Young & Wild & Free

If there was one thing that Blake loved, it was spending time with Phoebe. In the past nine months, she has become more of a mother than Blake’s biological mom had ever been to her. Phoebe woke Blake up that morning with Starbucks, a bagel with cream cheese and an invitation to the salon for pedicures and facials.

“Red my fortune cookie or Pompeii purple?” Blake asked, holding up the two polishes in her hand.

“Definitely the red. Cat walk or pouf daddy?” Phoebe asked, holding up her two as well.

“Pouf daddy.” Blake giggled as they were ushered back to their massage chairs. The two had run to Walgreens before the salon, loaded down with magazines to flip through during their pedicures.

“You haven’t taked to that boy in a while, have you?” Phoebe asked with a pointed look as they both eased their feet into the bubbling water beneath their chairs.

“Not a word.” She shook her head. “It’s whatever.” She shrugged.

“Not that boy, I mean the other one? With the drinking problem?” She asked, making Blake roll her eyes dramatically.

“Pheeb.” She sighed. “He does not have a drinking problem.” She insisted. A healthy flirtationship had developed between Blake and Patrick Kane – and she was floating on cloud nine. He was funny and nice and even followed the Crunch on twitter for game updates that he would retweet once and a while when she was mentioned. “And we facetimed last night.” She added. “Speaking of… my spring break happens to fall on the same week the Oilers visit Chicago…” She said, bringing up a subject that she had tossed around in her head for a while. “And I don’t have a game for four days.” She added.

“I don’t think I like where this is going.” Phoebe eyed her billet daughter.

“It could be fun!” Blake insisted with a harmless shrug as she flipped through her People.

“You know Shawn will not go for that.” Phoebe replied.

“What if it was a surprise? We could bring Lily and the twins.” She suggested though Phoebe still looked unsure. “Come on, Mama, we could go shopping on Michigan Ave, eat some deep dish pizza and take some photos by the river! That would be so fun!” She all but pouted.

“Let me think about it.” Phoebe grinned. It had been a while since she had been to Michigan Ave…

“Oh God, who bought this one?” Blake asked as she picked up Edmonton Today with Taylor’s mug right on the cover.

“Oops, that’s mine.” Phoebe smiled apologetically.

“Edmonton’s hottest ice man.” Blake read off of the cover. “On hockey, friends, and love?” She immediately flipped through the magazine to where there were several editorial shots of her exboyfriend on the ice and in a loft setting in a great sweater and jeans that looked made for his body.

Hall has been most recently linked to the Edmonton Crunch’s star forward Blake Langley. The two split over a month ago and it has left Hall heartbroken. Blake’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head as she read on.

”Blake’s a great girl, the perfect girl probably, but we just couldn’t make it work. She was busy with hockey and I was even busier. She’ll definitely be the one that got away.” Blake wanted to throw the magazine across the room – that or roll it up and smack Taylor on the nose like a scolded dog. She took a picture of the page and for the first time in weeks sent it along with a text to Taylor’s phone.

To: Hall
Just so we’re clear, I wasn’t the one that got away, I was the one you drove away.

“How bad is it?” Phoebe asked, watching the teen furiously tap away at her phone.

“I’m not done yet.” Blake muttered, opening up the magazine again.

Hall has no future plans to jump into something new any time soon.

“Definitely not looking for a rebound – no matter what I hear about who she’s talking to, it’s definitely going to take me a while to bounce back from this one.”

“Who she’s talking to? What is that even supposed to mean?” Blake asked herself out loud, causing Phoebe’s eyebrows to shoot up into her hairline. The only other person outside of Shawn and Phoebe that knew Blake was talking to Patrick was Ryan – and even then, all he knew is that they had exchanged numbers.

She whipped her phone so quickly out of her pocket again that the little woman doing her toenails thought she was going to drop it in the water below her lap.

“Hello?” Ryan picked up after the second ring.

“What have you told Taylor about Patrick and I?” She asked right away.

“Uhh, nothing.” Ryan replied intelligently.

“Don’t like to me, Ryan, I know where you live.” She threatened.

“If I could say, I would…” He trailed.

“You’re with him, aren’t you?” She asked.

“That’s correct.” He replied curtly.

“Ugh!” She hung up, stuffing the phone back into the pocket of her sweatshirt. Phoebe pretended to read her magazine, but was watching the meltdown that unfolded in the chair beside her.

“So how’s Ryan?” She asked in a conversational tone. Blake handed Phoebe the magazine in her hand and narrowed her eyes at the offending object. It took Phoebe moments to read the small blurb and a frown pulled across her face. “This makes it look like you dumped him then moved on right away.” She twisted her face in distaste.

“He’s the one that got all crazy and stormed into my practice being an asshole, he never tried to apologize and now he’s saying I’m already “talking to people”?” She used finger quotes. “First of all, how would he know that? Secondly, why is that his business? And thirdly, why does he think it’s okay to say that to a columnist?” Blake asked, rattling off questions. “I’m going to murder him. I’m going to kill him dead. What a dick.” She huffed.

