Chapter 5

Hannah

L ou nods his head at the hostess and then gives a thumbs up with both his hands as he smiles for the photo with her. The hostess takes her phone back and I can tell from the look on her face she's trying to hit him up for a date.

I look back at her accusing face. "He grabbed my phone and saw your text about Charlotte. I had no choice."

"Hannah." Her tone is disappointed.

"Why do you hate him so much?" I ask her. "He's my twin, I'm never going to get rid of him."

She goes quiet, not telling me what has gotten so under her skin when it comes to him. More commotion at the door has her looking back to Lou, and then a small smile forms. "At least he brought someone for you with him."

I whip my head so fast to see what she means that I risk whiplash. Matt is standing next to Lou, scanning the room. When he finds me his shoulders relax. He says something to Lou, and the two of them slowly pull away from the crowd towards my booth.

Maria picks up her glass and slips out of her seat. "I better go find a table before they're all gone."

Lou takes a seat across from me, but he's watching Maria as she walks away. Matt detours to the bar, and the crowd there is all too eager to speak with him. I frown when I see a blond with a particularly sexy red dress lean in to whisper something in his ear. To his credit, Matt is looking at the bartender to check the status of his drink. His face is polite as he talks with the blond and points to the table where Lou and I are sitting.

In that wordless way women do, she looks me over and just as quickly disregards me as competition. She turns back to Matt and runs a hand flirtatiously down his arm, and smiles sweetly at whatever he says. Jealously rears its ugly head, but I have no right to be jealous. Matt and I aren't dating, I can't even say we're close friends. At best we're colleagues, or he's Lou's friend.

Matt finally gets his drink, apparently he needed two, and leaves the woman behind. Unfortunately, there's a group of four men with hockey hats on that peel away from the bar and look at Matt as if he hung the moon.

"Hey Sis," Lou says loud enough for the group of men approaching him to hear. "Do I need to knock sense into anyone yet? Or have you found someone to join you for the hockey games this weekend?"

"Really?" I hiss at him, glaring at him with all the hatred I can muster. If I had magical powers like the dragon romance book I'd been reading, he'd be a pile of ashes now.

The fanboys pause in their approach, clearly having heard Lou. They look at Lou, and then at me. Two thoughts become readily apparent on their faces. The first being that they don't want to have Lou beating them. Second, I just became the key to getting hockey tickets. Lou's just made me more desirable for the hockey fans, and made it that much harder to find a man who wants to date me for me.

Lou smiles and leans forward. "Shouldn't have picked a sports bar for finding a date."

Matt shakes his head, and sets one glass in front of Lou. "I'm going to go find a table."

"That's not how it works." One of the men whines. "The ladies get tables first. Your nametag has the table you start at on it."

He points to the corner of his own name tag, where I see the number twenty on it. I then take a closer look at Lou's name tag and see it has the number eleven written in the corner. I snort, of course he had to get assigned his jersey number. There is a small square box sitting in the middle of the table, I hadn't paid it much attention before, it's filled with strips of paper, and has a metal pole, about a foot tall, that sticks out of the center. At the top is a big split-ring looking thing with a white card inserted between the split. The card has the number thirteen on it in big black font.

Finally, something is going my way. The relief helps to loosen my shoulders just a bit and I dial back the desire to stab my twin. Instead, I give him a sickly sweet smile and say, "Guess you have to go too."

His eyes narrow at me as he stands up. "Don't worry, I'll be back."

"Bye terminator." I wiggle my fingers at him. Seriously the man has a desire to kill my love life.

Before he can retort, a bell rings and we turn to see the hostess holding up a black and gold handbell.

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining the second annual Pizza Pub Sweetheart Shuffle!" She pauses waiting for cheers of excitement.

There's a lone woop from one of the tables in the back.

She clears her throat. "I know you are all eager to meet your future sweetheart. The rules are simple. Three minutes at each table. Men, write down the table number, and ladies write down the number on the gent's nametag and get to know each other in that time. You can put down a name, but without the number I won't know which Kaitlyn or Matt you meant."

A chuckle runs through the pub.

"If you need an ice breaker use one of the paper strips. When the bell rings check yes or no on your card and shuffle on to the next table. At the end of the night, I'll collect your cards. So don't leave before I get them. I suggest everyone find their seat, so we can get started."

Too nervous to see who will join me first, I focus on pulling a pen and my card out of my purse and set both on the table in front of me. I put my name and table number at the top where it says to do so. Even though the instructions focused on the number, there's a spot to write both a name and nametag number next to the yes and no boxes.

