Game Plan

by Camellia Tate

  “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she cooed, “but you never know. Maybe she really will turn up! You’d like to find a girl who was into hockey, wouldn’t you?” Connor groaned, not even having the patience left to pretend it wasn’t an idiotic thing to say.

  “Come on, mom. Would you have wanted to be approached by every Alex who had even one friend or colleague who was into monster trucks?” he asked. Privately, Connor wondered whether that might have worked out better for his mom than marrying the Alex that she had. He had long ago decided that their divorce - and their relationship post-divorce - was no business of his.

  “Well,” his mom said, sounding uncertain. “I’m sure it will blow over…” There was a pause, while Connor tried to find something positive to say, before his mom asked, “Do you want me to tell your dad?”

  It hurt, more than Connor would have expected it to. It was a reminder that his dad didn’t seem to follow any of the news stories about what Connor was up to.

  “Don’t bother,” Connor answered. “What’s he going to do, anyway?” His mom didn’t have an answer for that.

  “I wish I were there, sweetie. I’d take you out for pie and ice cream, like when you were little.” The memory made Connor smile.

  Standing outside the rink, not sure what to do with himself, Connor ended up in his car. He drove through the city until he spotted the kind of little run-down diner he and his mom would’ve gone to.

  He was lucky it was nearly empty. The rink’s corner of Madison didn’t get a lot of traffic during the day. Anyone who might’ve recognized him at least had the good sense to leave him alone.

  Taking a seat at the bar, Connor looked over the menu while he waited for a waitress to come out of the kitchen. It wasn’t a very long wait. A tall brunette, maybe a bit younger than Connor but not by much, came through to give him a smile he only ever saw on waitresses’ faces. She looked a great deal more chipper than Connor felt.

  She was taller than average, but Connor could easily tell that she was still shorter than him. Most women were. Her brown hair was tied up in a ponytail with some sort of a ribbon, but strands of it still fell loosely, almost as if she couldn’t be bothered to properly tie it up. The uniform she was wearing didn’t do justice to the curves Connor could tell she had. Still, she looked very attractive, and briefly he was distracted thinking about what she might look like wearing something designed to make her look stunning.

  “I recommend the blueberry pancakes,” the waitress advised, reaching over the top of Connor’s menu to tap her finger against the food in question. Her brown hair fell forward slightly and as Connor’s eyes traveled up he had to almost laugh. In some ridiculous cosmic joke scenario, the name tag pinned neatly against her dress read ‘Ashley’.

  “Yeah?” Connor asked, glancing at the description offered of the pancakes. “I was going to go for cherry pie and chocolate ice cream, but maybe it is a bit early.” That had always been his order as a kid, but his nutritionist would definitely advise Connor to skip the heavy pastry, and the cream.

  Undecided, Connor looked back up at Ashley. On any normal day, he’d barely even notice that she had the same name as his soulmate. It happened so often, there was no point getting excited about it every single time. Today, Connor wasn’t quite sure whether to believe the coincidence was funny or tragic.

  “What would you recommend to turn around a really shitty morning?” he asked. “Blueberry pancakes with extra blueberries?”

  Ashley, to give her credit, seemed to pause and look at Connor very thoughtfully, as if just staring at him would allow her to bore into his head. Then, after a moment’s pause, she gave a nod as if to confirm whatever he’d asked when Connor hadn’t asked anything at all.

  “Wait here,” she told him before disappearing into the kitchen. He didn’t have much time to wonder why before she was back, a plate in her hand. Putting it down in front of Connor, Ashley grinned. “Why not both?” She said, pancakes covered in blueberries sitting next to a slice of cherry pie.

  Handing Connor some cutlery, Ashley then went to make him a chocolate milkshake. “My duties as a waitress do include asking you if you’d like to talk about why it’s been a shitty morning,” she advised.

  Connor laughed. He immediately tucked into the blueberry pancakes as if he was afraid someone from the team were going to appear at his elbow and take the indulgent feast away from him.

