Je t'aime, tu sais?

"I have to stay at my own place tonight, mon amour," she purred in French, giving her sullen boyfriend an empathetic frown. His chin rested on his suited shoulder and a pout pressed his lips. They sat in the pilot seats of the back of the Denali he had hired to pick them up at Boston Logan International. She was actually quite upset with the seating arrangement, a canyon of car separating them where they had piled their luggage, but she wouldn't make matters worse. She was already having a hard enough time convincing Patrice she couldn't go home with him.
"I have a double lecture to prepare for tomorrow since I missed yesterday's, darling," she said softly, still in their native tongue, trying to reason with him. They had decided on the flight back that when in public with one another they would speak solely in French, just for the added privacy and the romanticism behind it.
The sulky look he was giving her through the tops of his eyes wasn't budging.
"Sto-op," she groaned, gently pushing his shoulder. He gave her a smile and held her hand to his suit.
"I'm just giving you a hard time," he laughed, kissing the tops of her fingers. They laced their hands and he guided the pair to her lap so her arm wouldn't fall asleep stretched across the width of the SUV. She gave him a thankful smile.

Patrice hopped out of the Denali once it parked alongside the curb outside of Jamie's brick building. He met her on the other side and gently lifted her bag from her hand and helped her descend from the big vehicle.
Although his heart thumped with the sick anticipation of spending tonight alone after spending all weekend loving her, he did understand her professionalism, as upset as it made him.
"Thanks," she smiled, looking up at him.
God, he wanted to kiss her. He couldn't stand the thought of his bed, cold and alone, at home waiting for him. His stupid blue silky sheets that he had to move his legs around in to generate heat, the stupid strip of street light that leaked through a spot in his blinds that spread right across the wall parallel to his bed. He thought of how he'd spend all morning moping under his down comforter, hugging a pillow and wishing she were there to cuddle into before heading down to the rink for an evaluation before morning skate. He--
"Patrice?" She called, curiously.
He shook his head, becoming aware that he was the only attendee at his mental pity party.
"Are you coming up?" She asked, looking at him skeptically.
"Whu--?"
"You're more than welcome to stay the night; I just need to prepare for class tomorrow and get some good sleep, that's all," she said with a smile.
He looked at her, puzzled.
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Pat--"
"Really?"
"Yes; of course," she laughed, witnessing the smile break across his face. "I don't have anyway to get you home in the morning, but, you're always welcome, mon amour," she laughed, motioning for him to grab his stuff and follow her.
"Doesn't matter," he said, excitedly, more to himself as he reached into the SUV for his duffel bag and briefcase, and reaching for his iPhone with his bad hand to text Ferry Jamie's address for a ride in the morning.
"Mon amour also needs to pay the cab," a thick man with an even thicker voice and husky Boston accent said, hanging out of the front window of the Denali, an expectant hand open, palm up. Patrice blushed and tried to hide his eye-rolling. He placed his phone between his lips and dug out his wallet, thumbing through the leather and bills.

Jamie sat up against the backboard of her bed, her legs crossed at her ankles, and her moleskin notebook held open in her left hand. Her other hand cramped, constantly running its fingers back and forth through Patrice's short, strong hair, as if placating a child. He lay next to her, turned toward her legs and nestled into her abdomen. His head rested on her slowly rising and falling stomach, and his big hand rested on her hip furthest away from him, heavy and tired. Every once and a while his finger or thumb would twitch, confirming her suspicions that he was out like a light.
For a while he had chuckled at the noises her stomach made and gently ran his hand up and down her smooth, tan legs descending from her pajama shorts. But, soon after, he began to drift in and out of slumber, as harmless to her studying as he promised he'd be.
After an hour or so of catching up on her notes, she placed her moleskin beside her and smiled down at her sleeping lover. His mouth was hung slightly open, another good indicator that he was far away in slumber. She slipped her hand from his hair and down his thick neck, reaching her fingers below the collar of his white undershirt and pressing them into his hot, strong back. She then traced his neck, his voice box, and ran the tops of her fingers under his chiseled chin. He sighed in dreams.
She smiled, thinking about how she now truly had it all. She had someone to love, her best friend--her sister--was moving to town, her dance career about to blossom; her own career was on track, and she was prepared for everything tomorrow would bring.

