The Fear Is Paralyzing

Quinn didn’t know why she was here. She knew she wasn’t going to have anything to say. And, yet, she sat at the table with Mario next to her, waiting on the conference call with other NHL owners to begin. She had gotten an email from Carolyn, telling her that all NHL owners were having a conference call today and that she should be at the arena at ten in order to be a part of it.
 
In Carolyn’s email, she had explained that they were going to be discussing blindside hits into the board and the penalties and punishments that went along with them. All of the owners, along with Commissioner Gary Bettman and league disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan would be discussing it and hopefully voting on it today.
 
In all honesty, she would vote whatever Mario did. She was sure he knew much more about the topic than she did, and even if this call went on for hours, she still didn’t believe she would be able to make an educated vote on it.
 
Quinn sat there, listening to what everyone was saying, but all of their words seemed to go over her head. She just simply wasn’t familiar enough with the hockey language. She heard some things she understood, but when they started talking about blind-sided hits and concussions, she was lost. She knew what a concussion was, but she didn’t really understand blind-sided hits or how they caused more severe concussions than any other type of hit.
 
She heard Mario say Sidney Crosby’s name, and it caught her attention. She listened as he talked about something that had happened what she assumed was not too long ago. From what she could pick up, apparently Crosby had had a concussion, a bad one, and she made a mental note to look it up later on and see what that was all about. All she knew was that Mario said more than once something along the lines of “you don’t want what happened to Sid to happen to another star. There needs to be further discipline.”
 
Mario would look at her from time to time, though Quinn didn’t know exactly why, whether he wanted to make sure she was still awake and attentive or if he was waiting on her to speak up on the matter, something she wasn’t prepared to do. She sat in complete silence throughout the whole conference call, feeling extremely awkward that she was there at all.
 
When the call was coming near an end, Bettman spoke up, saying, “We’ll have another call on Friday for the actual voting. I expect to hear from you then, Mario.”
 
“Yes, Quinn and I both,” Mario said, smiling at her. She gave him a forced one back, though she was not in the least bit happy right now.
 
“Quinn and you both,” Bettman said before ending the call.
 
Mario looked over at Quinn, who was staring at the table so hard Mario wondered if she was going to burn a hole through it with her gaze. “So, you got your first conference call finished,” he said. Quinn nodded her head but said nothing in return. “You’re not excited about that?”
 
“Mario, I didn’t say anything,” she informed him in case he hadn’t been fully aware of it while he sat next to her through the whole thing. “I’m not cut out for this.”
 
“You’re just not in your element,” he spoke calmly. Quinn wondered how he could always do that, how he didn’t want to kill her yet. She was clearly stepping into his territory by becoming part owner of the team, and she knew nothing about what she was doing. If roles were reversed, she wasn’t positive that she could remain calm through it all. “You’ll pick it up soon enough, and you’ll be giving your input just as much as I do.”

Quinn wanted to roll her eyes at that statement but refrained from doing so. “I don’t know,” she mumbled, playing with her pen that was sitting on the table.
 
“You’ve got a business degree, right?” Mario asked casually.
 
Quinn nodded her head, wondering where he was going with the question. “Yeah, bachelor’s in economics and then my MBA.”
 
“You’re cut out for the business world, Quinn, you’re prepared for it. No, maybe you weren’t expecting to run a sports team, but you were always planning on going into business. That’s all this is, a business. Think of it like that, and I think you’ll do better,” he said, standing up and pushing his chair in, leaving Quinn sitting there thinking about the words he had just said.
 
***
 
Quinn sat at her table at home, pages of paper she had scrawled on spread out all around her, as she typed away at her computer, doing as much research as she could. She had taken Mario’s words to heart, and she decided to try her best at owning the team before making the decision to give it up. She decided to approach it just like she would anything else in the business world. She needed all the background and information she could find on it first. Fortunately for her, the history of the Penguins was readily available online.
 
She was in the process of trying to learn the players on the team, what they did, how popular they were, how much money they made, and a little bit of history on them, such as where they played before they came to Pittsburgh. She figured if she knew more about the people on the team, she may get them to come around and like her a little bit more. Plus, she figured if she had any questions about them, she could always ask Kris when he came over that evening to give her another hockey lesson.
 
She had lost all sense of time in her research, and she was surprised when she heard a knock on her door. She glanced at the clock, cursing at herself when she realized it was already almost game time, and that was probably Kris right then. She opened the door, and she noticed Kris give her a once over. “Sorry,” she apologized immediately. “I know I’m a mess right now,” she said, motioning down towards her sweatpants and t-shirt she was wearing. Her hair was currently up on top of her head in a bun, she was wearing no makeup, and she had her glasses on, not having put her contacts in that morning.
 
“You look good,” Kris told her, and she tried not to blush at his words. “Besides, we’re staying in and watching hockey, right?” he asked, and she nodded her head, though he didn’t see her, as he was too busy looking at her table. “Whoa, what is all of this?” he asked, not waiting on an answer but instead walking over to the table and investigating himself. “Crosby, Malkin, Fleury,” he read off the notecards as he flipped through them. “What is this?” he asked.
 
Quinn was extremely embarrassed, and she didn’t really want to tell him. “I’m doing some research on the team,” she admitted. “I figured the more I knew about the team, the better job I could do owning it. That includes knowing the players,” she said.
 
“Where’s my card?” he asked, the lopsided grin that she had learned to love creeping across his face, as he flipped through the cards until he found the one that had his name displayed in her cursive handwriting. He turned it over, reading it aloud. “Defenseman, number fifty-eight. Hometown: Montreal. Drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2005.” He looked up at her. “Wow, you’ve really done your research!”
 
