Sun & Moon

“Te quireo mas, abuela.” Catalina was walking down the hall of the office, heading to her own office from a meeting with an employee who was retiring from working as a cleanup in the locker room. As someone who worked where the players were comfortable and open about many different aspects of their lives, he would be required to keep a certain amount of professional confidentiality about anything he had heard or seen. He agreed easily. “You there, mom?”

“Yes, mija.” Catalina listened as her grandmother returned the phone back to her mother. They were having lunch together and her mother called so that Catalina could talk to her grandmother, who she adored. “Are you back to your office now?”

“Yeah, I’m about to walk in. I’ll call you when I’m leaving, though. I want to hear more about this cruise you and dad are going to take.” Catalina wanted to go on a cruise. Her job did not allot that kind of time off unless she was willing to remain on call all hours of the vacation. It wasn’t worth the stress, normally. “Sounds like it’s going to be fun.”

Her mother said something in Spanish on the other line, muffled and not to Catalina. She turned the final corner towards her office as her mother said, “Call me then. I love you.”

“Love you too.”

Walking into her office as she hung up the phone, Catalina stopped short. Patrick filled one of her chairs in the office, lounging easily and looking up at her with a cheerful grin. She cocked her head to the side, looking at the cartons of unopened Chinese food sitting on her desk. Catalina made a mental note to start locking her door if it meant keeping cute men who liked to tease her out of her office.

“Don’t know about you,” he said, tilting his head towards her. “But I’m really hungry and Chinese sounded like a good idea.”

“Maybe I just ate?”

He rolled his eyes. “Something tells me you rarely get the chance to enjoy lunch during a work week.” He wasn’t wrong. Sometimes Catalina had to scarf something between phone calls and yelling at people to straighten things out. “So how about you sit down in that little spinny chair and join me.”

“Are you hitting on me?” She asked, walking around him to sit at her desk. She set her phone down, crossing her tan legs and leaning back in her chair. His eyes watched every single movement carefully, making her grin at him.

He returned the grin. “That is a solid no.” He leaned forward, narrowing his blue eyes. “I make it a point not to hit people I’ve already rammed with my car.”

Catalina made a noise. Despite having the impromptu lunch thrown on her, she reached for a carton, popping the top on it. She wasn’t going to be the one to turn down lunch- especially because she still found Patrick Kane incredibly interesting. Interesting in the kind of way that Catalina enjoyed his quips and his attractiveness, but was prepared to ignore him if he asked her on a real date.
Catalina didn’t date. Period.

An impressive selection of Chinese was made available by Patrick. Lo mein, sweet and sour chicken, fried rice and dumplings were all at Catalina’s picking and choosing. She used chopsticks to pop a piece of chicken in her mouth, chewing slowly with a smile as she watch Patrick attempt to figure out chopsticks, his brows pulling together as he frowned. Wordlessly, Catalina pulled a plastic fork out of one of her drawers, having tons of extras from eating food in her office. She held it out to him and he took it, making a face that she simply grinned at.

For the first few mouthfuls of good, they were silent. Patrick had pulled his chair up to her desk and pulled his feet up onto the chair. Catalina noted the position as one of comfort and familiarity. She wondered if he was this at ease with everyone and decided that he must be. Patrick Kane probably made friends very easily. He was open and smiled often, not afraid of the prospect of new companions. He fit in anywhere, whether it was skating on the ice or sitting in her office chair like he had done it a hundred times.

Once upon a time, Catalina’s grandfather would have told her that it was fate that Patrick was sitting in her office. He had this thing about no such thing as coincidences and that fate has a huge role in everyone’s lives. He often used fate and destiny to tell the story of how he and Catalina’s grandmother met. And she was sure that he would tell her the same story if he were still alive. People didn’t just hit you with a car and happen to work with you, and they certainly didn’t happen to be friends.

Catalina refused to see it that way, despite the slow smile Patrick gave her when he caught her staring. He had a nice smile. It always came on slow, the right corner of his lips tilting upward first before the rest of his mouth broke out into a full grin. She rolled her eyes in response.

“So I have something to ask of you,” Patrick ventured, his voice attempting to sound casual. Catalina didn’t respond, leaning back in her chair and watching him, her expression blank, sea-green eyes wandering. “You saw Jonathan the other day.”

