Change My Ways

An aggravated scream echoed through the hall we were standing in and suddenly the two older men were walking away. Turned around but walking away from me, Jim took a deep breath and rambled off directions as his hands acted them out. “Check his ankle, see if he can return or not, and take care of it”, after his words were spit into the air he turned around and hurried out onto the ice where I was guessing another player was down in pain. After both of the men were gone, my heart beat sped up a little and my hands clamped together.

“Do… You need help walking”, I blurted out as my eyes decided to torture me more today and rise up to his beautiful brown ones. I tried desperately to look away as he stood their silently, but the twist in my stomach was too strong, and no matter how much pain I was in, I couldn’t reason with myself to look away, he was just so… perfect looking.

Cursing wildly in my head as he shook his head, my head bobbed on my shoulders and without any direction to the boy behind me, I started walking. As a punishment I crossed my arms across my chest and took my right fingers and started digging them into the back of my left arm. This wasn’t going to be good, stuck in a room with this boy and this stomach ache. Why did I have to be so fucked up emotionally? Why couldn’t I just suck up my emotions and tell myself that…

A smooth male voice blew up my collected thoughts. Now as they were silenced and scattered around in my head, I turned to see him standing behind me, eyes filled with confusion, body titled to his left. “Are you going to walk into the room?” He gave me a playful smile that could have reduced me to a puddle if I was really paying attention. Without answering him I walked into the room and quickly leaned my body against the counter, watching him walk over and sit down on the table. Swinging his right leg onto the table, he leaned over and started to take his skate off. As he winced, I walked over and placed my hands on his. My stomach was twisting uncontrollably, but now was the time I had to be professional, not some stupid, in-love, nineteen year old.

“Here, I’ll get it”; I pushed his hands away and started to take his skate off; “If you keep bothering it it’s never going to get any better.” My hands easily worked the skate off without bothering his ankle. After sucking in a deep breath I started to take his socks off. A few times when my fingers applied a little pressure to his ankle, he winced and after I was able to see it, I wondered if he might need an x-ray.

My eyes examined his ankle for a few more seconds, and then slowly dragged across his body until they met his face. His hands were covering his eyes, and as his fingers dragged some skin down his face, I put a small sympathetic smile on my face and leaned against the table. “There’s no way you’re going back out there today.”

Michael shot up quickly, his legs swung over the side of the table, and his back was now perpendicular to the table. Brown eyes burning in frustration he shook his head and let out an angry laugh. “There is no way I’m missing another practice”, he snapped trying to stand up, but I quickly walked in front of him and put my hands on his knees. Thankfully all of my emotions were now silenced, staring at him, my stomach didn’t flop and a small part of me assumed that the feelings for him already burnt away which only added to the angry fire burning inside of me.

“Listen to me”, my hands stayed on his knees, “If you don’t let that ankle sit for a day and you go back out there chances are you’re going to hurt it or break it. If you do either of those you’re going to be out for three to four weeks. Now what do you want to do, miss a practice or miss a month?” My eyes darted to his, awaiting his answer, but instead all I received was a small round of applause.

Shock dripping from my face, I quickly pulled my hands back to my sides and turned around. “Nice job, Miss Andretti”, an unknown man said as he walked over to Michael’s leg and straightened it out, examining his ankle he nodded and waved Jim over who was smiling at me like I was his daughter who had just won the gold medal.

As both of them men discussed quietly, I glanced over at Michael to see his brown eyes on his hands. His face was angry but as I walked over to him, a small fluttering sensation took off in my stomach. I caught his eyes and gave him a small smile. “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to see you sitting around here miserable for a month, alright?” After we stayed in the stare a little longer, Michael let out a defeated long breath and nodded giving me a small smile in the process.

Jim and the other man turned to me and ordered me to go on with taking care of him, they had to go supervise the weight room. Flashing them a huge smile, I turned back to Michael and looked at his equipment. After a moment, a strong blush rose on my cheeks and I took a step away from him and cleared my throat. “You can go change… In the locker room or whatever”, my hands clamped together again as my body gravitated to the closest chair and sat down.

“I could change right here, It’s not like I’m completely naked under this”, he said his face holding a large amount of seriousness. After a moment of complete silence, he chuckled and flashed me a huge smile before walking out of the room and down the hall, limping out of sight.

Why did I take this job? Am I a fucking moron! I internally screamed at myself as my hands found their way to my face. Eyes covered I slid down a little in the chair and shook my head taking a long deep breath and then letting it out. After a few of those, I pulled my body up and looked out of the doorway to see the familiar, tall, hyper, brunette walk by. Only seconds later he back tracked and peered in, when his eyes met mine, he ran over to me and with one good tug, lifted me out of my chair and over his shoulder.

