The Hockey Life

PART FORTY-NINE: HOCKEY AND HALLOWEEN
The regular hockey season began as soon as October arrived. The Hawks started off the season with a win, which was always good. From there they continued to do well for the next few weeks with only a few losses but mostly wins. It seemed like everyone’s head was in the game, and the whole team plus Coach Q had optimistic outlooks on the rest of the season.
Hockey was obviously a priority for Patrick, but since it was October, he had other things to worry about too. Just like Jonathan Toews hosted the New Years party, it was Pat’s job to host the team’s Halloween party. Everyone was expecting it to be good, so I harassed Patrick about it quite a bit. Maybe even too much.
“So…how about that Halloween party?” I said on our way home from the United Center one afternoon.
“Are you ever going to give that up?” Patrick asked me.
“Not until we’re actually ready for it! We seriously need to go shopping. We don’t even have costumes yet, babe. That’s sort of crucial for a costume party, in case you didn’t realize that.”
“Okay, okay. Fine. We’ll go to Halloween City on the way home,” he grumbled.
When we got to the store, he seemed to be amazed at all the things I was filling our shopping basket with.
“Are you sure we really need all of this?” he asked as he examined the things I was mindlessly adding to the basket.
“Yes. We have to decorate, it’s a Halloween party!” I reminded him. Once I had grabbed enough decorations, we migrated to the costume section of the giant store.
“We have to match, don’t we?” Pat asked.
“We’re a couple, aren’t we?”
“As far as I know,” he laughed.
“Then yeah, we need matching costumes. Do you have any ideas?”
“Not really.”
“We better start looking then and hope we find something amazing. The hosts really should have the best costumes.” We both looked for a while. We found plenty of funny and creepy costumes, but eventually I stumbled across a Princess Peach costume.
“Hey, I’m always Peach when we play MarioKart,” I said. I saw a Mario costume nearby and I knew what our costumes were going to be. “Would you like to be Mario?” I asked.
“Sure. Who doesn’t love Mario?” It was decided. We would be Mario and Princess Peach for Halloween. I wasn’t sure if we’d have the best costumes, but we both loved the idea, and in the end that was all that really mattered.
After another week of hockey, it was finally the day of the party. I went to Patrick’s apartment plenty early so I could help him decorate, because let’s be honest, he definitely didn’t know what he was doing. After I told him what I had envisioned when we bought all the decorations, he helped me put up fake cobwebs, door decals, signs, the works. I set all the tables with tattered, bloody tablecloths and I set out random fake body parts, creepy looking animals, Jack-o-lanterns, skeletons/skulls, and cauldrons. He hung bats from the ceiling and other high places that I couldn’t reach very well. By the time we were done, his whole apartment looked like Halloween threw up in it, even the main bathroom. The only place that wasn’t decorated was his room, it seemed.
“Wow, it looks good in here,” Patrick decided as we examined our hard work.
“Yeah, and you didn’t think we needed all the decorations,” I reminded him.
“Whatever. You were right, I was wrong. You happy now?”
“Yeah, I guess so. We better get changed into our costumes now. Everyone will be here in an hour and I still need to set out the food and make punch,” I said.
“I can help you with your costume, you know,” he said as I pulled it out of the bag I had brought.
“I think you should stick to getting into your own costume,” I told him as I tried not to smile at the ridiculous smirk he was wearing on his face. He took my advice and headed to his bedroom to get changed. I put my costume on in his bathroom, which was bigger and nicer than the main one. I had scolded him for offering to help me with my costume, but the funny thing was that I found out that I actually did need help. The costume mainly consisted of a sexy short princess-y dress and I was going to wear over-the-knee white socks and heels with it, plus the crown that came with the dress. The only problem was that I couldn’t zip the dress completely on my own.
“Are you almost done in there? It‘s been almost an hour!” Patrick yelled through the door once I had been in the bathroom for a few minutes too long.
“Oh, shut up! I’m a girl, it takes longer for me to get ready. You can come in, though,” I prompted him. I heard the door open and I turned around so my back was to him. “Can you zip me up, please?”
“Sure.” He helped me with the small amount of dress that needed to be closed and I went back over to the mirror to see how I looked. As I did so, I caught him staring at my reflection.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. You just look good, that’s all,” he blushed.
