Chapter 10

Does anyone else think that writing Sidney's POV is ridiculously hard? I've been trying so hard to get inside what I think his head would be like and I freaking can't. So here is the product of me smacking my head against my laptop multiple times and worrying my friends around me.

Sid's POV:

I skated forward feeling all of the muscles in my legs rhythmically bunch together then release with each stride I took. Suicides were a bitch but were sometimes necessary, especially towards the end of a season when any extra sprinting could potentially give you an edge during a game. I wanted to win again more than anything and if I had to 50 more suicides, then I would. I could practically feel the cup beneath my hands again if I thought about it enough.

"Okay guys, off the ice" Coach called letting us all slow down. I took a few more slow laps around the rink to let my body decompress and watched almost everyone else leave the ice. We had the rest of the day to get ready and pack before we were off again to D.C. tonight to play the Capitals the next day. I had declined interviews completely today not wanting to deal with the 'Crosby vs. Ovechkin' thing they were always making up. Sometimes, it was annoying to be the NHL's pawn with the mainstream media.

What I really needed to do instead was get my sister a birthday present (an already belated one) before my Mom flew down from Canada to kill me. Yes it was playoff season and Taylor would never mention it to me but my Mom had been on my back about making a fuss over her birthday all week and there was no way that I could put it off any longer.

If it were really up to me, I would just wait and throw her a party once the season was over but for now, sending her a late gift was going to have to do. Now I just had to figure out what it is that she would want. It was getting harder and harder to shop for my teenage sister the older she got and the more clueless became when it comes to buying gifts for girls. Young or old, it's still difficult as hell. Nathalie had been less than helpful by not giving me any suggestions at all, no matter how much I begged. Then Lauren, who is close in age to Taylor, suggested I just give her a gift card to her favorite store. It was my last minute emergency option but I definitely felt like I could do a little bit better than a gift card.

I got off of the ice to go take a shower and try to think of anyone that I could ask for shopping advice from. Then suddenly it dawned on me. Who was the best female shopper that I knew? Eliza. She would be the perfect person to ask because it seemed like she was always buying something new.

After showering and throwing on some jeans and a t-shirt, I left my gear out for the equipment team to pack up for the flight tonight and walked out into the hall to call Eliza and see if she could give me some pointers. Ironically, almost as soon as the phone was in my hand it began to buzz, only this time with a number I didn't recognize. Typically with numbers that aren't already programmed in my phone, I hit ignore immediately in case it's someone crazy who's gotten a hold of my number. I've already had to change my number a few times after mistakenly answering these unknown calls in previous seasons. For some reason this time I answered noting that it wasn't a Pittsburgh area code and that would at least save me from a stalker from this city hopefully.


"Hello?" I prayed that it wasn't someone calling to harass me on the other line.

"Sidney?" The voice was female, and a little throaty. Definitely a female voice that I recognized. Wait a minute, Emma?

"Emma?" I questioned hardly believing that she would actually call me. Why was she calling me? Her voice sounded kind of faint now. Like there was a lot of background noise and I think I vaguely heard the sound of a truck honking.

"I'm stuck!" she said yelling now over the background noise. Where the hell was she?

"Are you okay?" I asked getting a little concerned now. It was weird for her to be calling me and now even weirder that she was babbling to me and I could only hear about half of it.

"Okay, slow down. What happened again?" Something about her car. I was pretty sure I heard that part right.

"I'm on the highway and no one else was answering their phone." Something about her throaty voice was always convincing me to do things that I didn't want to do lately. It was this weird combination of sexy and innocent and if I listened to it for too long, I started to get a little too distracted. Women never distract me.

"So you're car is broken down?" She answered yes telling me more details that were broken up before I told her that I was leaving to find her. This was definitely going to screw with my plans for free time today but what was I supposed to do? Leave her there? We were still uneasy around each other but I had known her for what seemed like forever. There was no way that I could just not help her out. I'd also have a whole group of angry women to respond to if they found out that I had left her on a highway somewhere.


