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Mibba

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Of Icings, Halfpipes, and Pterodactyls

Chapter 16: This is why we can't have nice things (Part 2)

“So who we meeting again tonight?” I asked Geno again as he pulled the SUV in front of the hotel.

It was a beautiful hotel in the middle of downtown Pittsburgh, and it was where the Rangers were staying. I felt like this entire dinner outing was odd considering that just a couple days ago, the Rangers had sort of slaughtered the Penguins and in 24 hours from now the two men who were about to go out for dinner together would be viciously battling against each other again, but hey, what did I know. My sport literally was based on one’s own personal performance; we tended to all get along and not punch each other during competitions.

Geno sighed, correcting my attempted Russian before he getting out of the car. I followed suit, slightly more carefully, not wanting to flash the hotel attendants my underwear.

When Geno had interrupted whatever had been happening between Crosby and I just over a half an hour ago, I had been rather flustered. Turned out the angry Russian bear hadn’t been angry at us, just cold and wanted inside. He had been surprised that the door had been locked, which was due to my earlier habit of locking doors. While Crosby had gone to let Geno in, I had been run around trying to figure out what I had done with my cell. Eventually, I went to the pair, telling them I hadn’t a clue what had happened to my cell, but it was fine and I didn't need it for dinner. It was then that Geno pointed at my hand, my hand which was holding my phone. Crosby had helped me into my coat and Geno and I then departed quickly. Apparently, I had forgotten to button up my coat.

I walked over to the attendant, smiling and as always for Geno did the talking, “Hello! We will just be a moment, we’re just here to pick someone up.”

The attendant’s eyes roamed over me, before doubling in size when he saw and recognized Geno. He nodded, not saying a word. I paused, looking over at Geno.

“Geno, I just wait here,” I said in Russian hesitantly looking around carefully. I knew who was on this team, and even though Geno knew my past, I didn’t feel like delving into that past tonight. Running into him would just bring up some stuff that could make things more complicated.

“You sure?” he replied frowning.

I nodded, “It’s fine.”

“I’ll be right back,” Geno said still frowning, but didn’t press the subject. He knew me well enough that I tended not to do things without a good reason. More or less. Geno headed into the hotel and I got into the backseat of the SUV. I took out my cell from clutch and checked it. I had only a single new message from the time we left the house, and an involuntary grin spread across my face. I opened the text from Crosby.

“I don’t think I found Geno’s timing as humourous* as I did this morning.”

I slid my phone back in my clutch as I saw Geno and a man coming out of the hotel doors. Both got into the car and turned to face me in the back seat.

“This Mats Zuccarello” Geno said, introducing the dark haired man to me, “Mats, this Lily Rivers.”

My smile faltered for a second and then I started grinning like an idiot, “Mats Zuccarello?”

“Yes?” he said, nervously smiling back at me.

“The Mats Zuccarello?” I said again, I switched into Norwegian, “I do know you! I have heard about you from Torstein Horgmo!”

“You speak Norwegian?” Mats asked surprised, “And you know Horgmo?”

“English!” a disapproving Geno said from the drivers seat as he pulled away from the hotel.

Mats and I exchanged playful smiles, and suddenly, I felt rather excited for tonight.


“Thank you,” I said smiling at my Russian as I slide out of his car but not before kissing him on his cheek, “See you at the game!”

“Say hi to Sid,” Geno kissed me in return and bid me farewell.

I walked to the front door, opened it, and turned to wave knowing full well that Geno would wait until he saw that I was safely inside the house before he pulled out of Crosby’s driveway and left for the rink. We were playing a bit of a leapfrog type of game; Geno had dropped me off at Crosby’s where I would stay until Veronique picked me up for tonight’s game against the Rangers.

“Crosby!” I called out, and proceeded with my new ritualized way of entering his house, I hung my coat up in the closet and then went and sat on the stairs, taking off my boot.

“Did you bring the bells?”

My head jerked up, and my mouth popped open before slightly twisting into a bit of confused grin as I looked up at Crosby who was standing in front of me.

“I was cleared to start talking again by the doctors this morning,” he explained smiling slightly before adding, “Still no solid foods, unfortunately. Speaking of which, I need to go have a shake. Shall we?”

I nodded. He offered me one of his hands, which I took, and he pulled me up as if I weighed nothing. We both paused a moment, before he turned and I followed him into the kitchen. It was quite weird hearing his voice again. I bit my lip as I walked a step or two behind him, trying to calm the flipping in my stomach. Could it really be that I had actually missed the sound of his voice? There was now a slight lisp to his voice, but that could be attributed to the missing teeth. But it couldn't take away from the beautiful tone. 'So Crosby's voice is beautiful now?' my head thought smugly as we reached the kitchen. I let out a quiet sigh he started pulling things from the fridge and cabinets while I took my normal seat on the stool.

