Of Icings, Halfpipes, and Pterodactyls

Bethany was very pleased with how the meetings with Nike turned out. There were more details and dots to fill in, but I wouldn’t be needed for that. The bottom line was that Nike was going to resign me, and fortunately pay me a ridiculous amount of money. I couldn’t complain since my end of the deal once again just involved several photo shoots, attending some events, and wearing the label.

Kenny had dropped Bethany off at her office and was taking me to the address I had told him which I had received via text shortly after the meetings had ended. I tried calling Jen and sent her several texts but she hadn’t picked up or texted back, so I forwarded her the address I was headed towards in a probably vain hope she would wake and show up.

“Kenny, after you drop me off, I will just cab it back when I am done,” I told him as he pulled over to a curb in front of a large building.

“Are you sure ma’am?” He asked concerned. I realized though still downtown, we were pretty far away from the hotel.

“Absolutely, but thanks so much!” I reassured him, before I hopped out of the car and shut the door. As I walked towards door, I realized I might have made a slightly fatal mistake by not having gone back to the hotel to change first. My outfit was elegant and underneath the jacket, the blouse was actually a button-up tank top, but I was wearing heels, which was a dangerous situation for everyone involved. ‘Too late,’ I thought to myself as I walked through the building, trying to find the elevator. I glanced at my phone again re-reading the text, ‘Once you enter the building, head down the hall until you can’t go further, then take a left. The elevator should be on the west wall. Go to the 24th floor.'

‘How the fuck do you tell which direction is west?’ I glared at my phone, wondering who had taken the phone to text the directions; clearly not the Russian. I did find the elevator and hit the 24 button, waiting as the machine smoothly moved upwards. Despite my annoyance, I felt my heart start beating faster, and I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. The ding of the elevator startled me though, but quickly I existed as the doors open. I found myself in a beautiful rooftop bar/restaurant combination, perfect for a late summer’s afternoon.

“Hi,” a greeter said with a slightly nasal tone, “Can I help you?”

“Uh, I am meeting some people,” I responded looking around. Over the years, one learned name dropping in public restaurants was a big no-no--normally you had fake names for reservations anyways. I peered around the different tables filled with people, and but it wasn’t hard to find him, “He is right there.”

I started to walk over towards the group of men, of whom even sitting down and wearing impeccably fitted suits, it was easy to tell how very fit they all were. One of the guys saw me approaching quickly and gave me a pretty obvious up down look before saying something to the table which caused the rest of the group to look my way. A guy who had been facing away from me turned to look at me, his face first curious, but upon seeing me the biggest smile broke across his face. He stood up and walked briskly towards me before literally picking me up in a giant hug.

“Evgeni,” I managed to squeak out as the Russian nearly broke my ribs.

He set me down, a wolfish grin on his face, “Lily, cannot believe you here.”

“Same goes for you,” I said reaching up ruffling his hair. Evgeni Malkin, center for the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team and I had met briefly during the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, however, had really became friends several months after during an event I had been involved with called Gumball 3000. The car race had brought me to Russia for a short time, but during that time Geno and I had hung out and a fast friendship was born though a ridiculous night of shenanigans. Geno had been an incredible rock for me, giving me an escape to Russia later that summer, the following summer, and even at the beginning of this summer. At the same time, I had been a rock for him through his knee injury, once again, going to visit him in Russia. Rumors were common in gossip media about there being a romance between the two of us, but rumors were all they were. Geno had joked that if only I were Russian, it would perfect, but it was only a joke; our relationship was purely platonic.

“I missed you,” I attempted in broken Russian. Geno boomed something in Russian, and I just shook my head.

“Nope, I got none of it.” I sighed giving up, as we broke apart from our hug.

“You remembered, very good.” Geno answered in English, “Come, come, meet everyone!” I smiled as he took my hand and dragged me back to the table excited for me to meet the guys. Despite our closeness, I hadn’t ever been able to get to Pittsburgh during the season for a game--our schedules never managed to match up.

“Nealy, Pauly, and Sid,” Geno rattled off pointing to each man as he said their names, “This my favorite American girl in whole world, Lily Rivers.”

"Uh, I’m James Neal, this is Paul Martin, and that is Sidney Crosby, and here,” James Neal gave a more formal introduction as he stood up. He motioned for me to take his seat and moved to take a chair from an empty chair from another table. I smiled gratefully for the more detailed introduction. However, I knew all of their names and faces. In fact, I could probably list off the entire current roster from the multiple times Jen had stalked the on the internet and showed me the team. Plenty of times she had supplied ample reasons of why we should go to Pittsburgh to see Geno and meet his teammates. All of the reasons came back to what ‘dreamboats’ were on the team. Granted, never in a million years would I admit to knowing this, nor agreeing with this opinion.

