The Right Thing

I’d been in Pittsburgh for a week and we’d settled quickly into our stride. Sid would get up in the morning and work out, the gym in the apartment building much better than the one that I paid for back home in Boston. By the time he was done, I would be up and ready to begin my own day. Showered and dressed, prepared to get some work done while he was out.

We’d have breakfast together. Sidney was insistent about showing off his steadily improving cooking abilities. We’d watch highlights and some bits of the news while we ate. It was then that he would head out for a while. Most days he would go to the rink to skate and practice with a few of his teammates who’d stayed in the area rather than leaving to play elsewhere. He’d be gone for an hour or two before coming back to share lunch.

He’d scoot off to the house in Sewickley to check on the progress and sometimes just to lend a hand in some of the work that was being done. He wanted to be involved in the whole process, and it served as a way to keep him distracted for the time being. He wasn’t well-versed in construction, a skill set that he’d never had use for, but he didn’t mind learning if it kept him busy for a few hours at a time.

Meanwhile, I’d taken over the small spare bedroom in the apartment. I would spread my work out across the surface of the bed, placing myself in the middle of it all so that I could focus. The room overlooked the common area behind the apartment complex. I could see people outside walking dogs and playing tennis. The pool didn’t seem to get much use, but it wasn’t as warm as it had been just weeks earlier. Fall was setting in slowly and soon it would get no use at all.

I would sit in the midst of my projects, doing small jobs and design gigs just to keep busy. Sidney had made me promise, just as I’d done to him, to keep up with the normal tasks that were a part of my everyday life. That meant that we spent a few hours apart every day doing the things that we loved. It was important that we didn’t become entirely dependent on spending all of our time together. We made the decision in part because we knew that being inseparable wouldn’t always be a feasible option but also because we both appreciated our independence. We didn’t need to be together all the time, in fact it was likely that being attached at the hip would drive us both crazy after a while. It was needless.

When there wasn’t actual work to be done, I would focus on some personal art meant only for me. Some pieces I would never share with anyone, they would go into a file and I wouldn’t ever feel the need to dig them out, while others would be utilized later on when the perfect project popped up. It was nice to do what I loved for the fun of it; I had to cherish the fact that it was something that I could do. Watching Sidney go through the emotions of having his job taken away indefinitely gave me a strong appreciation for what I had.

That being said, it was easier to focus when Sidney was out of the house. The temptation when he was near was almost too much to bear. In ways that passion was so new that it was hard to resist even when we both knew that we had all the time in the world to enjoy each other.

By mid-afternoon, he would be back and it was just us again. There were no phone calls to field or projects to work on for either of us. We could do with the time as we pleased, and we often did. Sometimes we would retreat to the bedroom, taking residence under the covers, the lights turned down and the curtains drawn. We didn’t care about how much time passed, all we cared about was the feeling of the friction of skin upon skin.

Other days we lounged on the sofa watching movies. Sidney was a bit of a film buff, full of facts and details about his favorite movies and even the ones that he didn’t like as much. In the way he could rattle off information about hockey and history, he did the same as we watched the films.

Some evenings we would order in for supper. Others we would wander into the kitchen and work as a team to make something together. Some of our kitchen experiments worked out, others failed so miserably they sent us running for the drawer where he kept the delivery menus.

I’d been out to see Sebastian a couple of times. We’d gone for lunch again since I’d arrived, Sebastian demanding more details that I hadn’t yet shared. I remained careful about what I gave away when it came to Sidney; Patrick really. We’d gone shopping and stopped for coffee at a shop that reminded us both of the one back in Boston, the one where I’d first met Sid.

All in all, I was settling in well. I didn’t miss Boston and I didn’t miss my apartment. I didn’t really miss the people I knew there or the places that I frequented. Pittsburgh felt just as familiar, even if I was prone to getting lost or turned around when I ventured out on my own. It felt comfortable, but I had an inkling that I would feel at home and comfortable anywhere that Sidney was, that it had nothing to do with the locale and everything to do with him.

Sid and I had risked running errands together in the middle of the day. It was so normal; we were doing things that average couples did. He took me to the movies where we took in a show that wasn’t a mid-week matinee. No one noticed us there. I saw the way that it made Sidney smile. It made him feel like the average boyfriend, like he was capable of having a normal relationship with someone. He didn’t feel like he was an exhibit in a museum, something to be observed or reviewed. He felt like a 25-year-old man on a date with his girlfriend was supposed to feel.

