We Can See STARS

Chapter 4: Winter Classic, D's view

"Whoops! Sorry, Ana!" I said in my best and most sarcastic voice as I pushed Ana toward the middle of the ice. She teetered and tottered and slipped but sure enough, eventually fell right into Benn.

"Nice shot!"  Jamie still skated on with me, keeping me steady even as I slipped around and tentatively lifted my feet to take my next stride.

"I imagine Ana will have some words for me later but maybe having some time with Benn would soften the blow."

"I hope so, for your sake," he quipped, "Let's get going, I've got something planned for us."

"Ooooh really?  Here?"

"Yeah, it's gonna get cold though." He turned to me with a slight twinkle in his eye which I returned with a small, confused smile. After stepping out of the rink, we changed out of our skates and walked toward the stadium exit. He grabbed his bag and my hand as I followed behind, giddy to get some time alone with him for the first time in a while. We walked through stairs, hallways, and more stairs. Back in the stadium, we went up a steep set of stairs until we got to the topmost row.

"Wow...you c-c-c-c-c-can s-s-see e-everything from here!" Slowly, I sat in a chair, attempting to catch my breath from the cold and the intense workout I just endured. Without explanation, Jamie pulled out blankets and hand warmers from the bag. "Oh thank goodness!"

"This one is for you-" He spread out a blanket on my lap and pulled out another for over our shoulders.

"You thought of everything, J!"

"Tried to," he responded with a side head nod while pouring some hot chocolate from a thermos into a cup and handing it to me.

"Mmmm, this is so good!" I slowly savored the gorgeously creamy, warm cocoa and leaned against him with my eyes closed.

"Heh, I can see Benn and Ana."

"Really? Where?" I leaned forward, trying to sort through the crowd to find Ana and Benn.

"There," I leaned closer to Jamie's arm, looking down his pointed finger.

"I see them!" Ana had just fallen again and Benn helped her back up. We watched in silence with only the wind whipping up around us as we hid from the cold, cuddled up with the blanket over our shoulders.

"So, are you excited about tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I guess." he noted with a shrug, "it feels like it will be like any other game. We're doing this, uh, western theme clothing thing tomorrow though. They got us these sweet ass belt buckles and we all got hats."

"Oooh! That's gonna look so good, J!"

"So-," he started, with some hesitation, "I was hoping for some time alone with you. I wanted to talk to you about something."

"Oh yeah?  About what?"  I asked, still looking down at the activities going on below.

"Well," he took a second to clear his throat. "Ummm...about us, I guess."  I was caught a bit off guard and took a second to think of a response.  Before I could, he started again.  "Any time we're together, it seems like we have a good time, right? Like, even being able to talk to you on the phone is awesome.  So I wanted to see what you thought...about being...exclusive?"

"Like official?  Like a couple?" That was kind of a stupid question.  Of course that's what he meant.

"Yeah." 

I never considered that it should be a discussion but I was happy that he was bringing it up.  I always assumed it was an unspoken thing but maybe...