Our Secret Hiding Spot

It took Quinn a few minutes to figure out where she was and what had happened when she opened her eyes. She had a throbbing headache, and things slowly began coming back to her. She remembered coming over to Claire's place to discuss wedding details with her and Danielle. But, they hadn't talked too much about the wedding, instead drinking a lot of margaritas and complaining about things in each of their lives.

That was where the headache had come from. Quinn had drank a lot more than she had intended, and that was also why she was in Claire's guest bedroom, as Claire had refused to let her leave with her so intoxicated.

Quinn found her phone in the bed with her, and she looked at it, seeing a couple of text messages from Kris. One was from this morning, asking if she was feeling alright. She had at least texted him the night before and told him she wasn't going to make it back home so he wouldn’t worry, but as she read the texts from the previous night, all of the typos showed her just how drunk she had been when she had texted him.

She didn't even bother texting him back right now, and instead, she slowly got out of bed and made her way towards the living room, where Claire was already up, drinking a big cup of coffee. "Hey," Quinn said, sitting down across from her sister-in-law on her couch.

"There's coffee in there if you need some," Claire said, pointing towards the kitchen. "Or maybe you'd prefer water right now?"

Quinn immediately stood back up and made her way to the kitchen, pouring herself coffee into a mug she pulled out from the cabinet. "What time is it?" she asked, squinting her eyes to focus on the clock on the microwave, which showed it was after ten. "Shit, I slept til ten?" she questioned.

Claire chuckled. "I'm surprised you woke up at all," she told her. "You were one drunk girl last night! Dani and I had to stop you from calling Kris and beginning what we assumed was going to be phone sex," she informed her.

Quinn groaned, as she covered her face with her hands, completely embarrassed. "Thank you for stopping me!"

"Though we were wondering, is that something you and Kris do often? Phone sex?" Claire asked with a grin.

Quinn inhaled deeply, slowly letting it out. "We are not going to discuss that!" she told her sister-in-law.

Claire bit her lip. "So you do have phone sex! I'll have to let Dani know!" she exclaimed, reaching over and grabbing her phone, quickly texting Danielle. Quinn walked over to her, swatting the phone out of her hand.

"Don't tell her that!" she exclaimed.

"Oh please, she already knew. Apparently Kris had told Tyler," Claire shrugged.

Quinn's eyes widened. "Oh my God," she gasped. "I'm going to kill him!" she said, unable to believe that Kris had given Tyler those kinds of details about their sex life. That was something she did with him when he was on the road, but she never expected him to go and tell Tyler.

Her thoughts were interrupted, however, when her cell phone started ringing. She turned to get it, confused. It was Saturday, so she shouldn't be getting calls from work, not that her job was a 9-5 Monday through Friday type of job. She saw Mario was calling from his office, and her stomach lurched, wondering why he was calling her from there on a Saturday morning. "Hello?" she picked up, immediately sobering up, seeing Claire staring at her, wondering what was going on.

"Quinn, I'm sorry to call you on a Saturday morning, but you need to come in as soon as possible," Mario stated.

"What's going on?" Quinn asked him, wondering why he couldn’t just tell her over the phone. Something big must have happened between the time she left work yesterday and now for him to call her requesting her to come in.

"I'll fill you in on everything whenever you get here," he said, his voice not giving anything away.

"Okay," she replied. "I'm at my sister-in-law's right now, so give me about a half hour and I'll be in."

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

Quinn set her phone down and saw Claire looking at her with a questioning look on her face. "What's going on?" she asked her.

Quinn shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not really sure myself. That was Mario, and he said I needed to come in, that he had something he wanted to discuss with me, though he didn't tell me what. I've got a bad feeling, Claire. I mean, if it wasn't anything too important, he would have just told me over the phone," she spoke her thoughts aloud. "Do you mind if I use your shower? I can't go in like this," she said, motioning down towards her disheveled clothes from the day before that she had slept in, and feeling her hair, that seemed to double in size from tossing and turning in bed last night.

