Chapter 28

“You’re still holding onto that thing?” Fleur asked quietly from his spot beside Sidney in the dressing room at GM place. Nodding, Sidney turned the small velvet box over in his hands before having it plucked out of his grasp by the inquisitive defenseman beside him.

“Oh my god, you could put someone’s eye out with this thing,” Phaneuf howled loud enough that the entire room, normally full of loud, raucous chatter before pre-game skate, fell silent.

“Let me see that,” Phaneuf’s teammate, and Sidney’s linemate for the Olympics, Iginla took the small box and, smiling, shook his head before handing it back to Sidney. “Shit man. Must be serious.”

“It is,” Sidney responded quietly before putting the box back in his bag.

“What’s that?” Getzlaf laughs from across the room, holding his hand up to his ear and making a face. “I think I hear girls throwing themselves off of the roof of buildings all across the country.”

“Not funny,” Sidney sighed, zipping his bag shut and trying to ignore the, by in large, good natured ribbing. He couldn’t exactly say it wasn’t true, extreme maybe, and hopefully not true, but possible. Not that word had to get out that he was engaged. Not that Mya was the kind of girl to scream something like this from the rooftops anyway.

“I thought you were going to ask her on New Year’s,” Flower asked, his mask held loosely in his hand. Sidney shrugged and grabbed his own helmet.

“It wasn’t the right time.” Sidney replied, donning his helmet and breathing through the butterflies in his stomach as he caught sight of himself wearing the red and white of the National uniform.

“So when will it be the right time?” Flower asked, to which Sidney could only shrug.

“I guess I’ll know when I know.”
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Her mother had been one thing, but as Mya sat across the small kitchen table from her father, she was glad that Sidney was across the city about to face Team USA. That would be tough, but nowhere near as hard as this was.

Glancing up at her father’s strong, impassive face, Mya felt herself shrink. She felt like she was five years old again and was about to get a spanking. Her hands even curled around the edges of the chair just as they had when she’d been younger. She’d always made him pull her off of the chair, kicking and screaming. This time though, her mother wouldn’t be here to save her, wouldn’t be here to pull him off of her.

Mya looked down the kitchen at the woman standing at the sink with her glass of chilled white wine. She was only a few years older than Mya was now, with long blonde hair that reached to the middle of her back, perky breasts and an ass you could bounce a quarter off of poured into a pair of jeans that were practically indecent. She’d been one of her father’s university students and just looking at her made Mya sick to her stomach.

Her father didn’t look like the type to be robbing the cradle. He didn’t have the gold chains and he wasn’t driving around in an arrest me red corvette. He wore tweed and cashmere and drove an Audi. He taught economics. Not exactly a sexy subject.

How he’d ever ended up with Bridgette....

“I went to see mom yesterday,” Mya said quietly, turning he attention back to the quickly cooling volcano cake in front of her, caramel, not chocolate, just another indication that her father didn’t know anything about her anymore. Not that he ever had.

“Good day or bad day?” her father asked, scraping his plate loudly, a sound that made Mya wince.

“Good I guess. She was out of bed but...when’s the last time you went to see her?” Abandoning her plate, Mya looked accusingly across the table at her father who had the temerity to look shocked at her tone. He gave her that raised eyebrow, the ‘how dare you’ look and it worked just as it always had, making Mya squirm in her chair.

“I visit your mom,” he said with a glance down the kitchen that Mya followed with her own eyes. She watched the young woman smile at him, like they were sharing some kind of secret and then Bridgette put the tea towel down and disappeared toward the living room. Mya heard the TV going on, followed by Green Day blasting through the speakers before she turned it down. “I do visit your mom, every week at least once,” her father continued once they were alone, though he got up from the table, taking her plate and his and walking towards the sink. Mya turned in her chair so she could watch him but didn’t offer to help. He wouldn’t have accepted the offer anyway. He didn’t consider her family now. Not here. Now she was a guest and she felt it in the cool, off hand way he spoke to her.

Without his little blonde girlfriend in the room, it seemed more like old times. She could picture the two of them, her mom and dad, standing there in the dim light of the kitchen, she handing him wet dishes, he making lude comments that would make her laugh. She could almost hear that laughter now. It made her throat tight.

“But you’re divorcing her,” Mya pointed out, hearing the childish, petulant tone in her voice but couldn’t control her tone as she thought about the email he’d sent her. FYI, I’m starting divorce proceedings. Just thought you should know. She’d practically destroyed her apartment after reading it. It was bad enough, knowing about his little piece of ass but to be so cold as to cut her mother out of his life.

