Sun & Moon

With a flick of the wrist and curving on his skates, Patrick made an easy backhanded goal, gliding out towards the boards as Patrick Sharp took a puck and went next in line for a one on one. Jonathan skated towards him, hair dark with sweat and cheeks red from a long day of practice. It was drawing towards the end and some of the guys were skating around acting like fools or firing pucks at Corey’s head for fun.

Personally, Patrick had spent half of practice with his head in the clouds. Three games had passed by since he had asked Catalina to attend a game and bring Erin. In an ideal world, she would have attended the one right after their conversation. At least, Patrick had assumed that was a given. But like everything with Catalina, it didn’t go nearly the way that he had planned it.

Fourth game from the day he had Chinese in her office, and she had called him- from her office phone, of course- to tell him that she was going to tonight’s game. Patrick wasn’t sure why the use of her office phone bothered him so much, but it did. They had exchanged phone numbers after the accident and she easily could have called him personally.

Personally. When Patrick rolled the word around his mind, Catalina didn’t exactly come up. She was easy to talk to, but hard to read. When he said something in particular to get a reaction, he never got one. But when he least expected her to react, she did. Everything about her was ass backwards and it was chafing him in a strangely pleasant manner.

“Where’s your head today?”

Patrick’s blue eyes flickered up to his captain. Jonathan was his best friend- his brother, almost. But on the ice, Patrick tried not to blur the line between best friend and captain. It of course happened often. Patrick had some wiggle room if he wanted to tell Jonathan off when he was getting irritated with him, but he also could poke fun when Jonathan needed to lighten up.

“On my neck, wouldn’t you guess?”

Jonathan rolled his head. “You know what I meant, Patrick.”

“I like it when you talk feisty to me.”

“You know,” Jonathan said as they skated around the rink lightly, ignoring the calls of Patrick Sharp as he whistled at them and said something about a romantic skate in the rink, “You always like to do this thing where you turn into a sarcastic little shit when I’m right.”

“When you’re right? You haven’t even said anything.”

Jonathan shrugged. “I don’t have to, I know you’re aware of why I’m asking where your head is. The public relations lady gets to you.” Patrick looked at Jonathan sideways. “You don’t even like when I call her ‘public relations lady.’”

“You’re the one asking her for favors, you know?

Jonathan grinned. “I suppose you’re right. Do you like her?”

Patrick shook his head. “No, but she bothers me to a point of fascination. She’s funny, I’ll give you that. But she’s so easy to talk to but unapproachable at the same time, that I don’t know if I want to roll my eyes and scoff at her or sit down and have a beer with her.”

“That’s a weird way of looking at things.”

“I guess so. I think we’re just a weird set of friends.”

“Friends?” Andrew Shaw skated by, having overheard clippings of their conversation. He skid in front of them, skating backwards and giving Patrick a look that was somewhere between smug satisfaction and pure interest. “Who are you ‘friends’ with?”

“Actually you’re the one who’s friends with her,” Patrick shot back, turning the fire onto Andrew instead of himself. He narrowed his blue eyes. “Hey Johnny, remember how flushed Shawzy got when Catalina waved at him from across the bar that one night?”

Jonathan grinned. “I do, actually. I think he even blushed.”

“Definitely, like the color of a rose.”

“Let’s call him ‘Rosie.’ What do you think, Kaner.”

Patrick grinned. “Nah, to pretty and sounds like something you would name your kid. How about we just call him Romeo? Romeo! Romeo! Where art thou-" Patrick was interrupted by Andew smacking him in the stomach with a stick, clearly over the joke and rolling his eyes, skating away to remove his nose from Patrick’s business, which was the intention. “Always works.”

“So you’re saying,” Jonathan picked back up. “That you haven’t been skating around like you’re high as a kite all day because you’re nervous about her coming?”

Patrick shook his head. And it was the truth. He wasn’t nervous for Catalina to watch him play hockey at all. Her judgments of his playing were not going to make or break his skill on the ice. In fact, it wasn’t even nerves that kept Patrick in a weird medium all day as much as it was trying to figure her out.

“I’m really not. We’re friends. I promise that as beautiful as I think that girl is, and as much as I would love to make her scream my name, that is one girl who probably cringes worse than I do at the word ‘romance.’”

“You think so?”

Patrick made a face. “Oh yeah. You didn’t see her face when she thought I was asking her out on a date.”

“Were you?”

Patrick wanted to answer yes, he was. But instead he said, “It was just a random breakfast. But one person that does seem interested in romance, is what’s her name.”

