All I'll Ever Need

The house was far too quiet for my liking. Matty stayed in his room to let us work our shit out, but what was there to say? I wasn’t holding grudges, but with my impending relationship with Sidney, she couldn’t constantly be putting him down and be in my life.

I had done enough to Sidney, and I wasn’t gonna let anything else happen to him on my account—or any account that I could prevent.

The silence echoed the emptiness in her heart as she looked at the rather large living room, looking at anything but me. Her eyes finally focused in on something—the picture resting above the fireplace, the picture of Sidney with his parents and sister . . . and then her eyes rested on the newest picture he put up on the other side of the mantle.

She stood from the couch and picked up the black picture frame while a gentle wave of heat rushed to my cheeks. I knew why it caught her attention.

It wasn’t a picture of Sidney with people she didn’t know. The picture was the first picture I had managed to get Sidney to let me take, and he loved it so much that he had it printed and framed. Based on all the pictures on the wall, I knew it was an honor to be put up there.

There were so few. Only four.

“You guys look happy,” she said.

My eyes shifted to the picture in her hands, and I realized she was right. Sid’s face pressed against mine, the smile on our faces . . . we were happy. It was the day I had run away from him, and Beau brought me back.

It was before I broke his heart, before I truly realized what I had.

“We are, or were.”

Suzie’s raised an eyebrow in my direction, but she didn’t take her eyes off the picture. I couldn’t look at it, though, as tears began to burn in my eyes.

“Were?”

“I’m really good at fucking things up, remember?” I let out a breath and turned back away from her. “I went to dinner with Jonathan Toews the other day in Chicago, and he was pretty upset about it. We’re gonna be okay, I just . . . can’t get over how much I really hurt him.”

She wasn’t looking at the picture anymore as her eyes widened. “Okay, back up. You were in Chicago? When? How?!”

My teeth pierced into my bottom lip as I shifted my gaze away from her and nervously folded my arms over my chest. Suzie was good at asking questions, and she asked far too many for my liking. It was in her nature to need an answer for everything, so she got all the details—even the ones you didn’t want her to have.

“Well, just last weekend,” I said. “After Scott showed up, Sid didn’t feel safe leaving Matty and me here, so he paid for us to go to Chicago. If I didn’t have school and work and funeral shit to take care of, I wouldn’t have been able to convince him not to take us this time.”

Her mouth opened for a moment but immediately shut back when she realized she didn’t actually know what to say.

“I tried to tell you that he wasn’t a bad guy,” I murmured. “He’s . . . more than I ever dared to hope for. My dad had me brainwashed to believe I wasn’t worth anything, so I didn’t hope to get anything. Maybe I’m not worthless, but I’m certainly not the person Sid likes to think that I am.”

“You made one mistake,” she said. “Yeah, going out with Jonathan Toews on a trip Sidney paid for you to go on was a bitch move, but have you apologized?”

My lips quirked to the side. “Over the phone last night, but I feel like I should say it in person, along with everything else we have to talk about.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Are you two, like, a couple now?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Why the fuck not?!”

A breath escaped my lips as I looked up at her for the first time in our conversation. “I’m stupid, remember? The reasons I’ve managed to come up with are endless, but the reality is, life’s too short to pretend that I’m not in love with him. I can’t just be friends with him, and I can’t keep holding out on him. He’s done so much for me and asked of nothing in return. He patiently waits for me to be ready for more than friendship, never really knowing if he’ll get more. At least he didn’t know. I think he’s pretty damn certain now, or I’d hope so.”

The moment I started to backtrack, she began shaking her head. “You need to make sure he knows by giving him more. No, I’m not saying you have to jump his bones when he walks through the door next, but you need to let him know where you stand.”

“I did,” I admitted. “Not how I wanted to, but I did. He knows I’m . . . more in love with him than I should be, considering we haven’t known each other a month yet. Actually . . . it’ll be a month tomorrow.”

“Fuck time!” she exclaimed. “Time doesn’t matter. I’ve known Chuck our entire life, and you see how that turned out. You knew Scott your entire life, and you see how that turned out! Just because you don’t know someone forever, haven’t known them long . . . that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t let yourself feel for them. That doesn’t mean feeling for them is wrong. From the way I see it, Sidney’s everything I always wished you’d find.”

“So why were you so against it while he was in Sochi?”

A deep sigh passed through her lips, and her hazel irises moved away from my own to hide her embarrassment, though I had already seen it. “I was . . . jealous, to be honest. I’ve known for a long time that I needed something better than Chuck, but I knew that leaving him would end the way it has. Until I caught him cheating, I didn’t have the balls. I just . . . wanted what you have. I tried to pretend I was looking out for you, but really, I was miserable and couldn’t stand the thought of you being happier than me for once. But I’m thrilled that you are. I . . . I need you back in my life, Mika. These past few weeks have been hell, and I can’t really function well without you. You keep me in line, and right now, I’m lost. I can’t find the line.”

“I am never going anywhere,” I vowed, but it was hard to keep a straight face as tears spilled down my cheeks. Though I hadn’t meant to smile as widely as I was, it seemed to cheer her up a little. “I’m gonna help you, but you gotta do something for me.”

“What’s that?” she breathed.

“No more drugs,” I said. “While we’re getting your life back together, no more drinking. No more partying. None of that. You want your life back together? Get it together without all of that bad stuff. Alcohol can be fun, but it can be a horrendous nightmare, too. Until you’re stable, you don’t need to chance it.”

