PART TWENTY: IT’S OFFICIAL
Back in Lena’s P.O.V.:
At nine in the morning, an alarm on my phone woke me up. I was confused by the wake up call at first. It was a Saturday. Weekends were my opportunities to sleep in as much as I wanted to. However, I had a reminder in my phone that told me there was a morning skate. Of course! I had promised Patrick that I would be at his practice. I was allowed to come to practices anytime I wanted, after all, since I was a former intern.
Even though it was early for me (for a Saturday, at least), it was relatively easy for me to get up and get out of bed. I didn’t mind being up early if it meant that I got to go to the UC. I showered and let my hair air-dry while I applied some light makeup. I threw on jeans, a v-neck, and a Hawks sweatshirt, and after I slipped my feet into my cozy sequined UGGs and grabbed my coat, I was out the door.
It wasn’t until I arrived at the United Center that I realized how much I had missed it. After being in the internship for two weeks, it had become something like a home to me. I knew the people working there as well as the players, and I knew my way around too.
By the time I got there, practice had already begun. I said hello to Brad when he spotted me. He seemed happy to see me and he told me to sit wherever I wanted. I found Dylan sitting a few rows up from the Plexiglas and I sat down next to him.
“Hey you,” I said. I was glad to see him. We hadn’t really talked very much since New Years.
“Hey. I was kinda hoping you’d be here,” he answered.
“Well, here I am. So what have you been up to? My phone’s been lacking texts from you since the internship ended.”
“Oh, you know. Same old, same old. School, hockey. Hockey’s been my main focus lately, since my grades have been pretty solid. I actually have practice today,” Dylan answered.
“Nice. When’s your practice?”
“It’s not for a few hours. Once this practice here is over I’ll still have a few hours to kill. It’s a mid afternoon practice. It’s at an awkward time, but only because my coach has something going on today. I don’t know what, exactly. He never actually told us…” We continued talking throughout the whole practice. Even though we hadn’t talked for a week, it seemed like I had only seen him just yesterday. Everything was normal, just like it had been throughout the whole internship. We talked about hockey, our futures, and all the little things in between. We both admitted that it was great to be back at the UC, and although it had been fun working practices, it was nice to be able to sit back and just enjoy watching one for once.
In the middle of practice, when they had a moment to take a break, the players acknowledged Dylan and I and invited us to stay and talk after practice. In fact, they invited us both to lunch. As fun as lunch with the Blackhawks could be, I didn’t want to be the only girl in a huge group of guys. I thought maybe I’d ruin their fun, so I decided to politely decline their offer later.
When practice did end, I waited around for a few minutes outside of the locker room for the guys to shower and change and everything. When the players filed out, I laughed at how Corey Crawford went straight for Dylan. Dylan and I were lucky. It seemed that we had both quickly become good friends with our favorite players from our favorite team. Although for me, it was a bit more than a friendship.
“Hey, I’m glad you made it,” Patrick said, hugging me as soon as he saw me.
“Me too. I’ve missed this place, and it’s only been a week,” I answered. It felt nice to be hugging him again. That was another thing I had missed throughout the week, but I didn’t tell him that.
“Hey, it’s the same for me. So…are you coming to lunch with us?” Patrick wondered.
“Oh, I don’t know. I doubt you guys would want a girl there, I’d ruin all the fun,” I said honestly.
“Hey, you guys wouldn’t mind if my girlfriend came with, would you?” Patrick asked his teammates. I was in awe. He just called me his girlfriend. That was definitely not something he had ever called me before. We had never had a conversation that contained that word at all and yet, it seemed to fit our situation.
“Girlfriend?” I asked. I wanted to fake him out, but I couldn’t hide my smile.
“Yeah. If you’re okay with that,” he answered.
“I’m definitely okay with that.” Although it was sudden, I approved of the way he made our relationship official. Asking would be too cheesy. Just going for it had the perfect effect, and it probably made things less stressful and awkward for him. But speaking of awkward, every player was staring at us now. Even Dylan was staring. The difference between him and the team, though, was that they were congratulating Patrick and being loud. He said nothing, and his face held a blank stare.
“You two should kiss!” I heard Andrew Shaw yell. After that comment, I started to get worried, because Dylan reacted.
“Well, I better go,” he said dully.
“I thought you said you’d come to lunch with us!” Corey said. Even though everyone else was being loud, I was completely focused in on their conversation.
“I’ve got hockey practice,” Dylan told Corey.
“He said it wasn’t for a few hours. Dylan, you have time! You should go!” I said. I was rudely butting into their conversation, but I didn’t mind being rude for a moment. I wasn’t listening to everyone else’s comments. I didn’t care about them.
“I’ve gotta go. See you guys later,” Dylan said, although Corey was the only one paying any attention to him. He looked directly into my eyes, but his face was still expressionless. He started making his way out, and I wanted to follow him. Something was definitely wrong with him. I looked at Patrick to tell him that I needed to talk to Dylan and see what was up. I couldn’t, though. His teammates were all egging us on and Brandon Saad finally pushed Patrick towards me so we couldn’t avoid our lips colliding with each other. By the time we broke apart, I couldn’t even locate Dylan anymore. He had high-tailed it out of there. I would have chased after him in an attempt to talk to him before he could leave, but I knew he wouldn’t want to talk to me anyways. I would have to wait until later. Actually, I had found out enough details about his hockey life from him to know where he practiced, plus he had eventually told me that his practice was at three. I could talk to him then. That way, I wouldn’t have to deal with him being able to ignore me by sending calls straight to voicemail.