After driving for about 20 minutes, I finally spotted her little red convertible that was about the most impractical car on earth for Pittsburgh's mix of seasonally shitty weather conditions. That kind of car belonged in Florida, not Southwestern PA but it wasn't my place to mention this to her. She wouldn't last a second in Canada during the winter.

"Thank you so much" she blurted out coming around to my window as soon as I had pulled off. Another truck honked as it flew by scaring her and causing her to practically plaster herself against my car door in fear. My window was down so that I could talk to her making the situation awkward.

"What the hell are you doing? Get off that side of the road!" Didn't she have any common sense? She could get sideswiped easily by another car if she didn't move soon. She ran around the front of my SUV again and I unlocked the doors so that she could hop in safely where I was half-tempted to tie her down to the front seat just to keep her in place.

"Okay, so what happened again?"
"Well I was just driving along and then all of the sudden my car makes this big banging noise and starts to shake. Then I start to get freaked out because I saw this special on car fires so I pulled over and a bunch of smoke came out of the front thingy."

I was still confused by her car fires detour that I didn't notice that her car was indeed still smoking. Instead of questioning her more, I turned the car off to go investigate it myself. By 'front thingy' she meant the hood of the car and what I guessed was the transmission. I didn't know a whole lot about cars either but from the amount of smoke still spewing out of the car, this obviously wasn't good.

"What do you think is wrong with it?" She asked coming over to shand by me. This was one of the first times that I could remember where we were completely at ease with each other. There was usually some sort of tension between us lately and before that, neither of us had paid attention to each other. Maybe that was why her telling me that she didn't like me a few weeks ago had thrown me off so much. How could she dislike someone when we weren't even friends? Yes, we knew things about each other but we didn't know each other.

Even with the smoke puffing out into both of our faces, it struck me just how pretty she actually was. She wasn't flashy or bold like the other women that I knew and she didn't tend to stand out in crowds, even with her hair. But still, there were parts of her that were just interesting. Like her eyes. She wasn't even wearing makeup and her eyelashes still looked like she had that black stuff on. It was suddenly very important that I know for sure what color her eyes were.

"I'm going to call a tow truck" she stated backing off and waving her hand in front of her face to clear the air. I nodded watching her walk away from the smoke and pull out her phone. She was wearing workout clothes and had a leaf stuck to the back of her leg making me wonder what she had been up to all morning. After another minute or so she turned around and walked back towards me.

"A tow truck's about 10 minutes away. I can get a lift with him if I need to. I know you guys are playing tonight." She trailed off and we were awkward again with her looking down at her running shoes and me staring at her.

"No, I'll give you a lift. I was out doing errands anyway. Besides, me letting you go off with a tow truck driver sounds like the beginning of a bad horror movie. I can't have that on my conscience." I was rewarded with a smile and a laugh even though it was a corny joke.  The sound of her happy and laughing relaxed me a little bit and I turned the radio up t while we drove. It was now early afternoon and so far I was totally screwed on my present seeking expedition.

"I'm sorry again for asking you to come get me. I just couldn't get a hold of anyone else and didn't know who else was even around." She turned slightly to face me in the car looking just as apologetic as she had in the club a few weeks ago. I started to say that it was okay because the reaction was automatic. It seemed like we were always saying sorry to each other but then I realized that maybe she could help me out. Anyone would be better than leaving me to shop for a gift by myself.

"Actually, would you mind doing me a favor? I really need to get my sister a birthday present and I'm terrible at getting her anything that isn't hocky-related."

I hoped that she would just agree and go along with it because I was starting to get nervous about buying Taylor a gift on time.

"Sure!" Emma said smiling for the second time that day in my presence. "Just head to the Monroeville Mall."
The mall? "I've got some time to kill and I do need to pay you back for rescuing me off the highway."

"Wait, the mall? Couldn't we just go somewhere else?" I hated shopping malls and especially couldn't deal with ones that didn't have some sort of a sports store in them.

"Well yeah. If you want to get her anything good, you need to go to a mall." I protested a little bit more hoping that she wouldn't make me go into the mall.

"Just take the next right, Sidney" she said laughing at me.

Great.