Losing Him Was Blue!

I couldn’t help the feeling of constantly looking over my shoulder and well, all around myself from my seat in the Wells Fargo Centre. Alas, Claude talked me into coming to his game.

I couldn’t think of a legit reason that Claude would buy, besides the obvious ‘My baby Daddy will be here’, so I decided to suck it up. And to my great joy, my hair has gotten a lot lighter, so my natural blonde was starting to show.

I grabbed a toque, with a scarf and pulled them on hoping to conceal my identity. I was wearing a bright orange Flyers sweater, opting out of wearing Claude’s jersey; nothing against him, I just didn’t want to draw attention to myself. Lucia was sitting on my lap, wearing her coat and hat, clapping her hands together happily during the warm-ups.

“Please welcome your starting line-ups,” I clapped when the Flyers line made their way out onto the ice. Claude was the first out, with Scott Hartnell following after him, their goaltender Ilya Byzgalov, Danny Briere and Kimmo Timmonen were starting tonight. My heart was racing. “And for the Penguins,” I heard a chorus of ‘boos’ throughout the crowd when I seen the Penguins away jerseys file out onto the ice. Ohmygod. There he was.

My eyes focused on the #87, carrying his helmet on his stick and circling the ice. He skated past me and I thought for a split second, he saw me, but when he kept skating, I assumed my disguise worked.

Not much has changed about him, he still had the same chisled jaw line, soft brown eyes, but seemed like he might have a bigger build going on under his jersey.

Once the puck dropped, the game began and I watched it all unfold in front of me. This rivalry, isn’t just hogwash, it is legit. Within twenty seconds, a fight was already happening towards Fleury at the other end with Timmonen and Tanger going at it. Watching Tanger fight, was like watching a lion tear apart a warthog carcus.

He yanked Timmonen to the ground and threw heavy punches towards his jaw. Of course the refs were right in there, breaking it up. I hated the refs sometimes. Timmonen was such a prude and I wanted Tanger to punch his lights out.

The rest of the players were spaced out around the ice, and my eyes found Claude standing beside TK. I watched the few words being shared between TK and Claude and I smiled when Sid came in and pulled TK out of the area. Still the mediator. They skated past me and I saw Sid stop to grab his stick off the ice and look directly at me.

I tried my best to remain calm, and felt my heart race when he skated away before immediately jerking his eyes back in my direction. TK mumbled something to him and he shrugged, itching his chin before skating back to the face-off circle.

All I could think was… OHMYGOD HE SAW ME! HE. KNOWS. EVERYTHING! But my heart was screaming: Emily, calm your shit… maybe he didn’t recognize you. Remain calm.

I watched as Sid and Claude were face-off pairings, and Claude mumbled something to Sid, who simply rolled his eyes. Sid won the battle and sent the puck flying back towards Bryz, where TK was waiting for it.

He got the puck on his stick, circled the back of the net and flicked it in behind Bryz. Honestly, Bryz, looked 10x more shocked about the goal than anybody did.

~ ~
Less than five minutes left in the third and the game was tied, 1-1. I half expected the Penguins to win this, it seemed like an easy victory for them. Tang and Gronk would hold off the agitators and TK and Sid would work and score.

It seemed like simple mathematics. But alas, Gronk was on the second line and TK was a third liner. SO it was naturally up to Sid, Tanger, Kunitz, Geno and Orpik. I had faith in the Penguins to do this. I know it’s bad of me, to be here for my boyfriend and rooting against him… for his rival team.

Puck was dropped. Sid got it and began skating towards Bryz, maneuvering himself around other players to get there. He had expert footwork and phenomenal stick-handling skills.

My father had seen him play a few times and assumed he was maybe a Russian, just by his skill.

I watched the entire arena erupt in shock when Claude reached out and hooked his stick around Sid’s leg, causing him to trip and go sliding into Bryz.

I covered my mouth with my hand and fought the urge to stand up, knowing Lucia who had fallen asleep in my lap would go face first into the partition in front of me. I knew it wouldn’t be a penalty shot, Sid wasn’t in the motion of shooting, but Claude would get a 2minute tripping penalty.

Good, he deserved it. I would be giving him a piece of my mind when we get in the truck.

“You think you’re pretty fucking funny, don’t you?” I heard Sid’s voice boom as he crawled out of the net and stood on wobbly legs to take him where Claude was, a few feet from me. Good lord. Of all the places in the arena, why can’t they argue somewhere else. Claude simply chuckled, which seemed to be enough to get Sid all pissed off and cause Sid to push Claude into the glass.

And that started it, amongst the punches being thrown, were a few curse words I’d rather not repeat. The fight went on, with the refs circling them, waiting for the potential moment to get in there and break it up, but at this moment, their fight looked good. I felt proud of Sid. When the refs finally broke them up after Sid seemed to be hitting Claude’s face off the ice repeatedly.

