Retrouvailles

Loren had learned from a young age how to deal with nerves. Her first lesson in anxiety came in the second grade. The school spelling bee seemed innocent enough: go up to the mic, receive your word, spell it out, sit down. Four easy steps and she’d be done. However, talking herself off the ledge proved useless as she nearly hurled all over her shoes as soon as the spotlight settled on her. Her mother was sitting in the front row, sympathetic and understanding as always, and offered her daughter a kind smile. That’s all she needed.

She won first place and never worried about nerves again.

Consol Energy Center was intimidating. Ray Shero and Mario Lemieux conducting her job interview was a breeze. Possibly working for one of the most famous athletes in the world was a walk in the park. Unlike most people in Erie, she hadn’t grown up watching hockey. Lemieux was a name she knew only by word of mouth—a fact that caused her father horrible grief. When the Penguins won the Stanley Cup in ’91 and ’92, Loren wasn’t there for the parade, even though her father offered to take her. Instead, she stayed in Erie and went to the community pool with her neighbors and their son.

The only ties Loren had to Pittsburgh prior to receiving a job offer there was their baseball team. From the time she was five, she hadn’t missed a game. She could recite rosters, statistics, and records at a moment’s notice. Hockey, to her, was merely something her father was maniacal about.

“May I help you?” the receptionist asked as she gave Loren the once-over.

“I’m Loren Hamilton. I’m here—”

“Right,” the woman interjected. “Follow me, please.”

An hour and a half later found Loren employed and desperate. She’d just been hired by one of the most prestigious hockey organizations in the country and she still knew nothing about the sport. Her lack of knowledge was what got her hired, she’d been told. Now things were different. She needed to know the ins and outs of the business if she wanted to be able to write press releases and issue statements without sounding like a complete ass, so she called the only person she knew that knew the sport.

“Rhea? It’s Loren. I need a favor.”



Philadelphia was a strange city. She nearly got into three accidents trying to drive around City Hall. No one was inclined to help her, preferring to blow their horns and give her the finger. Sometimes she was lucky enough to be on the receiving end of a slew of curse words and insults. Of course, this was after she got lost half a dozen times simply trying to find the Wells Fargo Center.

Her new home.

She never thought she’d wind up there. When Max left, Pittsburgh’s hatred of the city amplified. They labeled him a traitor, all but burned his jerseys and wrote him off as a disgrace. She joked with Sidney about getting traded there only to get “the look”. But it wasn’t like she had much of a choice. Other than the Flyers, the only team to show even an ounce of interest in her was Anaheim. As much as she wanted to leave Pennsylvania, she didn’t want to be on the opposite side of the country. For now, Philadelphia was home.

“Good morning, Miss Hamilton.”

Arthur was the janitor—and her only friend. He was in his mid-70s and walked with a very visible limp but he’d been the only one to welcome her into the organization when she first arrived. He’d greet her every morning and make a point to find her before he went home for the evening. Although Loren had told him countless times to call her by her first name, he politely refused. She loved Arthur. She looked forward to seeing him every morning and went out of her way to bring him coffee (black with two sugars) and a donut (apple cinnamon).

“Good morning, Arthur,” she replied as she slowed her near-jog to a stop. “You’re in early.”

“Lots to do on game days.”

Loren smiled. From the first time she met Arthur she felt awful that he worked so much harder than she did and earned such less money. During one of their many afternoons spent together he told Loren all about his family: his wife and three children. He told her about his time spent in Vietnam during the war and how finding work once he returned was nearly impossible because of his limp. No one wanted to hire a cripple, he said. Before he was drafted to the army, baseball had been his first love. He had pipe dreams of playing for the Phillies. Instead, he wound up mopping the floors and heading the cleaning crew.

“Are you staying for the game?”

“Oh, no, not tonight. It’s the wife and I’s anniversary.”

An enormous smile stretched across Loren’s face. She couldn’t help it; deep down she was a hopeless romantic and only Arthur had ever taken notice. “She not much of a hockey fan?”

“Are you kidding me?” Arthur laughed. “The woman loves the damn sport. Can’t get her away from the television when it’s on. She has a crush on that Giroux kid. Pretty sure she’d run away with him if given the chance.”

“And you aren’t staying for the game?” Arthur sighed and Loren realized her mistake: assuming every employee was given the same job perks as she’d been given. “Tell you what: I just so happen to have a very important date tonight that I can’t back out on. Why don’t you and Nan take my tickets?”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“Probably,” Loren joked, “but you know I never use them.”

“I can’t do that.”

She gave the older man a stern look. “If you don’t take them I’m going to go into your employee file and hand-deliver them to your house.”

Arthur finally gave in. “Only if you’re certain.”

“Of course I’m certain. I’ll leave them at will call.”

“You’re an angel,” Arthur told her with a smile.

“I’m trying to buy all the friends I can get around here,” she joked again. “Is it working?”

“Without a doubt.”

Loren grinned and bid him farewell, feeling on top of the world. Doing things for people was something she really wasn’t given the opportunity to do in Pittsburgh. There, she had to be tough. The players had to respect her, otherwise her job wouldn’t work. She was given more leeway in Philadelphia. She was part of a team now rather than single-handedly trying to keep the world’s most famous hockey player’s life together with no help at all from him.

