On My Mind

“There you are.”

Kaia nodded tiredly at Maggie as she closed the door behind her, prying her boots off of her feet with force. “Good Thanksgiving?” She asked absentmindedly, juggling grocery bags in her arms as she made her way toward the kitchen. “I got stuff for dinner, I didn’t know if you’d be hungry…”

The noise of Maggie shuffling over carpet toward Kaia stopped in the doorway to the kitchen, and her friend stood with her arms crossed over her chest, an indifferent expression on her face. “My mom gave me some leftovers, so there’s stuff in the fridge.”

“Oh, sweet,” Kaia said, and pulled the fridge door open, grinning at the stacked Tupperware containers. “Tell her I say thanks.”

Maggie nodded. “How’s Sid?”

“He’s good,” she said, shrugging. “He’s leaving for Edmonton in, like—” She glanced at the clock, frowning. “—Right now, actually.”

“Long trip, right?”

“Yeah, he’s gone for, like, a week and a few days,” Kaia murmured, and held out a bag of chocolate chip cookies to her roommate. “I bought these.”

“We’re going to be fat,” Maggie laughed, but took the bag, ripping it open. “Were you over at his the entire time I was gone?”

Kaia nodded, balling up a plastic bag in her hands. “Yeah—it was just easier to stay there instead of going back and forth, so…”

Maggie’s eyes were cool as she looked over Kaia. “Don’t you get, like, sick of him after that long?”

“Not really. You know, actually—” Kaia stopped, looking at her friend with her eyebrows pulled together. “What's up, Mags?”

“Nothing,” Maggie said defensively. “You just spent a lot of time with him, that’s all.”

“Okay,” Kaia said slowly, turning back to the groceries that she was unpacking.

The two settled into a rare uncomfortable silence, and Kaia swallowed back the unsettled feeling that was swelling up in the pit of her stomach, her jaw set. She opened and closed cabinet doors quietly, rationalizing the anger that she could feel radiating from Maggie on the opposite side of the room—she’s tired from driving home and back; maybe she got in an argument with TJ; maybe it’s hockey— Kaia stopped when she felt Maggie disappear from the doorway, and frowned to herself.

“Maggie, come on,” she said out loud, earning no response. She shuffled toward the living room, pausing in front of the couch where her friend was sitting. “Dude, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Maggie repeated. It was quiet for a moment. “I just feel like you’re spending a lot of time with someone that you don’t really know, Kai.”

Kaia’s eyebrows came together. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been dating Sidney for a few months, and you’ve spent two weeks of that time basically living at his house. Isn’t that just—I don’t know.” Maggie’s voice faltered. “It’s not really you. The Kaia that I know would be freaking out about this.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Kaia said quietly, falling back onto the couch.

“I don’t want you to say anything.” Maggie cast her a dark look. “I just want you to get that. You guys went from not dating to a serious relationship in a short amount of time, and—”

“Serious relationship?” Kaia echoed. “I don’t think—”

“If you think it’s fine, then fine,” Maggie said. “It’s none of my business.”

“You’re making it your business,” Kaia said indignantly.

“Alright,” Maggie muttered, hands up. “Whatever.”

“Dude.” Kaia gave her friend an exasperated look. “Come on.”

“Whatever,” Maggie repeated.

“Fine.” Kaia stood and retreated to her room, pausing to take in the mess of clothes and shoes on her floor. A wave of frustrated tears welled up in her eyes, and she fought them off, clumsily changing out of her jeans into spandex leggings and a t-shirt, finding her sneakers under a pile of sweaters. She didn’t tell Maggie she was leaving, just slinking out the door and into the hallway, forcing headphones into her ears.

She pieced her way toward the Pitt campus quickly, her pace spurred on a little by her annoyance at Maggie, and the lingering thoughts at the back of her mind. She tried to clear her thoughts as she ran, the cold air sharp in her lungs, trying not to let what Maggie had said to her sit uncomfortably. Kaia hesitated to call her relationship with Sidney serious. She had never spent that much time with a boyfriend, sure—but then, she had never felt about someone the way she felt about Sidney before. Even as she was running, her breath short and choppy because of the Pittsburgh-in-December air, all Kaia wanted to do was talk to Sidney.

He was in Winnipeg for two days, and Calgary after that, and Vancouver after that, all places that he had described bleakly against her hair earlier that day, when they were both waking up, pressed into each other. She toyed with the idea of being serious with him as she ran, deciding, as she rounded a corner that would bring her onto the athletic campus, that she wouldn’t mind it at all. She liked him a lot, and could see herself venturing so far to say that she loved him—not that day, but sometime in the future, maybe. Maybe.

She had been in a great mood when she left his place, the smell of him all in her clothes and her hair. Why did Maggie have to come at her like that? What had happened over the break? Kaia wasn't usually an angry person, and bit back at the bitter taste of annoyance in her mouth, pushing the thoughts away. Sidney was her boyfriend. She didn't want that to change.

Kaia paused at a crosswalk, rubbing a hand over her forehead. It was starting to snow.