“Thanks. You do too, Mario,” I giggled as I fixed his fake black mustache.
Once we were dressed, Patrick set out chips and dips and I put some pizza rolls in the oven. Tess had helped me make some really gross looking (and some really cute) Halloween-themed foods, but I had to make sure there was something there for everyone. When there was just a few minutes left until party-time, I took some dishes out of the refrigerator and heated their contents up. I had all the food out and ready with a couple minutes to spare, but Jonathan and Tess arrived early.
“Hey there roommate,” Tess said to me as she and Jonathan walked in.
“Nice costumes,” Jonathan laughed as he messed with Pat’s mustache. “Too bad you can’t grow one this nice.”
“Shut up, Johnny,” he mumbled as he pushed him away.
“I love your costumes. You guys are too cute,” I told Tess and Jonathan as they took off their coats and revealed their matching sailor outfits.
A few minutes later the rest of the team as well as some of me and Pat’s friends began to show up. When almost everyone was there, we started eating and we turned up the music. Dylan was one of the last people to arrive, and I was surprised when he came without a date. He had originally told me he was bringing a girl, and I was looking forward to meeting her. As far as I knew he had gone on a few dates with her.
“Hey. Where’s your date, officer?” I asked as he walked in wearing a cop costume.
“It didn’t really work out with her,” he answered quietly.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I apologized.
“It’s fine. We only went on a couple dates, it’s not like we were married or anything,” he answered back with a smile. “Did you decorate this?”
“I’m supposed to say that Patrick helped, but I told him what to do and where to put things, so yeah, I guess it was mostly me,” I admitted.
“It’s awesome,” he said as he looked around at everything.
“Thanks.”
I felt bad for Dylan even though he acted like the date situation wasn’t a big deal. I partied for a while before Tess and I got a chance to sit and talk for a bit. I told her what had happened.
“Are you sure this girl is real?” Tess laughed. I lightly punched her in the arm.
“Yes, I’m sure she’s real. It was a blind date, so it makes sense that it didn’t work out.”
“Yeah, I guess. Dylan sure doesn’t seem upset about it.”
“Maybe he was the one who ended it with her, then.”
“Yeah, probably because he still has a giant crush on you,” Tess said.
“Okay, seriously? I thought we were done with that concept. We’ve been fine with being just friends for a while now,” I reminded her.
“I guess you haven’t seen the way he’s been looking at you, then. I’m not saying that he’s exactly flirting with you, but it’s just that I can tell he’s still into you, whether you guys are friends or not,” Tess insisted.
“Who’s into you?” Patrick asked as he walked up to us and joined the conversation.
“Nobody’s into me, Tess is just insane,” I told him.
“I wouldn’t doubt that,” he confessed.
“Hey! Jerk!” she retorted.
“This is my apartment, you know. I could kick you out if I really wanted to,” he playfully warned her.
“I hope you do. I wouldn’t want to hang out in the apartment of a jerk anyways,” she answered.
The rest of the party went well. I could tell that Patrick was trying to be a little extra protective whenever I was around anyone of the male gender. It was kind of cute how he seemed almost jealous even though he didn’t know what guy Tess was talking about. But by the time the party was over and everyone had left, it seemed like he had forgotten about the whole thing.
“Well, that was fun. But now we have to take down all these decorations,” I laughed, even though the thought of getting rid of the hard work was actually a little depressing.
“We can do it later,” Patrick told me.
“We might as well just get it over with now, though. I’m good at procrastinating, that probably needs to change,” I said.
“It seriously can wait. I’ve been waiting all night to hang out with you,” he responded. I just laughed at him.
“You’ve been hanging out with me all night! Did you forget that already?” I asked.
“You know what I mean. We haven’t been alone,” he clarified.
“So? Why do you want to be alone with me so badly?”
“I don’t know, maybe because I’ve had to look at you in that dress all night and it made me wonder what you’d look like out of it,” Patrick said as he pulled me close to him.
“I wish your costume was sexier so I could say the same about you,” I chuckled before he kissed me. Needless to say the decorations stayed up until the next day, when we finally decided to clean them up.

Notes