Retrouvailles

Five Flyers—Giroux, Hartnell, Timonen, Read, and Couturier—were headed to Ottawa. Claude was excited about the homecoming; the rest were just thankful for a few days to unwind after a mediocre-at-best month of January. Nothing seemed to be clicking and, deep down, every man on the roster still held some degree of bitterness over the Winter Classic. Loren hadn’t been with the organization then but she was obligated to feel it regardless.

“Why me?” she grumbled as she shoved nearly a week’s worth of clothes into her suitcase. “They could’ve asked anyone to go and it had to be me.”

Talking to herself was new. Now that she lived on her own she didn’t have anyone to talk to. She could’ve invited Sarah over, made her pack her things for her for a small fee, but she was so disoriented she couldn’t bring herself to pick up the phone…or to just knock on her door. She didn’t want to go to Ottawa. She wanted to spend the weekend relaxing, not following hockey players around and pretending to give a shit about anything that was going on. A year ago she spent All-Star weekend with Rhea. In typical Rhea fashion, the skills competition had been turned into a drinking game and Loren was still drunk by the time the actual game started the following evening.

“I really need to stop drinking,” she told herself. Another pair of tights got shoved into a compartment. “What do they even expect me to do? It’s not like I’m interviewing anyone. Fuck that.” She paused to refold a pair of jeans that were stuck in the zipper. “And fuck this job, too.”

Kimmo Timonen had offered her a place on the private jet he and the rest of his teammates were taking. It had been intended for players and family only but since most of Giroux’s family was already in Ottawa there were slots to spare. Loren almost refused. She still wasn’t comfortable with the guys and figured it’d be easier on her anxiety to fly like normal people. Something about being cramped on a private plane with people she barely knew tied her stomach in knots.

“Where the fuck is my Dramamine? Damn it all to hell.”

Too often she found herself missing Pittsburgh. Things were simple there. She could spend her weekends locked in her apartment and she never had to renew her passport. Only once had she even debated leaving the country and that was when Evgeni Malkin threatened to kidnap her and take her back to Russia with him. It seemed lightyears better than working for Sidney Crosby. The only thing that stopped her was not knowing know to speak the native language, as Geno would be in Pittsburgh ten months out of the year and wouldn’t be there to translate for her.

And then it hit her like a ton of bricks: there were going to be Penguins there, too. Not just Flyers.

“Oh god,” she groaned. She rushed over to her laptop and typed in the URL for the NHL’s website. There were banners everywhere advertising the weekend’s festivities and she tried to block them all with her hand. Once she found a list of attending players, bile rose in her throat.

She grabbed her phone, which was sitting on her nightstand, and dialed Sarah’s number. Sarah answered on the third ring.

“Happy Harry’s.”

“Question,” Loren said, ignoring her neighbor’s bizarre greeting. “What do you think the odds are of me dying in a freak accident before Thursday?”

“Are you asking me to murder you?”

Loren shrugged. “Would you be willing?”

“No,” Sarah answered. “Blood makes me queasy.”

“Know anyone who would be willing, then?”

“I can ask around. May I ask why you’re looking for a hitman?”

“It’s probably best if you don’t know.”

“Does this have anything to do with that Canadian thing you’re going to this weekend?”

“How do you know about that?”

Sarah scoffed. “I can hear you cursing up a storm from here, and the only thing other than paint swatches that gets you that riled up is whatever you do for a living.”

“Jordan did say I take my job too seriously…”

“Who’s Jordan?”

Loren hesitated. “Someone I, uh—someone I knew back in Pittsburgh.”

“Oh,” Sarah replied, “well he’s probably right. When is your flight, anyway?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Need a ride to the airport?”

“Sure. Think we can make a detour on the way?”

“A detour where?”

“Off the Walt Whitman.”

“Jeez, Loren! If you don’t want to go then why don’t you just tell them? You’re going to be such a party pooper they’ll probably fire you anyway.”

