You Had Me at Hockey (Bears Hockey #2) - Kelly Jamieson Page 0,29

is the week we’re away. I won’t be back until Saturday. Is Saturday night okay for you?

Of course it is. I don’t have that much going on in my social life. That’s fine for me.

Great. Talk before then.

Have a good trip.

Thanks.

I stand up and do a little dance around my living room. Then I grab my phone and immediately text Kaylee to tell her what just happened.

It’s a good thing my week is busy with my epic trip to Walmart, dancing, and meetings. My Sephora meeting is great, and we plan a shopping trip to a Sephora store and then I try a bunch of products at home. I watch the Tuesday Bears game in Winnipeg, in which the commentators do talk about Josh being in his hometown and the fact that so many friends and family are there watching the game, even showing his parents on camera—Tag Heller is the general manager of the Winnipeg team so he’s watching up in a box, but Josh’s mom, Kyla, is watching in the stands. She’s super pretty, with long dark hair and a bright smile, and she obviously knows a lot about hockey from the clips they show of her watching the game. She’s sitting with a young woman the TV announcer identifies as Josh’s sister, and two older couples, who are both sets of Josh’s grandparents.

I have to miss the game on Thursday night in Minneapolis as I go to a book launch event at a big bookstore with my New York friends Eli and Connor. They’re a couple. Connor works for the publisher of the book, so he drags us along to the party, which I have to admit has excellent appetizers and champagne. I love champagne. The author is Oba Okafor and he’s written a book called The Quiet Power, about compassion, which I find quite interesting. He does a reading from the book, and I pick up a copy and get him to sign it. As I do so, a photographer takes pictures of us, so I look up and smile.

I mingle with the other guests, an eclectic assortment of people, which is always interesting. Most people don’t know who I am, and that’s absolutely fine with me. But when Connor introduces me to his boss, Gabriella, she does know me and is full of questions about my vlog and podcasts. Then she asks, “Have you ever thought of writing a book?”

I’m taken aback. “Um, about what?”

She laughs. “All the things you talk about in your videos. Your life. Unfiltered. Hey, that would be a great title!”

“I’m…wow. No, I haven’t thought of that.”

“Well, you should. Here’s my card. Are you agented?”

“Yes…”

“Who’s your agent?”

I tell her and she nods as if she knows Janet. “We’ll talk again,” she says confidently, moving off to chat with someone else.

A book. I can’t write a book. It’s one thing to get in front of the camera and spew whatever my screwy mind comes up with, but write it down?

Well, something to think about.

After the launch party, Eli and Connor and a couple of Connor’s co-workers and I go to a club near Times Square, a wild, high-energy place. The theme tonight is pillow talk, so there are dancers scantily clad in lingerie on a stage hitting each other with pillows, feathers flying everywhere. We make our way to a silver bar lit with purple and order cocktails. There’s nowhere to sit, so we find a place to stand and watch the stage, the dance floor, the crowds.

The song “Roses” throbs around me and inside me, along with the pulsing colored lights, and I can’t help but move to the beat, sipping my Manhattan. Connor pulls out his phone and takes a few selfies of the three of us. Then we hit the dance floor and groove to “Turn Me On” and more, until my feet are killing me in my heels and sweat is running down my back under my little black dress.

The next night, Friday, I’m ready to stay home and watch a hockey game in my pajamas. What is happening to me?

The Bears are playing in Columbus and the game doesn’t go well. Columbus keeps taking penalties, which you’d think would give the Bears lots of chances to score, but they don’t. They’re trying, but the Columbus goalie is crazy. And when the puck slips past Gunnerson, our goalie, Columbus takes the lead. It’s a frustrating game to watch, which makes me realize it must be