The Diary of an Unintentional Puck Slut

Sept. 4, 2013

Dear Diary,

Last Friday something interesting and unexpected (but not unwanted) occurred. Due to some construction at Consol, the ice girls now have to walk through the Penguins locker room to get from our locker room to the showers. They say it’s temporary, but I don’t think the players mind. I know I don’t mind. So, I was leaving the shower clad only in a towel with another towel wrapped around my hair, and I had to walk through a room full of hockey players. They were all sitting down listening to coach Dan and I tried to keep my head down (and my towel on) but just as I was walking passed Dan he reached out and stopped me.

“Saxon, right?” He asked looking at his notebook and then back at me. “Emmeline Saxon?”

I was shocked and surprised and confused, but I nodded yes. “Yup, Emme.”

“It says in your folder that you were Olympic trained?” I blushed as he asked this question.

“Well, not that I went to the Olympics, but my skating coach was an Olympic skater a while ago.” I glanced over at Sid (still the only person I knew at this point) and he was nodding his head as if he now understood why I skated much better than the other ice girls.

“That’s very interesting.” He paused before adding the next part. “Would you like to teach these guys how to figure skate?” He gestured at the team, who in return looked surprised.
I was also a bit surprised and stood with my mouth open for a few seconds before I responded.

“Why?” I asked with a laugh. “Aren’t they already good enough?” I could feel my cheeks turning red with embarrassment as they all looked at me. Still wearing just a towel. Some of them were also just wearing a towel, or in various stages of taking off equipment, exposing their bare, sculpted chests. I tried not to stare, but, you know.

“It would help their skating, improve fluidity, balance, gracefulness,” Dan explained, “and I think it could be fun. Right?” He looked at the team, who seemed to nod in agreement with him.

“Ummm,” I looked around the room one more time, realizing some of them were pretty hot. “Yeah, why not.” I added with a smile.

“Tuesday, at 10 AM?” Dan asked.

“Tuesday, that’s great.” I replied and then left to get dressed.

Later, as Caeleigh and I were leaving the building, Sid caught up with us. I was surprised because he hadn’t talked to me in a few days.

“Hey, sorry about that,” He said.

“For what?” For being too pretty, or smiling like a dork? He doesn’t need to apologize for that.

“Dan making you stand in front of the whole team in a towel. That must have been awkward for you.” He smiled apologetically (super cute) and added, “he has a lot on his mind right now, they have to make some final cuts next week, and you just happened to walk by right after we were talking about you.”

“You were talking about me?” I asked, maybe a little bit too interested.

“Yeah, no we were just talking about how we’d never had an ice girl like you before, and how you are really good at skating, and stuff.” He trailed off not finishing his thought. “Would you like to grab some coffee or something?”

His question caught me off guard. “Right now?”

“If you’re not busy,” he said glancing at Caeleigh, who got the hint.

“I am going shopping with my sister, so I will see you later?” She said, giving me a look like ‘you’d better tell me all about this later.’ I nodded as she left to find her car.
Sid and I walked over to his car (he gets an excellent parking space, btw) and he opened to door for me (such a gentleman) before putting his gear in the back seat. We chatted a bit while driving to the café, he mostly talked about hockey because I told him I didn’t know too much about it. We sat outside and I drank some earl gray and I don’t remember what he ordered because I was freaking out too much about getting coffee with Sidney Crosby (what if someone thought I was his girlfriend?). I keep trying to remind myself that he’s a normal guy, but after watching him play hockey I’m starting to believe that isn’t true. He’s an alien or robot or something.

The conversation somehow got back to Tuesdays figure skating lesson. I asked if he was ready and he laughed (he has such a dorky laugh, omg). “I honestly don’t know how that’s going to turn out,” he said with a smile. His laugh always made me smile, and he laughed even more when I asked if he was afraid of being bad at something.

“I’m not good at everything,” he replied. He checked his phone and frowned. “I have to go soon, I have a meeting with an interior designer.”
My face lit up when he said that. It has been a dream of mine to be an interior designer.
“Wait.” I said as he started to get up. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do this, but it was worth a try. “An interior designer?”

“Yeah, I just had a house built, but it still needs furniture, curtains, decorative…things, stuff I’m not good at,” he said making a face.

“You don’t want to do that, professional interior designers have their own agenda; your house will end up looking like some Martha Stewart catalog.” I paused to make sure he was following me. “I happen to be a bit of an expert in color themes, room layout and ‘decorative things’,” I added mockingly with air quotes.

“Are you saying I shouldn’t meet with this highly recommended designer who probably actually went to design school or whatever?” He asked skeptically with a smile.

“No, please you should definitely still meet with her, or him, and see what they have to say. You might like it.” I added with a smile as I wrote my number on his arm, “However, if you want your house to look like an actual home, and not a museum, let me know.”
This seemed to resonate with him, because later that evening I got a text from him that read ‘you were right.’

Ever since then I have been making plans, outlines, and drawings of his rooms, trying to find the right style for his house. We spent a lot of time together this weekend, and I found out a lot about him. We talked about childhood memories, favorite movies (I was shocked he hadn’t seen Napoleon Dynamite), his dog Sam, my cat Pancake (I found out he doesn’t like cats, boo), who his favorite power ranger is, what type of super power he’d want to have, stuff like that. From this data I somehow put together a color theme of grayish blue, light gray, and tones of pale green. We decided that plastering his walls with hockey paraphernalia and painting his walls gold and black was not a good idea (which is what the designer suggested). Sunday was spent looking at furniture online, drawing room plans, and a trip to IKEA. We still have a lot to work on, but at least Sid has an idea of what he wants.

Monday night, after spending nearly three full days with him in his empty house, I realized I had to start planning my figure skating lesson for Tuesday. I had no idea what Dan wanted, so I figured I would start with the basics.

Teaching hockey players how to figure skate was actually a lot more fun than I thought it would be. Caeleigh begged me to let her be my ‘assistant’ (I think she has a crush on Geno) so I let her. I also got a chance to meet a lot of the players and learn their real names. Like, flower, in French is fleur, which is why they call Fleury ‘flower!’ I don’t know how I didn’t figure that out sooner, my high school French teacher would be so disappointed. We taught them how to spin and twirl like ballerinas (even the toughest players got a little girly with their spins) and we worked on some basic crossover. I’m not sure how much it actually helped them with hockey, but I think they had fun and it was a much needed break from preseason tryouts and training. I’ve gotten to know a few more guys and I feel like they are more open to letting me do stuff with them. Caeleigh and I are almost automatically asked out to lunch with the guys or getting drinks after practice.

I spent the rest of yesterday preparing for school! First day of grad school was today, typical first day stuff. I have so many books and way too much reading to do : (
I am also looking for a new place to stay. Not only is Timmy’s crying keeping me up at night (and during the day) but the Woodcombs have had it with Pancake’s temper and are evicting her tomorrow. Caeleigh can’t take her because her sister’s boyfriend who lives with them is allergic to cats, and Sid doesn’t like cats.
Maybe one of the guys will take care of her, I think Caeleigh said Geno likes animals.
Maybe Geno will take care of Pancake?

Sincerely,
Emme

PS. Cam texted me twice, blah. I just want him to go away!

Notes

Edit: I accidentally deleted this story when I was trying to fix a spelling error in the title so I'm reposting all of the chapters. And I changed my user name, so don't be surprised.