“That doesn’t sound like asking something of me.”

“The girl you were with.” Patrick paused to see Catalina’s reaction but she didn’t give him one, though she was interested in why Patrick or Jonathan had mentioned Erin. “He seemed to remember her vividly. He, of course, only mentioned her off-handedly at practice.”

“Astounding.”

He gave her a look and she smirked. “Jonathan doesn’t ever mention girls. Sure he dates them and he takes them home, but he never brings them up.” That piece of information didn’t surprise Catalina. Anyone who had eyes would bring up Erin to a friend. She was demanding of attention with beautiful features and smart opinions. “I’m thinking that maybe you could bring her to a game.”

Catalina crossed her arms. “Oh?”

“It could be something beautiful.” Patrick spread his hands like he was presenting her with some sort of gift. “What do you think? Jon’s a great guy and it has to mean something that he thought her worth mentioning.”

“It means she’s awesome.”

“Fair enough.”

Taking a sip of water, Catalina considered this. It wasn’t surprising Jonathan mentioned Erin. The moment he walked out into the back yard, he was only interested in what Erin had to say or do. Catalina had watched with amusement the entire time and had been particularly annoyed when neither one of them asked for a phone number. But that wasn’t her business to push it on Erin or Jonathan for that matter. They were two adults and if they couldn’t figure out how to ask for a phone number, it was not Catalina’s business to do it for them.

But Patrick had a point. There was the possibility of something beautiful, there. Catalina had studied Jonathan’s habits of going out and behavior and she wasn’t displeased in the slightest. However, just because he seemed like he was clean, cut and perfect, didn’t mean that he was the right person for Erin. And Catalina only wanted the perfect person for her best friend.

There was also a sneaking suspicion that when Patrick said that Jonathan ‘mentioned’ Erin, that it was to tell Patrick to do some convincing. It was like some strange cardinal rule that Jonathan couldn’t ask Catalina himself without seeming too forward. So the two men had cracked up a different route.

Dating was not the same anymore.

“I’ll make you a deal.”

“You can’t buy my sexual favors.”

“I have more exquisite tastes, double-eight.”

Patrick made a face at her comment but she ignored him. He leaned his elbow on the arm of the chair and put his face in the palm of his hand, watching her with those cool eyes of his. “I’m interested. What’s the proposition.”

“My job is to know your public face, not your private one. I don’t know Jonathan well, and I cannot be bothered to do so with work and dealing with events coming up in the next few months.” She took another swig of water, letting her words sink in. “But he seems nice, and I happen to know that he’s Erin’s favorite Blackhawks player- don’t grin, you all are not her favorite team.”

Patrick shrugged. “Technicalities. I’m assuming you’re going to unveil this deal of yours soon, though I love the background info.”

“Easy, tiger. I’ll bring Erin to a game and out after, if you think that Jonathan is genuinely interested. He seems like a nice guy but you just never know. So on the condition that something occurs between them, if he hurts her, there needs to be emotional compensation.”

Patrick made a face. It was something between amused and doubtful. He seemed to have full confidence, but Catalina did not. She wouldn’t purposely put Erin in a situation with a particularly attractive person only to have it go wrong. It wasn’t worth Erin’s time and Catalina wanted a safety blanket.

“What, you want me to date her?”

“I wouldn’t let you within a ten mile radius of her,” Catalina cut out before she could soften her voice. Patrick’s lip curled only a fraction of an inch, but overall he just stared at her. Shaking her head, Catalina continued, “If Jonathan Toews upsets Erin in anyway that causes her eyes to so much as water, she gets to punch you in the face.”

For a moment, Patrick was silent. He opened and closed his mouth. He clearly had no idea what to say. Catalina took the stretch of silence to pop another piece of chicken in her mouth, watching him as she chewed. “You want her to hit me?”

“Or I can hit you. Someone gets to his you. It’s you’re idea, so you seem to say.”

“Fine.” He crossed his arms. “But I think I would rather it be you that hits me.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I hit you with my car. I feel like it’s the least I could do.”

Catalina stood up and stretched her hand across the desk. “Shake on it.”

