Love Will Keep You Up All Night

****
Sitting in the living room talking to Taylor was a nice change. They haven’t gotten to spend a lot of extra time with each other. Now that he was done, that was going to change. He would try to visit her more often and hang out with her. It was also nice to get to spend time with her alone, when he would stop by her house the only time they were alone was when he was leaving and even then they were being watched. This was nice though because they could talk about things that maybe they didn’t want other people to hear. Sidney though was just happy to finally be near Taylor again.
Once they finished their coffee they got ready to go out. Before they left though he had to call someone from the team and let them know that he made it okay and that he was going to go home with Taylor and her friends. While Taylor was doing her make up Sidney dialed Marc-Andre’s number.

“Hey Flower, it’s Sid. I’m just calling to let you know that I made it okay. I don’t exactly know when I’ll be home. I’m going to leave here with Taylor and her friends. Um, so yeah. Call me at this number if you want to reach me. Its Taylor’s number. Bye.” Sid closed the phone and walked to the bathroom “You aren’t ready yet?” He teased

“Sorry, I was having trouble deciding how I wanted to do my hair and then what color eye shadow I wanted to wear.” She said rubbing shadow onto her lids.

“You’re beautiful no matter what. You don’t need any makeup.”

“Aw, thank you. But I do need some on my eyes. No matter how long I’ve gone without my glasses, I still get raccoon eyes.”

“Raccoon eyes?”

She laughed that beautiful laugh of hers. “Yeah, my eyes get really white during the winter and fall and it use to be during the summer too when I had to wear my glasses all the time. But now that I have contacts I was so excited that I was finally going to have an evenly tanned face.” She laughed again. “Yeah that didn’t happen. I think I’ll never get rid of the glasses tan.”

“You’re still beautiful.” He walked up behind her and kissed her neck.

“Thanks Sidney. Okay, I’m ready so we can go now.” She turned in his arms so that she was face to face with him. “Do you mind driving? I could if you want me to.”

“No I’ll drive, you’ll just have to tell me where to go.”

“Not a problem, let me just go grab my purse.”

Sidney released his hold on her and watched as she moved around the room looking for her purse. He couldn’t remember the last time he hasn’t thought about a loss a couple of days after it happened. He was even more surprised that he really wasn’t thinking about this loss because this one knocked the Pens out of the Stanley Cup finals.

“Are you ready?” She asked looking at him. He nodded and followed her out to the parking lot. “Sidney, is something bothering you? You looked very focused back there.”

“I was just thinking about not thinking about the game.” He said

“Huh?”

Sidney laughed and then sighed. “This is the first time that I haven’t thought about a loss.”

“Well I don’t really know what to say about that. Is it a bad thing?”

“No not always, but I like to think about them and see if I can see what went wrong.”

“Isn’t that kinda hard on yourself? Reliving the loss and seeing the faces of your team and the other team.”

“Tay, it’s my job as captain to find out what went wrong that way we don’t have a repeat.”

“I understand that, but do you always do it like right after the loss?”

“Yes that way I’m already pissed about it and just get through it.” He stopped at a red light and looked at me. “I know it sounds really weird, but it’s just what I do.”

“Again, I understand that. But…never mind I’m not going to try to understand completely. It’s your thing and I’m not going to judge you.”

“Taylor, if you want to understand then I’ll tell you.”

“Forget it. I just don’t understand why you’d want to watch a loss again. I mean wasn’t actually being there enough?”

“No. I have to see what went wrong from a different view than as a player. There are things that I can fix just by watching a game over.”

“Okay.”

Sidney didn’t say anything and just sighed. They sat in silence for a while and kept to themselves. Why was she being like that?

****
Is it totally wrong of me to want to know why he puts himself through the pain of losing? No it’s not. I was just being curious and wanted to know why. I guess it’s a big thing for him because he seemed a bit pissed that I was questioning it. I didn’t say anything the rest of the ride, I just sat there watching the familiar sites go by.
Sidney would let out a sigh every once and a while, but I didn’t look at him. Finally I couldn’t put up with the silence anymore.

“Listen Sidney, I’m sorry if I pissed you off. I really was just wondering about it and worried about you.” I said quietly

“It’s okay, I shouldn’t have freaked as much as I did.” He grabbed my hand. “So where to?”

“Just keep going straight, the mall is going to be on your right.”

“Okay.”

“Then we can go to Broadway at the Beach. It’s this boardwalk type place, but it has a ton of shops and restaurants.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

The rest of the ride to the mall in silence, but this silence wasn’t as tension filled. The mall wasn’t too crowded so we were able to find a spot pretty close. When we got out of the car I wrapped my arm around Sidney’s waist and leaned into him. He looked down at me and gave me his lopsided smile, pulling me tighter into his side. My heart jumped like it does every time he smiles at me.

Walking through the mall was an interesting experience for me, we were stopped by a few fans. This was the first time that I watched Sidney interact with his fans. Most of them told him how sad they were that the Penguins didn’t make it to the final series. After hearing that a few times Sidney’s sour mood was back. I suppressed the sigh that was building in my chest and held his hand. I tried to get him to laugh, but nothing was really working right now so I just let him go. We-well he- shopped for some clothes and a bathing suit.

As we were getting ready to leave and head towards Broadway at the Beach, Sidney was stopped by another fan. At first I didn’t realize that he wasn’t next to me. I turned to tell him something, but he was no where near me. I noticed him talking to a girl. I didn’t get jealous because she was no threat to me. Don’t get me wrong she was cute, but I didn’t have to worry because she was only like seven years old. I smiled as I watched him talk to her, he treated her differently then the other fans. He seemed more at ease with her than he did with the others. He caught me looking at them and waved me over. I started walking over to them and I noticed the big smiled that the little girl had on her face, and that made me smile more. There was nothing better than a very happy child.

