Sequel: Breathless

There Are Still Rules To Break

"You are one proud Bostonian."

Amanda was curious as to why her boss had called her into the office. In the two years she had been there, she was at the office maybe three times at most. Her job technically was not a “work from home” job. In fact, she was supposed to be at the office writing her articles, not at her tiny apartment at four in the morning. She took a final turn and pulled her car into a parking spot, close to the door. The spot was reserved for someone, one of her coworkers, but Amanda didn’t give a shit. She grabbed her laptop carrying case and her purse and headed into the thirty story downtown office building.

She mentally cursed when she stepped into the elevator and two other people got on with her; talk about akward. She tried to stifle her laugh so the man and woman, dressed in business suits, wouldn’t think she was weird, but she failed. She burst out laughing, at what? She didn’t know. There was no reason to her laughter. She kept laughing until the two workers got off the elevator at the sixteenth floor, throwing her dirty looks before they left. Amanda laughed even harder. She was so weird sometimes.

She finally got off the elevator on the twenty-fifth floor, the floor that housed the office of Boston Beat. It seemed like all eyes were on her as she walked from the elevator to her boss’s office. She cursed under her breath and looked at her coworkers, knowing nothing about any of them. She looked out of place, she noted.

Much like the man and woman she had seen in the elevator, the men were in suits and the women in dresses, skirts. Amanda couldn’t help but laugh at her appearance compared to theirs. She wore her usual: a pair of jeans and a shirt. This day she wore a pair of dark wash, skinny jeans tucked into tan boots, a cream colored sweater completing the outfit. It wasn’t exactly casual, but she still looked out of place.

“Amanda!” Mr. Walters, her boss, greeted her as she walked into his office.

“Hi, Mr. Walters,” She smiled back, as the large, round man stood from his desk and pulled her into a hug before moving to close his office door.

“I’m glad you could come in. I assume you usually go to bed,” He paused to check his watch. “…about an hour ago.”

Amanda glanced at the clock on his wall, noted it was just after nine AM, and nodded. Mr. Walters laughed and continued, “I asked you to come down here because I have an assignment for you.”

“An assignment?” She asked, apprehensive; Mr. Walters never gave her assignments. He let her do as she pleased. He was always satisfied with her work. Why now?

“Amanda, I absolutely loved your ‘fan’s account’ of the Red Sox game. You didn’t just summarize the game, like my sports writers do,” He told her, rolling his eyes. “You added your opinions, your thoughts, your love for the team into that article.”

She smiled.

“You are one proud Bostonian.”

She smiled wider, “So, what’s the assignment?”

“Oh, right!” Mr. Walters said, slapping a hand on his knee with a chuckle. “I want you to write about the Bruins.”

Amanda’s face lit up, she was sure. Cover hockey? In her two years at Boston Beat there had been a rule that she was not to write about sports a lot. There were specific writers for that, so Amanda backed off, as much as she would have loved to write about the teams she loved, the teams she called her boys. The article about the Red Sox, she thought, wouldn’t even be published in the magazine. She wrote it as a fluke, sent it to Mr. Walters, and the next thing she knew it was in the magazine, her boss singing her praises.

“You will receive a press pass for each and every home game in the playoffs, starting in round two, obviously,” He said, since the Bruins had already swept the Canadiens in the first round. "You are allowed to go into the locker room after practices and after games.”

“What?” She asked, barely above a whisper; she was close to a heart attack.

“There’s more,” Mr. Walters winked. “I know you probably won’t want to sit in the press box… So, you have a ticket to each game, too.”

“You’re kidding?” She asked, her both hanging open.

“What can I say?” He shrugged. “I want to take care of my best writer.”

She laughed, “Wow.”

“Just don’t mention that to anyone else, okay?”

“Of course,” Amanda breathed out, following Mr. Walters’ actions and standing up.

He handed her a folder, telling her that her credentials and tickets were in there. Amanda thanked him a million times over as he ushered her out of his office, giving her a smile. He told her to keep in touch my email, phone calls, or texts. This ‘project,’ he told her, was something he couldn’t contain his excitement about. He had high hopes for it, but he knew Amanda wouldn’t let him down.

She left the office in a daze, the looks of her coworkers no longer making her uncomfortable. She was on top of the world. She had Boston Bruins hockey tickets for every playoff game, guaranteed. She would be sitting among the fans, cheering her team on, willing them to go all the way. To say this was the greatest thing that ever happened to her was an understatement.

When she pulled into the busy traffic of Boston’s business district, she felt the need to do something with her day. She had planned that after her meeting with Mr. Walters, that she would go home and go back to sleep. She wanted to do nothing more now than stay outside, enjoy the cool, but not too cold, Boston day.

Stopping at a Starbucks, she got herself a hot tea. Taking a seat at a table outside, she pulled her laptop out and waited patiently for the thing to load. From her spot she could see a lot of the city’s skyline along the water. She smiled to herself; the amount of love she had for Boston could be rivaled by nothing. She always said that if she never fell in love or got married, she’d still have the city. It would always be there.

When her computer booted up, she immediately went to the Bruins website, for no reason really. Excitement flowed through her as she looked over the roster page, wondering which players she would get to talk to. Suddenly, a terrifying thought ran through her head.

She would be in the Boston Bruins locker room.

Sure, she had realized that as soon as Mr. Walters had told her, but what it meant hadn’t really sunk in until she passed over a familiar name on the roster page. Would Patrice remember her? Would he say something to her? Would he be mad at her?

At the time she had done it, playfully turning him down seemed like a good idea. She had planned to attend a Bruins open practice the next day, and no matter what it took (lying, sneaking around, and stealing) she was going to talk to him again. But her plans had fallen through and now it had been almost two weeks since she had run into him, Kobasew and Savard at the Red Sox game.

“Shit,” She mumbled, running a hand through her hair. Not wanting to psych herself out more than she already had, she quickly closed the Bruins website. She opened up a new word document and began writing an intro to her ‘little project’ as Mr. Walters had called it. She gave a slight recap of round one (though she knew no one in Boston would need it) before diving into her history as a Bruins fan, trying not to give out too much personal information about herself.

She told of times watching games from her home when she was little, to the time she attended her first live game. If she had thought she loved the game before she saw a game live, it was nothing to how she felt while she was there. The sounds, the sights, the smells, the crowd, the action... Everything seemed like it was moving twenty times faster than the rest of the world.

She was in love.

When she was done with all she could be, she closed her laptop and walked back to where she had parked her car. As she was walking, fishing for her keys in her purse while balancing her laptop in one hand, she felt her shoulder bump into someone else’s. She barely looked up, but she immediately ducked her head down.

“Sorry,” She mumbled, hurrying past the young man.

“Amanda?” She heard in the most lovely of a French accent she had ever heard.

She said nothing, but practically threw herself into her car and sped off into traffic, leaving Patrice Bergeron standing on the sidewalk, confused as to what had just happened.
♠ ♠ ♠
A tiny bit shorter than last time. Sorry!
Still for Manda.
Comment? <3