan Coghlan/Nic Hague/Nolan Patrick

Dylan Coghlan/Nolan Patrick

Marc-Andre Fleury & Vegas Golden Knights Ensemble

Marc-Andre Fleury/Veronique Fleury

Marc-Andre Fleury/Veronique Fleury/Nic Hague

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Washington Capitals

Alexander Ovechkin & Alexander Semin

Evgeny Kuznetsov/Alexander Semin

Hendrix Lapierre/Connor McMichael

Michael Latta/Tom Wilson

Nic Dowd/Garnet Hathaway

Nicklas Backstrom/Alexander Ovechkin

Vitek Vanecek/Washington Capitals Ensemble

Men's Hockey RPF - Team: Winnipeg Jets

Kyle Connor/Mark Scheifele

Nikolaj Ehlers/Patrik Laine

Pierre-Luc Dubois/Evgeny Svechnikov

Men's Hockey RPF - National Team: Canada

Brady Tkachuk & Matthew Tkachuk

Brady Tkachuk/Matthew Tkachuk

Carter Hart/Tristan Jarry

Claude Giroux/Mitch Marner

Connor McDavid/Dylan Strome

Connor McDavid/Matthew Tkachuk

Danny Briere/Mario Lemieux

Danny Briere/Sidney Crosby

Darnell Nurse/Matthew Tkachuk

Marc-Andre Fleury/Claude Giroux

Marc-Andre Fleury/Nolan Patrick

Mario Ferraro/Cale Makar

Mathew Barzal/Patrice Bergeron

Mathew Barzal/Tyson Jost

Mitch Marner/Connor McDavid

Mitch Marner/Connor McDavid/Dylan Strome

Mitch Marner/Dylan Strome

Patrice Bergeron/Sidney Crosby/Brad Marchand

Pierre-Luc Dubois/Nolan Patrick

Ryanne Breton/Sidney Crosby/Claude Giroux

Scott Laughton/Connor McDavid

Sidney Crosby/Claude Giroux

Sidney Crosby/Nathan MacKinnon

Sidney Crosby/Tyler Seguin

Taylor Hall/Tyler Seguin

Men's Hockey RPF - National Team: Denmark

Nikolaj Ehlers/Team Denmark Ensemble

Oliver Bjorkstrand/Nikolai Ehlers/Patrik Laine

Men's Hockey RPF - National Team: Finland

Sebastian Aho (b. 1997)/Jani Hakanpää

Sebastian Aho (b. 1997)/Roope Hintz

Men's Hockey RPF - National Team: Russia

Andrei Svechnikov & Evgeny Svechnikov

Igor Shesterkin/Ilya Sorokin

Men's Hockey RPF - National Team: Sweden

Nicklas Backstrom/William Nylander

Men's Hockey RPF - National Team: USA

Cole Caufield/Trevor Zegras

Jack Eichel/Noah Hanifin

Jack Hughes (b. 2001) & Quinn Hughes

Jack Hughes (b. 2001)/Charlie McAvoy

Jack Hughes (b. 2001)/Quinn Hughes

Joel Farabee/Oliver Wahlstrom

Kevin Hayes & His Gang of BC Boys

Matty Beniers/Brendan Brisson

Quinn Hughes/Brady Tkachuk

Quinn Hughes/Trevor Zegras

Trevor Zegras/Joel Farabee

Men's Hockey RPF - Other/cross-team nominations

Artemi Panarin/Tom Wilson

Brock Boeser/Jack Hughes

Cole Caufield/Jamie Drysdale

Cole Caufield/Jamie Drysdale/Trevor Zegras

J.T. Miller/Tom Wilson

Jack Eichel/Connor McDavid

Jack Eichel/Noah Hanifin/Connor McDavid/Dylan Strome

Jamie Drysdale/Alex Turcotte/Trevor Zegras

Jamie Drysdale/Jack Hughes (b. 2001)/Trevor Zegras

Leon Draisaitl/Connor McDavid/Dylan Strome

Leon Draisaitl/Connor McDavid/Matthew Tkachuk

Leon Draisaitl/Matthew Tkachuk

Matt Martin/Steven Stamkos

Nico Hischier/Jack Hughes (b. 2001)/Nolan Patrick

Nico Hischier/Nolan Patrick

Nico Hischier/Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick

Roope Hintz/Nolan Patrick

Sidney Crosby/Alexander Ovechkin

Travis Konecny/Matthew Tkachuk

Wayne Gretzky/Jaromir Jagr

William Nylander/David Pastrnak

#hockey holidays 2021 #nominations

11 notes · View notes

krakenbait · 4 years ago

Text

kraken bait 3: the moment of truth

the moment is finally upon us! no, not the actual expansion draft, that’s in 10 days. i mean my last (but best) installment of the kraken bait expansion draft theories!

this has been a long, long work in progress, basically since i posted the last one. i’ve asked nearly every hockey fan i know, as well as randomly messaging several friends and cool people on hockeyblr, for their ideas and opinions on their favorite team’s expansion draft situation. and as with my previous lists, i had my friend and capfriendly consultant corwin (@chaos-hockey) collaborating with me to make this semi-reasonable (largely against their wishes). i’ll be including commentary from myself and my variety of sources with each pick.

for reference, this is a somewhat plausible look at who seattle might take in the expansion draft. it’s not a prediction, because even i don’t honestly think the kraken will take some of these players, but it’s a fun simulation. it does follow expansion draft rules, and even comes under the cap (which took some last-minute finagling by me and corwin).

without further ado, let’s get into it! this list got long, so it’s all under the cut.

