The Hockey Life

PART THIRTY-TWO: BUSY LIVES
By the time Tess and I got to the United Center for the game, it was already crowded. My stress sweat levels were at an all time high, as gross as that was, but I refused to tell Tess that I was at all worried or nervous about anything. She probably was just trying to be funny, and she probably didn’t mean anything she said. And besides, I wasn’t about to ruin a perfectly good hockey game for her. It was her first love. It was my first love.
Luckily, I didn’t have all that much time to worry. As soon as the guys got out on the ice, they were all I could focus on. The game was a good one, too. They played the LA Kings, who had a winning streak going until they played the Hawks, of course.
The first period was the most exciting one. Toews and Sharp scored, but the Kings did not. Patrick scored in the second period, and the Kings did not. In the third period, Ben Smith scored a goal. I had been very hopeful that Crawford would get a shutout, but of course, the Kings scored last minute. We still got the win though, and a good one at that. The game even distracted me from my stress for a while. I got engrossed in hockey so easily.
Tess and I waited for the media to be done with the players after the game and then we got into the locker room. We actually stayed there for a while, just talking to the team. We were friends with basically ever player. Even though Tess had only met them twice now, she was outgoing enough to the point where they all treated her like a best friend. Of course, they had all known me for a while, so they were used to me. It had gotten to a point where they treated me like family, or maybe even like part of the team. They felt comfortable messing with me, even. I was actually starting to fear that Sharpy was going to pull a prank on me sometime soon, so I tried to watch my back whenever I was around him. He hadn’t made a move yet, though, so I pretended I wasn’t suspecting anything.
I was almost sad when Patrick was ready to go and he hinted that he wanted to head out. I decided that we should get going, though, since it was going to get very late very quickly. My mind started racing again but all my worries were put to rest when we got in his car.
“Would you mind going out instead of hanging out at my place?” he asked.
“No, I wouldn’t mind at all,” I told him. I was pretty relieved to hear his request.
We decided to go to Taco Bell. Unfortunately, the paparazzi seemed to know we were out. They found us at the restaurant, and so did some fans. I had to admit, it was a little strange to have flashes in my face the whole time I was eating. Plus, most of the fans that found us were fan girls, giggling at Patrick and attempting to flirt with him as they asked for pictures and autographs. Luckily for me, all the girls there seemed to be young and annoying. Too young and annoying for Patrick to even think twice about them.
“I’m sorry about this,” he told me when we had finally gotten close to finishing our nachos.
“I’m sorry that you have to deal with this everywhere you go. How do you get anything done, ever?” I asked, amazed at how cool he was being about all of it.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t really phase me anymore, I guess. But if it bothers you, we can leave.” I wanted to leave, I really did. But I knew that if I was going to be his girlfriend, I would have to get used to things like this.
“It’s okay. We can finish eating here, at least,” I decided. We waited until we had completely finished our food and then we left. The flashes had died down a little bit by then, but they flared up again when we walked out the door and headed to the car. I could almost deal with the blinding flashes, it was the questions that really got to me. They were nosy and ridiculous. I knew that they could twist my words or take advantage of any little thing I said, so I just stayed silent. If I said nothing, it couldn’t possibly hurt me. Patrick seemed to be doing the same thing until we got to the car. I think he was finally through with them, because he gave them some of the answers they were wanting.
“Yes. This is my girlfriend. Okay? We’re together. Now if you’ll excuse us, we need to get away from all your negativity.” With that, he closed his door, started the car, and drove so everyone would have to scatter and be done with us for the night.
“Sorry, did you want to go anywhere else? If we drive around for a minute, we’ll lose them and we’ll probably be able to go somewhere.”
“No thanks. I probably should go home and get some sleep,” I said. He took me home and then went home himself. I went to bed before Tess could ask me twenty million questions, luckily. For some reason, I wasn’t really in the mood for them.
I was back at the United Center the next day for more training. I didn’t have much time in between a morning session and a class, which was a little disappointing, but that was how it would be most of the time. I actually got to show off some of my skills for this session, which was fun considering how impressed the trainers were. It was also fun simply because Andrew Shaw was my guinea pig. He wasn’t hurt and he didn’t really need any personal or athletic trainer attention, but I was glad he let me practice on him anyways. He was a trooper.
“Why didn’t you practice on me?” my jealous boyfriend asked when I located him in the locker room after I was done.
“Shawzy volunteered first,” I told him.
“He got off the ice first! That’s not even fair!” Patrick complained.
“Yes it is. It’s your own fault you weren’t quick enough.”
“Whatever. I’ll just push Shaw out of the way next time so he doesn’t have a chance.” I laughed at this comment as I imagined the scenario in my mind. Pat kissed me, then kissed me again, and again…
“I don’t have time for this right now. I’ve gotta go soon,” I reminded him, checking my watch.
“How soon?”
“I need to be in my car in five minutes. I have class.”
“You parked close, right? There’s plenty of time.” I rolled my eyes but kissed him anyways.
“Are you going to be like this all the time?” I asked him, checking my watch again even though not even a minute had passed.
“What do you mean?” he asked, playing stupid.
“You know what I mean. It’s not like we live in different countries, we can do this in the privacy of our own homes whenever we want. Well, almost whenever we want,” I explained.
“I know, but we’re still busy a lot. I want to take advantage of all the time I have with you,” Patrick told me. Okay, he had a good point.
Two minutes later I told him that I absolutely had to leave or I’d be late to class. He walked me to my car and I was gone. After class I ate with Tess and then we headed to hockey practice. It was a busy day for me. The next day would be almost as busy. The Hawks had a day off so I wouldn’t have to go to the UC, but I did have two classes and then a game later that night that Patrick promised he would attend. After that, he would be on the road for a while, which made me glad that he was taking advantage of the chance to see me at my game. Maybe I should just embrace all the attention I was getting from him, because we truly couldn’t see each other whenever we wanted. It wasn’t that simple.

Notes

Sorry it took me so long to update! Finals week was crazy, so I avoided writing in order to focus on tests, projects, and presentations which I had plenty of! Now I'm on winter break, so I'll probably update more often. Some of the things I've been really excited to write about are coming soon in this story, so I'll probably be writing like a madman just to get to them. As usual, vote and leave me some comments :)