Our Secret Hiding Spot

Kris groaned as he felt the sun hitting his face. He and Quinn had drank a little too much last night after coming home from her parents' house. Kris could put down beer on a nightly basis, but give him hard liquor, and he found himself always regretting it the next morning.

He squinted his eyes open, quickly closing them as he rolled over and buried his head in his pillow. He had no idea how Quinn had gotten up and went to work this morning, but he was impressed. She had more to drink than him, wanting more shots, telling him that it would help her forget about dinner. Her relationship with Corinne was getting worse every week, and Kris knew there was no repairing it at this point. He felt bad for Quinn, he knew she didn't want to have this type of relationship with her mother, but she was starting to get used to it at this point.

He flipped back over, knowing he had to get out of bed and get ready for the day, but the warm bed felt too good. And, he knew as soon as he stood up, he was probably going to feel the alcohol from last night even more. He stood up, regardless, and just as he thought, he immediately felt the headache get worse.

He went into the bathroom and popped two ibuprofens in his mouth and ran water over his face. He heard his cell phone ring, and he groaned as he jogged back into the bedroom where it was sitting. "Bonjour?" he asked into the phone.

"You're in the United States, speak English," he heard Evan's voice say.

Just to annoy him even more, Kris continued speaking in French. "Que puis-je faire pour vous?"

"Stop it," Evan told him, and Kris laughed. He loved getting under Evan's skin. He liked his agent, they had worked together since Kris was drafted several years ago, and Evan had never let him down once. He was hoping it would be true through this summer, too. Kris knew that Evan ultimately didn't have control over whether the Penguins' management would offer him what he was looking for, but he knew Evan would fight for him. "Have you thought more about the offers?" he asked him. "And answer in English so I actually know what the hell you're saying."

"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed," Kris commented.

"I've been getting hounded by people asking me what Letang is going to do. Whether he's going to get a deal in Pittsburgh or go somewhere else. And, while I love looking people in the face and telling them that I'm the only one privy to that knowledge, I'm not such a big fan of telling them that I have absolutely no idea what's going through the man's head. So tell me what's going through your head," he ordered.

Kris ran a hand through his hair as he sat down on the bed. He and Quinn hadn't got to discuss it too much the previous night. He had briefly filled her in on the offers before dinner, but after they got home, the last thing they wanted to do was discuss the impending offers that would send Kris away.

"Je ne sais pas," Kris said, immediately translating it before he got an earful from Evan. "I don't know. I want to stay here."

"Yeah buddy, and I want Mila Kunis in my bed right now. We can't always get what we want. I'm still working on Shero and Mario, but I think we'd have a little bit of an edge if I could go in there and tell them you're starting to give whoever's offer a real look," Evan told him.

Kris thought about his words. It made sense. They would have leverage if Kris was considering another team's offer. "Philadelphia is offering a no trade clause?" he asked.

"Yes," Evan said excitedly, happy that Kris was finally seriously considering another offer. "Only thirty-six million for six years though," he added. "The other two are offering a lot more money."

"But Philadelphia is the closest one to Pittsburgh," Kris pointed out. If he was going to have to play for another team, then it might as well be one that's closest to Quinn. "And in six years I could retire, and I'd be fine with that," he added, and he could envision the look in Evan's eyes. He clearly did not like that his biggest client was already thinking about retiring. "Go in with that. Tell them I'm considering the Flyers' offer," he told him.

A grin spread across Evan's face. "Will do, man! I think this is just want we need," he told him.

"And Evan," Kris said, before Evan could hang up the phone. "Whatever you do, make the deal with Pittsburgh happen," he said, a determined look on his face. Evan knew if he couldn't get this deal done, Kris was going to be unhappy person, and he was going to be coming after him.



Quinn should have been focusing on all the papers she needed to sign in front of her, but instead she was on the phone with the wedding planner. When she had hired Wendy, she thought that she would help take all the stress away from having to plan the wedding herself. Instead, Quinn was sure that Wendy only added stress to her. She called Quinn at least every other day, asking her to pick a color for something or asking her what kind of appetizers she wanted at the rehearsal dinner. The last thing Quinn wanted to pick when she was trying to go over contracts of her employees was whether she wanted caprice or artichoke dip the day before her wedding.

"Wendy, just pick for us, okay? I really could care less what color the chairs are. You know our colors, just pick whatever you think looks best. I have to go, okay?" she said, not waiting on an answer before she hung up on Wendy.

She looked up to see Mario standing there with a bemused look on his face. "Problems with the wedding planner?" he asked. He had overheard several phone calls similar to that from Quinn over the past several weeks, and he knew Quinn was getting extremely frustrated.

Quinn stared up at him. "When did weddings become such a big deal? Why can't we just have a private ceremony or something?"

"You could if you eloped," Mario chuckled, knowing that neither Quinn nor Kris wanted to elope. But, they would have preferred if they could cut the guest list in half and just have a smaller ceremony that didn't involve so much planning.

"Would you officiate?" Quinn joked.

Mario smiled at her. "For you, I'd do anything," he told her. "But right now, I'm off to a meeting," he said, his tone letting her know that this meeting was about Kris. She nodded her head, watching him walk off with his briefcase in hand. She silently prayed that they would come to an agreement for Kris to stay. The stress of the wedding on top of the stress of Kris potentially leaving Pittsburgh was beginning to give her an ulcer, and she wasn't sure how much more she could take.

She tried to occupy herself with taking care of some paperwork while also looking at pictures of place settings that Wendy had e-mailed her earlier. Somewhere in the middle of all that, Mario came walking back into the office. She looked up at him, and he barely shook his head, but she knew what that meant. They hadn't come to an agreement with Kris's agent. She sighed, looking back down at her desk, trying to focus on her work once again, but failing miserably.