A throat clears, and I look up to see a tall lanky man with a dark scraggly mustache rubbing the palms of his hands on his green tweed trousers. Yes, actual tweed. He holds out a hand to me, and I take it to be polite. His hand is wet from sweat.

"I'm Michael."

"Hannah." I let go of his hand as quickly as possible.

He sits down, and nervously adjusts the bowtie that matches his trousers and suspenders with one hand. His nerves make me feel better, as I'm clearly not the only one feeling anxious about tonight.

The hostess rings the bell. "Time starts now."

We are silent for a long moment, neither of us sure what to say first. After writing his nametag number and name down on my card, I wait for him to say something. Long seconds, of hearing others chatter, pass and I reach for one of the icebreaker papers. I open it up and read the question on it.

"If you were a pizza topping what would you be and why?" I look up to see what he'll say at the absurd question.

Michael frowns. "Not pineapple that's for certain."

"Why not?" I ask. "I like it on pizza."

"My mother says pineapple is of the devil. That's why it has all those horns."

Taken aback, I'm at a loss for words. Which no longer seems to be an issue for Michael. For the rest of the three minutes we sit together, I listen to a rant about pineapple that makes no sense, religiously speaking or otherwise, as he delves into the pineapple conspiracy sweeping the internet as further proof of its evil nature.

I'm beyond grateful when the bell rings and without hesitation, I mark the no next to his name.

"You're supposed to wait until after I leave the table." Michael huffs, then he's gone.

I look around, wondering if Maria saw any of that, but she's on the other side of the room and smiling at the guy that's just sat down across from her. She looks like she's enjoying herself, and I hope that she's able to find someone.

A man in a gray suit and white button-up, joins me at my table. He introduces himself as Jackson, and doesn't even wait for the bell before he starts talking.

"I'm an attorney at the Sterling and Sons law firm."

I smile. "I've heard nothing but good things about the firm."

He nods as if I haven't told him anything new.

"Do you work?" he asks.

"I do. I'm the PR manager for the Glacier Bay Bears."

He rolls his eyes. "Being a glorified influencer doesn't count. It's not that hard to post pretty pictures."

My hackles rise. "There's more to my job than that."

"I'm looking for a woman that can handle being without me most days and nights as I work long hours and I don't do clingy. I'm trying to become a partner by the time I'm thirty."

"I appreciate your dedication to your job, and I'd hope any partner of mine would appreciate my dedication to mine."

He looks me over. "Would you be willing to lose weight?"

"Excuse me?" I say in horror.

"You have to be familiar with the camera adding ten pounds. My lady will be seen with me at important events and needs to be presentable at any moment."

"I'm going to save us both the time. I don't think we're compatible."

He nods and leaves for the bar to get another drink. I mark "no" next to him on my card and take a long swig of my Coke. Why did I think this was a good idea?

The bell rings and I get ready to do it all over again.

I repeat the cycle with a gym bro that tries too hard to hide the smell of his sweat under too much body spray. The result is that my eyes start to sting, as the ocean scented body spray has combined with the body odor to create a toxic stench that would rival Lou's hockey socks. The next guy is still hung up on his ex-girlfriend who is sitting two tables away. He spends our three minutes telling me about how he came tonight to propose to her. The guy has guts.

The next guy, Ben, is one of the ones who heard Lou's comment about hockey tickets earlier. He owns his own general contractor business and likes to work with his hands.

"So you're Lou the Lightning's sister."

"Please tell me you didn't call him that to his face. It'll go straight to his head."

He shakes his head. "Nah, it's a nickname my buddies and I thought of after last season's game against the Flyers. Growing up with him couldn't have been easy."

"It wasn't." I agree. "He's a bit over the top if you haven't noticed."

He laughs, and it's a good laugh that makes me want to join in. "Tell me about you, something that doesn't involve your brother."

I like him a little bit more, as his request isn't expected. "Let's see. Cookie dough ice cream is my favorite, pineapple belongs on pizza."

"Those are things you like, I want to know you. What makes you wake up in the morning and do the things you do?"

His question makes me pause. I don't have an answer to give him. Has hockey and being Lou's sister really become my identity? What happened to when I was younger and I'd spout off a list of twenty things I wanted to do at any given time?

The bell rings.

Ben stands, and with great flare, he marks yes on his card next to my name and table number. "I hope to hear your answer on a real date."

He leaves me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. Were these the butterflies Missy always talked about? He wasn't anything I'd expected him to be. I smile and check the yes box for him on my card.

"What's put that smile on your face?"

I look up to find Matt joining me as my next Sweetheart Shuffle.