“Thanks,” I smiled taking off my business coat and settling it over the back of the chair as well as my clutch before sitting down, “Uh, it is lovely to finally meet you all.”

“Seriously, Geno has been talking about you for years,” James teased as he came back setting the chair down on the other side of me; I was between Geno and him, “We were beginning to think he was making the entire friendship up and photoshopping the pictures.”

“What pictures?” I glared up at Geno. We had a clear understanding about the shenanigans and how there would be no pictorial evidence. Geno looked slightly ashamed as he glanced down.

“Excuse miss, can I get you a drink?” another pretty waitress appeared. ‘Saved for now,’ my brain growled.

“Uh.” I glanced at what the guys were all drinking--all beers except Geno, it looked like he had a glass of vodka with ice, his normal, “Could I have what he is having plus a glass of water?” I asked absentmindedly.

“I need to see your ID,” she asked snottily. I sighed and pulled out drivers license and handed it to her. I had finally turned 21 over the summer, which made life much easier in the States when it came to drinking. She held onto it for a moment, and I saw her eyes widen.

“Like, oh my god, are you really?”

I cringed slightly, “Yeah,”

“I will be right back!”

I turned back around and faced the guys who all had amused expressions on their faces.

“So, uh, hi!” I repeated looking at Geno a big smile on my face.

“Where you’ve been? Colorado?” he asked nudging me playfully.

“Nah, Switzerland training and Norway before that. I haven’t actually been in Colorado since after I left Russia.”

His eyebrows raised in surprise, “Why you not take break? You look skinny. You eating?”

“You are sounding like your mother,” I teased, making a face at him “Some of us don’t have a cushy off season that allows us to laze about.”

“You avoid question,” Geno scowled.

“I just have trained a lot recently, more running and lifting. Jen’s said the same thing lately.”

“Jen here?”

“Yeah, she was sleeping last time I checked.”

I glanced over at the other guys at the table. Crosby and Martin seemed to be in the middle of a conversation while Neal was watching us intently. He noticed me noticing him, and a half smile played around his lips.

“How long are you in New York for?” he inquired.

“The next 5 days and then I head back to Colorado.”

“Great!” Geno boomed, “Time when not in meetings to hang out.”

“Speaking of that, what is going on with this lockout business?” I asked furrowing my brows, before adding apologetically, “I’ve been so off the radar again recently. I hadn’t even heard this was a possibility.”

“It is a pretty complicated situation,” a different voice chimed with a disparaging tone. My eyes slid over to the speaker, whom I found to be Crosby. My eyes flicked over his face, and I found my stomach lurch slightly. Pictures seriously did not do the man justice. His skin tone was beautifully tanned, my guess was from a summer full of workouts in the sun. There was a spark in his amber eyes that I couldn’t read. He did have huge lips, though, they rather suited his face. Crosby wasn’t a conventional handsome, but there certainly something about this man that intrigued me.

But despite all of this, his tone seriously pissed me off. There tended to be an automatic assumption that came with snowboarders; that we were all druggy, drunk, and not the most intelligent troublemaking hippies. I tried to give the benefit of doubt to a friend of Geno’s, but I frowned slightly, “Alright.”

“What Sidney means is we are trying to work with the owners to fix the situation before the season starts before it turns into a complete fiasco. We certainly do not want a lockout. We have tried offering many compromises but to no avail,” Paul Martin quickly supplied in a much more pleasant tone.

“Are hundreds players here,” Geno added.

“But let’s talk about more pleasant things, and not talk shop,” Neal changed the subject quite obviously. I noticed my drinks had arrived at some point and I looked at both for a moment trying to figure out which was which. I decided to pick the one of the left and tasted a little of it--definitely vodka, I took a bigger sip. Crosby had gone back to talking to Paul not hiding his lack of interest in even trying to have a civil conversation with me.

Neal started some harmless flirting banter with me, which I engaged with polite, but firm disinterest. Neal’s game was pretty obvious, even without the stories I had heard from Geno. Granted, Geno had a pretty big reputation which I had seen at work first hand, and even helped him several times. But I wasn’t really the type to sleep around--the double standard for females (not just female athletes) was so incredibly unfair. I already challenged so many stereotypes and concepts, but this was one I didn’t even touch. But my romantic life was not something I spent any time focusing on. I traveled too much and dating another snowboarder always seemed like a terrible idea.

