Your Hand In Mine

"The Flyers definitely should have won, fer sher," TK told me for about the hundredth time since the B's won The Winter Classic over two weeks ago.

For the past few weeks or so, Kris and I have been spending most of the free time we had, together, and I loved it. We decided to hang out on Christmas Day and promised to not get each other any presents, just spend the day together. It was one of the best Christmas's, by far.

Alexa was starting to get more in depth in the whole wedding ordeal, my classes had picked up, I went to all of the boys' home games I could--Kris had taken it upon himself to get me the tickets--and I still had a job to be at--all of which meant that my time with Kris was limited. The boys weren't doing pretty bad as far as games go, either.

But back to this little thing TK and I had going on.. I don't like either team, but I'd rather Boston win any day, and Tyler just can't seem to get over my opinion. It was pretty fun to argue with him, though.

"TK, I want to you to go home and listen to Fer Sure by The Medic Droid," I told him as I opened the door to Kris' apartment building. "But then again, it is explicit, and I'm not quite sure you can handle that."

He punched me in the arm. "Shut up. I don't say fer sher all the time, you're just exaggerating."

"Fer sure, TK, fer sher," I said and then shoved him into the wall. He stumbled after he hit it and practically crawled up the last few steps. "Good one," I laughed. He just sent me a pretend glare. "So, why are you here anyway?" I asked as I knocked on Kris' door.

He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. Tanger asked me to come over at four, and here I am."

"Strange," I said as I hit the door with my fist again. "Wonder why he wanted both of us here at four.."

Tyler opened his mouth to say something, but didn't get a chance to because Kris opened the door. Kris looked between the two of us, confused. "'ow come you are 'ere?" he asked, pointing to TK.

"Because you told me to come over now?" he laughed.

"No, I told you to come over at one, not four, you idiot," he said, shaking his head, but no doubt chuckling at his teammate's misunderstanding.

"Oh," TK said, dragging out the word. "Your one's sound like four's, fer sher."

"No, they don't," I laughed.

"Either way, TK, you are leaving. And Shane, you are staying," Kris declared, smiling at me.

I turned to Tyler, "Kris likes me better, Kris likes me better, Kris likes me-" I was cut off by Kris pulling me into his apartment and shutting the door.

"FER SHER, FER SHER, FER SHER!" I heard TK yell from the hallway.

"You two are so immature," Kris told me, sitting down on his couch.

"Yeah, I know," I shrugged. "But at least he's gone," I said, taking off my hoodie and walking over to the couch and sitting down right next to Kris. "What're we watching?" I couldn't tell you why we always watch movies, I guess it's just what we do.

"The 'angover."

"Nice choice. We quoting lines, or no?" I asked.

"Oui."

We sat next t o each other until about the middle of the movie when we moved so we were laying side by side, quoting various lines. My favorite probably had to be when Kris quoted Alan when he gave a speech about 'that ride in'. Kris knew every single word, and when I asked him how he knew it all, he told me that you had to find something to do on the planes.

"'ungry?" he asked, stretching as soon as the movie ended.

"Yeah, kind of. But you have absolutely no food, so, we're sort of screwed," I informed him with a bit of a frown.

"We could alway go buy some, you know," he said, grabbing his keys and Pirates hat from the coffee table.

"Right now? But it's the middle of the day on a Saturday, everyone is grocery shopping now. And there's no doubt you're going to be recognized," I told him as I grabbed one of his black Penguin hoodies and shrugged it over my head.

"So?" he said, giving his shoulders a shrug. "People 'ere usually let me 'ave my space. Sure, some of them ask for an autograph and wish me luck, but I am not 'ockey's savior, like Sid, so we should be okay."

"That's true. Let's go then," I said as I reached for his hand.

He worked his fingers in between mine, grabbing his wallet off the counter with his free hand, then we left his apartment. We got to his car, and as we were about to get in, he suggested we walk to the store instead.

"Okay, but you do realize that it's like, twenty-five degrees out, and it's only going to get colder because the sun's going down."

He gave his head nod. "I know," he said, a small smirk working its way to his lips for some reason. "Come on." I shut the car door and we started walking towards Giant Eagle, our hands fitting together like puzzle pieces. We walked about nine blocks, give or take, until we got to our destination.

"Grab a buggy," I told Kris.

"A what?" he asked, completely confused.

"You know, a buggy?"

"I 'ave no idea what that is."