“So, I never got the chance to ask about the writing on your cast. is it Norwegian?” Crosby asked as he started measuring powder into the shake container.

I felt my face turn bright red as I looked down at the bold writing on the cast. ‘Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.’ my brain chanted to me repeatedly.

I bit my lip unable to look at him, “No. It isn’t Norwegian.”

There was a long pause, and I could hear him pouring milk, patiently waiting for me to continue.

“It’s Icelandic.”

“So you speak Icelandic as well?” he mused as he started to shake the concoction. My eyes couldn’t help but stay glued to his forearms and biceps. Crosby was wearing a simple black t-shirt, which through the simple movements of shaking the bottle, were causing the well development muscles to be flexed. I felt my tongue lick my lips without my permission. Damn it Crosby.

“Nope,” I exhaled, “My friends wrote it when I was still out on drugs at the hospital.”

There was another pause as he poured the drink he made into another cup. There was some left in the container, which he offered to me. I shook my head, so he downed what was left in that first.

“Alright, but what does it mean?” he pushed before he took a another big sip of his drink.

“It, uh, well, the gist of it is that I need to get laid,” I finished awkwardly looking away from him.

I heard him sputter loudly and felt something wet all over me. Looking down, I saw myself covered in protein shake. Out of basically anything that I could have said, apparently Crosby had not expected those words to leave my mouth and out of shock, had spat out the protein shake everywhere. Not everywhere, mostly just all over the Malkin jersey I was wearing for the game tonight.

There was a moment in which neither of us moved. I think Crosby was either in shock of what I had said and or what he had done while I was still processing what the Golden Child of Canada had done.

And in a flash Crosby moved, he had paper towels in his hands and was trying to mop up the mess he had made.

“I can not believe what I just did. I am so incredibly sorry,” Crosby was abashed with shame as he was trying to clean me up.

I was shaking. Not with anger, not with fury, but with laughter.

“I don’t know what happened,” he muttered as he tried to mop up the liquid as I watched him.

Watching him now, I wasn’t sure if the funniest part was what he had done, or that he was trying to clean up the mess. The said mess was located all over my breasts, which he was now essentially groping for lack of a better term in his very endearing attempts to salvage the jersey. Crosby finally seemed to realize what he was doing, and froze, his hands basically cupping my breasts. And I was just standing there shaking, unable to stop laughing.

“Oh god,” his voice was soft, there was a nice red tinge to his face.

“Please,” I tried to gasp in between breaths, “You've seen them before and had a good feel back in September.”

“This is different,” Crosby took a couple steps away. And the air between us changed. I frowned, and stopped laughing, unsure what was wrong.

“We need to wash it before it stains the jersey.” he said abruptly, turning back to face me, “And let me go get you another jersey.”

Crosby left the room quickly, and I could hear him taking the stairs at least two at a time. I shook my head, wondering what had changed so suddenly. I stripped off the Malkin jersey, leaving me in a black pair of leggings and a black tank top.

Pretty soon Crosby came back in the room with another jersey an carefully handing it to me, still avoiding eye contact.

“Oy,” I nudged him playfully, but more seriously added, “We are not going back to before, mkay?”

Crosby gave me a half smile and a nod, taking the Malkin jersey from me.

I unfolded the jersey he had just handed me and it was my turn to pause. It was an 87 jersey. I don’t know why I thought it would be anything different, but I was still felt a little surprised. The first time I had worn a Malkin jersey to a game had been to the World Cup matches in Finland and Sweden last year. Maybe the entire jersey thing wasn’t such a big deal to Crosby. It wasn’t such a big deal for Geno and I for me to wear his jersey; we were just friends. So I guess Crosby and I were just friends. But it just, this felt very different. ‘Stop over thinking Lily.’ my brain tried to command me.

I smiled and slipped the jersey over my head, ignoring the voice, and slide my arms through the sleeves. Instead of the ‘A’ I had grown accustomed to seeing, there was a giant ‘C’. I looked up and found Crosby staring at me oddly. He realized I had caught him staring at me, so he looked away.

“Right,” I said breaking the silence, “How about we put that in the wash?”

I followed him to another part of the house I hadn’t been into yet, and watched as he started the washing machine. There were so many things that I should tell him, that I could tell him, that we could now discuss like adults now that he could talk.

“What are you thinking about?” he said looking at me, his arms crossed over his chest.