“I’m not going to be a party pooper,” Loren fired. “I know how to make it seem like I’m having a good time, I just don’t expect to.”

“Did you getting fired in Pittsburgh have anything to do with you being a cynical bitch?”

Loren rolled her eyes. “Actually, no.”

“Wow. I was positive you were going to say yes.”

“Just help me! I don’t want to go.”

“It’s a free trip to Canada! Who cares why you’re going, just find a hot Canadian guy to shack up with during your free time and—”

Loren stopped listening. She had found a hot Canadian guy but she left him back in Pittsburgh with nothing more than a note taped to her door. She didn’t say goodbye. Not properly, at least, and words couldn’t describe how stupid she felt for it. He deserved better than that. Sidney deserved the world. Loren had realized all too late that she’d always been willing to give it to him, just not capable. She was still much too selfish, too unwilling to compromise the way a relationship required one to do. She liked her space and privacy; dating Sidney Crosby would make quick work of eliminating them both.

Whatever daydreams Loren was allowing herself came to a screeching halt.

“Are you even listening to me?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Loren replied. “I just—I don’t even know these people and now I’ve got to follow them around Ottawa like a lost puppy.”

“Hey, didn’t you say one of them was a rookie?”

Loren’s eyebrows furrowed. “I haven’t told you anything about it, Sarah.”

“Oh. Silly me, must have been lurking the Internet again…”

“Two of them are rookies.”

“Okay, well, it’s not like they’ve been around the block, either. Just be like, ‘Hey, since we’re both new in town, why don’t we make the most of it and get lost in some sketchy part of town after dark together?’”

“Because that’d go over really well.”

“God, you’re so uptight! You talk to people for a living, Lo. How can you be this intimidated?”

“Because they’re hockey players, Sarah! They’re notorious for one-night-stands and being cocky assholes and being womanizers!”

“Really?” Sarah asked. Loren could hear her roll her eyes. “Name me one hockey player you’ve met that fits that criteria.”

“Jor—”

Jordan Staal, she wanted to say, but couldn’t finish. She still cared too much about him to do that. Sure, he slept around probably more than he should’ve, but he wasn’t unjustifiably cocky. His accomplishments spoke louder than he ever could and beyond his playboy demeanor he had a good heart.

“What was that?”

“No one,” Loren finally replied. “I haven’t met one hockey player that fits that criteria.”

“Good, that’s settled then. I want you to come home with five new best friends.”

“What are you, my self-appointed life coach?”

“Sure am. Someone’s got to pull your head out of your ass for you since you’ve clearly done a shit job at doing it yourself.”

Loren scoffed. “Find me a new neighbor while you’re at it.”


Kris’s alarm started screeching at exactly eight-o’clock. He groaned, threw a tanned arm over his eyes to block the light flowing in from the windows, and tried to muster the energy to pull himself out of bed. He did the math and figured that if he didn’t spend as much time getting ready as he normally did he could go back to sleep for another hour. It was tempting but people didn’t fawn over his hair because he neglected it for another sixty minutes of sleep.

He checked his phone: two unread messages from James Neal and one from his mother. His family would be making the trip from Montreal and he was more excited to see them than he was to participate in the weekend’s festivities. That was typically the case, however.

Typing quickly, he responded to Nealer’s text first: Flight still leaving @ 12?

Tossing his phone back onto the array of pillows, Kris begrudgingly left his bed and stalked off toward the kitchen. It’d become habit to flick on the television as soon as he passed through the living room and he wasn’t at all shocked that the NHL Network had nothing to talk about other than the upcoming weekend. He didn’t see why it was such a big deal. Sure, the league’s supposed best players would all be congregating in one place and playing against one another, but so what? The game didn’t mean anything. The players didn’t win some distant cousin of the Stanley Cup or receive a bogus incentive. It was meant to be fun but it was still work.

