Lost In Pacific Time

I wake up with Amber’s head on my chest; I forgot how great that felt. The sun shone through the curtains that Amber had put up. It seemed that the weather would be on my side today and I was extremely grateful. The six days Amber and I spent living together passed by like a blur. It was nice, it was kind of like test driving living together. I could see the two of us living together somewhere down the road.

I drove to the airport at four in the morning while Amber was still asleep. Now the Stanley Cup is sitting patiently on my night stand. I have the whole day planned out. First I was going to take the Stanley Cup on the Grouse Grind, “Mother Nature’s Stairmaster” as it was affectionately known as in these parts, it was a summer tradition of mine to do it at least once. I’m sure I would get a killer workout from carrying a 35 pound trophy up three thousand steps.

Amber doesn’t seem too thrilled with the idea of doing the Grouse Grind with me and the group I’ve assembled. But she sucks it up anyway and that why I love her.
“Come on Amber,” Both of us are sweating ridiculous amounts as we climb up Grouse Mountain “you used to be able to do this in under an hour”

Amber groans and seems to be recalling once upon the time.
______

It’s April, everyone is receiving their acceptance letters and I’ve decided that I wasn’t going to take any of my offers. Therefore I didn’t have anything to strive for. God, how I wanted something to strive for. I had all this pent up ambition and since I wasn’t one of those people who were breaking their backs to maintain their 90% average so that their acceptance wouldn’t get revoked, I had time. Milan also has ambitions but he didn’t have very much time, the WHL Playoffs are coming.

Milan and I were having another one of our walks around Hastings Park after a Giants’ playoff game. It was our two month anniversary but neither of us seemed to remember, the only person who did was Penelope who told me as I sat down next to her for the game.
I saw the lights down the side of the mountains behind the Pacific Coliseum and literally had an epiphany. “Milan, I know what I am going to do,” I tell him.

“What are you going to do?” Milan asks yawning, it’s not that he isn’t interested, he’s just tired.

“I’m going to do the Grouse Grind in half an hour” I reply simply pointing at what I assumed was Grouse Mountain. There were two other mountains in the general area of Grouse with each had a row of lights that were a varying distance from us.

Milan laughs. It’s a long time before he stops. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, I’m serious about this Milan” I say, I’m not surprised rarely is anything I say taken the way I want it to be.

“First of all Amber that’s Cypress you’re pointing at, not Grouse. Second of all we did the Grouse Grind last summer and it took you almost three hours, which is twice the recommended time and you almost fainted from dehydration and exhaustion.” He says surely if he can remember all of that he should be able to remember the formula of the quadratic formula.

“Milan why don’t you tell me what it says your hockey stick?”

“I can. I will” he replies automatically.

“I can. I will.” I tell him
_______

“I can’t believe that once upon a time that was me.” I reply as we trek higher up the mountain.

“Well it was. You went on the elliptical and treadmill an hour every day until August and you ran the entire thing and did it under half an hour” Milan says fondly recalling the time.

“I’m surprised you didn’t dump me,” I reply despite the sweating, there doesn’t seem to be anyone in front of us.

Milan looks back at me with a confused look on his face.

“I gained ten pounds, just on my thighs.” I tell him. How did I ever do this? Everything hurts and there doesn’t seem to be an end to this anytime soon.

“I liked it, you and I would work out together” Milan says. Working out with him is the equivalent to him going furniture shopping with me.

I get too tired to bitch, Milan seems grateful for this; he seems to use time to get reacquainted with the cup by lovingly reading the inscriptions along the base aloud.

Apparently everyone who wasn’t in tip top physical shape, which really should’ve included me, was going to meet us at an alternate celebration. Milan was kind enough to drive me back to his place so I could take a shower and make myself a little more…presentable.

“What should I wear?” I ask Milan as we walk into his house. Milan shrugs. I’m not used to this all this sweating. Sure I do the month run on Laurel Canyon but I can’t recall the last time my clothes my completely drenched in sweat. I also can’t recall the last time I’ve been willing to pay five dollars for a bottle of non-sparkling, non-Fiji water from gift shop at the end of Grouse Grind.

“It doesn’t matter Amber, I just want you there.” He says and as cheesy as that sounded I can tell he means it.