She watched her father’s hands pause on her plate and she waited for him to turn and come back to the table, to face her, to explain. But he merely resumed the motion before sliding the plate into the dishwasher.

“I don’t expect you to understand it,” he finally replied, in that same calm, cool manner that he taught economics in, as if it was just a fact he was passing on and not turning her world upside down. She watched him turning the taps off and drying his hands on the tea towel before turning to pour himself another cup of coffee. Decaf, yet another new thing in the house her mother would never have stood for. She waited for more, for the self righteous explanation, for some announcement that would make sense, but he only slid the carafe back in place and turned to lean against the cupboard, staring down into his cup.

“If you mean poopsie out there, then no...I don’t get it,” Mya replied caustically. She watched her father’s gaze become unfocused as he looked in the direction of the living room, his head tilting like a robin’s listening for a worm beneath the grass, and then he sighed, his big shoulders rising and falling with his breath.

“I loved your mother,” he said, holding his hand up as soon as Mya began to argue, shaking his head when she sputtered and fumed at being silenced. “That woman in that hospital is not your mother. If you were in my position, you’d understand.” Mya bit down on her tongue to impede the tirade that threatened to spill forth. Her father had always been a hard man to please, always quick to rile and strict but this...this took the cake.

“You’re right,” she replied, sounding calmer than she felt. “I don’t understand because that woman as you call her might not be my mother right now, but she is your wife. Do you know...when I was there all she could talk about was you? She might not remember me but she damn well remembers you. She loves you.” Mya stood, scraping her chair back on the expensive tile, her hands shaking as she grabbed her coat from the back of her chair.

Her father didn’t make a move to stop her. He barely looked up from his coffee which he slowly stirred with the utmost attention. Mya stared at the top of his head, still covered with thick dark hair, grey showing only at the temples. She looked at his big hands, the indent from his wedding ring showing where the gold band should have been if he was any kind of man at all.

This was the man she’d come back in hopes of some kind of approval. Now she wasn’t sure why she’d bothered.

She opened her mouth to leave him with some kind of sarcastic parting comment, but decided against it. Slipping into her coat and pulling the keys from her rented car out of the pocket, she turned and headed for the door.

There had to be someone more...worthy to watch the hockey game with.

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It felt strange not to be getting into a suit and tie after a game. They were playing for their country now, Stevie Y had pointed out, it wasn’t just a job anymore. This was for all the marbles and he wanted the guys in their Olympic gear at all times, on the ice and off. Still, it felt strange to be reaching for a hoody and toque and not a shirt and tie.

“I can’t believe you pulled Kane’s mouth guard out and threw it into the net,” Phaneuf laughed, patting Sidney firmly on the back. “That was fucking hysterical.”

“Well I don’t mind if someone tells me they can skate rings around me, I mean prove it but...at least take the fucking dummy out of your mouth when you say it,” Sidney mumbled but grinned as he said it. It had been sort of funny, right up until he’d been sent to the sin bin for it. “Thank god he didn’t score on that one.”

“No worries little buddy,” Iggy laughed, tapping Sid’s shins with his stick. “We wouldn’t let that happen. That was too fucking worth it.”

“Yeah I think I owe Brodeur a beer for that,” Sidney noted, thinking about the diving save the big goalie had had to make to stop Kessel and Kane from scoring on the power play.

“Well you’re coming out with us aren’t you? We’ve got to raise a beer or two on that one,” Phaneuf offered, but Sidney shook his head.

“We have a game tomorrow,” he reminded the big defenseman, but was only greeted with laughter from the rest of the guys.

“It’s only Germany,” Eric, the eldest of the Staals and the only one to make the team, informed him. “I’m pretty sure even if we’re still drunk tomorrow that won’t be a problem.” That was unlikely to happen, Sid knew. Even if they threatened to, all of the guys wanted to win the gold too badly to actually do something like that. Still....

“I think I’ll skip it,” he replied, leaning over to unlace his skates.

“Let me guess, that cute reporter girl of yours?” Thorton asked from across the room where he was sitting, looking very relaxed in nothing but a pair of bright yellow y-fronts. Sidney had done his best not to make it too obvious that he was watching when she’d been interviewing his fellow players but maybe he hadn’t done quite as well as he thought he’d had.

“Speaking of her, is she really the one from that youtube video?” Heater asked, passing by in a towel, heading for the showers. Sidney stared straight ahead, but he could feel the burn begin in the tips of his ears.

“You sit at home and watch youtube videos? God are you sad or what?” Iggy replied for him and Sidney glanced up at him, relieved.

