Status: This is for Brinlee, so I hope you guys enjoy, too! :)

All I'll Ever Need

14. Eventful Morning

Sidney wasn’t surprised when Geno came into the locker room shortly after he did. Like Sidney, he liked to arrive early so he stood no chance of being late.

There was an unusual smirk on his lips when Sidney looked at him, but unlike usual, Geno didn’t just tell Sidney what was on his mind. He just got himself changed and ready for practice.

The smirk never went away, even as others began filing in and getting ready themselves. Sidney wanted to ask, but he also needed to focus on getting things ready for practice.

But the damn smirk never went away!

“Okay, Geno, what is on your mind?” Sidney asked him, thankful the locker room chatter was loud enough most wouldn’t have heard him.

Geno’s smirk mixed with a smile as he looked over at Sidney. “I met beautiful girl.”

Sidney’s eyebrows rose. “Geno, you have a girlfriend.”

Geno shook his head. “Not that. I met your beautiful girl.”

And just like that, Sidney froze—as did the rest of the locker room. Sidney hadn’t realized Geno had gotten there in time to meet Mika. After all, he came in the locker room a good five minutes after he did.

Which meant they talked, and that alone scared Sidney enough that his face paled.

“I-I—”

“If she’s not your girlfriend, why was she here?” Brooks asked him, and he began laughing so loud that it made Sidney cringe. “Come on, Sid. We’re teammates. You can just admit it. We all know the truth.”

Sidney rolled his eyes. “She’s not my girlfriend. There’s just been a lot going on. We haven’t had a chance to get her a car yet, and—”

“Wait, why does she need a car?”

Sidney didn’t even know who had said that, but he answered anyways. “On the way to the airport to head to Sochi, I kinda ran a stop sign and totaled hers.”

“What?!”

Sidney groaned. “Come on, guys. Seriously. She’s just a friend . . . a really, really good friend.”

“That sounds like something I want a part in,” Beau said, and when he wiggled his eyebrows at Sidney, his entire face turned tomato red in a split second.

“God, Beau, not like that!” Sidney exclaimed. “Forget I said anything. Really, she’s just a friend.”

“Who slept in your bed?”

Once again, Sidney’s face changed colors, right back to the ghastly white instead of red. His eyes were as wide as they could be as he looked back to the smug Russian leaning back against the back wall.

“S-She wasn’t in my bed,” Sidney said, and he was thankful it was true.

“Oh, but your alarm woke her this morning?” he asked, and a huge grin came out that changed Sid’s shade right back to red.

“I-I—alright, we weren’t in my bed,” Sidney stuttered out. “We were in hers—”

“She’s got a bed in your house?” Nealer asked.

Sidney knew there was no way out of this, but he wasn’t going down without a fight. Every part of his being wanted to agree with them, yell out, “Yes, she’s my girlfriend!” Yet he couldn’t.

Because she wasn’t.

If she was, he would never deny her. He would proudly tell everyone all about her, probably more often than they would want to hear, but for now, he couldn’t.

So he fought to deny it.

“Well, yes and no,” Sidney sighed. “She has a room, technically, but that’s because she’s kinda staying at my house right now. And before you say anything, her brother’s there, too! So it’s not like she’s living with me or anything.”

“No, having her brother there only makes her living with you odd,” Kunitz disagreed. “She’s still living with you.”

Sidney rolled his eyes. “Fuck, guys, what is it gonna take with you? She’s not my girlfriend! Yes, every fiber of my being wants her to be, but it’s just fucking complicated!”

“Fucking is not in any way complicated,” Brooks protested with a smirk, just to get a stir from Sidney. “I’d say that’s what you two need to do.”

“Well fucking tell her that,” Sidney grumbled, and without another word about Mika, he grabbed his skates off the bench, grabbed his practice stick, and pushed his way past his team and onto the ice.

He was gonna make them pay for that.
***

Before I went to the doughnut shop and gave the nice women who ran the place heart attacks, I decided to shower and get ready to give doughnuts to literally everyone. The hot shower was relaxing, though it was brief.

After pulling on a pair of ripped black skinny jeans, a Batman sweatshirt, my Batman dog tags, my black Gotham horned snapback, and the same shoes I wore to watch Sidney help lead Canada to victory, I was ready to go. My naturally curly hair was left down and under the hat.

Matty was awake when I walked out the door, and he sat on Sid’s couch playing Call of Duty: Ghosts. He was in the middle of the campaign, so I barely explained to him where I was headed. He heard me, but I didn’t wanna spoil the campaign for myself.

Not until I got the chance to play it.

When arriving at the place I always got my doughnuts, shortly after they opened, I walked in and right up to the counter.

To my delight, Beatrice was working, and she was always so kind to me.

She got a huge smile when she saw it was me. “Well hello there, Mika! How are you today, honey?”

I smiled back. “I’m actually good, which is weird for me.”

This surprised her. I always told her that I was fine, or that I was well, but she never believed it. She knew better. Sometimes, when I was leaving, she said, “I hope you can mean that one day.”

And now, today, I really meant it.

Which was weird considering everything that had gone down the night before.

“Well that’s absolutely wonderful,” she said. When she leaned over the counter and hugged me, I was caught off guard but managed to hug her back enough that I didn’t seem rude. “Sweetheart, I am so glad to hear that.”

