“Come on,” Max whined. “Just come over to Letang’s house,” he pleaded. Max had been trying to get Sid to agree to come to the party for the last fifteen minutes, and Sid still refused to go. Max had known it was going to be a difficult sell, but he thought Sid would budge eventually, if only just to get Max to shut up. But, right now, it seemed like Sid had the upper hand.

“You still haven’t answered me,” Sid told him, crossing his arms over his chest. “Why do you want me to go so badly?”

“Because the guys need to see that your old self is still in there,” Max answered, telling him half the truth. His teammates did need to see that Sid could still go out and have some fun, especially when recently all they had seen was the workhorse Sid that was getting on everybody’s nerves. Max, however, intentionally left out the part of trying to hook Sid up with Jocelyn. “Come on, you have been so hard on all of us since we’ve been losing, and the guys are getting sick of it. Just come out tonight and show them that you don’t think about hockey every minute of every day.”

“What do you have planned?” Sid questioned, raising his eyebrow at his friend.

“What do you mean?” Max asked him.

“I know you, and you have that look that says you have a plan for tonight,” he explained. Max should have known that Sid would catch on rather quickly. They were good friends, after all, and Sid could see through Max the majority of the time.

“Fine,” Max sighed, knowing that Sid was going to find out eventually anyways. “There’re some girls coming tonight that I thought about hooking you up with.”

“No,” Sid stated immediately, leaving no room for argument.

“God, you sound just like Brooklyn,” Max told him, rolling his eyes. He couldn’t even count how many times Brooklyn had done the same thing to him, saying no even before giving the idea a chance.

“What?” Sid asked, confused.

“Nothing,” Max told him. “Anyways, back to the girls. Why are you saying no already? You haven’t even met them yet.”

“You know that I don’t date while the season’s going on,” Sid explained.

Max wanted to tell him how stupid that was, but he decided to refrain, thinking it would be better not to piss of the guy when he was trying to convince him to do something that Max wanted him to do. “What about a one-night stand?” Max asked, knowing that Sid was definitely against it, but at the same time, he thought it couldn’t hurt to ask.

“No,” Sid said immediately.

“Just come tonight,” Max said, knowing it wouldn’t even help to try to argue that point with him. He knew Sid, and there was no way the man would ever have a one-night stand, especially in the middle of the season.

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” Sid asked, giving Max a sideways glance.

“Nope,” Max said, grinning, thinking that he was beginning to wear Sid down. This was exactly what he was hoping for, though he had been hoping that it would happen a little bit quicker.

“Fine, I’ll be there tonight,” Sid agreed, and Max had to stop himself from cheering right then and there. Half of the battle was over since he had convinced Sid to go to the party. Now all he had to do was convince him to go out with Jocelyn.

***

Jocelyn and Brooklyn were in their apartment getting ready for tonight. Jocelyn looked in her closet, her eyes skimming over all of her clothes. “So, what do you wear to a hockey player’s party?” she asked Brooklyn. Even though her sister was dating one of the guys on the team, Jocelyn had never really hung out with any of them, let alone gone to any of their parties.

“What you wear to a normal party,” Brooklyn replied walking into Jocelyn’s bedroom wearing a red cami on top of a white tank top and a pair of jeans. “Why don’t you wear this with a pair of jeans?” she asked pulling a green halter top out of her closet.

“Really?” Jocelyn asked, giving her a sideways glance.

“Yes,” Brooklyn told her. “You’ll look great. Now, change!”

“Fine,” Jocelyn said as Brooklyn walked out of her room and into the bathroom to fix her hair. She decided to go with light waves, and she plugged in the curling iron while she walked out into the living room.

The doorbell rang, and Brooklyn answered it to see Max standing on the other side. “Hey,” she said giving him a kiss. “Come on in. I’ve still got to fix my hair, and I think Jocelyn’s still getting dressed.”

“No, I’m not,” Jocelyn said walking out to the living room.

“You look good,” he told her with a grin on his face, seeing her in the halter top and jeans that fit her body just right. It wasn’t too revealing, which was a good thing if they wanted to fix her up with Sid. If she had been dressing skimpy, Sid would have immediately pinned her as a whore and would have dismissed her in no time.

“Thanks, Max,” Jocelyn said with a smile.

“You tell her she looks good, but I get nothing!” Brooklyn exclaimed sarcastically as she walked back to the bathroom to fix her hair.

“You know you always look amazing,” Max called after her.

“Thanks, Max,” Brooklyn yelled back, though it was obvious she didn’t care for the delayed complement. “I love you, too,” she added flatly.

“So, Jocelyn, a change of plan for tonight,” Max told her, ignoring the fact that Brooklyn was annoyed with him.

“What? I’m not going to the party?” she asked.

“No, you’re still going. It’s just that the date with Sid is nixed,” he told her.

“Okay,” Jocelyn said shrugging. “That’s fine.” She wasn’t really worried about dating Sid or not. She had just offered to help out her sister’s boyfriend.

“He’s completely against dating anyone during the season,” Max said rolling his eyes. He still thought that was the stupidest excuse he had ever heard for not dating, but for some reason, it made since in Sid’s mind. “But, I’m hoping that maybe you could build a friendship, and maybe that’ll help out with the situation.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Jocelyn said. “A friendship sounds good to me,” she added with a smile.

“What?” Brooklyn asked, coming out of the bathroom with her hair curled. “No date for Sid and Jocelyn?” she asked, having overheard part of their conversation.

“Nope,” Max told her, shaking his head. “Sid’s against it, so I just told Jocelyn to try to befriend him instead.”

“Maybe it’s better for everyone,” Brooklyn said. She saw the look that Jocelyn and Max were both giving her, and she added, “Or not.” She wanted to ask Jocelyn why she was giving her that look, wondering if she had been looking forward to a date with Sid, but she let it go instead, deciding it best not to bring it up right now.

“You two ready?” Max asked the two girls.

“Yep,” Brooklyn said with a smile. “Come on, Jocelyn,” she said grabbing her sister’s hand and pulling her up from the couch as they walked towards the door and outside.

Twenty minutes later they were walking up the stairs to Kris’s house. “Hey,” Kris said opening the door. “Who’s this?” he asked as Jocelyn walked in behind Max and Brooklyn. Max hadn’t told the team that he had found someone to try to fix Sid up with, so none of them knew the true reason Jocelyn was there. But, they were used to having random people show up to their party, so it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

“Oh, this is my sister, Jocelyn,” Brooklyn introduced with a smile. “Jocelyn, this is Kris.”

“Hi,” Jocelyn said, smiling, holding out her hand to shake his.

“Hey,” Kris said flirtatiously as he took her hand in his.

“Back off,” Max told him, giving him a look that said he was being serious. “She’s here for Sid.”

“Maybe I need to act like a jackass when we lose,” Kris muttered as Jocelyn walked past him, following Max inside.

“Ha ha,” Brooklyn said sarcastically. “Kris, stay away from my sister. Besides, I’m sure you have girls crawling all over you.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I'll have plenty by the end of the night,” he said jokingly as he walked off into the crowd.

“There he is,” Max said pointing Sid out sitting on the couch. He turned towards Jocelyn, making sure she had seen where he was pointing to. “Go make friends.”

“I will,” Jocelyn said with a smile. As she walked over to him, she saw two girls flanked on either side of him. As she got closer, she saw the two girls stand up, both with annoyed expressions on their face. Apparently, they weren’t pleased with what Sid had just said to them. This’ll be interesting, Jocelyn thought to herself as she sat down next to him.