All Things In Good Time

February 2014

“Oh holy shit, fan girls be blowing up Twitter!” Beau shouted from his horizontal position on Katherine’s couch. It was Super Bowl Sunday and Beau, Rob and few of the other Penguins were invading Katherine’s townhouse to watch the game and eat her out of house and home.

“What the hell are you screaming about, Beau?” “And why in the hell aren’t you helping me?” Rob yelled back while trying to figure out how to push potato filling into a piping bag. Katherine had left Beau and Rob in charge of finishing the twice baked potatoes while she ran to Whole Foods for some missing munchies that Beau had apparently eaten the night before. Beau came sliding into the kitchen as if he were back home in Southern California skateboarding into his driveway.

“Did you see this shit?” Beau held his phone up to Rob’s face. And there it was.

“This is not good, not good at all,” Rob grabbed the phone and started to scroll down on the posts.

“She’s not going to care.” “They’ve been done since last summer,” said Beau as he grabbed his phone back from Rob.

“But still, she’s not going to be ok with this,” Rob said as he gave up on the piping bag and just spooned the potato filling back into the empty potatoes.

“Fuck, everyone that is coming here is going to know,” Beau noted as he opened the refrigerator to grab a beer. ‘Everyone, except, Paulie.”

Katherine turned the corner and decided to take Carson Street to get to her place a little faster. Whole Foods had been packed and she knew she had a limited amount of time before Rob would be beating Beau for not helping out with the rest of the food. As she drove past the many bars and restaurants that lined the trendy Southside destination, she thought about the night that the guys took her to Urban Tap and she discovered that Golden Monkey made her projectile vomit. She laughed at the thought of some of the precarious situations Beau and Rob had put her in over the years they had been together. Katherine drove down the street towards her house and as she passed Acacia she smiled remembering the night when the team came back from West Point and Beau and Rob dragged her out for a drink. She ended up being walked home by Paul Martin that night. Katherine could vividly remember Paul grabbing her hand when they crossed the street and how gentlemanly she thought that gesture was. She could also remember his kiss at her front door and the promise to pick her up the next morning for a shopping trip down on the Strip. She missed Paul. She missed him more than what she was willing to admit.

After what Katherine considered as a slip with James, she had made a monumental decision after his hearing with the NHL. With some incredible negotiations and the promise from James would keep his mouth shut during the interview, she was able to knock time off of James’ suspension down to five games instead of the ten games that Bettman wanted to impose. With that done, Katherine looked at James and told him that what had happened earlier that morning would never, ever happen again and asked for her house key back. She had decided to take control of her life and that meant no more James Neal waltzing back into her life whenever he wanted and she knew that she would have to do the same with Paul. She never told Paul about the extra circular activities with James, she didn’t want to ever hurt him in that way. She kept that buried deep inside her and she hoped that James would do the same. She broke things off with Paul in early December and she has only spoken to him a handful of times in person and a few via a few texts. One text was in response to his wishing her a Merry Christmas and the other to congratulate him on making the Olympic team. She missed him and every hour of every day he was never far from her thoughts.

Katherine found herself parked in front of her townhouse, so deep in thought that she couldn’t remember how she got there. She was quickly snapped back to reality by a tap on the passenger side of her Tahoe. It was Geno and he was now making some sort of weird face at her that made her laugh. She turned the key in the ignition off and jumped out of the car.

“You need help?” Geno asked as he rounded the corner of the back of the SUV.

“Nyet, I’ve got it.” Katherine said as she grabbed the bags filled with organic snacks.

“You need man to help, not like boys you always with,” Geno laughed as he gave Katherine a kiss on the cheek.

“Geno, I have enough men in my life, thank you very much.” Katherine returned a kiss on Evgeni’s cheek and handed him the bags. “And I bought the good vodka for you and me, no one else!”

“This is why you need man in life.” “Too good for no one to have.”

Katherine and Evgeni made their way into the house and into the kitchen where Beau and Rob were arguing over how much cheese to put on top of the potatoes.

“See what mean?” Geno smirked at Katherine. “Man, not boys.”

“I’ll take that under consideration.” Katherine signed and mentally noted that she was going to need a drink.

Notes