I sat in the chair staring guiltily at the ground. I glanced up briefly but whipped my head straight back down when I saw Bethany tapping her fingers harshly on the desk whilst glaring at me from behind her desk. I had officially been summoned to New York after the series of unfortunate events which led to the disaster in Iceland where I had been in hiding.

Hiding might be a strong word, but being honest, really that was what I had been doing. Some might say disaster would also be a strong word, but the giant cast on my foot said otherwise.

I waited for Bethany to say something, thinking about the past several weeks. Initially, I was only supposed to be in Europe for a week due to a competition in Finland, however, this changed after some more press came out: pictures of me in the Malkin jersey had been released, which wouldn’t be a big deal, except it had also gotten out that I had been staying with him at his house in Pittsburgh. These two things added with the history of us being seen publicly together, in Russia, around Europe, and in the States, caused quite the stir. ‘Crosby?’ my brain chimed in, ‘Shut it down’. In addition, apparently during Steven’s and my brief reunion, there was someone from the media who got the picture of our embrace. Steven and I had been texting pretty frequently since everything came out and everything was fine between the two off us. But these two images of me with different guys plus the previous picture with me kissing a third man, well, it was a good thing the media didn’t know about what happened in a closet with a certain Captain.

A certain captain whom I hadn’t heard from nor spoken to for several weeks now. Crosby and I hadn’t exchanged even a single text since the night of the party. Once again, there had been many times where I almost sent him something, but I just couldn’t. To make matters worse, my brain refused to stop thinking about it at rather inopportune moments like in the middle of interviews or in the middle of a jump. I felt rather conflicted about the kiss. I had sort of been living a sexual lifestyle equivalent to a nun. Though at this point, I wasn’t sure if the kiss had really been that good because it had been such a long time since I had really had a real kiss, or had it been so good because I had fantasized over it millions of times, or was it actually an incredible kiss? And on top of everything, I felt like a dirty scumbag; one couldn’t forget about Taylor, the girlfriend. These ridiculous and awful feelings were distracting me from the important thing: snowboarding.

The competition I had in Finland did not go well. I still maintained a first place finish, but only by half a point. This was the worst I had ever done in my entire life. All of these factors--Crosby, the media, Crosby, lack of my normally perfect performance, and Crosby--made me decide to accept an invitation to head out to Iceland with some of the snowboarders originally from the incredible country and just do some boarding just centered on fun for a while instead of coming back to the States and face reality. It was on this impromptu trip that I decided to do some off park boarding, which could use anything from handrails to buildings to roofs to really anything that wouldn’t get us arrested. I had only done this sort of boarding once before, and on the fourth day in Iceland, a really bad landing later, I remembered why.

After being rushed to the hospital we found out I had only cracked several of my ribs but my ankle was not so lucky. I fractured my ankle in two places and though it was pretty ugly it didn’t need surgery. Thus, now I had a giant hot pink walking cast on my left foot with “Þessi kona þarf kynlíf” scrawled across the front in giant black sharpie, which in English meant “This woman needs sex”. ‘Crosby?’ my brain chimed in a little louder this time and once again, I tried to shut it down. The group I had been always got on me about how serious I took snowboarding and everything that came with it; they supported me letting loose. I was hoping that the majority of people who would see the words so kindly written on my cast didn’t speak any Icelandic. Both of the decisions to allow a hot pink color cast to be put on my foot and the Icelandic words to follow happened under the influence of morphine, so this was the only bit of the entire sequence of events that I didn’t feel responsible for or any guilt over.

The fractured ankle meant I would be in the walking cast for several very long weeks, not to mention many more long weeks of rehab after that. This all meant that I was done for the rest of the season. At this point, there was only about a 90% chance I would have enough points to hold the reigning champ title for slope style and half-pipe.

Between the foot, Crosby and that guilt, and the possibility of losing my title, I didn’t think I could feel worse. But now as I sat in Bethany’s office, I felt as if I had been called to the principal's office, well, that magnified by a hundred times.

“Lily, one picture, I can fix. Going to stay at your friend Malkin’s house and then wearing his jersey and being photographed, I can also fix. Even then having another photo leaked of you getting close with a third man wearing a dress like this,” Bethany held up a picture of me embracing this Steven Stamkos, “All in the space of 3 weeks, with your history, can even be fixed by me. But that,” she pointed at my foot, “I can’t fix that.”