It was monumental in a quiet way. A big step for the man I loved. It made me as happy as it seemed to make him, even if I was a little afraid that there would be an occasion that he was recognized. I just had to hope that I could slip out of sight before the mob encroached so that Sidney would still have some semblance of his privacy left at the end.

“Mario and Nathalie are having us over for dinner tomorrow night,” Sidney said as he collapsed next to me on the sofa.

I blanched. He’d said it as if it were the average thing. It was like he was saying ‘we need toilet paper’ or ‘I ate a sandwich for lunch today’ as if dinner with the Lemieux’s was not in the slightest bit strange. He didn’t seem to understand that for me it was like the stress of meeting his family all over again.

“None of the kids will be there, though I’m sure Stephanie would love to pick your brain about Boston before she heads that way come fall. But this time it will just be the four of us.”

He glanced towards me as I sat motionless to his left. I could only imagine how pale I had become in that moment as my stomach did backflips. Concern crossed his face.

“Are you okay, babe?”

I nearly started laughing, the noise bound to exit my mouth sounding hysterical and uncontrolled. The sound caught in my throat, threatening to gag me.

“The Lemieuxs?”

He nodded.

“For dinner?”

“Seriously, Wyn, you don’t look so hot.”

“Really, because it feels like it’s about a million degrees in here?” I choked out.

I was feeling clammy and panicked. It had in part to do with the fact that I’d watched Mario play for years. The better part of two decades of my life had included watching the team play as often as I could, even if it was on the small TV that my grandparents had in the kitchen of their cabin while the rest of the family was out on the boat. I’d been a fan for years.

I’d gotten his autograph after their practice when they were in St. Paul for a game versus the Wild when I was in middle school. My memory of the whole thing was limited, the only real detail that I could remember about Mario was the fact that he towered above me, quiet when he went down the line signing the pieces of paper and paraphernalia held out to him by the fans at the morning skate.

The signature was in a frame in my childhood bedroom next to my signed poster of Nsync. My father always rolled his eyes when he saw it and the pennant that hung near my closet. He wasn’t a big fan of sports, but he prided himself on supporting sports and everything else that his home state had to offer. We went to Vikings and Twins games. We shopped at Target and Cub Foods because they were headquartered in the state. Dad always got his hair cut at Supercuts and my mother and I used Aveda products just to show our allegiance to the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

The Penguins game, the only one that I’d ever attended, was a gift suggested by my mother. It was an early Christmas present and it wasn’t anything of note. I could remember that Richard Park and Pascal Dupuis were both playing for the Wild at the time. It was a game that ended in a tie, no one scoring in overtime and the score landing at 1-1 in the second period and remaining as such at the end of the game.

It was still a bright spot in my teen years, a favorite as far as the gifts I’d received in my life were concerned. I’d certainly enjoyed that day.

But more than the fact that I was a fan, Mario and Nathalie were a huge part of Sidney’s life. They were his family in Pittsburgh. He had lived with them for years, regarding his time there as more than satisfactory. Part of the reason he’d sold the first house he’d purchased and started the process all over was to remain in Sewickley, close to them and in a place where he felt completely comfortable. He didn’t live with them anymore, but some of his belongings remained in their guest house, a place he could easily return if he so chose. He still spent plenty of time there, glad to share meals with the family or just chat with Mario over a couple of drinks.

I was on the verge of hyperventilating and I found myself wondering what a panic attack felt like.

Sidney’s hand was on the small of my back as he tried to figure out what was happening to me.

“Will you please talk to me, Wyn? You’re freaking me out.”

I cackle left my throat as his face contorted with confusion.

“What the hell?” he muttered.

“Dinner with the Lemieuxs,” I repeated.

His brow furrowed into a deep scowl. “You’re freaking out right now.”

“No shit, Sherlock!” I shouted. I rose to my feet and began pacing the living room.

“It’s just dinner. It isn’t that big of a deal.”

