Status: New!

On My Mind

three

“Sorry I was late,” Maggie murmured, offering a hand to help Kaia up off the bench. “How many goals did you score?”

“Two,” Kaia muttered, hoisting her backpack onto her shoulders. “In the first half. I don't know, it was pretty sloppy—I probably could have scored another, but—I don't know. I got tired at the end.”

“That's what happens when you play a full ninety minutes, Kai,” Maggie reassured, offering her friend a smile. She turned around, motioning someone forward. “Look who came to watch you play!”

Kaia froze when she saw Sidney walking toward them, vaguely aware of both how terrible she looked and her lack of shoes—something that seemed to be a recurring theme in their meeting. She rubbed an arm over her forehead, groaning internally, and glanced at Maggie, who was grinning. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah!” Maggie—always too cheerful—beamed at Sidney when he joined them. “You didn't tell me that you sat together at the game.”

Kaia shrugged, looking at the ball in her arms—a “gift” from her coach for scoring two goals. In front of Sidney, she realized how dirty it was and dropped it to the ground, rubbing the leftover dirt from her arms. “I guess it kind of slipped my mind.” She didn't look at Maggie as she said this, knowing that her friend would be able to see through the lie. She cleared her throat. “Hey—wanna get lunch, or something? I'm starving, I haven't eaten since, like—”

“I have to get to class,” Maggie said, pursing her lips. “I have that lecture, you know?”

“Oh, right.” Kaia had known before she even said it, but shook her head. “It's fine, I should go—”

“Maybe,” Maggie said slowly, looking back and forth between Sidney and Kaia, “you guys could go get some food. I mean, I don't know what your schedule is, Sid—”

“I'm free for the rest of the day,” he affirmed.

Maggie grinned at Kaia, who felt her cheeks getting red. “Look, I have to go—you guys should get sandwiches from Jake's or something, it's right up the road—I'll talk to you later, Kai, okay?”

Kaia just nodded, her mouth open a little as she indignantly watched her friend take off toward campus, all too aware of the man standing in front her. “Um,” she emitted, and then looked up at him, trying to smile. “I mean, we could just—”

“If you want to,” Sidney said, half-smiling. “I know you probably meant just Maggie.”

“No, no, let's—let's do something,” Kaia said, and shifted the soccer ball between her feet. “If you want, we could get sandwiches from Jake's and then—you can't really eat there, there aren't any good tables—maybe—if you wanna come back to my apartment, we could just eat there?” She kicked herself for the invitation, feeling silly until she saw his face.

He was nodding, lopsided-smiling down at her. “That sounds great, actually. Hey—why don't I go get the food, and I'll just meet you at your place? That sound good?” He proffered his phone, and Kaia typed in her number. “I just need your address.”

They exchanged information and lunch orders and parted ways, Kaia traipsing after some of her team mates toward the parking lot, feeling—for a minute—Sidney's eyes on her back. She glanced back and saw him walking, his hands in his pockets, and hurried toward her car, her heart pounding beneath her uniform. She couldn't drive home fast enough.

She practically ran up the three flights of stairs to the apartment, the soreness in her legs hardly a factor. As she closed the door behind her, she let out a peal of laughter, giggling to herself as she pieced her way through rooms to the bathroom, shedding her uniform and socks as she went. All she had to do was shower and get dressed in the twenty minutes he would be gone. As much as she wanted to relish in the warm water, she shampooed and conditioned quickly, almost laughing at herself, and scrubbed the dirt off of her body in less than half the time it usually took.

She had no idea what she was doing, considering what was happening as she toweled off: Sidney Crosby was coming over for lunch, casually, and had went to go pick up food for the two of them to eat. He had watched her soccer game—even if only for a little while. She felt like a little kid on Christmas, her heart beating a hundred times a minute.

It had, in part, slipped Kaia's mind; between congratulating Maggie and her teammates and going out later that night to celebrate, she had almost forgotten about it entirely. When she woke up the next morning—hungover and sore and grumpy—she remembered, as she pieced her way across the Pitt campus, her cleats tapping against the ground under her, the collision and the game, Crosby's quiet presence on the bleachers. Standing in the bathroom of her apartment, she felt butterflies well up in her stomach. He had been so exceedingly nice.

The towel around Kaia almost dropped when she heard the knock on the door. She looked up in the mirror at her hair—dripping wet down her shoulders and back—and then at the towel and the drops of water still on her arms and legs. “Shit,” she hissed, “shit, shit, shit—” She peered out of the bathroom and down the hall to the door, like he could see through it. He knocked again, and she groaned. “Uh—I'll be right there!”

She snaked down the hallway and opened the door slowly, cautiously, her cheeks hot when her eyes met Sid's. “Sorry,” she said, feeling her blush grow even more. “You can come in. I just have to—”

He laughed a little, looking her up and down before looking away, his own cheeks almost red. “Want me to put this stuff in the kitchen?”

