Your Hand In Mine

Kris called me yesterday before his game and told me what time he'd pick me up, but he wouldn't tell me where we were going, which is fine with me; I sort of like surprises. Speaking of his game, the boys did in fact kick Buffalo's ass. They won six to one.

It was currently five eleven, and Kris said he would be here around five thirty. Dinner at five thirty? Don't think so. I'm pretty sure he's got something else in mind. Scratch that, it sounds sort of dirty.

Anyway, I've been dancing around my apartment to some music for the past four minutes, and I don't plan on stopping until I get a call from Kris letting me know he's outside. I admit that I'm probably the worst dancer on the face of the earth, but when I bust out with the robot.. Man, you better watch out. You'll be blown away. I was perfecting the sprinkler move in front of my mirror when I heard my phone ring.

Outside dancing queen Oh, shit. Maybe I should've closed the curtains.

Stalker :) I'll be right out

Okay

I shoved my phone in my back pocket and looked in the mirror. Not bad, Shane, not bad at all. I was wearing a pair of jeans, a dark blue and white plaid button down shirt with a lacy white tank underneath, and my converse. My hair was sort of wavy, and I had very little makeup on. He did say this wasn't a fancy date, so why dress up? Exactly.

I grabbed my keys and walked outside to Kris' car.

"'ey, beautiful," Kris said. I'm pretty sure my face turned as red as a tomato. Awesome.

"Hey, handsome," I shot back. Now it was his turn to blush. But he did look good--not that he never looks good, I'm just saying. He had on some jeans, a black Kasual shirt, and a black Pirates hat.

"So, what're we doing today?" I asked as he started pull out onto the road.

"You will see," he told me with a smirk on his face.

"Fine," I dragged out the word.

"Quiet game?" he questioned.

"You're on," I sad with a smile. I was a beast at this game. There was no way he was winning. "You laugh, you lose."

"One.."

"Two.."

"Three," we said at the same time.

You know how I said I was beast at this game? Well, yeah.. I lost. It's not my fault, though. This lady was walking down the street, and she walked right into a bench. Then she looked around to see if anyone saw her, then went back to texting. It probably doesn't sound very funny, but it was.

"'a! I won!" Kris shouted.

"Well, if you would have seen this lady, you would have laughed and lost, too."

"Oui, but I still won," he said and put the car in park. "We are 'ere."

I looked around. "The Pointe?"

"Yep, just trust me," he said, and we got out of his car.

"Come on, this way," he told me and grabbed my hand. Cue tingly feeling and instant smile.

We were silent the whole way down the path and to water fountain. It wasn't an awkward silence, though. It was a.. nice silence.

"Voila," Kris said and motioned towards two.. art easels?

"Um, Kris.. I don't mean to sound rude or anything, but what exactly are we doing?" I was clueless.

"Painting the city, duh," he said like he was just given the question 'What is 2 + 2?'

"Oh."

"I decide to make it more interesting. We only 'ave an 'our to paint, and you can not look down at your masterpiece."

"You sure are unique, Kris." He sent me a wink. Yep, pretty sure I just melted right there. "Hey! I just thought of an even better way to make this more fun, well, sort of," I exclaimed. He raised an eyebrow at me, urging me to continue. "We'll ask five people to judge our paintings and whoever wins has to buy the other a box of cereal," I said with a smile and little laugh.

"Deal," he said.

We got to work, and from the very beginning I could tell Kris was trying to be completely focussed. He was squinting, his tongue was sticking out of the side of his mouth, and he was making measurements in the air with his hands.

Even though we were tempted, we didn't look at our own paintings. I did, however, glance over at Kris' painting, and he caught me.

"'ey! Keep your eye on your own paper," he said, trying to sound serious.

"What is this? First grade? We're not taking a math test, Kris," I laughed. "And, by the way, your painting sort of sucks," I said with a smile. It was sort of pathetic. The only thing I could make out was the PPG Building. I'm guessing art was never his strong subject in school.

"Nuh uh. You are just jealous," he said and then proceeded to put a big blob of purple paint on my paper. I don't even know why he was using purple in the first place. None of the buildings were purple. Neither was the grass or roads. Either way, there was big purple spot on my paper.