“I will do my very best,” she whispered. “But I don’t know if I can manage that, Mika. I have nowhere to go, and if everyone around me is—”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I interrupted, one eyebrow cocked as confusion swept over her. “You know for damn certain that you’ve always have somewhere to go, and I won’t do drugs. I won’t drink. Until we can go out to a bar and drink together, I’m not gonna have another drop.”

That was easy enough for me. I didn’t really drink much, didn’t have the time or money. Alcohol was expensive, and with obligations every day . . . there wasn’t time for drinking.

Suzie took a quick glance of the room around us before looking back to me. “I’m not gonna impose on Sidney like that, especially after how shitty I acted.”

“If Sidney doesn’t want you here, we’ll go back to my house,” I promised. “Look, I’m not letting you out there with that monster looking for you. He’s gonna hurt you, Suzie, and I’m not gonna let that happen, no matter what.”

She was crying as she threw her arms around me, and I started crying, too. As weird as it was to think about, we were in similar situations, both needing a safe haven from the dangers of our past.
Sidney was my safe haven, and I was gonna be hers. For the time being, though, I was just glad to have my best friend back.

There was no telling how long we stood there, hugging and crying together. There were quite a few times we tried to stop crying, but we ended up just looking at each other, mumbling incoherent things through our lungs that barely functioned, and crying all over again.

We were gonna be okay.

My life . . . it was all gonna be more than okay.

After we finally managed to dry our tears and talk like normal human beings—this was only made possible after Matty came in and told us to get a room to drain us of emotion—we sat around and watched episodes of Family Guy until I had to get to work. Suzie decided to clean up the house while Matty played Ghosts some more.

I made sure to set the alarm on my way out, and I went to work.

It was a mostly uneventful shift until it came time to close. The Pens game started at ten, and we closed at ten, so I was already finished cleaning and ready to head out as soon as possible. With Trevor’s help, all we had to do was wash the dishes of the men still sitting in the diner and get out.

The man sitting at the bar watched as I leaned back against the window, waiting on someone to finish with a nervous smile. I wasn’t good at the social thing, but I could tell there was something strange about the way he looked at me.

“Have I seen you somewhere before?”

I shook my head. “No, sir. I’m usually pretty good at recognizing faces.”

“You look anxious to get out of here,” he noted, but his eyes didn’t stop calculating everything about me. It was a bit unnerving, though I was used to the occasional creeps.

Trevor was done in the kitchen, so he stood beside me. He wasn’t small in any definition of the word. The man was training to fight MMA, so you really can’t be small and fight MMA. I mean, you just can’t.

Yet this man wasn’t backing down.

“I really wanna get home and watch the Pens game,” I admitted.

“That’s it!” he exclaimed. “You’re Cindy’s new cover up!”

I could feel the color drain from my face as every eye turned to look at me, Trevor’s included. The color came back almost immediately when I realized he didn’t just think I was Sid’s girlfriend.

Cindy’s cover up?

It was hard to look him in the eye because I could feel my face light on fire, so I was almost certain it was as bright as it felt. “I can promise you, sir. Sid’s not gay.”

He smirked at me. “How much does he pay you to say that?”

“Do you really think if I was paid to be a cover up for the face of the NHL that I would be working here?” I snorted. “Think again. I can promise you that Sidney Crosby is more of a man than you’ll ever be.”

That damned smirk didn’t go away. “You willing to put that to a test?”

“No, because I wanna get home and watch my boyfriend win against the Ducks,” I scoffed. “Sorry. I’ll call you when I have nothing better to do other than cut off my own foot.”

And I felt triumphant. The man’s face was so red with rage that I couldn’t believe he didn’t say something back. Instead, he threw down more money than necessary and stormed out of the diner, humiliated and pissed.

I struggled to look calm as I leaned back against the counter and steadied my breath, but people still didn’t stop looking at me.

“What the fuck?” Trevor hissed under his breath. “That’s what’s been going on with you lately? You’re boning Sidney Crosby?”

“No,” I muttered. “We’re just friends at the moment.”

“At the moment?”

I rolled my eyes. “Complicated.”

“Everything with you is,” he scoffed. “Did you ever plan to tell me?”

It was hard to remember to keep my voice low and act casual, but the more people stared at me, the more horrified I felt.

When Sidney and I were a couple, I would be more than happy to scream it from the rooftops. The idea of it was still hard to wrap my head around, but this . . . we weren’t a couple. The true reality of the situation instantly caught up with me, and I groaned.

“When it happened, yes. But the thing is, nothing has happened.”

After that, getting people to leave was even harder. They wanted to watch the Pens game at their favorite diner with their Captain’s girlfriend, and it took everything in me to just smile and promise to watch the next one with them instead.

By ten forty, they were cleared out, and by ten forty-five, Trevor and I were out of there.

As I jumped into the Range Rover and turned it on, I didn’t move for a few minutes. The game was on the radio, but it was also recorded back at Sid’s place. I decided to change it to music and let myself disappear in my thoughts.

Sidney . . . he was very private about his personal life, which is why he only had a few pictures in his house. Before he was even aware I wanted to be more than friends, I told a stupid Crosby hater I was boning him.

Wonderful. I was gonna be so terrible at keeping our relationship quiet.