I winced as she said all of this, still unable to look up from the ground.

“Alright, I need you to be honest.” Bethany continued, “Are you fucking the Russian?”

“NO!” I exclaimed looking up at her in horror.

“So, you two haven’t gone through a messy break up or something which has caused you to be so spacey of late?”

“No, of course not!”

“The blond?”

“No, Steven and I are just friends.”
"I am not saying for you to not date or sleep around, Lily. I am just suggesting maybe it would be good to not during the season. You do have Olympics next year to focus on."

"Bethany, seriously," I groaned, "We don't have to have this discussion."

Bethany looked at me for several long moments before slightly changing the subject, “Right. I think some time off is going to be good. You have never taken time off before, and now you are being forced to. But tomorrow you do have a photo shoot and interview with Vogue.”

“I have what?” I started to complain, but one look at Bethany and I was silent and looking down at the ground again.

“An interview. And you are going to be nice and fun.”

“Okay,” I replied meekly.

---

The wonderful driver, Kenny, dropped me off at the restaurant Jen had texted me to meet her, after Bethany had concluded lecturing me for another hour of the importance of where I was in my career and what I was doing in my life. The greeter led me to a table big enough for four people, though the space was taken up by Jen and a bunch of shopping bags.

“Hey sunshine,” I sighed as I hobbled over and I plopped into the seat across from her, dumping my purse on the chair next to me. I was rather underdressed for the restaurant in a pair of leggings I had been living in recently, and my sweatshirt, but I didn’t really care. It did not help that my cast essentially clashed with everything.

“Hi.”

I felt panic jump in my stomach immediately at her lack luster one word answer. I started taking in an inventory of her being making sure she had no bodily injury or anything. No, she wasn’t hurt, but the guilt over something was evident all over her face. I narrowed my eyes as I stared at her.

“How did it go?” she asked looking at the menu instead of me.

I propped my right elbow on the table and rested the side of my head on the heel of my palm as I studied Jen for a moment longer. I began to laugh, not in a ‘oh this is hilarious, but oh, I might lose my sanity’ type of way, as I said, “Jen, I can’t even right now, so you should just tell me what you did.”

“Well, I sorta was trying to figure out something we could do tomorrow night. And since you like hockey now, I thought we could go to an Islanders game,” Jen paused. I raised an eyebrow confused, why should she feel guilty about this?

“I called Sidney and he set us up with the tickets for tomorrow night.” Jen blurted this out. There was a long pause before I started laughing hysterically again, so much so, that tears began pooling in my eyes.

“Oh Jesus Jen, I thought you actually said something involving Crosby and getting hockey tickets,” I said trying to gasp for air. I realized that Jen wasn’t laughing with me. No, Jen wasn’t laughing, and her expression was still quite guilty. My laughter slowly died and I could feel it changing into a look of horror.

“You did what?” I said very quietly.

“Well, you had so much fun in Pittsburgh last month sans Geno getting hurt and stuff,” Jen began defending her actions, “So I thought it could be fun to see all the guys for the night and...”

Jen was still babbling, but I wasn’t hearing what she was saying. Though I had told Jen about Crosby coming over and checking on me after Geno got hurt, I purposefully neglected to tell her anything about the closet incident. There was no way that I could tell Jen that I had been the other woman. I didn’t want to see that look on her face to know that I was the type of woman who went around kissing another woman’s boyfriend.

“Lily? LILY?”

I blinked several times at Jen and realized that she and a waiter were both looking at me expectantly. I glanced down at the menu, and ordered several sushi rolls without really thinking about what they were.

“Lils, are you still upset about your ribs and foot? Or about your scores in Finland? Cause you shouldn’t be, you still won and your booboos will get better.” I was glad Jen was displacing her concern in my snowboarding and my injuries rather than Crosby.

“Yeah,” I muttered taking a sip of water.

“I am going to go to the restroom real quick,” Jen hopped out of her chair and headed away quickly.

I waited a moment until I was positive she was gone and then quickly dug through my purse for my phone. I opened Crosby’s contact information.

‘I am so sorry about Jennifer. I swear I had absolutely no idea.’ I typed this quickly and sent it. I slide my phone back into my purse and waited for Jen to get back.

