The Fear Is Paralyzing

The next morning Kris left Quinn's place early in order to go back to his place for his game day ritual. He had to shower at his place before meeting Tyler downtown for breakfast. He always got the same meal, two fried eggs, three pieces of bacon, two sausage links, and two pieces of toast, along with with a cup of orange juice and a cup of coffee. Their usual server, Mary, was there, which pleased both Tyler and Kris. A few times Mary hadn't been working when they had come in the day of a game, and every single time, they had lost.
 
"You with Quinn last night?" Tyler asked, knowing he didn't go out with the guys for dinner after practice. Kris nodded his head, chewing his bacon. "She get you ready for tonight?" Tyler asked, wiggling his eyebrows.
 
"Oh you have no idea," Kris replied. "Actually I had to make up for the night before. She had been waiting for me after the game and I didn't get back til really late."
 
Tyler nodded his head, knowing when Kris had gotten home because he had left the bar at the same time as him. "Quinn was pissed, huh?"
 
"Actually she didn't make a big deal about it," Kris answered. "But I could tell she was disappointed."
 
"How weird is it gonna be when we win tonight and she's out on the ice and you can't celebrate with her?" Tyler asked. Kris paused eating, leaving the fork that held the eggs in midair, thinking about what Tyler had just said. Kris hasn't even thought about that before. What would he do? He'd want to celebrate with Quinn for sure, but he couldn't. "Hey man, I didn't mean to freak you out!" Tyler told hmm.
 
Kris finally put the food in his mouth and shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know what will happen," he mumbled, but neither of them brought the subject up again.
 
They finished their meal before they went their separate ways, Kris heading back to his place to take a nap. When he woke up, he had a text from Quinn. He opened it up, smiling when he read the words. Good luck today. I can't wait to watch you win tonight. Good luck! I love you!
 
Kris continued his pregame rituals, getting in the shower before heading to the arena. He was pumped to say the least. He heard the music blasting from the locker room as he walked down the hallway. The security guard let him in, and Kris nodded at him as he walked by. There were several guys already in there, and they were getting ready to go out into the hallway to play with the soccer ball. "Tanger, you in?" Malkin asked.
 
"Yeah, let me just put my bag in get and change real quick!" he called out. The team was required to wear suits to the arena on game day so Kris had to go change into a long sleeve shirt and a pair of shorts, making sure to put on his Penguins cap backwards to complete the outfit.
 
They played their game for a while before they were told that needed to get ready. Kris went back in, putting his uniform on the same way he always did, the left skate going on before his right. He made sure his stick was taped in just the right manner. And when he had gone through his handshakes with a couple of hours teammates, he was ready to go out onto the ice.
 
The crowd was roaring as Kris skated out onto the ice. He wasn't sure he'd ever heard it as loud as he had that evening. He looked around to see the entire place packed with fans. He wished he could see Quinn, but he knew that was impossible since she was up in her box with Mario.
 
He was ready to go by the time the puck dropped. From the first play, Kris knew this was going to be a hard fought game when one of the Wings defensemen checked Crosby hard into the boards. The captain was fine but a little shaken up, but Kris knew this was going to be one of the most physical games he'd ever played.
 
Fighting hard through the third period, the Penguins had a one goal lead with ninety seconds left in the game. This was the first moment that it finally dawned on Kris that they could actually win this thing tonight. He got in position as the puck was dropped. The Wings got it, but as they tried to make a pass, Malkin broke it up. It now simply became a game of keep away for the Penguins, who needed to just let the clock wind down.
 
As the buzzer sounded, Kris threw his stick up in the air, skating over and jumping on Tyler's back, celebrating their big win.
 
At some point during the third period, Quinn, Mario, and the rest of the management had come down from their suites and were now coming onto the ice to celebrate, along with some of the family members of the players.
 
Kris only had his eye on Quinn, though, who had the biggest genuine smile on her face right now. Without thinking, Kris skated over to her, wrapping his arms around her and giving her a nice, long kiss. He pulled away, smiling at her, but he quickly realized what he had just done, and his eyes went wide.
 
The other guys on the team were kissing their own girlfriends and wives and weren't paying any attention to Kris and Quinn. But, Kris knew he wouldn't be so lucky with the media, who had cameras everywhere, filming everything.
 
He skated away from her, leaving Quinn standing there, not really knowing what to do. Mario walked over to her, whispering in her ear, "Bold move. I'll make sure PR is ready." Quinn forced a smile at him, not wanting the media to read anything into their conversation, but she already knew the media had a different top story.
 
They finished their celebration on ice separately. Quinn asked Mario if she should do anything that evening, but he said no, just to celebrate the evening and not worry about it and deal with it in the morning.
 
She had told Kris she would meet him at his place, but she assumed he wouldn't be home til early in the morning because of celebrating with the team, so she took her time leaving. She had gone back to her office to find numerous texts from people. She decided to call Noah first. He ended up not coming to the game because Riley had gotten sicker and they had kept her home. "Hey Noah," she began.
 
"So much for keeping it a secret," Noah chuckled, and Quinn groaned.
 
"So you saw?"
 
