AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the second chapter to a multi-part story, I would suggest reading Chapter 1 before this one to understand the whole story. Please enjoy.
*
She seethed in anger, again.
Anita Morriss had just pressed play on her remote control. She had already watched her DVD copy of the local access cable channel`s broadcast of last year`s provincial curling finals, during which she suffered the heaviest defeat of her professional career, more times than she cared to count. Yet here she was watching it again. She heard the announcers say how much her team had defeated Kellie Ferguson`s team over the years, and she couldn`t help but shake her head at just how different the outcome was that time around.
As difficult as it was for Anita to accept losing at all, never mind to a team from some Podunk little town she thoroughly dominated many times before, there were many reasons for the loss that she could rationalize in her mind, if she wanted to. Kellie and her team were just on that day. Anita`s team did not play well, herself included. They were probably overconfident, having beaten Kellie so often in the past. Sometimes the old law of averages just catches up to you. Just one of those days, really.
Except, none of them satisfied Anita. There was something else going on, maybe just under the surface, but it was there nonetheless.
Not that she thought Kellie cheated. That was impossible. The game and its competitors were too honest for that, though Anita wasn`t above playing some old-fashioned mind games to help gain a competitive edge. Besides, even if subtle cheating had any sort of "wink-wink" acceptance in curling, Kellie was far too naïve and clueless to do anything like that.
Perhaps it was better training, new coaching, something along those lines. Wrong again, Anita thought. Her information gathering network would have gone into overdrive if that happened. Her coaches and extended support group kept track of all her main competition; they charted everything about their training, their strategy, their coaches... anything and everything having to do with how they played the game. If one of them sneezed during a training session, Anita knew about it.
So while she knew Kellie`s team had played well leading into provincials, better than they had before, she also believed it was insufficient explanation for what happened that day. And no matter how often she watched this DVD, no matter how often she thought about what that missing element was, she had not yet discovered the answer. And that bothered her in a way nothing else ever had.
Anita fast-forwarded through much of the actual match play, stopping only where she thought she might see something that would solve her problem. As of yet she had gained no new insights. She continued fast-forwarding to the end. Usually she would shut it off at this point, often so angry she wanted to throw something across the room. But this time she kept watching, thinking there might be something, anything, that she could learn.
She watched the camera focus on the Ferguson team celebrating, the perfunctory handshakes her own team exchanged with theirs, their moving to the stands, all of them appearing to embrace loved ones...
Wait.
Anita`s eyebrow raised up as she paused the DVD. As far as she knew, Kellie was single and had a difficult relationship with her family; they rarely if ever attended her matches. So if there was a special new person in Kellie`s life, this would be an unexpected development. She wondered why she didn`t notice it then, and then thought back to the anger and bitterness she tried to suppress at that time. No, Kellie could have stripped naked right there on the ice, and Anita would not have taken notice, so consumed with the defeat she was.
Now, however, she realized this could be the final piece of the puzzle she was looking to solve.
She stopped the DVD and ejected it from the player, and went to her computer to view it on her monitor. She fast-forwarded to the same point, hit pause and took a screen grab picture of that frame. She zoomed in the left corner, where Kellie was hugging somebody. The picture quality was fairly poor, but she could tell it was a man Kellie was with. He looked around her own age, and appeared to be reasonably handsome.
In order to confirm her growing suspicions, Anita went to the stack of DVDs she kept next to her TV, and pulled one which was still unopened. Her coach had written on the packaging, "Watch this, for motivation for next year!", but she had left the package alone. She knew Kellie`s team had won the Canadian title as well, but she could not stomach to watch even a second of that tournament.
And, technically, she still wouldn`t. For what she was interested in was not the game itself, but the celebration afterward.
Anita fast-forwarded this DVD until she found what she was looking for. The professional camera work was much sharper than what the volunteers with ancient equipment could provide. So there was no doubt this time that Kellie`s celebratory embrace was with an attractive, muscular man.
"Huh, amazing," Anita said out loud to no one in particular. "That nerd Kellie managed to snag herself a man!"
And that had to be the answer, didn`t it? Anita knew from personal experience that when she was getting some action in the sack, everything else in her life was much better. While she was, for now, happily single, she had achieved more than her fair share of sexual conquests; men could never resist her blonde hair and blue eyes, her tight yet curvy body, nor her assertive (to the point of being aggressive) sexuality. In between these "trophies", she had no shortage of "friends-with-benefits" when she needed to scratch that itch.
Anita breathed a sigh of relief. It wouldn`t erase the past, of course, but there was at least a small slice of bitter satisfaction at having cracked the proverbial code. She sat back on her couch, deep in thought.
She knew this coming season would be pivotal in her curling career. It had been two years since she had been to the national finals. The first year she had to take time off from the game so she and her mother could help her sister, who was seriously injured in a car accident, raise her spoiled brat of a son. And, of course, there was last season`s debacle. So motivation was definitely not an issue. She would train and practice harder than ever, and she would drive her team to do the same. She would increase her film work on her competitors, and meet more with her various coaches to go over every possible strategic detail she could encounter.
Even with her control-freak tendencies, however, Anita knew that there were some things she could not make bend to her will. If Kellie Ferguson really did have a boyfriend, and if that really did help make her, and by extension her team, become a more formidable curling rink, there wasn`t anything Anita Morriss could do about it.
Unless...
******
They were deeply in love.
The past 18 months had been a whirlwind for Kellie. Brad`s courtship of her was sweet, like everything else about him, and his support and love for her helped her become a happier, more confident person. Without him, she was convinced there would have been no way she could be the kind of player and skip needed to lead her curling team to win the Canadian championship. It was the best period of her life in every possible way, and in truth it wasn`t even close.
The same kinds of feelings held true for Brad. Though he did not have the level of personal challenges over which Kellie had to rise, he did have the sense that his life was drifting away from him before he took a chance and asked her out for their first date. No longer; now it had structure and purpose, he had a reason to get up each and every morning and be the best he could be.
They had both found their best friend, their lover, their soul mate. Someone to share life`s highs, someone to lean on for support during its lows. They talked plenty about curling, but they also spent a lot of time talking about other things. Getting married. What their future might hold. Current events, and love and life in general.
Kellie and Brad expressed their love for each other in many ways. They said I love you to each other often. They made other simple gestures, like Brad holding doors open for Kellie and other such acts of chivalry, and Kellie helping to straighten Brad`s tie when they were going out for a fancy night out, and other such caring touches. They held hands in public almost constantly. Certainly anyone who saw them together could see how much they loved each other.
And, of course, they also spent many nights making sweet, passionate love to each other. They enjoyed the process that all new lovers go through of exploring each other`s bodies, finding out what the other likes, what turns them on. Kellie loved running her soft hands over Brad`s powerfully muscled chest, and thrilled to feel his strong hands touching her all over. Brad loved how Kellie sighed blissfully when he gently nibbled on her earlobes, and of course took every opportunity he could to touch her ass, marvelling at how perfectly each cheek felt in his hands.
There was no doubt Kellie and Brad were deeply, madly in love with each other. They were absolutely convinced that, while there would be difficulties from time to time as life intruded, there was absolutely nothing that could stop this most perfect love.
Right?
******
