And I Thought I Loved You Then

“So…” Kris began, as he rummaged through the wrinkled paper bag in his lap. “What’s the deal with you and Summer?”

“Autumn,” Sid stressed, giving an exasperated sigh. “Her name is Autumn. Summer’s her middle name.”

“Autumn Summer Winters,” Kris couldn’t help but laugh as he shook his head. “Her parents must have hated her or something.”

“Winters is her married name,” Sid said, and keeping one hand on the steering wheel, leaned forward to turn the volume up on the radio. Tuned into the local Top 40 station, Pitbull’s I Know You Want Me, blasted through the speakers. “Her maiden name was St. Germaine.”

Kris eyebrows shot up. “She’s French Canadian?”

“Her dad is French Canadian. Born in Shawinigan. Guess he moved down to the east coast to work in the fishing industry and that’s how he hooked up with her mom. She worked in this restaurant near the docks in Halifax and I guess they met that way. Her folks still live in the Maritimes. Last she heard about them they were in Cape Breton.”

“Last she heard?” Kris pulled two everything bagels out of the bag. Both toasted with plain cream cheese and neatly wrapped in wax paper. “Here’s your breakfast,” he said to Sid, placing one of the bagels on the arm rests between their seats. “Seeing as you probably worked up and appetite and didn’t take time out of your illicit activities to eat…”

“You made them?” Sid asked, as he kept his eyes on the road while unwrapping the bagel.

“Yeah…I do know how to work a toaster you know,” Kris huffed, then frowned as his best friend lifted the bagel to his face and sniffed it. “Why do you always do that?” he asked. “Why do you always sniff things before you eat them? Do you think I’m going to poison you or something? Do you think Geno and I have hatched some crazy plan to off you so he get the C on his sweater?”

“I don’t know….” Sid said, then narrowed his eyes and cast a quick glance at his passenger. “Have you?”

“You’re a goddamn freak, do you know that? Sniffing everything before you eat it.”

“It’s just something I do, okay? I can’t help it. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid. I smell things before I eat them.”

“Everything?” Kris asked curiously.

“Everything.”

“Hmmm…so did you like the smell of Summer before you…”

“That’s crude Tanger,” Sid complained, and took a bite out of the bagel. “Even for you.”

“Hey, now that you’re getting yourself some, you are fair game, mon ami. The minute you decided to tap that, you opened yourself up wide to this kind of shit. Can’t take playing with the big boys? Get out of the sandbox.”

“Maybe I’m just not a talker,” Sid said. “Maybe I just don’t talk about stuff like that.”

“You don’t have a choice!” Kris exclaimed. “You said you were going to give me details and I want details. This is even bigger than the day you were drafted. Or when you won all those awards. Or winning the Cup. I mean, you just handed in your beginner’s permit for the G license. An older woman? With obvious experience? Compared to Meghan? You banging Autumn? That’s like trading in a bus pass for a Porsche.”

“Do you just pull all of this stuff out of the top of your head?” Sid inquired.

“My ass, actually,” Kris replied. “So you don’t want to go into details. Fine. But I don’t need to be a rocket science to know that she probably rocked your world. That hickey on your neck tells me you’ve most likely got scratch marks from here to kingdom come.”

“And bite marks,” Sid added with a grin.

“Girl’s a biter,” Kris smirked. “Nice…”

“And a hair puller too. She used me and abused me Tanger. And you know what? It’s all good. And you know what? At work she’s real professional. Business suits, hair back, barely any make up, glasses on her face? Underneath all of that?” he shook his head. “Underneath all of that she’s got four tattoos, a belly button ring and…wait for it…wait for it…a tongue piercing.”

Kris nearly choked on his bagel. “You kidding me? Girl’s got a tongue piercing?”

Sid nodded.

“You know what Mad Max is going to say when he finds out all of this don’t you? You just know he’s going to go on and on about how he likes a lady on the street…”

“But a freak in the bed,” Sid finished, quoting the Usher song, Yeah. “And trust me, Tanger. She is a freak. And I mean that with the utmost respect. She is just…so incredibly hot.”

“A tongue ring,” Kris snorted and shook his head. “At least tell me you got to benefit from it.”

Sid just smiled.

“Lucky fuck…you think she’d be willing to give Michelle lessons? You know, the whole freak between the sheets thing? ‘Cause that grin that you’ve got going on there? I want that grin.”

Sid laughed. “I am sure Michelle would love to hear you say that she needs lessons on how to do things in bed.”

