Chapter 3

“So let me get this straight,” Alexis ran her fingers through her perfect dark curls as she rolled her blue green eyes, “despite the fact that he was lame in the sack you’re going to go out with him again?” Posey poked at the plate of pasta in front of her and shrugged one shoulder.

“Yeah, he has room for improvement but he also bought me breakfast in the morning,” she pointed out to which her friend snickered before downing the remainder of her Mai Tai.

“An overpriced bagel from Starbucks does not count as buying breakfast.” Posey shoved the disappointment away that continuously threatened to force her to agree with Alexis’s dim view of her Penguin.

“I believe in second chances,” she added firmly as she pushed her plate away. This discussion had caused her to lose her appetite. She had wanted to feel euphoric in the aftermath of bedding Beau Bennett, had wanted to enjoy her roses and be able to walk around the city with a secretive grin on her face. She felt that was the way a young woman should feel after being bedded by one of the most eligible bachelors in the city. Still, despite feeling robbed of that ‘walking on air’ feeling she still thought it was possible. “It might not have been just him. I mean…, I’m not the most experienced woman in the city,” she added in a hushed tone. Alexis sighed, her shoulders rising and falling as she shook her head.

“You know enough to know he wasn’t much interested in making sure you had a good time and that kind of selfish crap is not something that should be encouraged.” She raised an eyebrow at Posey across the table as if she were challenging her to disagree.

“He can learn,” Posey offered, now toying with the umbrella in her margarita. “I could have…directed him. I didn’t. I could next time,” she added, gazing into the yellow orange slush in the glass before her. Mango margaritas usually made everything better. This time she was missing out the brain freeze buzz because she’d only sipped at it. Being bedded by the poster boy for all American good looks should have made her drink taste better instead everything seemed to turn to ashes in her mouth.

“Darlin', we both know you are not going to be a sex therapist any time soon,” Alexis reached across the table for her hand but Posey withdrew hers’ and placed it firmly in her lap. She did not want to be comforted like a child that had lost her favorite teddy bear. “I should be encouraging you to see him again so you can take me out on another date with all those sexy pieces of man meat,” Alexis added brightly and Posey knew her friend was doing her best to lighten her mood but she didn’t feel like being buoyed up. She felt like reveling in her own dark mood. She felt like ordering an ice cream sundae and diving head first into it. “I worry about you, that’s all,” Alexis added softly. Posey shrugged.

“Seeing him again can’t do any harm.” When she said it she wondered if she was trying to convince her friend or herself. She’d been telling herself that since she’d got his text just before lunch. He was in Toronto and there was a part of herself that was thrilled that even though he was in another city, that even though he was practicing on a strange sheet of ice and probably giving interviews to strangers that he was thinking about her. How could a girl resist that?

“No, you’re probably right,” Alexis agreed as she signaled the waiter to bring another round of drinks. Posey felt certain she was right. He’d bought her flowers. She’d never had a man buy her flowers before. Things could always improve in the bedroom. Everyone deserves a second chance.

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“She’s different every time I see her.” He could hear the wistfulness in his own voice as he marveled at the grip the tiny girl in Veronique’s arms had on his index finger.

“I think that every time I wake up in the morning,” Vero sighed as she looked down at her daughter, a sort of glow in her features. Sidney looked over at his friend, the Pens’ goaltender, who was watching his wife and daughter with a bemused smile.

“She poops and eats and sleeps,” Marc shrugged as if bringing another life into the world wasn’t some kind of a miracle. Sid knew Flower was enthused about being a parent but terrified as well but he was still impressed by the goaltender’s placid calm. That was also something he admired about the lean Quebecois when he was between the pipes.

“She’s beautiful,” he said again. He probably said it every time he saw little Estelle.

“You’ll be doing this too, one day soon, you wait and see,” Veronique insisted as if it was a foregone conclusion that the Pens’ captain would miraculously find that person he could trust with his heart, his finances and his privacy at any moment. As if that person was right around the corner, or existed at all.

“Just being a godfather is good enough for me,” he assured his friend’s pretty wife as she tilted her tiny daughter up to her shoulder and began rubbing the baby’s back in a cyclical motion.

“I should get you to change her diaper then, so you know what to do if the worst happens,” Veronique grinned. Sid shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, a nervous gesture that made Vero laugh.

“I…I’m pretty sure if something bad happens it will be with both me and your husband on a plane or a bus, you won’t be there,” he assured her as she shook her head.

