Keep Your Girl Out of My Shoe Cabinet, Your Wife

After hanging up Sidney called his mother’s number.

“Hey mom.”

“Sidney… what a surprise… how are you?”

“I’m okay… arrived in Austin in once piece… I’m seeing my doctor. Can’t wait to get back to Pittsburgh though. Viviane had back pains this morning and now I’m freaking out about her getting in labor when I’m not there.”

“Oh… but she’s fine and in company right?”

“Yeah mom I took care of everything. Vero is staying the weekend with her and Natalie and Michelle Cooke are just a phone call away in case she has to get to the hospital and they all promised me to call me right away even if she makes them swear secrecy.”

“Okay… I’ll tell her parents… we’re waiting for updates from you all the time…”

“Maybe we should get a baby twitter just for you guys.” He joked and his mother laughed lightly. “Okay actually I was calling you for another reason… Taylor just called and said she wanted to spend Christmas with Viviane and I. So I wondered if you’d like to come down here for the holidays… I know it’s a total change of our plans but you know I’d live to spend Christmas with our family and we really can’t make it down.”

“Sounds wonderful. I’ll talk to the Laraque’s and will get back at you once we have a hotel and flights.”

“Non-sense Mom. You’re staying at the house. All of you. This house is big enough to hold more than 7 people… and please let us pay the flights. You’ve done so much for me.”

Trina let out a sigh knowing she couldn’t win this one. “Fine… but we’re bringing Sam. I don’t want her to be alone.”

“Can’t wait… you know I love my dog.”

Trina laughed about her eldest’s enthusiasm. “Great… see you soon.”

“Thanks Mom.”

“No thank you my dear.”

“Whatever…. Love you… can’t wait to see you again.”

He was relieved when he hung up and couldn’t wait for her call to find out whether his in laws would join his parents or not. Quickly he booked a flight from Minneapolis over Chicago to Pittsburgh for Taylor.

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The next morning Viviane woke up to an empty house. She wasn’t a fan of it but soon life would change. She took a quick shower and got dressed. After breakfast she looked through the fridge and texted Vero all the things they still needed for their girls night.

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It was Friday and it was a short day for Vero. Her boss send home around one and once she had packed her stuff she needed for the night at the Crosby’s, she drove to the grocery store.

The French Canadian smiled at the list her friend had send her.
-Chocolate chips dark
-dried corn
-cheese taco dip
-pickles
-chocolate ice cream
-1.5% fat milk
-oranges
-apples
-bananas
-cottage cheese
-whole grain bread
-waffle cookies for fondue

It was the usual mix on a list… few things Viviane needed for something, a lot of things they needed for living and a handful of random things her brain asked for. In this case dried corn, cheese taco dip, pickles and chocolate ice cream.

Many people still were at work and the lunch break was over for most of them so Vero finished the list in a short time and found herself in front of the gate before 2:30.
The young couple had given her and Marc-André a remote control for the gate so she let herself in and parked in front of the garages.
Viviane already stood in the door when Vero walked to the trunk to get the bags. She pushed the strap of her duffle bag over her shoulder and grabbed the two bags with food before locking the car and entering the house.

“Hey how are you? Can I take anything?” Viviane greeted her and smiled.

“No thanks I’m good. Hi. How are you? Marc told me Sidney seemed a little off.” She explained and dropped the duffle bag next to the door. After taking off her shoes she brought the groceries into the kitchen and put them into the fridge while watching her pregnant friend with stern eyes.

“Yeah he is a little overly cautious.” Viviane sat down on a counter and felt bad for not helping. “Due to the concussion Sid didn’t sleep well and two nights ago he decided to sleep in one of the guest rooms so he wouldn’t be afraid to wake me up while being awake. I guess I just wasn’t used to sleeping without my pillow anymore and slept badly so when he came up to say goodbye some nerve or muscle twitched and I was in pain.
Sidney of course went berserk, wanted to stay here or roll me in bubble wrap and chain all you girls to my bed so nothing can happen to me. He’s afraid I’ll burst into labor any second.”

Vero laughed. “Who would have thought our forever single friend would turn into such a softie… just kidding.”

Once the groceries were put away, Vero changed into sweat pants and the girls curled up on the couch with blankets and hot tea gossiping about their men and their team mates. Vero told Viviane about the heart breaking phone call she had received after the loss of the penguins against the flyers. Marc had called her on the way from the hotel to the plane. It hadn’t been easy for Marc-André to play against his best friend for the first time in almost a decade. Viviane on the other hand told her about the overly motivated soon to be grand mothers and how life in the house had changed since Sidney was home again all the time.

“…- Really I locked the door to our gym. I told him I’d give him the key once he’s cleared for all the work out. I don’t want him to think he’s better than he is and hurt himself at home… we really don’t need a scandal right now.”