He popped a plain bagel into the toaster and pulled a carton of orange juice of the refrigerator. The newscaster had gotten to talking about Sid, which caught Kris’s attention. Sidney always had a way of creeping into every conversation pertaining to hockey, even if he had nothing to do with whatever was going on. They’d mention him for seemingly no reason at all other than to remind whoever was watching that he was still the face of the NHL.

Kris had no idea how anyone could live with having that much attention on them.

Once his bagel was toasted to his liking, he spread a thin layer of peanut butter on it, grabbed his mug of juice, and returned to his bedroom. Nealer had returned his text by then.

Yeah. Still want me to pick you up on the way?

He nodded before realizing that wouldn’t convey well via text and typed a simple ‘oui’ in response. Once he sent it, he flung himself backward onto his bed and groaned. He didn’t want to go to Ottawa. He didn’t want to spend his weekend working when the alternative was being able to do nothing but stay cooped up in his house for nearly a week and not do a damn thing. Of course he was honored to have been picked. After being out so long with his concussion he was in shock he’d even been selected. But in his modesty he figured there were more willing players that hadn’t been invited, players that were overlooked because they played on less popular teams and didn’t have the long, flowing locks that he did.

He laughed out loud at that one.

He immediately stopped laughing once he remembered Loren was going to be there.

No one knew the extent of what had transpired between her and Sidney. Plenty of the guys speculated (TK had a standing bet with anyone willing to throw in money that the two had done it because “she wouldn’t have gotten fired if it was just a handjob”) but no one knew the truth. Not even Jordan, who had appointed himself Sidney’s therapist because he felt so guilty. Only the three of them knew the grounds on which Loren had been fired because they were right in the center of it, but Sidney was the only one who knew everything—and he wasn’t talking.

Kris wasn’t sure why he was so nervous to see Loren. She hadn’t done anything to him. It wasn’t her fault the article, which only a handful of people had seen before the site took it down, had been published. No one’s reputation had been damaged and Robbie was the only one who walked away from the situation with visible scars. Loren had unfortunately lost her job but it didn’t cost her her career. She’d been able to move on quickly and painlessly…or so Kris assumed.

“Why do I even care?” Kris asked himself. “She wasn’t my girlfriend. She didn’t even know I liked her.”

That posed another question: what if she’d known? Again, in his modesty, Kris was sure she’d turn him down. Despite the fact that almost any woman in Pittsburgh would donate a kidney simply to talk to him, he had flaws he couldn’t bring himself to ignore: his arms were too hairy, he snored, sometimes he forgot how to speak English properly, he’d cried the first time he watched The Notebook, he had Celine Dion’s discography hidden away on his iPod, and he’d been accused once or twice of being “too French”, whatever that meant. He was sure she wouldn’t have been interested anyway and decided not telling her had been the right thing to do.

But what if he was wrong?

His phone beeped again, pulling him out of his reverie. This time the text was from Jordan.

Tell your girlfriend I said bonjour. Try not to impregnate her with the Tanger charm. Sid would be pissed.

Another text came through a few seconds later.

Well, even more pissed than he already is.

Kris couldn’t help the anger that washed over him. Sid had no right to claim her. She’d left, right? She could’ve stayed if that had been the life she wanted. Clearly it wasn’t, yet Sidney was still hung up on her like they’d been in a relationship for years and one day she left without a word and he was on his own. She wasn’t his and never had been. Kris had liked her first. He was the only one to ever be nice to her, to pay her any mind when she went out with them, to ask how she was after a rough press conference and take her to lunch. Jordan hadn’t done anything but sleep with her roommate. Sid had only ever been a dick to her.

Kris typed a quick reply before finishing his breakfast and heading off to shower.

Don’t tell me what to do.

Somewhere in Pittsburgh, Jordan Staal was almost choking to death on a spoonful of cereal. He was certain he was the only one to realize it but he knew at least one person was going to leave Ottawa with a really awful taste in their mouth. His money, however, was on two, and he knew them both well enough to know just how awful it was going to get.