icebreaker | nolan patrick

6

Fiona
Center City, Philadelphia

The sunlight streaming into Nolan's windows woke me up. He was still sound asleep next to me, so I slipped my clothes back on and left his apartment. I did a feel a bit bad for leaving him, but I had a class in about thirty minutes. I caught the subway back to campus and went straight to my room.

Maddie wasn't there and I decided I should text Nolan before he wakes up and gets worried. I told him I had a class but I would text him when I'm done. I knew that if I had woken him up to tell him I was leaving he would have insisted on driving me and I could tell that he was exhausted from everything happening this weekend. He also had morning skate in a little while and I don't want him to be tired for his game tonight.

They've been on a losing streak lately, seven games. I can tell it's really getting to Nolan, and the rest of the guys, and I'm hoping that tonight changes that.

I got to my class right as Nolan texted me.

"I missed waking up next to you:( games at 7, will you be there?"

I replied and told him of course I would be there and then my professor started the class. I only had 2 classes on Tuesdays so by three in the afternoon I was finished. Nolan would be leaving for the rink in about an hour so there would be no sense in going to his place.

I decided to go to the Starbucks near campus and work on some homework. The walk was short, about ten minutes, and I took a seat on one of the fluffy chairs in the corner.

After about thirty minutes of writing my paper, which I have since changed the topic of, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked up to see a familiar face, my ex-boyfriend, Jay.

"Oh my god, hi!" I stood up and embraced him.

"Hey! How are you? It's been so long."

Jay and I dated in junior and senior years of high school. We broke up right before I left for Syracuse and he went to North Carolina, it was mutual. We both felt like we needed to restart when we entered college. I missed him a lot at first but as I met new people the memories faded and I'm just fond of the time we had, I don't miss it though.

"I'm great, how are you doing?" I asked, still a little surprised at his appearance.

"I'm doing well, I transferred to Temple in the fall," He said, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

"I did too, that's so funny."

We talked for a bit and caught up on the last year and a half of each other's lives. It was so weird to see where he has gone after not speaking to him since the end of senior year.

"Would you wanna go out sometime?" He asked, as I was packing up to go back to my dorm room to get ready for the game.

I cringed internally, trying to figure out how to tell him that I'm kinda-sorta dating an NHL player.

"I'm actually kinda seeing someone right now, sorry," I didn't have time to think of anything better to let him down softly, but I immediately felt bad when his face dropped.

"Oh, how did you guys meet?" He asked, very interested in who I was "dating". I guess he does have the right as he told me before I left that he wanted to marry me someday. Wow, that's a throwback.