---

“Good night sunshine!” I said and calmly as I could padded back into my room. I dove at my purse and searched for my phone. I hadn’t checked it since the end of dinner, and I hadn’t heard back from Crosby at that point. He still probably wouldn’t have texted me back, but it would be nice if he did, even if he was mad.
“Bingo.” I whispered, my heart thumping as I saw I had a new message from Crosby. I went straight to it and opened it.

‘That’s what Jen said. It’s fine.’

My heart sank a little. What the fuck was I supposed to say to that? I scowled at my phone, wishing Crosby could feel my wrath. ‘It’s fine?’ Fine.

‘Okay neat. Well, good luck tomorrow’ My fingers quickly typed and hit send.

I threw my phone on the bed frustrated with Crosby but mostly myself. What game am I playing at? He has a girlfriend. But this didn’t stop me from pulling on the 87 Penguins shirt I still slept in every night. I heard my phone buzz and I sprinted over to the bed.

‘Thanks. How is your foot?’

He knew about my foot? I felt those lurches and flips in my stomachs as I took my phone over to my bed with me. Flopping on my back, I held my phone up, staring at the text, not quite sure if it was real or not. I guess it wasn’t too unrealistic for him to know--I had sent pictures of the ridiculous pink thing to Geno, James, Paul, and Veronique.

‘Sore. Thanks for asking’ I typed this out pausing before adding, ‘You guys have been on one crazy streak lately’

There were several long minutes before Crosby responded with, ‘Thanks. Yeah, the team has been great.’

Could we be any more formal and polite if we tried? I could feel the awkward from the text.

‘Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks by the way. Jen is really excited, she loves hockey.’

Crosby’s response came only moments later, ‘I hope you are too. Goodnight Rivers.’

‘Night Crosby’

---

“Are you sick or something? Or is your foot really bothering you?” Jen asked concerned as we headed into the Nassau Coliseum.

“No?” I asked raising my brows, “Why?”

“Your cheeks look rather flushed,” Jen commented and lifted a hand to feel my forehead as we waited in the line for ‘will call’.

“Just tired from the photo shoot today.” I shrugged my shoulders trying not to think of being face to face with Crosby. Finally it was our turn.

“How can I help you?” the man behind the glass asked. Jen looked at me expectantly, I rolled my eyes at her.

“Hi,” I said, “We have tickets that are, uh, will-call, I believe?”

“Name?”

I bit my lip, “Crosby?”

The man looked up at me, his mouth slack-jawed. I smiled at him and I could see recognition in his eyes.

“Could-could I see ID please?” He asked. I turned to Jen who handed me my ID, which I handed to the man. I hadn’t brought a purse, so Jen had my wallet in her bag. I was dressed in my leggings still, with a button up and a vest combo, and on my right foot was a simple black boot. The colors were simple, and only part of my bright pink cast could be seen.

As the man shuffled some papers and filled something out I turned to Jen, “I am surprised I am recognized here. I feel like they see much more famous people around more often.”

“Shhhh, don’t jinx the benefits,” Jen hushed me.

“Here you go Miss Rivers,” he said handing me an envelope and my ID.

“Thanks so much,” I flashed him a big smile as we walked away.

I pulled the tickets out of the 114 A and B. I shook my head. There was also a note inside which read, “After the game, go back to will-call and someone will meet you there to bring you down to the locker room--SC”

“This is your doing,” I directed at Jen handing her over the tickets and the note, putting her in charge of finding where we were going.

We walked down, down, and down, very slowly due to me. I was wondering if we had gotten lost or something when we finally reached Ice level. Jen and I exchanged looks, hers was smug, mine was a little annoyed. We couldn’t be more visible if we tried. The seats were an aisle across from the visitors bench, so if we looked to our left, we would be looking straight at the backup goalie, whoever that would be in this game. Crosby rather outdid himself getting us these seats.

After we got situated in our seats, Jen left for beer and food. Shortly thereafter, the skaters took the ice for warmups. I couldn’t contain my grin as the Pens started skating around. The first skater I recognized was James, which was an easy spot because he wasn’t wearing his helmet, allowing his self-proclaimed majestic hair to fly around in the breeze. He was looking around as he circled around the ice and accidentally, and rather unexpectedly made eye contact with me as he passed which caused James to almost tripped over himself. He whipped his head around, staring at me, a grin spreading wide across his face as he skated quickly to be right in front of the glass where I sat.

