Richards & Ilyukhina

I have been looking forward to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games for quite some time now. I spent days, weeks and months training for this moment. My dream was always to compete nationally for my country. Snowboarding was always what I wanted to do.

This plane had many other Russian athletes on it that would be competing in the Olympics. Some of them were my competition and the others were going to be competing in totally different sports. Either way, going to Vancouver was going to mean I would be out of my comfort zone. I hardly left Russia, other than for snowboarding competitions, but none more important than the Olympics.

I just hoped it all went well.

.....

I opened my hotel room door. The room was very clean. There was a bag on my bed along with a couple of information papers, which were written in Russian Cyrillic's. In the bag there was my opening Olympic parade clothing, along with some Vancouver 2010 Olympics clothing.

The paper told me when everything would be. It also told me about the Olympic village; where to eat, what kind of things to expect, etcetera.

I sat on my bed and let it hit me. I was going to be playing in the Olympics, for the first time ever. I could only hope that I didn't at least place last.

After pondering off into my own thoughts I decided I should get ready and explore the village. My English wasn't the greatest, but there had to be plenty of other people that couldn't really speak English. I kind of regretted not signing up for a translator.

I walked down the streets. A lot of people were bumping into me. There were a lot of buildings and stands with people shoving brochures in your hands. There were tons of people wearing winter coats, boots and everything needed for the weather since it was winter. I still never found it as cold as back home. I kept to myself and stared at the ground as I walked through the crowds. Tons of people's tracks were scattered on the ground.

I was subtle to be shaken out of my thoughts by bumping into someone. I seen a phone land on the ground. My first instinct was to pick it up quickly. The screen was cracked. I looked up slowly as my eyes met a tall man's nice dark eyes. I stared up at him. I led to hand him his phone, but our hands didn't let go. I was too mesmerized by his beauty. The blood rushed to my cheeks as I realized the way I must look.

My English wasn't that great. I hoped my Russian-English would bail me out here. "Izvinite, my problem. I pay to fix. Ya ne khotel, chtoby... hurt or break." I rambled on and he stared at me. I assumed he didn't understand a word I just said. "Der'mo , on ne ponimayet, i pryamo seychas ya zvuk, kak idiot," I spoke to myself, exasperated." (Translation: Shit, he doesn't understand and right now I sound like an idiot). His face still had a blank expression.

His chuckle took me by surpise. I looked up at him, hoping he would break this weird silence by talking.

"I'm Evgeni, and really it's fine. I can get a new one or something. I'm sorry for letting you ramble on and panicking." He flashed me an award winning grin. I sighed in relief. I was scared that he would be angry at me for being the accident that broke his cellphone.

"You're Russian! That's actually really awesome," I told him and he smiled at me. "I'm Ekaterina, but call me Rina."

"Well Rina, I was just heading to lunch. Do you want to come with me?" His generosity was way too different. I hadn't been exposed to people who were so nice and polite. My family was a strict Russian group. When I told them I was going to be snowboarding professionally, they disowned me.

"Da."

* * *

"I hope you don't mind that my friends will probably be here, and they speak English only," He simply implied. My heartbeat picked up a little when he said only English. I had spoken to some English people, but it wasn't all that great. They managed to decode what I was saying for the most part.

"It is okay," I said testing out my English. Evgeni just smiled down at me.

We reached a table with two open seats and two occupied seats. There were two men sitting there. They both had their phones out, but they shared laughs and words. I walked up to the table cautiously, but Evgeni just took a chair next to them, relaxed.

"This is my friend Rina," He introduced. The two men looked at me. One had a nice brown-blonde like hair style. His hair wasn't long, but neither short, it was right in between and it looked handsome. The other man sitting across from him was someone I recognized a little. The dark brown, almost black hair was a little ruffled. His skin was very nice and lightly tanned. The two men were wearing sweaters.

"I'm Mike." The one I took a seat from across waved and smiled at me. I just gave him a friendly smile back.

"Yeah, and I'm Sidney. But you can call me Sid if you want to." I knew who he was, he was Sidney Crosby. I've seen his face before, even in Russia.

"Her English is not too good." Evgeni explained and the two nodded, indicating that they understood.

"Geno, you're like fifteen minutes late, " the two men teased him and laughed. I felt so out of place sitting here. I knew nothing about these guys and here I was, having something to eat with them. They all were so handsome though, I had to admit that.

"My bad. I broke my phone." He explained as he gave me a small glance. I felt myself blushing and Mike and Sid took notice to that.

"Did you two get it on before you came here or something?" Sid asked with his loud voice. I found myself really shy and embarrassed. Evgeni was just as embarrassed as I was, but he might've been used to these kind of remarks as these were his friends.

"No, I bumped... into him," I managed to explain, but they didn't seem to care all that much.

After we ordered and got our drinks and food we started to have a more open conversation. I felt a little more welcomed to the table. The guys would ask questions and make snide remarks every now and then. But I did have two older brothers. I think I was used to it by now.

"So snowboarding, what's that like?" Sidney asked.

"It is fun, but not... popular." I figured he had understood what I attempted to say because he nodded his head. Mike and Evgeni were listening in on our conversation as well. "What do you play?" I asked the group of guys. They gave me a strange look, but my expression never changed.

"Uh, we play hockey. I play for Canada." Mike responded, awkwardly.

"What's wrong?" I asked a little worried. I hope I didn't offend them or anything. That would be awful. My first Canadian friends and they didn't like me.

"Oh it's-- we thought you would know who we were," Sidney explained and I just laughed it off.

"Sorry, supposed to know?" I asked with a smirk. Evgeni and Mike laughed their heads off. Sidney's face turned a little pink before joining in the laugh. I had to laugh myself, I didn't want to be left out.

"Burn!"

"Whatever," he said before pausing. "Hey G, she's pretty cool," Sidney complimented. It made my heart skip a beat. This may sound really stupid, but he sounded so sincere.

"Yeah, I like her too," Mike said as he gave me a small smile. It made my stomach get butterflies. I had a feeling that this was going to be a good trip.

Notes

A/N: My story is going to be wrote in Russian-English. When it is italics that mean they're speaking Russian, but every now and then I'll be using the actual Russian word as I am trying to learn the language currently.

But anyways I wasn't feeling too good about this one, so if you really want it to continue just let me know.

Updates will be very spread out.