“As I’m glad for it to finally be true,” I said. “Now, Beatrice, I’m sorry to do this to you, but I have a huge order for you. I need fifty dozen doughnuts, half chocolate and half glazed, as fast as possible.”

She didn’t seem too surprised, aside from the fact that I was ordering that many doughnuts. Usually, I was a loner, and she knew that.

Not today.

“We’ll have that for you in just a minute,” she told me, and she began ringing it all up. The total wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but it was still a lot of money.

Using Geno’s card felt wrong, but there was no way that I could pay the bill of over three hundred dollars.

Like she said, it only took a couple of minutes. That place was good about having doughnuts already made and ready to go out, so they had most of the fifty ready to go. I just had to wait on about three dozen, which took no time at all.

Sidney told me they were having a mild practice, since they had to travel tonight, so they were gonna be done around nine thirty. I walked out of the doughnut shop at nine and headed straight for Iceoplex.

Nine seventeen, when I pulled into a parking spot, I was met by the security team, just like Geno said. They helped me carry all fifty dozen doughnuts inside, but the thing that worried me the most was the reactions.

What was everyone gonna think and say?

Most importantly, what was Sidney gonna think and say?

The security team brought me into the players’ lounge and told me Geno would be in as soon as practice was over. That alone was terrifying to me, but I waited.

He was in there much faster than I expected, changed into a pair of jeans and Penguins sweatshirt. He also looked very clean. “Wonderful. Beautiful girl here. I tell everyone to come in lounge. They be here shortly.”

And almost as soon as the words came out, in came someone else.

Chris Kunitz looked surprised at the sight of me, so surprised that he had to look away from me and to Geno for an explanation. “Is this who I think it is?”

My eyes widened as Geno laughed and nodded. “Sid’s girl, yes.”

He smiled at me. “Well then. Hey there. You can just call me Kunitz—everyone does.”

“I’m Mika,” I breathed. I felt my teeth bite down on my lip, but I tried to appear casual. Inside, however, I was freaking out.

This was about to happen twenty-three more times.

I didn’t recognize the next young person to come through the door, though he looked like he might be about my age. He didn’t have to ask for an explanation. He just looked at me and grinned. “Well I’ll be damned! Geno, how’d you manage to get Sid’s girl in here?”

And, of course, about that time, Sidney would walk through the door. “Geno, I can’t—holy fuck.”

My face was boiling when I looked at Sidney. “This was not how I planned to get you breakfast this morning, but I ran into Geno, and he’s adorably Russian, so I kinda couldn’t resist, and here I am with a shit fuck ton of doughnuts.”

“A shit fuck ton,” Kunitz repeated while Geno just laughed from behind me, his mouth full of doughnut. “Sidney, I like her. Beau, you need to find you someone just like her.”

Sidney looked as red as I felt, and his eyes focused down on the floor. “I—”

As the door opened yet again, in came Brooks Orpik. “Well, Geno was right about one thing. You certainly are beautiful. What’s your name?”

“Mika,” I said, but his compliment only made the heat inside my body turn up twenty thousand levels. “I’m—”

“Your boyfriend was terrible to us today,” Brooks interrupted, and he actually started pouting.

While Sidney gawked over at Brooks, I decided to take this and run with it. He looked as embarrassed as I felt, but if I could get away from the embarrassment, I could pull some fun out of this. “What did Sidney do?”

Sidney’s eyebrows pulled together as he looked back to me, and his lips parted ever so slightly. He didn’t say anything, but I knew responding to Brooks the way I had caught him off guard.

“Just because we tried to get him to fess up to owning you, he made us practice really hard,” he tattled.

“Well, I mean, he doesn’t own me,” I said. “I’m not property, but I could make him pay for that, if it would make it all better.”

Brooks smirked as he looked back to Sidney. “That would make me feel much better.”

Sidney rolled his eyes. “Oh, stop being such a baby.”

“You should be nicer,” I playfully scolded.

“He’s gotta get laid first,” Beau sighed, and as he said it, he came and draped his arm that didn’t have a doughnut in his hand around my shoulders. “Think you can help him out with that?”

“Maybe one day,” I said.

That immediately changed the mood of the room. Sidney, who had been shocked before, was absolutely astonished at what I just said. I mean, I understood it. The last time we had talked, he knew I was trying to push him away, and now I’m saying there’s a chance we’ll have sex?

I didn’t quite understand why I was saying it myself. Sure, the idea that Sid and I might have a future was in my head, but I made it sound like it was more than a might. The way I made it sound, it was a will.

And as I thought about it, while Sidney just stared at me with his lips still parted and a gaze full of wonder and hope, I realized that was correct.

There was no might when it came to Sidney and me.
♠ ♠ ♠
Once again, the lyrics are from Why Don't We Go There by One Direction. :) Since these chapters used to be one, I decided to use the same song that still kinda fit both chapters.

Like I said, this was one really long chapter that I divided into two instead. Mostly to make it easier for you guys to read so you didn't get lost. As much as I love longer chapters, they are very easy to get lost in.

I love having nothing but happy in a chapter. :)

Check out Mika's outfit here. :)

Let me know what you think. :) Will things finally start looking up for these two?