All I'll Ever Need

There were far too many people.

When Sidney promised a night of fun, I didn’t realize that he meant a night at the skating rink.

Kids . . . kids everywhere.

I went along with it because Sid seemed to be enjoying himself. I knew I wouldn’t enjoy the night no matter where we went, so I figured one of us might as well have fun.

More people recognized him than I expected, and he signed a few autographs. When people started to try and take pictures, he managed to squirm out of the crowd and back over to me.

He didn’t get angry that they still took pictures from behind; he just came back to me when things got uncomfortable.

And something about that made me happy. I guess it was because just like he was my safe haven from the chaos of the world . . . I was his.

Sidney handed me the black and orange skates with a coy smile. “You ever skated before?”

I shook my head. “I never really saw the appeal. Matty used to come a lot whenever I stayed at Suzie’s, but I didn’t see anything fun about skating in circles for hours with no purpose.”

“If you go out there, learn to skate well enough on your own, and still hate it, we’ll leave and never come back,” he promised. “You have to give it a shot before you write it off.”

Lately, I was all about taking risks and trying new things. This was no different, and if I tried it with a positive attitude, I would probably have much more fun.

Moving around was . . . hard. The skates fit okay, but with the carpet floors, I figured walking on them wouldn’t be so bad.

Wrong. Terribly wrong. It was beyond hard to get from the table to the skate floor, and had I not had Sid’s hand, I probably would’ve fallen and broken something.

His grip on my hand tightened as he moved from the carpet to the hard floor more gracefully than I could ever accomplish. To him, it looked simpler than walking.

My eyes narrowed playfully as I looked up at him. “You make me look bad.”

“Well, in your defense, I do get paid to skate around for a living.”

“You have to skate with a stick to try and hit a puck, too,” I protested, and I gave him a small pout.

He laughed. “And there’s hockey in a nutshell. I skate around with a stick and hit a puck.”

“More or less, that’s exactly what you do.”

Sidney laughed again, and a tiny smile pulled onto my lips. It was that adorable boyish laugh that tugged the smile right out of me, and it felt good.

Everything was gonna be okay. Sidney would make sure of it.

He picked up the speed a little, and if I hadn’t learned to ice skate all those years ago, I probably would’ve fallen and busted my ass despite the strong hand holding onto mine.

My legs wobbled, but I stood tall and felt the momentum of my feet rolling across the floor to be . . . surprisingly incredible. It felt like I was floating, and as my eyes connected with Sid’s, he knew. Which was why he made me get out on the floor in the first place.

I needed this.

“See?” Sidney laughed, and his laugh only made my smile that I hadn’t even realized was there widen. “I told you! A few laps around together, and I’m gonna let you try this on your own.”

As terrifying as the thought was, I was ready to embrace it. Sidney was letting me go, but he was gonna be right beside me. Not so he wouldn’t have to help me anymore, but so he could be there with me every step of the way.

Well, every roll of the way?

Matty swallowed the large gulp of moonshine with a scowl, hating and loving the way it burned everything on its way down. As much as Mika begged and pleaded, he couldn’t resist. When was the last time he had drank? Sometime not long after he let her get hurt, he let her disappear . . . it was something he could never live down.

Why did he have the urge to drink so damn bad now? Life was . . . better. Mika finally got something she deserved. Of course, in the typical Mika fashion, she nearly screwed it all up, but unlike usual, she found a way to fix it. She didn’t let the good go thinking that she deserved nothing better than the worse. Instead, she embraced it.

He couldn’t understand why he had the urge to drink. Every day he woke up and hoped that would be the day their dad was finally gone, but he was always there.

Now that he was gone . . . Matty was drinking.

He didn’t feel so bad; Suzie was sitting right across the room from him drinking, too. As much as he hated admitting it, he was glad she came back. Not because she deserved to be back in Mika’s life, but because Mika deserved the kind of friend Suzie was trying to be.

And maybe deep down, he wanted Suzie around, too. She had been there so long, it felt weird when she wasn’t around. Despite her addictions, her destructive habits and people in her life . . . she always had a way of making Mika smile.

Seeing the way she smiled when Sidney was around, however, didn’t really compare to how she smiled with Suzie. Her smiles were fuller with Sidney, more genuine.

Suzie could just never be Sidney.

She took a swig of the vodka in her hands and let out a sigh. “I’m glad you didn’t let her ruin this.”

“I’m glad she didn’t listen to you.”

Suzie’s eyes left Matty’s as she was reminded of the terrible thing she had almost done to her friend, the terrible thing she had tried to do. “You and me both. Why aren’t they already together?”

“Mika . . . you know how she is,” Matty sighed, and his eyes shifted away from Suzie’s porcelain face as he focused on his own bottle. “She only accepts what she thinks she deserves.”

Suzie scoffed. “Right. I forget she thinks she’s worthless.”

“You’re just like her in that sense, ya know,” Matty told her, and for the first time that night, when Suzie looked into his eyes, Matty looked right back into her own hazel ones. At the moment, they were a beautiful green color, and Matty noticed she seemed to have a few tears on the verge of falling out. “You deserve your own Sidney, but until he comes along, you’re always gonna settle for the worst of the worst. Because that’s what you think you deserve.”