  “Do you like asking people why they’ve had shitty mornings?” Connor asked, instead of answering the implied question. He didn’t particularly want to talk about it. Instead, he was genuinely curious whether Ashley wanted to ask, or only felt that she had to. Connor’s sister Maisy had worked at a pizza place one summer. As far as Connor had been able to tell, she’d mostly wanted to get customers in and out as quickly as possible so that she could go back to goofing off.

  Ashley gave a small shrug at Connor’s question. “It’s a conversation starter,” she said a little teasingly. “And I find that people often love talking about themselves, so asking about their problems makes it seem like good customer service.” It kind of made sense, though it did sound a touch disingenuous. As if sensing that thought, Ashley shrugged. “I like hearing about people,” she promised.

  The way she said it, she made it sound true. It made Connor wonder what other bad days Ashley might’ve heard about. “I don’t know if I’m ready to talk about it,” Connor admitted, “but maybe that’s all the more reason to practice.” Media ban or not, someone was going to ask Connor how he felt about the whole mess. He might as well get the awkward stage of not being able to find the right words over with sooner, rather than later.

  “The papers printed a picture of my soulmark,” he explained. “Literally happened first thing this morning, so it’s still kind of overwhelming.”

  Ashley’s eyes widened at the information. It was pretty significant . Soulmarks definitely were considered private, but there were plenty of people who wanted to find out what other people’s soulmarks were. A perverse sort of pleasure, one that anyone with any sort of celebrity suffered.

  “Shit, that sucks,” Ashley announced finally. “I’m guessing you’re famous then?” She asked before offering Connor somewhat of an apologetic shrug. “I don’t recognize you.” Which mostly probably just meant that Ashley didn’t watch hockey.

  “I figured,” Connor admitted, with a shrug. “Or at least, I figured you hadn’t seen the picture.” He bit down on his lower lip, letting the brief flash of pain distract him from the uncomfortable feeling in his stomach. “You’d probably have said something, seeing as my soulmate’s name is Ashley.” It didn’t feel good to tell someone, but it did give Connor at least a small sense of control. He had chosen to tell Ashley, and while he wouldn’t have done so under any other circumstances, at least it hadn’t been forced on him.

  Ashley gave a small ‘ah’, clicking her tongue at the revelation. She didn’t actually seem that phased. If she hadn’t just told Connor she didn’t recognize him, he might’ve almost thought she had read the papers. Bringing her hand up, Ashley tapped a finger against her name tag. “I get a lot of people telling me they’ve got my name on them,” she commented.

  It made Connor frown because even when he had met women called Ashley before, it had never occurred to him to tell them they might be his soulmate. “I understand why it happens,” Connor said, perhaps more to himself than to Ashley. “You’re pretty, and of course most people want to find their soulmate someday, but it seems really weird to me to make a big deal out of it when they can’t even know you.”

  Taking a bite of the cherry pie, which was delicious, Connor looked back to Ashley. “Do you hate it?” he asked, genuinely curious. Maybe he just didn’t like people enough, and that was why it had always bothered him when people wanted to show him his name on them.

  “No,” Ashley shook her head. “I don’t really care. I think it’s just an attempt to get me into bed.” As Connor had already pointed out, Ashley was pretty, so it
wasn’t very surprising that people would want to. It was a little more surprising that they tried to use that as a chat-up line, but then Connor had also been at the receiving end of it.

  “Besides,” Ashley said drawing his attention back to her. “I’m not a big believer in soulmarks. My parents gave me a common name for a reason.” Then, as if it was nothing, Ashley raised her arm and there it was, bare in a way that Connor very rarely saw - her soulmark.

  Running down from her elbow in the direction of her wrist, neatly sat the name ‘Connor’.

  Connor very nearly choked on his pie and had to pound himself on the chest to keep anything from going down the wrong way. He waved off Ashley’s concerned move towards him, his eyes still slightly wide. “Sorry,” he offered. He couldn’t seem to say anything else, his mind simply refusing to move on from the sight of his own name on Ashley’s arm.