But of course I wouldn't.

I pursed my lips, “Still have those red-box movies?”

“I watched Taken 2 yesterday,” he confessed.

“Argo it is,” I grinned.


The doorbell rang promptly at 5:45 and we both knew who it was going to be. Crosby and I got out of the comfortable chairs and headed to the front door. The movie had ended a while ago, but we had remained in our chairs chatting. We had both enjoyed the film, and had continued talking about other films we liked or didn’t like. I guess we hadn’t realized how much time had passed.

“Sidney!” Veronique said as he opened the front door. She was standing there looking flawless as always and glowing brightly from her pregnancy, holding a large bouquet of beautiful flowers.

I had buttoned up my coat and had missed part of their conversation but Crosby left the room with the flowers.

“Hey Vero,” I said smiling as I made my way over to the steps and sat down to put my boots on.

“Hey Lils. Have a nice day?” she asked in an innocent tone.

I nodded my head from my boot, I zipped up the boot and sat back up. Crosby had re-entered the room and was standing next to me. He watched as I finished putting my boot on before offered a hand to help me up. I took it, and once again he effortlessly pulled me up. And once again, there was a brief moment, a moment not missed by Veronique. I quickly dropped his hand and started for the door.

“Bye,” I casually called, heading out the door first as Veronique and Crosby exchanged some words in French.


“Oh-kay,” I dragged out the word nervously as we went to take our seats in the box that now was beginning to feel so normal to me at CONSOL. Veronique and I had politely greeted many of the women milling about preparing themselves for the game, but my comment was directed towards Veronique. Veronique turned to look at me confused at my very obvious change in demeanor.

“It’s not what you think,” I said as I slowly unbuttoned my coat.

Her look of confusion slowly turned into a look of surprise as her mouth turned into a little O shape as her eyes moved immediately to ‘C’ on my chest. As I slide my arms out of my coat, her eyes flicked over to the arms, taking in the 87 on both sides. Once my coat was finally fully off, she pushed my shoulder to the side so she could take in letters that spelled out ‘Crosby’ on the back.

“That is game worn.” Veronique’s words formed an identifying statement and not a question. She, as the other women sitting in the box, would have no problem identifying the jersey as game worn. Unlike myself, most of them had been around the sport for years and years; it was easy for their trained eyes to tell the difference between the types of jerseys.

“Crosby spilled something on my Malkin one earlier, and so he lent this jersey for tonight. He isn’t allowed to drive because of the painkillers yet, and I didn’t have a car there,” I mumbled, debating whether or not I should just leave my jacket on all night. I realized I had already caught some wandering eyes from other women sitting around us.

“Oh he did?” Veronique raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow.

“It’s just a person wearing another person’s jersey. Hell, I’ll send him a shirt with my name on it and he can wear that somewhere,” I said shrugging my shoulders trying to play it all very indifferent.

Veronique smug expression was so beyond ridiculous, “Ma cherie, whatever you say.”

“I am going to the bathroom.” I scowled. I attempted to make the most graceful exit I could with my ridiculous pink cast amid stares from the women.


“Lily!”

I was on my way back to the box when I heard my name being called. Turning around, I was surprised to see Mr. Lemieux. He was standing with some distinguished looking gentlemen in suits.

“Mr. Lemieux,” I greeted him with a smile and a nod. I was about to continue on my way back to the box, however I saw him excusing himself from this group and begin to make his way in my direction. He cut the distance between us in a mere manner of moments due to his long strides.

“How is the foot feeling? And you had hurt your ribs, I believe?” he asked. Mr. Lemieux’s genuine concern for me was rather unexpected. I hadn’t gotten the impression that he wasn’t a nice man or anything, just that his focus was on the Penguins and his players; thus, his attention to someone who was not central in these things would seem trivial.

“All are better every day, thank you for asking.” I smiled nervously. This man made me nervous for some reason. ‘And how did he know about the ribs?’ the small voice in my head asked loudly. The foot was quite obvious, but the ribs hadn’t made it into public reports.

He paused a moment, as if weighing the words he wanted to say next. His eyes casually looked over the jersey I was wearing and a flicker of recognition passed through his eyes. The edges of Mr. Lemieux’s lips twitched into a smile as if uncontrollable before he asked, “How is Sidney?”

“Uh, good.” I stammered, curious about that smile.

“You were at the house before coming here. And the day before.” He stated both those facts. I opened my mouth, and shut it. How did he know?

“Mario,” someone down the hall called Mr. Lemieux, distracting both of us.