Veronique threw her head back and laughed out loudly.
“Why can I totally see you standing there with your arms crossed like ‘NO Sidney Patrick, no work out for you tonight’… this is great…”

“Almost a little like…. Uhm which show was it? A shot at love? Where the person always said ‘I’m soooo sorry but tonight I have no key for you.’?”

“I don’t know… I never watched those shows… ask Marc… he watched them all. Flavor of Love, I love New York… you name them, he watched them.”

“That just sounds like what Marc-André and Max did in their hotel room all day long. I don’t even want to know what Sidney does in his hotel room in his free time.”

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A little later Vero went to the kitchen to cut some fruit and get the waffle cookies, while Viviane lit the candle of the chocolate fondue and poured the chocolate chips into the bowl. After a while the chips began to melt.
Vero brought the other goodies and the girls dipped the fruits and cookies into the warm molten chocolate.

“This is soo good” Viviane moaned. “I feel like I now have to eat all the things I missed out on in the last years… so good… Sidney doesn’t know what he’s missing… so good… I don’t care that it goes straight to my hips… I could bath in this… Mr. C. get used to the idea of having a slightly more curvy wife.”

“You’re so precious right now… speaking of the devil… your iPad says you husband is calling.” Vero announced and handed her friend the device.
Viviane accepted the call and waited for the connection to built up.

“Hey honey… I already told Vero you’ll have to life with a more curvy wife soon. Good morning by the way.” She greeted him while he laughed at her greeting.

“Hey Vivy and Hello Vero.” Viviane turned the iPad so Vero could see Sid.

“Hi Cappy”, the French Canadian greeted her long time friend and waved with the fondue fork at him.

“AAAAAAAAAAH don’t stab me with that” Sid yelled in fake horror and made Vero almost spit out her chocolate banana.

“So what did the doctor say?” Viviane asked while Vero tried to regain composure.

“For now take it slow, rest a little more and he’ll run some more tests later today. We’re some hours back here. Don’t forget that so…. What are you girls doing? Gossiping all day?”

“What we? NOOOO never.” Vero giggled.

“Sid really… we would NEVER gossip… all we do is eat chocolate fondue and talk uhm… politics…”

“in Australia…”

“Right Australian politics…”

“Riiiight…” Sidney didn’t believe a word they said.

“So this chocolate fondue thing Vero told me to make is so good. Why have I never eaten that before? As soon as your season is over we will be making that at home… comprendre?”

“What about we’ll take the baby and fly to Cologne Germany? They have a chocolate fountain made of pure gold and it pours liquid Lindt Chocolate.”, Sidney offered.

“Are you kidding me right now?”

“No… Geno was there after losing in the worlds final 2010…”

“We’re totally going there… book me flights.”

“Okay… after the season okay? Like over our anniversary or something okay?”

“Sound like a plan…”

“Girls… I gotta go… room service I here…”

“Bye Sid” Vero said.

“Ciao” Viviane told him.

Sidney waved one last time before pressing the disconnect button.

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Veronique leaned back into the pillows and looked at her friend who was staring at the blackened screen.

“Do you miss him?”

“Huh?” Viviane’s head shot up and she looked at her in confusion.

“Do you still miss him… or did you get so used to not having him over the years that it’s still more like a surprise that you wake up in the morning and he’s actually there?”

“What?... well sure I miss him… you get used to being apart from each others during the years but being in one house, one city… even one continent for to long now makes it really weird when he suddenly is gone for a night or two. It’s gonna take a while to get used to it again once he’s back to playing the big deal again.”

Vero just nodded and smiled.
“So speaking of wedding anniversaries… do you think you will fit into a brides maid dress on July 13th?”

Viviane’s eyes got big and she looked at Vero who could barely hide her huge smile. “REALLY? Oh my god… that’s amazing… you are getting married like for real? Does Marc know about it?”

Vero laughed. “Of course. He actually already rented the location and hired the wedding planer. We are meeting up with her for the first time January 3rd. He also said he’d try to call designers so I could see their dresses but I told him seeing them online would be okay.”

“Non-sense. Let me do some calls and they will all be sending representatives with dresses to Pittsburgh. Believe me I just need to call there, drop my name and I will get it. Hockey may not be that big in Europe but being Viviane Laraque’s best friend, fiancé to a Stanley Cup champion and Olympic gold medal winner, makes your name big enough for designers to put interest in.”

“We’ll see”

Until the game started, the girls mostly talked about the big summer wedding, the baby and other stuff that randomly came up. Finally the pens took the ice against the senators facing former team mates like Sergei Gonchar it was a clear 4-6 loss and when the camera zoomed onto Marc-André-who had taken over the spot between the pipes for the last 20 minutes- seconds after the whistle was blown, Vero let out a sigh.

“He hates losing so much. See… no smile.”