Chapter 431: Tangers XLI—Suddenly Free
Well I never! First of all, I was really, really tired from last night, my only consolation from that being the fact that Danny and I were promised new Rolex’s to be delivered to our hotel rooms. I couldn’t wait for that! I could only hope they would get to our room sometime today, just to avoid any misunderstandings or mix ups. But before all the fun stuff, came the responsibilities, enough to make me scream. I mean what decent human being forces two young men to go to torturous practice, and a whole game right after they had a rough night? Argh!
But I tried to be as cheerful as I could about it. Even Danny had a sort of sickly, goofy, disbelieving smile as we trudged off the bus and into the practice facility. There’s a saying about making a bed and sleeping in it, oh how I wished to make a real bed and just sleep in it! My face hurt and my knees hurt and oh this couldn’t be happening!
And then when we got into the locker room, Danny and I went straight to the showers. Sure we’d already taken quick showers back at the hotel but I needed another one, I was just falling asleep on my feet, and Danny probably felt the same. The funny part there, Danny actually fell asleep under the hot water and I laughed when he collapsed onto the floor and startled awake, panicky and blinking. “Loser!” I said, “I’m not tired!”
“Yeah I bet,” Danny groaned.
Hee hee I really didn’t expect anyone to see through that lie.
“Hey bathing beauties, hurry up and get outta here, we’re waiting to start practice!” Keaner barked.
Now I groaned. Couldn’t they at least give us a few more minutes? I mean Dan and I saved a girl, we did yet another good deed last night, couldn’t they at least respect that? I guess not, uncouth animals, hmph!
I held my head high as I came into the locker room and I didn’t look at anyone, or give them the full force of my grumpiness as I began to dress in my gear. I heard Danny come out and some of the guys were talking to each other, someone talking to Danny but then I realized there were a lot of snickers and giggles. Either I had been left out of a joke, or someone was the joke. I frowned and sat down on my bench, “What’s so funny?”
“Aw hell!” Danny said and he groaned but then laughed. “Hell!”
Hm? I
looked at the corkboard Dan stood in front of and I went to it. The article
about us stopping the purse snatcher was again tacked up there, as inspiration
to the other guys about our moral fiber. But next to it, was a pencil drawing,
and a pretty good one I might add, I wondered who penned it, of an Asian girl
and me and Danny carrying her to safety from a little mouse on the street. Then
right next to that, a copy of Keaner’s Polaroid of me and Danny taped together
under the bed sheets from that hotel in
“Hey!” I exclaimed. But really, I had to laugh.
“Awww,” Scott Parker grinned, “You guys look so cute and cuddly wuddly all snuggly together, heh. Are you guys recharging your super powers?”
“Hey at least we got super powers, Scottie,” Dan Hinote pointed out.
Parker grinned, “Sure, but who needs super powers when you got,” and he bared his tattooed arm and flexed a muscle, “dat?”
“Eh, let’s just get onto the ice,” I muttered showing everyone that even after last night I could still be the first one out to practice.
Oh and let me tell you, practice about killed me and Danny! It amazed me to watch everyone else skating laps and doing drills and shooting pucks and laughing and teasing us. How could they be so perky? I wanted to slap every last one of them! Patty looked pretty good in net, so that made me feel somewhat better, maybe we’d win tonight.
Ah but so nice to come back to the hotel, with soft bed and sleep on our minds to find a note on the nightstand telling us that a package had arrived for the both of us and to call the concierge to have it delivered. “Do ya think, Tangs?” Dan said his smile ear to ear and I could only smile back. I let Danny grab the phone and dial the concierge and I flopped onto my bed. When Danny hung up the phone he rubbed his hands together and laughed, “The fruits of our good deed begins! Hey, Tangs wanna go back to that restaurant later for dinner, maybe? Get ourselves some free gourmet Chinese food?”
“So soon?” I huffed. “Danny show some self control, we don’t want to look like bottom feeders right?”
