Retrouvailles

Sidney woke up wrapped in Loren’s sheets, the sun pouring through the curtains, the sounds of the city right outside the window—but he was alone. The clock on the nightstand told him it was a little after nine. Sighing, he scanned the floor for his boxers, eventually chuckling when he spotted them hanging off the handle of the closet door. He slipped them on and went in search of Loren.

“Good morning, sleepyhead.”

Loren was standing in front of the stove with a spatula in hand, half-flipping pancakes and half-dancing along to the song playing on the radio. Wearing only an oversized t-shirt, Sidney felt that familiar clench in his stomach as he took her in. It wasn’t the case with most of the women he knew, but Loren truly was at her best when she wasn’t trying. With her hair tied in a messy knot on the top of her head and no makeup on, she was still beautiful.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?”

She smiled. “Remember that time you said I never make you breakfast?”

He did, but he wasn’t going to admit it. He was a different person then, full of jealousy and a possession that wasn’t justified. Frankly, he was embarrassed of his former self…not to mention frustrated. He knew Loren would never have given him the time of day while she was still working for him, but he regretted not leaving a better impression. Not that it mattered much now. He had her exactly where he wanted her.

“Are you wearing anything under that shirt?”

Loren rolled her eyes and smacked him in the chest with the spatula. “Get the plates out.”

Laughter and easy conversation lightened the atmosphere but it was only to stall the inevitable. They had sex. And they’d have to talk about it eventually because it wasn’t the solution to all their problems. Loren knew that, and she knew Sidney wasn’t stupid enough to think this was the end of the road for them, that they’d just fall into bed and everything would be okay. She didn’t regret it—neither did Sidney, judging by the innuendos he tossed around all morning—but it wasn’t how she envisioned their reunion.

Still, she wasn’t so sure she was ready to have that conversation. If things had been tricky before they were ten times more difficult now. It wasn’t any of his business, but Sidney was only the second man she’d ever been with—treating that like it was no big deal wasn’t possible. Not for Loren. She knew how athletes were. She knew most women were just a way to get their rocks off and she’d never understood it. Having lived with Rhea only amplified that confusion. Night after night she watched different men enter their apartment and stumble out hours later and Rhea didn’t even blink when she couldn’t tell Loren their names.

Was something wrong with her? Would Sidney want someone so old-fashioned and sentimental? Jesus, she couldn’t even disassociate emotion from something so primal. She was practically a virgin. But she knew she was overreacting, that if none of this had ever happened, she was the type of girl she’d allow Sidney to go after. There was no baggage, no desire to be in the public eye, and no skeletons in her closet. As comforting as that thought was, it was brief, and by the time she was loading the dishwasher with the remnants of their breakfast, she was back to worrying herself sick.

“That was some game yesterday, eh?”

Loren snapped her head to where Sidney sat on her couch, thankful she’d taken Sarah’s advice and bought furniture weeks ago. The hint of mockery in his voice was nothing new; neither was the small smirk that played upon his lips.

“I didn’t see you out there,” Loren replied. “What number were you again?”

“Low blow,” he laughed.

Just bring it up, he told himself. He figured Loren would be the first to say something seeing as how she was the more hesitant of the two when it came to them being together, but she kept quiet all through breakfast. Sidney’s original game plan was to wait out her hesitations and blow her away with sincerity, to all but make her an offer she couldn’t refuse. Now that she wasn’t taking the bait, there wasn’t much sense in waiting. If he wanted it done, he had to do it himself.

“How long are you staying?” Loren rolled her eyes at the way Sidney’s face dropped. “I’m only asking because it’s not like you can just go roaming the streets here. I don’t care how long you stay, but if you’re going to move in I expect you to help pay rent.”

If that wasn’t an invitation, he didn’t know what was.

“Before I start packing my stuff, I think we should talk about last night.”

Loren sighed as she dried her hands on a dishtowel, resisting the urge to make herself an Irish coffee. The conversation, as much as she prematurely dreaded it, was probably a few hours overdue. Better to get it over sooner rather than later, to make meaningless conversation simply to pass the time and hope Sidney would eventually give up.

“What’s there to talk about?” she retorted, her mouth a tight, thin line.

There was a lot to talk about—what happened, why it happened, what it meant for the future. Even if they both decided it meant nothing, it wasn’t going to be water under the bridge. Eventually the Penguins would play another game in Philadelphia and Sidney knew he wouldn’t have the willpower to not show up at her door. They were four words away from becoming friends with benefits; that wasn’t what Sidney had come for. Was it selfish, wanting as much from Loren as he did?