“This is a huge deal. Of course you don’t think of it that way, you’ve known them for years. They’re practically family.” I could feel myself beginning to ramble. “But for me this is like meeting your family all over again. No, this is worse than that. If your parents and sister didn’t like me, that was personal. But if these people don’t like me, it’s more than that. If Mario decides that I’m not right for you, it doesn’t just make me a threat to you on a personal level, I’m a threat to your career as well. I’m a threat to the team. I’m a threat to his team and his livelihood.

“He’ll have me shipped off and I’ll never see you again. If he doesn’t like me, he’ll make me disappear entirely and this will all be over. He could make me vanish and that would be the end of it. I will have ruined everything—“

“Bronwyn!” he shouted.

He’d joined me in the middle of the living room. I took a gasping breath as he held tightly to my upper arms, the grasp of his fingers stinging just slightly, enough to hold me to the ground, to remind me that he was real and I was alive as my mind took me on a journey towards absolute insanity. He looked like he wanted to shake me.

I wondered if it might help if he did so.

“No one is going to make you disappear. Jesus,” he muttered. “Mario will love you and so will Nat. You don’t have anything to be afraid of. Unless you act like this. That might end up being a problem.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I love you, even when you’re acting like a crazy person. When are you going to figure that out?”

He hugged me close and I felt my heartbeat slowing down. I felt like a maniac as I began to calm down, relaxing into his embrace.

“I promise you, it’s just dinner. They aren’t going to give you the third-degree and they certainly won’t have you whacked. They just want to meet the woman who has made me so happy. And confused.”

“No inquisition?” I muttered into his chest.

He chuckled. “This isn’t like meeting my folks. There are no surprises. Mario and Nathalie know everything there is to know, really. I haven’t shut up about you since I got back. And since I’m not sharing any of this with the team yet, aside from my mom, Mario is the biggest sounding board that I have.”

“It’s just so intimidating.”

“I know,” he murmured. “In all likelihood, I’m a week away from meeting your father and there are moments when I’m scared out of my mind about it.”

“He’s not scary.”

“Neither is Mario.”

I folded deeper into his embrace, Sidney practically holding me on my feet.

“I love you, Sidney Patrick Crosby,” I said quietly, the planes of his chest absorbing the sound of my voice.

“I love you too, Bronwyn Abigail Doyle.” He pulled away to look me in the eye. “You want some good news.”

“You’ve got some Vicodin for me to take before we go?”

He laughed. “No, but we don’t have to cook anything, so that’s a plus. Nothing to worry about there.”

There was plenty to worry about, but I understood why Sidney didn’t see it that way. He saw the look cross my face again.

“Please don’t go all Cuckoo’s Nest on me again.”

“What am I going to wear?”

He rolled his eyes. “Clothes.”

“Sidney,” I pled.

“It’s not a ball, it’s dinner at their home.”

“Which is basically a castle which makes this more of a ball and less of a normal dinner.”

“They’re people, normal people. They wear normal clothes and eat regular food. If it helps at all, Mario and I will both be wearing jeans, guaranteed. You don’t have to dress up like this is some big event. It isn’t going to be some huge, multi-course meal. Natalie is cooking and we’ll probably just have spaghetti or homemade pizza.”

“Will there be wine?”

“Not if you’ve had any Vicodin.”

“You refuse to give me any Vicodin.”

“Then there will be wine.”

“Red wine?”

He shrugged.

“Oh Jesus, they don’t have white carpets, do they?”

He groaned and went back to the sofa. I felt like I had the words ‘lost cause’ tattooed across my forehead in red ink.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, sitting down on the floor.

“Why is this so monumental for you?”

“Because I don’t want to screw anything up for you.”

“You aren’t going to screw anything up,” he replied as he rubbed his temples.

“Aside from your mood.”

He chuckled. “Come sit with me.”

I stood from the floor, straightening my clothes and joining him on the couch. He draped an arm over my shoulders and pulled me close.

“Everything will be fine, and I really hope you trust me enough to believe it when I say so. You will be funny and charming the way that you always are. You’ll make the perfect impression. Even if they don’t like you, which will never happen, they don’t make my decisions for me. Your clothes will be perfectly appropriate and you aren’t going to spill any wine. Most importantly, I’ll be with you the whole time.”

“Will you hold my hand?”

He smiled. “If that’s what you need.”

