Let's Get Carried Away

Hearing from the one person I hadn’t seen or talked to in what felt like ages was the equivalent to swimming in a pool filled Nestea’s Raspberry Iced Tea. Both incredible. However, seeing that one guy she had mentioned in previous conversations, Max, caught me off guard. What was going on? Did he just let himself into her apartment? That’s kind of strange. I made myself a mental note to talk to her about it later on, after Jordan and Sidney left to get ready for their big game against the Sabres later on tonight. For now I had to keep my cool and act as if I hadn’t just talked to or seen Chelsea in months.

“Who were you talking to?”

Sidney waltzed into the kitchen and towards the fruit stand, tossing an apple to Jordan and grabbing one for himself.

“Just a friend, no one special,” I mumbled, slowly tilting the laptop’s screen back down and avoiding Jordan’s glance.

Jordan spoke up, “what friend?” He clearly didn’t believe the last words I said. I hadn’t expected him to but it was worth a shot. The last thing I wanted to do was have to give Jordan any explanation regarding Chelsea or anything that had to do with her.

I hopped off the stool I had been sitting on, slid the laptop off the island counter, held it in my hand, and tucked it in between my arm and side. I walked up to Sidney and gave him a small peck on the lips before walking out of the kitchen and up to my room. As I walked up the stairs I heard Jordan ask Sid something about me. I couldn’t make out what it was but I did manage to pick out my name in the form of a question.

The only reason I was attending tonight’s game was because the entire team would soon be leaving on a series of away games, leaving me Sidney-less for a couple days. Jessie never really made a big deal about giving me a day off or two when he knew I wouldn’t being seeing Sid for days. Things between us had finally begun to move towards a professional atmosphere only. I guess all that was needed was time.

As this was going to be my last night with Sid for a while, I was determined to make it special. I hoped in the shower, letting my mind wander to when all of this first started, which made me daydream about our future together as I stood under the shower head and allowed the scolding warm water to gently pound on me and fill the bathroom with steam.

I heard the bathroom door open and thus pulled the shower curtains aside and slid the shower door across before peeking outside. It was Sidney.

“I just wanted to let you know that we’re off to the arena,” he said, receiving a head node from me. His fleshy horizontal lips turned into a smile as he adjusted his torn up Reebok cap and walked towards me in the shower. The distance between our lips was swiftly broken and what started out as a small see-you-later kiss developed into a full blown steamy kiss. His hands pushed my wet hair back as he began to deepen the kiss by tugging on my bottom lip with his teeth. Water was still dripping down my face, making the kiss way more wet that it probably already was on it’s on.

After a minute I pulled back in the midst of a smile, “you should go.” He was the one who simply nodded this time. Before leaving he gave me a small kiss on the cheek and a huge grin. Without thinking about it, I quickly returned the grin and slid the shower door closed, returning to my shower. My thoughts were now filled with nothing but the intense kiss we had shared, and that is what the remainder of my thoughts consisted of up until game time.



“To the Consol Arena, Miss?” Asked the college-aged taxi driver whilst I stepped inside the
yellow car. I had decided I didn’t want to deal with any of tonight’s traffic; calling a taxi appeared to be the magical solution

“Yes,” was the only response I gave him, taking out my phone to distract myself on the way there.

“What’s going on at the arena tonight?” I looked up, expecting to see his face but all I could see were his grey eyes looking into the rearview mirror, looking at me. I answered his question with another question.

“You don’t watch much hockey, do you?”

“Hockey?” His eyes shot wide-opened, completely baffled. “Nah, I’m more of a baseball watcher,” he mocked me. I didn’t give him a response after that, but I guess he felt the need to keep the conversation going. “You like hockey?”

“You could say that,” I answered as I laughed at his stupid question. It was only stupid because, well, why else would I be headed to a hockey game?

“So you’re all dressed up for a hockey game?” Once again, his voice full of disbelief.

All dressed up? What? “Hardly,” I said hesitantly.

“You meeting someone there?”

“Sort of,” I answered as I stuffed my phone into my bag and looked up only to see his eyes in the rearview mirror again.

“A friend or a date?”

“Aren’t you just full of questions?” I couldn’t help but ask before I began to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. “And I don’t really know how to answer that question.”

“Well,” he huffed, “it’s not much of a date if he’s not even picking you up.”

“He can’t exactly pick me up.”

“Why’s that?”

“He had to be there earlier for warm-ups and press and stuff.”

The wave of shock continued. “You’re dating someone who works in the Arena?”

“Something like that,” I laughed, unbuckling my seat belt before the taxi made a complete stop at my destination.

“Wait!” He shouted, sounding even more shocked than I had heard him before, “is it a player?” I finally saw his entire face as he turned to face me completely while still managing to stay in the driver seat; he was definitely a college kid. “Badass,” was all that he said after I had nodded my head and proceeded to pay him for his service.

“Thanks,” I shouted back at him as he drove away.