Danny rolled his eyes, “It’s free food, screw decorum. Hey do you think if we brought guests we’d get free food for them too?”
I sat up and shrugged, “I don’t think so,” I replied. “It might be too rude eh like we’re taking advantage of their good will.”
“Right,” Dan nodded, “Right I can see that. I bet if I brought Cecile in though, they’d make an exception for her.”
I couldn’t help it. “Well at least you’re thinking about her.”
Dan’s eyes widened, “Hey that’s not fair Tangs, we’re supposed to get along. Don’t make me come over and teach you a lesson.”
“As far as I remember,” I said, “I taught you a lesson last time.”
Before Danny could reply, someone knocked at the door, “Concierge!”
“Alright the watches!” Dan crowed and he leaped over his bed and jogged to the door, swinging it open. “Awesome!”
I closed my eyes and listened to Dan sign for the watches, tip the guy, chat about the weather briefly with him, tell him what a great hotel he ran, and then he closed the door. “Is it the watches?” I asked.
“Woah,” Dan breathed and that opened my eyes. I couldn’t stop smiling as I sat up. Dan had opened the small box and pulled out two watch cases, he tossed one to me which I caught and gazed at briefly. It looked so new, so clean, so smooth, and so expensive! Dan opened his first, “Sweet!” He held the watch up and then slipped it on his wrist, holding his hand out and admiring. “This is great.”
Excited beyond belief now, I opened my box and just gazed at the shiny slick surface of the watch face, I couldn’t even bring myself to pluck it out of the box. I just wanted to be in awe of it in its case forever. “And they said that this is the first of many favors,” I said, “Do you think they meant that?”
“Sure,” Danny replied, “Why not. Hey Tangs,” he jumped off the bed, “I’m gonna go show this off to the guys, wanna come along?”
Well Joe did have us under orders to be tied at the hip but I figured he wouldn’t notice what we did all the time. He could forgive a little lapse of duty. “No,” I said, “You go on Danny, I’ll join you in a bit, I just need a little nap before the game okay?”
“If Joe asks,” Dan nodded, “I’ll tell him you forgot your cell phone and came back to get it, and then I’ll phone ya a message ok?”
I grinned, “Good thinking Danny.”
And Dan smiled, and things felt so warm and genuine at that moment.
“Catch ya later,” Dan chirped and he hopped out the door, closing it loudly as he left whistling down the hallway.
At that point I just closed my eyes, and thought of that nice shiny new watch next to me, and of the good deeds we’ve done and everything else. Soon, I feel asleep but had no dreams, just black relaxation and then, tap tap tap and then bang. My eyes opened and I wrinkled my nose in irritation, didn’t Danny have a keycard that he didn’t need to be knocking? I wanted to get a good nap!
I sat up and crossed my arms, and then I laid back down and closed my eyes, maybe they’d go away, or maybe Danny would remember that he had the keycard in his wallet. A few more knocks, “Oof did you lose your keycard?” I yelled.
No answer.
I frowned. Danny would have said something in reply. Maybe it was someone about the watches? Groaning and moaning and completely determined to give that person on the other side of the door a piece of my irritation, I rolled out of the bed. “This better be good!” I exclaimed as I went to the door. “Because if you’re some sort of salesperson or you want to clean the room or…” My voice died as I opened the door and there, in the hallway, big beautiful eyes blinking, lips pursed as if eternally expecting a kiss, was my dear, beloved Penelope Cruz. I think I squeaked.
“Buenos Dias, Alex,” she said in that almost childish, light voice of hers.
I squeaked again.
“Aren’t you happy to see me?” She asked, blinked, smiled.
I clenched my fists. “OO!” I cried. “Haven’t you got better things to do than stalk me all the time eh?”
Penelope laughed and crossed her arms. “Is this my welcome?”
“Yes!” I cried in exasperation, “I mean really! Have you no shame woman?”