Jonathan gave him a dry glance that verged on irritation. Coach blew the whistle and they skated towards the exit slowly, behind the rest of the team. “You know her name was Erin.”

“I did.” Patrick was careful as he stepped out of the rink onto the matted floors, specialized for skates to walk across the surface. “I just wanted to see you get irritated, oh captain, my captain.”

If there was anyone easy to irritate, it was Jonathan. He had a certain level of irritations, but Patrick knew every level of them, their severity, color, size and even duration. He had hit a second level one that was only a few seconds long before Jonathan was shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders. “She was very beautiful, and just kind of different.”

“Different how? Remember, I’ve never met the broad.”

“This woman,” He corrected with another color of a level two irritation, “Was just extremely kind. Like the genuine kind where you don’t know if it’s innocence or if it’s a natural grace. When I talked to her she was gentle but she had a solidarity about her words that I liked.” Jonathan shrugged again. “As you say, I’m interested.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Patrick sat down to take off his skates. “You sound like you’re trying to be poetic. Please stick to skating, John.”

“Yeah, yeah. Keep your head on the ice, alright kid?”

“Yeah.” Patrick nodded. “I’ll do that.”

☾☾☾

It was cold in the arena. Catalina had already been prepared for that, having walked down to the ice one or two times herself for certain social media posts that Carter needed assistance with. Now as they shuffled into one of the embassy boxes with people of high status such as the GM, family members and some of the staff, Catalina wasn’t worried about the cold. She was worried about squeezing Erin on the shoulder, who looked nervous.

“You look awesome,” Catalina said, instead of telling her that everything would be fine. It was one of those promises that were dangerous to make. So instead, Catalina decided to remind her friend that she was beautiful. And she was, in white jeans, a white tank top that when standing, showed a thin strip of her impressively tone stomach and a light, blush colored blazer that was cut nicely on her narrow frame. “The color of the blazer makes your cheeks look rose colored and lovely.”

Erin gave her a more relaxed smile. “Thank you, really. This blazer is warmer than I thought it would be.”

Brushing a single strand of dark hair back into her elegant bun, Erin smiled happily. Catalina could see the nervous way that her eyes flicked towards the ice where the players were skating and taking shots. Catalina had ordered nachos and wings on the way in and grabbed beer from the bar, setting her cold, tall glass in the cup holder.

Catalina scanned the arena. It was fill with people walking to and from seats, a dull roar of voices filling every corner. Music pulsed and the huge screen flicked between advertisements and talking about the Blackhawks as a team. The circular strips below the embassy boxes were filled with flicking screens that changed to different sponsors and advertisements, just another source of light in the room.

Hockey wasn’t Catalina’s forte. She knew how the game worked and she was aware of a few different technicalities. But beyond that, she was totally lost at rules, how it was broken down, or how to even follow that quickly. Erin had grown up watching hockey, a loyal New York Rangers fan who would often sit Catalina down on the couch and drink beer and tell her what she could about the game. Everything Catalina knew had come from Erin.

“You’re going to help me keep up, right?” Catalina asked as she thanked the box attendant who brought their food. Heat scalded her hand lightly as she passed Erin nachos and kept the wings balanced on her dark jeans. Her grey top was not long sleeve and there were goose bumps on her arm, but Catalina didn’t mind. “Otherwise I might fall asleep.”

“Oh hush.” Erin crunched into a very cheesy chip. Catalina eyed them hungrily but waited for Erin to continue speaking. “You know way more than you think you do. And you get into sports. If I recall, in college you really detested the Florida Panthers.”

Catalina gave her a bland expression and a nodded. “I still do. I’ve dealt with a few of their reps and just a couple of the players. Not my favorite people to work with in the world.”

Even from high up and seemingly unconcerned while sipping her beer, Catalina could see the eighty-eight jersey. He skated easily as all of the other players did, moving on the ice in a natural gait that was like watching water pour over the lip of a glass. Flicking away from him, Catalina looked at the other numbers. She had most of the numbers and names committed to faces. She had spoken briefly with more than half of them, which made it easier.

While waiting for the puck drop, Catalina leaned back and listened to Erin as she rattled of some of the different facts about the visiting team. San Jose Sharks were a good team all the way from California, one of three teams in that particular state. They currently were not in a position to go to the finals, but Erin explained that they would be out for blood during the game, needing points for a wild card spot.