“What are you doing here?” James yelled through the glass.

“Didn’t have anything better to do,” I shrugged my shoulders, with a grin.

“Holy fuck,” he grinned back, “You are seriously-”

“NEAL,” another skater came over, “Stop fucking flirting, wait till--RIVERS?”

I grinned at Paul through the glass, and waved.

“What are you doing here?” Paul asked grinning at me through the glass as well.

“Watching a hockey game?” I answered truthfully still grinning.

“Shoulda known you would eventually pull something like this on us,” James said giving me an exaggerated pout.

“I thought Crosby would have told you?” I asked slightly confused why Crosby hadn’t told the guys I was coming. Both exchanged a meaningful look with each other before looking at me again.

“Sid, eh.” Paul said now he was smirking. I felt my smile falter slightly.

“Shouldn’t you two be warming up?” I changed the subject, “I mean, Jen and I are expecting a win tonight.”

“Of course! See you after?” James asked and I nodded. Both waved and skated off, though they kept looking back at me with ridiculous grins on their faces. I got more waves from players and such, but most were focused on warming up.

“Excuse me.” A voice behind me said loudly. I sighed and plastered a grin on my face before I turned around.

There were a row of guys sitting behind Jen and my seats. They were maybe in their late twenties early thirties, and seriously to my greatest relief, two of their members were wearing Penguins jerseys; one a Crosby and one a Malkin.

“You are really Lily Rivers?”

“You are friends with--”

“Dude, you are such a bad-ass-”

They started the questions, but stopped, all of their eyes widening and looking behind me.

I turned back around to face the rink. A hockey player a big C on his chest and the number 87 was facing me and even had a smile on his face. I automatically returned the smile, my brain forgetting everything and my stomach commenced with the flipping thing.

I had never seen Crosby this close with all his gear on. I had been around Geno many times all geared up and on the ice, but never once did Geno do the things that Crosby standing in his gear in front of me was doing to my stomach, my heart, my brain, and my lady bits. How could I not think about that damn closet, those damn lips and hands?

I realized at that moment, despite the skaters behind him, and the people all around, I was his sole focus. That was until he jerked his head acknowledging someone behind me. I turned my head and saw not only Jen who was watching us very closely but the row of guys. I flipped my head back around to look at Crosby, but he had skated off. I slowly turned and looked back at Jen, who was studying me intensely as she handed me one of the beers.

“Care to explain that to me?” Jen asked as she sat down in her seat.

“Not at the present moment, not at all,” I said as I tilted my head back indicating the guys who were paying rather close attention to us before I turned back around to face them, “Hi. Yes, lovely to meet you all. Glad to see you all are Pens fans too, otherwise that could make this game rather awkward. But I am here to enjoy the evening and watch hopefully an awesome game of hockey with my friend. Just like you guys.”

The guys were staying at me like I had grown another head or something. I smiled again and turned back to Jen.

The game started a little after proposed start time, and there were some really noticeable differences; though all rather pleasant. First, I rather enjoyed sitting in the middle of the crowd. Before the national anthem started, the players had come back out and I realized the back up goalie was Marc, as he was only sitting across the aisle from us. I grinned at the French-Canadian who grinned back as I took my phone out from my pocket and took a picture of him, sent it to Veronique, with the text ‘Look who I found!’. I quickly realized that I could constantly see Crosby no matter how hard I tried not to look at him. My brain was split on how I felt about this, so I tried not to dwell on it. But as the game started, I found for relief from constant Crosby thoughts for the first time in weeks.

Jen came from Michigan and a family obsessed with hockey. Although the Redwings were her team, which she made known and was very proud about, she loved watching any game. She had made friends with the guys sitting behind us before the game started. This was something I always envied about; the incredible ease of how she chatted and made everyone feel like a friend. Thus, as the puck dropped, we had formed as a gang of very enthused Pens fans, which made the game very amusing.

And yet, the first period wasn’t very pretty, in fact the game started off with a fight in the first 3 minutes. The first period sort of went down hill from there with the shots on goal being 14 Islanders to 3 for Penguins and by the end of the period, the Islanders were up 1-0. Vokoun, who was in goal for us, was playing incredibly and was the only reason we were still in the game. The second period started out a little rough, but we came back with a goal to tie it all up. Near the end of the period, the Islanders scored again, but in the last seconds of the period, Kunitz answered with yet another tying goal assisted by Crosby. Our little section went nuts, drawing the attention of the surrounding Islander fans. But we didn’t care, we were too busy high-fiving each other.