“Not lessons. Tips,” Kris corrected. “’Cause don’t get me wrong. Things are good. Things are real good, in fact. But they could be…I don’t know…they could be a little more exciting. A little less conventional, you know what I mean?”

“Are we actually having this conversation?”

“Oh I’m sorry. Am I offending you? I didn’t think hearing this shit after you’d just got your brains fucked out all night long would bother you. All I’m saying is that I love the girl, but sometimes…sometimes she just needs to loosen up a bit. Stop making things seem so…”

“Boring?” Sid offered.

“Routine,” his friend said. “And it always has to be soft and romantic and all of that crap. And sometimes I just need…”

“A pure and uncomplicated fuck,” Sid finished for him. Borrowing Autumn’s words from the evening before.

“Exactly! I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that! There’s nothing wrong with just wanting to get down to business, right? With just wanting to throw someone down and…”

“There is nothing wrong with it. At all. It happened to me twice in the past eight hours.”

“You throw her down or she throw you down?” Kris asked.

“Let’s just say next time I’m alone with her? We’re going into overtime. Winner takes all.”

The defenseman laughed. “This is just the most surreal conversation,” he declared. “I can not believe that I am sitting here, listening to you brag about your sex life when just two weeks ago, you didn’t even have one! How fucking weird is that? You’ll be able to hold your own against Mad Max now in the locker room.”

Sid shook his head. “First of all, no one can hold their own against him And second, this stuff? This kind of talk about Autumn? Doesn’t go any farther. It’s between us, alright? You’re my best friend and I trust you with this kind of thing. And I know that…I just don’t want people knowing stuff like that about her, okay? I respect her and she deserves better than being locker room talk.”

“You’re going to have to talk about her sooner or later,” Kris said. “You can’t hide her away forever.”

“I’m not trying to hide her away. I just don’t want people knowing those kinds of things about her. Intimate things. She’s my girl and it’s our business and…”

Kris looked over at his friend, his coffee mug poised against his lips. “So she’s your girl now? Yesterday you were bitching and moaning about her not wanting anything to do with her. Now all of a sudden she’s your girl? Banging her a few times does not mean you’re suddenly in a relationship with her.”

“I didn’t just bang her a few times and that was it, you know,” Sid said irritably.

“My mistake. She banged you a couple of times too.”

Sid frowned, then glancing over to make sure that Kris was tightly buckled into his seat, slammed his foot down on the brake.

“What the fuck!!” Kris roared, as he lurched violently forward.

“Guy in front of me cut me off,” Sid explained, calmly sipping his coffee.

“Bullshit!” his passenger yelled, then let loose a string of expletives. In French. “You trying to kill me” he inquired.

“Tanger, if I was trying to kill you, I’d pull over and use my bare hands to beat you to death. Or I’d strangle you. Not shut up, pull up your big boy pants and quit pissing me off. I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you.”

“I didn’t want serious so early in the morning!” Kris argued. “I want explicit! And now all of a sudden you want to talk about how madly in love with this girl you are after spending one night with her. One night and all of a sudden you’re head over heels for her?”

“Did I say that? Did I say that I was in love with her? All I said was that I respected her and she deserves more than being talked about and ‘slutified’ or whatever the hell we call it when Max starts going on and on about the dates he has. That’s all I said.”

“You called her your girl,” Kris pointed out. “You said, she’s my girl and it’s our business. That’s what you said.”

“She is my girl,” Sid said. “And it is our business. And I’m not in love with her…not yet…”

“Yesterday she told you she only wanted to be friends! And now all of a sudden she wants happily ever after with you? Are you serious? What she wants is happily ever after with Sidney Crosby the hockey player. The one with the gigantic bank account.”

“Autumn is not like that,” Sid informed his friend angrily.

“Really? How do you know? You’ve known her what? Two weeks? Yesterday she was telling you just wanted to be friends. Now she’s all over the jock? That doesn’t seem weird to you?”

Sid shook his head.

“You delusional, naïve bastard,” Kris snorted.

“Look, you don’t know her, okay? You don’t know what she’s been through in her life. The stuff that she had to deal with. She’s been having a hard time getting over her husband’s death and going on with her life. And she’s having issues accepting that she’s feeling all these for someone she’s just met. She’s scared, Tanger. And that’s why she said what she did.”

“And she told you this?”

Sid nodded.

“And you believe all of that crap?”

“It’s not crap, alright? It’s the truth. She’s not lying. And she’s freaked out about how much her life is going to change when word gets out that we’re together. ‘Cause people are going to see us around Pittsburgh and people are going to talk. They’ll stop at nothing to find out who she is and what she’s all about. You know how the press is. And the fan girls.”

