Match Game: A Fake Dating Hockey Romance

9. Griffin

Griffin Markey: hey, u busy thursday night?

Lydia Goh: no, why?

Griffin Markey: games night is at my house - wanna come?

Lydia Goh: uhhhhh yeah sure. will i get to meet your friends?

Griffin Markey: yeah. Ross and Micah. they’re cool. they know about us, btw. i felt like i spend too much time with them for them not to know the truth.

Lydia Goh: that’s ok. it makes sense. I told my brother, because if i didn’t then you might need a restraining order against him.

Griffin Markey: ha ha. yeah that’s fine. i’ll text you my address - be here around 7?

Lydia Goh: ok sounds good. do you need me to bring anything? food? drink? both?

Griffin Markey: yeah, feel free to bring something to eat and drink. we like doing it potluck style. i don’t really cook, but i’ll make like lasagna from TJ’s or something.

Lydia Goh: haha, always count on Mr. Joe for having such good frozen foods.

I do the last bits of tidying up in my house, making sure that there is nothing out that would cause a stir. When the guys come over, I put less care into how my house looks because I frankly don’t give a damn if they think the house is messy. I’m busy, and I don’t have someone hired to help clean the house. But with Lydia coming over? Now, that’s something that I have to worry about.

I don’t know if she’s a clean freak or if she has more clutter around her place, but I want to make a good first impression. Because even if this whole thing is fake, I still want her to like me. While we’re both in the mindset that dating may do more harm than good, I still think about her a more than I should. And opening up my home to her is going to take our friendship-slash-fake relationship to a new, vulnerable stage.

Ross and Micah arrive before Lydia because I told them to show up half an hour earlier to go over a game plan. And by game plan, I mean things they can’t say while Lydia’s here that will humiliate me because I know they’re going to say some out-of-pocket shit.

“Knock knock,” Ross and Micah walk in, carrying a tub of fried chicken and hard lemonade seltzers. This is going to be tough to burn off at practice tomorrow.

“Hey,” I greet them. “Wow, this takes me back to college.”

“Well, we didn’t want to bring a veggie platter, so this was our other option.”

I shrug. “It’s good. I’m just thinking of the chicken sweats tomorrow. Oh, by the way, Lydia is coming over.”

Micah’s eyes widen at me. “What?”

“Wow, that’s awesome!” Ross squeals. “We get to meet the woman that’s replacing us in Griffin’s heart!”

“She’s not replacing anything,” I counter. “She’s a fake girlfriend, you guys know that. I’m just trying to help her get her esports league off the ground, and she’s trying to help me with my aversion to the spotlight.”

“Yeah, but we also know that you don’t want it to be fake,” Micah says. “Are you sure that she’s not into you?”

“Yeah,” I nod. “Because she told me.”

“Just because she said it doesn’t mean that it’s true. She might not even really know her own feelings,” Ross explains. “You need to try and prove to her that you can handle a little bit of attention and be seen out in public with her. She fell for you once, she can damn well easily do it again.”

I roll my eyes and put the drinks in the fridge. “I’m not going to force her to fall in love with me. She’s made up her mind; she wants to keep this strictly business, and that’s fine. I think it’s be better if we we’re just friends anyway if it reaches that point.”

“Boo,” Ross says, giving me a thumbs down. “That’s no fun. You should be able to be with whoever you want to and not have to feel guilty about it.”

“Too late,” I tell them. Even if, by some magical coincidence, I was able to convince Lydia to date me, there are so many unknowns in being roped into a relationship with a pro athlete. The biggest one is where I’ll go. My contract isn’t up for another two seasons, but then, I don’t know if I will be in San Jose. I might be in Canada or back near home. While I would love to stay with a team and staff I’ve grown to consider family, I don’t always get a say in the matter. New talent is always pooling in, and now I’m unfortunately, nearing the way out. And with that, means the possibility of moving. Lydia has made her home here. Her family’s nearby, and all she knows is the South Bay. Plus, she has her dream job. I would feel guilty if I had to take her away from that. Or put her through long distance, which is always a toss-up in terms of how well it will go or how long it will last.

“It’ll be no-strings-attached fun,” I determine. I know that I might need something to curb my hormones if I’m constantly looking at Lydia. Maybe some light physical touch here and there to make things believable. “If I convince her to fool around a little, great, but nothing that we’re tied to.”

“Agreed,” Micah says. “Women have a lot of baggage.”

“Ugh, you guys are so pessimistic!” Ross is the hopeless romantic of our group, but he barely goes out on dates. I feel like he’s been withholding some important intel from us on why he’s both so in love with love, and doesn’t want to do anything about it.

I hear a knock at the door and start to race toward it. “That’s Lydia. Be on your best behaviors!”