****

Taylor and Sidney were on there way out of the mall when Sidney was stopped by tugging on his shirt.

“Excuse me? Are you Sidney Crosby?’ A little girl asked

Sidney looked down and smiled at her, kneeling down so that he was at her level he answered. “Yes I am. What’s your name?”

“Mary.” She smiled

“Well it’s nice to meet you Mary. How are you?”

“Good, I was wondering if you could sign my princess bag.”

Sidney laughed. “Sure, do you have a pen or something?”

“Um, my mom might.” She turned to one of the benches and called out to the woman sitting there.

The woman made her way over to her daughter. “Hi, I’m so sorry. She thought she saw you and wanted to meet you.”

“No that’s fine.” Sidney said shaking the woman’s hand.

“Mom, do you have a pen in your bag?” Mary asked impatiently.

“Yes. Here.”

“Thanks. Here you go Mr. Crosby.”

“Call me Sidney.” He took the pen from her and the bag she was holding out. Signing the bag he asked. “So Mary, do you like hockey?”

“Not really, my dad does though. I just know who a few players are. “She paused and looked around, moving closer to Sidney. “You’re my favorite though.” She stage whispered.

Sidney laughed and blushed. He handed back Mary’s bag and pen and talked to the little girl some more. He noticed that they were being watched and he saw Taylor standing there smiling. He waved her over to meet this little girl.

“Mary, I want you to meet my girlfriend Taylor.” He stood up and looked at Taylor. “Taylor, this is Mary.”

“You’re pretty Taylor.” Mary said

“Thank you, you’re pretty too.” Taylor smiled. “I like your bag. What princesses are on it?”

If it was even possible, the smile on Mary’s face grew even bigger. Apparently princesses were her favorite thing to talk about.

“Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Princess Jasmin, and Belle.” Mary beamed

“That’s cool, I like Arel the most. Little Mermaid is my favorite Disney Princess movie ever. I still watch it and I’m eighteen years old.”

Sidney stood back and watched Taylor interact with the seven year old with a smile on his face. He realized that Taylor was a natural when it came to children. She didn’t talk down to her, she talked to her like an adult.

Mary giggled. “Wow, I like Little Mermaid too, but my favorite is Aladin.”

“Oh yeah I like that movie too.”

“Do you like Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast?”

“I like Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, but I don’t really like Sleeping Beauty.”

“I don’t mind it, but it’s not my favorite.”

Mary’s mom laughed. “Okay Mary that’s enough. Say thank you to Sidney and Taylor.”

“Aw man, okay. Thank you Sidney for signing my bag and thank you Taylor for talking about princesses.” Mary said

“You’re welcome. It was nice meeting you Mary.” Taylor said

“Yes Mary it was very nice meeting you. Tell your dad I said hi.” Sidney said

“Okay I will!”

Mary’s mom laughed again. “If I didn’t stop her talking now you would still be talking about princesses for another hour. Thank you again Sidney.”

“Not at all. Have a nice afternoon.”

“You too, come on Mary.”

Mary turned around and waved as they walked away. Sidney and Taylor waved back to the little girl.

Sidney grabbed Taylor’s hand and they walked out to the car. After Sidney put the bags in the trunk, he climbed into the driver seat but didn’t start the car. He just looked over at Taylor and smiled.

“What are you smiling about?” She asked

“You were really great back there with Mary.”

Her cheeks reddened as she blushed. “Oh, thank you. You were pretty great yourself. You are really good with kids.”

“You are too.”

“Thanks, I guess babysitting does that to ya. I love kids though so it’s easy for me.”

Sidney leaned over the center console and kissed Taylor’s cheek. “Thank you for being so patient with me.”

“No problem.”

He pulled away and started the car, “Okay where to now?”

“Just keep heading in the direction we were heading in first. It will be on your right again, you can’t really miss the place.”

“Okay.”

Sidney pulled out of the spot they were in and headed out to the main road, In the silence of the car ride, he thought about the game. He tried not to, but after talking to those fans it reminded him that he hasn’t found out what went wrong. He would wait until he got to Pittsburgh before watching the video, but he needed to just think about the game.

“What are thinking about over there?” Taylor asked

“The game”

Taylor didn’t say anything, she just turned to look out the window. Was this always going to be a problem for them?

“Taylor talk to me. Why does it bother you that I think about a loss? Don’t you ever think about a softball game you lost and think ‘what went wrong’? What did we do wrong? How can we fix that?’”

Taylor sighed and looked at Sidney. “Yes I think about our losses, yes I think what went wrong and what we could have done. I don’t like the way I feel when I do think about them because usually there’s a really stupid mistake that if it didn’t happen maybe we would have one the game. It’s stupid to get so upset about it but I do. I know you want to know why I get upset when you do it. Well here’s my answer, your mood drops about fifty percent south when you do. I don’t want you to kill yourself over what happened, and I know you will because it’s who you are.”

“Well when you do look back on those games, do you make the same mistakes?”

“Do you mean me personally or the team?”

“Both.”

“Well I try not to do the same things, as for the team we talk about the mistakes but we always seem to keep making them.”

“That’s what I do. I look to see what went wrong as a team and personally and then I try to stop them from happening.”

“I understand, please don’t think that I don’t because I really do.” She sighed then spoke again. “Do you want to hear how you guys did from a fan’s point of view? I’m not asking as your girlfriend either, I’m asking you as a fan.”

“I do, but not right now. When we get home?”

“Okay and I promise I won’t hold back how I really feel.”

Sidney smiled. “Okay, I’m going to hold you to that.”