Chapter 16

“Not his jersey?” Vero whispers as she slides her arm through Fern’s and together they join the stream of fan’s making their way into the arena. There’s a significant buzz in the air and the seats are filling early.

“The jersey I have doesn’t fit anymore,” Fern explains in a hushed whisper, bumping Vero with her hip, “and besides I like this shirt,” she adds, glancing down at the faded black Property of the Pittsburgh Penguins shirt she is wearing over a thin white long sleeved shirt to keep out the cold. Not that she feels cold, not yet anyway. She has been running warm but she has a jacket which she is carrying under her other arm if she does get cold sitting closer to the ice. 

“They have super cute maternity shirts,” Vero pipes up as they pass the team store with long lines of people buying jerseys, flags and stuffed penguins. Fern shakes her head. 

“I don’t think the idea is to attract attention to it,” she says as they continue past the lines at the beer vendors and she wrinkles her nose as the scent of steaming hotdogs reaches her nose. 

“Bit late for that if you ask me,” V glances meaningfully down at her prominent belly and Fern sighs and shrugs. A jersey probably would have hid it better than his oversize t-shirt but there is something about knowing it is his shirt and being here that appeals to her, even if she and maybe the woman with her know it.

They make their way past the usher who only nods at them, obviously recognizing the Pens’ goaltender’s slim good looking girlfriend as they make their way down the stairs to a pair of seats directly across the ice from the bench and just far enough up so that the glass is not a hindrance to their view of the ice. Fern picks up the cardboard sign on their seat and smiles. There is a matching sign on each and every seat in place that simply reads ‘Sid’. 

“Was he nervous when he left?” Vero asks, sliding into her seat and placing the placard across her knees.

“Not that I noticed,” Fern replies, her gaze on the tunnel across the ice. She does not add that she remains uncertain about his ever changing moods and what they might mean. “He was very...quiet,” she adds which causes Vero to nod. 

“Marc too,” she whispers, reaching for Fern’s hand and giving it a quick squeeze. “Don’t look now but you’re being photographed.” Wide eyed Fern’s head immediately swivels in the direction of a group of girls, all in jerseys, taking pictures of them with camera phones. 

“Why are they taking pictures of us?” she hisses. Vero stares straight ahead, the taught line of her jaw the only give away that she knows she is being stalked.

“It’s me,” the slim brunette answers simply. “They know who I am but believe me if they knew who you were,” she adds, digging her elbow into Fern’s side, “they’d probably be over here pulling out your hair.” Fern swallows, audibly and then trains her attention on the still empty ice. “I’m sorry if that sounded unkind,” Marc’s girlfriend says after awhile, her fingers knitting the ends of her Penguins scarf anxiously, “but it’s true. They can be so...catty and I’m only Marc’s girlfriend. You should see the things they say about Catherine and Heather. It’s just...so mean,” she adds quietly, biting down on her bottom lip. 

Fern does not tell her new friend that she has visited those forums where girls gossip as if they actually know the players. Not that she’s dared to visit any of them since that fateful night though she had been sorely tempted to do so immediately after if only just to say that Mr. Wonderful was not nearly ‘all that’. She is glad now that she had not given into that particular temptation but the idea that those ‘catty’ girls might start talking about her....

“I wonder if he’s nervous now?” she asks, steering the discussion towards a subject that, if not exactly more comfortable, is at least less emotionally precarious for both of them.

“Sid? I doubt it,” Vero grins and all thoughts of puckbunnies is set aside, for now.

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Five minutes into the game it happens. The puck is on the blade of his stick and he knows this is the moment. All of the testing and the training is about to culminate in the next moment. He can see the play developing before him as if the world has slowed down to a crawl. He knows each move before the defensemen make up their mind to do them. He can see the goalie anticipating his next move and is two moves ahead. With a flick of his wrist the twine bulges.

He skates to the corner, arms up in the air and turns towards his teammates yelling like it’s his first goal all over again. It feels like it. All of the tension lifts from his shoulders as the goal horn blares in his ears. He accepts the congratulations of his teammates and sees the same relief in their eyes that he is feeling. They’ll deny it to his face but he can clearly see they have not kept the faith that he will be able to return the same player who left them, even while they assure him that they always knew that he would.