“Aw pfft!” Penelope rolled her eyes and brushed by me, trailing sweet perfume. She had a pink handbag clutch in her hands and she casually tossed it onto one of the beds, and I knew she meant to stick around. Oh my broken heart! “Shame is a waste of time Alex, and historically a waste of our time, yes?”
“Yes,” and I crossed my arms and rolled my eyes; I did not want her thinking she could just have whatever she wanted out of me whenever she wanted! “And like I said, are you stalking me or something?”
Penelope smiled with perfect, tiny teeth. “Yes I am, I suppose, if that’s what you want to say.” She laughed. “Actually I came because I heard about what you did last night, and I say to myself, why would I just let you go so easy? It would be stupid.”
“Last night?” I exclaimed and my hand went over my watch. “How did you hear about that? I mean that’s secret business, the newspapers wouldn’t have it!”
“Of
course,” Penelope said and her eyes widened, so round and bright and pretty.
She had a bit of ebony wavy hair over her eyes and it looked so untidy and cute
on her. I just wanted to grab her and twirl her around in my arms. “Mei-Linn told me about it, she told me everything, even the
most interesting part with your friend, ‘the stupid one’.”
“Mei-Linn! How do you know her?”
Penelope shrugged. “We go to the same temple.”
“Oh you’re such a hero!” Penelope said and she leaped into my arms before I could react, I mean I held onto her but I almost fell backwards with my surprise. Hehe she felt so little and warm and fragile though, and her perfume and her soft hair and skin, I tell you if I would have let go of her right there I would have floated through the ceiling. “You’re such a sweet heart, a gentleman, a true gentleman and I read about what you did the other day, rescuing the woman who’s purse was taken, ah dios mio I love you!” And she kissed me. Maybe we did float at that point! My toes went numb, and then I couldn’t feel my knees, and then I couldn’t breathe, and I’m sure my heart stopped as well, and then I couldn’t see because everything was so bright and shining and I convinced myself that there could be no greater happiness than this. And she said she loved me! But as easily as I fell under her spell, sadly, I fell out of it because I remembered one thing. I opened my eyes and gently pushed her back.
“Now what’s wrong?” Penelope asked softly, running her finger over my cheek and sending my skin to tickles and tingles.
“You’re taken! You’re with Tom!” I reminded her, and I had to contemplate the hilarity of the situation. I mean would I ever have thought before that Tom Cruise would ever be a rival of mine for the affections of a beautiful international celebrity?
With her trademark youthful annoyance, Penelope looked to the heavens and sighed. “Oh forget about Tom, yes?”
“I can’t!”
“No, no, no you can.” She snapped. “Because I dumped him this morning,” and her black eyes sparked and she snapped her fingers, “pssht, like that you see? He’s gone, I do not love him and he is gone.”
My world came to new meaning, and if my life were a Broadway musical I would have busted into a song about violets and joy! “Well why didn’t you say so!” I cried and I pounced the poor woman, dipped her in a passionate kiss and felt her fingers on my back and she giggled and then life was good and then….
The door opened and I dropped her, she said something in Spanish, probably a curse word and I don’t blame her for that, me being a clumsy idiot. Danny walked into the room, “Hey Tangs where ya been I’ve been waiting… Oh hello…ooooh hello.”
I blushed and couldn’t think of what to say, especially to that stupid grin of Danny’s and then Dan panicked. “Woah that doesn’t mean Tom is here does it?” He looked nervously over his shoulder and flinched. Oh great Danny embarrass me why don’t ya!
“I’ll catch you later,” Penelope said smoothly, brushing her hands over her clothes, “Perhaps I have tickets to the game eh?” And she waved her fingers at Danny before sauntering out of the hotel room. “You two would want some privacy hm?” She winked and closed the door behind her.
Of course Mei-Linn would have told her that.
Danny grimaced and I looked at him. “Danny you dork!”
“Uh, sorry Tangs.”