Anaheim Ducks: Haydn Fleury

this one comes straight from resident danton heinen fan, ergo ducks fan @dantonheinens, so thanks for your help casey! they sent me a very detailed explanation of anaheim’s expansion draft situation basically explaining that there’s a whole lot of “ands, ifs, or buts” with the ducks, but if fleury is exposed, he’s a slam dunk (slam duck? i’m sorry)

Arizona Coyotes: Christian Fischer

the one thing i know about this dude is he got wrecked in a fight with nathan mackinnon in the 2020 playoffs. this is the first of several picks on this list i borrowed from The Athletic’s mock expansion drafts, which happens if i don’t know the team and i don’t know anyone else who does. corwin and i also considered taking adin hill from the yotes, but we decided on some other goalies instead (stay tuned).

Boston Bruins: Jeremy Lauzon

i have a lot of friends who are bruins fans, so credits are owed to: corwin, casey again, alex (@patron-saint-of-boston-hockey) & luna (@kureally) & any other bruins fans in the nwhl discord, and my irl bruins friends. i got a lot of opinions on the bruins pick, including jake debrusk, jakub zboril, connor clifton, and trent frederic. but the one name almost everyone could agree on was lauzon. therefore, i’ve decided he’s headed to seattle.

(it feels worth it to mention that at the prospect of having to take someone from the bruins, corwin said “curses be upon your name!” in an aggressively thick boston accent)

Buffalo Sabres: Rasmus Asplund

i could not tell you who this is, other than the fact that he’s one of buffalo’s three rasmuses (rasmi?). corwin and i had also talked about maybe putting anders bjork here, like i did in the last go-around, but i defaulted to The Athletic this time, and they thought asplund was a good pick, so here we are.

Calgary Flames: Mark Giordano

another pick borrowed from The Athletic, but i’ve seen predictions of giordano to the kraken a fair amount. it just seems right (and a whole lot better than corwin’s proposition of matthew tkachuk from last round).

Carolina Hurricanes: Brady Skjei

this one comes from the lovely @summerteukka, so thank you kinga! she gave me a very good rundown on the canes and the expansion draft, with the conclusion being the canes have so much defensive depth that it’s definitely going to be a defenseman, and especially if they resign dougie hamilton, skjei seems to be a likely choice. i’m all for it- we’ll have “an S and a K and a J all next to each other” on a kraken jersey.

Chicago: Adam Gaudette

similarly to the arizona pick, corwin and i considered a goalie here- in this case, it would have been malcolm subban. but he is not one of the goalies we ended up going for. instead, we opted on bringing micaela gaudette and her husband back to the pacific northwest.

Colorado Avalanche: Ryan Graves

this is really a no-brainer. gravy is a good defenseman, but the avs have such a strong defense between cale makar, devon toews, and sam girard (and you could add erik johnson when he’s healthy), plus up-and-comers like bo byram. gravy will almost definitely be exposed, and i think he’s a great pick for seattle. plus it’s relatively painless for avs fans who also will like seattle (like yours truly).

(corwin also wanted me to mention that they want gravy traded to the bruins so he can play with curtis hall, who is basically “color-swapped ryan graves”)

Columbus Blue Jackets: Dean Kukan

another pick taken right from The Athletic. i do not know who this is, but he’s a defenseman and the writers liked this pick so i went with it. for the record, corwin really wanted this pick to be boone jenner because he has a funky name, but i wanted another defenseman, so the fun name was sacrificed for function.

Dallas Stars: Jason Dickinson

i don’t really have an explanation for this one. corwin and i were talking about the stars options and picking dickinson just felt right.

Detroit Red Wings: Vladislav Namestnikov

thanks are owed here to joce (@doubleminor) for her red wings expertise! she gave me a few players who were likely kraken bait and i picked from there. it came down to evgeny svechnikov and vladislav namestnikov, but i went with namestnikov in the end. he was with the avs for a brief period and i liked him then, plus the vibes just seem right, so here we are.

Edmonton Oilers: Tyson Barrie

really, tyson barrie was the player who started the whole kraken bait thing. corwin made the drawing, i made the first list, and the rest is history. do i actually think tyson will be going to the kraken in a week? not really. do i still really like the idea of it? 100%. therefore, i will continue to engage in my “tyson barrie to seattle” nonsense.

