Cold As You

To say that when I saw the crowd for the parade I was surprised would be an understatement; I was completely blown away. There were people hanging from fucking buildings for crying out loud! All to see my idiot of a best friend and some oversized shiny cup. Okay, maybe I was being a little insensitive (and perhaps a bit bitter) but I wasn't exactly in the best of moods on that morning.

Sidney's sudden and very peculiar behavior had really begun to take its toll on me. Now, being in love with someone and knowing they'll never love you back is a little easier than being led on. Which is exactly what Sidney Crosby was now doing to me- leading me on. Whether he knew he was doing it or not was irrelevant because it stung either way. I'd much rather he never talk to me again than actually lead me to believe I had a chance with him.

"You don't seem too excited," Vero pointed out as we all waited around an empty parking lot to get loaded into our respective cars.

"That's probably because I'm not," I grumbled. Was I being immature? Probably. Did I care? Not in the least bit.

"Why not sweetie?" She asked me, rubbing my back slightly. I pushed my mouth to the side and looked down at my flip-flop clad feet. Did I really want to waste my breath and tell her everything? Or did I just want to keep it short and sweet? It'd be a pretty hard thing to explain without me sounding like I needed to be committed anyway.

"Sid's just being a bit of a dick," I shrugged.

"Wanna elaborate?" She asked with a small chuckle. I sighed, pushing my long bangs out of my eyes and tucking them behind my ears. The wind blew and caused the strapless floral print dress I was wearing to fly around my waist- thankfully I pushed it back down before anyone got a good view, but still groaned and pushed my black Ray Bans up my nose.

"He's just...I don't know. I guess it wouldn't really make sense to anyone else. I kinda have a short fuse and he likes to push my buttons," I half-lied. I did have a short fuse, and Sidney did enjoy pushing my buttons- he just never knew when he was doing it and which buttons he was pressing. I mean, he seemed to enjoy making me squirm (at least in my head he did) but some of the time I don't think he really understood the effect he had on me.

"I can understand that. Marc does these little things that just make me want to scream, but if I told anyone else what they were they'd probably think I was completely insane," Vero told me understandably, smiling sweetly. I nodded and smiled back, glancing over my shoulder to see what was going on.

"Do you know exactly what we're doing?" I asked Vero finally. She let out a light laugh and shook her head.

"Not in the least bit."

I bit my lip and turned around again, scanning my eyes over the sea of Penguins jerseys to try and find the familiar number 87. A loud squeal left my lips as I felt a pair of strong arms wrap their way around my waist and lift my feet up into the air. I immediately made sure I wasn't flashing everyone and then slapped the arm that was holding me.

"Stop it!" I growled as he set me back down on the ground.

"What?" Sidney asked, a playful grin on his lips.

"I'm wearing a dress," I told him, as if he didn't already know. He rolled his eyes at me.

"Stop being so uptight," he told me.

"Stop being so perfect," I mumbled mostly to myself. The last thing I wanted was for Sidney to hear me, but sometimes things like that just slipped out of my mouth. Word vomit, I think they call it.

"What?"

"Nothing," I confirmed.

"Oh, okay," Sidney nodded. "Well, you and Vero are supposed to be over at that truck in 10 minutes," he explained, pointing to a big blue truck a few yards away. "You guys are sitting at the back of the bed of the truck and me and Marc will be at the front with the Cup."

"Kay," I nodded. He smiled and kissed my cheek before running away like a child. Winning the Cup had definitely brought out his inner child. Everyone had always noted Sidney for being very mature and almost dull since he had entered the NHL, but I knew a different side of him. Sure, he was probably more mature than most guys his age, but he wasn't uptight and as serious as the media portrayed him to be. Winning the Stanley Cup turned him into a thirteen year old though reguardless. He was almost always smiling.

"He certainly seems happy," Vero said with a small laugh, slipping on a pair of sunglasses as she did so.

I laughed with her, "That's because he doesn’t know what an asshole he is."

"Well, that's not his fault," she said. I raised an eyebrow at her. "He's a guy, it's in his genes to be an asshole."

We both continued on with our laughter as we walked over to the blue truck we were to ride on with my best friend, or in Vero's case- her boyfriend. After (not really) listening to the instructions for the parade we climbed onto the bed of the truck, sitting right where it closed while Sidney and Marc stood towards the front, the Cup sitting in between them on top of the truck.

"Are you ready for this?" Sidney asked, turning around and smiling at me.

And then, despite my attitude previously, and how upset I was about Sidney leading me on, I smiled right back and nodded. "Yeah, I'm excited," I nodded. He smiled again, scurried over to where I was sitting and pressed a short kiss to the side of my mouth. He looked up and we locked eyes, his face was so close to mine. I could feel the spot where he had just kissed me positively burning as he walked back to Marc and the Cup. Vero shot me a short glance, a smile on her face but her eyebrow raised. I shrugged lamely and looked forward, a fake smile plastered to my face.

The parade was what I expected in the regard that I had to listen to Sidney deny I was his girlfriend all day, but much different in terms to size. Like I said before, there were thousands upon thousands of cheering fans there. It was overwhelming to say the least.

As the day wore on though, I actually began to enjoy myself. And when the parade was finally over I actually had a real smile on my face. Sidney seemed over the moon at this point as well and only showed that by being even more touchy feely with me, giving the press something to take a few pictures over. I'm sure they were really starting to question his whole "best friends" speech because of the way he was touching me.

"This whole this is just too fucking unreal," he told me as we were leaving the parade and getting back into his Land Rover.

"It's just what you wanted since you were a kid," I told him with a small smile.

"And a lot more," he added. "That's for sure."