Your Hand In Mine

The boys, and more specifically Kris, came back from their road trip two days ago and brought home nine points--only losing to the Sabres in a shootout, which only Kris and Sidney scored in.

Tonight I was going to their first home game in February against the Stars with Lexa. We both agreed that we needed to put being wedding planners on hold for a minute and go have some fun. In reality, we shouldn't really have been taking a break from Alexa's 'big day' because it was only five months away, and we still had a ton of shit to do, but it was only one night, right? Right.

"So, we're not sitting with the wives and girlfriends because..?" Alexa wondered as we circled the arena in search of section C25.

"Because I'd rather sit with the crowd, and you're neither a wife nor girlfriend of any of the guys; you're engaged to a dentist," I told her, looking above me to read the sign. I groaned. Section C6. That's only on the whole other side of the arena, awesome.

"Come on. We're going to be late for the opening face off," I said, wading my way through the black and gold and powder blue crowd.

We got to our seats so fast that I'm sure it was a recored--maybe even worthy enough to be in the Guinness Book of World Records. If I wouldn't have practically dragged Lex behind me and didn't push people out of my way, we would have missed the first three minutes. Yeah, it's only three minutes out of the full sixty, but would you have wanted to miss the two thirty-six mark when Gramps scored? I didn't think so.

The game went by faster than I would have liked, but it was still somewhat of a good game. It seemed like every time we would put one in the back of the net, Dallas would come back and beat Flower minutes later. The poor guy even got pulled after letting in four; I felt bad. But Brent didn't do a terrible job, and only let in one when Dan threw him out there. Johnny also improved his overtime record by one when Geno scored just fifty-five seconds in. Even though there were a ton of goals and a final score of six to five, Kris only had a lone assist.

"Where'd you say we were going after this?" Alexa asked.

"Max's place, I think. It's either there or Marc's," I shrugged, watching what was left of the crowd climb the stairs to leave.

I heard Lex laugh. "What's so funny?" I asked.

"Some guy just tripped walking up the steps and spilled his beer all over his wife."

"Aw, I missed it!" I said through laughter as I finally spotted the couple. And man, did that lady look pissed. "You ready to head down?" I asked Lexa a few minutes later.

"Yeah, sure." We grabbed our stuff and made our way down to the locker rooms.

When we got to the door, she gave me this look. "What?" Her facial expression didn't change. "Fine. I'll open the door this time, you baby." I pushed open the door just wide enough to see with one eye and was relieved I didn't have to see bare ass, or worse things. I turned back around to Lexa and stuck my tongue out at her. I shoved the door open the whole way and walked in, Lexa right behind me.

"Princess!" Billy yelled then engulfed me in a hug.

"Hey, Gramps. Nice goal," I smiled, unwrapping my arms from his torso.

"Yeah, it's just natural talent," he shrugged, showing off his toothless grin. "Unlike your man," he said loud enough for Kris to hear.

"What are you talking about? I 'ad an assist," Kris said as he finished buttoning up his light blue dress shirt.

"Yeah? So did I," Bill smirked.

"I have three, and goal," Geno joked as I walked towards Kris.

"You play forward, Geno. You should be getting those kind of point," Kris told him then gave me a hug and kissed the top of my head.

"Yes. Still better," Geno said, pointing his thumb at himself.

Max called Kris' name from across the room and he walked over to Max, leaving me to sit in stall. As I glanced around the room, I saw how close everyone really was. I knew they were closer than a lot of teams, but I had no idea that they were practically like family. Every single one of them wore smiles, some were talking, others were laughing. It was hard to imagine what they'd be like after a loss. They just didn't seem like the kind of guys to be down about something for long; there were enough comedians in there to cheer you up for weeks.

I finally stopped watching the boys mess around when Lex sat down next to me. "So, do you want to come with me and Ry to go deal with the cake tomorrow?" she asked me.

"Um.. What time? I have to work from three till seven thirty," I frowned.

"Well, we didn't decide on a time, but how about noon, that way you can go."