Suites had never been my thing but I also didn’t want to sit way up in the nosebleed seats without Chelsea. That’s where we always sat so sitting there wouldn’t feel right without her. My solution wasn’t the best but it was better than feeling uncomfortable. So I made my way to section one-hundred and eleven, row A. Getting to my seat was about the most difficult thing ever. Kids, hormonal teenage girls, and old guys with beers were crowding the isles down by the glass. And old lady showed me to my seat when I appeared to be stuck amongst the crowd of hockey enthusiasts.

By the time that I had settled into my seat the lights had been dimmed and laser lights of different colors filled as the speakers boomed with music to get the crowed cheering. There weren’t many Sabre’s fans but the screams and cheers from them were easily made out as the team came out of their hallway and onto the ice.

The black rubber puck was dropped onto the ice and chants broke out throughout the arena. And an hour and forty-five minutes later, the three stars- Pascal Dupuis, Marc-Andre Fleury and Sidney Crosby, made their way onto the ice to say their final goodbyes to the audience. I sat back, checking my work e-mail while everyone in the audience began to disperse to the outside, where I’m sure they would wait and stalk their favorite player until they agreed to sign whatever object they had brought with them.

I decided that twenty minutes was enough time for the press inside the locker room to get whatever reporting they had to get done, done. Several hundred feet away from the locker room I ran into Geno’s Russian babe and Veronique. I hadn’t really gotten to know Geno’s girlfriend as she was very reserved and disliked being in big crowds, at least that’s what he told us. We made small talk as we waited outside the team room for players to come out. Each player that left the room waved or nodded their head, acknowledging our presence which we returned through a “congratulations on your win,” or “good job today,” or “nice goal,” and a “goodnight, see ya later.”

Marc-Andre was the first of our men to come out, leaving just Oksana and me. She wasn’t exactly the brightest or sharpest crayon in the box, whether you consider a sixty-four pack or a simple four pack, the outcome would still be the same. She was the kind of girl you’d avoid running into at all cost but would make small-talk with just to hear what stupid shit she’d come up with. Poor Geno, I thought right before the door flung open and Malkin himself walked through, sports bag in tow and stick in hand. We chatted for a bit, he was one of the few players that could hold a fun conversation, until Oksana decided she needed some sort of sexual fix and began to crawl all over him. When Sid made his way out, Malkin said his goodbyes and left with her hanging off his left hand like some sort of obnoxious key-chain.

“She kinda weirds me out sometimes,” Sidney greeted me, angling his head down towards me a bit.

“You don’t say,” I replied sarcastically, reaching out for his left hand with my right to intertwine our fingers together.

As we made our way down a narrow corridor, towards one of the back exits I made sure to bump into him several times, just to mess with him. A step or two away from the exit door I bumped into him one last time, saying oops, as I broke into laughter when he looked down at me. “You think it’s funny, huh?” But before I could respond he swung his sportsbag across his shoulder, securing it behind him and pressed me up against the door, crashing his succulent lips down on mine harder than ever before. I placed my hands on top of the silver metal bar across the door that kept the door closed until pushed on. Everything was fine until a certain someone decided to press their body up against mine, pushing me into the bar and thus swinging the door open. But even that didn’t hinder Sid from retrieving his lips from mine or from pulling out his tongue from inside my mouth where it had been wrestling with my own.

I simply began to trip over backwards but Sidney’s strong hands kept me upright as he adjusted himself to a new position after taking several steps forward to match those I had taken back. We kept at it until flashes had gone off, along with the sound of rushing feet against the blacktop and reporters whispering and shouting. That was what made us break apart. I knew it was too late to try to run for it or cover up my face but it certainly didn’t stop me from throwing my hands up to my face, shielding myself from their flashing cameras. Almost instinctively Sidney put his arm around me, pressing the front of my body up against his so that the cameras would no longer be able to get any pictures of me. That didn’t stop them. I continued to hear the distinct sound of pictured being taken and of course, the questions only began to pile up.

“This is her, isn’t it?”

“Why did you keep denying it?”

“You do have a girlfriend!”

“What’s her name?”

“Did you really think the media wouldn’t figure it out sooner or later?”

“How long have you two been together?”

“How’d you meet Sidney?”

“Do you treat her well?”

“Is she a hockey fan? Are you a hockey fan?”

“Are you only in it for the money?”

“Sid, do you feel like you’ve let down a lot of your female fans after tonight?”

“She looks kind of young, don’t you think?”

“What do Ma and Pops think, Sid?”

“How serious of a relationship is this?”

Sidney guided us both to his car that wasn’t parked too far away from the exit we had come out of. While he pushed through the crowd of reporters that had piled around the black SUV he unexpectedly answered some of their questions. I was more surprised than I should have been. Sid was always a people person, he was all about his fans and now the reporters and on-lookers had guilted him into speaking up and giving his fans answers.

“Her name is Emmerald. We met thanks to a mutual friend; she’s a normal girl and yet she is unlike any other girl I have ever met,” he had reached the passenger door and ushered me inside only after he had finished introducing me to the media, with his back turned on them, looking me in the eye and placing his lips on my lips for a fraction of a second. He closed my door, and pushed his way around the front of the car to his own door, I saw his lips continue to move but I wasn’t able to make out what he was saying or what the media was asking.

The damage had been done, now all that was left to see was how the media would report the news.