Currently though, I was enjoying the attention Neal was giving me, what girl wouldn’t? This NHL star was incredibly easy on the eyes. I laughed at something he said, but caught the eye of Crosby. Crosby gave me a clear disapproving look. ‘What the fuck was wrong with this dude?’ I thought to myself. I took a big drink of my vodka, not wanting to think about it. Maybe I was just misreading the situation?

“I need to refresh this,” Martin announced to the table gesturing to his drink, “I’m going to head over to the bar, need anything anyone?”

“Paulie, I come,” Geno said looking at his mostly empty glass. Neal’s drink wasn’t nearly finished, but he decided to join them after seeing the type of girls standing over by the bar. This left Crosby and I sitting awkwardly alone at the table. I glanced away watching Neal and Geno flirting with the girls, internally laughing at the pair.

“You know for how much he cares about you, you could do better for him.”

I turned around, my mouth hanging open slack-jawed, my eyes wide open in shock, “Excuse me?”

“This probably isn’t my place to comment, but he cares about you so much and has gone out of his way to do things for you. Yet you can’t manage to come to a single game, or come visit him” Crosby said with an undercurrent of anger in his voice.

I honestly didn’t know what to say to this man sitting near me, “You are completely right, it isn’t your place to comment. And you have no clue about the situation, so you need to back the hell off.”

“No, I think you need to back off,” Crosby didn’t bother to hide his anger anymore, “You are taking advantage of him.”

“How-how dare you--”

“You and me baby ain’t nothin’ but mammals, so let’s do it like they do it on the Discovery Channel.”

I blanched, and stopped talking. First, why the hell was my phone not on vibrate, and second, how the hell did it get flipped back to that song as the ringtone? These panicked thoughts raced through my brain as I whipped around looking for my phone as the lyrics continued very loudly.

“Love the kind you clean up with a mop and bucket, Like the lost catacombs of Egypt only God knows where we stuck it,”

I finally got to my phone and answered it, trying to be as calm as I could. In any other situation, with anyone else, it would have been hilarious, but arguing with this Crosby, it wasn’t.

“Jennifer,”

“YOU ARE WITH GENO?” She practically screamed into the phone.

“Yep.” I curtly answered.

“Wait, what’s wrong?” her decibel level was back to a normal and she sounded confused at the tone of my voice.

“Nothing,”

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

“If you need an out, just say, Oh no you got sick.”

I paused, God, I loved Jen, before replying, “Oh no, you got sick?”

“Alright, but you gotta bring food back to the hotel. REAL food, because I am starving. Sushi?”

“I will stop and pick it up before I get back,” I answered, “I will be back soon.”

During the call, the three men had returned, probably because they heard the ringtone at the bar from the table, thus had been privy to my half of the conversation.

“Who sick?” Geno asked concerned, “Jen?”

“Yeah, probably caught a bug on the flight or something,” I sighed, “I need to head out.” I glanced around, and glared at Crosby, saying, “Well, this has been fun.”

I looked back at Geno, my glare softened, I didn't want to leave him so soon. I wanted to kidnap him and bring him back with me to the hotel.

“Tomorrow we are playing a game of football around 9 am in Central Park with a bunch of the guys, you should come,” Neal said suddenly. I blinked several times, surprised at this invitation.

“Yes! I forgot,” Geno said clasping his forehead, “We have lots of fun.”

“Oh, geez, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t want to intrude.” I started.

“Yeah, it is sorta a thing,” Crosby also started at the same time expressing that I shouldn’t come. We both stopped talking.

“You know what?” I glared once again at Crosby, “Geno, text me the details, I will be there.”

And with that, I downed the rest of my vodka, kissed Geno on the cheek, bade Neal and Martin goodbye (childishly ignoring Crosby), grabbed my coat and purse, stomped to the bar to pay for my drink, and left.

Notes

Hello Friends! Well, that was, uh something.....
Chapter Title: I stole it from Bobby Ryan (Youtube the Bobby Ryan vs Ryan Getzlaf video) .... And I love Canadians, so please Canadians don't be offended.
The ringtone was “The Bad Touch” by Bloodhound Gang. It is rather an amusing song...

First, thank you so much!!! I am so excited that this is being read!!!! I haven’t ever let people read my works before so it is sorta neat to post it and see that people are actually reading it. Uh, so hope you actually like this. Chapter Three will be up sometime tomorrow (hopefully) if not, the next day!

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