“Don’t think you’re getting out of diaper duty,” she threatened, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Oh he can do it, he just doesn’t want to. Remember how much younger Taylor is,” Marc smirked before taking another sip of Steelers Schwarzbier.

“Then maybe you can because you’re daughter’s starting to smell a little…ripe.” Vero wrinkled her nose. Marc rose and set his bottle aside and reached out to take his tiny daughter in his arms.\

“C’mon mon Capitaine, you can help.” Sid followed a few steps behind his friend. He’d be there for emotional support but he didn’t really want to get in on the action. He liked the other parts, the feeding and the snuggling but he was pretty sure there was something about the genetics of your own child or at least your own family that made this particular task more tolerable. “It’s not toxic,” Marc chuckled as he gently placed his daughter on the changing table and then reached up to turn the light on above them.

“Pretty sure it might be,” Sid hung back and did his best to get downwind as Marc unsnapped the pink and yellow fuzzy onesie and set it aside. He wrinkled his nose and took another step back when Marc took off the soiled diaper and dropped it into the diaper genie. “Yeah, that stuff probably could peel paint.”

“You know you can’t wait to have one of your own. I’ve seen the way you look at her, at all the kids at the family skates. You’re jonesing for a whole mess of ankle biters,” Flower added, lifting the tiny feet of his daughter and dusting her cute little heinie with baby powder.

“I don’t know,” Sid shrugged, reaching out to tap at the Winnie the Pooh mobile above Estelle’s crib, setting it turning. A tinny version of little black rain cloud played as the miniature stuffed versions of the beloved characters swung lazily over the matching sheet and bumpers. “Sometimes I do and sometimes I think I’m just too focused on hockey to be able to spend enough time to be a good parent and I don’t want to suck at that.”

“Because you must trés parfait at everything,” Marc chuckled as he began to swaddle his daughter in a soft looking receiving blanket. One of a pack that had been in a giant basket of baby stuff that he and the rest of the guys had put together as a gift to the new parents.

“I just keep thinking that things will…y’know, kind of ease up soon, that the media will be all over Nathan Mackinnon for a change and leave me alone so I’ll have time to do stuff like this,” Sid replied honestly, maybe as honestly as he had ever been on the subject.

“You’re always going to be Sid the Kid,” Flower told him, holding his daughter towards Sid like a wrapped package, ready for delivery. This part always worried him. He was certain he’d hold her wrong, drop her, break her. She weighed nothing in his arms and he knew he could hold her in one hand if he wanted to but carefully cradled her nearly full head of dark hair in one hand while the rest of her tiny body was held in the crook of his arm. “There, you see. You look like you almost know what you’re doing,” Marc added, patting his friend on the back before leading the way back out to the living room.

Sid followed, staring daggers at his friend’s back. He was almost sure he was doing it right. If he wasn’t going to give constructive criticism there was no need to be sarcastic.

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Posey tried not to look at her watch. She knew he was late but she didn’t really want to see exactly how late he was. The last time she’d looked it had been thirty minutes and that was already too long.

She opened the fridge and stared inside. Shutting it again she decided against opening the bottle of white wine that was calling her name. It wasn’t going to help to drink as the minutes ticked away. If she got drunk she’d only call him and, at least for the moment, she still had enough pride not to do that.

She contemplated calling Alexis but tossed her phone back into the bowels of her purse. Her friend would mean well but she would only tell her that she’d told her so and she wasn’t ready to hear that. Not yet.

Pacing the tiny living room of her apartment Posey tried not to look out the picture window for the tenth time to see if his car had pulled up outside yet. The last time she’d looked some old man walking his dog had hurried past as if she was spying on him or maybe she was some kind of psychotic sniper, taking out her neighbors just for shits and giggles.

She considered taking off her heels because of the noise they made as she paced the parquet floor. The old lady down stairs was actually very sweet and sometimes gave her fresh baked rolls and cinnamon buns. Posey didn’t want to annoy her but her legs looked so damn good in the black stilettos with the pointed toes that she didn’t want to risk his shoeing up and seeing her little toe sticking out of her tights.

Vacillating between fury and hurt, one minute she was telling herself that it wasn’t what it seemed, that she hadn’t been stood up. That there was some perfectly reasonable explanation why he hadn’t shown up and that he would, any minute. The next minute she was promising herself that even if he did she wouldn’t answer the door. A girl had to have some kind of standards. After all he had a phone and as far as she knew his fingers weren’t broken.