“We can definitely try!” Ross shouts. I shake my head and suck in a breath. Showtime. I open the door and smile when I see Lydia holding an aluminum tin of something and a bottle of wine.

“Hi!” She holds up the items in her hands. “I made some noodles. And brought wine. I hope everyone likes wine.”

“Thank you,” I grab the bottle from her and beckon her inside. “Did you make these?”

“Yeah,” she nods. “They’re like vermicelli noodles, but seasoned with soy sauce and there are some some spare ribs in there too. I hope it tastes good.”

“I’m sure it’ll taste amazing,” I tell her. It definitely smells divine. It’s really thoughtful that she brought something, especially something homemade. All of us can barely cook or don’t really have much time to. This is a nice change from the fast food or takeout we normally opt for.

I lead her into the kitchen and introduce her to the guys standing rather suspiciously with their hands folded on the kitchen island.

“Lydia, this is Ross and Micah. We’ve been teammates for the past ten years and, ironically, all like different types of games, so we play weekly with one another.”

“Hi,” she waves softly. “It’s nice to meet you all.”

“It’s great to meet you,” Ross says, sliding up next to her. “Griffin’s told us so much about you.”

Her face reddens. “He has?”

“Not anything bad,” I blurt. I think. God, I’m so nervous about how these guys are going to humiliate the shit out of me in front of this woman. “Right, Ross?”

“Of course not!” He grins. “Actually, nothing but good things. Like how good you are at Hero Seek. If you want to play with a good player instead of Griffin here, who is average at best, hit me up!”

“Ross,” I elbow him. “I’m sorry for him. You don’t have to feel obligated to play with him.”

She starts chuckling. “He’s not that bad,” she counters. “I’m just a lot better.”

Micah and Ross make an “ooooooo” sound, and I start smiling with my head down. This woman’s going to absolutely ruin me, more than she already has.

I reach into one of my cabinets and grab plates and utensils for everyone, along with wine glasses for myself and Lydia. Micah and Ross both express their distaste for wine, which I can see makes Lydia feel a little bad that she brought it, but I tell her to pour me a glass so I can enjoy it with her. Ross and Micah open the hard lemonades that are going to run them off the rails.

I decide for our board game night that we should play Monopoly, considering the last time we were meant to play, I talked everyone out of it because I wanted to go home and play with Lydia instead.

When I pull out my luxury edition wooden Monopoly board, Micah and Ross groan. It is a favorite of mine, so I had to adorn my game collection with one that really makes you feel luxurious while playing it.

“What, now you two don’t want to play? You were giving me such a hard time for not wanting to play it last week!”

“Yeah, but that was last week!” Micah says. “I really don’t know if I’m ready to lose some friendships tonight.”

“You guys are being dramatic. Whatever happens, we’ll still be friends.”

“You’re just saying that because we have a guest over.” Ross leans over and whisper-talks to Lydia. “Watch out, Griff’s a menace at Monopoly.”

“Don’t listen to them,” I warn Lydia. “I’m not a menace when it comes to Monopoly,” I repeat Ross’s accusation.

“He just gets super competitive. Be prepared to make it a living hell to trade anything with this guy. He will barter to no end until he gets what he wants.”

“Oh gosh,” Lydia giggles. “It’s too bad that I’m really hard to convince then.”

Fuck. I feel my insides tingle, and I’m willing myself not to get flustered. This is going to be a really tough game, not because, yes, I am very competitive when it comes to Monopoly, but it’s going to be really hard to resist Lydia’s charms.

“I am willing to trade you my Park Place for your Marvin Gardens plus my railroad! Why won’t you accept my trade?!” Lydia groans.

“Because a monopoly on the yellow puts you at a huge advantage!”

“And the blue doesn’t?”

“The likelihood that someone will land on my spaces versus yours is so much less. And one railroad will get me barely anything!”

Lydia throws her hands up in frustration. “I can’t believe you’d turn down the chance at a monopoly because you’re thinking about probabilities.”

“No, I’m thinking about how you’ve already taken control of a good chunk of the board, and I won’t let you have any more of it!”

She rolls her eyes. “God, you really are a pain to play Monopoly with.”

Micah and Ross snicker to themselves, and I genuinely feel a little bad that I’ve created a shouting match between me and Lydia. Maybe the guys were right, maybe I do get a little too competitive over a game that’ll mean nothing once we’re done playing.

The game finishes, and Lydia comes out victorious. After a lot of asking, nay begging, that she trade with me to make her monopoly, I finally relent, and one by one, the rest of us start going bankrupt. First, it was Micah and then Ross shortly thereafter, and then it was down to the two of us. After I gave Lydia a hard time earlier, she was not going to go easy on me. She had more properties than I did going into this final showdown, and when I ran the gauntlet of her properties, it was inevitable that I was going to land on the one space that she decided to build a whole-ass hotel on and declare myself bankrupt.

