The Spotlight

Deliah Marchal strutted down the snowy streets of Rimouski. Her high heeled boots tiny footprints behind her as she and her best friend, Abelle laughed and chatted about this upcoming season. Needless to say, they were both rather excited to watch their friends play this year.

Bella had begun a relationship with a boy named Erick Tremblay over the summer, when he had come to start to train for the hockey season. She instantly became smitten with him, and Deliah understood why. Erick was incredibly kind and caring. She was happy for her best friend. It was about time that Bella found someone who deserved her.

Hockey was always a huge deal in the town of Rimouski. Since the Major Junior league decided to place a franchise in our quiet town, it’s all anyone cared about. And this season was looking very promising. The team had landed what they called a child prodigy. He was supposed to revive the city and the team. They expected him to bring home the championship.

Deliah opened the door to the café, and held it open for her friend to walk through first. Before she entered the tiny diner, her eyes caught a sign on the window. It was a schedule for the hockey season, listing all of the home and away games along with the times. Deliah cracked a smile at the watermarked picture behind all of the words. Sidney.

As they neared their usual table, Deliah couldn’t help but to wear a smile that covered at least half of her face. It was uncontrollable anytime she saw him. Sidney looked up at Deliah as Bella took her seat next to her boyfriend, and across from the only empty seat at the four person booth. Sidney smiled as the petite girl with blonde hair slid into the booth next to him. He motioned to the glass of what seemed to be a dark soda that sat in front of her.

“The waitress got our drinks before you guys came. So I just got you your regular,” he smiled cheekily causing Deliah’s heart to flutter helplessly. It was impossible to stop her heart from beating so fast and loud. She was sure he heard it pounding inside of her chest. At this thought, she blushed, which made his grin stretch even wider.

“Merci,” she spoke shyly, sliding the glass across the table top, and parting her lips to sip from the straw. “Are you excited for your first game in Rimouski?” Deliah asked baring a thick French accent. Sidney looked away from the menu he was studying to draw his attention to her. He smiled slightly, but Deliah could see the signs of panic and nervousness fill his dark eyes. In the short time she had known Sidney, she had learned that his eyes told all of his secrets.

“Yeah, I’m excited,” he told her with a small nod, returning his attention back to the menu. “Nervous,” he finished honestly with an exhale as his eyes scanned the French words. Deliah didn’t say anything, she just nodded to show that she heard and understood.

Deliah watched Sidney as his eyes fixated on a certain word. His eyes glared at the paper as he tried to sound it out in his head. She felt the smirk slip onto her features as she leaned towards him, trying to spot the word he was looking for. He glanced over at her helplessly. She laughed.

“Escargot,” she pronounced, “meaning snails.” Sidney made a disgusted face and quickly turned the page of the menu. Deliah let out another genuine laugh.

“I’ll remember that one,” he mumbled under his breath. “I think I’m just going to get chicken tenders.”

Deliah nodded with a smile. “Good choice.”

“What about you?” He questioned, noticing she hadn’t even looked at the menu.

“The usual,” she smiled kindly at him. He nodded.

“Spaghetti with a side of fries?” He guessed. Deliah felt butterflies attack the lining of her stomach. He always amazed her by remembering small details about her that no one else ever paid attention to.

“You are correct, sir,” Deliah told him, knowing that her cheeks were flushed the whole way to her ears. She could feel the heat radiating from her face. Sidney gave her a cute smile, and closed her menu.

“Tobin’s billets are out of town this week,” Erick mentioned, raising his coffee to his lips. Deliah never understood why anyone drank coffee. It tasted foul and it only made you feel sicker when the caffeine wore off. She was more of a hot chocolate kind of girl. “So he’s throwing a party tonight.” Abelle signature smirk adorned her soft face immediately.

“Sounds great to me,” she said, “are you two gonna come?”

“Of course!” Sidney exclaimed before Deliah even had the chance to breathe. “We wouldn’t miss it for the world, would we, Dee?” At the sound of Sidney’s nickname for her, Deliah let out a satisfied smile.

“Sure wouldn’t,” she agreed automatically. Deliah knew that she would agree to anything Sidney said, even if she wasn’t paying attention to know what it was. For whatever reason, Deliah felt some kind of weird comfort with Sidney the moment she met him. She felt as though she could trust him with anything. Abelle sent Deliah an all too familiar wink.

“We’ll probably head over there around eight,” Erick told Sidney, ignoring the small exchange between the girls, “you guys can head over whenever you want.” Sidney glanced at his watch that circled around his strong wrist. He nodded.

“We’ll probably just head over to Deliah’s after this,” he informed his teammate, “so we’ll just hang out until then?” Now he had his eyes fixated on the girl sitting next to him.

“Yeah,” she said quickly, “that’s fine.” She shot him an adoring smile as the waitress approached the table to take their order.

Deliah tried to smoothly adore Sidney while he dug into his food. Although him shoving his food into his mouth wasn’t too attractive, she couldn’t deny that it was cute when he watched her out of the corner of his eye and skillfully stole some of her fries and popped them into his mouth. She swooned over Sidney the whole meal. Abelle made sure that Deliah knew that she noticed.

When Sidney and Deliah met just a month and a week ago, they were both incredibly shy at first words spoken. Deliah’s neighbors had billeted a boy named Mark Tobin, who had become one of her close friends the season before. He threw the first party of the season in the basement of his billet’s house, the old couple couldn’t even hear the party going on just two floors down from where they were sleeping.

Mark, with a beer in his hand, wondered towards Deliah, who was perched on the couch, chatting casually with some of the teammate’s girlfriends.

“Deli, I have someone for you meet,” he sang drunkenly.

This caught Deliah’s attention. She turned her head to the left, her long blonde curls cascading over her shoulder and down her back. Her eyes immediately met with a pair of deep brown orbs, and her breath caught in her throat.

“Sid, this is my friend Deliah. Del, this is Sidney Crosby.”

Deliah already knew at that moment; there was just something different about this boy.