He doesn’t think of her until he’s on the bench. That is not a surprise. He hadn’t thought about his family when he won the cup until after he had hoisted it. Teammates are first, they guys that fight in the trenches with you. Family comes later. But when he does, when he looks across the ice he can’t help but smile to see her clapping and grinning like everyone else in the stands. She is looking up at the replay on the jumbo-tron and her hands press together like she’s making a prayer. He watches her for a moment, strange new feelings stirring in the pit of his stomach. 

He is oddly happy that she is smiling and it occurs to him that it matters that she is pleased. If he cannot physically share this moment with her it is still important to him that she feels the same. It’s a new and strange sensation, one that he tries to momentarily drown with Gatorade and shake off as he attempts to focus on the tape on his stick.

This is one of those things that he has always been envious of with some of his teammates, especially Flower; having someone to share these moments with, to know that there is someone who will be happy for him and that when he goes home she will be waiting to go over it all again, that she might even hug him and he realizes with a start that he wants that hug, that he is aching for some sign, any kind of approval from her.  

“Glad to have you back,” Dan says, giving his shoulder a squeeze. 

“Glad to be back,” he replies, snapping his attention back to the game. After all, it’s hardly over and there’s a good chance he will earn a few more points towards that congratulatory hug. 

_____________________________________________________________

She has often wondered what it would be like to walk through the heavy double doors to the Pens dressing room, to step around the logo in the middle of the floor and to be amongst the sweaty young men in and some nearly entirely out of their gear. She doesn’t know where to look and can’t take her eyes off any of it. It is sensation overload, including the overwhelmingly rank, damp, musty smell that makes her eyes water.

Vero moves confidently through the press of warm bodies and doesn’t cover her mouth or pinch her nose as she makes her way straight to her man for a soft kiss and a lingering hug that makes Fern feel like a fifth wheel and has her looking for some corner to disappear into. As soon as she tries to sidestep her way into a crowd of reporters an arm snakes around her waist and she lets out a yelp that has half of the eyes in the room turned towards her. 

“Bon soirée ma petite serveuse, comment allez-vous cette belle soirée?”  She is able, just, to turn her head enough to have his dark hair drip onto her cheek before he dips her and presses a cheeky kiss to the corner of her mouth. Her pulse jumps as she blinks up into Kris’s Disney Prince handsome grin. 

“Fine, as long as you don’t drop me,” she giggles, thinking about every fantasy she ever dared to imagine may have started with Kris Letang in nothing but a towel. 

“Moi, pas possible mon cher,” he muses, putting her back on her feet as if she weighs no more than the towel he has laying over one massive shoulder which he then lifts and runs through his dark, damp hair and she is left, biting her lip to stifle a whimper, as he struts across the room, clearly aware of his effect on hers and every other pair of eyes in the room. 

“Pah, spray tan,” Marc mutters behind her and she has to cover her mouth with both hands to stifle a shriek of surprise before she and Vero are clutching one another and giggling out loud. 

“You played well tonight,” she tells him honestly but the quiet, mild mannered goal tender merely shrugs and looks nonplussed. 

“No one cares about all the stops I made tonight,” he adds, raising a single eyebrow and sending a meaningful look towards the scrum of reporters and the bright lights still aimed at the end of the benches where she knows he is still fielding questions. “Did you enjoy the game?” he asks, bringing her attention back to him. She nods, enthusiastically and he smiles brightly. “Good, c’est tout,” he adds, as if it is truly all that matters. 

“Will you wait for him or can we drive you home?” Vero asks, as if she is actually eager to continue sharing her company rather than that of her husband. Fern shakes her head. 

“I’ll get a cab or something, you guys...do whatever you do. Don’t worry about me,” she says quietly with a longing look towards where she can just make out the top of his head, his sweat soaked, salt encrusted ball cap of his barely visible through the crush of reporters around him. 

“I insist,” Flower says quietly, draining a water bottle and tossing it aside. “He’ll be ages still and you shouldn’t be on your feet,” he adds thoughtfully, sending another narrow eyed look towards the crowd. “D’accord?” It isn’t to his girlfriend that he looks but to Fern, who, wide eyed, mutely nods her agreement. “Meet you outside, ten minutes.” This direction he gives to Vero and then turns to head into the showers. 