“Slap me if I start jabbering like an idiot?”

“You won’t need that.”

“I might.”

“Won’t happen. You are so much better at these things that you give yourself credit for. People love you. You’re the kind of person that remembers people’s names and asks them about work and school and their kids. It’s all completely genuine with you, people can see that.” His eyes locked with mine. “I saw that. It’s what made me follow you to your table at the coffee shop. It’s what compelled me to ask you to dinner. Beyond all else, it’s what made me fall in love with you.”

He’d never given me a specific reason that he’d fallen in love with me. It was nice to hear. It was similar to why I loved him, the fact that at his core, with the fame and the money stripped away, he was a wonderful person with a tremendously good heart.

He was, in so many ways, everything that my mother had encouraged me to look for in the people that I allowed into my life.

I stayed there, pressed to his side, until I was calm. I fell asleep eventually, waking only to feel Sidney lifting me off of the couch.

“I can walk,” I protested.

He didn’t respond as he mounted the stairs.

“Babe, you’ll hurt your back.”

I felt laughter rumble quietly in his chest as he ignored my complaints. Before I knew it, he had lowered me onto the bed, kissed me softly, and headed for the bathroom. I heard the shower turn on and the next thing I was aware of was Sidney rolling out of bed to head to his workout the next morning.

I laid there for some time before deciding to get out of bed and start my own day. I’d wasted as much time as I possibly could, hitting the snooze on my alarm a number of times and staring at the screen of my phone for nearly an hour before finally giving up. I stretched and hopped into the shower to begin the long process of truly waking up.

Sidney came into the bathroom a while later. I could hear him humming a tune. The sound was less than musical, carrying a tune not high on his list of talents if it was present at all. I found myself laughing.

“It’s good to hear that sound,” he said over the noise of the water as it poured over me.

I peeked out the side of the shower; the expansive tile space was almost a room of its own.

“Do you need in here?”

“Eventually,” he replied.

His face was flushed, his hair dripping with sweat. His t-shirt clung to his torso, showing off the clear definition of his abs and chest, swollen from his workout.

I bit down on my lip and ducked back under the water.

I considered seeking relief from the way the sight of him made me feel by turning the tap to cold. Instead, I decided to be bold.

“You could always join me,” I called.

Within a few seconds he stepped up behind me, the heat of his chest pressed to my back. I’d already washed and shaved everything that needed to be. I knew though as his lips travelled from my neck to my shoulder and he turned me to face him, that what we both had in mind would necessitate a repeat of a few of my shower responsibilities.

The tile was cold against my back as the space filled with steam, tendrils of it surrounding us. His lips searched my body, longing overtaking me. My leg hitched up over his hip, his hands holding me upright.

His eyes were dark as I wrapped my fingers in his hair. I was seconds from resorting to begging, but there would be no need. He was just as desperate and he didn’t make me wait long.

By the time we were both clean, the water had grown tepid. We dried off and he sat on the edge of the tub as I toweled the water out of my hair.

“Are you feeling better today?”

In that moment, I was feeling blissful. My legs were still a little weak, my knees feeling a bit like jelly. I felt like nothing in the world could touch me, though I knew that would fade away. The satisfaction would remain.

“Much better,” I replied.

“So you’re not going to freak out.”

“No, I think I’ll be okay.”

“Good. They really are excited about meeting you.”

“I’m excited too. Still terrified but I know you won’t let anything bad happen.”

It was entirely true. I was a bit petrified and I knew that feeling would linger through the day. My fears wouldn’t fade over the course of the day and they would still be present when I stepped into Mario’s house and shook hands with the man and his wife.

I needed a distraction stronger than work could possibly provide and when Sidney returned from the rink, I went with him to the house, getting my first look at the place that he would live in once it was finished. He took me on a tour, the house still a bit of a disaster. There was work to be done in every room of the home. Sidney and I painted one of the guest rooms in a color that I’d helped choose from a series of swatches he’d been going over a few days before.

It kept us busy for a while, but we headed back to the apartment to get ready for dinner by the middle of the afternoon, both of us covered in paint and sweat that needed rinsed away. We showered separately and I managed to get myself dressed while he was finishing up in the bathroom.