"Aw, you're such a great BFF," I said, purposely sounding like a blonde bimbo.

She laughed, which was exactly what I was going for. "Even I don't sound like that."

"I know, thank God. I don't if I could stand you if you did."

"Me either."

"Do you know what kind of cake you want? A traditional white one? Or one of those--watch out!" I yelled, ducking out of the way as Pascal threw somebody's jock strap in our direction. It hit Lexa in the face. The whole team lost it and was practically rolling on the floor with laughter.

"That's just disgusting," I said through my own laughter.

"Whose the fuck is this?" Lexa asked, holding it with her thumb and pointer finger like she'd catch a disease. Well, she might--depends on whose it is.

"Crosby's," Brooks said. "He's had that thing since Juniors or something. Personally, it creeps me the fuck out."

"And if he finds out we touched it, he'll be pissed. You can't mess with any of his shit. He's a superstitious freak," Max told us. I looked around the room in search of Sid. He wasn't in here.

"Dude, is that mine?" Speak of the devil..

"Yeah, man. I couldn't tell you why she's holding it, though," Pascal said, smirking.

For once, Lexa used her head and turned Sid's jock strap into a slingshot. She sent it flying back across the room and Sid snagged it out of the air before anyone could touch it again.

He walked over to his little area, shaking his head, but no doubt laughing.

"Anyway, a traditional one? Or cool ones like Duff makes on Ace of Cakes?" I asked Lex.

"Well, I sort of have this idea," she said, pulling out her phone from her ridiculously large purse. I'm pretty sure you could get lost in that thing, with a map.

"Yeah?"

"Mhm." She finished texting, who I assumed to be Ryan, before elaborating a little more. "I kind of want it to be both."

"What do you mean 'both'?" I asked, smiling as I caught Kris' eye.

She kept hitting the little buttons on her phone until she was satisfied with what she had typed then turned to me. "Like, keep the main color white, but instead of the cake being in the shape of circles, they'd be squares. And I really want to incorporate black into it because of what we're wearing, but I'm not sure how to--which is where you come in."

"I feel so honored," I said, placing my hands on my heart.

"Shut up," she laughed, punching my left arm. "Just come. You get to eat free cake."

"Don't have to tell me twice," I smirked. When she didn't respond--not that there was much to respond to--I looked over at her. She was frowning. "What's wrong?" I asked.

"Ryan's sick," she said. "Apparently he's puking his guts out, which is disgusting. Do you mind if I leave to go take care of him? Or do you need a ride back?" she said, rising to her feet.

"No, no. Go home, take care of him," I said, also standing up. "I'll catch a ride with Kris."

"Okay, I'll see you," Alexa said as she gave me a hug. "My place, noon, tomorrow. Don't forget."

"Don't worry, I'll be there. Tell Ry I hope he feels better."

"I will. Adios mi amiga," she said, walking towards to the door and waving to some of the guys.

"See ya," I called as she slipped through the door. Normally, I wouldn't let her walk around here by herself because she'd end up somewhere she wasn't supposed to be, but the parking lot was pretty much right down the hall.

I sat back down in Kris' stall and watched the conversation Jordan and Tyler were having. I don't know exactly what they were talking about, but it seemed to be a funny subject.

When TK moved to the other side of Jordan, my eyes focussed on a sheet of paper. The names of all the players were listed on the left and then there were.. tallies? I knew what that was. Kris told me Max made that whole chart just to see how many girls each one of them fucked. Immediately, my eyes traveled down to Kris' name then moved to the right.

There was one tally.

He cheated on me.. I'm not the girl that made it possible for Kris to have a tally.

I could feel tears welling up in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. Did he even mean it when he said he loved me, or was it just a lie? Maybe he fucked someone before we were together. No, he definitely did it while we were together; one of the guys mentioned that his space was still blank. That was a little over a week ago--the road trip. He fucked another girl while he was on the road trip. I couldn't believe it.

I sat there in disbelief for another minute before getting up and making my way towards the door. I looked back one more time, tears falling down my cheeks, then pushed open the door and walked out.