Patrick stood up too, smirking at her. It was his classic smirk, something Catalina couldn’t understand making the wheels in his head turn. It always made her nervous when he looked at her like that. He took her hand in his, shaking before catching her off guard and pulling her towards him. Her hips pushed into her desk- though not roughly- as he pulled her inches away from him. “You’re not going to get to punch me, Catalina.”

“That is what I hope for most, double-eight. Because if I do….” From very close, a dark look flickered across her face. “He will not hurt her. Understood?”

“Absolutely.”

Aware that she was close enough to feel his breath, Catalina let go of his hand and straightened. There was no outward evidence that his nearness had any influence on her. Her face was smooth, eyes clear and lips fixed. Her hands gestured to her lunch as he watched her, probably waiting for some sign of nervousness where he would not find one. “Thanks for the lunch.”

“What are friends for?”

Catalina made an amused sound in the back of her throat. “I have to get back to work, friend.”

Later that day, Catalina went home to her best friend. She found Erin opening up the door to their apartment just as she walked out of the elevator. Erin was dressed in a flattering pencil skirt, white blouse and black cardigan, her hair twisted out of her face. She looked particularly professional, carrying several stacks of paper, one of them having coloring on it.

Catalina rushed to her friends aid, getting the door open much to Erin’s relief. The lights flicked on as Catalina walked over to the small circular gate she had set up in the kitchen for Benny. He was asleep with a torn up toy. White fluff was scattered around the small pin, but thankfully Benny had figured out the use of the pee pad. Catalina had clearly picked a smart one.

Bending over and scooping the sleeping lap into her arms, Catalina asked, “How was teaching a classroom of savages?”

“It’s funny, because they all have the same attention span as you do.”

“You’re so funny.”

“They were fine today, although one of the little girls in my class insists that dinosaurs are the answers to everything. I remember your mom telling me you had a dinosaur phase. Any suggestions?”

Benny began chewing on Catalina’s shirt as she cradled him, his puppy breath warm against her neck. “Let her live her life. She’ll figure out that super heroes are way cooler than dinosaurs.”

Placing Benny back on the floor, who bolted towards his water bowl, Catalina picked up the gate and proceeded to get rid of the paper the dog peed on, trashing it and replacing it with new ones while Erin pulled contents out of the fridge for dinner while hitting a button on the iPod dock, the sound of Ellie Goulding coming on as Catalina joined her in the kitchen.

Together Erin and Catalina made dinner. Erin took care of vegetables and a side salad while Catalina spiced the chicken and threw it in a pan. The two of them moved around one another like satellites. Whenever Erin reached up high, Catalina ducked under her. If Catalina walked towards the sink, Erin twirled around her towards the island. They never once ran into one another, always in a consistent orbit but never hitting paths.

It was obvious how practiced they were. Catalina always knew where Erin was going to be and when. They had it down to a science for four years of college and now they were doing it all over again, a finely tuned machine.

Benny was now thrown into the equation, though. Once he was filled on water, he began running through their feet. Erin tripped over him once, spilling water on Catalina who just stared at her with water running down her face. The next time, Catalina squeaked and tried to avoid stepping on him as he laid there, which involved stepping on Erin foot and making her bellow right in Catalina’s ear.

“What are you, a banshee?”

“Get off my foot!”

Catalina lifted her foot and Erin stepped away, glaring at Catalina with dark-green eyes. She picked up her foot and bent over, back against the counter as she rubbed it. “I’m pretty sure half the building heard you, Screech.”

“Maybe if you didn’t stomp around like Godzilla!”

“There was a precious baby on the floor would you rather me stomp on him?”

Erin scowled before putting her foot down. For a moment they were both silent. “Plus, I don’t sound like a banshee. They don’t sound as off key.”

Catalina shared a grin with her roommate, tension gone. “And I’m not nearly as tall and bulky as Godzilla. Speaking of tall and bulky, there was a hockey player with double numbers in my office with lunch today.”

At this, Erin shot her eyebrows up. She leaned against the counter, sipping her water. “Is that so? Did you guys have rough office sex or-"

“Not interested,” Catalina clarified with an eye roll. “He was actually there on your behalf.”

“I don’t like blonds.”

“But you do like brunettes with the number nineteen on their jersey.” Catalina saw Erin’s breath catch as she tried to drink her water nonchalantly. “Let me tell you the story of how Patrick Kane has requested my assistance and accepted my deal, but only with your 100% clearance and green light.”