“I told you!” she said, trying to snatch the cards out of his hand, but he moved them out of her reach. “C’mon! You’re here to teach me about hockey, not make fun of me for trying to learn more about the team!” she continued, still trying to grab the cards.
 
He looked down at her, still holding the cards above his head, out of her reach. “Who said I’m making fun of you?”

“I know it’s weird,” she mumbled.
 
“I think you’re just doing your research, and that’s probably a good thing for an owner,” he said, handing her the cards. “You were one of those kids in school that was all about academics, weren’t you?” he chuckled, looking over at all of her research again. She was extremely organized, color-coded and everything.
 
Quinn bit her lip, knowing there was no good way to answer him. If she told him yes, she knew he’d laugh at her, and if she told him no, he’d know she was lying. “Yes, I was,” she said. “Go ahead, laugh at me,” she added, crossing her arms over her chest.
 
Kris chuckled, but he never let out the hearty laugh she was expecting. “Good for you,” he said, shocking her. “I was definitely not the smart kid,” he continued, moving away from the table and walking over to sit on her couch. She followed him over there, sitting next to him. “I was all about hockey.”
 
“That does not surprise me one bit,” she told him, and he let out a small laugh.
 
“Did you play any sports?” he asked. Over the last several weeks during their lessons, Quinn had slowly opened up about her personal life with Kris, giving him a few small glimpses into her past every now and then.
 
“I actually did gymnastics,” she told him, and Kris’s eyes widened in surprise. “Weren’t expecting that, huh?” she asked with a laugh when she saw his reaction. He shook his head, smiling at her. “Yep, my mom put me in tumbling classes when I was like two, and I kept doing gymnastics until I was sixteen.”
 
“Why’d you stop?” Kris asked, legitimately interested in what she was saying.
 
“I got injured pretty bad,” she revealed, and Kris’s eyebrows rose, waiting for an explanation. “I cracked my head open.”
 
“Cracked your head open?” Kris asked, not understanding what she was talking about. “Like got a concussion?”
 
Quinn shook her head. “No, well yes, I had a concussion, too. But, I legitimately cracked my head open. I was on uneven bars, and I was doing a skill that I wasn’t ready for. My hand slipped or something and I came down, hitting my head on one of the bars and then landing on the floor, off of the mat,” she explained, Kris’s eyes widening with every word that she spoke. Though he didn’t know anything about gymnastics, he knew that was a devastating injury. “And, I fractured my skull,” she said, grabbing his hand and putting it to the back of her head, letting him feel her scar she had there.
 
“Holy shit,” he cursed under his breath.
 
“I was in the hospital for a month after the surgery.”
 
“Surgery?”
 
Quinn nodded her head. “Yeah, my skull was shattered right there, so they had to put the pieces back together.” She had tears in her eyes, and Kris could tell she was reliving the moment in her head.
 
“I’m so sorry, Quinn,” he told her.
 
“And, that’s why I stopped gymnastics,” she said, sniffling just a little, trying to hold back the tears. Unfortunately, one escaped, sliding down her cheek. Quinn was quick, though, getting her hand up to her face to wipe it away almost as soon as it left her eye. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “This is stupid.”
 
“What’s stupid?” he asked her.
 
“This,” she said, rolling her eyes at herself. “Getting upset about something that happened nine years ago!” she said, getting even more emotional.

“Quinn, you had a devastating injury,” he told her. “You’re allowed to be upset.”
 
“But, you’re here to help me learn about hockey,” she said, trying to keep her voice as steady as possible, but failing with the tears. “And, here I am, looking like a slob, crying about something that happened years ago. I’m so stupid,” she chastised herself, hanging her head low. She was embarrassed that she had revealed all this to Kris, and even more embarrassed that she still got upset when she thought about it.
 
“Quinn,” he spoke her name, putting his index finger underneath her chin, lifting it so she was looking at him. “You don’t look like a slob. I like it better when girls dress in clothes like this,” he said, and Quinn could tell by the look in his eyes that he was telling the truth. “And, don’t be embarrassed that you’re upset. I don’t know how I’d handle it if something like that happened to me.”
 
Quinn gave him a small smile before looking away from him once again, down at the coffee table. She didn’t even see it coming when suddenly his lips were on hers, so delicately and softly, and for just a split second that she almost didn’t register it had even happened. But, when she looked up at him once again, he was suddenly on the other end of the couch, his hand on his forehead, shaking his head. “Kris?” Quinn asked softly.
 
“I’m sorry, Quinn!” he apologized quickly. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry,” he continued, the full extent of what he had just done coming fully to his mind. He hadn’t just kissed any vulnerable girl, he had kissed the team owner.
 
“Why did you?” Quinn asked. He slowly looked over at her, wondering how she was taking what he had just done. She didn’t hold any real emotion on her face, and he wasn’t sure if she was pissed at him or what.
 
Kris took a deep breath before answering. “I don’t know,” he spoke. “You were just sitting there, and you looked so pretty, and I’ve been wanting to do it for a while, and…” he rambled on. He looked over to see her staring at him, and he suddenly realized what he was doing. “I’m sorry, Quinn. I really am.”
 
“You’ve been wanting to kiss me?” she asked, biting her lip.
 
Kris slowly closed his eyes, embarrassed he had admitted that to her. “Please forget I said that,” he begged. “Can we just please start this lesson? If you still want to!” he quickly added, realizing he may have just screwed up their friendship they had been forming.
 
“Yes, we can start,” she said, giving him a smile as they changed subjects.