They had Sid around his chest, and he was pointing at Claude. “Fuck you, you little bitch!” He glanced briefly at me, his eyes seemed to linger for only a few seconds, but for that split second, I almost felt like he knew it was me…

~~

I raced through the back doors of the arena, trying to get away from any possible encounter with Sidney, and secretly hoping for one.

The second I saw him in the flesh, every feeling I ever had for him raced back to the surface and I wanted to be with him again. I was carrying Lucia in my arms, still passed out with her pacifier.

“Hey,” I froze as a figure came walking out of the darkness from standing previously by a car. Shit. Ohmygod. As they approached me, I began feeling a little scared. Who was this? I held Lucia tighter and tighter to my person, anticipating what this person was going to do.

I immediately started laughing when I realized who it was. Tyler. He had a very distinct walk. “Emily,” He walked out into the light of a street lamp.

I laughed, patting his shoulder. “That was a good game,”

“Yeah, I never seen Sid scrap that hard before,” He brushed his hair back and played with the velcro on the strap of his bag. I kept looking over my shoulder, constantly, watching for Claude. He was getting his bag and then we’d be heading home. “I was shocked to see you actually show up for a game,”

“I couldn’t very well… you know, explain the deal to Claude, so I came and hopefully disguised myself enough to keep Sid from recognizing me,” I said, with a tinge of hopefulness in my voice. “How did I do?”

“I recognized you the second I skated past, but Sid… He said in the locker room after I asked him what he was looking at, he said he didn’t really know…” He whispered. “He felt like for some reason, he knew you, but couldn’t place where you were from,”

“Phew,” I wiped my forehead dramatically. “Dodged that bullet,” Tyler furrowed his brows.

“Emily, you got lucky,” He put his hands on my shoulders. “You were very lucky today, and trust me, there is going to be one day when you aren’t going to be this lucky and he is going to recognize you, I hope you understand this,”

“Emily!” I heard Claude’s voice scream my name across the lot. I turned, seeing him waving over his head for me to join him at his Tundra.

“Call me, we’ll do coffee again,” I quickly pecked his cheek and hurried over towards Claude, who had his backdoor open, waiting for Lucia. He took her from me and put her gently in her carseat, and latched her in.

I circled the truck and climbed up in passenger. I had yet to see Claude’s face and I was hoping Tyler would take a picture of Sid’s for me. Once I buckled my belt, I looked over at Claude, and I was absolutely speechless.

“What?” He mumbled, through a fat top lip. “What?” He repeated a little harsher after I hadn’t said anything. I was just in pure amazement at the amount of damage Sid had done. I had never seen that much red on one face before.

His nose was swollen, his left eye was swollen shut and very puffy, his left cheek had to be three sizes bigger than normal.

“Your… face,” I reached out to touch his cheek, but he pulled himself away and glared out the wind shield. “What the fuck happened?”

“What happened?” He yelled. “Are you serious? That fucking dick in there, he just went on a rampage to my face just because I tripped him, like calm your shit barbie, it’s probably not the first time you’ve been thrust onto your back,”

”You and Crosby don’t like each other?” I pushed the issue. I knew when Claude was pissed… he’d share everything. I’d know once and for all why they hated each other. Claude gave me a look that said ‘duh’. “This is the first I’m hearing of this,”

“I swear, it’s like you’ve lived under a rock,” He narrowed his eyes. “Of course we hate each other. He’s a fucking prick, he’s so high on himself. I didn’t appreciate him hitting on my sister when we were in Junior together, and I sure as hell don’t appreciate him pounding my face into the ice like that,” Woah. Sid hit on his sister?! Why was I not informed of this?

“He doesn’t seem that bad,” I looked at my nails, seeing the not pleased look on his face. “I mean, from some interviews I’ve seen, he’s pretty alright,”

He rolled his eyes. “Sure, in front of the camera, he’s Mr. Goody-Goody, ‘it’s the team, not me… blahdy blahdy blah’… he’s so full of himself. Like we get it, you scored the golden goal, can we all just move on and forget it ever happened,”

He waved his hands. “Oh, and two years ago, I met this gorgeous blonde, who was apparently his ‘girlfriend’ and I sent this chick flowers, and happened to mention it, and he flipped his shit and threw me into a crowd of people. He’s not a dick, he’s fucking psychotic,”

“Is he still with this ‘girlfriend?’,”I asked nonchalantly, watching Claude’s features closely. I loved the look on his face when he talked about Sid the way he does.

I was mad, with the way he was talking and what he was saying, but part of me, loved it, because it just seemed so funny that he’s getting pissed at somebody for really nothing.

“How the fuck should I know?” Claude started his truck. “I don’t pay attention. I don’t even remember this girls name to be honest. I think it was like Everleigh… or some shit like that, she was way to hot to be anywhere near him,”