“Well, Lily, I have to get back to some business. But it should be a good win tonight. Say hello to Sidney for me.” And with that, he turned and walked away.

I stood in the hallway for a few moments, flummoxed yet again. How did Mr. Lemieux know that I had been there yesterday, let alone this afternoon? What was that all about? I scowled to myself as I started to make my way back to the box. At the back of the box, I grabbed a water and a beer before limping down to our seats.

“I thought you got lost,” Veronique commented when I finally took my seat. I handed her the water, while I took a deep swig of the beer.

“Yeah,” I finally answered distractedly.

Veronique looked at me, concern on her face, but I was saved as the national anthem started.

This game was pretty personal for the Penguins considering the result of the game last game against the Rangers. It was non more evident than the fight that broke out in the first period. I grimaced through the fight. I still wasn’t really sure how I felt about these altercations; I understood what purpose they served and how important a fight could be, but it was hard to watch a person I knew get into it such a scrap.

But for me, what was most distracting was the Ranger’s goaltender. Looking at the Ranger goaltender was bringing up some old memories from what felt like an entire different lifetime. Though, really, it was an entire lifetime ago. It was before everything changed. During one of the TV timeouts, I took out my phone from my purse and texted Jen,"Can we talk about the million types of weird it is even to be in the same building as Lundqvist?”

By the end of the first, the shots were pretty even and both goalies, who were both imitating brick walls pretty well. Luckily, the women in the box were a good distraction. Though, good wasn’t a nice adjective to use. They were rather curious about the choice of jersey I was wearing. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the women, and they weren’t really sure how to feel about me.

Their comments were slightly backhanded, though upon some of these questions, I realized something that hadn’t dawned upon me earlier. They not even been asked or even considered to help watch Crosby by the Lemieux's.

“So Sid and you--” one of the platinum blonds, whose name I had forgotten, started asking boldly when I was saved from this whatever she was about to ask by my phone vibrating in my hand.

“Sorry, I need to take this,” I excused myself. Jen couldn’t have saved me at a better moment.

I answered the phone, “Can I just tell you how this entire game, all I keep thinking about that one week in Are? ”

There was a pause on the other end of the phone, “Where is Are?”

Not Jen. The familiar male voice was not Jen. I brought my phone away from my ear and looked at the contact information. Crosby.

“Crosby?” I managed to squeaked. My squeak drew back the attention of the women around me. I wandered to the back of the box quickly, in an attempt to get as much privacy as I could.

“Rivers.”

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

“Hello.”

“Sup.”

There was a pause, as if he was considering to continue our ‘Hello’ tirade.

“So where is Are?” he chose to repeat himself from earlier.

“It’s a town,” I answered softly, “It’s not important. I thought you were Jen.”

“Oh.”

There was a beat.

“So, you called?” I asked trying to fill the silence.

There was another long beat.

“They just showed you on the TV a few moments ago. The announcers had some, interesting things to say about the change of your jersey.”

I shut my eyes. Great. This was great; the visibility at CONSOL, on national TV, in another jersey. Of course this was always a possibility going into tonight, but I had been hoping that the people filming would find more interesting fans than just a boring me sitting there. Now I just needed the phone call from Bethany.

“Oh.” I sighed.

“Oh?” there was an odd tone in his voice I couldn’t place. I felt the odd sensation of being watched, so I glanced around and saw several curious pairs of eyes watching me. There was some strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was an odd sense of protectiveness over the very odd relationship Crosby and I had or were forming or whatever this was.

“Who gives a flying fuck Sidney. We are doing the friendish thing now right? Right. I am in your jersey, I wearing your jersey, I think I pull off your jersey pretty well. Anyone with a problem or opinion can just fuck off.” I growled into the phone.

“I think,” he paused for what felt like an eternity, “I think it is much better to be on the same side as you than opposing sides.”

A loud laugh came from me before I could stop it. He joined in quickly, and soon we were both laughing like idiots.

“Lils?” Veronique yelled at me. I turned around as peered down at the rink, the skaters were coming back.

“Skaters are back on the ice,” I murmured to Crosby.

“Oh. Still on commercial here.” He awkwardly replied. There was another pause between us.

“I guess talk to you laters?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“Okay.”

“Bye.”

“Laters.”

“See you.”

“Bye.”

There was a pause between us.

“Lily”

“Sidney”

We both started laughing again. I felt my stomach start lurching again at the sound of his ridiculous laugh. That sound was just, there was just something about it.

“Really, I do have to go. Veronique is giving me quite the stare down. I’ll talk to you later.” And I hung up, heading back to Veronique and my seat.

“Ca’va?” she asked me curiously as I sat down once more next to her.