“Oh like you don’t,” Heater pulled the towel from around his neck and snapped it towards Iggy who grabbed his own towel and then the fight was on. Sidney felt relief flood his body as he watched them and then he turned his attention back to getting into his Olympic gear.

He did want to celebrate, he thought, just not with the boys.
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“So you heard it folks,” Mya began, turning back to the camera with a bright smile that she had to force. “From Pittsburgh’s own blue eyed boy, Ryan Malone. This was a tough one, but Team USA has big plans for their next opponent. Back to you Dan.” She waited until the light went off on the camera before letting her expression return to the careful blank stare she’d been wearing since she’d left her father’s house.

She’d enjoyed the game, it wasn’t that. She’d been one of the only reporters to leap to her feet when Sid had made that toe drag past Ryan Miller. She felt her heart swell when he’d turned towards the team Canada bench with a victorious fist pump. That had all been good. It was just the remnants of the feeling she had after seeing her dad, of not being able to tell him about Sidney, about her new job. It was that niggling feeling that wouldn’t go away that she still needed to hear that he was proud of her and that, she hated. She didn’t want to feel like she needed or wanted his approval and she didn’t think it was likely that she was ever going to get it – ever.

And yet he could sit there with that blonde ditz waiting on him night and day and she was supposed to be okay with that, she thought reproachfully as she handed her microphone over to her sound guy. She should have said something, she scolded herself, instead of sitting there and pretending she didn’t see it. Of course she’d known about it, about her, ahead of time and that had helped, but she still should have said something.

She thought about calling him now, telling him just what she thought of his cutesy poo live in but she let go of her phone in her pocket. It wouldn’t do any good. It would make things worse in fact. If they could get worse, she thought with a scornful smile as she pulled the Team USA jacket off and tossed it next to the cable the camera guy was winding up.

“Hey, isn’t that bad luck or something?” he called after her, but Mya only shrugged and grinned at him.

“I certainly hope so,” she called back, wrapping her team Canada scarf around her neck and reached for team Canada jersey which she had carefully folded and put aside before the interviews. Her crew just laughed and went back to their work while she tugged the red and white jersey over her head.

“Me too.” Mya’s head popped out of the top of the jersey to see Sidney standing in front of her with his toque pulled down over his forehead, protecting his wet hair from the cool air and for the first time in hours, Mya found herself smiling. “So, when do I get my interview?” he asked, reaching out straighten the hem of her jersey, letting his hand casually brush her hip which sent a shudder across her skin.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” she said quietly, pitching her voice low so only he could hear. “I don’t think I have any questions that aren’t x-rated.”

“Really?” he grinned, biting down on his bottom lip as his gaze roamed discretely over her in a way that made Mya catch her breath. “And just what kind of questions would those be?”

“Well let’s see,” she smiled, leaning closer, so that her lips were almost brushing his ear. “What would you say if I told you that I wasn’t wearing any panties?”

“Damn,” he breathed, chuckling as she withdrew to a respectable distance. “I think I’d say that there’s an equipment room down the hall,” he added, reaching out to hook his little finger with hers’. “And I’d say that I missed you last night.”

“Ummm My...we have remote from the speed skating oval to get to?” Kevin, her cameraman called, looking at the two of them a little more closely than Mya knew was good for either of them.

“I’d better go,” she muttered, feeling suddenly shy, and feeling her cheeks burn as Sidney grinned back at her.

“I guess I’ll just have to keep missing you then,” Sidney sighed, looking a little disappointed but his grin only wavered for a moment. “Unless....”

“Unless?” she replied hopefully.

“Unless you have room in that big bed of yours at that B&B?” he asked flirtatiously, leaning in to whisper in her ear. It was ridiculous to feel this way, but Mya felt herself blush as she pulled back away from him. How was it that he could still have her stuttering like a school girl?

“I think...I mean I guess could make room,” she stammered shaking her head at herself and at him while he laughed.

She wanted to kiss him, desperately. She wanted to have him hold her and make everything else go away, but she couldn’t, they couldn’t. Not here. Not with all of the prying eyes around them, press, other players, other athletes. She understood it. It didn’t make her want it any less.

“Later then,” he said, with a grin that was so contagious Mya knew she was laughing like an idiot, blushing and stammering and that it was probably completely obvious to everyone around them that they weren’t just talking casually. She watched him turn and walk away and couldn’t keep the grin off of her face. Damn it was good just to watch him walk away. Just that vision alone made her feel better about life in general.

“You coming or what?” Kevin called.

“I’m coming. Shit. What’s the fucking hurry?”