Red

“You two are ridiculous,” Cayden laughed, stirring her tea with her feet up on hers and Leanna’s dining room table, a laptop with Beth’s face only a foot away. Beth, two hours ahead, was grading papers back home in Pittsburgh while Cayden and Leanna were having after work tea. Cayden wasn’t look at the floating head as she spoke though, she was staring right at Leanna who was leaning against the wall, typing out a message to Patrick.

“Seriously, JT and I weren’t even as gross as you two are.”

“Yes you were,” Beth piped in, earning a dirty look from Cayden. Leanna just smiled as she typed away. Cayden took a sip from her tea and shook her head.

“You guys didn’t even do the dating thing, you just jumped right into a relationship, it’s nuts,” Leanna looked up and rolled her eyes.

“It was different though. We were friends first and spent so much time with you and Jon that it would have been weird to just date,” Leanna shrugged. “I don’t like this distance thing. It sucks already having Beth so far away but, having Patrick gone all the time too? Its like every good thing has to come with a conditional. When he leaves, its when the feelings sink in, I don’t want to miss him like this.”

Cayden sighed in sympathy and took a sip of her tea. If anyone understood the hockey boyfriend lifestyle, it was her, “seriously, you get used to it. When they are home for too long, you start counting down the days till they leave again. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

“And the sex better,” Beth chuckled. Cayden grinned at her friend across the country.

“Babycakes, if I could high five you right now,” Leanna just shook her head at her friends but, looked down at the text she had just sent to Patrick, come back, be here.

--

“One last kiss then catch your flight,” Leanna forced a smile as she looked up at Patrick. They stumbled through the 4 a.m. long goodbye, the ones she still wasn’t used to. He nodded and leaned down, pressing his lips to hers. He was the perfect height, she noted as she watched him pick up his bag and head towards the team plane.

I told myself don’t get attached, but in her mind she played it back spinning faster than the plane that took him. She wanted to run after him, to wrap her arms around him and never let go.

Together two months and she had already fallen so hard for him. Patrick wasn’t like that though. He was relaxed and Leanna was almost afraid if she let him know how much she cared, he’d run.

Come back.

Sometimes, she felt like she barely knew him. Of course she knew him, he was her boyfriend but, every time they had a chance to really get to know each other in the most intimate ways, he would have to leave again. She knew it was just a part of him that was always going to be there but, it was hard. New York today felt less like across the country and more like across the ocean, like he was going to London instead. He was always gone and she was always here with the Bulls.

She drove the long way home. Something about this goodbye was hard than the last and she wondered if the next one was going to be even harder. Cayden and Jon seemed to do it fine but, they also needed their space. Leanna liked having the warm body nestled beside her. Besides, she already did the long distance thing enough with her best friend and her mom.

She busied herself at work, trying to keep herself distracted. The routine was the same whenever he was on the road. At work, she kept herself busy and then when she got home, if he wasn’t playing a game, she’d Skype call him for a few hours. Their Skype calls gradually got more and more intimate and with everyday he was gone, she missed him more and more.

“I don’t want to need you this way,” Leanna whispered, laying on her side and watching the computer screen on the side of her bed. She was about ready to sleep and he was pretty much gone. She hoped he didn’t hear her. One of Patrick’s eyes opened and his lazy, infamous smirk spread across his lips.

“Oh yeah, why’s that?” Leanna bit back a smile, that lousy, good for nothing boyfriend of hers. She let the smile escape and shrugged, stretching out across her bed.

“The feeling you can know so much without knowing anything at all, it’s scary,” a taxi cab honked outside her window and she let a small tear slip, covering it quickly so Patrick couldn’t see. “Taxi cabs and busy streets never bring you back to me and I can’t help but wish you took me with you.”

“Baby, I wish you were here. Fuck, I wish you came to all the games but, that’s not possible. I’ll be home soon, I promise,” he sighed, sleepily. “You just keep yourself busy and I’ll be there soon.”

“Okay,” Leanna smiled slowly. She had never felt so secure in a relationship before and it scared her because Patrick was not the man to feel like this with. His reputation for being a manwhore, his pursuit of her before he was even single and all the warnings from Jonathan, they were all signs to back away but, she didn’t.

Then he said it a simple way, “Leanna, I love you.”

She gasped, both excited and overwhelmed. He said it and he said it first. She bit her lip and mumbled, “this is falling apart in the cruellest way.”

“I know,” Patrick muttered back before letting out a long yawn, “this is falling in love when you are miles away.”

“Come back,” Leanna whispered as she watched Patrick fall asleep against his pillow. She clicked the red hang up button, “be here.”