"Shopping cart, buggy--same thing. Ringing any bells?"

He still stood there, lost at my choice of words. "I knew hockey players were never very smart..," I muttered as a joke, making sure Kris heard me. He just sent me a pretend glare. I let out a sigh while I shook my head at the poor boy, and walked over to the lines of buggies on the right side of Giant Eagle. I pulled one away from all the others and pushed it over to Kris. "Ta da! A buggy. That's what most of us here call it."

The expression on his face could be summed up by saying a light bulb just went off in his head. "Oh," he said, now understanding my slang.

"So, what're we getting, Mr. Letang?"

"No idea, Miss Matthews. Whatever we want?"

"Okay," I smirked. "In that case..," I said, grabbing as many bags of Wavy Lays as I could and turning back around. His eyes went wide. "I'm just kidding. But I do love these," I told him as I put only one bag in the buggy.

We walked a little further into the store and grabbed some oranges and apples and bananas.

"Get in," I told him.

"What? No," Kris laughed.

"Oh, come on. You can fit in there. It's not like I'm asking you to sit in one of those little kid ones. You know the ones that have the red car in the front and the buggy part behind it? I can't even fit in them." He wasn't buying it. "Please," I begged. "If you don't, I'll tell Max what you said about him."

"What did I say about 'im?"

"I don't, but I'll tell him. Come on, just do it. It'll be funny."

"Fine, but you owe me."

"Deal!" I said excitedly. He nearly tipped the buggy over trying to get in it. "Whoa. Someone needs to lay off the cookies," I said.

"I only eat two cookie a week, that is my new year resolution," he defended.

"And if I recall, you already broke that last week, did you not?"

"Can't we just pretend that never 'appened?"

"But it did happen. By the way, you look like you have serious problems sitting in there," I laughed. He went to try and stand up and escape, but I pushed him back down, shaking my head.

He pouted. "What else should we get?" he asked.

"I don't know. Whatever looks good?"

I pushed him down the aisles and we grabbed some bread, a container of chocolate chip cookies and a container of peanut butter ones--new year's resolution my ass--three boxes of cereal, two huge bags of pasta, a box of Capri Suns, and bottles of water and gatorade. Everything was piled on top of him and you could barely see him underneath it all. We had the hardest time deciding which kind of pop tarts to buy, too.

"Cinnamon or 'ot Fudge Sundae?" he asked after staring at the boxes for more than a few minutes.

"Definitely Cinnamon, make sure it's the frosted kind, though."

"But I like 'ot Fudge Sundae better."

"Then why'd you ask for my opinion?" I laughed. He just shrugged. "How about you just get both then?"

"What would I do without you?"

"I don't know, probably stand there for an hour, deciding which box of pop tarts you should buy," I stated, pushing the buggy down aisle.

When we turned the corner, and idea struck me. I stopped at the very beginning of the snack aisle then started to run. I jumped on the buggy, placing my feet on the bars underneath.

"What the 'ell are you doing?" Kris shouted.

"Having fun." At the moment, I thought about jumping off and letting Kris fly down the aisle by himself, but then I figured it wasn't such a good idea. My luck, if I did let go, he'd run straight into an old lady riding around in one of those motorized shopping carts, and she'd beat him with her oxygen tank. It would be funny, no doubt, but I'd feel sort of bad, so I stayed on until the buggy stopped.

"That was not very fun at all. I was terrified," Kris told me, and I just laughed.

"We could go again if you wanted," I smirked

"No, no, no!" he said, rather loudly, earning us a few odd looks from the people shopping. I didn't really mind, though. I probably would've done the same thing, and it's not like we were just starting to get dirty looks now; we got them as soon as Kris hopped into the buggy.

"Um, excuse me, but do you mind signing this for me?" a very well-mannered, little boy asked Kris. He couldn't have been any older than eight.

"A box of cereal? Sure," Kris told the boy, grabbing the box from the kid. "Cookie Crisp, nice choice. Is it your favorite?"

"Mmhm," the boy said, nodding his head.

"Mine too. 'ere you go, little guy," Kris said as he returned the box and sharpie back to the boy.

"Thank you!" he said, then ran off, probably to find his mom or dad.

"You're really good with kids, you know that? You'd be a great dad. And you probably just made that kid's day, hell, he'll probably keep that box of cereal his whole life."

