“I do.”
“Well, then why did you ask for it if you didn’t want to hear it?” Ryan asked, grabbing a piece of hot bacon from the griddle.
He had Jenna, and both of them knew it. Ryan was right, and Jenna was aware of that. She wanted Ryan to care about this special day just as much as she did, and now that he was offering his opinion, she couldn’t just ignore it. “I want to hear it,” she replied, picking up the spatula and tending to the cooking pancakes. “It’s just that I didn’t think you would want that many people there. That’s a lot of people.”
“Is it?” he asked. “Don’t forget the guys. And their dates. That’s at least fifty people right there. Your family. My family. The number’s going to add up quickly.”
Jenna closed her eyes and tried to do some simple math. Her parents, her grandparents, her aunts, uncles, and cousins.... And then friends. “You’re right. Maybe three hundred isn’t so much. I’ll put some lists together, and then we can talk it over later. Thank you, Ryan,” she said with a smile. Jenna stopped herself from laughing; she never imagined Ryan would be the voice of reason during this conversation about their wedding.
Chapter 7
Once Ryan’s season and Jenna’s fall semester were in full swing, they were both fatigued and stressed. Ryan had his road trips and game schedule, and Jenna had her classes and group projects. They were used to this type of crazy routine because they had dealt with it for the past three years, but this year, with a wedding on the horizon, it was a little different.
October had started off great, because they had finally synced up and started to make decisions about their wedding. Jenna became infinitely more excited with each passing day as she shared the news with their families that a date had been set and they were starting to piece together their big day in Chicago. Instead of letting her enjoy the moment for what it was, though, her mother and Sharon Linsenbigler alike started to push for more. Had they settled on a location yet? Of course they would want an outdoor wedding to take advantage of the summer weather. And did they reserve blocks of hotel rooms for all the out-of-town guests?
As the next couple of weeks passed, the pressure began to wear on Jenna more and more. It was tough for her to keep her emotions compartmentalized, and she started to snap at Ryan when he didn’t want to participate or help in the planning. It was affecting their interactions. Engagement and marriage were supposed to bring a couple together, but in this instance, it only started to drive these two apart. As long as they were talking about anything other than the wedding, they got along just as well as before. However, as soon as she brought the ceremony up, they’d stop getting along.
And Jenna was always the one to bring up the topic. And every time, they found something to argue about. They had both agreed on three hundred guests, but once they tried to figure out exactly whom they wanted to invite, that number began to swell. Ryan kept finding new people to invite. He couldn’t just pick some of his teammates; he didn’t want to leave anyone out and make any of them feel bad, so he thought it was best just to invite them all. That didn’t just include his NHL teammates—that also included the American League players, too.
“Ryan!” Jenna cried. “How well do you even know these people?”
“Well enough. I don’t want to exclude anyone,” he answered.
“We’re up to over four hundred people now. That’s more than we agreed on. The hall we rented only holds a capacity of three hundred fifty. We need to pare down this list.”
“Then let’s just rent a bigger place, babe. Problem solved.”
“That doesn’t solve anything, Ryan. That’s going around the issue at hand. We just can’t keep adding people! We need to figure out who we’re going invite, stick with that number, and send out the save-the-dates. No more than three hundred fifty people, because that’s the limit of the hall. We put down the nonrefundable deposit.”
“I told you, Jenna, that money isn’t an issue here. Who cares about the deposit?”
“It’s not money that’s the issue, Ryan! How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“Oh, right. I’m the issue here. You’re letting your mother push you around about planning everything now.”
“It’s not my mother who’s the problem here.”
“Then tell her to cut it out! God, Jenna, you’re confusing this wedding with the important stuff.”
“See, you just don’t get it. This wedding is important stuff. It’s important to me, and I want it to be important to you. We’re talking about the start of the rest of our lives. It’s a big deal!”
“It’s just one day. How can one day be more important than all the others?”
“Because it’s our wedding day, that’s how. Haven’t you thought about? After eight years together? Isn’t there anything that you want to do for our special day?”
“No, I never really thought about it. I didn’t realize it would turn into this huge production.”
“You don’t want a huge production, but you want to invite everyone you know. That makes sense.”
“You know, if you don’t like what I have to say, then why don’t you just plan the whole fucking thing yourself? Just tell me when to show up.”
“Because I want you to help! I want you to take a vested interest in this! But you’re just not taking it seriously! You don’t see all the work that goes in to the planning. It’s not just about having all your buddies come over for a party and an open bar. It’s a serious affair. Weddings aren’t just about cakes and bachelor parties! It’s about having to do seating arrangements and favors and invitations, and you’re making all that impossible by adding to the guest list.”
“How am I supposed to pick who I want to be there, and then leave someone out?”
“I don’t know, but you have to figure it out! I did.”
“Well, I don’t have time to deal with all these stupid details.”