But what if they were? What if he’d been rushing to pick her up and got into some kind of horrific accident? What if, right now, his blood was creeping across the pavement somewhere and a paramedic was working furiously just to keep him alive? What if she turned on the news to find out that Beau Bennett, rookie forward for the Penguins, had died in a head on collision on one of the many bridges in Pittsburgh?

Posey reached for the bottle of red wine she’d opened to let it breathe on her kitchen counter. Forgoing the glass she took a swig directly from the bottle. If he was dead on the side of the road somewhere it could possibly be all her fault. It could have been one of the twenty texts she’d sent him that had caused it. It only took one time, one glance down at his phone and BAM!

She was possibly the worst girlfriend ever. She’d been slagging him off all week and now he was dead and it was all her fault and she was going to go straight to hell.

With bottle still in hand she walked towards the tv, picked up the remote and aimed it at the blank black screen. She watched the blue power light blink to life and then waited for the screen to follow. She thumbed the buttons to switch the channel to the local news station. A quick glance at her watch told her they’d be nearly at the sports highlights which always came in the last ten minutes of the evening newscast. Surely, if his bones were crushed and nothing short of a miracle could bring him back to life that would lead the sports news.

Instead there was Sidney’s smiling face. He was answering some question about Kris Letang. She didn’t really hear what he said. Most times it wasn’t really worth listening to what Sid said because it was just some line, some comforting but inane terms anyone who followed any team sport would have heard a thousand times or more. It was always worth watching Sid though, especially when he ducked his head to the side and tried not to giggle because he knew everyone thought that his laugh sounding like it was coming from twelve year old girl.

She whirled when she heard the knock at the door, the remote flying from her hand to skip across the parquet floor before it came sliding to a stop right in front of the grinning young god she had just been so certain was lying dead in a ditch.

“You look great,” he purred as if a compliment could make up for being over an hour late to pick her up. She knew she should admonish him for his tardiness, for making her wait and worry but instead she closed the gap between them at a jog and leaped at him, throwing her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, burying her face in his neck and nearly sobbing in relief. “Well now that is what I call a greeting.”

“You’re here,” she gasped, pressing quick kisses to the corners of his eyes, his mouth, his cheeks. He laughed and kicked the door closed behind him.

“You’re an eager bunny aren’t you baby?” he cooed, striding through the living room and directly into the bedroom. Posey thought about asking about the dinner reservations, if he’d made any at all but as her back hit the bed and he kneeled on the mattress beside her and began tugging at his tie she let the words die on her tongue. He had a hold of the crotch of her tights and, seemingly with no more effort than a simple tug, he had ripped them asunder.

Something akin to a ‘huh’ and ‘wow’ went through her head but she was rendered utterly speechless as she watched him slowly drag the remainder of her tights slowly down her thighs and then over her knees and then, lastly, tugging them off her feet before tossing them aside. Mesmerized she continued to watch him as one hand slid leisurely down the back of her calf and towards the inside of her thigh.

Posey front teeth dug into her bottom lip as his fingers slid beneath the silky fabric of her panties. Maybe, she thought as his thumb began to move in lazy circles over her clit, he wasn’t such a lost cause after all.

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Sidney looked up at the red light as he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel in time to an old Roxy Music song that was playing on the radio. He didn’t know the words to the song but he liked the melody. Not that he would have sung along if he had known the words. That was all he needed, someone recording him on their phone rocking out in his car and posting it on all those social media sites he avoided like the plague.

Hence his being alone in the car driving home to a dark, empty house.

Being ‘Sid the Kid’ was a lot like living in a fishbowl. It was something he had…well…gotten used to didn’t seem the right way to put it as he put his foot back on the gas. It was more something that he’d learned to live with, had figured out how to live in a kind of bubble that didn’t really protect him but provided enough of a barrier that he could have a life, at least some of the time.

The fact that he didn’t want to foist his life in the spotlight onto some unsuspecting woman didn’t mean he liked his solitary life and it really didn’t mean he didn’t want to have a family. The smell that still clung to him, baby powder and sour milk, reminded him that he did want a family, maybe a big one, possibly a whole mess of kids to greet him at the door when he got home from a road trip. Or maybe that would have to wait until after hockey, after he’d hung up his skates.