Fighting was one of those things Catalina didn’t understand about the sport in general. She wasn’t particularly sure what constituted as a clean fight or a bad fight, or why some of them were broken up right away while others were allowed to slam each other around on the ice. It was also strange to her that there were people on teams specifically for fighting. She had first figured that out when Catalina had watched one of the many fights on TV; she recognized a clean cross punch when she saw the rotation of the hips following through with the hit.

“You know how good Patrick is, right?” Licking her lips clean of beer, Catalina leaned back in her chair and looked at Erin. She crunched another nacho as Catalina waited. “When I say ‘good’ I mean extremely talented, too.”

“I was aware he was an important player.”

“Yeah, but you have to understand the skill he plays with. Extremely impressive. He leads in goals right now.” Catalina made a sound that was somewhere between a simple hum and a sigh. She also had no idea what made someone a really good hockey player besides scoring a lot of goals. “Jonathan is good too,” Erin added, almost shyly. That got Catalina to smirk at her. “He has a lot of assists and goals himself. He’s a good captain as far as I can tell.”

“You’re just smitten, now aren’t you?”

“Well, no. But you have to admit he’s gorgeous.”

Catalina lifted a shoulder. “He’s attractive, just not my type.”

“Which is totally fine. Plus, he has a great butt.”

Catalina thought about it and laughed, turning to face Erin. The hockey players all got off of the ice then, going down the tunnels. Catalina paused her conversation, watching as the ice cleared out and people came on to clean it and to run the large zamboni on it. “I actually did notice he had an ass on him.”

“It’s better than mine.”

“Maybe you’ll get to touch it.”

“Cat!”

Catalina drank more of her beer and shrugged her shoulders. “Tranquilo,” she laughed. “I was just kidding. Kind of.”

Once the game started, Catalina focused her attention on the ice, trying to follow the puck. From where she sat, she could see the players well enough, but she found herself looking up at the massive screen to follow the puck. It amazed her how quick the game went, the consistent back and forth. Even from high up she could hear skates cutting into the ice and the cracking of the stick against the puck.

Erin offered a live stream of commentary, explaining the construction of different hockey lines to Catalina and their significance. Patrick was on the second line because he was a good scorer. Lines consisted of two wings, a centre, and two defensemen.

Catalina was beginning to make sense of it when Patrick tore across the ice, everyone in the stadium beginning to roar. Erin stood up on her feet, grabbing Catalina’s hand and pulling her up, explaining something about a ‘breakaway.’ Patrick passed the goal, which confused Catalina until the entire stadium was screaming and the canon went off, making her flinch.

“I didn’t see the goal?” Catalina looked at the screen. It showed Patrick grinning happily as he followed the curve of the rink, Jonathan meeting him and hugging him as the rest of the line joined. Even on screen his smile was like a sunflower with unfurling yellow petals. “I’m so confused.”

“It was a back handed goal.” Erin was clapping still, looking up at the screen. “It’s like his best move. You hit the puck with the backside of the hockey blade and it’s almost behind you. Patrick always hits it pretty high near the top shelf.”

Catalina stared. “Top shelf of what?”

“Oh cat,” Erin wrapped an arm around her as they sat. “You have so much to learn.”

And she did learn. At every chance she got, she asked a question. Erin was patient, explaining the things in the simplest terms, using her hands to talk. Catalina was reminded how good Erin was at explaining things. She taught children and she knew how to break down things for young minds. Catalina was by no means stupid, but understanding something new took time and Erin made it enjoyable.

Being in a classroom with her had to be interesting. Catalina made a mental note to go in and watch her teach one day for fun. Her thought process was interrupted by a phone call, which she stood and walked out of the box into the hall. It was one of the board members for the make a wish foundation, explaining that a family who was coming into Chicago for a child’s wish was going to have a major setback in time and that the event was going to have to be shifted. Catalina promised to take care of it.

Hanging up the phone, Catalina began making phone calls and reorganizing the media coverage of the make a wish event. She arranged for the coverage to be on Patrick Kane’s community service that he had organized in two weeks time instead of the make a wish, which would be rescheduled. She insisted that he would give a personal statement and that they would allow the media members previously involved with the make a wish task full coverage of his community service project.

It was a walk in the park. Catalina had a crises plan for everything, including back up things for coverage if something didn’t originally workout. There were few things that the media hated more than having something they wanted coverage on cancelled. So Catalina offered an alternative.

Walking back in, she discovered the first period came to an end. Catalina had at least come into the game with the knowledge that there were three periods. Sitting back down Catalina finished her beer. It was going to be a long night if she kept drinking them as quickly as she was.