Every time Ryan started to call it stupid, Jenna got really hot under the collar. “First off, don’t make it seem like I have nothing better to do than plan this, because I have responsibilities, too, you know! And it’s not stupid. And you need to make time. Because this is important. You’re just making this more difficult than it needs to be. The maximum occupancy of the reception hall is three hundred fifty. Subtract the wedding party, caterers, bartenders, and the DJ, and we’ll say that we can have three hundred twenty-five guests. I only have seventy-five people from my family and friends that I have invited—and you made me add to that list, remember? That means you can pick up to two hundred fifty people of your own to invite. That’s plenty, Ryan. I had written down one hundred from your family, so that narrows you down to one hundred fifty friends. Take your teammates and their dates, and that’s an extra fifty, so you still have one hundred people you can invite! I don’t know how this is even an issue!”
“What about all my friends back home from Toronto? And our old friends from the Dartmouth?”
“Not everyone’s going to be able to travel for the wedding. Don’t bother inviting people that won’t be able to show up.”
“But how will I know that if we don’t invite them?”
At that point, Jenna would clamp her mouth shut and massage her temples, trying to think of a way to get through Ryan’s thick skull and explain that they can’t just invite everyone they know and then make plans once they start receiving their RSVPs. They needed a ballpark figure, and he wasn’t helping.
Ryan would then ask, “All we do is fight about this shit, Jenna. Weddings are supposed to be fun and joyful, not painful. Why don’t we just hire a wedding planner to take care of this stuff so we don’t have to worry about it?”
“Because a wedding planner doesn’t figure out for us who we want to invite. This is our responsibility. No, this is up to you now. I can’t do anything else until you make up your fucking mind.”
And at that point, Jenna would give up and storm out of the house, needing time to cool off. Ryan knew that she was furiou
s, because she never used the F word. She never imagined planning this wedding was going to turn out to be such a disaster. It was supposed to be simple. Jenna wanted simple, and Ryan was supposed to be a simple, typical guy; somehow, however, he was making it very complicated.
She liked that he was trying to help out and give his input, but he wasn’t actually helping. They were going around in circles, spiraling downward and never making any progress. It was getting to the point where Jenna didn’t even want to bring it up anymore, because they were just going to fight. But if she didn’t bring it up, then they were never going to get any closer to getting married. But whenever she brought it up, they regressed and made things worse by arguing. If they kept fighting, they would never get married.
They always made up, of course. She’d return home and apologize, and he’d apologize, too. They’d have a quickie to show that they meant it, that their tempers had calmed and that they didn’t mean any of the things they had yelled in anger. While the ensuing sex was always hot and satisfying, it was emotionally lacking. Foreplay had become a four-letter word in their relationship. Jenna didn’t feel like she should be complaining. She knew Ryan still loved her despite their fights, and she always had an orgasm even though he never went down on her anymore. What else could she ask for?
When Jenna would reach her breaking point and would leave the house, she would always go to the same Starbucks and she would always call her grad school study buddy. Katie was her only friend who existed outside of Ryan’s hockey world. After all, when Ryan had moved to Chicago when he was ready to make the transition from college hockey to the NHL, he didn’t know anyone except his teammates—and when Jenna followed him to Illinois after graduating from Dartmouth, the only people outside of the player’s girlfriends and wives that she met were the other graduate students in her program.
Jenna would buy two lattes, one for each of them, and she never felt bad that Ryan was the one footing the bill for her friend’s coffee when he was the reason she needed to meet with her and vent. “Thank you for meeting me, Katie. I had to get out of the house. It’s this stupid wedding! He’s driving me crazy, because I’m not usually this hard to get along with.”
“I don’t mind the break from studying,” she replied, grinning and trying to be reassuring.
“At the rate that I keep bitching to you about this damn thing, I should make you my maid of honor,” Jenna muttered.
“That’s not necessary,” she giggled. “I’ll settle for an invitation to the reception. Does Ryan have a hot younger brother? Introduce me, and we’ll call it even. I haven’t been laid in months.”
“No brothers, but he has some friends,” Jenna answered, smiling back. Katie didn’t know that Jenna’s Ryan was really Ryan Linsenbigler, and Jenna thought that an introduction to a smoking hot hockey player like Mike Spencer would be just enough thanks for the amount of times Katie had to listen to her complain. Mike, with his jet-black hair, piercing blue eyes, and Adonis-like physique, had recently been named Chicago’s sexiest athlete, and he was still on the market. “I can certainly do that in exchange for all the help you’ve given me. I mean, if this wedding even happens at this point. I just don’t why I bother. He obviously doesn’t want to marry me. He’s stalling and won’t make a decision. What else am I supposed to think in this situation? Ryan keeps putting it off, and if he keeps postponing, soon it will be too late and June 30 will come and go, and I’ll still be a spinster.”
“You’re not a spinster or old maid or anything else, Jenna. You’re still young.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re still twenty-two.”
Katie laughed. “Ryan loves you. I’ve never met him, and all I know about him is what you’ve told me. You guys are one in a million. Getting married is just a stressful situation, and you’re trying to hurry and get the whole thing done in October. You still have plenty of time to get things sorted out with Ryan and plan this.”
“But he doesn’t want to help! Is it too much to ask for him to care?”