“Look, if it didn’t mean anything to you—”

“Who said it didn’t mean anything?”

“No one,” Sidney replied. “But you’re acting like it didn’t.”

“I’m not acting like anything.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oops. How silly of me to assume.”

“How silly of you to act like a child when you want to have a serious conversation.”

“Fine then. Forget I even brought it up.”

Loren sighed. “I’m not going to argue with you, Sidney.”

“What, are you too emotionally invested now?” he scoffed.

Loren didn’t say anything, just moved from her spot in the kitchen to the living room. Sidney did his best to avoid looking at her, trying to hold onto his anger. But it was so hard to stay mad at Loren when she looked so goddamn beautiful and she was straddling his lap.

“Why can’t we have one conversation without arguing?”

“Because that’s how we are, Lo,” he answered, pressing a soft kiss to her neck.

“Yeah, but—”

“Shh.” He moved his lips upward until he was right next to her ear. “I love that about you, Loren. There’s nothing about you that’s wrong for me.”

She finally allowed herself to smile. “You’re not gonna leave me for some stupid girl who agrees with everything you say and never fights with you?”

“Leave you?” Loren nodded. “Does that mean we’re together?”

She froze, feeling the impact of her words. She wasn’t thinking when she said them; it just felt natural for her and Sidney to be together after everything that’d happened. But she knew better than anyone that having sex and somewhat of a history didn’t mean anything.

“Sidney—”

He dug his fingers into her hips in aggravation. “What are you so afraid of?”

“You know.”

“Tell me again,” he said, moving his fingers under the hem of Loren’s shirt. He smirked when she shivered.

“I don’t want that life.”

“You think I’m going to make you quit your job and make you show up to events hanging on my arm? You think I’m going to make you sit with the other WAGs during games and wear my jersey—”

“No, it’s more than that.” When Sidney didn’t respond, Loren kept going. “They’re going to eat me alive. I’m going to be front-page news in Pittsburgh and Canada and God knows where else. I don’t want that, Sid. I just want to live and do my job in peace.”

He sighed. “I know it’s not easy to be with me—”

“That’s an understatement. They hire people to deal with your girlfriends.”

“What am I supposed to do, Loren? I can’t live my life afraid to make a move just because I’m worried about what people are going to say.”

Loren huffed, moving off his lap. “This isn’t about you anymore, but I’m not surprised that you can’t look past yourself long enough to see that.”

“If you think I’m a piece of shit just say it.”

“You’re not,” Loren said, “but just because you’re not afraid of what people are going to say doesn’t mean I’m not. They love you, Sidney. They’ll overlook any mistakes you make because you’re their captain and their prodigal son. But me? I’ll be nothing but the whore—”

“Don’t say that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. They don’t have the same respect for me that they do for you and they never will. Did you know there are blogs dedicated to shit-talking WAGs? It’s ugly out there, and I’d rather not be a part of it.”

Sidney didn’t reply right away, just studied the woman standing in front of him. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out she was hiding something—but what? Then he remembered that he knew next to nothing about her, that Loren’s life was nothing but a mystery to him, and that made him feel all the more stupid. He was willing to break every rule he’d made for himself for a woman he knew nothing about.

“What are you hiding, Loren?”

Her head cocked to the side. “What?”

“There’s something holding you back and it’s not the Internet.” When she gave him a look that clearly asked if he was stupid he backtracked. “Okay, maybe that’s part of it, but it’s not the whole story.”

“Just now realizing you know nothing about me?”

Sidney shrugged. “It’s not like I’m going to be playing anytime soon. I’ve got time to learn.”

“There’s nothing about me worth knowing. My entire life is my job.”

“So is mine, but there’s more to me isn’t there?”

“No, not really.” Loren smirked as his eyes rolled. When he didn’t give in, she sighed. “What do you want to know, Sidney?”

He pulled her back into his lap. “Who broke your heart?”

There was no sense in lying, Loren figured, although it’d been years since she’d spoken to anyone about it. Even then it was pointless: her mother couldn’t answer or give her advice. Still, she didn’t think it was any of Sidney’s business who had once occupied her heart. That thought was brief, as she knew that exact information about him. Not that it helped; she didn’t care who he dated or who took up the empty space in his bed before she came along. She usually wasn’t the type to dwell on the past, but this was something else entirely. It took a while but she eventually got over it. Now there was only a scar, apparently only visible to a certain Sidney Crosby.

“Someone I dated in college.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah, that’s it. It was years ago, Sidney.”

