my girl | jack hughes

twenty-five

it was the fourth day of the NTDP's road trip and abby was full on missing jack. even though they had been in constant contact with each other since the moment that they had said goodbye to each other outside of the hughes' family home after their nap that she had skipped class for, abby still couldn't wait for jack to come home.

abby was currently on her way to her new best friend, kalyn's,house with sophia to watch their boys second to last game of the road trip.

"i hope they win today." sophia said as she turned into kalyn's driveway.

"me too." abby replied.

the boys had won the first 3 games of the road trip with jack scoring 5 goals already and trevor scoring 2 with a bunch of assists.

the two best friends got out of sophia's car and walked up to the front door.

"hi babies!!" kalyn exclaimed as she opened the front door to her house, "come on in."

sophia and abby walked into the large, welcoming home and immediately went to the ford family's living space where the game's warmup had already began.

the three girls each sat down on the various seats in the room and were instantly mesmerized by the boys they knew so well skating around on the screen.

———

"it wasn't a bad game." sophia said trying to be optimistic after the game.

the ntdp team had just lost 5-1 with jack and case being on the ice for all 5 goals.

"i just hope case isn't too mad and upset." kalyn said to the girls while rubbing her temple indicating she was stressed about the post-game text from her boyfriend she was expecting.

"jack is gonna be so mad." abby said silently bracing herself for how mad her boyfriend was going to be.

"and they said being a hockey girlfriend was so much fun!" kalyn joked, making all the girls laugh.

the three girls sat around in kalyn's families living area until well after midnight before sophia and abby decided it was time to head home.

sophia dropped off abby at her home and abby immediately walked into the house and immediately up to her room.

she changed into comfy clothes and crawled into bed and sent a quick text to jack who had yet to text her.

hey hughesy, text or call me when you get a chance, i miss you❤️

not even five minutes later, abby's phone was ringing.

"hey hughesy." abby said as she answered the phone call from her boyfriend.

"hey." jack said in a angry voice.

"what's wrong babe?" abby asked concerned.

"did you not see the game? i played like shit. i couldn't play defensively, couldn't score, couldn't do ANYTHING!" jack said even louder and even angrier.

"i did see the game. not every game is going to be perfect, jack. everyone has their off days, even nhlers. you should know that." abby told jack trying to be reasonable with the very angry hockey player on the other end of the phone.

"do you not get it, abby? it's my draft year, i can't afford to have off games like this. everything fucking counts at this point. it's too late in the season for off games. everything counts at this point. my goodness, do you not get it!" jack screamed into the phone.

"woah, woah, woah, calm down jack. it's one bad game. it's not like you dropped down to being chosen last instead of first in the draft just because of one bad game in some random city."

"HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT? all those gm's could be sitting in their offices or even at the game crossing my name off their fucking list. they'd be saying 'jack hughes = a big dud, not worth anything.' give your fucking head a shake, abby."

"excuse me? do not talk to me like that, jack. i'm trying to be reasonable with you while you're going crazy and beating yourself up over one bad game."

"oh, what do you know." jack said dramatically. "i don't even know why i called you, i should have known you wouldn't understand."

"you know what? i don't need to deal with this bullshit right now. let me know when you've calmed down and realized what you've all said." abby said before hanging up on her boyfriend.

abby instantly broke down in tears. she couldn't believe jack. the sweet, soft spoken guy who never raised his voice at her or anybody who she had fallen in love with just a few days prior could be an absolute ruthless monster when he didn't perform to his best in a game.

abby re-played and re-played the conversation over and over in her head, only making her angrier and upset causing the tears to fall quicker down her face and onto her pillow cases until she threw her phone across the room in anger at her boyfriend and fell asleep crying for the first time in their relationship.