“Brian!” I squealed as my ribs pressed against his shoulder. Although I had a hard time catching a deep breath with the pressure against my ribs, I couldn’t help but let out a loud laugh and keep it up until the room stopped spinning and I was on my own two feet, face pressed against Brian’s chest.

“Retz, what’re you doing all by your lonesome in here?” He asked furrowing his eyebrows with a small smile. When I was finally able to take a deep breath I took a step away from him and adjusted my shirt and moved my body backwards until I was back in my chair. With a deep breath I pulled my foot into my lap and started to work my ‘fancy’ shoes off. The floors here may not have been the cleanest place to walk around barefoot, but I couldn’t stand walking around in these heels any longer.

After my right shoe was off and I shoved it under my seat and looked up at Brian who was lying down on the table. With a small chuckle I quickly took my other shoe off and stood up. “I’m tending to Michael’s busted up ankle. What are you doing in here, shouldn’t you be working out?” Brian chuckled and sat up on the table. With no answer for my last question he quickly changed the subject. With no warning or anything he asked where I was going to live as I interned here. Not thinking about it much, I told him I would probably commute from my dorms every day.

Brian nodded, pushing the room into a somewhat awkward silence. A few times I looked over at him I had the urge to say something, but his eyes were in a downcast, and his eyebrows were pushed to the center of his forehead. I may not have seen him in a year or two, but if there was one thing I remembered about Brian was his thinking face, because he used it so rarely.

Once the silence settled on me, I let out a deep breath and started to look around the room, smiling a little. This is what I would be doing for the next three months, seeing how a professional does it, seeing what my career choice is going to bring me. Sure, when I thought about my major, I didn’t really think about the NHL, it was more toward a women sport, but now that I’ve been here, even though it was for only an hour or two, I just loved it. I loved the guys and my possible future co-workers. They were so nice and the players seemed to have a certain respect for them which I kind of experienced and I was only an intern.

“Do you want to live with me?” A cough suddenly left my throat as the breath I was inhaling caught in my throat. Eyes darting over to Brian, I stood up, trying to stop the embarrassing choking moment. “I mean, it’s not like I’m a complete stranger, and it’s not like I’m trying to get in your pants, you’re like my sister”, he flashed me a smile once I put my hand over my chest and wiped a few tears away from my face with my other hand. “I’ll let you think about it, I have an extra bedroom, little balcony off of the side, looks over the whole city”, his voice trailed off as he exited the room, leaving me standing there in complete shock and thoroughly confused.

Live with Brian? I could just imagine what his apartment must look like, because even the cheapest salary in the NHL was still better than anything in my wildest dreams. Hugs rooms, a sick view of the skyline, marble countertops in the kitchen, huge windows everywhere looking out over the city, huge flat screens hanging on the walls. Just the simple thought of it all made my stomach knot into tiny coils. The wealthy life, it must be incredible.

My day dreaming was suddenly ended as Michael walked back into the room favoring his right ankle a little more. It wasn’t even touching the ground now, and his shoulder was pressed against the doorframe, on top of that he looked a little out of breath. As I walked over to him, I tilted my head to the side. The height difference was still about the same, but it felt like we both shrunk considerably.

After a minute, an invisible force tugged at the end of my lips and soon all of my teeth were exposed in a he smile. “Did you just hop from the locker room to here?” Our eyes met and as a small smile rose on his face, all of the little butterflies in my stomach stayed silent. Although I did guess this was going to happen, I didn’t expect it so soon, and as we kept staring at each other, the overwhelming feeling of sadness started to crash over me. This boy seemed different than the others. We may have only met a few times, but just the tone of his voice, his smile, and everything else seemed ot be different than the others. The first round of butterflies he gave me, they were relentless, worse than any feeling I have ever had with guys, so why did they leave so quickly?

Moving to the side Michael informed me that his ankle was hurting pretty bad, and since I informed him to keep off of it as much as possible he did hop all the way here. Nodding, a small chuckle left my lips as I walked over to the fridge and pulled out an ice pack. Cracking it a few times I walked over to Michael’s leg stretched out on the table and looked up at him. His eyes were attached to the ice pack, and his muscles were tense which was pretty easy to see, his under armor shirt was a little on the tight side.