“Well thanks Milan, I’m just going to take a shower.” I tell him. Taking a shower will get the stick residue off my skin and time to mentally flip through every piece of clothing I own.

“Do you want some company?” he asks suggestively as he picks up some wax lemons I’ve set up in a bowl.

I look at the antique clock on the butter yellow wall “I appreciate the offer but we only have an hour. You wouldn’t want to be late to your own party would you?”

Milan looks confused “How long does it take you to throw on some clothes?”
“A lot longer than you think.” I reply.

I have an elevator in my home in LA. I know what you’re thinking, who needs an elevator in a two storey house? I used to think the same way but its days like today that explain why sometimes people aren’t in the mood for even one flight of stairs let alone the two that I have to walk up to get to the shower.
_____

Amber and I arrive at the Coal Harbour Marina, the yacht I rented out is awaiting us and I can already make out several familiar figures on the boat. I carry the cup with both hands and Amber trails behind me. I asked her if she wanted to hoist it but she declined claiming that it was larger than her arm span. Amber leaves me to mingle with my guests as she goes around trying to learn everyone’s names. It never occurred to me that the only person Amber knew was me and my immediate family. The other people here are some Giants’
teammates from when we won the Memorial Cup, some of my friends from Killarney, and some distant relatives. Some of my distant cousins here were from Los Angeles, although I doubt they ran in the same circles as Amber.

I’m basically stationed next to the Stanley Cup and posing for pictures with some familiar faces while the cameraman the Bruins sent over films me. Amber comes over with two cups of lemonade

“Hey there stud,” she says, giving me a quick peck before handing me a cup of lemonade “today was pretty perfect”

“Yeah it was.” I tell her putting down my cup and pulling her into a kiss as we slowly cruise around our city.
______

“I tried to keep it pretty low key. We didn’t want to upset any of the Canuck extremists” Milan says with an awkward chuckle from the other room. The Bruins are trying to get some commentary from him to accompany the video they shot yesterday.

I pack away the dress I bought the day Milan and I went furniture shopping at Pier One Imports, every time I wear it I will think of that wonderful day where we drank fifteen dollar coffees and watched old people go shoe shopping. The cup left yesterday, off to wherever and I’m leaving tomorrow back to my life in LA. I can’t believe what has happened in the past week. Milan and I are together. I’m just not sure how official he thinks we are. It would break my heart if we were just a fling, if I was his rebound from the girl with the three thousand dollar Louboutins. Suddenly I can’t stand to look at the dress, it holds too much emotional baggage.

“Milan, try to annunciate more” someone suggests.

“You should get my girlfriend Amber in here; she makes a living off of shit like this.”
Even though Milan can’t see me, I blush. I don’t care if he mumbles his words. He just called me his girlfriend. That means I can call him my boyfriend. Milan goes through another couple of lines where he talks about how much it means to him that he won the cup, technically, at home even if it was as a member of the opposing team.

“Hey,” he says standing at the doorway of his closet. I never realized how small his closet was. It could barely contain the clothes I packed for my trip to Vancouver and Milan’s clothes.
“Hey,” I say standing up and frowning at my progress, I had always meant to buy an extra suitcase but now it seemed like I might need two.

Milan smiles like he’s in on some inside joke.

“Can we go…” I don’t want to say it.

“To the Louis Vuitton store?” Milan asks and I nod shamefully. “Let me show you the present I got you first.” He says bending down to search for something from under the bed.
This is awkward. I didn’t get him a present and he was the one who deserved one. Milan pulls out a large Louis Vuitton suitcase that has a giant bow stuck on the front.

“Thank you,” I reply. I don’t have the heart to tell him that we’ll probably need another one to pack the rest of my stuff away.

I unzip the suitcase and I have the hugest smile when I see what’s inside: it’s another Louis Vuitton suitcase with another giant bow stuck onto the front.

“I love it!” I shout jumping into his arms “you know me too well” I tell him in-between kisses. He puts me back onto the ground and when I unzip that one I see that there’s a foil wrapped package inside.

“Don’t open that one until you land in LA” Milan says and I lower the package back into the suitcase.

To me wrapping paper was basically the tease equivalent to lingerie “You know anticipation kills me.”

“Well they can blame your death on me.” He says giving me a smile.