  What were the chances? Connor had never been very good at math, but he was sure they had to be pretty slim. Granted, neither Connor nor Ashley were rare names, not like someone’s chances of getting matched with a Braxton or a Perpetua. To meet an Ashley who had his name as her soulmark on the same day his own had been revealed seemed… extraordinary.

  “You might not believe this now,” Connor said, feeling faintly sheepish he hadn’t mentioned it earlier, “but I’m Connor Lewis. I can show you my driver’s license and everything.”

  “Seriously?” Ashley asked, sounding like she was suspicious of the convenience of Connor’s name being the same as the name on her arm. But she also didn’t take him up on his offer to show her his driver’s license to prove it. Instead, Ashley shrugged. “It’s also a pretty common name,” she commented. “Did your parents give you a common name intentionally? Mine did.”

  The question genuinely made Connor pause before he shook his head. His parents’ relationship was another of those things Connor didn’t really talk about. In a way, telling Ashley his soulmate’s name had already ripped the band-aid off.

  “No, it wasn’t deliberate,” he answered. “My parents thought they were soulmates when I was born, I don’t think they’d have wanted to make it hard for me.” Certainly, his mom wouldn’t have wanted to. Connor was never very sure what his dad felt about anything.

  “What would your parents have done if your soulmark had ended up reading Hepzibah, or something?” he asked. “Not too many of those around.” Unlike Connor, of which there were plenty. Something Connor often told the hockey fans who so badly wanted him to be their soulmate.

  “I would still wear it openly,” Ashley shrugged in response. “It probably would have been rarer to meet someone with that name.” The way Ashley said it sounded so... unbothered. Some people didn’t care about soulmarks, there were even campaigns and self-help books. Connor had never met someone who agreed with them.

  Leaning against the counter, Ashley glanced down at her soulmark, now partially hidden by the sleeve of her dress. “People put too much worth on the soulmarks. Relationships should be about getting on, about working together not about just having someone’s name on you.”

  “Absolutely,” Connor agreed, his own gaze also drawn to the ‘NNOR’ he could still see on Ashley’s arm. It didn’t make him think that Ashley ought to be his soulmate. He didn’t want to get her number ‘just in case’, date her just because their names were right.

  It did make Connor think about how convenient it would be if he could’ve pointed the press at someone like Ashley. He could tell them that he’d already found the person of his dreams and didn’t need any help looking for her.

  Thoughtfully, Connor chewed through another bite of pancake, before waving the fork in Ashley’s direction. “I promise, this is not about me hitting on you,” he prefaced, “but are you seeing anyone at the moment?”

  Ashley raised an eyebrow at him, and Connor couldn’t blame her. It did sound like he was hitting on her. “I feel that my answer should depend on whatever the next question you’re planning to ask is,” she said a little teasingly but did also shake her head. “I’m single.”

  It seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up. Here was an Ashley, whose soulmate was a Connor, and who also wasn’t particularly caught up in the idea of soulmates and coincidences. Connor could hardly imagine a more perfect person to keep the press off his back, at least until the uproar died down.

  If Ashley had been dying to meet The One, Connor wouldn’t have asked her, but she wasn’t . Still , he hesitated. Throwing someone else to the press, even in a limited way, was a lot to ask. “I play for the Howlers,” Connor explained, “and the papers getting hold of my soulmark means our PR team is being bombarded with Ashleys all over Wisconsin who want to meet me. We can’t reply to all of them, and if I ignore them, they’ll just keep emailing, or they’ll start turning up at games, and that’s even more of a security risk.”

  He paused, to see if Ashley was following, and she gave him a small wave, encouraging him to keep going. “If I could put out one press release, saying I’ve already found my Ashley, and no others need to apply... I think people would respect that.” Ashley must know that her views about soulmarks not mattering were rare. As much as Connor would’ve liked to just tell people he wasn’t looking to date right now, he didn’t trust it would work.

  He shot Ashey a cheeky grin, as he came to the crux of his question. “So, Ashley, I guess I’m asking if you want to be my girlfriend. For a little while, just until the fuss dies down.”

