The Hockey Life - A Patrick Kane Fanfic

Part Thirty - Be Mine

CHAPTER THIRTY: BE MINE

I had never been so relieved so far in my relationship with Patrick until we had finally met each other’s parents. It was so stressful and nerve wracking for both of us, and I was glad that it was over. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t get to be relieved for very long, though. Valentine’s Day was quickly approaching, and I had no ideas and no time. I had a really bad habit of procrastinating anyways, so it didn’t help that I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do.

“Tess, help! Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. I need to figure out what I’m getting Patrick,” I pleaded, desperately searching the Internet for ideas.

“Well, the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, right? Make him dinner or something,” she suggested.

“Okay, that’s great, but I can’t just make him dinner. He needs a real gift that won’t get devoured in ten minutes.”

“So chocolate’s out, too?”

“I guess. I don’t know. I just don’t want to get him the typical box of chocolates. I want to get him something nice and different, if that’s possible. And it has to be something decent, because god knows what he’ll get me. I’d hate for him to buy me something pricey when all he gets from me is something cheap that won’t even last. I don’t want to be embarrassed,” I rambled.

“Lean, I’m pretty sure he understands that you’re a college student and you don’t have a lot of money. He’s not going to care what you get him. If you make him a dinner, he probably won’t even expect a gift, but if you want to give him something, then I guess you could do something creative with food,” Tess suggested. I went on Pinterest and easily found cute Valentine’s Day ideas. I couldn’t choose just one, so I decided to combine them all.

“I’m going to make him a gift basket type of thing, I think. With a bunch of sweets in it, and maybe a couple other things too,” I decided.

“That’s a good idea, Lean! See, it’ll be fine. Stop stressing so much. He’ll love it.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Well, I need to go get some stuff. Do you want to come with?” I wondered.

“Heck yes I do!” she answered, purposefully making her voice sound like Napoleon Dynamite.

We headed out and I made a mental list of things I needed. First we went to the grocery store and I got everything I needed to make a couple different kinds of cookies. I picked up some candy too, which mostly consisted of Twizzlers, since I knew they were Patrick’s favorite candy.

Next we went to the huge Sports Authority downtown. I was going to put a couple hockey items in the basket along with the food, which would include stick tape and some pucks that I would decorate to look like the candy hearts that had sayings on them. Although we managed to make the grocery store trip pretty fast, we always stalled at sports stores. We always ended up looking at athletic clothes or sticks or gear for Chicago teams. This trip was just the same as any other, in that sense. However, Tess and I were interrupted while we were grabbing pucks. When we got to them, we realized that Dylan was in the same aisle.

“Hey Lena,” he said.

“Oh. Hey Dylan. I haven’t seen you in a while,” I said.

“I’m going to go look at clothes,” Tess said, leaving the two of us alone.

“So, how have you been?” Dylan asked.

“Pretty good, how have you been?”

“I’ve been alright. Are you planning on getting in some extra practice with those?” he guessed, pointing to the pucks I was holding.