I blinked up at Fitch. We were carpooling to the airport again, and were ready to leave. “Yeah?”
“I asked if you wanted to take some coffee with us.”
“Sure. Sounds good.”
He filled up a thermal cup for me, adding the creamer I liked. “Tired this morning?”
I shrugged. “We don’t have to get up this early most days.”
He held up his hand. “We’d better go.”
The sooner we left, the sooner we’d be back and I could spend time with Katie again.
I texted Katie a picture of the Space Needle once we got to Seattle. She sent back a photo of the pile of papers she had to grade. After this trip I could finally work out some time for us to spend together now that I didn’t have to worry about doing something more exciting than watching TV together. I wanted to see her, hear her voice, not just letters she’d typed. But it was coming. We were officially friends, and with some time, I’d convince her we could be more. That this time I’d do things right.
I was in a great mood as we settled into the hotel. We had a good skate at their new arena in Seattle, and I napped before we headed back for the game. After doing well in practice and warm-up, I told the guys this was it, we had it now. We were going to turn our season around on this road trip. I just knew it.
I knew shit.
The puck dropped and we couldn’t play.
I did okay. I didn’t draw any penalties, but if anyone picked up my passes, it was a player from Seattle. Petey had been our rock, but tonight he let in three in the first period, and first intermission our locker room was despondent. I wanted to tell them we could get this back, but I’d tried that kind of thing before the game. My good feelings from working things out with Katie didn’t translate to the team.
By the end of the second, we were down 5-0, and we were lucky it wasn’t worse. We’d killed a couple of penalties but couldn’t stop them scoring five-on-five. Coach put Mitchell in for the third, and you could say it was an improvement—he only let in two. Royster and I managed to score a goal together to mess up Seattle’s shutout, but that was the only good news from that game.
I asked if anyone wanted to go out after, but no one did. I didn’t either, just thought maybe someone needed to hit up a bar or club to cheer them up.
We were quiet on the flight to California.
We pulled off a win in San Jose. Not a pretty one, but they were struggling this year, and some kind of shit was going on with their team. They took stupid penalties. We got two power play goals and only gave up one, so we finally got another W.
That cheered us up until we played Anaheim. And then LA. We got a point in LA since we didn’t lose until overtime, but three points out of a possible eight wasn’t anything to celebrate.
Once we dragged our sorry asses back to Toronto, it was a relief when Katie and I could finally find a night to watch the Ring series. An evening without any hockey to think about was almost as good as spending time with Katie.
I asked her to come to my place. Where she was living looked a lot nicer, but my place was more comfortable, and I still felt a little awkward about Katie’s roommate. My mom had added some stuff to make the condo look nice, but I didn’t have time to fuss with things that weren’t essential.
A super comfy couch and a kick-ass TV were essential. I always had Keith’s on hand, so beverages were covered, but I also made sure we had the red licorice Katie liked, and her favorite flavor of chips.
“Sure you don’t want me to leave?” Fitch asked while I was pacing around, suddenly wishing I’d gotten more of those decorative things Mom had talked about. Not like Katie hadn’t already been here, but…
“Not this time. Maybe after she’s comfortable. But if it’s too much like a date she might not come again.”
And I definitely wanted this to continue. My strategy wasn’t complicated. Back in high school, we’d gotten together for tutoring. Started talking and hanging out to watch TV and then we were dating. It worked before, so it would again. Maybe.
The desk called to say my visitor was here. I’d made sure they knew she was welcome anytime. I headed for the door, so I could meet her in the hallway.
“She was here before, right?”
“So?”
“So she knows her way.”
I turned. “Yeah. If I look too eager, it’s pushing that date line.”
Fitch rolled his eyes. “You could just ask her out on an actual date.”
I shook my head. “Not yet. It’s going to take a while for her to forget what I did back in high school. I can be patient.”