Florida Panthers: Chris Driedger

oh look, our first goalie! florida had some interesting skater options, but when it came down to it, corwin and i thought the cats were a good place to take a goalie from. driedger did pretty well this season, plus the panthers’ goalie situation is locked up between $10 million man bobrovsky and future star spencer knight.

Los Angeles Kings: Viktor Arvidsson

corwin was feeling pretty strong about this one, so i’m trusting their judgement. according to them, seattle expressed interest in arvidsson, so nashville traded him to the kings instead of giving him up for nothing. now the kings get to give him up for nothing, which works out pretty well, considering i had absolutely no clue who to pick from the kings.

Minnesota Wild: Matt Dumba

like some other picks, this just seems right. i like matt dumba a lot. he seems like a fun and wholesome guy, and his activism, both on his own and with the hockey diversity alliance, is admirable. i hope he gets to display his personality and keep working to better the sport of hockey with the kraken.

Montreal Canadiens: Jake Allen

goalie number two! picking a player from the habs was weird because i got attached to them during the playoffs, but i really don’t know many of their players? so corwin and i deliberated on this a little, and after looking at our goalie situation, decided that allen was the right pick from montreal.

Nashville Predators: Calle Jarnkrok

after doing art for and getting a featured article from the preds, corwin thinks they’re some kind of nashville expert. i originally had matt duchene here, but corwin said not him. their logic? they did art of duchene for their preds project, so they probably want to keep him around. fair point. so we went with calle jarnkrok. the logic behind that choice was simple: “calle jarn-kraken”

New Jersey Devils: Andreas Johnsson

i wish i kept a counter of how many times corwin told me “ron francis doesn’t care about your feelings!” when we were discussing the devils pick. they kept advocating for either nate bastian or mikey mcleod, but i would not stand for the superbuddies being separated. this is my kraken bait list, so my decisions. i asked a few of my devils friends for their input (props to sabs @jakejuentzel and h @bigmouthnatebastian), and in between the mild panic, andreas johnsson got tossed out. therefore, it’s mango getting shipped to seattle. does it further lower the average age of the devils? yeah, but it’ll be fine! the nhl could use some youthful chaos.

New York Islanders: Jordan Eberle

all of my kraken bait ideas for the isles came from the bardown breakdown podcast (a great listen if you like hockey and pop-punk/punk music!), since both hosts are isles fans. they had a few names tossed out, including josh bailey and casey cizikas, but corwin and i decided on eberle. like with a lot of these, right vibes.

New York Rangers: Kevin Rooney

i’ve seen two names pretty consistently for rangers kraken bait: colin blackwell and kevin rooney. is blackwell is better and therefore the more likely pick? yes. but kevin rooney is a former devil and also mocked tom wilson, so i voted he gets to go seattle.

Ottawa Senators: Chris Tierney

i don’t think i could name more than three, maybe four players on the sens, so i defaulted to The Athletic on this one. i have no idea who chris tierney is, but it works, so there we go.

Philadelphia Flyers: James Van Riemsdyk

@phillyjoel left some fantastic notes on the flyers kraken bait in the tags of my last list, giving me good evidence to tell corwin that for the last time, nolan patrick is not kraken bait. the argument i saw was that the flyers are probably going to trade patrick instead of giving him up for nothing and make cap space by giving away van riemsdyk or voracek. The Athletic liked the van riemsdyk pick, and corwin could live with it, so that’s where we settled.

Pittsburgh Penguins: Zach Aston-Reese

i honestly don’t have a whole lot of explanation for this one. another pick borrowed from The Athletic, corwin and i liked it, there we go. we considered going with kris letang, but the vibes weren’t right.

San Jose Sharks: Ryan Donato

shoutout to my sharks friend and amazing artist K (@18minutemajor) for their help! i originally had brent burns in this slot, on K’s suggestion (we had a fantastic exchange about brent burns befriending bigfoot). however, i ran into last-minute cap trouble and had to switch the pick. ryan donato came from The Athletic, but i think it’s kind of a fun pick. he’s been passed between a few teams recently, but most of what i know of ryan donato comes from the 2018 olympics (aka the first time i really watched hockey!), when he was apparently doing pretty well for team usa.

St. Louis Blues: Vince Dunn

thank you @powerblais (and the blues fans group chat) for your input on this one! vince dunn was one of the names on the list erin sent me, and The Athletic also had him listed, so we went with it.

Tampa Bay Lightning: Blake Coleman

thanks @heddy for responding to my out-of-the-blue message with some good input on the bolts! ana gave me some good suggestions like tyler johnson plus something else so they take on the contract, alex killorn, and ondrej palat. in the end, this devils fan defaulted to pickles. this pick is in the same category as tyson barrie- do i actually think coleman is going to the kraken? not really. do i still like the idea? absolutely.

Toronto Maple Leafs: Travis Dermott

borrowed from The Athletic and some other kraken bait predictions, because everyone has something to say about the leafs. corwin and i waffled between dermott and alexander kerfoot for this pick, but we eventually settled on dermott to seattle.

