The Fear Is Paralyzing

Quinn walked into Consol Energy Center, going into her office. While she was still not fully adapted to her new position as owner, it was beginning to get easier for her. At least now she didn’t get sick to her stomach every single time she pulled into the parking lot. She brushed the snow off of her coat as she walked down the hallway.
 
There weren’t too many people in the arena yet, as the team wasn’t practicing until later that day since they had a game the night before. The team hadn’t been on a good streak lately, having lost their last six games. In fact, the last game they had won had been the one the night after Quinn and Kris’s first date. She had joked with him since then that she was a bad luck charm for him, but Kris refused to believe that. It wasn’t that he was playing bad, it was the team. In fact, Kris had been playing the same he always had, if not better. The team was just not coming together cohesively to get a win.
 
She walked into her office, hearing Mario on the phone, and she set her things down on her desk, turning her computer on, trying to ignore Mario’s raised voice. She didn’t hear him yell too often, and she had no idea who he was on the phone with, but she knew he wasn’t happy with them. She heard him hang up, and he walked into her office. “Good morning, Quinn,” he said with a smile on his face.
 
“Hi, Mario,” she replied. “Everything okay?” she asked, and when he gave her a confused look, she clarified. “You didn’t seem too happy on the phone just now.”
 
Mario shook his head. “No, I’ve been getting a bunch of calls asking me what I’m going to do about Bylsma,” he explained. “People aren’t happy with the losing streak, and they’re trying to force me…I mean us…to fire him,” he corrected himself. Quinn knew he wasn’t intentionally trying to exclude her, but in reality, Mario had all the power. He was the one that was truly owning the team. She wasn’t doing anything. Yes, she’d come into the office and try to do some work, but in the end, it was Mario making all the decisions for the team.
 
“It’s a six game losing streak,” Quinn stated. “That’s no reason to fire him. We’re not out of contention, and the guys will turn it around. Bylsma will do that.” She saw Mario smiling at him, and she stopped talking. “What?” she finally asked him.
 
“You’re talking like a true owner, having faith in your coach and team,” Mario explained, and Quinn blushed a little bit at the words. “And, I agree with you. We’re going to back up Dan until we absolutely can’t anymore. But the fans aren’t happy with him right now, or the team in general,” he explained.
 
“Fans are never happy unless their team is doing well,” Quinn pointed out. She may not have been a hockey fan growing up, but she had been a big football fan, with both Dean and Noah being into the sport. And, she knew a fan was a fan, no matter the sport. When a team wasn’t doing well, fair-weather fans bolted, and she knew this was true in hockey, too.
 
“Very true, but we’ve got to keep the fans happy somehow,” Mario pointed out. “But, that’s not the reason I came in here,” he told her.
 
Quinn looked up at him. “Then what was the reason?” she asked.
 
“I wanted to let you know that I’m travelling on the next road trip with the guys. I think I told you when you first started that I do travel on a couple of road trips a year. Mitch didn’t travel too much, but I thought I’d leave the decision up to you if you wanted to go,” Mario explained. “I’ll let you think it over,” he smiled at her, knowing that she wasn’t ready to make a decision on the spot. “Just let me or Carolyn know if you do want to go. She’ll set everything up for you,” he smiled before walking out of her office and into the hallway. She wasn’t sure where he was going, but she wasn’t too worried about it. Right now, her mind was on the fact that he had just invited her on the road trip with the guys. She wasn’t sure if it was a good idea or not to go with them, and she knew she needed to talk it over with someone.
 
She picked up her cell phone, finding the person she was looking for and dialed his phone. “Hello?” she heard Noah say on the other side, and she hoped she wasn’t interrupting him. There was never knowing what Noah’s schedule was at his office, but he tended not to pick up his phone if he was busy.
 
“Hey Noah,” she said. “Do you have time to talk for a few minutes?” she asked him hopefully.
 
“For you, anything,” he said, and she just rolled her eyes at his line. “What’s up?”
 
“So, Mario just told me he’s going on the road trip with the guys this next time. I guess it’s something he’s always done. He said Mitchell didn’t ever really go, and it was up to me if I wanted to. So, I’m calling for advice,” she explained. Noah was a rational thinker, and she was hoping for his honest opinion on what to do.
 
“Well, what do you want to do?” he asked, and she sighed. That was the last thing she wanted to hear, but she shouldn’t have been surprised. He never really straight up told he what to do, but instead he would get her to say what she wanted and then he would normally support that.
 
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “That’s why I was calling you for advice,” she said for a laugh. “I just don’t know if it’s a good idea for me to go or not. I mean, everyone still looks at Mario as the owner. Would it be weird if I went? Or would that make me appear as an owner more?” she said her thoughts out loud.
 
“Do you still want to keep the team? Or are you still thinking of giving them up?” Noah asked. Quinn had to think about it for a moment. She hadn’t really thought about it in a while, at least not seriously. She had been just going through the motions, going into the office almost every day, going to a few practices a week, and going to their home games. She still felt below Mario, even though technically she was on the same level as him, if not above him with majority ownership.

