Chapter 17

Hooray for a post! Longer and more frequent posts will be up all week because I am on fall semester break and no classes = more time for me to write :D

Emma's POV:

After the banquet and whirlwind of emotions of the whole previous evening, the last thing I wanted to do the next morning was get up and go to work. Yes, on a Saturday morning, I was forced to go into work and clear press releases from the previous night. After the way my night had ended, spending more time in a building that reeked of Sidney Crosby was the last thing I wanted to do. His face was literally everywhere in Mellon Arena and I didn't need a reminder of the person who had made me cry buckets last night while I struggled to drive home.

Luckily I had an excuse not to stay for too long this morning because I was meeting Vero and Eliza for lunch. If I had a time constraint, then I wouldn't find other things to work on and end up wasting an entire Saturday at the office.

I showered quickly and put on a pair of jeans and one of my favorite Christmas sweaters. Instead of dealing with my hair, I twisted the still-curly tendrils up into a loose bun and decided to ignore makeup for the day. It was amazing how free my pores felt without makeup, especially since I had caked on so much makeup the night before.

After eating some cereal and finishing a cup of coffee, I almost felt human again. Christmas carols were playing in my car and I sang along feeling the horrible memories of the previous night start to float away. In all actuality, last night hadn't been that horrible. The event seemed to go over really well, big name players in the league were interested in helping out and everyone seemed to have had a great time. The only reason I was even feeling so melancholy was because of my fight with Sidney and because he seemed to know me better than myself. Which was frankly, just more than a bit scary. I didn't know anyone that actually liked having someone call them out but it was my pride that prevented me from accepting offers to spend the holidays with anyone else. Did I really want to spend the holidays alone at my house when I could be spending it with friends or with the Lemieuxs? Or with Sidney? Not really. Any of these options was truthfully so much better than spending the holidays alone with a bottle of wine and Joni Mitchell's "River" playing on repeat.

Still, it hurt that he had been the one to say those things to me. I had confided in him a lot over the past two years and so he knew not to press my buttons when it came to my family. He may not agree with the type of family that I had but that still didn't mean that he could judge me on how I dealt with them. Or how I spent my holidays. Besides, I still didn't understand what he thought inviting me would accomplish. If anything, it would just make things awkward for him and his girlfriend who he mysteriously refused to invite with him to Nova Scotia. Why didn't he just break up with her if the idea of spending a holiday with her made him look like he was going to puke? Plus, why was he willing to let me meet his cherished family

I was still feeling annoyed and grumbly about this when I walked into the darkened offices switching on lights as I walked down the hallway. 8:30am on a Saturday- I must be absolutely crazy to be here working after putting in 80 plus hours during the work week.

I'm here on a Saturday doing more work and I refused Sidney Crosby's offer to go home with him for Christmas. I truly was the most insane girl in Pittsburgh. The hillarity of the situation caught up with me and combined with the fact that I thought that I was completely alone, I let the giggles loose and laughed feeling instantly less stressed out. There was something to be said for belly laughs when something was just going horribly wrong in your life.

"Em? Are you okay?" I screamed and spun around ready to defend myself.

"Whoa, whoa, calm down. I'm sorry I scared you again." It was Sidney and he was pulling me closer to him to rest his hands on my shoulders and make my heart speed up again. Did he have to be gorgeous all of the time? Even in his workout gear with his sweaty hair pushed back in a penguins hat he looked like he stepped out of a fitness magazine.

"What are you doing here?" I asked taking a step back from him. Being close to him prevented me from thinking clearly sometimes and right now I had to have a clear head so that I could yell at him for scaring the shit out of me. Could just anyone walk into these offices? Did Mario realize how unsafe that was?

"I know you're Sidney Crosby and everything but do you just have access to the entire Mellon arena?"

He smirked at me and took a seat in the chair facing my desk looking too masculine for the room. "I was working out and had a hunch that you'd be here. You're the only one that's ever here at the arena as much as I am."