Vancouver Canucks: Madison Bowey

this pick changed so much in just one day. we originally had braden holtby here because original kraken bait, but then i ran into cap trouble. so i switched it to zack macewen, following a pick by The Athletic. but then i wanted one or two more defensemen, so i switched to madison bowey, who was the other pick from The Athletic. after all that, it seems like the right pick.

Washington Capitals: Vitek Vanecek

our third and final goalie! corwin and i had our eyes on vanecek as kraken bait for a while- a young goalie with promise and room to improve seemed like the right pick for seattle. we briefly considered tj oshie--he’s from washington state, and corwin wanted to upset caps fans (we were talking during the first round of the playoffs)--but ended up back with vanecek as our pick.

Winnipeg Jets: Mason Appleton

last pick of the list! not much to say here, though. it’s a pick borrowed from The Athletic, but we went with him over the other option from the jets because he has a fun name. to quote corwin, mason appleton sounds like “an apple pie in a mason jar on skates.”

and there you have it folks, the final kraken bait list! if you want to know the specifics, we’ve got 3 goalies, 16 forwards, and 11 defensemen, and the total cap hit is 76.4M. i’m pretty doubtful that this will be the actual expansion draft lineup, but we’ll have to see how many, if any, picks corwin and i got right.

thanks again to everyone who helped me out, and i hope you enjoyed the chaos and commentary of the kraken bait lists!

#seattle kraken #kraken bait #expansion draft

11 notes · View notes

robohintz · 3 years ago

Text

DeBrusk requested a trade???? J. Hughes extension with the Devils is gonna be announced soon too.

…I was only away from hockey tumblr for literally two days-

2 notes · View notes

nhlgossips · 5 months ago

Note

https://www.tumblr.com/hockeychatstea/757674635107221504/httpswwwtumblrcomhockeychatstea7576729454790

#j. debrusk

0 notes

slapshot-to-the-heart · 4 years ago

Text

Death by a Thousand Cuts - j. debrusk

Trying to venture into some new territory, let me know what you think! Title’s from the Taylor Swift song. 4.8k of post-breakup Jake DeBrusk angst, as always, I love hearing feedback! I read all the tags, so feel free to reblog, pop into my inbox, anything!

Wine pairing from someone with zero authority on the subject: a full-bodied Syrah - smooth, fruity, the kind of wine I’d want to drink if I was sad.

My heart, my hips, my body, my love/Trying to find a part of me you didn’t touch

Shadi threw back another shot, wincing as the vodka burned down her throat. Clara rubbed her back sympathetically. “Better?” She shrugged. Alcohol was great for forgetting things, but there were some wounds too fresh and too deep for even a Sazerac to cure. And her wounds were named Jake DeBrusk.

Jake had been her everything, still was her everything, and the idea that she was somehow now in charge of forgetting everything they had shared was more than she could bear. Breakups weren’t something Shadi took lightly, and especially when she had spent the past year falling more in love with him with each breath she took. Forgetting more than a year’s worth of early-morning conversations in his bed, Jake’s hand gently brushing back her hair before kissing her temple and going out to the kitchen to start the coffee pot. Shadi couldn’t start her day without coffee. A year’s worth of games, up in the box with the other WAGs and down in the tunnel, their lips crashing together in the euphoria of a post-win high. A year’s worth of vacations, to Edmonton to visit his family and Dallas to see hers, laying on the white sand beaches of Tahiti in the summer. A year’s worth of falling asleep to him tracing lines between the freckles on her bare back in the glow of the post-sex fog. It wasn’t like she was going to forget any of it anytime soon. And if Shadi was being honest with herself, it wasn’t like she wanted to.

---

Shadi met Jake just after moving into her new apartment with Clara, her best friend from BC, when they decided to celebrate their newfound jobs and independence with a bar crawl. As luck would have it, they never actually made it past the first one. Clara had just finished up her first week as a tenth grade English teacher, and Shadi had the weekend to relax before her marketing analytics post started on Monday.

She wasn't going out to meet someone, not really, but if there was someone attractive enough and charming enough she wasn’t absolutely opposed to spending the night in a bed that wasn’t her own. Shadi sat at the bar, responding to a few texts and sipping her drink as she waited for Clara to return from the bathroom. She wasn’t paying enough attention to her surroundings to notice someone sidle up next to her, getting a little too close for comfort. “Hey,” he said loudly, startling her. Shadi looked up — way up, he was at least six or seven inches taller than her 5’5 — to the stranger’s face, flashing a tight smile. She didn’t know any women who particularly liked to be accosted in the middle of a drink.

“Hey,” she said.

He inched closer. “I’m Darren, nice to meet you.”

As much as she’d really just like to be able to tell the guy to fuck all the way off, Shadi hated that it was a far better decision for her safety and security to just try and tacitly go along with it. Let him down easy.

“Shadi,” she responded.

He whistled, and she internally cringed, trying as subtly as she could to look towards the bathrooms and trying to spot Clara. More than once, they had pretended to be a couple at bars to get each other out of situations exactly like this one. “Shadi,” he said, testing out the name. “What is that? Arabic? Indian?”