The employee entrance wasn’t far from the locker room: Loren’s next destination. The players that made up the Flyers roster had greeted her warmly, not having a clue where she’d come from or who she’d just been fired by. They were full of jokes and easy conversation. Her first meeting with them had been brief, lasting only long enough for them to remember her name and her having to go home and study the roster for those she couldn’t recognize from her days in Pittsburgh, but they were much more welcoming than her coworkers.

She knew what they thought about her: a young professional who was only there to look for a potential husband. There was judgment in their eyes. Suspicion lurked in the background. She was only twenty-four and earning the same income they were and they’d been working there half their lives. They didn’t know a damn thing about her but it didn’t matter. The stage had been set the moment she set foot in the office and they weren’t going to let her in just because she looked harmless.

“Loren!” the team chorused as she walked through the door.

“Good morning, boys,” she replied. “Where’s Giroux?”

“Ooh, got a hot date?” Max joked. She slapped him on the chest with her clipboard. “Jeez.”

Danny Briere rolled his eyes at Max’s comment. “Pretty sure he’s in the trainer’s office.”

“Thank you, Danny,” Loren said as she made her way through the winding hallways and into the trainer’s quarters. “Claude, I need two jerseys and signatures on them both.”

“For what?” he asked, his unmistakable and endearing accent soaking his words.

“You know the janitor, Arthur?”

Claude raised an eyebrow. “No.”

“Of course not,” Loren said, more to herself. “Anyway, he’s the only friend I got around here and I gave him and his wife my tickets to tonight’s game. According to him she gets her Depends all wet for you so if I pay for the jerseys will you sign them?”

The two men in front of her just stared.

“Did you say she gets her Depends wet for him?” Jim McCrossin, the team’s strength and conditioning coach, asked her.

“Did I?” Loren asked, playing stupid. She turned back to Claude. “Anyway, can you do that for me?”

“Sure,” he shrugged, “as long as you never say anything like that again.”



Sidney Crosby was tragedy on two legs. Not even the high of his return could stifle the pain he felt when he realized Loren had left without so much as a proper goodbye. He’d taken the note with him once he finally picked himself up off the floor and kept it in the drawer of his nightstand. It’d been stuck to the refrigerator but then he saw it too often. Every glimpse of the neon pink paper sent a wave of nausea throughout his body and it was all he had in him to not throw away his hockey career and spend the rest of his days traveling the country looking for her.

It wasn’t romance that drove him. It wasn’t the pain of feeling so strongly for someone who didn’t return those feelings—la douleur exquise, if you will. Simply put, he couldn’t do a damn thing without her. He’d grown so dependent on her in those ten months that doing anything for himself seemed impossible now.

“You look like shit.”

Sidney snorted. “Always so eloquent, Jordo.”

“I’m just saying,” Jordan replied, his hands held in front of him defensively, “you look like you went three rounds with that Mayweather guy.”

“Don’t you have someone else to annoy the shit out of?”

Jordan looked around the empty locker room with his eyebrows raised. Sidney sighed and finished lacing his skates. He couldn’t play, but nothing was going to stop him from at least touching the ice every once in a while. Not being able to help his team was torture. Not being able to lose with them or win with them and everything in between was killing him. He was sure he’d die by the time he was twenty-five if he had to stay out for the rest of the season.

Alone.

“So how’s the new guy?”

Sidney shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve only talked to him once.”

“Are you serious?” Jordan asked. “Isn’t he your…whatever?”

“I don’t know, man. He just said he’d handle things and stay out of my way.”

“Wow. What’s Loren doing?”

The clenching of his jaw was reflex. “No idea.”

“Do you even know where she is?”

“No, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

Sidney had heard rumors. His teammates would talk about her in the locker room and shut up as soon as he’d walk in. Jordan knew; so did Kris. Everyone missed her, if not only because their captain wasn’t a mess when she was around. His injury only amplified his misery. Loren would’ve known what to do. She’d be able to talk him off the ledge with just a few words. His teammates couldn’t do that. No one else could.

“What’s the harm in calling her?” Jordan asked. He was tired of seeing Sidney so uncharacteristically depressed.

“She changed her number.”

Jordan’s eyes widened. “How do you know? You called her?”

“Of course I fucking called her,” Sidney spat. “You think I just let her go? I tried to make her stay and I failed. She still left, and all I have is an old voicemail and a pathetic note. You think I really would’ve just let her go without a fight? You don’t think I called her every single day since she left only to have the operator tell me her number had been disconnected?”

Jordan was quiet for a moment. “Are you done?”

“Yeah, I’m done,” Sidney resigned as he grabbed a practice jersey and threw it over his head.

“I meant are you done fighting for her?”

Sidney’s hazel eyes snapped up to meet Jordan’s baby blues. There was a fire behind them. Sidney spent a majority of his life adjusting to being perfect: the perfect hockey player, the perfect captain, the perfect humanitarian, the perfect son. Loren was the first thing he’d ever failed at. It could’ve been a pride thing. She could’ve been nothing more than a challenge to him. But that wasn’t the case—Jordan knew that now. This was real. Whatever Sidney felt for her was real, regardless of whether anyone else would ever understand it.

“No,” Sidney finally replied. “I’ll never be done fighting for her.”