I pulled on a pair of jeans, the nicest ones that I’d brought with me. My anxiety was almost crippling as I pulled a blouse out of one of my bags from the shopping trip that Sebastian and I had gone on earlier in the week. The black shirt was covered in a bright floral pattern that was so gaudy that I couldn’t pass it up.

Sidney peeked into the room as I finished dressing and sought out a pair of shoes that I’d purchased to match the blouse, orange flats that blended well with the pink and orange flowers on the shirt. He hadn’t let me out of his sight for long; he knew that I struggling and he didn’t want me to lose it again.

He pulled on a black button down and a pair of jeans, slipping into a pair of shoes before heading back to the bathroom to pull some product through his curls to tame them without the help of a hat. I took us in, almost matching in the annoying way that some couples tried to, but having done so without planning it.

I adjusted my hair several times, trying to get the curls to lay just right. I felt his hands land firmly on my hips, his face appearing behind me in the bathroom mirror. He rested his chin on my shoulder and pulled me close.

“It will be fine. I’ll be with you the whole time.”

I nodded, taking a deep breath and trying to steel myself for our next adventure.

He placed a kiss just behind my ear. “I promise.”

I nodded again as he pulled away and took me by the hand. He wasn’t going to give me a chance to fuss over my hair or makeup any further. He pulled me after him towards the front door. I managed to grab my purse on the way by and soon found myself settled in the front seat of his car.

He held my hand as he drove us back towards Sewickley. I looked around the interior of the vehicle as he pulled out of the garage and headed to the house where he’d lived for years. The car, with its heated seats and fancy sound-system was one of the only extravagant things that he owned. But he’d driven the same Range Rover for years, seeing no point in an upgrade. He barely had time to put miles on it as it was, replacing it made no sense.

His thumb roved in circles across the skin of my hand. He was doing what he could to reassure me as the radio played quietly in the background, a country song filling the silence between us. The drive wasn’t terribly short, but it wasn’t so long that it let the anxiety fester for too long. It was nice to be there in a relatively short period of time.

The house was expansive, larger than I had expected. I’d pictured a large house, but it was more than I’d had in my mind when I first thought of the place where a person like Mario Lemieux would live. But once we stepped inside, Sidney foregoing the common courtesy of knocking or ringing a doorbell, it didn’t feel expansive at all. It felt comfortable. It felt like an actual home, a place that was lived in by a real family. It wasn’t a magazine showpiece, just a home inhabited by real people.

It put me at ease.

Sid still had a firm grasp on my hand as we kicked off our shoes and stepped into the house. A look to my left, just a quick glance in Sidney’s direction told a story that I hadn’t expected. Sidney Crosby, a man both stoic and consistently confident, was nervous. Mario and Nathalie didn’t make his decisions for him, but it was abundantly clear that what they thought mattered to him.

I found myself squeezing his hand as if to comfort him. I sent a soft smile in his direction, my way of telling him that I was okay and he didn’t have to worry about me going nuclear meltdown on him again.

He smiled too, his broad and genuine grin, the one that made my heart flutter in my chest and my stomach clench just a little. He let go of my hand, wrapped an arm around my waist, and led me towards the kitchen. For all intents and purposes, I was about to meet his parents once again in the same way that I’d met his mom back in Canada.

The kitchen was huge, and Nathalie’s cooking smelled divine. She didn’t notice us entering the room as she was busy with setting the kitchen table.

“Smells great, Nat,” Sidney said with a smile.

She jumped, looking up at us with surprise. It took just a fraction of a second for her eyes to light up as recognition flashed across her features. She was a beautiful woman, slender and blonde, quite a bit taller than me, making her the perfect match for someone as tall as Mario.

She hustled over to us and wrapped her arms around Sid, forcing him to let go of me for a moment.

“How are you, Sidney?” she asked as she pulled away.

“Great,” he replied. “I’m really great.”

She pulled away but held onto his upper arms, long fingers wrapping around the flesh just above his elbows. She gazed at him like a proud parent, looking over him as if to make sure everything about him rang true, just as she remembered it. She smiled; the expression breathtaking on her feminine features.

While I knew that she’d been raised in Quebec, French her first language, there wasn’t a hint of it in her voice. She sounded like she’d been speaking English all her life, not so much as an accent to be had. I felt inferior for a moment, I’d mastered only English in my lifetime and had been a miserable failure at my attempts at both French and Spanish in high school.