Giving him a small smile, I placed the ice pack on his leg and watched his face contort in pain. I kind of understood how he felt, when I used to play soccer in high school I sprained my wrist, and when they put the ice on it, I screamed bloody murder. “We’re going to let that sit for a while, and then when it goes down I’ll wrap your ankle up. After that I don’t know what you can do, but-“

Suddenly the wind was knocked out of me and I was hanging over Brian’s shoulder again. After a short swing he set me back down in my chair and I took a few gasps of air before I was able to take a steady deep breath. As he pointed and laughed as the expression on my face, I balled my hand into a fist and punched him right in the back of the left leg. Smiling as his large body came tumbling down to the floor, I watched as Michael let out an amused laugh. “I see why I picked this as a major”, I chuckled as Brian looked up at me from the floor. This was probably the only time Brian ever looked up at anybody.

“I am so telling everybody you got owned by a tiny little intern”, Michael chuckled looking over at me with apologetic eyes to give me the silent idea that it was not to offend me just Brian. Flashing him a smile I looked over at Brian pulling himself off of the floor. As he glanced over at Michael, sending him a death glare, he looked back at me and put on his persuasive smile.

Furrowing his eyebrows he asked if I had come to a conclusion on his offer. Taking a deep breath I looked around the room, catching Michael’s interested eyes, and then looked back at him. “Yeah! Why not?” I blurted out and luckily instead of him picking me up and swinging me around the room, he plastered on a huge smile and quickly started talking. His deep voice filled the room as he ranted on and on about how he needed to call Krista and Jamie and tell them to come visit him over the Olympic break in February, which was going to be the second month I was here. After that he chuckled and looked over at Michael, then shook his head and gave me a quick hug. After that, he walked out of the room and started mumbling to himself that he needed to find his phone.

“That guy has been the same since he was seven”, I chuckled. I didn’t want the room to fall into another uneasy silence, especially with Michael staring at me with that clueless look that seemed to fit his face so well. “We grew up together in Hingham”, his head tilted to the side a little and his eyes started to fill with more confusion.

With a laugh I turned to Michael and looked right into his eyes. “Brian and I grew up together in Hingham Massachusetts”, Michael nodded slowly, “I was friends with his sister Krista, she’s my age, he’s like my older brother”, a wave of relief washed over Michael’s face as a small smile placed itself on his lips and he tilted his head back. As I laughed a little, he shook his head and looked over at me.

“Sometimes my brain just doesn’t work properly”, he whispered shaking his head. “What was that conversation about anyway?” The second ‘about’ hit my ears my mind lost it and I fell into a fit of giggles. As my hands clamped over my mouth to stop my obnoxious laugh that I had always hated, I watched as Michael sat up, keeping his leg on the table and looked over at me a somewhat amused smile on his face.

His voice filled the room once my laughing had stopped. Over and over again he asked what was so funny about his voice, but every time he did, I would find myself chuckling at his accent. It wasn’t the first time I had every heard a Canadian accent. I had taken trips with Krista and Brian to Canada for his hockey tournaments more than a few times, but for some reason when he spoke like that, it made me smile, not just an amused smile, but one of those you are the cutest thing on Earth, I love you, smiles.

For a moment everything paused and my eyes narrowed as they connected with my feet. What did I just think? My head picked up and let my eyes wander back over to Michael who was smiling to himself, head rested back on the table. Sucking in a deep breath, my eyes trickled over his stretched out body and as I reached his ankle with the ice pack, I felt my cheeks start to burn red and right at that moment, he turned to look at me, catching me just as all of the blood in my body reached my cheeks.

“So have you ever been to Brian’s place?” I said quickly, trying to smash any thoughts in his head about asking me why my cheeks were so red.

Nodding, he propped himself up and looked over at me. Yawning a little he went on about how it has three bedrooms, two of them have little balcony’s off of them, one has a bathroom –that bedroom of course was Brian’s- the living room had a huge window in it that looked over the city, and they had a huge selection of DVD’s and Video games. After the description was all over, Michael looked over at me with a tiny little smile and lifted his eyebrows up. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh!” I chuckled a little and looked into his eyes. They were bright and filled with amusement, and as his smile tugged to the side of his face, turning into a somewhat seductive little smirk, I felt my heart start to thud roughly against my chest. Welcoming the feeling, I looked down and felt a few droplets of blood warm behind my cheeks. “I’m moving in with him while I intern here, that’s what we were talking about before”, my breath caught in my chest as I glanced back up at Michael and saw his eyes huge with happiness and his little smirk grew into a huge smile that dazzled me into silence.

“Then I guess we will be seeing a lot of each other”, he chuckled as his cheeks gained a little color.

“Why, do you guys hang out a lot or something?” I laughed. I could just picture Brian and a nineteen year old getting along perfectly. Brian always had the mindset of a young child. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if Michael was a stretch for his maturity level.

“Oh he didn’t tell you”, my eyes grew as Michael sat up and plastered that little smirk back onto his lips that sent my heart racing. “I’m his roommate”