Because That's What Pretty Girls Do
Marty
All Georgia really wants to do is go home, grab a bottle of wine, turn on some brainless television, and put her feet up. Don’t get her wrong, she loves her job, but there are just some days…
And today has been one of those days. Maybe she’ll get a box of chocolates to go with the wine because she sure as hell earned it today.
She pushes open the door to the nook and spots Snowy and Tater standing off to the side. Normally, she’d greet them because Tater’s effervescence is always a soothing balm on hard days while Snowy’s acidity is good for a nice solidarity hate, but there’s something about the two that makes her hang back. She doesn’t know why at first, and then Tater leans forward into Snowy’s personal space, smiling softly. And that itself isn’t weird or unusual-Tater still has a bit of trouble with what Americans consider to be an acceptable amount of personal space versus what Russians consider to be acceptable-but the difference today is Snowy doesn’t pull away. In fact, he even tilts forwards slightly.
The average person wouldn’t notice anything strange about this, but Georgia’s worked with Snowy for a few years now, and she’s never seen him respond that way to someone getting up close and personal before. He’s someone who had always valued his space bubble, to the point she’s had to deal with an incident or two where a fan had been a little too insistent on standing a little too close. He’s better about people he knows, but he still is one of the more distant members of the team.
And yet, there’s Tater, standing too close and Snowy’s not freaking out. Hell, Snowy’s body language is even suggesting he’s encouraging it.
Tater laughs and even from the distance she’s at, Georgia can see he’s enamoured. And when Snowy rolls his eyes, the gesture is far too soft to be one of real annoyance.
It's the sort of gesture she's seen her parents and grandparents use on each other.
It's the sort of thing people who are stupidly happy together used to try and pretend they aren't stupidly happy together.
Georgia steps back and shuts the door silently before she scrubs her hand over her face and resists the urge to scream. Goddamn it. Goddamn it all. This is going to be such a logistical nightmare. Maybe she can get drunk and lose all memory of this.
As soon as the thought crosses her mind, she shakes it away. She needs to start planning now, for when they decide to go public, so there’s something in place. Besides, there’s no guarantee they will want to make a statement or come out or anything like that (Snowy has been coming to family skate and other events like that with that blonde, Sofia), but even if Snowy and Tater don’t come out, somebody will, down the line, and she might as well start thinking about it. She’d been lucky with Jack and Eric-Jack had told her in advance and Eric didn’t play professionally.
Oh, Jesus. She doesn’t even want to think about what will happen if Snowy or Tater gets traded.
Georgia sighs. So much for a quiet evening at home with a bottle of wine.
As she drags herself back to her office to grab a few things to try and get started on dealing with this, she can’t help but think of how those two players look at each other. It makes her think Zimmermann might have some competition for most smitten player in the League.
And if Georgia wants to be honest, it’s one of the sweetest things she’s seen in a while, even if it’s going to make her life far more difficult.
Brian