Page 80 of Must Love Dogs… and Hockey

“Canadian. CFL. A much more exciting game.”

“What?” Now it’s my turn to stare in shock.

He laughs. “The field is bigger and the end zones are deeper, so there’s room to run more stunt plays.” He shrugs. “Also, another player on the field means more options for the quarterback and one more guy for the defense to track.”

I blink. “Huh.”

“I think it allows for more creativity on both sides of the ball. Just my opinion. And three downs means more offensive aggression is necessary, which usually means more passing and a lot less settling for plays that might only get you a couple yards. That means a more pass-and-kick-oriented game since there are fewer downs available for short-yardage running plays.”

I purse my lips. “Really.”

“The kicking rules are different too.” He lifts his beer to his lips and drinks. “In Canadian football, there’s no fair catch rule.”

“Whereas in American football, if a kick returner thinks he won’t be able to advance the ball after recovery, he can signal for a fair catch and be immune from contact.”

He looks at me with admiration lighting his eyes. “Yeah. And in Canadian football, no player on the kicking team except the kicker and any players behind him on the field can be within five yards of the ball unless it’s been touched by an opponent.”

“I did not know this.”

He shrugs. “Not many Americans watch Canadian football.”

After a while, I go help Layla in the kitchen, along with another woman I learn is Charlotte, who is here with Ryker Murphy, a Bears center. Also helping us is Igor Barbashev and his wife, Nadia, who tell me, in their Russian accents, that they don’t really like football so they’d rather help in the kitchen.

We heat up food and arrange platters and bowls on the island. “There’s enough food here for the whole team,” I say.

Layla laughs. “You can never have too much Thanksgiving food.”

She even roasted a turkey, which Igor carves and arranges on a platter.

Everyone helps themselves, loading up plates and sitting in various places around the apartment. Easton and I snag seats at the dining room table and dig in. I notice he has a huge serving of the corn casserole I made, and my heart bumps.

“This is really good,” he says, after tasting it.

“Thankfully it tastes okay, because it doesn’t look very appetizing.” I tasted it myself at home—oops, I mean at Easton’s place—before bringing it here. If it was horrible it would have gone in the garbage and we would have stopped at the Superette on the way here for bags of chips.

“It looks fine. It has bacon. You can’t go wrong with bacon.”

I laugh. “True.”

We chat with Igor and Nadia, and Owen and Wendel, who sit with us at the table. I love watching Easton interact with his teammates, relaxed and at ease, joking around. They even tease him about his skate lace getting caught in Jamal’s skate and Easton laughs about it. Nobody mentions their coach.

After dinner, we play a game of Never Have I Ever.

Layla explains the game to Igor and Nadia. “If you’ve done what the first player says, you have to drink.”

Igor nods and lifts his glass of vodka.

Owen goes first. “Never have I ever faked an orgasm.”

I didn’t expect this to be the sex version of the game.

I take a sip of my wine.

“Hey.” Easton nudges my shoulder. “What is that?”

“Not with you,” I assure him.

“Okay, good.”

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