The Hockey Life

PART FORTY: THREE WORDS
Back in Lena’s P.O.V.
June began and so did round three of playoffs. The first two games were home games at the United Center, so I went, of course. Patrick and I made time to be with each other before the next two games, which were in L.A. Ever since we had become a little distant for a small period of time before the playoffs began, he had been making an effort to let me know that I was still important. He tried to make sure we could still hang out or go on dates, which I definitely approved of.
The Hawks were able to win their first two games against the Kings, and I was glad to see that Sharpy was doing well. He had a pretty good recovery. With him back on the ice and two consecutive victories, the Hawks felt good about their trip to L.A. I so badly wanted to join them on their trip - L.A. would be a blast - but instead I had to promise Patrick that I wouldn’t miss the games on TV. We had the opportunity to Skype as well, whenever he wasn’t playing or bonding with the guys. We took that opportunity as soon as we could, actually.
In Patrick’s P.O.V.
L.A. was beautiful as always. The weather was great. It was sunny and bright outside, and warm too. Sunshine streamed through my hotel window, tempting me to go out. However, I got a text from Lena as soon as I started contemplating the idea in my mind.
“Hey, I think some of the guys are going swimming. You coming with?” Johnny asked me. I could see that he had already changed into his swim trunks.
“Right now?” I asked as I logged onto Skype on my laptop.
“Yeah. You better get changed. I don’t think they’re going to wait for us,” he said.
“I can’t. Lena wants to Skype.”
“So? It’s not like she’s in school and she has a schedule. You can talk to her later!”
“She’s calling me right now and I already told her I wasn’t busy,” I explained.
“Okay, fine. You know where to find us if you decide to join us later,” Johnny said before he left the room.
****************************************************
An hour later, Johnny walked back into the hotel room right as I was saying goodbye to Lena. I originally planned on going swimming after our video chat, but I guess I lost track of time and I wasn’t able to cut it short.
“You just now ended that?” Jonathan asked.
“Yeah, I didn’t even realize we had been talking for that long. We never really have trouble finding things to talk about,” I decided.
“Kudos to you two, then,” he answered.
“Yeah. I’m just so glad she got accepted into that internship. If she hadn’t been, I probably wouldn’t even know her,” I realized.
“That’s true. That’s kinda crazy to think about.”
“I know. I mean, she’s pretty much the perfect girl. She’s beautiful, smart, talented, funny, and kinda crazy, believe it or not. God, I love her,” I said. The last few words sounded casual and almost like a joke coming out of my mouth, simply with the tone of voice I used. However, they were still three very important words that I didn’t say about just anyone.
“Wait, what did you say?’ Jonathan asked.
“Nothing. I didn’t say anything,” I said, trying to play it off like it never happened.
“You said you loved her,” he corrected me.
“Okay, don’t ask me what I said if you know what I said. That completely defeats the purpose of asking me.”
“You used the L word!”
“Yeah, but I meant it in a completely casual way. It’s basically the same as me saying that I love tacos or something. It’s no big deal,” I lied.
“Kaner, you do not say all those nice things about someone and then drop the L bomb without meaning it sincerely. I’m around you all the time, I can tell how you feel,” Jonathan reminded me.
“Okay, fine. I never really thought about it that much, but yeah, I guess I really do love her. She’s made me really happy.”
“Have you told her this yet?”
“Obviously not, since I just told you I didn’t even realize I felt that way until I blurted it out just now.”
“Well, maybe you should think about telling her sometime. I’m sure she feels the same way. Tess tells me a lot. Lena hasn’t dropped the L bomb to her, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel the same,” Jonathan suggested. Maybe he was right. I probably should think about telling her sometime soon. But it would have to wait. For now, I needed to rest up until the third game against the Kings. Hockey would have to be my biggest focus for the rest of the week.
In Lena’s P.O.V.
The Hawks did pretty well on their L.A. trip. They lost the first away game 1-3, which was unfortunate, but they won the second away game 3-2. Two wins would have been ideal, of course, but just the one win still meant a lot. In fact, it meant that if they won their next home game, they would move on to the Stanley Cup Final, which would be huge. Of course, considering the fact that they had just won in 2010 and it was only 2013, they could probably afford to wait for another Stanley Cup win. But why wait when they could have it now? Two cups in four years would be an awesome achievement to get.
“Hey, you better win this next game. If you do, you move on to the final. No pressure or anything,” I told Patrick when he came straight from the airport to visit me. It was ridiculous how much we missed each other when he went away. I mean, he was only gone for a few days. Maybe I was having withdrawals. That had been Tess’ guess.
“Wow, thanks. You probably just jinxed me. Now we’re going to lose,” Patrick said.
“You’re welcome.”
“Hey, do you want to go out?” Patrick asked me.
“Right now?” I hadn’t been expecting him to want to go anywhere. Not right after he finally got back home.
“Aren’t you tired? You literally just got off the plane a few minutes ago,” I said. Normally he was exhausted after trips.
“Nah. I slept a lot, especially on the plane. Johnny was wanting to do something too, if you wanted to come along,” he explained, now speaking to Tess.
“Sure, where are we going?” she asked.
“I don’t know. We were going to just hang out in the city, I guess. Maybe we could go to the beach, it’s pretty warm out already,” he suggested. Winter was my favorite season, but I still couldn’t turn down the beach. Neither could Tess. We both were always in desperate need of tans.
“The beach is an amazing idea. We’ll have to change first and get some things together, of course,” I said.
“I know. I need to change too,” he said as he opened his duffel bag. His swim trunks were close to the top.
“Did you go swimming on your trip?” I wondered.
“I was going to, but it didn’t happen,” he said.
“It’s a good thing we’re going to the beach, then. Come with me and help me pick out a swimsuit,” I said as I pulled him to my bedroom. I pushed all my clothes to the side to get to my swimsuits. I had three. One of them was a plain, neon yellow string bikini. Another was a nautical blue and white one piece all decked out with cute anchors that had a bunch of cutouts. The last one, which was also my favorite, was a black and white striped bandeau two piece set that had red rose accents. I secretly hoped Patrick would choose that one for me. I had a bit of an idea of how guy’s minds worked, so I thought of a way to get him to choose my favorite one.
“I’m not tan enough for the neon one, so I guess that one’s out,” I said as I pushed it aside. “So which of these two should I wear?” I asked, holding them both up.
“This one,” he said as he pointed to the black, white and red one. “It’s Blackhawks colors,” he explained. My plan worked. I knew he would pick the one that would show the most skin, Blackhawks colors or not.
Tess picked out a swimsuit as well and we all changed. I threw a tank top and shorts on over my swimsuit and Tess did the same. We packed towels, snacks, drinks, and sunscreen into a bag, slipped on our sandals, and we were out the door for our first beach trip of the summer.

Notes

I'm on a roll with updates for this story lately! I've been very inspired because there are some chapters coming soon that I'm super excited to write and I've been anxious about getting to them. Of course, going to the UC yesterday to see the Hawks end their losing streak yesterday didn't hurt my inspiration either! Even though I want to get to some future chapters, I've still been trying to take my time with the ones leading up to them. I know I breeze through some weeks, but I hope it's not too fast. I don't want to draw this story out too long, but I knew it was going to be lengthy when I first started writing it, so I want to try to focus on important events while still adding little moments in as well. Alright, enough rambling. Let me know what you think of the chapter :)