Now she visibly cringed, raising her eyebrows. Great, he’s racist as well as a creep. “Neither. I’m Persian.”

“Cool, super cool,” he said, nodding. “So, Shadi, what brings you here?”

“Starting a new job next week,” she said, looking back down at her phone, trying to give him just enough information to keep him from being pissed at her.

Darren finished his drink. “That’s cool, yeah. Good for you. I work in finance. High-level account managing and stuff. It’s a lot of responsibility, but I like the challenge.” Great, add finance bro to the list of reasons why I’ll never go home with this guy, Shadi thought.

“Nice,” Shadi said, looking away and taking a sip of her drink and trying her damndest to make it clear she wasn’t interested.

Darren moved even closer, his hand now resting on her waist as Shadi leaned as far away from him as she could while still staying on her seat, looking frantically around for Clara, or anyone, to bail her out. “You come here with anyone?”

“Uh, yeah,” Shadi said nervously, eyes still sweeping the room. “My boyfriend should be around here somewhere.” Darren didn’t need to know she didn’t have a boyfriend, and as much as she hated that men like him were more likely to leave her alone if they thought she was spoken for than if she told him herself she wasn’t interested, it was the best thing she could do in the moment.

Darren took a cursory glance around the room. “I don’t see anyone coming,” he noted. “You sure about that, Shadi?

“Yes,” she squeaked, as his hand tightened around her waist and she froze like a deer in headlights, too stiff to flag down the bartender.

“It’s polite to look at people when they’re talking to you, or did they not teach that where you’re from?”

Shaking, she turned back to look at him. “I’m from Texas,” she spat.

“I think we could really have some fun together, if you’d just stop being so uptight we could really—” Darren didn’t get the chance to finish his sentence, his arm being forcefully removed from her waist. She swung around, meeting the eyes of her unknown savior, who was too busy glaring at the man across from her to even meet her eyes.

“Seems like you’re having a hard time taking no for an answer,” he said.

Darren looked up, rubbing his wrist from where it had been in a vice grip only moments before. “You the boyfriend?”

The other man didn’t even flinch. “Yeah, I’m the boyfriend. Even if I wasn’t, she clearly doesn’t want anything to do with you, but she’s just too polite to tell you to fuck off. Luckily,” he smirked. “I’m not.”

Darren rolled his eyes, grabbing his half-empty glass and inching away from the bar. “Whatever. Wouldn’t have been worth it anyways.”

Shadi collapsed into her hands as soon as he was out of earshot, breathing shakily. The stranger reached out tentatively, rubbing her shoulder to comfort her. “You okay?”

She leaned back, taking another drink and nodding. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll be okay, it’s not like it’s the first time this has happened. He just really didn’t want to leave me alone and I couldn’t find my friend and he didn’t seem to be getting the message that I wasn’t interested.”

He grimaced. “On behalf of my entire gender, I apologize for all the shitty men you have ever had to encounter.”

“Thank you,” she said, laughing slightly and setting her glass back down on the bar. “And thanks for stepping in, you really didn’t have to.”

He shook his head. “I just did what any decent guy would do. I’ve got a sister, girls deserve to feel safe in bars.”

“Regardless,” she added, “I appreciated it. And just so you know,” she said, pausing, “you don’t have to worry about an actual boyfriend coming around. I’ve just found it’s the easiest way for guys to leave me alone.” Shadi surprised herself; she wasn’t normally this bold.

He dipped his head. “Good to know. Probably should properly introduce myself, then. Jake DeBrusk,” he said, sticking his hand out.

“Shadi Azizi.” She shook it, smirking slightly as she took a sip of her drink. “I know.”

He smiled bashfully, scratching his head. “Hockey fan?”

She nodded. “I’ll go to Bruins games when I can make it, but I’m from Dallas, so…” she shrugged.

“You’ve already sold your soul to the Stars,” Jake finished.

Shadi laughed. “Yep. You can take the girl out of Texas, but you can’t take the Texas out of the girl.”

Jake eyed her glass, seeing that she was nearly finished. “Can I get you another?” Shadi nodded after a moment. “Sure.” He caught the bartender’s eye. “What are you drinking?” “Whiskey on the rocks.” Jake leaned back on his stool, clutching his hands over his chest. “A woman after my own heart.”

---

Three months later, it was November, and Shadi was in Jake’s kitchen, doling out Chinese takeout onto two plates. “Beer?” she asked over the counter, to where Jake was flopped on the couch, flipping through channels in hopes of finding something mildly interesting to watch.

“Yes please,” he shot back. He had just gotten back from a road trip that afternoon, eleven days in the Midwest, and there were few things he wanted more than to be back in Shadi’s arms. They had started a sort of unspoken tradition; Shadi had taken to spending the night whenever Jake came back from a road trip, and he wasn’t about to start complaining. He loved his job and he loved his team, but after a week or two of being around them practically 24/7, he didn’t want to waste any time getting back to her.

