Our Secret Hiding Spot

Summer was supposed to be a time to relax, to take time off because the team had just finished a successful season of one hundred and two games, and had just won their second Stanley Cup in two years. It wasn't common for any team to do that, especially after trading away several of their players the previous year in order to stay under the salary cap. So, really everyone that was involved in this team should get a little time off after a season like that, right?

Not for Quinn Layman, who sat in her office, her head in her hands. She looked over at her co-owner of the team, Mario Lemieux who sat in the seat across from hers. "I thought last year was crazy, but this year seems to be worse," she sighed. Last year she had to give up one of her favorite players on the team, who also happened to be her fiancé's best friend and teammate, Tyler Kennedy. Yes, Quinn was the owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins, and she was also dating one of their players, Kris Letang. The two of them had gone through the media hounding them, but they had made it out alive, and were now engaged and set to be married at the end of the summer. If she got through the summer alive.

Mario chuckled, and Quinn wanted to glare at the older man. "Quinn, this is just your second year, you haven't seen it in past years when it was way worse," he told her. "You weren't there when we were getting so much pressure about what we were going to do with Sid or Geno, how we were going to keep both of them and still have enough money to fund the other twenty people we need on this team," he said. It was true. Quinn had only been the owner for two years, and she had actually come in at the perfect time, with the team on a successful streak. She hadn't had to deal with the team being a disappointment and the scrutiny that came along with that.

She looked up at Mario. "How do you do this? I mean, how are you not completely stressed out all the time?" she asked him.

Mario smiled at her. "Because I've dealt with this for several years," he told her, not giving her any insight on how to make it better. "Besides, I'm not planning a wedding as well," he added. She decided not to remind him that most things for the wedding were set. She'd done most of the work during the season, knowing she would be working hard in the offseason. But, that didn't mean she didn't have a few things left to finalize, though she couldn't think about that when she had everyone looking at her, asking how the trades were going. "Are you ready for the meeting with Shero?" he asked, referring to the team's general manager, Ray Shero. "He's ready to talk about Orpik and Dupuis," he said, naming off two of the free agents that still hadn't signed a contract yet, which was exactly what the meeting was about.

Quinn nodded her head, grabbing her notebook and computer. She had been crunching the numbers all morning, trying to figure out the absolute highest amount that they could offer each of the men to stay. She knew they would probably be offered more from other teams, but that was just the reality of the situation.

A couple of minutes into the meeting, Shero was already getting agitated. "We don't have enough money," he stated straightforward. "We can't keep them both and expect to be able to keep other people, too."

Mario remained calm throughout the meeting, and Quinn really wished she had his demeanor, instead of some of the times wearing her heart on her sleeve. She was able to keep her emotions in check for only so long before her true feelings would come to the surface. "So what do you propose we do?" Mario asked Ray, folding his hands neatly, laying them on the table.

"Look into other options, let one of them go, let's talk about it. What are our options?" he asked. The conversation pursued, and Quinn really wasn't enjoying it when he brought up Kris, but she kept quiet, knowing that anything that dealt with Kris was to go through Mario only. "What about Letang? He's going to eat up a bunch of money, and he still hasn't signed. He doesn't want to take a lower amount. We could just let him sign somewhere else and get him off our hands."

Quinn bit her lip, letting Mario take the lead on this since he was the go-to guy for any matters with Kris. She had wondered a lot about Kris since he was a free agent, but Kris hadn't talked too much about it and either had Mario. She just assumed that talks were taking place between Mario, Ray, and Kris's agent, and that a deal would be worked out. She was just finding out that it wasn't as easy as she had thought it was.

"We're still in discussions with his agent about that," Mario reminded him. "And, I think we should work our asses off to try to keep him."

"But, Dan-" Ray began.

"Dan is not in this discussion," Mario cut him off right away, and Quinn wondered what the head coach had to do with this all. But, she wasn't going to ask. She and Mario had decided from the beginning that if she was going to be involved with Kris that she would have no input in any dealings with him. She knew from the beginning that there was always a chance that he could get traded, but she just didn't think it'd actually happen.

"Mario," Ray tried again.

"If we can't reach a deal, then we'll let Letang walk. But, we are not giving up on it right now," Mario stated, leaving no room for argument. When Mario talked like this, everyone knew not to go against him. He was set in his ways and he had made up his mind. No one was going to change that.

"Okay," Shero relented. "Then what do we do about the other two?" he asked.

Quinn knew it was her turn to speak up again. "We offer them the lower offers. If they counter with a higher one, we see if it's in our price range. If we have to, we let them go. We'd miss them like hell, but we can get someone else if needed."

"We've already had a couple of offers on Sutter. We could make a trade if we absolutely needed to," Mario continued.

Ray set his jaw. It was clear he wasn't happy with how this meeting had turned out, but there was nothing he could do about it. Ultimately, he worked for Mario and Quinn, and he had to follow what they said, even if he didn't always agree with them. "I'm meeting with Orpik's agent today. I'll follow up with you two afterwards," he said, standing up. He wanted to get out of there quickly, and neither Quinn nor Mario stopped him.