She nodded quickly, motioning for him to follow her. “The kitchen is right here—just, yeah. You can sit down. Don't wait for me to eat!” And she jogged to her bedroom, her eyes flicking over the clothes that littered the floor—dirty, dirty, dirty... She settled on a questionably clean pair of sweatpants and dug a t-shirt out of her bureau, pulling her hair up into a messy bun.

Sidney was standing in the hallway when she left her room, and he glanced over at her, looking embarrassed. “Sorry—I saw the pictures when I came in.”

“No, it's fine,” Kaia assured, stopping beside him. She and Maggie had spent a weekend the winter before framing all of the pictures they had accumulated in the three years they had been living together, and that fall finally hung them up. She noticed him looking at the only picture of her alone—from last fall, holding the championship trophy that the team had won together.

“You won, huh?” He asked, nodding toward it.

“Yeah. National champs,” she said, her voice quiet, almost proud. She studied the picture for a second—her tired smile, the trophy that she had needed both arms to hold up—and looked back up at Sidney, surprised when their eyes met. She smiled uncertainly.

His mouth was set in a smile, eyes bright. “Come on,” he said, nodding toward the kitchen. “Let's eat.”

~

“We'll get 'em next time.”

Sid glanced up at Pascal and nodded, loosening his tie silently.

Pascal watched him with tired eyes, already in boxers and a t-shirt. “Don't be too hard on yourself, man. We played a good game. Nothin' else you could've done.”

“Go to bed, Duper,” he replied sourly, turning away.

His teammate crawled into bed, his back to his captain. “Night, Sid.”

As Pascal drifted off to sleep—obvious from his rising snores—Sid reached for the TV remote to distract himself from thinking about the game they had just lost against the Kings. ESPN was broadcasting match day highlights, Rangers vs the Habs. He leaned back against his pillows, crossing his arms over his chest. Kaia flickered through his mind briefly—and he pushed her away, knowing that, like their game, he shouldn't overthink the situation. Lunch had been great; Kaia was adorable, and gorgeous, and once they had started talking he realized that her shyness was almost temporary, a barrier between her and people that she didn't know. They sat in her kitchen—and then her living room—and just talked for almost four hours. It hadn't felt that long, though; he hardly noticed that time had passed until Kaia mentioned that it was going to be time for dinner soon, and he had left, not wanting to seem overbearing.

Some part of Sid was confused by how he felt about her, despite the fact that he knew what he wanted. He had a crush on her, embarrassingly, having long-sinced ruled out crushes as something that had no place in his life as a 26 year old man. But Kaia was somehow different—fresh, new, seemingly not that impressed by what he would hesitantly call his “fame,” far from some of the other girls that he had dated. Half-watching the TV in front of him, Sid had to remind himself that they weren't dating—they had lunch together once and he had earned a promise that they would get together again, a chaste smile and wave as he left her apartment.

Without thinking, Sid muted the TV and picked up his phone, finding the new contact and pressing dial. He hesitated lifting it to his ear, but did anyway, almost crossing his fingers.

Her voice, a little sleepy on the other end, brought a smile to Sid's face as soon as he heard it. “Hello?”

“Kaia? It's Sid.” He ran his fingers through his hair and glanced at the clock, realizing that—with the time difference—it was past midnight on the east coast. “Sorry—were you asleep?”

“No, I'm awake,” she said, her voice quiet.

“How was your game?” He looked blankly at the muted TV that was playing in front of him. She had mentioned to him that they were leaving to play at North Carolina a few days after they had lunch together, and that she—like him—would be gone for a few days.

There was a pause, and he heard her take a deep breath. “We lost.”

Sid felt his heart twinge a little at the sadness in her voice, remembering how her eyes had lit up when she was talking about soccer over her kitchen table, the baby blues somehow even more beautiful when she in the middle of describing how much she loved the game. He glanced at Pascal's sleeping form in the bed next to him and got to his feet. “We all have bad games,” he said. “We lost, too.”

“Are you at a hotel?” She asked then, suddenly.

His eyebrows came together in confusion. “Yeah.”

She sighed. “So am I. I hate hotels.”

He laughed a little at the randomness of the question, turning on the light in the bathroom to stare at his reflection. A fight with Doughty had left him with a bruise just under his left eye, and he grimaced, looking down at his equally bruised knuckles. He had, at least, won the fight. On the phone, there was a moment of silence—not awkward, just quiet, and he heard Kaia's slow breathing.

“My roommate is snoring,” she commented then.

“So is mine.” He joined her laughter, glancing at Pascal's sleeping back. He struggled to form his next sentence, avoiding his own reflection in the mirror. “When do you guys get back to Pittsburgh?”

“We're leaving tomorrow morning, really early,” she said. “It's, like, an eight hour drive—so probably sometime in the evening.”