Shadi padded back towards the living room, sliding a plate of lo mein and fried rice over to Jake, who leaned in and kissed her shoulder. “Thanks, babe,” he said, putting the remote down. “Parks and Rec good with you?”

She nodded, mouth full. “Doesn’t take much to convince me. I’d kill a man for Leslie Knope.”

Jake laughed. Shadi looked over at him, one eyebrow raised. “You think I’m joking?”

He held his free hand up in mock surrender, the other balancing his plate on the arm of the couch. “I should have known better. Will you ever forgive me?”

“Maybe,” Shadi said, scrunching up her nose. “I think I can find it somewhere deep in the recesses of my cold, dead heart.”

Things between Jake and Shadi had gotten pretty serious pretty quickly, certainly more quickly than Jake was expecting. But, as he was realizing, that wasn’t exactly a bad thing. The scene was definitely more domestic than he was used to; it wasn’t unusual for him and Shadi to join some of their friends or the team for a night out at the bars or clubs, but it was just as common to have an evening in. It was nice, being together like this. Domesticity was never something that was quite his style, but as he thought, looking over at Shadi, who was entirely engrossed in Leslie’s valiant attempts to control a town hall meeting, maybe it could become his style.

You said it was a great love, one for the ages/But if the story’s over, why am I still writing pages?

It was the end of January, and Shadi was in Edmonton. Jake had told her about Boston’s bye week about two months earlier, the plan having originally been to drive up to New Hampshire for a week of camping in White Mountain. But then Jake had been selected for the All-Star Team, much to his surprise — not Shadi’s, who had been convinced he’d be picked practically since the season started — and their schedule had been turned on its head. He had decided that it would make more sense to visit his family. Shadi didn’t complain; she had just started to get used to Boston winters, and wasn’t confident in her ability to go a week in a tent in the middle of January.

What surprised her, though, was when he invited her to come with him. She had never met his parents in person before. Over FaceTime, sure, but it wasn’t the same. Jake was initially very shy about extending the invitation, almost as if he wasn’t sure if that was something she wanted or was ready for. His concern was sweet, but Shadi was more touched that he had asked her to come in the first place, and put in her request for vacation time that night.

The flight wasn’t much over six hours, a short layover in Montréal and one connection later and they landed in Edmonton. Shadi met up with Jake just outside of passport control, pulling her pea coat tightly around herself. “Ooh,” she said, breathing out shakily. “Bit chilly here, no?”

Jake laughed. Oh, if only she knew. “Wait till you get outside, babe. It’s January in the middle of Alberta.”

“How bad can it get?” Shadi asked naively. Pretty bad, as she found out the moment they stepped outside the terminal into the freezing air. She was suddenly very grateful her parka was in her bag, a Patagonia jacket that had been one of her first big purchases when she moved to Boston. Jake was having a very good fun time poking fun at her in the three minutes it took for his parents to pull up.

“Aww, is my Texas girl cold? Is she having trouble dealing with real weather?”

Shadi glared at him. “Shut up.”

His parents were incredible, kind and welcoming from the moment they picked them up at the airport. They drove them back to Jake’s childhood home, where his sister greeted her with a hug. She had visited Boston a few weeks prior, her and Shadi immediately getting along thanks to their shared taste in coffee orders and music. They had swapped Spotify playlists more than one time since her visit.

The week she spent in Edmonton was amazing. Even though she may have been a little bit apprehensive from the start, all of her worries were just distant memories by the time they had to get back on the plane. She had always been good with parents; whether it was her best friend or her boyfriend, they had always liked her. Making a good impression and being unfailingly respectful, especially to her elders, was a value that had been instilled in her from a young age. She had brought a tin of qurabiya on the plane as a gift for them, after a half-dozen Google searches to make sure she could bring them across the border and a twenty minute long phone call with her mom to make sure she was using the right type of almonds. They loved them, and seeing the tin already empty on the third day of her trip filled her heart.

“She’s really good for you, you know,” his mom said, as he was packing his suitcase for the flight back. “You’re still you, fun and spontaneous and caring. But you’re a more mature, thoughtful version of yourself. And I think that’s thanks to Shadi.”

Jake blushed, shoving his toothbrush in his toiletry bag. “She is. She’s great, Mom. We have so much fun together, and she really does bring out the best in me.” He paused for a moment. “I think I’m in love with her.”

His mom raised her eyebrows, not surprised and certainly not disappointed, but a little astonished that he had realized himself what she saw from the moment they had landed in Canada. She had just been waiting for him to admit it. “You do?” she asked, a hint of a smile on her face.

He nodded, more sure this time. “I’m in love with her, Mom.”

Quiet my fears with the touch of your hand/Paper cut stings from our paper-thin plans

“You doing okay, babe?” Clara asked gently, one hand on Shadi’s back as she nursed her third beer of the night. Shadi reached up to try and wipe away her tears. Thank God she hadn’t worn any mascara. She nodded, trying to flash her best friend a smile, but it didn’t meet her eyes.