“You can’t make him care, Jenna, if he doesn’t. It’s just who he is. And you can either ask him to change or you can accept him for what he is: a typical, oblivious male who couldn’t give two shits about whether there’s a rose pinned to his lapel or a lily.”
“That’s just the thing! I’m not asking him to care about the details like that. But the guest list! The fucking guest list!” Some of the other patrons looked over to Jenna when she cursed, which made her lower her voice. She was so worked up that she didn’t notice how loud she was being. “Who we invite to share our day with is a big deal, and he’s treating it like it’s his birthday party, and the more people he invites means he gets more shots from the bar.”
Katie laughed again. It wasn’t funny that Jenna was feeling so exasperated, but didn’t all brides-to-be go through this? “You love Ryan, don’t you?”
“Of course I do! That’s why I want to marry him. That’s why I’m putting myself through all this stress, is because he’s worth it. He’s a good guy beneath all this crap he’s putting me through. No, he’s a great guy. I don’t want anything that Ryan can’t give me. I want what Ryan gives me to be enough.”
She nodded and tried to take in the meaning behind her friend’s words: I don’t want anything that Ryan can’t give me. I want what Ryan gives me to be enough. “If what he gives you isn’t enough, Jenna, then he can’t give to you what you want him to. Maybe it’s a good thing you realized this now before it’s too late.”
Jenna shook her head and refused to listen what Katie said. “No. It is enough. The problem isn’t that he’s not giving enough. The problem lies in that I’m expecting too much.”
When Jenna would reach her breaking point and would leave the house, Ryan would work out. He’d either hit the bike or lift some weights, or he’d do both if he were really frustrated. The extra workouts were helping his game, because Ryan began to lead the team in goal production—he wasn’t just the captain, he had become the best player on the team. He was on schedule to have a top-notch season. Even though his personal life was stressful and confusing and falling into shambles, his professional life was flourishing.
The more goals he scored, the more he wanted to go out and celebrate with the boys, which in turn annoyed Jenna. She started to refuse to go out with him and the team, and he started to go out more often and stay out later into the night. At first, no one on the team noticed that Jenna wasn’t around for their after-game bar crawls; no one, that is, except Nick. Of course he noticed, but he was glad that she wasn’t there because if he didn’t have to see her, he wouldn’t have to fight his feelings for her. As many beers as he downed and as many girls as Brian sent him home with, he couldn’t forget her. Nick hated how weak that made him, since he wasn’t strong enough to mentally or emotionally push her away. Even though Nick was happy Jenna wasn’t there to silently torture him, he missed his friend.
Eventually, the guys started to notice that Jenna wasn’t hanging around at the bar. They partially picked up on this because it meant Nick was hanging around them instead of at the bar with Jenna.
“So, what’s up?” Mike finally asked Ryan. “Where’s Jenna?”
“At home,” he replied, guzzling his beer. He justified how much he was drinking by his increasingly intense workouts and on-ice performances. If he had been sucking, he wouldn’t have allowed himself to drink, but since he was doing well, he thought it was okay.
“Did she finally get sick of us?” Alex asked, trying to make a joke. Even he didn’t know the full extent of what was going on between the two of them; Ryan certainly didn’t confess to Alex that they had been fighting so much over the wedding planning.
“No,” he sighed, looking down at this empty glass. “I think she finally got sick of me.”
“Wait. What?” Nick asked. He was torn between the concern for his teammate and the glimmer of hope that he immediately cursed himself for having. It was wrong for Nick to be happy at the pro
spect of Jenna leaving Ryan. If she left, Ryan would be upset, and in turn his production would decrease. There was never any doubt in Nick’s mind that Ryan loved Jenna; however, Nick felt he could love her better. “Did she... leave?”
“No, she didn’t leave me, Marty,” Ryan spit out, irritated that he thought she would. They may have been fighting, but she wouldn’t leave him—not when she was just about to get everything she ever wanted from him. “She’s just been so bitchy and uptight about this stupid wedding shit. She asks what I think, and if I just so happen to disagree, she gets all pissy.”
Alex laughed. “I told you before, Biggie, and I’ll say it again: it’s not too late to back out. You can still save yourself!”
“I don’t want it to not happen. I just want it to be over and done with, so we can go back to the way things were. Because this is just annoying the fuck out of me. She makes me not want to go back into my own house, because I’m afraid we’ll just start fighting again. All we do is fight anymore. And I don’t want to fight with her. I don’t like fighting with her,” he said in one long, drawn-out sigh. Ryan couldn’t believe that he’d just admitted to all that in front of the guys. He usually kept up a better front than that when something was bothering him, because, as the captain, he didn’t want to mess with the team’s general morale.
Alex gave a voice to Nick’s feelings. “Maybe if all you do is fight anymore, marrying her isn’t such a good idea.”
Ryan shook his head. “This isn’t Jenna, though. She’s turned into some bridezilla, and she’ll go back to being herself once this damn thing is over. I just have to put up with her until then, and things will go back to normal after the stupid ceremony.”
“And what if they don’t?” Nick asked.
“They will, Marty,” Ryan replied, surprised by his teammate’s question. “They just have to.”
Play the Man Page 7