“I want you to meet Bronwyn,” his hand landed on the small of my back. “Wyn, this is Nathalie.”

“It’s a pleasure,” I murmured.

“Trust me, the pleasure is all mine.”

She pulled me into a hug, a gesture that I hadn’t expected upon just meeting her. But she wrapped her arms around me in a way that almost felt familiar, comforting and warm.

“Doing the introductions without me?”

Mario was an impressive man, impossibly tall and well taken care of. I knew that if the boys made it into the playoffs, his beard would grow in salt and pepper, but the coif he clearly spent a bit of time on was dark and shiny. His eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled and wandered over to clap Sidney on the back.

“Mario, this is my girlfriend Bronwyn.”

“The one you’ve been talking about for months?” Mario asked with a smile.

He was as tall standing in front of me as he had been when I was fourteen and seeking his signature for my bedroom wall.

“It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Unlike his wife, there was still a subtle hint of an accent to his voice, but there was a reason people marveled at his mastery of the English language in the time since he’d arrived in Pittsburgh in the eighties.

“It’s nice to meet you,” I managed to reply as he shook my hand firmly.

“Please, everyone sit,” Nathalie said, her attention back on setting the table. “Dinner is almost ready.”

“Sidney, why don’t you come help me pick the wine? I’m sure you know Bronwyn’s taste better than I can guess at it.”

“Shit,” Sidney muttered under his breath, barely audible. He leaned in to kiss me on the cheek. “I’ll be back.”

He followed Mario out of the kitchen leaving me alone with Nathalie.

“My husband is a big fan of the divide and conquer technique,” Nathalie said. “He uses it on everyone that our kids bring home, and Sidney easily fits into that category. His heart is in the right place, but I don’t think he actually understands the purpose of it. Though he has managed to intimidate a few of the boys that our daughters have brought around, but most fathers have that effect.”

“Is there anything I can do to help you, Mrs. Lemieux?”

She laughed. Sidney had described her as delightful, and I could see why.

“Please, it’s Nathalie. And no, there’s nothing you can do. As soon as the boys are back, the pizza will be about ready to come out of the oven. You could just tell me a little about yourself, though I think Sidney may have told us all there is to know.”

“What would you like to know?” I asked. “I’ve never been very good at talking about myself.”

“I know the feeling. It’s one of the reasons that I always avoided the media, unless the task at hand has nothing to do with me.” She sat down at one of four chairs that surrounded the small table. She turned slightly to face me. “Mario says you live in Boston, do you like it there?”

“I love it there, though I think I loved it more when I was in college. So many of my classmates went off when we graduated and my former roommate moved away. I think I stayed because it was comfortable and familiar by the time I’d been there for four years of my life. New and unfamiliar things were scary.”

She chuckled. “Why not go back to Minnesota?”

“It was just too…” I trailed off.

“Difficult?”

I nodded.

“I can’t imagine, sweetheart.”

Sidney had told them everything; that much was clear. She knew about my mother, she knew about my past. She knew why going home had never felt like a valid option for me.

“Our daughter Stephanie was more than a little upset not to be invited to dinner. She’s committed to play at Boston College in the fall and she wanted to ask you about Boston. You wouldn’t have had time to eat in between answering the list of questions she’s got.”

“Another time, I would gladly answer anything I can. I went to B.U. but I had friends that went to B.C. plus I’ve had six years to get used to the city.”

“Sidney told her you would do that.”

“Sidney was right.”

“How do you like Pittsburgh?” she asked.

“It’s a beautiful city. One of my closest friends, the roommate I mentioned, he lives here now. He moved right after graduation and he really loves it. He’d been raving about it for two years so it was about time I came to see it for myself for longer than a weekend at a time.”

“Just needed a little extra motivation?”

“I guess you could say that,” I replied with a smile.

“How long are you staying?”

“At least the end of the month, I think. If there’s no movement with the CBA talks, Sidney and I are going to head to Minnesota at the end of the month to see Taylor play and so he can meet my dad. I’m going either way, but I’m not sure if I’ll come back here or head back to Boston for a while.”

“What does Sidney think?”