“Hey!” A voice called from behind her, a hand on Kaia's shoulder startling her back into reality. Caroline, Kaia's teammate, beamed at her through the snow, pulling her in for a hug. “Did you have a good Thanksgiving?”

Kaia nodded, swallowing thickly, and offered her a smile. “Yeah, it was great. Yours?”

Caroline jumped into a long-winded description of her trip home: drunk uncles and football, Black Friday shopping—all of the things that Kaia knew she would have experienced if she had gone home for the holiday. “Hey—have you heard anything from the national team yet?”

The US Women's National Team, Kaia had to remind herself. “No,” she said, shrugging a little. “I guess I just have to wait.”

~

“Someone deal cards already—fuck—we wait all night.” Geno earned a chorus of laughter from his teammates, tossing the deck of cards onto the felt tabletop in front of them. He leaned back in his chair, shaking his head through their laughs. “Go, you deal it.”

Showered and changed, the five Pittsburgh Penguins' gathered around the table carried the remnants of the afternoon game they had played against the Canucks a few hours before—bruises, a few slashes across noses and cheeks, their bodies tired, sore as they sunk into the chairs around the table. Sidney sat among them, unable to reign in his laughter at the look of annoyance on his Russian teammate's face. They had won the game, and he felt the tiredness in his bones. Pittsburgh had needed that victory. The confidence that the shut out had given his teammate's was obvious, warranted. Every member of the team had fought for their three goals, determined after an unexpected loss to Winnipeg a few days before.

Duper was the only one that reached for the cards, shuffling them meticulously—to the annoyance of Geno, who protested with a loud groan—before he slowly doled them out to the men sitting around the table. “Alright, I'm dealer.”

Sid inspected his hand quietly. He was terrible at poker—not the worst, but far from the best—and he knew well enough that he had gotten a shitty hand.

“First bet,” Duper stated calmly, shuffling the cards in his hands.

Around the table, people started laying out their bets—actual money, offering one and five dollar bills with straight faces, some throwing down handfuls of change with stifled laughter. Sidney did the same, wordlessly sliding a dollar bill to the center of the table. As Pascal started laying down more cards, Sid glanced subconsciously at the clock: six o'clock, which meant that it was nine o'clock at home in Pittsburgh. He hadn't heard from Kaia all day.

“Can't wait to get back to the Burgh,” Bortz groaned from beside him as he leaned over the table to rake in another card. “Sleep in my own bed, shower in my own shower...”

“Long trips like this suck,” Duper added bleakly. “A week's a long time.”

Sidney nodded along, his head down. His bed, his shower—the things that he missed on the road were the same as everyone else. He still missed his parents sometimes, too; and his little sister, Taylor, their dog, the house he grew up in. Mostly, when he was on the road, he missed the privacy he had in Pittsburgh. He could go home and stay there, relax in the comfort of not having to maintain his composure after a loss for an interview or pausing to take pictures with fans incessantly. He didn't mind those things—the fans, at least—but he preferred Pittsburgh, where he could stay quiet and live his life with at least a veil of privacy.

And Kaia, too—she was something to add to the list of what he missed. With all the time they spent together, sometimes he forgot that she wasn't always a part of his equation—that there would be times when she wasn't there, or that there would be a time in the future when she wasn't there at all. He didn't want to think about that.

As Sidney slid another dollar on the table—his hand had far from improved with the addition of another card—he met Kris Letang's eyes. “What?”

The defenseman looked at him coolly. “Whacha thinkin' about there, Crosby?”

Sid shrugged, leaning back in his chair. “Not much at all.”

“He always spaces out when he's thinking about his girlfriend,” Flower said matter-of-factly, offering the table a shit-eating grin. “So that would be that.”

“Hey, man, she's cute,” Tanger said with a shrug. “I don't blame you at all.”

“She is cute,” Bortz commented, putting his cards down flat on the tabletop.

“Alright, alright.” Sidney was shaking his head, knowing already where this was going.

“Too pretty for Sid,” Geno announced. “You see her at my dinner? So hot in that dress.”

Sid had already heard that much. Kaia had looked amazing in that dress, which all of his teammates had taken the time to tell him—at dinner, during dinner, at practice the next day. He knew, and he had known; he was the one that had found the dress and bought it for her, hoping that she would like it. He met eyes with Geno, who offered him a sly smile, shrugging a little. At least Sidney had been the one that had taken it off at the end of the night.

“Does she have any hot soccer playing friends?” Bortz offered him a grin.

“No,” Sidney muttered. “Not for you.”

“Any more bets?” Duper called them back to the card game as the table erupted into laughter, shaking his head.

“Someone find me a girlfriend like his,” Bortz muttered, throwing a five into the pile.

“You two are serious, huh?” Tanger fixed his eyes on Sid again, his accent heavy. “You don't bring much girls to team events.”

Sidney shrugged. “I wouldn't say we're serious—”

Flower scoffed. “You never bring girls to team stuff. That last girl you dated—we didn't even see her until you had been dating for, like, a year.”

“It wasn't that long,” Sid protested, trying to run over the timeline of his last relationship—two years had passed since then. “Kaia is different.”

“You're more serious about her than the others,” Duper reasoned. “You can't deny that.”