"Yeah, I saw. Fortunately for you, the announcers didn't put two and two together that you're the owner," Noah told her, and she breathed a small sigh of relief. "But, you know it's gonna be everywhere by the morning."
 
Quinn hung her head. "I know," she sighed. "What do you think I should do?"
 
"Don't worry about it tonight," he reiterated Mario's words. "Celebrate with Kris. You guys just won the Cup!" he told her excitedly, causing her to smile. "Go be with Kris, enjoy your night, and call me tomorrow when chaos ensues."
 
"Thanks, Noah," she said, hanging up the phone.
 
She saw both her mom and Dean had texted her. Her mother had berated her for kissing Kris on national television, while Dean had told her to look out for her to lose the team. Neither text made her happy, and she decided to throw her phone in her purse and head to Kris's.
 
As she expected, she arrived before Kris, though he showed up an hour later, surprising Quinn. "I am so sorry," he apologized immediately. "I don't know what I was thinking. I wasn't thinking," he said, shaking his head.
 
Quinn took his hand in hers. "Kris, it's okay! We were gonna tell people anyways. You just came up with a different way of doing that," she smiled at him, though Kris still frowned. "We'll deal with it tomorrow," she told him. "Tonight, we celebrate," she smiled wide.
 
And celebrate they did. Three times before they finally feel asleep in each other's arms. Quinn was the first one to wake up the following morning. She carefully got out of bed, leaving Kris there to sleep. She walked out into the living room, looking at her phone. There were several messages from people, but one from Claire caught her eye. Look at ESPN.com. Now.
 
Quinn grabbed Kris's laptop, sitting down on the couch, propping it up on her lap. She immediately went to ESPN's website. It took her a minute to find what Claire was referring to, but when she finally found it, her jaw dropped. "Shit," she cursed when she saw saw a link to a headline on the side that said Penguins Player Dating Team Owner.
 
Quinn clicked on the link and she could have thrown up when she saw the picture of Kris kissing her on the ice from last night. "Well, I guess it's out in the open now," she mumbled, scanning the article. No one had any information about the two of them as a couple so there wasn't much to the article except people discussing the kiss.
 
Quinn grabbed her phone, calling Mario first. "I'm assuming you've seen it all by now," he answered the phone. Quinn sighed in response. "Don't worry, I've already talked to Jenna, she'll be calling you soon," he said, referring to their head PR person. "And Kris, though I'm assuming you two are together?" he asked.
 
"Yeah," Quinn replied.
 
"That makes it easier on her," Mario said. "And don't worry Quinn. We knew this was going to come out, maybe not this way, though," he chuckled, and Quinn was happy to see he was still in a good mood about this, though she wondered for how long. She couldn't blame him if he got upset about all of this eventually.
 
"Thank you, Mario," Quinn said sincerely. "I really don't know what I'd do without you. I'm sorry you have to deal with this," she apologized.
 
"Don't worry about that, Quinn. We've had worse scandals with the team. This will blow over soon enough," he assured her.
 
"Thanks," she replied. "I'll let you go back to whatever you were doing," she said with a slight laugh.
 
"Call me if you need anything," Mario said before hanging up.
 
"So it's out, eh?" Kris's voice rang out from behind her, and Quinn jumped, placing a hand over her chest.
 
"Jesus, Kris! You scared me!" she told him, seeing him standing next to the open computer, which still showed the ESPN story. "But yes, it is. Mario said Jenna would be calling us soon."
 
Kris sat down next to Quinn, putting his hand on Quinn's leg, rubbing it lightly with his thumb. "I'm sorry," he apologized.
 
Quinn shook her head. "Don't be," she said with a smile. "It was going to come out anyways, and I'd rather have it out this way than Dean holding it over my head. Plus this way, my parents don't have a say in how we reveal it," she said, remembering she still hadn't gotten a hold of her mother or Garrett. "Mario didn't seem too concerned, so that's a good thing, right? I mean, he's been in this business a while, I think he'd know if this was going to be a huge issue or not. And I think he'd at least warn me if it was going to be a huge problem," she said. Mario had always been straightforward with her, so there's no reason to think he wouldn't be now.
 
Kris kissed the tip of her head. "We'll be fine," he assured her.
 
An hour later, Jenna was calling Quinn, and when she found out that Kris was there as well, she told her to put her on speaker so she could talk to both of them. "I'm going to give you a couple of tips before I can see you in person and talk to you," Jenna told them. "Do not talk to anyone from the media. I repeat, do not talk to anyone," she stated emphatically. "We will make a press release for now, and you'll eventually talk to them, but not until we can coach you. Do you understand?" She was very terse, but Kris and Quinn assumed it was because they had just put her under a lot of stress.
 
"Yes," they stated in unison.
 
"Good, I want you two to meet me at my office at three this afternoon," she said, giving them the address.
 
They hung up, and Quinn looked at Kris. "You ready for the storm?" she asked him.
 

Kris nodded his head. "Oui, je vais vous proteger," he said, barely above a whisper. Quinn looked at him, confused. "I will protect you," he translated for her. He pulled her closer to him and hugged her tight.