The two owners sat there for a couple more minutes, discussing things, but neither of them brought up the dealings of Kris. It was something that just never was talked about, and today didn't change that. "You really want to trade Sutter?" Quinn asked Mario, who shook his head.

"No, the boy is an asset to our team, and he's getting better every year. But, both San Jose and Edmonton have called about him, and it is an option we have to think about if we can't keep everyone. We might need to trade him to get a defenseman," he said, and Quinn knew he meant that if they couldn't keep both Brooks Orpik and Kris, they'd need to do something to fill the defensive hole.

She simply nodded her head in agreement but let the subject go as the two of them walked back to their offices. The rest of the day was filled with more number crunching, meetings, and discussions for Quinn, who looked at the clock later to see that it was approaching seven in the evening. She logged off of her computer and gathered her things before leaving her office.

She drove home, happy when she pulled into the parking spot next to Kris's SUV, knowing he was home. She made her way up to the apartment they shared and could smell the food hit her nose as soon as she opened the door. She walked into the kitchen, walking up behind Kris and wrapping her arms around his waist. "Something smells really good," she said, kissing the middle of his back.

He turned around, putting his arm around her as he continued stirring the sauce that was on the stovetop. "You're getting home late," he noted, and she nodded her head. "A lot of meetings today?" he asked, and again she nodded her head. He knew she couldn't talk about the inner dealings of the team with him, and he respected that. "Well, take a seat, dinner is almost done."

Quinn stood up on her tiptoes, kissing him. "Thank you for making dinner," she told him as he turned back around to the stove to continue stir the sauce. Quinn walked over to the table, which he already had set. He really was putting forth a lot of effort tonight for dinner. She watched as he took some sort of meat dish out of the oven and poured the sauce on top of it, bringing it over to the table. He grabbed the vegetables he had made as well before sitting down across from Quinn.

She had just begun eating when Kris looked over at her, not having even touched any of the food on his plate. "I need to talk to you about something," he said.

Quinn looked up at him, her fork still in her mouth. She quickly swallowed the piece of chicken before saying, "What is it?"

"I talked to Evan today," he said, speaking of his agent, Evan Grayson. Quinn felt her heart quicken. Kris hadn't talked about anything to do with his contract or free agency to her, and something big must have happened if he decided to say something now. "He told me to start thinking about other teams."

"Wh-what?" Quinn asked, completely abandoning the food in front of her.

"Nothing's been said yet," he told her quickly. "He's still talking to Ray and Mario, but he says that they're looking at really low numbers, and that I could get a lot more from other teams if I heard them out. I don't want to leave Pittsburgh, but…" he trailed off.

"But, you've got to look out for yourself," she finished for him. "I get it."

"Are you mad?" he asked her. He had been worried about telling her this since Evan had called him earlier that day and said that the meetings with Shero and Mario weren't going exactly like he thought they would. Shero was apparently extremely against going any higher, and the numbers they were throwing out there were ridiculously low for his experience and play in the past few years. Evan had told him that he'd keep working with the Penguins, but he really needed to start considering other teams as well.

Quinn shook her head. "No, I'm not mad. We both knew this could happen."

"Nothing's done yet," he told her. "Meetings are still taking place." He wanted to ask her if she knew anything about what was going on in those meetings about him from the team management side, but he knew that even if she did know anything, she couldn't tell him. But, he also knew it was extremely unlikely that she did have any knowledge of those meetings, as she was not a part of any conversation dealing with him.

She nodded her head. "So now we just wait and see. What other teams are you looking at?" she asked him. She could handle if it were somewhere close, like Philadelphia, even if that meant he'd be playing for a hated rival. At least he'd still be close, though. But, if he was looking into the Los Angeles Kings or Vancouver Canucks, they'd have a lot harder time being married.

"I don't know," Kris admitted. "Evan said there's quite a few teams interested, but he didn't name any names. I'm meeting with him tomorrow, though, and we'll talk about it. I just wanted to give you a heads up."

"Thanks," she said, forcing a smile on her face as she went back to her food. Suddenly, she wasn't so hungry anymore, so she just played with it, moving it around on her plate with her fork.

Kris noticed and reached over, putting his hand on top of hers that was sitting on the table. "It'll all work out, you know?" he told her. "Maybe Mario will pull off a miracle for us," he winked at her.

"Yeah, maybe," Quinn spoke, but it was obvious she just wasn't happy. She tried not to think about, figuring she could worry about it the next day when Kris knew more information from his agent. And, then she suddenly remembered something. She had her weekly dinner with her family the next day. She was twenty-seven, and she still had to go over to her parents' house every Thursday to have dinner with them and her two stepbrothers, along with her oldest stepbrother's family when they decided to come. She hated those dinners, but it was something she did so that her mother didn't have yet another thing to yell at her about.

One thing was sure, tomorrow was going to be a day from hell.