Your Hand In Mine

"So," Marc said, dragging out the 'o'. "What do you do for a living, Shane? Do you have a weird job like, I don't know.. writing the fortunes in fortune cookies, or a Braille translator, or an adult-store attendant, or a dice inspe-"

"Take it easy there, Marc. I'm going to school to become a photographer, which I consider to be a pretty normal job. And where the hell did you come up with some of these jobs?" I answered, laughing. Honestly, I didn't even know there was a job that involved writing the fortunes that got shoved in fortune cookies.

"Oh. I was bored one day, so I went on to Google and typed in 'weird jobs'. It makes me pretty glad that I'm a professional hockey player. Some of them creeped me out so much that I had nightmares. I'm getting disturbed just thinking about them. My favorite show of all time is Dirty Jobs, though. Mike Rowe is just hilarious, don't you think?" It really amazes me that this guy could admit the truth and not be embarrassed about any of it. Most guys would tell everyone and their mother about some disgusting job they found on the internet, but not Flower; he has nightmares instead. What a man.

"Yeah, he is kind of amusing. My favorite was when he went to South America or something and those birds kept puking. It was was so gross. But I've always wanted one.. so when a friend gets a new dog, I can say that I have this awesome bird that throws up all the time. Oh, and my birthday's in two months, so now you know what to get me," I replied, joking about the last part and making the whole team crack up a little.

"Okay! I'll start looking for one tomorrow!"

"Me too!" Geno piped up.

"Guys, I was only kidding. I don't need a present, let alone a puking bird," I told them.

Marc looked a little sad when I told him I didn't want a present. "Well, I'm still going to try and get you one, but if I can't, I'll get you something equally as cool, okay?"

"Alright, sounds good," I said. I know he's not going to be able to get me one, but agreeing with him seemed to make him happy. And I liked putting people in good moods and making them smile. When I was able to have that affect on people, it made me feel really good inside. And yes, I felt warm and fuzzy, too.

Our food came, and everyone's attention was focussed on their plates. I got Primanti's famous sandwich, while Lexa got a salad. Typical Alexa. Everyone's eyes widened when they saw the giant sandwich sitting in front of me.

"What?" I asked. "Never seen a girl eat a sandwich before?"

"No. Most girls barely eat anything. It's a nice change," Jordan spoke up. I replied with a smile and dug into my sandwich. Being around these guys felt normal, aside from the fact I didn't really know much about them other than that they played hockey.

I looked to my left at Eric's plate, then to my right at Brooks' plate. Damn, did those guys eat fast. Whatever they ordered was now gone, and they were picking at the basket of onion rings sitting in front of my plate.

"Somebody was hungry. Inhaling your food that fast can't be good for you," I told both of them.

"Eh, you just eat slow, that's all," Brooks replied. I just rolled my eyes.

We were all in our separate conversations, except for Lex. She looked kind of out of place, and I felt bad that I wasn't sitting next to her so she would at least have someone to talk to. And I didn't miss the glances that Kris kept stealing of me, either. He blushed and looked away when I caught him.

I had just finished my sandwich and some of the fries that fell off of my sandwich when Marc asked if he could put his number in my phone.

"Sure. Catch!" I told him and tossed my phone past four of the guys to his hands. "Look at that, pucks aren't the only thing you can catch. Who knew.." I didn't think my comment was very funny, but some of the guys did.

"Ooh! Me next!" Max demanded as he tried to reach across the table and steal the phone away from Flower.

"Calm down, Maxime. You can wait your turn just like everyone else at this table. Have some manners, would you?" Marc told him, which caused Max to slump in his seat and put on a fake pout.

"Your.. best.. friend.. and the.. best.. damn.. goalie.. to walk.. the face.. of the.. earth. Smiley face," Marc muttered, and I assumed that's what he was saving himself as in my phone. He was definitely one of a kind.

"Thank you for being patient, Maxime. It was nice of you," Flower said and handed the phone over to Max.

"Yeah, yeah," Max replied and then looked over in my direction. "I'm putting myself in as 'Superstar'. Don't get that confused with Sid or Geno, okay?"

"Dont worry, Max, I won't."

"Ha. Ha. Very funny. Oh, and I'm putting Kris' number in. He's going to be under 'Hot French Boy #2 That Has A Crush On You'," Max said. I looked directly across the table from where I was sitting to see Kris blushing like crazy and giving Max a look.

"Wait, who's 'Hot French Boy #1' then?" Sidney asked.

"That's me, duh. Except I don't have a crush on you," Max answered.

I turned my attention back to Kris and smiled at him. "If you want, I can put you under Kris after they're done."

"Please. Max is a jerk," he replied, shaking his head. So he didn't deny that he has a crush on me?

When my phone came to Billy, he made Alex get in a picture with him.

"You probably have a thing for mustaches, so I went ahead and took a picture of mine and Gogo's. And now I'm going to set it as your wallpaper, how's that sound?" Billy said.

"It sounds wonderful. And mustaches can be hot, if you can actually grow them," I stated, turning my head to look at the two-headed monster, Sidney and Evgeni.

"Is not my fault," Geno told me in his heavy, Russian accent.

"I know, I know. I was just kidding around," I told him with a smile.

"Oh," he said then started talking to Sergei in Russian.

"Well, I'm going to head home. It's been a long day. It was nice to meet you Alexa and Shane. I hope we get to see more of each other," Sid announced.

"Yeah," all the guys agreed. Everyone stood up and gathered their things and headed out to their cars. Alexa lived right around the corner, so she told me and everyone else goodbye and made her way home. That left me and Kris standing outside of Primanti's.

"Come on, I'll take you back to your place," Kris said, and we started making our way to his car.

We got in his car and he put on the radio. We fought over which radio station to listen to. I wanted to listen to 105.9 The X because they had decent music and you got to hear some of the boys tell you which station you were listening to. It always made me laugh. Kris, on the other hand, wanted to listen to 93.7. We compromised and put on 96.1 Kiss.

Tik Tok came on, and he turned it up while we put down our windows and sang our hearts out. I was definitely not the best singer out there, but Kris, he was worse than me. And that was a hard thing to accomplish. His accent made it even funnier, too. We'd have no hope at winning American Idol. Simon would tear us apart and laugh in our faces.

"I'll have to show you a parody of this song one day. It's hilarious," I told him.

"Okay," he smiled and turned to face me. "I believe I left off wit' question seven, so 'ere's number eight.. Would you like to do somet'ing tomorrow?" he asked.

I cocked my head to the side and pretended to think about it a little bit. After a moment or two, a smile spread across my face, "Yeah, I'd love to. What time is your practice over tomorrow so I can call you when you can actually answer?" I laughed a little.

"Um.. twelve thirty."

"That's usually when I wake up, so that'll work."

"Wow, you're a late sleeper."

I looked out the window and noticed we were just outside my apartment building. "So I've been told. Well, I'll talk to you tomorrow, Mr. Letang."

"Don't forget, Miss Matthews."

"Don't you worry. Thank you so much for tonight, I had a really great time. You and your teammates are pretty amazing," I told him. "See ya, Kris."

He leaned forward a little bit, then stopped, hesitated, and seemed to change his mind. "You're welcome, and I'm glad you 'ad fun. You will 'ave to come to another game again. Bye, Shane." Yikes, I'm pretty sure he was almost going kiss me. I guess I'm sending Kris the wrong message; I don't want to be more than friends.

I smiled back at him. Then I got out of his car, shut the door, walked to the entrance of the building, and turned around to wave to him. He waved back and started to pull away and drive back home.

I walked up to my apartment, changed my clothes, and collapsed on my bed hoping sleep would come easily.