“That’s exactly what I do deserve,” Suzie disagreed, and out of habit, her eyes tightened as the tears evaporated from the rims of her eyelids. “I’m addicted to heroin, I’m on the verge of becoming an alcoholic, and I tried to ruin the best thing that happened to the most incredible person in my life out of jealousy. Why do I deserve better?”

“Because you’re not your addictions,” Matty said, and his answer came to him so easily.

But it hit Suzie right in the heart. She was at a loss for words as she stared at her best friend’s older brother, the one who had raised Mika into the young woman she was . . . the one who had been there for Suzie when she needed him, too. When Suzie needed to talk to a guy, Matty was the guy she always went to, and she couldn’t imagine going to anyone else, even still.

And Matty had a way of saying what she needed to hear. It was usually not what she wanted to hear, but it was always what she needed to hear.

She just stared, lips slightly parted, breaths rugged, at the man who took a huge gulp of moonshine and seemed so nonchalant—as always—while she struggled to comprehend the thing she needed to hear.

She . . . she wasn’t her addictions.

The puck slammed into the back of the goal much louder than I intended, and as the score 7-6 flashed across the top in red numbers, I threw my arms in the air and let out a cheer. Sidney, however, didn’t take it so well, and he practically threw his mallet back down on the table.

I gave him a coy smirk as I slid away from the table. “What, Sid? Mad that I beat you at your own game?”

His eyes narrowed, but I could tell by the smile on his face that he wasn’t really mad—not at me. “You couldn’t beat me at my own game.”

“Fine, the table top version of your own game,” I corrected, and I stuck my tongue out at him.

“I hate losing,” he laughed. “What can I say?”

“Well, I think one day, we need to play that new hockey game you’ve got, and we’ll see how mad you get when I beat you with yourself,” I suggested.

He snorted. “Oh, you’re so on.”

The two of us very awkwardly skated across the thick carpeted floors and over to the table that had our drinks and nachos still sitting on them. As I picked up my Coke with no ice, I couldn’t help but smile again as I remembered that Sid just fucking knew.

He knew I ordered Coke, but he knew I ordered it without ice.

Most of the time, I figured I was the only one noticing the small things, but every day, Sidney always proved that wrong. He noticed a lot more than I imagined he would, and it made me feel good that someone cared enough to notice.

With a smile, I took a big sip of my Coke and nestled back against the hard seat behind me. “When I was in high school, this is how I imagined my first date would go. Maybe not necessarily at the skating rink, but . . . something kinda like this.”

Sidney gave me that all too adorable Sidney smile—that genuine and huge smile that anyone could see was real. As bright as it was, you could probably see it from a mile away.

“Oh, so that’s what this is? I feel underdressed.”

I laughed. “For a skating rink? Sid, you’re overdressed.”

He looked down at himself, at his dark jeans and maroon button-up, and let out a laugh. “Alright, touché. So how did your first date go?”

For some reason, I didn’t really feel sad when he asked me that. Normally, whenever someone asked me that question, I would awkwardly answer and explain I never had one, but with Sidney, I didn’t feel sad anymore.

I hadn’t had a date yet, but it was coming.

“I didn’t have a first date,” I said.

Sidney’s eyes widened. “What? You said you and Scott dated for a long time.”

I shrugged my shoulders and took another sip of my Coke. “We never went on a date.”

“Then you’ve never dated anyone before!” he exclaimed, and the huge smile that came across his face—delighted and proud—made my heart practically explode with joy inside my chest. “I don’t think it counts if you never went on a date.”

I cocked one eyebrow at him. “Oh? Well, I mean, we went to homecoming dances and shit like that together.”

His lips pressed together as he pondered this idea, but he didn’t think more than a few seconds. “Well, maybe. Did he pick you up?”

I shook my head. “No. Usually Matty dropped me off.”

“Not a date.”

I laughed again and leaned closer to him, one eyebrow raised again. “Why are you so determined to say I never had a boyfriend before?”

A cute and bashful smile spread across his lips, and his eyes moved away from mine—straight down to the Coke I had my hands wrapped around. “Maybe the idea of being your first and last sounds beyond wonderful.”

Sidney must’ve heard the way I had to inhale and exhale deeper than usual because as I did it, as I stared at his gorgeous face and those chocolate eyes connected with mine again, that huge smile came back to his lips. It made it nearly impossible to think, much less breathe as my heart tried to beat out of my rib cage.

Somehow, I found words amidst the chaos going on inside me. “If it counts, you’re the first person I’ve ever loved.”

“I’m also gonna be your first boyfriend,” he said, and he was so certain, so proud, that all I could do was laugh out of pure joy.

“That sounds like an incredible idea,” I informed him.

“Soon,” he promised, and he took a drink out of his water bottle. His eyes never left me, however, even as he went on. “I’m kinda busy next week, so I can’t properly take you out. All in good time, gorgeous.”

And what can you even say to that? Sidney Crosby . . . Sidney fucking Crosby tells you that he’s gonna be your boyfriend soon . . . calls you gorgeous . . . sounds eager to get that title . . . what can you even say?

My mind was a jumbled mess of thoughts and emotions that varied between good and bad, but all I could hear was the good. All I could feel was the wonderful.

I could just imagine kissing Sidney, any fucking time I wanted. I wouldn’t have to ask. I wouldn’t have to make sure it was okay.

It would be something we both just did because we wanted to, because we love each other so much that sometimes, kissing is the only way to express that love.

And in just a short time . . . that would be my life.