“We have a game Thursday night,” he said loftily, trying to sound unrehearsed. “Home, against the Flyers. Do you—I mean, if you're not tired—wanna go? I could get you and Maggie tickets—I can't promise good seats, but—”

“That would be amazing,” Kaia responded, and he heard her emit a little yawn. “Maggie'll freak out.”

“Good,” Sid said, holding in the excitement that he felt welling up in his stomach. “That's great. I can drop the tickets off in your mailbox tomorrow, okay?”

“Sure thing,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “Oh—I think she's waking up... Hi, Hope.” There was a pause, and Sid heard rustling on Kaia's end of the phone, someone talking—muffled—in the background, and then Kaia's voice, an octave louder. “Sorry—yeah, sorry, I'm just—yeah, I'm on the phone—sorry. I'll keep it down. Yeah, I know, it's like—I think it's like midnight. Okay. Sorry.”

Sid couldn't help but laugh a little at the repeated apologies, shaking his head. “Do you need to go?”

“No, it's fine,” Kaia whispered. “I'm gonna go in the hallway and walk around. I can't sleep, anyway.”

Sid smiled at the image of a pajama-clad Kaia wandering the hallway of a hotel in Chapel Hill, and smiled even more at the idea that he was the one she was talking to. “So,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Tell me about the game.”

He heard her sigh, and then pause as she—he imagined—chewed over her words. “I don't really know. I mean, I do know—we were pretty sloppy. It's just frustrating. We've been playing really well, and then this—we shouldn't be doing that this late in the season, you know?”

Sid nodded, and then realized dumbly that she couldn't see him. “Did you score?”

“Yeah, I got a goal in,” she said, her voice sad. “It wasn't a nice goal, though. And it was our only goal the whole game. They got three on us—just—it's so frustrating, seriously. We should've won. We're ranked higher than them, and everything—I don't know. I don't know what happened.”

“At least you scored,” he offered lamely, unsure of what else to say. There was a part of him that hadn't expected her brevity, or how hard she was on herself—it reminded him of himself, and that made him feel worse for her, knowing the feeling exactly.

“That's true,” she offered, and he heard something like forced enthusiasm in her voice. “What about yours? Your game, I mean—you didn't win?”

“No,” he replied, taking a deep breath. “It was a rough game, too. Our guys were kind of all over the place. Lots of fights.”

“Did you get in a fight?” There was a new, genuine sense of wonder in her voice that made Sidney grin. “Or—this is more important—did you win a fight?”

“Yeah, I won. Got a black eye to prove it, and everything.”

She giggled, and Sid felt his heart melt. “Well,” she said, “I'm proud.”

“Proud, huh?” That had Sid grinning like a school boy, wanting to hear that giggle in her voice over and over again. “There aren't too many fights in women's soccer for me to watch and be proud over.”

“You'd be surprised,” Kaia said quietly. “Some of the girls are nasty.”

“Any bruises for you? Black eyes? Split lips?”

“I'm a lover, not a fighter,” she sing-songed, her voice hardly more than a whisper. “There are ways to play that don't involve fighting.”

Sid found himself silently agreeing, impressed with how casually she held her own, like explaining was second nature. “Why are you whispering?”

There was a pause, and he heard the ping of elevator doors. “I'm just, like, walking around. I don't even know—I'm trying to be quiet.” She laughed a little. “God, what am I doing?”

“Talking to me,” Sidney affirmed, slipping back into bed.

She scoffed on the other end of the line. “Casually talking to Sidney Crosby.”

He smirked to himself, pompously acknowledging the fact that she was getting something out of their conversation—he wondered, briefly, if it was just for a story to tell her friends, or her teammates, but what he had learned about her thus far lead him to think otherwise. She was too nice for something like that, too genuine. He remembered the way she had looked at him when they were talking in her apartment—her eyes intent on his, her whole body curled up on the couch. He wished that she was there with him, but said nothing, afraid that it might be too much; they hardly knew each other. Yet there he was—lying in bed, talking to her, and she was talking to him, actively, wholly interested in his dumb conversation.

“Kaia?” Sid said then, interrupting her mid-sentence. She had been mumbling about sneaking through a hallway to get to one of the rooftops, trying not to get caught.

“Yeah?” She whispered.

“Why are you awake right now?”

He heard rustling on the other end, and then, in a small voice, she said, “Shit—there's someone coming.” She laughed a little. “This is awkward.”

Sid shook his head, listening hard through the rustling on the other end as he heard Kaia saying hello to someone, and then, no, no, I'm not lost, her voice high with a lie. She was a bad liar.

“You still there?” Her voice was back to a whisper.

“I'm still here.”

“This security guard is definitely onto me,” she said timidly.

Sidney held in a laugh, glancing at the clock. “You should probably go to bed.”

He could almost hear her thinking it over. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “Yeah, I should. I guess good night, then?”

“Night,” Sid said, casting a short glance at Pascal, who—awake, now—was staring at him, eyebrows drawn together. He rolled his eyes at his nosy teammate. “I'll talk to you later.”
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