I blinked at him realizing that he had a point. "Well in any case, what do you need? I have some things that I need to work on." Maybe he would take the hint that I didn't feel like talking to him just yet. He would just push me some more about my holiday plans and even though I knew he was right, my pride did get in the way of happiness sometimes, I wasn't ready to admit that to him.

"I just wanted to make sure that you were okay. You know, after last night." I was leaning forward and fiddling with a figurine on my desk. He always needed to keep his hands busy when he was nervous and I was secretly happy that he felt nervous about this. The female in me wanted to make him squirm for a little bit.

"What about last night?" I asked playing dumb. "You know, I think the event was really a success. Thanks for talking to the press so much for me." He looked absolutely perplexed why I wasn't bringing up our fight last night. Knowing him, he probably wanted to talk about it. Sidney was a rare breed of male that was okay with talking about feelings most of the time because of his Mom and little sister.

"You know that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about what we talked about last night. I know that what I said maybe wasn't the best-" He stopped when I held up a hand to cut him off.

"Sidney, just let it go. I know you meant well and you don't have to feel bad." He was making me feel like a charity case again and considering charity was my line of business, I had enough of that in my life.

"Why won't you ever just let me apologize to you?" He asked dropping the figurine back on my desk. "You always do this!" He looked frustrated and a little like he did in the hockey roadtrip commericial he had done where Ovechkin orders all of that room service for him. He had his "Ovechkin!" face on and I wanted to laugh.

"That's absolutely ridiculous. And I told you, there's no reason for you to apologize about what you said." I watched while he gave me an exaggerated eye roll and tried not to appear angry.

"Except there is a reason, I saw how upset you looked and while you might be okay with people treating you like shit sometimes, I am not okay with that."

I wanted to hit him. Seriously, I did. I couldn't even think of something to say in response to that and settled for glaring at him. So he meant well but he wasn't exactly good at explaining himself.

Sidney rubbed a hand over his face looking like he was exhausted. "Look, I don't want to fight with you. I just wanted to apologize because I was in the wrong."

I softened at that and realized that I couldn't stay mad at him when he obviously didn't mean to hurt me. Besides, in a strange way, this was Sidney being noble all over again and trying to be a good friend. One of us had to concede and I had a feeling that it would be me. That it should be me.

"Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry for being such a bitch about this. You know my family makes me crazy." I walked around to the front of my desk where he was sitting and leaned back against the desk. There shouldn't be a barrier between us mentally of physically if we were going to get past this. "We really bring out the worst in each other sometimes, don't we?" I said finally smiling at him. He looked at me for another second as if he was making sure that this wasn't a test and relaxed.

"So we're good?" He asked getting up from his chair to tower in front of him. He was close again and I had to remind my brain not to shut off.

I nodded and smiled back at him wondering why the world suddenly felt so much lighter on my shoulders. Then again, his smile had always done this to me.

"Good. I don't think I could handle going on the road tomorrow knowing that you were pissed at me." I laughed and he pulled me closer to him for a hug making me feel ten different types of gooey female. We didn't usually hug so he must have really felt bad. Especially with our weird moments last night, I was surprised he even wanted to touch me.

"I like your sweater by the way" he joked.

"Hey smartass, leave my sweater alone" I pulled back slightly to examine the dancing snowman sweater I had on. Yes, it was ridiculous, but it was also comfortable and full of holiday cheer. I looked back up to defend my sweater again and realized how close Sidney's head was to mine. His head was bent down to look at my sweater too and our eyes met. It was as if the moment in the coat room last night was repeating itself and neither of us was moving away. His hands that had rested on my hips from our brief hug tightened and I wasn't sure if he was pulling me closer or if I was moving closer on my own.

How could we just go from fighting, to friendship, to a moment that I wasn't ready to put a label on yet? Lately we had been bouncing around so much that I was no longer sure that we were on sturdy ground. And yet, I couldn't look away from him. There was something to be said for brown eyes but Sidney's were in a league of their own. They weren't quite brown but more of a soft gold color and I knew that I wouldn't be able to get that color out of my brain for the rest of the day. Our faces were now less than an inch away from each other's and if I was brave enough to lean up slightly, our mouths would collide.

