Je t'aime, tu sais?

Jamie tilted her bowl, collecting the warm tomato soup at the bottom of it, and savoring her last bite.
"So, you guys are serious," Alex clarified, mopping her last bit of orange, creamy liquid up with a bite of her roll. The two friends sat on Jamie's green velvet couch with the Bruins game on for background noise. They had cancelled on one another for lunch, Alex had a rogue tutoring session come up, but rescheduled for dinner, which was fine by Jamie because she wasn't exactly up for going to the game after the incident this morning.
"Yeah," she smiled.
"Like official?"
"Yeah," she giggled.
"Yeah?" Alex asked, laughing lightly with her friend.
"Yeah," Jamie confirmed, nodding and giggling still, laying her bowl at the foot of the couch. She readjusted the blanket on her lap, her toes curled around the edge of the seat cushion and her knees bent before her.
"Are you still into Seguin?" She asked Alex. "Did you ever find out if you slept with him?" She asked, more urgently.
"No, no, no," Alex laughed, embarrassed and covering her face with her hand. She mimicked Alex, placing her bowl on the ground and bringing her knees up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them and the blanket. "Oh my god," she groaned, still laughing.
"What?" Jamie urged, laughing at her friend.
"We didn't sleep together, no; we did things though. I'm sure of it... just... not sure what things!" She admitted, her palms up and her face beat red. "Haven't heard from him since so I can't clarify!"
"No," Jamie gasped, her hand raised to her mouth.
"I got one text once, like, a week after we were all at the Amendment, but, I never responded."
"What--really? What'd it say?"
"It said 'come out with us, we're going to the Ice Bar,' but, I never followed up on it. I think I was too embarrassed," she made a nervous smile and bit her lip.
"I think Brad likes you, if that helps," Jamie said, nodding toward the TV where the man who Patrice affectionately called "Marchy" was being interviewed at the start of the first intermission.
"Uhm, do you remember how he ignored me at the game?" Alex said, clearly a little hurt from it.
"Yeah..." Jamie said, chewing her lip and thinking back. "That's true... that was weird. I never followed up with Patrice about it..."
"I can't believe he's your BOYFRIEND," Alex cheered excitedly, as the camera shifted to Patrice, standing in full gear with his helmet tipped back on the top of his head, a towel draped around his neck.
"Yeah... well... I think... I think we're doing alright on the PK... y'know... and the special teams are really picking up and coming out to play..." he said to the interviewer.
"Why do they make them talk as soon as they come off the ice? The poor man can't even breathe yet," Alex laughed.
Jamie watched as sweat dripped from his brow, his chin, from his thick hair and from behind his ears. She watched him bite his lips together in between questions, trying to hold his breath in front of the microphone.
She couldn't believe he was her boyfriend, either.

"Hello?" Jamie called in French, entering Patrice's apartment in the Back Bay. She gently pushed the front door shut behind her and looked at the TV, the NHL network quietly broadcasting a Vancouver Canuck's game. Jamie lifted her duffel bag onto the breakfast bar behind the living room and noticed Patrice's feet hanging off of the end of the couch, wrapped in black athletic socks and crossed at the ankles, turned toward the TV.
One twitched.
He was asleep.
Jamie smiled, deshouldering her purse and sitting it in a barstool. She made her way up to the back of the couch and looked down on a sleeping Patrice. He was in a black Bruins Hockey shirt, turned on his side, having fallen asleep watching the Canucks game. His legs were crossed and stretched out along the back of the couch, long and lean in his grey sweatpants.
Jamie laughed as she noticed his face. He had a plastic bag of frozen peas resting on his face but could still see his open mouth and his five o'clock shadow.
She made her way around to the front of the couch and delicately took a seat in front of his stomach, placing a hand gently on his shoulder.
He startled awake, his hand crashing into the bag of peas, yelping in a start.
"Oh no!" Jamie laughed, rubbing his chest as he discovered her presence and laughed, laying back down on his back. "I'm sorry, mon amour," she chuckled, bending forward and kissing his cold forehead.
He clasped the peas to his face and lay back down, sighing a "damnit."
"What's the matter?" Jamie asked, still laughing a bit.
"I was going to make us something to eat," he sighed, defeated. "I sat down to catch up on the Canucks and fell asleep."
"Is that what this is for?" She asked, taking a gentle hold of the bag of vegetables and lifting them.
"Oh! Patrice!" She gasped, her other hand reaching for her open mouth.
"It's not that bad, I promise," he smiled, replacing the bag over his bruising eye.
"You're going to have a black eye! Mon amour," she cried, pulling the bag away from his face again and holding his head in her hands, examining him. "Can you see?" Not only was his cheek underneath his eye turning a deep purple, but he had a bright red ring around his soft, honey-brown eye; his eye had bled.
