We Can See STARS

Chapter 5: February 2020

"Hey kid! How are you?" Jamie's face filled my phone screen. The ache for him returned the minute I saw his face. It had a way of doing that. 

"I miss you J! How are you doing?"

"Things are fine here. I'm happy to see your face." And he has a way of making me blush. 

"I'm happy to see you too baby. I can't wait to kiss that adorable face of yours though. Just thinking about it gets me excited."

"What kind of excited?" I could see the mischief in his eyes. 

"Oh Jamie," I smiled back. "So how is your east coast trip so far? Looks like you guys are in a bit of a lull."

"Yeah, it's been pretty rough. These back to backs are murder but hopefully, things will improve by the time we hit New York."

"I'm sure it will," I tried to keep the mischief off of my face. Recently, I bought tickets to meet up with the team in New York when they do their Rangers and Islanders back to back. Whenever Jamie and I spoke over FaceTime, he looked down and just exhausted.  Even during the games I could see it. Winter was hard enough, but losing 4 games in a row made it worse. 

"Could you visit me when we get back to Dallas? I'll even take you on a weekend trip to Austin if you want."

"That sounds awesome babe! Let me look at my schedule and we can plan something. How has your knee been?"

"I've been making sure it's iced and the trainers have been working with me on it."

"That's good. Maybe seeing your nurse would help," my voice dropped down to suggest something more.

He smiled in return and winked. "You're the best, baby. I gotta get going. We're going over video today."

"Okay, I can't wait to see you again, honey."

"Same here. I'll see you later, kid."  Living hours away from each other was often hard enough, but it was somehow more difficult when he was on the road. I took a deep breath after the screen went dark and continued packing for my flight the next morning.

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By 5am, I was sitting near my gate at PHX enjoying the few moments of calm after the chaos of security and before the chaos of boarding the plane.  I closed my eyes and slowly sipped my tea.  Although a bit grumpy, Ana dropped me off at the airport in her pjs, any old shoes she found to throw on and had her hair thrown up in a beanie.  As a thank you for getting up so early, we went to Dunkin Donuts and picked up some of that life giving caffeine.  I knew no matter what though, that there was nothing I could do to thank her for her support over the past couple of months.  She let me cry and vent when Jamie was gone, she endured the days when I was feeling inadequate and down about myself and, of course, was not terribly angry at me for ditching her at the Winter Classic in Dallas.  Introducing her to one of Jamie's teammates helped a bit, I think.  She didn't say much about it but her mood had been considerably up since then.

---

"We have landed at JFK airport in New York City where the local time is 1:00pm. The weather is a balmy 32 degrees and sunny." Oh thank goodness, we finally made it. Thanks to the direct flight I was able to get a few hours of sleep. After leaving the airport I got an Uber and went straight to MSG to meet up with Jamie. On the ride to the Garden, my excitement built more and more in anticipation of seeing him again.  We hadn't seen each other since January and even then, it was such a short trip.  Seeing him on the screen was fine but being able to hold him was so much better.  I started day dreaming of how surprised he would be and how nice it would be to hold on to him again.  Before I knew it, we were in front of Madison Square Garden.  Thanks to a quick text to Benn, I was able to get the number of their PR guy who would let me in.  We met at the front and I followed him through the halls of MSG to the visiting team locker room.