Kris just nodded.

“That’s a lot for someone to deal with,” Sid reasoned. “Especially someone that’s had this quiet, unassuming kind of life. So she flipped out the other night and said all that stuff about being friends ‘cause she was scared.”

“If she doesn’t want her life going ass over tea kettle she shouldn’t be messin’ with you,” Kris grumbled.

“What the hell is your problem?” Sid snapped. “I thought you’d be happy for me that I met someone. You’re my best friend here, Tanger. And you’re acting like this? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“You know what?” Kris sighed heavily and turned sideways in his seat to face his team mate. “Outside of Colby, I am your best friend. And if Army was here still, he’d be just as weirded out about all of this as I am. Face it, the girl changed her mind and wants to be with you ‘cause of who you are.”

Sid shook his head adamantly. “She is not like that,” he insisted.

“You barely know her!” Kris exclaimed. “Just ‘cause you fucked her does not mean you know her inside and out! Use your heads for Christ sakes! The one on the top of your shoulders! You think she’d be kickin’ it with you if you were just some normal shmuck she bumped into on the street?”

“Yeah…” Sid responded confidently. “I do think she’d be into me still.”

Kris laughed hysterically. “Grow the hell up! She did this about turn around ‘cause she realizes she’ll reap the benefits of being with you.”

“What benefits, Tanger? What benefits are there to being with me? Think about what you’re saying! I’m all hockey, all the time. If I’m not playing it, I’m watching it. If I’m not doing either of those, I’m talking about it. Even in my sleep. You know what my life is lick. Hockey, working out, personal appearances, endorsement shit, press conferences, road trips. I barely have time to scratch my ass most days. So what is she getting out of being with someone that is barely going to be around?”

“Eight point seven million plus cash from those endorsements will keep her happy while you’re off doing your thing,” Kris concluded.

“Autumn is not after me for my money or fame. Not all women out there are gold diggers. And maybe you think Michelle is with you ‘cause of that…”

“Watch it, pretty boy. You’re treading on thin ice talkin’ about Chelle like that…”

“But it’s okay for you to trash talk Autumn to me? You can talk shit about my girl but if I do it with yours I’m an asshole?” Sid shook his head. “Look, all you need to know is that this is the real deal. She’s the real deal. And if you can’t respect her or accept her then…I don’t know…then you need to just keep your fucking trap shut.”

xxxxx

Kris stared at him long and hard. Sid’s eyes were glued to the road; anger and agitation simmering in them. His hand gripping the steering wheel so tight his knuckles turned white. An uncomfortable, tense silence over took them, and Kris relegated himself to sipping his coffee and finishing off his breakfast. He was both stunned by his friend’s obvious devotion to his new girlfriend, and slightly remorseful about everything he’d said.

“Tell you what,” Kris said at last. “I’ll give her a shot.”

Sid laughed incredulously. “Are you kidding me? You’ll give her a shot? Like it really matters to me whether you approve of her or not? I’m with her. That’s all these is to it.”

“Alright…alright…” Kris surrendered, and finishing his bagel, balled up the wax paper in his hands and tossed it into the brown paper bag. “I will give her the benefit of the doubt. Just you need to be careful, okay? I know you’re not the most experienced guy in the world when it comes to women…”

Sid glared at him.

“That wasn’t a diss, okay? It was just stating the obvious about you. Like you said, you’re all hockey. All the time. And it’s been that way since you were a little kid, right? Never went to school dances, never went to proms or grad parties or on summer vacations with your buddies. All you’ve done is concentrate on hockey. Which is why you’re fucking phenomenal at it. But think about it what it did for your social skills when it comes to women.”

“I do just fine, okay? I’m not a complete tool when it comes to girls. She wouldn’t be with me if I was.”

“But you’re just too…trusting,” Kris ignored him. “You just meet the girl and all of a sudden you’re waxing poetic about how you’re feeling about her. And you know what, Sid? I am happy for you. ‘Cause you seem like this completely different person. And either it’s ‘cause of who she is or you’re just revelling in the whole aftermath of getting your brains fucked out all night. But if you really do think this is the real deal…”

“It is the real deal,” Sid interjected. “I know how I feel okay? And what went down between us…I can’t explain it…I just know what I saw inside of her and heard the things she said. She’s genuine, Tanger. I trust her. She’s not into this to screw me around. And I’m not in this to mess her around either.”

