Page 11 of Patrick
He stops a step ahead of me. “Something like that. You can wait here if you really want to, or in the lobby. But I have to warn you, this could take a while.”
“What’s a while?”
“Twenty minutes.”
I laugh. “The blink of an eye.” I want to tell him he’s worth the wait, and though I don’t say a word, I know my expression tells him, and maybe it’s a case of an expression is worth a thousand words because he stands there staring until his coach walks by wearing a frown.
“Let’s get to it, Jennings.” He keeps going, and the harsh words snap Trick into action.
“Yes sir, coach.”
He moves on, and I watch him duck into the locker room with his vaunted speed.
Ricci and Nina, who’d been hanging back, join me.
“Jeez,” Nina says. “You’d think they were in the army the way Coach barked at him.”
We walk towards the lobby. “Hockey at UNH is serious business. The team brings in money, and I’m sure the coach’s job is on the line every season to have a winning team.”
“True. I bet they get to the Frozen Four this year with Patrick scoring all those goals.”
“He’s a regular scoring machine, on and off the ice I hear,” Ricci says, elbowing me and asking for confirmation with her teasing grin.
“I keep telling you not to believe everything you hear. Gossip is gossip, Ricci, more fun than fact.”
She shrugs. “Maybe, but he looks like a player, with those broody eyes and those kissable lips. I’d love to try them out for a kiss or two.”
I heave a sigh. “You never know.” She’s teasing me, trying to get me to spill something naughty or something juicy. If she knew the truth, that there’s nothing juicy to spill, at least not since high school, she’d be terribly disappointed. But the thing about Ricci is that even when I tell her the truth, she refuses to believe me, protecting her illusions as if they’re daring dreams and fragile hopes.
“We didn’t plan to go grocery shopping without you,” Ricci says. “I suppose you told Patrick that fib so you could have him all to yourself for lunch.”
Nina laughs. “You make it sound like she’s going to eat him for lunch.”
Ricci rolls her eyes because she’s the queen of innuendo, and of course, it was her intention to make lunch sound like… something it’s not going to be.
“I’m sorry. It was pushy of me to exclude you. It’s just that I haven’t seen him in so long, and I really want to talk to him.” I heave a sigh, hoping they’ll have mercy on me.
Ricci pats my shoulder. “Of course you can have him all to yourself. The way he looked at you like you were dessert… as much as I’d like to watch, even I might get embarrassed. He obviously has a thing for you. I predict a hook-up with a hockey hunk in your near future.”
I laugh. I don’t know why because it’s not funny the way my belly buzzes, sending vibrations all over my body, making the world melt into a fuzzy warm Monet painting, blurry and beautiful.