"I try," he shrugged, causing some of the food on top of him to shift. "And the 'ole dad thing, I think it would be 'ard. I mean, I would be on the road a lot, and I would 'ave to accept that I might not be there for my kid first step or 'is or 'er first word."

"Yeah, I guess that would pretty hard."

I pushed the buggy and Kris down the very last aisle, and we grabbed some milk and eggs. We made our way to the checkout lines and got in the shortest one, but not before some jag-off cut in front of us. I was about to say something, but Kris stopped me before I could let the guy have a piece of my mind.

I focused my eyes directly in front of me and smiled. "The Eagle's Nest.. I miss that place," I said aloud, more to myself than Kris.

"I alway thought that was where they sent the bad kid."

"Oh, yeah, because bad kids get to play video games, color, and watch movies. Use some common sense, would you?"

"'ey, we don't 'ave those up in Montreal."

"Okay, but still, bad kids who get to play with toys, I don't think so."

The old lady, named Barb, rang up our stuff and she, too, sent us funny looks.

Kris had some trouble getting out of the buggy, but he got out. "God, do my leg 'urt."

"Yeah, but you had a good time, admit it."

"I did 'ave a good time, believe it or not," he laughed, shaking out his legs and paying Barb.

"Good. Let's tumble," I said as we grabbed the bags.

We walked about three blocks, before we passed a pet store. "You want to buy a fish?" Kris asked me.

"A fish? What for?"

"I don't know. I 'ave alway want a pet, but I am not 'ome enough to 'ave a cat or dog. So, why not get a fish? That way I could just 'ave my neighbor give 'im some food and not worry about tossing a ball or something with 'im. And we are passing the pet store now, so I figure I would get one. I just can not name 'im Doug, Alex would kill me."

"Why would he kill you?" I laughed, opening the door to the pet store.

"Because 'is fish is name Doug."

"Oh. You know, I could always watch your fish, that way your neighbor wouldn't have to do it. How about I get one, and you get one, and when you go on the road, I could babysit your fish, well fishsit, and it wouldn't be lonely." He chuckled and gave his head a nod.

We looked around the store and found a tank of goldfish. Kris got the fattest one he gold find, and I got the smallest one.

"What should we name them?" I asked as we walked up to counter to buy our fish.

"We should name them after a pair, like Batman and Robin."

"You're brilliant! What about..," I paused, thinking of a duo. "Romeo and Juliet?"

"Nah, they both killed themself. Bert and Ernie?"

"They can't both be boys, come on, Kris, use your head. Jane and Tarzan?" I suggested.

"I don't know who they are, but Tarzan sound cool. I call 'im."

"Are you joking? You've never heard of Jane and Tarzan? I'm stealing the DVD from my niece and we're watching it. But you can have Tarzan, just because I'm nice like that."

"Never. And oui, you are. Merci," he smiled before giving me a quick kiss on the lips.

I paid for my fish, and he paid for his, then we walked outside to the snow and cold with Tarzan and Jane and all of the food. We walked another block and a half before Kris stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. I turned to face him, looking at his soft brown eyes through the streetlights as the snow came down.

"Shane?" he whispered.

"Yeah?"

He drew a quiet, deep breath. "I love you," he said, looking into my eyes with a shy smile on his lips. I was beyond surprised at what he had just told me. I mean, I knew we had some strong feelings for each other, but I didn't expect him to say he loved me anytime soon. We had only been dating for a little over a month. As I thought about those three little words he had just told me, I saw his smile fall from his lips, and I watched him hang his head. He thought I didn't love him back..

"I love you, too," I told Kris, a very big smile on my face.

He let go of all the bags in his hands and attacked me with his lips. I also let go of the bags I was holding and wrapped my arms around his neck. He placed his hand on my jaw, and I took off his hat, holding it in my hand behind his head. He cupped the other side of my face with his hand, and we stayed like that, kissing, for a minute or so. When we were somewhat out of breath, we unlocked our lips, but kept our foreheads touching. We looked into each other's eyes with a smile on our faces, standing under a streetlight, and the snow falling all around us. It was the perfect moment.

"Oh, shit. The fish!" I exclaimed, realizing that when we dropped the bags, we could have knocked off the lid to the containers Tarzan and Jane were in. And because of my sudden outburst, I ruined the moment.

"Shit," Kris said, and we reached down to make sure they were still alive; they were.

"Come on, let's get out of 'ere," Kris said as we picked up the bags.

"Sounds good to me," I smiled, lacing our fingers together as we walked back to Kris' apartment.