"Correction; I have a black eye," he joked, pointing at it. "And yeah, I can see fine. My vision was blurry for a bit when I got hit, but came back pretty fast," he shrugged.
"Did you fight?" She asked, just as shocked to imagine him fighting. She knew he wasn't like that, even if he was a professional hockey players. There were ways to play physically on the ice without punching other men. She delicately tried to hold his upper eye lid open to examine the red ring. He grimaced slightly, lifting one side of his upper lip in protest. She quickly stopped and apologized.
"It's fine. And no! I did not get in a fight!" He laughed, trying to wriggle his head out of her grasp. She held him tight and gave him a look that cautioned him to stop testing her. She delicately touched around his cheek bone. "I've never been in a fight in my entire NHL career, Jamie," he continued to laugh. "I got hit with a puck in the third period."
"By whom?!" She said, outraged.
"I thought you were watching the game with Alex!" He challenged in jest.
"I was! I... must've missed it... or something..." She said, cracking a bit of an embarrassed smile, trailing off. "Who hit you?!" She said, thumping a demanding fist on his chest as if she'd track him down herself.
"It was an accident, mon amour!" He laughed, finding her shock and anger hilarious. "It's just the way a game of hockey goes! A funny ricochet, or something." Jamie's face didn't fall into a smile. She continued to look at him seriously.
"But you just had your fingers hurt," she said helplessly, trying to reason with his injuries. Her fingers played with the collar of his Bruins shirt, her eyes intently watching them, avoiding his. She felt bashful with how possessively she was acting but she couldn't help it. She didn't want to see him all banged up.
"Yeah, see? Four days later all better?" He quipped, bringing his hand up between them and showing her his fingers, now each velcroed to its own, individual splint. He wiggled them at her almost like Edward Scissorhands.
She pouted, not liking how beat up he was.
"Jamie," he groaned, still chuckling at her. He beckoned to her with his bad hand. "C'mere, c'mon," he laughed, gesturing to his chest. She pulled the bag of peas off of his face and discarded them on the coffee table and slid on top of him. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her up along his body until she found her usual spot. They sighed in tandem as she fit perfectly on him, her face nuzzled into his neck, his heavy hand in her hair, and her tiny hand spread across his chest.
"There," he said, quietly. "What I've been waiting for all day."

Jamie watched Patrice route through his kitchen in the dark for something to eat. Typical post-game ritual.
"Mon amour, it's so late," she croaked, raising her arms above her head in a great stretch and a yawn.
"I know, I'm sorry," he groaned, swinging a cupboard closed and moving to the fridge. "I just get so damn hungry after games. No matter what I eat before them," he played with his chin with his pointer finger and thumb, licking his bottom lip as he searched the refrigerator door, the fake, pale light illuminating his face.
"What did you eat before this one?"
"Chicken parm; I went out with the boys to the North End," he said, standing on his tip toes to examine what was hidden behind the cartons of milk on the top shelf.
Jamie crossed her arms and leaned on the open frame that connected the hall to his bedroom and guest room to his kitchen. She yawned again, rubbing her arms. The soft, dimmed light from his open bedroom door hardly reached the kitchen, but she could make out his bent figure, his forest green Ralph Lauren long pajama bottoms hiding his bare feet and the smooth skin of his back just fine. She donned one of his long sleeved thermals and had pulled on her underwear for their trip to the kitchen.
She was the slightest bit grumpy that the growling in his stomach and subsequent groan that shook her body while she drifted to sleep on top of him had resulted in a couple's trek to the kitchen, but she hardly had it in her to say no to the man.
"Oh! Will you share this with me?" He asked, turning around so that the freezer light could illuminate the tub of sorbet he had in his hand and the smile on his face.
"Patrice Bergeron! That raspberry sorbet is most certainly not on the team diet!" Jamie chided him in jest and mock shock.
"But it's so good!" He pleaded. "We can just split a bowl," he suggested, neglecting to wait for her answer and shutting the freezer, making his way to where his bowls sat stacked next to the microwave. She watched him lick his lips as he spooned some of the pink ice cream into the bowl, shut the tub and return it to its place in the freezer. He grabbed another spoon, shutting the drawer shut with his hip, and grabbed Jamie's hand on his way back to the bedroom.
She climbed onto his bed next to him, sitting cross legged and leaning back on the headboard. He did the same, his legs out straight under the covers, his feet crossed at the ankles.
She watched him delicately slice his spoon through the pink sorbet and slide the utensil in and out of his mouth, his eyes rolling into the back of his head, just as they had done fifteen minutes ago as she sat on his hips.
