Chapter Nine

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This post is for Rebeheart since she pleaded so nicely! :o)

Ch. 9

Dinner was over too quickly.  It was only 8pm on a Friday night and I found myself hoping to have at least a few more hours with Lana.  It was obvious she was holding back on me in the beginning and I’m fairly sure that had to do with the fact that she was still angry at me.  However, once I was able to make her laugh, she reverted back to the bubbly person I knew her to be around the other guys.  Lana didn’t make it hard to see that I made her nervous.  Okay, so a lot of women were nervous around me and I always found it easy to take advantage of them because of that, but it was different with Lana.  She seemed to be a step ahead of me and I was intrigued by it.  For once, I had an equal in my world of games.

“Do you want to go to a movie?” I asked, despite knowing I wouldn’t be able to talk during the movie and get to know her better.

She left out an ironic laugh, like I had just told a joke that only she knew the answer to.  “No, thank you.  Like I said, I have to be back at the shop by 5am.  I’m already exhausted from the long week,” she admitted, shoving her hands into the pocket of her ski-jacket.  We were standing in the back alley behind her shop, where she parked her car.  When I saw how dark it was in the alley, I had refused to let her walk back there by herself.

“Do you have plan for tomorrow night?” I asked, leaning against the driver’s side door, not even giving her a chance to get in and speed away.  I was not a man who took “no” for an answer, at least not easily.

She bit her lip and shook her head slowly.  “No…”

“I will have a ticket sitting at Will Call for you.”

She looked at me and raised a questioning eyebrow, instantly making me smile at her inquisitor look.  The shadows of the alley were playing on her face, defining her pouty lips and high cheek bones, reminding me how she was very pretty.  “Are you and the guys that hell bent on getting me to like your sport?!” she cried out, laughing.

“Sure, why not?  Hockey is the best thing in life.”

She snorted at my declaration and shook her head in disbelief.  “Fine, if you want me to come to your game, then you will need to leave 3 tickets at the Will Call,” she announced.

“Three?”

“Three.  Otherwise I will most definitely be receiving death threats on my breakfast plate in the morning.  My roommates are…well…just slightly obsessed with the team,” she admitted.

I laughed and nodded.  Something made me realize that this was again another battle that Lana was attempting to get the upper hand on.  If she didn’t come to the game by herself, then I wouldn’t be able to get her fully alone with me. This fact was something that despite making strides tonight at dinner; she was not totally comfortable with. 

“Fine, three tickets it is.  We will go out afterwards…”

“If I feel up to it.”

“Okay,” I said, despite wanting to push her into just saying “yes.”

“Thanks for your help this evening, despite the fact that if it wasn’t for your ruining things, I wouldn’t be in this predicament,” she poked at my chest.

“I aim to please,” I winked.  I am positive that if there was light, I would have seen her blushing at this comment.

She just shook her said and mumbled, “Yeah, I’m sure,” before forcing me away from her car door by opening it up and pushing me away from the car and her.  I waited until she started the car and drove away, down the alley, before I began walking back to my car.  I pulled my phone from my pocket and punched in Sasha’s name.

As soon as he answered I said, “You were right.”

“Now, you have a set of rules that you need to follow…” I began as soon as I got home and walked into the living room to find Becky and Faith watching first part of the final Harry Potter movie.  HBO was showing it everyday it seemed and everyday we were watching it.

“Sssh!  This is the part where Ron declares his love for Hermione!!” Becky hissed, waving her arms hysterically around.  I sighed, took off my coat and stood behind the couch, watching the part that was a favorite of mine also.  When he finished his soliloquy, the three of us all cried, “Awwwwww!”

Becky then muted the TV and allowed her head to flop back on the couch to look up at me.  “Another late night at the bakery?”

I laughed lightly as walked around the couch to plop down on the recliner.  “Yeah, kind of…”

“You need to get someone hired, ASAP!” Faith clucked.

“I know.  Especially someone who knows how to use the register,” I smiled, thinking about the $150 in cash, Alex handed me to put in the register to pay for the customers he didn’t charge.  I knew damn well he didn’t sell that much in coffee and pastries, but he was not allowing me to take any less.

“So what were you saying about rules?” Becky asked, popping a piece of popcorn in her mouth.

“Oh, yeah.  Rules.  There will definitely be rules for tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow night?  Why would we need rules to go see Footloose?”

“Oh shit!  That’s right!  I did have something planned!” I cried sincerely.  I really wanted to go see Footloose, and now Alex had ruined that once again.  “I guess I could just have Karl pass along the message that we aren’t going to come…”

“Karl?!  Are you talking to him again?!” Faith asked excitedly.

“Well, no, I haven’t talked with him since the other night…but I still have his number…”

“Becky, she’s totally holding out on something again,” Faith said, turning to Becky before both of them looked back at me with stink-eyes.

