A/N: All fiction, no shred of truth and in fact I will sue YOU if you say otherwise. Rawr!

Chapter 347: Tangers XXXI—The Girl Up There

You know how in the medieval times when the Knights went to battle or to those jousting tournaments or something like that, they always had a handkerchief or some such memento from the lady of their dreams? As I watched Blakie sitting happily on the locker room bench with his Brandi Ball on his lap, and I listened to Danny talking to me about some silly poem he had begun to write for Cecile, and Peter, yes even Peter, talked about wanting to get something nice and sparkling for Josefina, I thought, well, those medieval days hadn’t really ended.

I mean even on the road, Footer said that Patty was always on the phone with Michele. Yup, the mechanics of love hadn’t changed in hundreds of year, and as we skated onto the ice for the pre-skate, I could see those girls in the stands, pointing and smiling, girls who dreamed of dating one of us guys, and I saw Michele wave to Patty as she sat by the glass, and I realized how badly I wanted a girl up there in the stands. I peered up to the luxury suites and I knew Debbie would be up there, and Brandi and Cecile and all the girls the guys loved. I tell you, I had to sigh, just a little bit.

Still, Patty did distract me a little bit. For some reason, he was in a really, really good mood today. He came into the locker room whistling, his hands in his pockets, those silly Smittens dangling around his neck. “Bon jour shit heads.”

“Yeah fuck you too,” Adam Foote said with a laugh.

Those two had developed that habit over the past week, and I admit I still hadn’t gotten used to that greeting. I mean honestly!

Patrick laughed and he pulled a quarter from his pocket, flipped it over his fingers and caught it with his other hand, all the while whistling happily.

“So what are you so happy about, aye?” Joe asked with a grin on his face.

“Life is wonderful my friend, do I need another reason?” Patrick replied and he winked.

“Methinks the missus put out,” Drury said in a slightly peevish voice. “Or am I wrong?”

“Oh you have no idea,” Patrick replied easily, and he winked. “Or do you?”

Drury rolled his eyes and really, so did I. Why the guys always had to brag about the women they loved like that was beyond me. I guess as long as everyone was happy and the ladies didn’t hear about it, no one was hurt.

“What are you mooning about, Tiger?”

I gulped and looked at Joe. “What?”

Joe grimaced. “You’re mooning, Sport and gazing through the glass, you have a pretty girl out there?”

I sighed. “Unfortunately no, Joe.”

Joe looked away momentarily and then looked at me; his eyes seemed soft, not as gruff as he spoke. “Well you can’t do anything about that right now, Sport, so just forget about it and let’s focus on tonight’s game okay? You can go girl hunting later tonight with the guys.” He smiled briefly and then patted me on the arm.

I blew out a breath of air and then circled into the line of guys who were shooting pucks at Patty. The pale blue of his eyes shone out to me, and I could swear little glittery sparks dotted them. I recognized that look of his, especially when Drury rifled a shot past him into the net and he reacted by slamming his stick on the ice and cursing. That little gesture by Patty made me confident that tonight would go far into helping us further our standings in the division.

“Nice shot, Dru,” I said to Chris and he smiled at me.

“Thanks.”

I was taken a little by surprise at first because, really, seeing Drury smile on the ice, or off it for that matter didn’t happen that often. At least not around me. “So you gonna add on your goal totals tonight?”

“Bad luck to discuss it,” he replied, his smile disappearing. He then looked at Patty’s direction and his smile reappeared. And something different lit up his smile this time, sort of a relaxed, loopy, lazy look that I knew was a love-struck smile. And I know Drury wouldn’t be smiling at Patty like that!

“Who you smiling at?” I asked grinning and looking in Patty’s direction. The only lady I recognized was Michele who had her chin on her hand while she listened to Jana who was talking to her with big gestures. “Is Rory sitting over there?”

“Sure,” Dru replied casually, “Why not.”

He skated away from me and I squinted into the stands, looking for his girlfriend. “Where is she?” I muttered to myself.

“Tiger what I tell you about mooning around?” I heard Joe bellow.

“Oof!” I gasped and without thinking I cranked a shot and blasted it at Patty, missed the net completely, hit the glass and cracked it to the delight of the audience.

Jana jumped up to her feet and gave me a thumbs up.

“Oh brother!” I moaned.

“If I didn’t care so much about our standings in the division,” David Aebischer said with a lazy grin, reclining back into his locker as I sat next to him, watching Patty talk to the reporters who wanted to talk about his latest shut out, “I’d find a way to steal those damn ‘Smittens’ of his and burn them.”