“Do you want to talk to him?” Patrick asked me, sensing the worry in my eyes.
“He won’t talk to me now. I’ll catch him at his practice later. It‘s fine,” I assured him.
“Okay, well do you want to come with us to lunch? Or at least with me? We don’t have to all go out together. We did that basically everyday this past week. We just thought we’d get everyone together since you and Dylan were back, but since you won’t both be there, we can save it for another day.”
“It’ll tag along if you guys want me to,” I answered.
“Hey, we can do it any day. It was a last minute decision anyways. You two go ahead and do your own thing,” Sharpy said. After that, everyone left and went their separate ways. They’d all get back together again for the game later anyways. Although I was still worried about Dylan, I knew I would have to push it out of my mind for a few hours. I had the perfect opportunity to be with Patrick, so I needed to take advantage of that and enjoy it.
“So, what do you want to do for lunch? We could go somewhere and eat there or we could even bring it back to my apartment and eat, since you’ve never been there. I would say that I could cook for you, but it would probably taste terrible,” Patrick offered.
“It doesn’t really matter to me. Even if you did cook for me and it sucked, I’d still eat it,” I admitted.
“Well, lets just get something and eat at my place then. I don’t think I’m ready to cook for you. But since I chose what we’re doing, you get to choose the restaurant.”
“Okay. Hmm…have you ever been to Chipotle?” Chipotle was a Mexican restaurant similar to Qdoba. It wasn’t fancy, but it wasn’t fast food either. It was somewhere in between, and it was my obsession. I loved their burrito bowls - I could probably eat them everyday. Patrick was on board, so we each got burrito bowls as well as chips and guacamole to share and I followed behind his car to get to his place, since I didn’t want to leave mine at the UC.
After seeing where Jonathan lived, arriving at Patrick’s place didn’t surprise me as much. The apartment complex was just as nice and when we got up to his floor and went into his apartment, it was just as spacious. I actually decided that I liked his place better than Johnny’s. That was probably a good thing, because I knew I’d be spending more time with my new boyfriend now that he actually was my boyfriend.
“So, what do you think?” he asked, closing the door behind me.
“It’s about a hundred times bigger and nicer than my apartment, so of course I’m impressed,” I answered, laughing a little. I was embarrassed about where I lived after seeing where he lived. I knew that I had to keep in mind that I was an average college student and he was a famous, professional athlete, but still.
“Your apartment’s fine. At least it’s not lonely there. You’ve got Tess to entertain you all day,” he commented.
“Her ridiculousness isn’t always entertaining, ya know. It gets tiring after a while,” I said. It wasn’t really true, though. I was used to Tess, and I had learned to love her. I honestly did like living with her, even though it felt cramped.
“I could say the same about Johnny,” Patrick replied. I couldn’t help but chuckle. They pretended they hated each other, but in reality, they couldn’t deny their friendship. There was a bond there that couldn’t be broken, and everyone else saw it, even if they didn’t want to. “Well, do you want a quick tour before we eat?” I nodded, so he showed me around. Once I had seen it all, we sat down and ate. We talked easily, too. I guess it was our first date as a couple. It was laid back, but I liked it that way. I honestly hoped that we could find time in the future for dates like that one, where we just hung out at his apartment, eating and talking with nothing to worry about.
Towards the end of it all, Tess texted me. She was acting like my mother. She seemed worried about where I might be. I told her where I was and said I’d be home later. I wanted to give her good details in person rather than via text, plus I didn’t want to be rude to Patrick. As it turned out, though, I didn’t have much time left with him. Before too much longer, I had to say goodbye.
“Thanks for buying me lunch. And inviting me over. This was actually really fun,” I confessed as we headed towards his door.
“Well, I’m glad you enjoyed it. I did too,” Patrick answered. “So, you don’t mind being my girlfriend, then?” he asked.
“Of course I don’t mind. What kind of a question is that?” I wondered, confused.
“I’m just making sure. ‘Cause you know, you’ll probably have to kiss me more often now and I learned from our first date that you hate doing that,” he said, grinning.
“Yeah, I really do. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all,” I decided. For some reason, sarcasm seemed to be popular in our date conversations.
“You better leave, then,” he said, and I went for the door handle, knowing what would happen. My prediction had been correct. He pulled me back to kiss me, and this time, we really were alone. There were no other Hawks players egging us on and we weren’t in the middle of a New Years party or Millennium Park, where anyone walking by could have seen us. We had no reason to rush it or break it off before we wanted to, so we didn’t. When I heard that Tess had replied to my text, I actually did force myself to leave, though. I didn’t necessarily want to go, but I had to get to Dylan’s practice. I couldn’t avoid the fact that my friend was upset about something, especially since I had a sneaking suspicion that it had to do with me.