“Fine.  Alex stopped by the shop today…”  The reaction I was already dreading on the way home finally happened.  Both of my friends stood up and began screeching and jumping around on the floor and on the couch.  So much for laying ground rules.  They will never abide by them.

Once they quieted themselves, five minutes later, I explained my whole evening to them.  This time not leaving a detail out because I didn’t want their imaginations taking them to some far away land.  Not surprisingly they had many questions and some of them were ones for the life of me that I could not answer.

“What are his motives in all this?” Faith asked at one point.

I shrugged.  I honestly did not know, which is what made me feel nervous being around him.  Especially after we talked about Alex’s girl habits last weekend, I was not very comfortable at possibly being in his sites.

“Do you like him?” Becky asked.

I blushed at this question, leaving me unable to deny that I did have somewhat of a crush on him.  “I don’t think he’s my type,” I felt the need to blurt out to keep some kind of self-sanity.

“How do yo even know what your type is?!” Becky and Faith said at the same time.

“Well I thought Garrett was…he seemed nice enough at first…”

“Yeah, but he’s not.”

“I like Karl,” I admitted timidly.

“But you didn’t seem very interested in going any farther with that.  I mean, you have his number and you could have contacted him…”

I would have liked to argue this thought a little, but they were right.  I had a very nice time with him in Georgetown, but it was what it was the more I thought of it.  Plus, he didn’t put me on edge like Alex.  Of course that edge was feeling really dangerous right about now, but it was definitely something more than I had experienced in a long time.

For once I am clueless and I’m the person who usually has all the answers.

“Well, I guess we could we always go to the movies after the game…” I said nonchalantly.  Next thing I knew the girls began jumping up and down again, grabbing my hands and soon the three of us were swinging around in a circle.  I was more of the middle man being drug around the circle while they jumped and danced.

…

Not even 5 minutes after getting to our seats at the Verizon Center, Becky broke the first rule.  “Don’t act like a fan girl if one of the guys waves to us.” 

John Carlson immediately spotted us behind the home bench as soon he came out from the locker room.  “Hey Lana!” he called and waved before jumping out onto the ice for warm-ups.  Becky literally squealed in excitement and as soon as Brooks noticed me and nodded, she began hyperventilating as Faith fanned herself.  This is too much.

I have to admit that I had a lot more fun this game, for the simple fact that I had fun friends to watch it with.  The girls kept me laughing throughout the game and talking non-stop, naming each player and explained everything going on during the game.  I was quickly enthralled by watching the guys get off the bench so quickly during what the girls called line changes.  I still didn’t understand the reasons for the different times they stopped play or why some people went into the penalty box, but by the 4th goal scored by the Caps, I knew when it was time to stand-up and cheer loudly.  It was a lop-sided game, but the score heavily favored the Caps, making the atmosphere even more electric with the happy fans.  When Nicky scored the 7^th goal, I thought the place was going to explode and I felt the urge to cover my ears from all the screams.

As tired as I should have been, I found myself wide awake and ready to go out and about.  To no surprise the little voice in my head was yelling, “This is all apart Alex’s evil plan.” 

I left my cell phone number with the tickets at Will Call.  I was more than a little worried that Lana wouldn’t text me her plans at the end of the game, but a small part of me figured she was too nice not to at least say thank you for the tickets.

Right after interviews, I checked my phone and the little marker light was blinking. I brought the phone to life to find an unread message from an unknown number.

Thank you for the tickets, the girls said they were the best seats ever.

I guess that small part was right.  I looked at the time of the message and it was from 5 minutes ago.  I quickly saved her number and texted her back.

Me: Your welcome. You go out tonight?  As soon as I hit send, I wished my English writing was as good as my speaking.

“I know that look,” Sam said beside me in our native tongue.

I looked over at him and shook my head.

“Is she going to come out tonight?”

“I don’t know yet,” I grimaced but quickly turned my attention back to my phone that just beeped.

Lana: Yeah, I’m too wound up from your crazy game.

I laughed for the simple fact that I could hear her saying the words in her southern accent.  I looked over at Sam and shook my head.  “Oh, she’s mine tonight.”

He laughed and elbowed me.  “Ah, another love of a lifetime is starting,” he joked.  This of course was a joke between us for a couple years now.  He of all people knew I changed my women with the change of the seasons.

“She’s American,” I threw back.

“Ah, but something tells me she might be the one to change your mind about American women,” he chirped back before hitting the shower.

I looked back at my phone and typed back another message.

Me: Go home. Get changed, I pick you up and we head to Opera.

Not even 30 seconds later… Lana: I can get there myself.

Me: I pick you up.  Don’t argue with the man who bought your tickets.

Lana: The seats were terrible.

Me: You bad at lying. Even through texting I can tell.

Lana: LOL see you in a little.