She squeals when I admit defeat and begins clapping to herself.

“Oh my god, that was such a long game, but we did it. We defeated the beast!”

Ross and Micah high-five her, and she finally turns to me and holds out her hand.

“Good game,” she tells me. “You really put up a fight. But in the end, I just edged it out ever so slightly.”

“Yes,” I laugh. “Yes, you did. Good job.”

Ross and Micah decide that they’re going to call it a night and both start making their way out. As they shut the door, I go into the kitchen to see Lydia doing the dishes.

“Lydia, you don’t have to do those. I’ll take care of them later.”

“No, it’s okay,” she tells me. “You were already nice enough to open up your house and invite me over. Plus, after that humiliating loss, I figured this would help ease a bit of the pain.”

“Suuure,” I nod. “Well, thank you. And thanks for bringing over the noodles. They were really tasty.”

“You’re welcome,” she smiles at me. It’s the first genuine smile since we played Mario Kart together at Guildhouse. Although, now that we’re alone, I can see that she’s not doing this to put on a show. She’s interested in talking with me, and I’m savoring every last bit of her beaming face. “I like to cook, so when I’m given a reason to, it makes me happy to spread the love to others.”

“I wish I could cook more, but I have such a busy schedule that I haven’t taken the time to learn much.”

She finishes up the dishes and reaches over for a rag to dry her hands. “Did you ever, like, make things with your parents? Or what is something that your parents made for dinner that just screams ‘home cooking’?”

“My mom makes some really amazing tonkatsu. That, with some rice...nothing screams comfort to me more than that.”

“That’s awesome,” she smiles. “You know, when Landon first found out about us, he was kind of bummed. Not just because of what you did to me, but because he looked up to you for being a Mixed-Asian American in the NHL. There’s not many people of color in the NHL, and to have one be on a team that he’s grown up watching over the years, it kind of stung a bit.”

My heart drops. I know that this can only apply to one person because it just so happened to be Lydia’s brother who invited her to the game where we met in the first place, but I don’t want my decisions to be the reason that he stops seeing me as an inspiration. It always warms my heart to talk to certain fans, especially children, who tell me that it’s cool to see someone that looks like them on the ice. I don’t want a mistake I made to be the reason that I don’t inspire someone, especially someone who shares a similar ethnicity to me, to chase after dreams that have a history of not welcoming them.

“Really?” I frown. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to...”

“I told him that he shouldn’t stop looking up to you for something that happened in your personal life. I don’t really know hockey, but people have told me how good you are since the whole dating thing’s come up.”

“Do you want to come to a game?” I ask her. I get free tickets all the time, but I don’t have friends who are non-hockey players. Plus, my parents never want to see me, so I would be happy to give it to a guest to use.

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” I nod. “I don’t have anyone that I would give them to otherwise. Come to Saturday’s game. And bring your brother. Tell him that I’m sorry for what I did and that despite my...decisions in regard to us, I don’t want him to think that I won’t be advocating for diversity in the NHL. As long as I’m a player, I will always speak up about my heritage.”

“Good,” she smiles. “You should. And thank you, I’d be happy to come to your game. I’ll like...buy a jersey with your name on it and everything.”

I feel my heart skip a beat for a moment. Imagining Lydia in a Stingrays jersey with my name on it. It makes me want to scoop her up, twirl her around, and proclaim to the world that she’s mine.

“You don’t have to,” I say, trying to mask my delight.

“I know, but I think it’ll be good! I mean, it makes for good content.”

“You’re right. Do it for the ‘gram...”

“Exactly,” she nods. She looks over at the time, and already it’s nearing midnight.

“Shoot, I should probably go home. I have to work tomorrow, and it will take me time to get home and do my nightly routine.”

“Yeah, same.” I have to practice tomorrow and try not to keep thinking about Lydia in a jersey when I should be thinking about shooting pucks into goals. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

We head outside, where the slight Bay Area breeze sends a chill throughout the air. The leaves falling on the street remind me that my favorite season is approaching, even if that season lacks the snow I’m so used to back home.

“Thanks again for coming,” I tell her. “Despite my tough loss, I had a really fun time.”

“Thanks for having me. I had fun, too. And Ross and Micah were really nice. They’re good friends. Makes me think not all athletes are super douche-heads.”

“Only me, huh?”

She smiles and turns her gaze away. “Maybe. Just kidding. You’re alright.”

“Good night, Lydia, get home safe. Um, text me when you get home, alright? Just so I know you made it.”

“Okay,” she tells me. “I will. Good night, Griffin.”

I watch as she gets into her car and drives away from my house. I sigh and watch my foggy breath in the cold air. I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to fake this because every time Lydia does something that makes me smile, I fall deeper into the hole, and she’s the only one who can pull me out.