By seven thirty the next morning she had donned her suit, applied her make up, left the remaining four packets of oatmeal out on the counter for Patrice to find, and gathered up her supplies for her double lecture. She sat on the end of the bed and ran her hand up and down Patrice's back, underneath his white shirt, gently rousing him from his sleep.
"I'm off, mon amour," she whispered, bending forward, her lips in his hair.
"Hm?" he groaned into his pillow. He lay asleep on his chest, his hands up and under the pillows and his back slowly rising and falling.
"I'm off to lecture," she repeated, kissing his head and then his temple.
"Mm," he said, making a noise of recognition.
"Text me when you know if you can play tonight," she said, running her fingers through his hair as he furrowed his brow and yawned. She dreaded the imminent moment when they had to be separated for the entire day.
"If I can will you come?" He asked, pulling his bad hand out from under the pillow and holding her wrist. He smoothed his thumb over her soft skin and knuckles and let his heavy eyelids close contently again.
"I don't know, darling," she said, smiling. She leaned forward and kissed his hair again. "I'll have to see. I'll see you later though, I promise," she whispered, leaving him one more kiss.
"K," he whispered, rubbing his face into the pillow. He rolled over in her bed and hugged a lavender pillow into his chest, asleep soon again.

"Look at you," Ferry laughed as Patrice lowered himself into the Fisker Karma outside Jamie's brick apartment building with his duffel in his lap and a grin on his face. He was pretty tired, but still excited to get evaluated by Babs and see if he could wiggle into the starting lineup tonight.
"How was Quebec?" His good friend asked, turning on his blinker and pulling out of his parallel parking space. The two were immediately thrusted into their seat belts and met with a loud sounding horn as an oncoming car almost collided with them.
"What the--" Ferry yelled, his knuckles white around the steering wheel. Patrice reeled, one hand on the dashboard, the other over his heart. The man in front of them was in a Camry and was hanging out of the driver's side window, yelling at them.
"Jesus dude," Ferry sighed, shaking his head. "I had the fucking right-of-way!" He yelled, gesturing to the side of the road and looking at the man in the Camry, but not yelling at him, keeping his window rolled up. Patrice knew Ferry wasn't a very abrasive guy off the ice. He shook his head again and pulled away.
"Christ," he sighed.
Patrice looked out of the back window in between the two seats and noticed the man continuing to look at them, something hiding his face.
"Aw shit," Patrice moaned.
"What?" Ferry was quick to ask, stealing a glance at Patrice in moving traffic.
"I think he's taking pictures," he sighed, heavily sitting back in the passenger's seat.
"What? There was no damage; we didn't hit--" Ferry said, now overwhelmed.
"No, no," Patrice said, laying a calming hand on his friend's forearm. "Like, he's taking pictures of us," he huffed. Ferry shook his head and heaved a sigh, turning onto 93.
"Whatever, man," Patrice said, shrugging it off. "He was wrong; you had the right-of-way," he justified for his friend. As he brought his hands down from gesturing, they came in contact with a crinkly paper. He looked to the source of the noise, gasping excitedly as he discovered a Clif bar in the cup holder. "Can I have this?"
"Whu-oh, yeah. That's for you; breakfast," Ferry said, still a bit distracted from the near-hit. Patrice helped himself, tearing into the chocolate and cherry goodness, not having the heart to finish Jamie's oatmeal this morning, only using two out of the four packets she had left out for him.