By three o'clock, she had given up on trying to concentrate, and she collected her things and walked towards Mario's office. "I'm headed out, call me if you need anything," she told him.

"Have a good night, Quinn," he told her, and she nodded her head as she gave him a wave goodbye. She made her way home and saw Kris's car there, knowing he was inside.

She made her way inside and called out his name. She heard him say he was in the kitchen, and she sat her things down on the table just inside the door before walking towards the kitchen. "Hey babe," she said, walking up behind him and wrapping her arms around his waist.

"Hey, how are you?" he asked, turning around and giving her a big kiss.

"Eh, I'm okay," she shrugged her shoulders.

"You heard, didn't you?" he asked, and he didn't even need to explain before she nodded her head. "Evan is trying everything," Kris said, having talked to him on the phone after his meeting with Mario and Shero. Evan had told him that he had tried pulling every string he had to get them to budge, and he'd even told them about Philadelphia's offer. He said Mario seemed to want to try to work something out more after hearing that, but Shero was still skeptical and didn’t want to agree to the no trade clause.

"I know he is," she sighed. "It's just hard, you know?" she asked, and he nodded his head. "Plus, Wendy kept calling and e-mailing me today asking me about these little details that I guarantee no one will even notice," she added.

"As long as we have alcohol, everyone will be happy," Kris chuckled.

This caused Quinn to laugh as well. "Get them all drunk enough and they won't care about anything else," she added. "Oh! I forgot!" she suddenly exclaimed. "I told Noah we'd watch Riley and Anna tomorrow night. You don't have to if you don't want to, I can watch the girls by myself," she told him. Noah had called her earlier and asked for a last minute favor. He and Claire had gotten invited to a big dinner with his boss, and their normal babysitter was busy that night. Of course Quinn had jumped to watch her two nieces.

"I'll be here to help you," he said, leaning down and kissing her temple. "But, since we won't be alone tomorrow night, and we will tonight…" he trailed off, moving to kiss her shoulder and then move up her neck.

"Kris," Quinn giggled, but he didn't stop, not that she wanted him to. She gladly allowed him to pick her up, as she hooked her legs around his waist, and he carried her to the bedroom.

They had just finished and were laying in each other's arms, trying to catch their breath when Quinn's cell phone rang out. "I swear, if that's Wendy, I’m going to kill someone," she said, starting to get out of bed to grab her phone.

She felt Kris's hand on her forearm and she glanced back at him curiously. "So don't get it," he said simply with a shrug.

Quinn sighed as she shook her head. "I have to, it could be something important," she told him, standing up, allowing Kris a good view of her naked back side. She ran out into the living room and grabbed her phone off the table right before it went to voicemail. "Hello?" she said, slightly out of breath, not even bothering to see who was calling.

"Hey Quinn, did I catch you at a bad time?" she heard Noah's voice say.

"No, what's up?" she fibbed. She began walking back to the bedroom, getting back in bed with Kris, getting under the sheet that was on top of his body, as she laid back against the headboard. He looked over at her, and she mouthed "Noah" to him to let him know who she was speaking to.

"Are you sitting down?" he asked her.

"Oh God, what are you about to tell me?" she asked, her heartbeat picking up. "Noah…" she began when he didn't say anything right away.

"I think it might be out in the open with the public when you and Kris are getting married," he said in a rush.

"Huh?" Quinn asked, legitimately confused. She and Kris had kept their exact date a secret. They were trying to stay out of the media's eye as much as possible, and one of the ways they were going about that was revealing as little as possible about their impending wedding. Whenever Kris would get asked about it, he would always just say he was getting married "this summer", but he never gave any indication as to when exactly in the summer it would be.

"Claire had someone ask her about it at the gallery," he said. "They knew she knew you and they asked if she was going to the wedding. I guess a little later on they said they had read online that the wedding was August 23rd. I don't know how they could possibly know that," he told her.

She let out a groan of frustration, and Kris turned to look at her. "Someone let it leak the date of our wedding," she told him before uncovering her hand from her phone and replying to Noah. "Great, let the media frenzy begin."

"As far as I know, no one knows where it is though," Noah added on a positive note.

"Yet," Quinn replied. "You know, I bet I know who it is," she said suddenly.

"Dean?" Noah asked.

"Glad to know we're on the same page," Quinn said with a slight laugh. "He's definitely the type that would purposely let this slip," she rolled her eyes, knowing that her step-brother was behind this. He may not be trying to steal the team from her anymore, but that didn't mean they were loving towards each other, or in Dean's case, even civil towards each other. Any chance he had to make Quinn's life a living hell, he'd take it. And he knew that the media knowing about their wedding would only cause more stress in Quinn's life. That was why she didn't even want to tell Dean anything about the wedding. Her mother had different plans though and had given him an invite.

"I thought you and Kris might want to be aware," Noah told her.

"Yeah, thanks," she said.

"I'll see you tomorrow night? Five still a good time to drop the girls off?" he asked.

"Yep, Kris and I will be here waiting for them. I can't wait," she said with genuine excitement. She loved her nieces to death, and she was looking forward to spending the evening with them doing kiddie things with them. She already had picked up several Disney movies for Riley to choose from.

"Great, I'll see you then," he said, hanging up the phone.

Quinn reached around Kris to put her phone on the side table before sitting back up against the headboard again. "So the media knows, eh?" he asked her.

She nodded her head, looking straight ahead. "As far as Noah knows, all they know is the date though, not where it's at or anything. But, you know this is going to be chaos with them knowing any details of it. They're not going to let that go. Why'd you have to be such a popular player?" she joked, smiling up at him.

"Hey, you're the one that picked me," he said before leaning down and kissing her, giving her something else to focus on besides the fact that everyone who had access to the internet was soon going to know the date of their wedding.