“You’re still hurt,” he reasoned, throwing Loren’s anxiety into overdrive. She didn’t want to have this conversation, didn’t want anyone penetrating the wall she’d built that only made room for one thing: her career. Knowing she’d been in love once made her vulnerable.

“Why does it matter who broke my heart? I don’t see how that tells you anything about me.”

“It explains your hesitation.”

“What, because I don’t want another relationship? I’m just another heartbroken girl with trust issues, right? I take my past experiences out on any guy who tries to get close to me because I can’t differentiate between the new and the old?” Sidney nodded. “Well, fuck off, then. You two aren’t anything alike, thank God, and I already told you why I’m not jumping into this headfirst. I don’t ask who last broke your heart, do I? I don’t give a shit who you’ve dated, because the way I see it is if you’re with me then you’re with me and whatever bullshit happened in the past doesn’t matter.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Loren huffed. “Just let it go, okay?”

“I just want to know why you won’t be with me.”

“You have no idea what it’s like, Sidney,” she said. “It’s ugly out there—uglier than you think. It doesn’t matter if our intentions are pure, we’re still gold-diggers and whores. We’re ugly, we’re not supportive enough, we’re too supportive, we’re probably sleeping with the entire team…it never ends. I don’t understand why someone would subject themselves to that kind of life.”

“Because it’s worth it,” Sidney answered, shrugging like what he’d said was the most obvious thing in the world. “Love is worth it, Loren, even if some guy from college broke your heart and jealous girls sit on their computers and badmouth you.”

“And then what will they say when they realize who I am?”

“What, my former publicist who now works for the Flyers?” Loren nodded, earning a smirk from the man in front of her. “They’ll think I’m a saint for being able to snag someone in enemy territory.” Loren smacked him on the chest. “Seriously, Lo, don’t think too much into it. It’s just going to be you and me, okay? We’ll cross bridges when we come to them.”

All Loren could bring herself to do was nod, as her brain was a pile of mush. No one had ever fought for her, had ever wanted to be with her so badly he was willing to risk some fraction of his career. And being with her was a risk, just like being with Sidney was a risk. God forbid the Flyers organization fired her, where would she go? Becoming Sidney Crosby’s girlfriend raised her price tag a few dozen notches because whoever employed her would, in a way, have to answer to him. But she couldn’t think about that now. She planned on staying in Philadelphia as long as they’d have her, even if that meant summers away from Sidney and spending ridiculous amounts of money on weekend train tickets to Pittsburgh during the season.

Sidney knew all of this, too. He couldn’t ask her to leave her job—as much as he hated the sight of her in Flyers orange, the men who made up their roster and the people who occupied the Wells Fargo Center made her happy. He had to put his jealousy on the back burner if he was going to make this work. Besides, if she could give him the littlest bit of insight on how Claude Giroux was so good at hockey, her staying in Philadelphia wouldn’t be so bad. But, jokes aside, he knew she raised a valid point. Dating a professional athlete, especially one of his caliber, was a death wish. He envisioned frantic phone calls after receiving hate mail and death threats, the frenzied aftermath of being recognized for the first time while out grocery shopping, the suspicions that came along with puck bunnies feeding her lies.

Still, he didn’t care. He knew from the second Loren introduced herself that he’d met his match, even if he hadn’t known then that she was the match. She was the puzzle piece his life had always been missing. He had the money, the fame, the career, but he didn’t have the girl…until now.

“Just give me time to come around to the idea, okay?” Loren asked, intertwining her fingers with Sidney’s. Hesitation was present in his hazel eyes when she finally gathered the courage to meet them. “Not like that. I just—I need time to wrap my mind around it, you know? I used to think about how to kill you and make it look like an accident, for fuck’s sake, and now you’re trying to be my boyfriend.”

Sidney laughed softly. “Most women aren’t this difficult to convince.”

“Most women haven’t worked for you.”

He didn’t bother with a reply, just moved off the couch and in the direction of her bedroom. Although he was in good spirits, he was still suffering from a concussion, and even the simplest tasks gave him a migraine.

“My mom died when I was eleven,” Loren called from the living room. Sidney immediately spun around and went back to where he’d came from. She was still sitting on the couch when he got there. “I’ve only been on one vacation and that was to Disney World when I was eight. I’m allergic to seafood. I have an irrational fear of my nails turning yellow so that’s why I never paint them and I brush my teeth in the shower.”

Sidney was stunned. He didn’t say anything, just threw Loren’s tiny body over his shoulder and carried her to the bedroom. He may not have known those things about her, but he knew how to please her. And, right now, that’s all that mattered to him.