Third period started off with a bang with a goal from Sutter who was assisted by James. After that goal, James had skated back around and winked at us, causing the guys to go nuts. They kept asking questions about the guys, which we answered vaguely, though I had answered some questions with ridiculous answers, like James only washed his hair once a month. The rest of the period was rather stressful with Vokoun playing incredible in the goal. And then, in the dying seconds of the period, literally with 1 second left, Pascal Dupuis had a magnificent shot and goal and our section went insane.

After the game, we bade goodbye to the guys and took our time heading back to the will-call box; mostly because it took me a while to hobble back up all of the stairs. When we reached the front, the guy from earlier was still there. We waited until he wasn’t busy, before we approached him to remind him about how we were supposed to head down to the locker room. He made a quick phone call, all the meanwhile, staring intently at me. I shifted on my feet wincing on my very sore foot, I had been doing a lot more walking without my crutches today than I had previously plus there had been so many times where I had jumped up on my feet cheering and screaming during the game. The abuse on the foot wasn’t so great for the healing limb. He said something else into the phone as he watched me before hanging up and smiling at me. I returned the awkward smile before turning away. Soon, an usher showed up pushing a wheelchair.

“Is that for me?” I asked delightfully surprised.

“Yes ma’am,” the usher said. I turned and waved at the guy in the box, supremely grateful as I giggled as I settled in the chair.

“Onward!” I said to Jen. Jen rolled her eyes, sighed, and took the handles of the chair.

“Oh ma’ams, I can do that,” the usher began.

“No, no,” Jen sighed, “It’s my fault we are here.”

I smugly grinned as we made our way to an elevator to head down to the depths of the building. It took a while, but eventually we made our way to the visitor’s locker room. We made it into the room just as media scrums were starting to finish up. Leaving the wheelchair outside, Jen and I wandered into the room. Paul was still in the shirt he had worn under his gear, drinking water near the door and was the first to see us.

“Oh hey there,” Paul said with a grin and I was squished into an enormous hug.

“Paulie, you are gross,” I complained in his arms, and he released me.

“What did you expect coming into the locker room this early?”

“I didn’t realize we would actually get in this early. But our mode of transportation was much faster.” I replied happily. I found I had missed the defenseman, along with the rest of the team.

“How is the foot? Oh god, that is really pink. Much pinker than in the photos.”

I wrinkled my nose up at him, and stuck my tongue out at him.

“Nice to see you Jen,” Paul called over my shoulder. I turned my head to look at Jen, who was busy with the Bennett kid.

“James is already in the showers I think,” Paul said looking around. I glanced around the room, frowning slightly looking for James.

I didn’t see James, but I did manage to catch the eye of the captain whose media scrum had just finished. We held eye contact for a moment before he jerked his head towards the door, then he stood up and slipped out of the room.

“Uh, could you excuse me? I really need to use a restroom, like super badly,” I made up the excuse. Without waiting for Paul to protest, I quickly hobbled out of the room.

I wandered down the hall, following Crosby, allowing a good distance between us. I noticed he walked slowly, at a pace comfortable for my gimpy leg. After several turns down some hallways, I saw him slip into door.

I checked both directions to make sure no one saw me before I opened the door to the room and shut it behind me. As soon as the door clicked shut behind me, I felt myself being pulled into a bone crushing embrace and I felt Crosby’s lips come crashing down on mine.

Notes

Hey friends!

First, the Icelandic is off Google Translate. So if you speak Icelandic....please teach me!
Second, game happened!
Third, the seats at Nassau Coliseum, I am totally unfamiliar with the stadium and guessing those seat numbers/area was off of me stalking images online of seating charts....so if they are totally off, my bad!
Fourth, Title is bringing out my awesome nerd side... a billion points if you get it without looking it up.

Thank you all for reading/commenting/subscribing/rating! I can't believe this story has been viewed/subscribed so many times. It is sorta mind boggling to me, so I really hope y'all continue to like it. The next chapter will be up in a few days (If these playoffs don't kill me first)