  Chapter Two

  Growing up, Ashley Walton’s parents had always been very insistent about telling her how soulmarks did not decide what her life should be like. Their own didn’t match and it wasn’t until Ashley had started secondary school that she truly understood how different that was from a lot of other people. For a while, Ashley had worried that her parents weren’t really happy, but it was a worry that she’d quickly got over.

  Levi and Holly Walton were the happiest couple Ashley had ever met. Her parents were the proof - at least to Ashley - that soulmarks didn’t matter . Her mom had never tried to hide her soulmark, the name ‘Ansel’ sitting against her hip, but it had also always been easy to cover it with clothes. Levi had chosen to wear a sticker over ‘Gertrude’ but only because it made others uncomfortable, those who knew his wife was called Holly.

  Ashley’s upbringing, even if some would describe it as odd, had given her a lot of confidence in herself. She had never been in a position where she felt like she had to find a soulmate. Doing things that made her happy, that was what her parents raised her to believe was important. Thus, when Ashley’s soulmark came through aged eight - unusually young - she didn’t want to hide it.

  ‘Connor’ had always sat snugly against Ashley’s arm and yes, every so often she’d meet someone who’d say ‘hey that’s my name’. On a few occasions, it had even been someone who carried Ashley’s name, too. They all seemed equally puzzled when Ashley said she didn’t want to date them just because they could be soulmates. It was less common nowadays that people dated just because the other person carried their name, but it was certainly still prevalent enough.

  It wasn’t something Ashley felt she was missing out on. She liked that she could date whoever. She especially liked that the guys who wanted to date her equally didn’t tend to care about soulmarks because Ashley’s was so exposed it was hard to not know what it said.

  Working as a waitress came with a lot of people telling Ashley they had her name on them. It also came with an equal number of people asking her out - some of whom carried her name and some of whom didn’t. Ashley was used to turning such offers down quickly and easily, but she had to admit that being asked to be someone’s fake girlfriend was... new.

  At least the guy was attractive. Even with him seated, Ashley could tell that Connor was well built. His shoulders were wide, with arms to match. Ashley didn’t get to see a lot of guys at the diner who looked like they regularly worked out, so this one stood out even more so.

  His face was attractiv
e, too. A jawline that looked as if it had been shaped specifically to be attractive. The blue of his eyes stood out somehow even more against the tanned skin. His hair was probably the one thing Ashley felt might use some fixing, a shaggy mess of light brown sticking out in every direction.

  “You want me to be your PR girlfriend?” Ashley asked frowning at Connor. “That is your top plan? Meet a waitress at a diner, ask her to be your pretend girlfriend? What if I went to the papers with that ?” She wasn’t going to but Jesus, really?

  Shaking her head, Ashley gave Connor another, rather serious look. “It certainly seems like you need help,” she didn’t add ‘because you’re an idiot’, but Ashley felt it was definitely implied. “How would this even work? It seems a bit... weird.”

  “Okay,” Connor agreed, looking sheepish, “it’s possible that ‘plan’ is too generous a description. It was more… an idea. I haven’t really thought it through.” That much, Ashley felt, was rather obvious, but she didn’t say so, instead giving Connor time to think it through. She was not going to agree until he’d actually explained what he wanted.

  “Like I said, a press release, and we could go on a few dates, get our pictures taken together. You’d definitely get some attention from the press, so I’ll get it if you don’t want to do this.” He shrugged. “I’m sure we can think of something you can get out of it. I’m not asking you to do it just because it’d be convenient for me.”

  Ashley assumed that what Connor was implying was a financial something that she would be getting out of it. Frankly, Ashley supposed she could use the money. He wouldn’t be wrong in presuming that she’d need it working mid-morning shifts at a diner. What Ashley was actually more interested in was all this PR talk.

  Working in a diner was not Ashley’s dream job, hardly. In fact, it wasn’t really much else than a pocket money job while she studied at college. It was her last year, doing a Master’s in Public Relations, so yeah, the PR stuff? Ashley was quite interested in that.