"Oh my god," he said, a mouth full of ice cream. He gestured to the bowl with his spoon and let his head fall back on the headboard, his eyes closed. "I love this stuff." He held the bowl between them for Jamie to take a bite. She laughed at him, flashing him a playful smirk.
"Enough to make us put clothes on and traipse into the kitchen to scoop some," she joked with him, unfolding her legs and draping one in between his, her knee bent over his hips.
"Try it, before you hate on it," he chuckled, urging her by bumping the bowl into the spoon she held. She gave him another smirk and kissed his nose, pushing her spoon into the soft ice cream and bringing it to her lips. She pulled the utensil out and licked the remainder of the cream away from them.
"Uh, no," Patrice said, full of sass. "That's my job; I'm the boyfriend, I get to like the lips," he said, gesturing to himself.
"Whu--" Jamie laughed, giving him a look of disbelief.
"Here," he said, holding his spoon up for her with a huge glob of the pink cream. She let him feed her and then before she could even open her eyes again he crashed his face into hers, playfully kissing and running his tongue over her lips.
"Mmmmm," he groaned, pulling away. "That's how you eat sorbet," he said, nodding exaggeratedly. Jamie burst out laughing at him.
"You're adorable," she told him.
"Mmmmm," was his only reply as he mouthed another bite. "Or, you could eat it like this," he said, pushing another bite into his mouth and then crashing his lips into the side of her face, leaving a pink sorbet kiss mark on her cheek.
"Patrice!" She laughed, raising her hand to her face.
"No, no! Let me get that for you, Jamie," he said suavely, placing a big, open mouthed kiss on her cheek and sucking the ice cream away as she shrieked in laughter.
"Or like this," he said, dipping his finger in the bowl and tracing it down her neck as she continued to laugh and wriggle. He gently held her chin and tipped her head back, licking up her tan, soft skin.
"Or like this!" She giggled, grabbing hold of the bowl and bringing it to his face, covering his nose with it.
"Hey!" He yelped, quickly jutting out his tongue to try and savor the ice cream trickling down his lips.
"Let me help you out," Jamie laughed, kissing and licking his nose.

The bowl lay in the dark on his bedside table with both their spoons in it, empty.
Patrice lay with his knees backed up to Jamie's and his chest backed up to her soft back, his arm tightly secured under her light head and pillow, the other draped around her ribs and held close, tucked into her breast.
"If we could just have sex and eat sorbet every night, I could die a happy man," Patrice breathed warmly into her ear, snuggling close up behind her. She giggled, rubbing her tired face into the pillow.
"That would actually be kind of nice," she reasoned, bringing his hand up to her lips and giving it a little kiss. They shared the silence for a little, ready to drift into dreams in the late hours of the night. He felt his bony knees pulse up against hers, and her hot, little body radiate heat as it was smoothed against his chest.
He was absolutely content.
"Hey Jamie," he whispered, just in case she was already asleep. He gently rubbed his nose into the back of her head.
"Hm?" She responded, just barely.
"What's one thing in life you've always wanted, but never had?" He asked her.
"A bowl of sorbet," she joked, and he could just picture her smiling with her eyes closed, proud for coming up with such a tease. He laughed quietly, giving her the slightest shake with his arm as if to scold her.
She chuckled and then took a deep breath. "What about you?"
"A dog," he answered, honestly. "I've always wanted a dog."
Jamie was quiet for a few more seconds and then looked over her shoulder to see him.
"Yeah?" She asked inquisitively, her brow furrowed.
"Yeah." He confirmed. "Why not?"
"Really?" She asked, grudgingly rolling over onto her back as he took back his arm from underneath her head and propped his head up to better look at her.
"Yeah, why? Is that surprising?"
"No... no, I just never pictured you as an animal kind of guy," she whispered tiredly, shrugging.
"Well I could never have one as a kid; too much hockey," he shrugged.
"Why?"
"Well I never would've been home to walk him or take care of him," he reasoned.
"No, why do you want a dog?" She asked, raising her hand to trace his lean cheekbones.
"I dunno..." he trailed off, shrugging again. "I... I like to feel needed; I want to take care of somebody," he shrugged. Shrugging was beginning to be a nervous habit. He felt like a bit of a fool, admitting something so childish to Jamie. He regretted asking the question, now.
She smiled, lovingly, her thumb moving in slow circles around his cheek.
"You can take care of me, mon amour," she purred, her eyes closing happily as she continued to stroke his face, her hand tracing the muscles in his neck and eventually spreading its warmth across his chest. "I'd love for you to take care of me," she whispered, turning into him, her leg draped over one of his, her head on his chest, and an arm wrapped around his taut ribcage.
"I'll take care of you," he whispered back, in promise, his hand smoothing the hair away from her face, wrapped around her neck and shoulders supportively.