Sidney's POV:

When I took a chance that morning and decided to head up to her office to see if she was there, I wasn't all that surprised when I did find her in her office. I was surprised to find her hunched over her desk giggling like a little girl. Her hair was still curly and piled on top of her head and she was wearing a ridiculous christmas sweater and yet she was still the prettiest thing I had seen all morning. Granted I had been sweating behind a weight machine all morning but still. Why was she always acting like she wasn't beautiful when even without makeup and a christmas sweater she could suddenly make my body tighten and go on high-alert?

Now we were standing there in her office and I could feel the swell of her breasts against my chest while her green eyes stared at me in confusion and what looked like caution. She looked more unsure than I was used to seeing her. I liked seeing her look so sure of herself in everything that she did. It was one of the things that drew me to her as a friend and now drew me to her as a woman. A woman that had been distracting me and driving me crazy lately. But now with our bodies so close, I was enjoying the feeling of being the one to throw her off. I was used to girls throwing themselves at me and being so blantantly obvious that Emma was a breath of fresh air. A breath of fresh air that I had the urge to push back on her desk and figure out exactly what she had on under that snowman sweater of hers.

"Can we just try something?" I asked sliding my hand up to the smooth column of her throat.  Wasn't it time we figured this out instead of dancing around it anymore? I wasn't the aggressive type with girls but Emma made me act crazy anyway. Maybe being aggressive would finally get me somewhere outside of the hockey arena and I couldn't shake the feeling that Emma was going to be important somehow.

She didn't do anything but continue to stare at me, her lips parted slightly as she breathed in and out and I took it as a silent 'yes.'

Our lips met halfway and I wanted to smile. So it wasn't just me that was trying to figure this out. Her lips were soft and I could see the shock in her eyes before they finally closed and she swayed against me. She hadn't even put her arms around me but I could feel her lips giving in to mine as I slowly tasted her, feeling an electric current run between us.

"Wait" she breathed pulling away slightly to put a hand on my chest. Waiting could hold off for a little bit longer. I was too interested in trying to figure out exactly what kind of lip gloss she had on. I captured her lips again and had successfully distracted her again before she pulled back and pushed me away harder this time.

"Sidney, we can't." There was an annoying 6 inches between us now as she panted and stared at me in confusion. Why couldn't we ? "Why did you do that?" she asked.

"I don't know" I said instantly regretting the words after they came out of my mouth. I seemed to do that a lot around her actually- speaking without thinking and she stiffened looking less warm and soft than she had seconds ago.

"I see" she replied taking a full step aside to put the desk between us. "Look, I really  need to finish some things here and I'm sure that you have stuff to do."

There she went again, pushing me aside so quickly without us even talking about anything. Why did I have to be the one that actually wanted to talk things through with her? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

"Em, don't you think that we should talk about what just happened?" I asked wanting to shake her in frustration.

"We can't talk about it Sidney" she looked every bit as frustrated as I was and because she wouldn't talk to me about it, I didn't understand why. I got it, she was probably confused. But how were we supposed to figure this out if we didn't at least talk about it? It was like any problem we had on the team. When we couldn't figure out why we weren't winning or why we weren't scoring goals, the team talked about it and figured out a new strategy. Instead Emma was adopting the 'if we don't talk about it, then it never happened' mentality and it bugged the hell out of me.

I was about to just leave and give her time to come around and realize that we had to figure this out when she stopped me from leaving.

"Sidney wait." I turned to look at her while she chewed on her bottom lip nervously. I stared at her thinking that I would like to do the same thing to her lips. "I'm not mad, I'm just really confused right now."

I nodded noticing how nervous she seemed to be right now. "Okay- just give me a call whenever you're ready." I could be patient if I had to be for her. I didn't want to, but I knew that I could.


Now how the hell was I going to play this week out on the road when my head was stuck here with her?