“That she makes her own decisions,” he said as he sat down across from me, setting a bottle of wine at the center of the table. “And that she knows that she’s welcome to stay for as long as she’d like and can come back whenever she wants to.”

“Good answer,” Mario said as he took his own seat to my right at the head of the table.

He winked at Sidney who laughed openly in return. He poured me a glass of wine, white, a choice motivated by his better judgment and my best interests. The timer went off and Nathalie headed to remove dinner from the oven. She sliced it quickly and returned to the table with it.

“Dig in,” Mario said as he passed the salad to Sidney.

We didn’t talk much as we ate. Just a few passing topics of conversation between bites and sips. We chatted about Stephanie’s fascination with Boston, Lauren’s insistence that she needed pictures to prove that I existed, and Austin’s demand for some time on the ice with Sidney before either of their seasons started.

Hockey didn’t come up for a while. There was even some confusion as to whether Sidney and Mario were supposed to be in contact at all during the lockout. The whole process of the labor dispute was murky at best.

But Sidney eventually slipped in the middle of a conversation about Pittsburgh. “…of course she likes it here, she’s a Pens fan.”

I blushed.

“Is she really?” Mario asked with a playful smile.

I nodded but didn’t make eye contact with Mario in that moment.

“Ever been to a game?” he asked.

“Never,” Sidney replied.

“One,” I corrected.

“What?”

“Not here,” I defended. “Back in Minnesota. It was a decade ago.”

“2002?” Mario asked.

“November. You tied that night. I think I had more fun watching you practice that morning than I did the game.”

“Was it a school day?”

“Yeah, early Christmas present from my parents. I got to play hooky that day.” I was feeling the wine and the bravery was slipping into my existence. “I actually got your autograph that day.”

He smiled.

“How did I not know any of this?” Sidney demanded, laughing all the while.

“Because there are some cards people prefer to play close to the vest.”

It didn’t get uncomfortable in that moment the way that I had expected it to. It was just a normal dinner and even after the information came to their attention; it wasn’t something to be uncomfortable about. Mario actually seemed amused. The wine didn’t hurt my ability to remain at ease. It was just enough to keep me calm and able to work through the anxiety that I was still feeling.

We sat for hours, letting our dishes sit as conversation rolled comfortably around the table. It was nearly midnight when Sidney and I left after a series of hugs all around. The time had flown by and I was still warm and buzzing as I buckled myself into the front seat of the SUV. Sidney was all smiles, the two glasses of wine he’d imbibed had long worn off, though if he’d chosen to have more, there was always the guest house if we needed to stay the night.

Instead, he pulled out of the driveway and headed back towards downtown. Our route changed after a few minutes, but I didn’t ask why. He exited onto a highway that took us across the river, driving quickly over an island that sat in the middle of the Ohio River. His path felt circuitous as we eventually started going in the direction that the signs said would lead us downtown.

Soon enough, I was onto him. The view was all trees and hills, Pittsburgh nowhere in sight as the tunnel came into my line of sight. He was checking an item off of my list, the city opening up in front of me, the thing that people raved about upon entering through the Fort Pitt Tunnel. The way that you went from the sight of hills and trees, not a hint of the large city that was to come, into the darkness of the tunnel, allowing just two lanes of traffic, then the way the city burst into view.

The tunnel was dark, just headlights from us and the few other cars entering the city.

“It’s different during the day, but it’s still a sight at night,” he said from the driver’s seat. “The lights are really something to behold.”

He sounded wistful, his voice full of a quiet joy as he found something so interesting, so different, that he couldn’t help but marvel at it.

I took a deep breath, my hand wrapped in his as the end of the tunnel came closer.

It was beautiful as the tunnel opened up and the bridge came into view. The lights of the city broke across the horizon, bright and sparkling as they reflected off the surface of the river.

“Wow,” I murmured.

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

“Thank you.”

He smiled as I turned in my seat, tearing my eyes from the scene before me and settling my gaze on him. He looked peaceful as he drove us into the city. It was a look that I loved, the expression that told me he was at ease, that the things in his life that were less than desirable weren’t bothering him for the time being. It told me that he wasn’t overwhelmed or angry. There wasn’t anything upsetting him or making his life difficult. He was just happy to be where he was in that moment.

I was immensely happy that I was there to share in that feeling with him.