"Of course," Claire nodded her head. "And feel free to grab something from my closet if you can find something that will fit," she added with a chuckle. Claire hadn't lost all of the baby weight from Anna yet, though the two of them were pretty similar in size with Claire's pre-baby size.

"I'm sure there's something, and thank you!" Quinn said, hurrying to the shower. The phone call from Mario had sobered her up immediately, and she rushed through her shower, going into Claire and Noah's room to find something in Claire's closet. She found a shirt and decided to just wear her jeans from the night before to go with it. She didn't even bother drying her hair, and hoped Mario would forgive her unkempt look.

She said a quick goodbye to Claire on the way out, promising to return her shirt to her later, and she made her way into the arena. She got there in record time, parking her car and scurrying up to her office. She found Mario already there, waiting on her. "What's going on?" she asked, not wasting any time with greetings.

"Sit down," he said, motioning for the seat across from him.

Quinn sat down, her heart racing. "Okay, I'm sitting," she said, staring at Mario. "What is going on?" she repeated slowly.

"Before I say anything," he began, but Quinn couldn’t wait any longer.

"Mario, please, just tell me. You're worrying me," she told him.

"We're stopping negotiations with Kris," he stated, and Quinn now understood why he had her sit down. She would have fallen over had she been standing up.

"You're stopping?" she asked just to make sure she had heard him correctly.

Mario had his hands on the arms of the chair. "Believe me when I say that this was not my idea," he said, and Quinn could tell by the look on his face that he was telling the truth. He hated this as much as she did. "But, we have nothing else to offer him. So, we're leaving our offer on the table, and we're ending negotiations with him. Either he takes the offer as is or he goes to another team," he explained. Quinn remained silent, trying to absorb what he was telling her. "I'm sorry, Quinn."

Quinn snapped out of her silence. "It's not your fault. And, I appreciate you telling me instead of me finding out some other way. Does Kris know?" she asked him.

"We told Evan this morning, right before I got a hold of you. I'm not sure he's told Kris yet or not." Quinn nodded her head in understanding. "I'm sorry, Quinn," he apologized again.

Quinn forced a smile on her face. "It's not your fault. You're doing what's best for the team. Thank you for telling me face-to-face," she told him, standing up. "I will see you on Monday," she added, and Mario nodded his head as he watched her walk away.

She had only made it to the stairs when her phone started ringing, and she saw it was Kris calling her. He must have just heard from Evan. She picked up the phone, not giving any indication of what Mario had just told her. "Hey babe, I'm headed home," she told him.

"Good, I need to talk to you," he said in the most somber voice she had heard from him.

"Everything okay?" she asked, not wanting to say something if Evan hadn't told him.

"No," he admitted. "But, we'll talk about it when you get here, okay?"

She agreed and hung up the phone, making her way to her car and then back home. She walked inside to see Kris pacing the living room floor. "Hey Kris," she said, letting him know she had gotten home, as he didn't seem to notice that she had walked in the front door. "What's going on?"

"I don’t know where to begin," he said, continuing to pace. He was beginning to make her nervous, even though she already knew what he was about to tell her.

"From the beginning?" she suggested.

He suddenly stopped and turned to face her. "Okay, well Evan called me a little bit ago. Apparently the Penguins are deciding that what they offered me is going to be their final offer. They're not going to do any more negotiations with me or Evan," he told her.

Quinn nodded her head. "Yeah, Mario just told me," she said softly. "Literally right when you called me," she explained. "I'm really sorry, Kris, but you need to do what's best for you, and if another team is offering something better, then take it. We'll still be married, and we'll make it work." She looked up at him and could see in his eyes that there was something else. "What is it?"

"About the wedding," he said slowly.

Quinn's heart began racing. Was he going to call off the wedding because he wasn't guaranteed to stay in Pittsburgh? Her mind was going a thousand miles per hour with all kinds of thoughts. "What about the wedding?" she asked cautiously.

"Word's out," he said.

"Wait, what?" she shook her head, confused by what he was telling her.

