CHAPTER FOUR
Don’t ask a guy his favorite color when you’re getting to know him. Hand that man a pudding cup, and if he asks for a spoon, then he ain’t the man for you. Trust me.
~Text from Kinsley to Hanna~
Cade
The last couple of days have been amazing.
Spending this time with Hanna cements in my mind just how special a person she is.
I think I’ve laughed more and had a smile on my face more the last few days than the last five years combined.
Even though I’ve had to leave her for a bit every day to go to practice, it’s made me more eager to come home afterward.
Today is the first match my girl is coming to.
Her brother and his husband are coming, and she’ll be with them as well as Emma and Amy.
I’ve threatened Emma to play nice, and Amy swears that she’ll make sure my sister won’t scare off Hanna, though, to be honest, I’m not sure my girl is the kind of woman who could be scared off if she doesn’t want to be.
I know I need to get up and get going, but I’m giving myself five more minutes before my alarm goes off.
Five more minutes of lying in bed with my girl curled up in my arms. She’s going home today after the match, and I can admit I’m bummed about it, which surprises me.
Not because I thought this weekend would go bad or anything, but because with previous girlfriends, even my ex I was with for a couple of years, after a couple of days of this much togetherness, I was always ready to have my place back to myself. To enjoy the solitude, the quiet.
However, I’m not feeling that way at all.
I don’t want her to go home. Part of me wants here to be her home already.
What I feel for Hanna in just this short time is so much stronger than I’ve ever felt for someone.
Like the seats I got for her and everyone are right next to all the other WAGs-wives and girlfriends.
I have only ever had one ex-girlfriend in that section, and it was after months of dating.
It honestly wasn’t even a conscious decision, really.
When I called Lila, our public relations gal, and she asked me if they should be near them, I automatically said yes. It still feels right.
Everything about Hanna feels right. I take that back.
Almost everything feels right about her, except that the woman takes showers with the water hotter than the surface of the sun.
I mean, seriously, I don’t know how she’s not walking around like a lobster.
When I joined her in the shower, the first time the water hit me, I thought I had discovered what being in hell with Hades was like.
I might have screamed like a little girl.
My girl just laughed at me and turned down the temperature of the water a minuscule amount.
The other thing I realized was just how much my woman likes to cook, in fact, Hanna had cooked almost every night she’d been here.
I felt completely spoiled. We might have gone a few extra rounds yesterday since we both knew she was going home today.
I decided to give in to one of my guilty pleasures and ordered takeout for us from a certain well-known place with yellow arches.
Watching Hanna eat her chicken nuggets, well, it makes a person question humanity.
She dips it and takes a bite like any normal person.
It’s what she does next that makes the mind almost do a reset.
After she dips and takes a bite, SHE PEELS IT!
She peels her freaking nugget, eats the “peel,” then dunks it again and eats the naked nugget.
After I watched her perform such a…such a violation to the nugget, I asked her why.
She shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve just always done it this way.
I don’t know why, but any other way seems wrong.
” She informed me it was only nuggets from the double arches, and that any other places’ nuggies don’t get the same treatment.
So she’s not perfect. I’m gonna chalk this learned information up to quirky individualism and not read into it as a concern for her mental health. I joke. Still, it's weird.
I’ll gladly take all of that on if that means I can be given the gift of waking up next to her as often as possible. Feeling her in my arms…there’s nothing like it. My alarm breaks the quiet of the morning. I reach over to my nightstand and turn the alarm on my phone off. Hanna stirs next to me.
“Don’t you need to get up and get going?”
I snuggle into her neck and kiss the spot I’ve learned drives her crazy.
“I do, but I’m taking three more minutes to enjoy this.
” I sigh and admit what’s on my mind. “I don’t like that you won’t be here when I get home tonight.
” Hanna moves, turning in my arms to face me.
It’s not very light in here, so I’m not sure how much she can see, but she reaches up and touches my cheek.