_____________________________________________________________________

He watches them go, Vero leading Fern through the maze of bodies with the ease of long practice and the knowledge that those in the know will make room for her. A sense of possessiveness and of an opportunity missed makes him grind his teeth and snap a monosyllabic answer to the next question. It is not always easy to be him and at this moment, it is hardly bearable. 

He has had to watch, from the corner of his eye while Tanger kisses her and Flower is the only one to make her feel at home here in their room. He is able to do neither and he is the one who asked her to be here, a fact that grates at him and makes it even more clear that there is something more going on here than he had reckoned on.

He also realizes that he is reaching his limit with the reporters, his answers becoming terse and abrupt; hardly the actions of the good Canadian kid, especially tonight when he should be elated, should be all smiles but the questions keep coming and he even a sharp look towards the media relations officer for the team does not end his misery. 

“Guys, could you just...two minutes.” The astonished looks on the faces staring back at him tells the story. He’s never done it before, never stopped an interview, never put the personal before the professional, until now. “Sorry,” he mutters as he ducks under the hot lights and the microphone booms and pushes his way past the family members and friends of his teammates, uttering apologies under his breath as he does. 

She isn’t gone and his heart stops, just for a second, when he reaches out and grasps her arm. She looks up at him with those big, fathomless dark eyes of hers and for that one eternal second he forgets what he was in such a rush to say.

“I won’t be long...,” he begins, forgetting to breathe when her bewildered bug-eyed stare softens to a smile and a nod. “Uh...too much longer anyway...if you want to wait that is,” he adds, feeling more than seeing Flower’s disapproving gaze over his shoulder.

“Here?” she asks, looking up and down the busy corridor where stick boys and equipment and arena staff are buzzing like worker bees in a hive and reporters with their cameras shouldered and stylish suits are making their way from one room to the other and family and friends are milling around nearby. “Or...?”

“If you go down the hall, there’s a lounge..., Flower can show you...?” he looks hopefully back towards his friend who shrugs but nods. “I’ll be as quick as I can and then maybe we can get a pizza or something?” Her smile noticeably brightens and for a moment he dares to hope. 

 

As he watches them wind their way down the hall, he can’t help but think how long he’s been envious of Flower and V and their intimacy, their friendship and their secret way of smiling at one another speaks volumes without their needing to utter a single word.

Steady, that’s how he’s often described them. They are consistent. For Flower, V is his ever fixed mark or something like that. It’s something he read in a poem for a class sometime or maybe it’s from a movie and it has stuck with him, has become his ideal for what real love should be just as Flower and V have. She would be his constant, his ever fixed mark and there is something about Fern...something sturdy and steadfast that he is beginning to think might be more important than rosy lips and cheeks which, like the poem says, only fade with time.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom

 

“So, where were we?” he asks as he slides onto the bench in front of his equipment. 

“Well, how does it feel?” a young, eager looking reporter asks. The question has been asked previously tonight and he had given some pat, hollow answer that hadn’t meant anything. Now he smiles brightly, meeting that reporter’s keen gaze and says:

“I feel great. I think everything’s coming around for me.” 

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“So how are things at the house?” Marc asks without turning, his hand on the door to the player’s lounge, the door still closed, V still on the other side of it.

“Fine,” she replies, wondering as she says it why she feels the small hairs on the back of her neck standing up in warning. 

“He’s treating you...well?” He will not meet her querying gaze and she senses in his tone an accusation underlies the question. She tugs at a stray thread on the hem of her shirt as she considers her words before replying.

 

“He hasn’t hit on me, if that’s what you’re getting at,” she replies quietly, but firmly. He nods and seems to also consider his answer before he gives it. 

“Because I would, I mean...if I were him I would have by now,” he says, very quietly but with no hint of humour in his voice. If she gasps it is not exactly out loud but her mouth falls open all the same and she is left standing there gaping at him, unable to form a response. “Don’t look at me like that, as if it’s not possible that I would. I am a man, despite my nickname,” he adds with a the hint of the playful smile she is more accustomed to seeing him wear. 

“Yes but..., but...?” She looks towards the door, thinking of the slim, pretty brunette waiting for him on the other side. 

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to,” he smiles enigmatically and then smirks as if he can’t quite keep up the ruse. “I just...the way you look now...that you’re having his child...I can’t believe that he can still look at you like...like that.” Still half in shock she frowns but cannot voice the question that is on the tip of her tongue. He answers it all the same. “I can’t believe he still thinks that you could win a dogfight.”