My eyes widened and I looked at Aebi who ran his fingers through his gelled brown hair, making it stand on end so that he looked like one of those crazy kids who had scabby knees and flipped on skateboards. “Aebi!” I exclaimed. “That’s not nice! Why would you want to do that?”

“Oh come on,” Aebischer replied sitting forward and stretching his arms forward. “You can’t tell me that when you were just starting you didn’t want to trip up someone like Milan or Chris every now and then, just to get a few more minutes on the ice?”

“I most certainly did not!” I huffed and in that moment realized that David had spoke in French. “Those guys had things for me to learn and I was happy to learn them! I knew my time would come when I deserved it.”

Aebischer rolled his eyes. “Oh please, darling, you can’t tell me that you’re as pure as that, no one is. You’re such a liar.”

“I am not!” I exclaimed. “That’s really what I thought.”

“Well you’re not a goalie at any rate,” David said with a slight grimace and he examined his nails. “It’s a bit easier for you to at least be required to put in ice time. As for me, I have to sit on that bench for as long as Patrick decrees. My fate is in his hands darling, not even Joe has as much say in your life as Patrick does with mine.”

I thought about that. Patrick did decide his own schedule, I knew that. He did that at the beginning of each month, he circled the games he wanted on the paper, handed it to the coach and that was that. I never really disputed that, or thought much about it, much less how Aebi would feel about it. “Oh, I see.” I replied. “I guess that would be kinda tough.”

Aebischer nodded.

“But at least you can get free lessons from the best that ever was!” I said brightly. “At least that’s something, no other back up in the league can say that right?”

Aebi half smiled. “Sure, there is always that, but even then that can only go so far. Say, Smittens isn’t a lesson I need to learn, don’t you agree? I cannot see them being too helpful to me in the future.”

I laughed. I couldn’t argue with that one.

At that point Chris Drury came out of the shower with his towel tugged around his waist. A few reporters followed after him, naturally they would because Dru had scored the first and the game winning goal of the night, and Chris held up his hand to ward them off. They begged for at least a soundbite and Chris rolled his eyes at them and disappeared with his clothes in another room.

“Come on,” Aebi purred. “You can’t honestly tell me you never wanted to hamstring him at anytime during your rookie year?”

I laughed. “Well… now that you mention it….”

“Hey Cassanova!”

I recognized Keaner’s voice and Aebischer and I looked at him as he strutted into the locker room, freshly showered, dressed and with droplets of water still clinging to his balding scalp. “Hey Keaner. Who you calling Cassanova?”

Keaner’s grin spread wide across his face and he pointed at me. “You, Tigerrrr, you! How do you do it you doughy cheeked little bastard?” I looked at Aebi who shrugged and grinned in that way he did when he had nothing else to say. I then looked back at Keaner. “How did I do what? I just had an assist today, it’s not like I’m Joey or anything.”

“It’s on the game tape, some of the guys are watching it in the back, Eric didn’t tell you?”

“I guess not cause I don’t know nothing you know?” Keaner could be really infuriating sometimes.

Keaner yawned. “Kiddo, your Spanish Goody Bird was here at the game today. Come on and tell me you didn’t know that?”

I shook my head. “Keaner what?”

Keaner rolled his eyes. “Penelope Cruz, you dork, she was here today at the game without a certain boyfriend on her arm.”

My heart stopped and then started again with an electrical zip. What kind of mean joke were the guys playing on me? I stood up. “Penelope was not here, Keaner I’m not that gullible!”

Keaner’s Chesire Cat smile stayed on his face and Drury peeked out of the room he had disappeared into. “Dude, she was here Tangs, you lucky bastard.”

I looked at Drury. “Well I don’t know why she would be here, and it wasn’t for me.”

The guys laughed and I crossed my arms, feeling more miserable than I had ever before in my life.

When I came home my mood was especially bad. I even turned down going out to eat with the guys because I didn’t want them teasing me anymore. Sure, I saw the tape, yup Penelope was there at the game, but it looked like she was with a couple of other celebrity friends of hers, and yes Tom Cruise wasn’t there, but that’s not to see he wasn’t in town. I didn’t want to think about it, seeing as she was the love of my life. I didn’t want the guys joking and laughing about how I had not taken advantage of her and how come I was such a gentleman.

My stomach growled angrily and I made myself a sandwich and ate it mournfully in my kitchen, looking out the window and seeing the bright lights of the city. People were down there in the street, laughing, dating, having late night fun and perhaps Penelope was down there having fun too. Oh how my heart hurt.

Halfway through my sandwich, my phone rang and I answered it.

“Alex, my love,” a familiar voice breathed.

“Penelope!” I cried out, falling from my seat and landing on my butt.