“You are about to go on the road in the next couple of days, and I have to get some work done. I don’t want to be a distraction when you said this trip will have some of the national team’s scouts there.
You need your focus to be out there on the field, or pitch, whatever it’s called.
I don’t want to be the reason you don’t give your all in front of them. ” Fuck me, I know she’s right.
I kiss her temple and pull her even closer to me. “Why do you have to make sense and be logical this time of the morning? That’s just mean.” Her laughter fills the air. That’s quickly becoming my second favorite sound.
Hanna
Today’s been…interesting. Watching Cade’s match was fun, though it made me realize my distance vision is getting worse, blurry, and I have a feeling soon I won’t be able to see the individual players on the pitch.
But today I could make out most of them, especially Cade since he wore a neon green bracelet.
I’m thankful that Cade’s sister and sister-in-law sat with us.
Emma is a hoot, and I can see she’s got a similar sense of humor to her brother.
Between her explaining and Asher asking the right questions, I understand a bit more about the positions and what happens in the game.
I have a feeling that after today, Asher and Pops will both be watching Cade’s rugby matches with passion.
Logan, Amy, and I had a good time trying the concession food and watching all the amazing thighs out on the pitch, Cade’s being the best of course.
What was more slightly unsettling, or I guess maybe, not as welcome, was meeting some of the WAGS—wives and girlfriends.
Some of them were very nice and welcoming, especially Coach Lingg’s girlfriend and Carter’s sister.
Most of the guys aren’t married, so there were only a few other wives and girlfriends.
Most of them were pleasant enough to me, but I could tell they would not be overly friendly with me just yet.
I mean, I can’t blame them, as they probably have girlfriends come and go often, so why get close if they aren’t sure if Cade and I are serious and going to last.
However, there was one girl and her three friends that I met who were decidedly cold and unwelcoming.
Katie, who apparently is seeing Zack, Tina, Carol, and Cindy, all barely hid their feelings behind their fake smiles.
You ever get the feeling that someone is glaring at you, wishing they could hit you with imaginary lasers like on Star Trek or something?
That’s the feeling I got from them, but especially from Tina.
I may have almost no peripheral vision left, but a person doesn’t have to have vision to feel someone’s gaze on them.
You know what I mean. I don’t think Tina paid attention to the match very much, at least not compared to the amount she was trying to vaporize me away.
Amy filled me in on some of the gossip about Katie’s so-called friends.
Apparently her friends have all been trying to get with players, saying they all want to wear their jersey in the stands and claim one of them.
My mouth might have run a little bit when I told Amy my observation that Katie must not be that serious of a girlfriend since she’s not wearing a jersey.
I’m pretty sure they overheard me because they bumped my shoulder every time they went up the steps to the concessions and bathrooms.
I’m pretty sure Emma, and Carter’s sister were about ready to throw down with them by the end of the match.
According to Carter’s sister, May, something happened last season with her brother and Cindy, but he won’t talk about it, and May refuses to talk to any jersey chasers as a matter of principle.
Mom would like her and Emma. They’re no-nonsense and not afraid to speak their mind, just like her.
I’m not quite as blunt as my mom, but things just tend to come out of my mouth without my filter sometimes.
As soon as the match was over, with the Axemen winning by a lot, Emma led us down to the clubhouse level.
She informed us that Cade usually didn’t take forever to shower and come out, ready to go.
It’s not like the press is waiting to speak to them or anything.
Rugby in the US definitely does not have the following that football, baseball, basketball, or even hockey has.
It’s gaining fans in the markets it’s in, but the stadiums here are so much smaller than in Australia or the United Kingdom.
I got that from Asher talking rugby to Emma.
Made me sound smart, though, didn’t it? Honestly, I’ve never paid much attention to sports of any kind, but I’m determined to understand rugby enough to know what’s going on and to know what the hell Cade’s supposed to be doing in the scrum.