“You know… I think a trip to Chicago sounds lovely.” Phoebe said, looking over to her billet daughter who was visibly upset. “Chicago is beautiful this time of year.” She added. Blake looked over at Phoebe and her billet mom could see the tension in her face break into a small smile.

“If he already thinks I’m seeing someone else… let him think that.” She shrugged.

•••

Phoebe whistled lowly as Blake stepped out of the bathroom in their Westin hotel room on the river in Chicago. She had straightened her hair out to it’s full, glossy length, donned a smoky eye and pouty lips and paired the look with a dark, fitted jeans, black heels and a dark Oilers track jacket over a white blouse.

“Well if he wasn’t sorry already…” She trailed as the twins jumped on their hotel beds in matching little Horcoff away jerseys. Lily was ready in her carrier wearing a blue headband with an orange flower and an Oilers long sleeve tee.

“Thanks Pheeb.” Blake blushed, making sure she had two twenty’s, her license and her debit card tucked in her wristlet just in case. She had mentioned to Patrick that she and the Horcoffs were making the trip from Edmonton to Chicago for her spring break and Kane insisted she come out after the game for something to eat and drinks.

When she mentioned the fact that she was only eighteen, he simply laughed – like that mattered when you were partying in Chicago with the Blackhawks.

“Are you going to be okay taking these three back to the hotel later?” Blake asked as they grabbed their tickets off of the night stand and loaded into the elevator across the hall.

“Oh sure, if Shawn doesn’t help then I’ll just load these three into a cab.” Phoebe shrugged. “No biggie. Do you have everything you need?” Phoebe asked. “Don’t forget that 18 means they can just toss you in the slammer.” She winked.

“Ha ha, very funny.” Blake stuck out her tongue, causing the twins to giggle, in turn, causing Lily to giggle as well. Shawn still didn’t know that Phoebe and the rest of the family were in town that night and they were going to be surprising him in the away team’s visitors lounge at the United Center. It was Ryan that noticed the Horcoffs first, visibly gulping down his Adam’s apple at the look Blake gave him. There wear few things more powerful than a woman with leverage who was having a good hair day. Nonetheless, she walked over and gave him a squeeze. “Hey Nugie.” She gave him a small, lopsided smile.

“Hey B.” He replied. “Didn’t know you were coming.” He said cryptically.

“It’s a surprise for Shawn.” She shrugged. “Do you wanna poke your head in there and tell him he’s got a delivery out here?” She asked. Ryan nodded and ducked back into the locker room. Shawn appeared moments later and the smile that grew on his face after seeing his wife and children nearly broke Blake’s heart. He loved Phoebe so much.

“Well look at this group!” He laughed, throwing his arms around his wife and squeezing her tightly as the twins jumped on their Dad, screaming “Surprise!” at their father. A few heads stuck out of the locker room upon hearing them, including Taylor Hall who watched wordlessly as Shawn hugged Blake.

God, she looked beautiful.

“Hmm, I wonder whose idea this was.” He grinned, rubbing her arm before turning to Phoebe and planting a hot kiss on her lips.

Blake checked her phone to see that she had a texted Phoebe knew that she had been texting Patrick all day.

“I’m going to run to the bathroom quick, I’ll meet you upstairs?” She asked, looking to Phoebe who wanted to roll her eyes but with a smile nonetheless.

“Sure, we’ll be up there soon.” Phoebe nodded.

“Good luck! Score a goal for me!” Blake kissed Shawn’s cheek before taking off down the hall. She sauntered right past Taylor as he stood in the doorway of the locker room that faced the hall to the home side locker room. He watched her walk away and fought the urge to reach out and grab her. He could feel his neck and ears turning red, knowing exactly where she was headed. He was going to kill Patrick Kane.

Blake wandered with a purpose, taking wide strides to get to the other side of the arena. Soon enough, she spotted the curly blonde leaning against a wall just the opposite of a trainer’s room.

“Hey you.” Patrick grinned upon seeing Blake walk towards him. Her heels put him just at his eye level. Even with her heels on, Blake was always shorter than Taylor. She cleared her thoughts of him and walked into his awaiting embrace, wedging one of her legs between his to make the hug just a little more intimate. He rest his hands on the small of her back to speak to her, not letting go of the smokeshow brunette he had been telling Shaw and Saad about.

“Glad to see you here.” He grinned. “Glad you could sneak away for a minute or two.” He added.

“Shawn and Phoebe knew I was going to stop by.” She shrugged. “Can’t say the same about other people.”

“Yeah, someone may have mentioned that little article to me, too.” Patrick replied. “The kid knows he made a mistake. You’re too good to let go.” If Patrick was pulling out all the stops, she was falling for each and every one of them. She didn’t eve mind when his fingers started brushing just a little lower than the small of her back

“I don’t care what he does as long as he keeps my name out of his mouth.” She said, looping her arms around Patrick’s neck. She had never in her life been so forward with someone, but a lot of things were changing about her lately.

“We’ll go out tonight and you’ll forget all about it.” Patrick promised.

That’s all Blake wanted anyway.