Shadi hadn’t ever been the kind of person to put up walls. That was Jake’s thing. But she was a great actress, and if Clara hadn’t known her as well as she did, she wouldn’t have been able to call her on it.

“Bullshit, Shadi. You’re not fine and I know it. You know it.” God, Clara could read her like a book. It wasn’t okay, she wasn’t okay, and she sure as hell wasn’t over him. She didn’t know when she would be over him. If ever.

They said that Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it burned in one. If Rome was a metaphor for their relationship, Shadi would say there’s never been a more accurate phrase. All it took was five minutes for Jake to break her heart, for the world they had built together to come crumbling apart around her. As much as she hated it, there was still a part of her that couldn’t help but try to look back on that night. Shadi almost called bullshit on him the moment he said he was breaking up with her, because he had never even brought it up before, and that’s not something you just drop on someone like he did, right? But she didn’t, she hadn’t gotten closure and hadn’t gotten a reason, an actual reason, and so any curly hair she saw out of the corner of her eye that night she kept hoping was Jake’s, and any cocky smile from some guy trying to buy her a drink — she’d let them, for the free alcohol, but they never got a conversation out of her — she kept wishing was his.

---

It was September, and Shadi felt like she was walking on air. She and Jake had celebrated their one year anniversary a month ago, and things couldn’t be going better. Training camp for the new season had started, which had begun to take up more of his time than she maybe would have liked, but she was dealing with it. They both were. It was like Shadi had told him two months into their relationship, and countless times since: she knew what she was signing up for, knew that sometimes she would have to take a backseat to hockey, and she was okay with that. Having Jake some of the time was better than not having him at all.

So when Jake had texted her that morning, asking if she was free to come over that night, she thought nothing of it. Well, scratch that, she thought a lot of it. It had been about two weeks since they had had a proper date night; while she loved him sneaking into her apartment to sleep for a few hours before he had to get up or meeting in the mornings for coffee and bagels, they were in desperate need of some alone time. Jake hadn’t exactly been distant since their anniversary, but it had definitely seemed like something was on his mind. And when she asked Clara, or her older sister Yasmin, or Hannah, her best friend in Houston, they all said the same thing. If nothing seemed like it was going wrong, but he was seeming distant, but they were still communicating, then there was really only one possibility, at least according to them. He was going to propose.

So Shadi took a little longer in front of the mirror, put on her good jeans instead of just a pair of sweats, ran a comb through her hair. She grabbed her car keys, locking the door to her apartment and nervously pressing on the elevator button. Why was she nervous? She was in love with Jake. She saw a future with him, a future together. If tonight was going to be the start of forever, there was nothing to be afraid of. I wonder what Jake’s doing now, Shadi thought. Was he waiting for her on the couch? Trying to cook pasta, the only dinner he could reliably make without burning? Pacing back and forth in his room, turning over the ring box in his hand? The ring. What did it look like? Did he buy it new, or was it a family heirloom? Did he ask any of the guys on the team for tips, or did — Stop it, Shadi reminded herself. He doesn’t have to be proposing. We do nights in almost every week. Maybe he just wants to watch a movie. But in the back of her mind, as she pulled out of the parking garage, was the possibility that she was about to walk into one of the most important nights of her life. And it was, but not in the way she thought. Not in the way she wanted.

Jake’s place was only ten minutes away from hers; before she even knew it, she was killing the engine and walking up the stairs to his door. She tapped her knuckles against the wood. It was barely ten seconds before Jake opened it up, smiling at her. “Hey, thanks for coming over,” he said, leading her into the living room and pressing a kiss against her cheek, lingering a little longer than usual

Shadi knew something was off even as they sat on the couch thirty minutes later, Star Wars playing on the screen in front of them. If she was being honest, she knew something was wrong from the moment she got there. Jake was acting stuff, not distant, but almost confused. LIke he had something on his mind that he couldn’t quite spit out. And it didn’t seem like a proposal. “Alright,” Shadi said, huffing and propping herself up on one arm to face Jake. “What’s up.”

To his credit, he didn’t mince words, didn’t play dumb. He knew better than to insult her intelligence like that, and she knew better than to believe him. “You noticed, huh?”

She rolled her eyes. “I love you for a lot of reasons, J, but you really do have a terrible poker face.”

Jake sighed, running a hand through his hair, leaving a piece hanging in front of his eye. “Alright,” he said, in that kind of I-know-what-I-need-to-say-but-I-don’t-want-to-say-it tone, the one that she wasn’t expecting. The one that never means good news. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on my life, our lives over the past thirteen months we’ve been together, and I’ve loved every minute of the time that we’ve spent together.” Okay, Shadi furrowed her brows, where’s he going with this? “I’ve also been doing a lot of thinking about my priorities in life, where they are right now and where I think they should be. And I’ve realized that,” he swallowed, “I’m at a place in my life where I need to be focusing on hockey.” Oh no. “And I don’t think I’m in a position where I can have a relationship and be as invested in my career as I need to be.” Oh God.