“I don’t know,” Quinn admitted. “Part of me wants to keep the team,” she told him, saying the words out loud for the first time. “But, I feel like I’m letting them down, you know? I don’t act like a real owner, Mario does. So why should I pretend to be an owner when I’m doing nothing for them?” She sighed, all of her thoughts getting jumbled in her head, contradicting one another.
 
“Go,” Noah interrupted her.
 
“Huh?” Quinn asked, confused.
 
“Go on the trip,” Noah told her. “You say you don’t act like a real owner, that you’re not doing anything for them. Then do something for them. Go on the trip, see what Mario does on a trip. Be the owner, Quinn. It seems like you want to be. You just need to learn how to be a sports team’s owner. So, go and learn.”
 
Quinn smiled at his words. She knew that Noah had nothing but complete faith in her, something she didn’t get from most of the other members of her family. “Thanks, Noah,” she told him. “I’ll talk to you later,” she added before hanging up the phone.
 
She had thought about going to find Mario and telling him that she was going to go on the trip. After the short conversation with Noah, she was feeling good right now, almost as if she were on a high. She felt good about herself and about trying to learn to be an owner. But, before she could confirm going on the trip, she knew there was one other person she needed to talk to first.
 
So, she sat in her office, trying to get a few things done on her computer as she waited for the team’s practice to begin. Once it did, she went to find Mario in his suite, where he tended to sit to watch a little bit of practice. She had learned after that first time that she had sat in the stands during practice that Mario always sat in his suite, and she had followed his lead when he was there, too. However, when he wasn’t there, she found herself sitting at the top of the stands once again, feeling awkward in the suite by herself.
 
The two of them sat and watched practice, having a light conversation about the most random things. Halfway through practice, Mario had gotten up to answer a phone call, leaving Quinn sitting there by herself. She watched practice on her own, happy to see that she understood it a little bit better. She had asked Kris to try to explain to her what some of the things they did in practice had to do with playing in the game, and he had done his best without actually sitting with her during a practice and explaining it all to her. And, while she didn’t fully understand everything that they did, she did comprehend some of it now.
 
As practice came to an end, she noticed Mario hadn’t come back, and she wondered what exactly his phone call had been about, but she decided to let it go. She knew if it was something important dealing with their ownership, he would tell her. He had been very open with her so far, not keeping secrets from her, and she had been very appreciative of that.
 
She waited up in the suite a little while longer, texting Kris and telling him that she needed to talk to him. He met up with her in a hallway in the back of the arena, where no one on the team should be going to. “Hey,” he smiled at her as he saw her standing there, almost pacing. “You texted me you needed to talk to me?” he asked, and Quinn nodded her head.
 
“Mario’s going on the next road trip with you guys,” she began.
 
“Okay…” Kris said, drawing out the word, wondering why she was telling him this.
 
“He thinks it’s a good idea if I go with you guys, too,” she explained. “What do you think?”
 
Kris thought about it for a second, wondering if she was looking for a specific answer from him. “Sure, if you want to. I don’t think it’s a bad idea,” he shrugged his shoulders.
 
“It’s okay with you?”
 
Kris chuckled. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
 
“I just don’t want to be a distraction,” she stated. She didn’t even crack a smile, and Kris knew she was being serious, and she truly was worried that she would be a distraction for him.
 
He grabbed her hand before responding. “You’re not going to be a distraction for me,” he assured her. “In fact, I’ll probably play better on the road, wanting to impress you,” he winked at her, but she still didn’t smile. “Quinn, why do you think you’ll be a distraction for me?” he asked. “You’re always thinking you’ll be a distraction or a burden. Why?”

Quinn was surprised by the question, and she didn’t really know how to answer it. “I don’t know,” she shrugged her shoulders slightly. “I know I just kinda showed up in your life. I know you have your ways of doing things. I don’t want to come in and throw everything upside down and screw it all up,” she explained as best as she could. She knew it wouldn’t make sense to him, but she really didn’t know what to say to better explain it.
 
Kris pulled her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles lightly. “You won’t be a distraction, I promise. I think you should go,” he told her, his Canadian accent thick on the last sentence.
 
“Thanks,” Quinn smiled at him. “I better go tell Carolyn then to put me on the travel list,” she said. “Text me later?” she asked him.
 
Kris nodded his head. “Of course,” he smiled before she took off in the opposite direction to make her way back upstairs to her office.
 
When she walked in, she saw Carolyn at her desk, and she smiled at her. “Hi, Carolyn. Mario told me to talk to you about going on this next road trip?”
 
Carolyn nodded her head. “Yep, I can put you on the list. So you want to go?”
 
“Yes,” Quinn told her. “I want to go.”
 
“I’m glad you decided to go with us,” she heard Mario say from behind her, startling her. She turned around to see him standing there, and she put a hand over her heart, feeling it beating extremely fast. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” he said with a slight chuckle. “But, I am glad that you’re going on this trip with us. I think the guys will be happy to see you, too.”
 
She wasn’t sure that the team would be so happy to see her, but she wasn’t about to tell Mario that right now. “Thanks,” she smiled at him, as he nodded his head and walked into his office, going straight to his phone to make some calls.