“Sure?” I laughed as the puck was dropped beginning the second period.

During a break, I took out my phone to check for Jen. It was odd, she still hadn’t texted me back. I bit my lip, and opened a new text addressing it to Crosby, “Do you text during games?”

My eyes drifted back to the ice, but only for about a minute because my phone had started to buzz. I went to the message, it was Crosby.

“Not normally, no.”

I made a face at my phone before typing, “Not normally because you are playing, or not normally because you don’t text when you watch hockey.”

Crosby’s next text came back much quicker.

“I don’t ever text when I watch hockey.”

“You little rebel you” I hit send before. I hoped he would laugh, that ridiculous laugh. I smiled thinking about it.

“What are you smiling at?” Veronique asked, her herself grinning at me.

“The game,” I tried saying straight faced as I tried to turn my attention back on the game.

The second period remained scoreless, but just as intense.

Third period however, started off with a huge bang. The newly traded center, Jussi Jokinen scored within the first 30 seconds of the third period. And then like so many of the games of late, it started going down hill. First, the Rangers managed to tie up the game.

James was battling for the puck in the Ranger’s end against one of their players and he went down. I leapt to my feet in horror watching him down on the ice. I wasn’t sure what had happened, pretty sure it was a hit to the head or something. I felt my breath catch as I watched helpless once again from the box as one of my friends looked to be seriously injured on the ice.

I felt my phone buzz and my fingers numbly brought it up, and I read a message without looking to see who it was from.

“They will have taken him for concussion testing. He will be getting checked out by doctors for the next while. He couldn’t be in more capable hands.”

I blinked several times saw the message was from Crosby. Of course it was from Crosby. Of course he would give any and all information he could when someone I cared about got hurt.

My fingers stiffly typed back, “Thank you.” before I relayed this information to Veronique.

Despite the loss of James, the Penguins managed to keep it together to keep it tied until the final buzzer. Overtime didn’t solve anything either. I really didn’t feel very into the game anymore and just wanted it to be done. Between James getting hurt and all the memories of having to continually stare at Lundqvist the entire game, I was over it. All I wanted was to make sure James was okay. And I wanted give Geno a huge hug. And while I was at it, I wanted to talk to Crosby.

“Who do you think will be chosen for the shoot out?” I texted quickly to Crosby.

I got almost an immediate response.

“Geno, Duper, Jokinen”

I read this off to Veronique, who nodded and smirked a little at me.

Jussi Jokinen was up first. He swept in from the side widely and then shot a beauty which went in. The entire group of women in the box went nuts. Marc managed to stop the Ranger player. I held my breath as Geno got ready to go next. Of course Crosby would know who should, or would go in a shoot out. Geno missed, and I along with the majority of the arena seemed to moan. However, the next Ranger player, who happened to be the little Norwegian I had grown fond of the previous night also missed. Dupuis was up next, and he missed. It was all on Marc again. The Ranger player went in for the shot.

Marc made a beautiful save.

“YOUR HUSBAND!!!!” I yelled at Veronique, carefully hugging the pregnant woman enthusiastically. She was laughing, looking incredibly relieved. I let her go and she was immediately being hugged by other women.

I unlocked my phone, and typed out a message to Crosby.

“We won!”

I glanced back up and around at the happy faces. This win was much needed here in Pittsburgh. My phone buzzed and I opened the texted from Crosby.

“We did. We hanging out tomorrow?”

“Of course” I typed without pausing and hit send button.

Notes

Hey Friends! Here is the second part, as promised!

First, if you add the first part and this second part together, it totals over 46 pages double space in a word document.....how insane is that.
Second, game actually happened. How awesome is it that Juicebox (what I call Jussi Jokinen) played like that right after he was traded??? I mean, for any player who was just traded, that is incredible.
Third, I am going back to normal chapter length.

As always, thank you all so much for reading, subscribing, rating, and commenting.

Comments

Come backkkkkk

amyb11 amyb11
6/23/16

:(

HockeyGirl17 HockeyGirl17
1/23/16

I have marathon read this in the last not even 12 hours and I want mooorreee! I reached the end of the chapter and saw it was the latest one and almost cried. This story is fantastic! Your writing is amazing and I absolutely love the plot. You are fantastic and I cannot wait for the next update!

scootsmcgoots scootsmcgoots
12/18/15

LOVE THIS STILL

addiegregory addiegregory
12/7/15

Just reread this and I would surely love to see an update!?! I'm hoping you have time and are still interested in finishing it! Thanks in advance and hugs to you!

Maddie Maddie
9/8/15