Shadi sat up, stunned. “Are you...Are you breaking up with me?”

Jake nodded his head jerkily. “And I want you to know that I don’t regret anything about our relationship. I don’t have anything bad to say about you, or the time we’ve spent together, or anything. I just don’t think I’m able to give you, or our relationship, the attention it deserves. You deserve someone who’s going to be able to dedicate a hundred percent to you, and as much as I wish I could, I don’t think I’m that person.”

“So, you’re saying I’m a distraction?” Shadi asked slowly, her eyes shiny with unshed tears.

Jake ran a hand through his hair, tangling his fingers in his curls. “Fuck. No. That’s not it. I just don’t know if I’m in a place where I’m able to juggle two things that are so important, and that I want to dedicate this much time to.”

She scoffed. “Are you really trying to pull the whole ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ line with me, DeBrusk?” That stung. She never called him by his last name, not even when they started dating. It was J, or babe, or even Jake if she was particularly annoyed, but never just DeBrusk.

“Would it make you feel better if I was?”

Shadi shook her head. “It’s worse. Don’t you know that it’s worse? Because then there’s not anything I feel like I could have done differently. Nothing I could have done to change your mind.” Her eyes drifted down to her right hand, where the gorgeous pearl ring Jake had gotten her for their anniversary just a month prior sat on her ring finger. “You said you were going to marry me one day,” Shadi said, sliding her fingertips down to the band and gently twisting it off. Her hand felt bare, even though it had only been there for a month. Jake’s breath caught in his throat. Never make a promise you can’t keep.

Saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts

God, sometimes Shadi just felt so fucking stupid. She almost felt naive, shortsighted from not listening to her friends in Boston, or people back home who warned her about Jake.“You know his reputation. You know how hockey players are” Shadi couldn’t count the number of times people had told her that, and the number of times she hadn’t listened. “He doesn’t stick with any one girl.” “I know you like him, but he’s only going to break your heart.” But the thing was, he hadn’t. Jake had made it clear, straight from the start of their relationship, that they were exclusive, and he backed it up. She wore his jersey to games, went as his date to all the Bruins fundraisers, and took the week off to come with him when he was selected for the All-Star Game. Jake knew his reputation better than anyone, and that’s why he was so committed to making sure she knew that he wasn’t the kind of guy everyone kept trying to peg him as. And Shadi had never felt so much pride then when she was able to turn around, prove them wrong, and say: “You see? He’s never done anything to hurt me, and he’s not about to start now.”

But she couldn’t, not anymore. She couldn’t, because they all had been right and he had broken his promises and her heart and now she was crying in a bar with her best friend on a Friday night and had no clue how to get a grip of her feelings. She pounded back another beer, barely even stopping to swallow before ordering a fourth round. Or was it a fifth? She didn’t know, and at that point, she really didn’t care.

I get drunk, but it's not enough/’Cause the morning comes and you're not my baby

Sometime past one but before her next door neighbor’s chihuahua always started barking at two, Shadi stumbled into her apartment. She unstrapped her heels and placed them haphazardly by the door as she walked down to the bathroom, reaching around the cupboard for her toothpaste. Teeth were brushed and flossed, and she had shed nearly all of her clothes by the time she reached her bed. She grabbed the nearest sweatshirt to pull over her body as makeshift pajamas, only half paying attention. Shadi was too tired to look too closely; if she had, she would have noticed that it was a Bruins hoodie, the very first one Jake had ever given to her, a month and a half into their relationship.

It seemed like Shadi had barely drifted off to sleep when she was woken up by the sound of frantic knocks on her door. Her first thought was something was wrong with Clara, who lived down the hall, that she wasn’t feeling well or needed to be talked out of texting her ex-girlfriend. It had happened before. But then she realized that Clara would have called first. Then her thought was a fire somewhere, but she didn’t smell smoke and her alarm hadn’t gone off. The knocking persisted. “Okay, okay, I’m coming. You’re going to wake up the whole building,” Shadi grumbled, throwing back the covers and padding out to the living room, pants be damned.

She tried to wipe the sleep out of her eyes, the harsh light of the hallway fluorescents the first thing she noticed as the door swung open. The second thing was the person standing in front of it. It was Jake. His hand was frozen in the air, like he was about to knock for a fourth time if she hadn’t answered. “What are you doing here?” she whispered, her voice small. She didn’t trust it to speak any louder.

Jake’s breath hitched as he noticed what she was wearing. His sweatshirt. He stuffed his hand into his jeans pocket, pulling out her pearl ring. The same one she had taken off the day he left, the same one he had given her when his thoughts of the future were filled with big houses and weddings and kids’ birthday parties. He held it out to her. “I had to see you.”

#hockey imagine #hockey smut #nhl imagine #nhl smut #jake debrusk #boston bruins #hockey #hockey imagines #hockey writing #nhl #nhl imagines #nhl writing

75 notes · View notes