"Oh, no you didn't!" I said and did the head bob and finger wiggling that girls do when they say that.

"Oh, yes I did!" Kris said and mocked my movements, making me laugh to the point where there were tears escaped.

"This is war!" I yelled and started to put green paint all over his 'masterpiece'.

We ruined each other's paintings until we ran out of paint, which was probably only five minutes. When we looked over to each other, we cracked up. We were covered in paint from head to toe.

"'ere, let me 'elp," Kris said and reached over to my face with his hand. He used his thumb to try and wipe off the paint that was on my cheeks. It's a damn good thing that my face was covered in paint because I knew I was blushing like crazy.

"I t'ink I made it worse. Sorry," he said.

"It's alright. Thanks for trying," I said. "Hey, we should get a picture of us. It's too funny not to."

"Good idea," Kris said.

"Excuse me, sir. Could you get a picture of us?" I asked an older guy who was walking with a lady.

"Yeah, no problem. Yinz look like yinz had some fun," the man answered. Talk about being from around here. He even had on a Steelers shirt.

I replied with a smile and handed my phone to him so he could take a picture of me and Kris. "Colleen, can you do this? I'm not good with technology," the guy asked the lady.

"Yeah. Hand it over, Bill," Colleen said and rolled her eyes.

"Alright, yinz two get together," she said. I took a step closer towards Kris, and he did the same. He slung his arm around my shoulder, and I put my arm around his lower back. We both had smiles plastered on our faces. "One.. two.. three!" she said and took the picture. "Aw. Ain't yinz the cutest couple." Kris and I let out a bit of an awkward laugh.

"Thank you," I told Colleen and Bill as she gave my phone back to me. "Oh, could you do us one more favor and tell us whose painting is better?"

"Sure," Bill replied. People in Pittsburgh can be so nice and friendly, it's ridiculous. Kris and I got our paintings and showed it to them.

"What exactly is it?" Colleen asked.

"It was suppose to be the city, but we sort of destroy each other's," Kris told her.

"Oh. Well, I'm going to have to with yours, my dear," she said and pointed to my painting. One, nothing, Shane. Woo.

"Me too," Bill said.

"Yes!" I shouted.

"We still 'ave to ask three more people. Do not get so cocky," Kris told me before turning to Bill and Colleen. "Thank you."

"No problem. Have a great rest of the day," Bill replied and walked off with Colleen.

"You, too."

Kris and I walked down the path and came across a young woman who was walking her dog. "Pardon me," Kris started. "But can you tell us whose painting is better?"

"Yeah," the girl replied. She looked back and forth between the two portraits a few times before she came to a conclusion. "Yours is," she said and pointed to Kris'. Damn.

"Thank you," he told her. She nodded her head and continued to walk her dog.

"I'm making a comeback. Better watch out, Shane."

"What was that you told me before? Something about not getting too cocky?" I laughed. We kept walking and saw a very old man sitting on a bench reading a newspaper. "Excuse me," I said.

He looked up from his newspaper. "My, my. Kris Letang, is it?"

"Yeah, that would be me," Kris kindly told the man. They had a little conversation about the Pens and how this man, Phil, had been a season ticket holder since the very beginning. He's been a fan for pretty much all his life. It's amazing, really. We finally asked him whose painting he liked bette,r and he went with Kris'. We thanked him and let him get back to his newspaper. "Can I celebrate now?" Kris asked me.

"Sure, you might as well now because I'm winning the whole thing and you're going to have to buy me a family size box of Captain Crunch."

He jumped up and down for a minute and then we kept on walking. We saw a little girl run after a ball right in front of us and asked her.

"Well, my momma says I'm not supposed to talk to strangers, but I like yours bestest," she said to me then ran off to her family with the ball.

"I won! I won! I won!" I shouted.

"Yeah, yeah," he said with a laugh. "The only reason why she pick yours was because she was scared of me. She would not even look at me."

"I still won, though," I smiled.

"Let's blow this popsicle stand. I am 'ungry."