"I don't know how, but the details are out. Noah called this morning for you, but you weren't here, and he told me to look at this website. The details are out. The location, the date, everything," he explained. His words switched to French, and Quinn had no idea what he was saying, not that she was paying attention anyways. Her world was crashing down around her. They had been so careful to make sure that their wedding would be a secret and that it wouldn’t get out to the media. But, somehow it had done that anyways, and she had no idea how.

"Kris... Kris," she said, holding her hand out and touching him gently on his upper arm. "I don't know what you're saying," she told him, and he apologized. She was used to him switching to his native language when he was upset or frustrated. He spoke it more easily than English, but she didn't understand French, and especially when he was speaking as fast as he was doing so now.

"What would you like to conquer first?" he asked her. They had two big issues to address, his contract and their wedding details.

"You and your contract," she answered, and he nodded his head. "You need to do what's best for you and your career," she stated.

"I don’t know what's best," he admitted. "I know that other teams are offering better deals, but you're not there."

"I'm not important!" she exclaimed.

Kris put his hands on her hips and pulled her closer to him. "You're the most important thing to me," he told her, his eyes boring into hers.

Quinn smiled at him, knowing he was speaking the truth. "Not when it comes to the game," she clarified. "Your job."

"I could go to another team and play like shit because you're not around," he spoke. "Because you're so far away."

Quinn shrugged her shoulders. "Or you could go to another team and play extremely well," she said, putting her arms around his neck. "You're an exceptional player, Kris. Any team would be lucky to have you."

"Or I could take Pittsburgh's deal," he said.

"That's not up to me to decide. I think you need to talk to Evan about it, and maybe a couple of your teammates, and Tyler. I think Ty could help you out," she said, and Kris nodded his head in agreement. Talking to his teammates and friends would help him sort everything out. They would all understand what he was going through and how difficult of a decision this was for him. "Now about the wedding," she switched topics.

"I've got an idea about that," Kris spoke up. Quinn looked up at him, her hands still around his neck, as she waited to hear what his idea was. "Let's just get married now."

Quinn's eyes widened. "What?" she exclaimed. "You want to elope?" she questioned.

"We could still have our wedding in August," he told her. "But, it'd be a second wedding. Let's just get married now, or as soon as we can. Whoever is here now can come to this wedding. Dani's already in town, and Ty's coming in today. Claire and Noah and the girls are here. And, I'm sure Dani and Claire will help us throw something together," he said. He had really thought about this, and Quinn had to give him credit for that, but what he was suggesting was absolutely ridiculous, to throw a wedding together in a couple of days.

"Kris," she said hesitantly. "What about your parents?" she asked.

"They'll understand, and they'll be at the wedding in August," he told her. "But this way, we don't have to worry about the details of our wedding getting out to the public. We'll already be married," he said with a big smile on his face. He really wanted to do this now. "Look, if you want to wait, then we will. I just thought we could be married now and not worry about the media," he told her.

Quinn looked into his eyes and couldn’t believe how in love with this man she was. She wanted to be married to him. "Let's do it," she smiled brightly.

"Oui?" he asked in French.

She nodded her head. "Oui. But, a couple of things," she said, and he waited on her to continue. "I don't want my parents or Dean at this wedding. It would only spell trouble. They can be at our second one if they absolutely have to be, though I wouldn't be upset if they didn't show. I want Noah and Claire and the girls this time, but no one else from my family," she began. Kris nodded his head in understanding. "Two, we need to find someone who can marry us. I don't know any ordained ministers off the top of my head," she said with a chuckle. "And three, let's do it next weekend. That will give me a little bit of time to plan a couple of things and for us to find a minister, but it's close enough that no one will expect a wedding in that short of time."

Kris smiled at her. "I think I know of someone that might be able to marry us," he said. When Quinn cocked her eyebrow at him, wanting in on his thought, he shook his head. "Let me just see if I can make it happen. And, next weekend it is. I want you to be my wife, Quinn Layman."

"And I want to be your wife, Kris Letang," she said quietly before standing up on her tiptoes to kiss him on the lips, briefly forgetting about all of the chaos from earlier in the day.