That thought made him shudder. He couldn’t image life after, not yet. He didn’t have a plan for that. Maybe he’d be a coach, maybe a GM but he couldn’t see himself leaving hockey, not entirely. Of course if he had kids maybe that would change things. Maybe then he’d just want to go their hockey games in the morning, maybe coach a pee-wee team be on a Parent Advisory Council and take his daughters to dance class.

He smiled to himself as he turned his car into his driveway. Daughters or sons; it didn’t matter to him. A few of each would be perfect. He wanted the rough and tumble along with the soft and sweetly scented. He wanted to build forts out of blankets and chairs and doll houses. He wanted to go to early morning hockey games with a TimmyHo’s double double in his hand and watch his kid play whether his laces where white or her laces were pink.

His smile faded as the garage door closed behind his Land Rover and he found himself in utter darkness. Had there been someone in the house waiting for him to come home there would have been a light on. He never remembered to leave one on for himself. There might have been tea brewing and she would meet him at the door with a soft kiss and ask him how their friends were.

Sid sighed as he pulled the keys from the ignition and opened the car door. If he could only find someone he could be sure of, that could ignore the media scrutiny and didn’t care if he made fifty thousand dollars or five million. The trick was finding her.

He couldn’t go on Match.com or whatever other single networks there were. He couldn’t go on Tinder or even hang out in singles bars and he was tired of the women that well meaning family and friends set him up with. That didn’t feel natural. It was always forced and then there were the inevitable questions afterwards that made him feel like he was being checked up on, like he had to write a book report and all the facts had to be right because of course they’d be checking them against the story they got from the girl.

As he made his way through the lengthening shadows of his home he wondered what she’d add to the living room. Would there be more candles? Would she banish his framed Olympic jersey to his office or keep it above the mantle? There would probably be fashion magazines on the coffee table and probably fresh flowers in the kitchen.

They’d have a dog. Of that he was certain. He didn’t have one now…well, not a full time dog, not in Pittsburgh. His parents had a Lab that he loved but as much as he loved having her in the summer it wasn’t the same as having a dog bouncing and wagging its tail as it greeted you at the door. He wondered if she’d want a big dog or one of those yappy little things you could carry around in a purse? He hoped she’d want a big dog. They were better with kids, sturdier, and a better guard dog too. He’d want that for the nights he wasn’t home.

As he climbed the stairs he ran his hand along the blank wall. One day he hoped the entire wall would be full of family photos. First steps, graduations, first cars and family vacations. By the time he’d reached the top stair his heart felt heavy. He knew he was missing out on so much. He just had no idea how to fill that void.

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The red digital letters on the clock radio sitting on her bed side table read three am. Posey blinked at it, rubbed her eyes and read the numbers again. With a yawn and a languid stretch of muscles overused and places more tender than usual she swung her legs over the side of the bed. She needed to pee in the worst way but couldn’t remember where her robe was.

Normally she’d have had a shower before bed. She hadn’t done that so it would still be hanging on the back of the bathroom door, which did her no good at that particular moment in time. She admonished herself with a smile, shaking her head as she got to her feet. His tongue had been in places unmentionable and she was worried about walking to the bathroom naked?

She glanced over her shoulder and found the bed empty. There was a crease in the pillow where his head had been when she’d watched him fall asleep but there was definitely no one there now. Leaning over she ran her hand along the sheet where his muscular body had been tangled in her quilt and found the bed cold.

So he’d gone and it had been a while ago when he’d left. The slightly amused smile that had been on her face only a moment ago was suddenly gone, replaced by a frown. Did he have an early morning flight she’d forgotten about?

Posey picked her phone up from beside the clock radio and thumbed the indentation at the bottom of the screen. She typed in her password, opened the Pens app and scrolled to the schedule.

There was a home game…tomorrow. Posey tossed her phone onto the bed and swore under her breath. First he’d been late and now this? She stomped into the bathroom and flipped up the lid on the toilet. She was sitting, knees together, glaring at the wall when something caught her attention, right at the corner of her vision.

There was a note leaning up against the mirror over the sink. She flushed and did the necessaries and then reached over for the note.

Starving. Couldn’t find anything good in your fridge. Be back soon. BB

That smile crept back onto her face. That boy was full of surprises.

Folding the note, carefully creasing it down the middle, she slid it into one of the drawers of the vanity. Still shaking her head she pulled back the curtain around the tub and stepped in. She turned the water to hot and turned her face up into the spray. By the time he came back, energy replenished, she would smell of vanilla and lavender and not of sex and maybe he could try again to make her call his name while his tongue was between her legs.