Kris’ eyes narrowed. “If you drop the L word on me I’m going to seriously beat you to death right here, right now.”

“I’m not in love with her,” Sid assured his friend. Then added, “Yet.”

“But you think you’re falling in love with her,” Kris stated.

Sid didn’t respond.

“What is wrong with you!” Kris reached out to smack his best friend upside the back of the head. “You couldn’t just be a normal guy and just sleep with someone for the sake of getting your rocks off?! You couldn’t just find some girl to bang and that’s it?! You had to go and find someone that you actually care about?! Don’t you want to…I don’t know…explore your options?”

“I find it hard to take lessons on how to be a man whore on someone who’s as whipped as you are,” Sid retorted.

“Then go and hang out with Max for a while! Ask him to borrow his little black book! Don’t go convincing yourself that you’re in love with the first girl that comes along! Keep your options open! Don’t saddle yourself down with one person until you’ve had a couple of test drives.”

“You sound as bad as Max,” Sid said.

“I’m just saying…don’t be going and putting all your eggs in one basket ‘cause you had one night of incredibly hot sex with someone. Don’t be convincing yourself you’re feeling something you really aren’t.”

“I know how I feel about her,” Sid informed his friend, as he turned left into the rear parking lot of “And I also know that it might sound crazy to you, but it sounds perfect to me. And I’m cool with it. With her. So unless you’ve got something nice to say about her..”

“How can I say something nice about her?” Kris asked. “I don’t even know her.”

“Which means you shouldn’t have so many nasty things to say about her either,” Sid shot back, as turned left into the rear parking lot of the team’s practice facility located on the south side of the UPMC. With Mellon arena out of commission until Saturday morning due to a convention, they’d been required to use their back up rink. And, as he rolled down his window to show his parking pass to the security guard manning the toll booth, he realized just how close they were to where Autumn worked on the north side.

“I wasn’t saying nasty things about her,” Kris argued. “I was just…expressing my concern for you.”

“She’s not a gold digger,” Sid said, as the guard lifted the gate, enabling him to drive through. “And she’s not some skank either. So I’d really appreciate if you backed off of her. And at least got to know her before you started passing some kind of judgement on her. Not that it’s going to matter to me either way if you like her or not, but…”

“I already said I’d give her the benefit of the doubt. What more do you want from me? I will get to know her. Happy? And you know what? It’s not me you have to worry about liking her. How do you think your parents are going to take to her? Knowing she was married and has a kid?”

“My parents have no say in who I date,” Sid responded.

“Doesn’t mean they have to like her,” his friend pointed out.

“How about you stop being such a goddamn pessimist and let me worry about all of that, okay? I will worry about breaking the news to my folks.”

“And to Crazy Girl,” Kris added. “Good luck with that. She’s going to go all psycho bitch insane.”

“Autumn can handle herself, trust me. Meghan tries any shit with her and stalker girl won’t get out of it one piece.”

“Good…” Kris gave a nod as Sid found an empty parking spot near the shipping and receiving area of the arena. “’Cause maybe Autumn and Michelle will hit it off and it’ll be so long crazy girl. I seriously can not stand that bitch. You realize Chelle isn’t going to let you off easily, right? That she’s going to have a freak out that you messed around with her friend.”

“I didn’t mess around with her. I wouldn’t mess around with her. I just don’t want anything to do with her. What is so hard to understand about that?” Sid killed the ignition and palmed his keys before opening up his door and slipping out of the SUV.

“You realize you’re in for the ribbing of your life, right?” Kris asked, as he got out of the vehicle as well and joined his best friend at the back, where Sid was busy pulling out a bundle of sticks and black hockey bag jammed full of equipment.

“Why’s that?” he asked, as he slammed the rear door closed and picking up the bag, slung it over his left shoulder and grabbed his sticks.

“That hickey on your neck is a magnet for trouble,” Kris reasoned, as they headed for the entrance. “There’s no way you’re going to escape getting picked on for it.”

“So I get picked on for it,” Sid shrugged, and yanked open the door. “You know what I’ll tell them, Tanger?” he asked, as he paused before entering the arena.

“What’s that? Your girl is a raging nympho?”

“I’ll tell them we’re late ‘cause you couldn’t fight your boy crush for me anymore and made me find a dark alley somewhere so you could take advantage of me.”

Kris frowned, his eyes burrowing into Sid’s back as the team captain walked into the rink, his distinct laugh bouncing off the walls.

“You fucking wish,” Kris snorted, and then hurried to catch up.