Russian Roulette

A month later I head to cafeteria and sit down with Elias and Matt.

“What’s up friends?” I ask them evenly.

“Not much. Did you talk to Reid?” Matt asks.

“I did and I’m all caught up on my surgeries,” I say smiling.

“Congrats dude! That’s awesome,” Elias says before taking a huge bite of his tuna fish sandwich. I get a huge whiff of it and gag.

“Are you okay?” Matt asks concerned.

“Yeah it’s just I already have so many aversions to food,” I say displeased.

“I’m guessing fish is one of them?” Elias says with his mouth full.

“Yeah. I felt so bad because Geno made me his mom’s famous fish soup but I couldn’t even stomach a bite of it.”

“Any other aversions we should be aware of?” Matt asks.

“Mint flavoured anything, chicken, coffee, fish,” I say shrugging.

“Good to know,” Elias says nodding. Matt’s pager goes off and he leaves towards the E.R.

“How’s he doing?” I ask Elias.

“What do you mean because you’re knocked up and engaged and he’s still in love with you. He’s happy for you,” Elias says before drinking his water.

“Has he been seeing anyone lately?”

“He’s been going out with some scrub nurse. He’s trying to move on at least.”

“Did you know he liked me all this time?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Bro code,” he says simply.
We finish our meal and I get a page to Reid’s office. I head there and knock on the door.

“Eriksson, good to see you,” he says smiling.

“Hey Dr. Reid, you paged?” I ask.

“Ah yes, have a seat.” I sit down and wait to hear what he has to say.

“I’m going to be retiring which means there will be an attending position open here at the hospital and I strongly recommend that you take it. Despite your incident, you’ve proven to be the most promising resident and I was honored I got to mentor you. I’ve taught you all I can teach and now it’s time to soar on your own. I’ve already talked to Collins and he’s agreed to offer you the position,” he says smiling. I sit there shocked. I hadn’t even really thought about where I was going to work yet.

“Wow, I don’t know what to say.”

“Say yes,” he laughs.

“Yes. Of course.” He shakes my hand and I head to the nurse’s station where I find Matt talking to a nurse. I walk up to them and the nurse gives me a cold look then walks away.

“Anyway, guess who just got offered a position as the orthopaedic surgeon attending here at the hospital,” I say excitedly.

“No way, that’s awesome! Hopefully me and Elias get jobs here so that we can all stay together,” he replies. I think about how sad I would be if we got split up.

“So Elias tells me you’re going out with a scrub nurse,” I say casually.

“Yeah it’s nothing serious. Did he tell you that he asked out that peds resident?”

“No. You guy’s don’t tell me anything anymore,” I say frowning. My pager goes off so I head down to the E.R. for a consult.

I get home late that night and quietly crawl into bed with Geno.
Just when I get comfortable a wave of nausea hits and I go running to the bathroom. Geno comes and holds my hair and I throw up a few times. After I feel better, I flush the toilet and brush my teeth and we crawl back into bed.

“I’m sorry I woke you up, I know you have a game tomorrow,” I say sadly. I felt bad, night after night I got sick and I was always disturbing his sleep.

“Is fine. I not want you to feel alone,” he replies. My heart swells and I curl up closer to him.

The next couple months flew by and soon I was 12 weeks pregnant and the only annoying symptom I
was having was an increased sense of smell. I head to Consol on my evening off and meet all the wags in the player’s box.

“When are you due?” Maureen asks.

“September,” I reply.

“Will you be having the baby here?” Vero asks.

“Yes I will.” Every offseason Geno went back to Russia. I didn’t go last offseason because we were broken up so I wasn’t sure if I was going this year. He ended up getting a hat trick and the Penguins beat the Oilers 6-2. I get up and hike up my leggings. My skinny jeans were starting to get uncomfortable so leggings became my new favourite thing. I head down to the locker room and lean against the wall. Robert and Beau come out and I briefly chat with them until I see Geno come out in his grey suit.

“So I hear you got a touchdown or something?” I say smiling.

“Did you see second goal?” he asks excitedly.

“Yes it was beautiful. Well Mr. hat trick, do you want to go eat, because I’m starving,” I tell him.

“Da,” he replies. We say goodbye to the guys and head to Kavsar.
We get there and I order two orders of Russian perogies and a large plate of beef stroganoff with a side of fries. I knew I was taking quite a considerable amount more calories than I probably should but I was always starving.

“Finally you eat more,” Geno says smiling.

“Okay we need to have a serious talk,” I tell him. He immediately looks guilty and I can’t help but chuckle at his reaction. “Relax babe, it’s about the offseason. Are you planning on going back to Russia?”

“Da. You come with,” he replies.

“Okay. That means I’ll have to take off a few extra months off work. I hope I can make that work.”

“I excited. I show you Moscow and we get married.”

“What about our honeymoon?” Up until now I hadn’t even thought about our honeymoon and by the look on his face neither had he.

“I not know. You choose, we go anywhere in world.” he tells me. Wow, perks of being with a pro athlete I guess.

“We should go to the Maldives. I’ll be pregnant so it would be cool to go somewhere nice and relax. Plus you could fish there.”

“Da. Sounds good.” I stick my tongue out at him and he smiles.
Regular season was ending and playoffs were around the corner, which meant we would leave for Russia in a few weeks. Reid was pushing back his retirement so he could cover my maternity leave but would Collin’s let me take a few months off before hand? I continue to eat my food and figure I’ll deal with it tomorrow.

Notes