Jamie got out of lecture and checked her phone, anxious to see whether or not Patrice had been cleared tonight to play. She had a text from him reading "I'm cleared. Call me ASAP," which seemed rather short from him, but she figured she could've misinterpreted his excitement to get back on the ice as urgency.
She opened up her contacts but before she could reach his name, her phone vibrated with a call from her other best friend.
"Hey," Alex said, her voice breathless as Jamie answered her friend's call, just having finished her double lecture.
"Hi!" Jamie said, excited to reconnect with her friend after the long weekend. "I was going to call you, do you want to come over for lunch? I'm about to hit Whole Foods and figured I could get us soup and salads--"
"Hey, have you been online this morning?" Alex asked in a rush, cutting right into Jamie's polite question.
"Uhm, what?" Jamie asked.
"Are you near a computer?" Alex asked, seriously.
"What? No. Why?" Jamie asked. "I'm walking back from lecture. What's wrong?"
Alex heaved a sigh. "Yeah, let's do lunch."
"Yeah, ok. But what's up? What's online?"
"You're on Boston.com; well," she sighed again. "Patrice is."
"What?"
"Someone snagged a picture of him leaving your place with a duffel, half dressed in a suit and a five o'clock shadow--"
"Are you serious?" Jamie asked in disbelief, her walk halting in the middle of the lunch crowd in Harvard Square. She was so stunned she even forgot to say "excuse me" to the people around her she had accidentally forced to bump into her with her abrupt stop.
"Dead." Alex confirmed. "And I quote: 'Boston Bruins golden boy Patrice Bergeron was seen performing the walk of shame this morning, escaping rather quickly from a Harvard University housing apartment complex and into fellow teammate Andrew Ference's car before the team's scheduled morning skate at the Garden earlier today'."
"What? Are you kidding me?" Jamie repeated, outraged. "Is this even a real website? The 'walk of shame'?!"
"There's more," Alex divulged, begrudgingly. " 'Although the owner of the apartment is unknown at this time, speculations have it that Bergeron has not moved from his condo in Back Bay, but instead was paying a special someone a visit last night, as he was clearly packed for the sleepover'."
"I cannot believe this." Jamie said, utterly shocked. "I'll have to call you back."
"I'll just come over. See you in an hour?"
"Yeah, that works. Bye," Jamie said, hanging up on her friend and stuffing her phone angrily into her pocket and stalking off towards her apartment.
Fuck Whole Foods, she thought.
She couldn't help but feel watched as she punched in the building's code and snuck through her own front door, confused as all hell as to how determined paparazzi were to merely a local celebrity. Her and Patrice had traveled in public before and now even internationally and they had received absolutely zero attention as a couple. A few people had asked for his autograph in extremely public places like Chipotle or the airport, but none of them had ever paid any mind to her.
As soon as she reached the inside of her apartment, she threw her tote bag down on the island in her kitchen and shrugged off her coat, pulling her phone out again and called Patrice. As the phone rang and rang and rang she made her way to her bedroom and pulled open her laptop, jamming the space key to help rouse the computer from it's sleep.
He didn't pick up. She slammed the phone down on her desk and leaning forward, checked the time and searched for Boston.com. As she scrolled through the website, she tried to remember how long Patrice had mentioned morning skates going for; she thought they were usually no more than an hour of ice time, which meant he was out of practice by now. But, then again, she didn't know if he had to meet with the doctors more, or if they would watch film or go to the gym or whatever it was they did. She didn't know.
She screamed in fright as her phone vibrating against the hard, dark wood of her desk signaled a call from him.
"What's going on?" She answered, the scared sound of her voice scaring her even more. This was a big deal, right? This was putting his image in jeopardy. This was negative press for him. Was she going to get negative press if they could tie them together? Would it affect her career in Academia as well?
She felt dizzy.
"Mon amour," he started off, his voice comforting and low. "Mon amour, don't worry--"
She found the picture and the short, paragraph length article on the Boston.com website.
"I cannot believe this!" She said disgustedly into the phone, spitting in French. "Are you in trouble now?!"
"Jamie, Jamie," he cooed into the phone. "It's alright, it's alright--"
"How is this alright? Look at the way they're mocking you! Calling you the 'golden boy' and then insinuating that you've just had a one-night stand with someone!--"
"Jamie!" He said, raising his voice but only to attract her attention. "Jamie, I'm sitting in a conference with my agent and the Bruins PR right now," he said, calmly in English.
"... Ok," she breathed, stepping away from the computer and sitting lifelessly on the corner of her bed. He had made it before he left. Her heart pattered softly as she her mouth formed a soft "aw," and she ran her hands across the neatly folded comforter.
"Bullshit like this happens all the time," he started. "We've got it under control--"
"But how?"
"--they have to pay to use my name or my image, a big time news report like that. They won't want to pay what it's worth, so they'll have to take it down and revoke their statements. State that they're not made on any substantial evidence," he said. "Right?" He asked someone else in the room, his voice softer as he held the phone away from his mouth to confirm. Jamie heard someone far away reply "Right. Tell her about the restraining order, too."
"Restraining order?" She asked, full of fear.
"Boston.com won't be allowed back near your apartment, either," he said. "It's not nasty or anything, it's actually quite common with high profiles. It's a clause or something written in the legal matter," she heard him flipping through papers. "Right there," she heard the other person in the room say and the shuffling of papers. "Yeah; I dunno how it works, but, it basically prevents them from tracing anything back to you, ok?" He assured her. "They have no permission to do so."
She sighed, holding her head in one of her hands, overwhelmed.
"Do you want me to bring you in so you can talk to my agent about it?" He asked, comfortingly.
"No, no, it's fine," she said, lifting her head and resting her chin on her propped up hand, her elbow bent on her knee. "I believe it, I believe it all," she breathed.
"Assure her it'll be down from the site within the hour," the far away voice in the conference room with Patrice told him.
"Did you hear that?" He asked.
"Yeah," she confirmed. "But what about you? Isn't that bad PR for you?"
"I doubt any of the real fans give two thinks about what I do in my free time," he said. She could hear his smile. "Don't worry, mon amour; you have nothing to worry about, I'll handle it." He promised in French. "How was your lecture?"
"C'est bonne," she said, still recovering from the incident.
"I want to hear all about it," he said, lovingly. "Do you want to come over after the game?--I promise no one will know," he reassured her, quickly.
"Ok," she said, finally smiling again.
"I'll call you when we've finished," he said. "I'm sorry about all of this, really mon amour."
"Don't be, it's fine."
"I've got to go; I'll talk to you in a bit, alright?"
"Alright," she said, lightly. "Good luck."
"Thanks," he smiled, disconnecting their call.
"Bye," she whispered, letting her hand holding the phone drop and laying back on her bed, heaving a sigh.
So this is what it was like, dating a Boston legend.