Chapter 33

Okay, hopefully this one's a little bit longer for you guys! I didn't proof it so good luck navigating your way through. Celebrity Rehab is on again, damn it!




Emma's POV:

My phone began to buzz and ring cheerfully from its perch on my desk a few days later while I was at my desk going through some tax information for different charities. Because this wasn't exactly my favorite thing to do in the world, I picked up my phone quickly as if it were my only life line to the land of the sane and living.

"Em? It's me, Sid" I froze hearing the deep voice on the other line and felt my heart speed up after not hearing it for over a week.

"Hi" I said keeping my voice level. It ended up coming out a lot cooler than I had intended but what could I do? I was pissed off at him. Besides, why was he calling me now? After their initial loss, the Pens had gone on to win all three of their other games on a hot streak. He could have called a bunch of other times, even just to say hi but he hadn't. So what made right now so different?

"I just got home," he went on trying to fill the silence between us. He sounded baffled. "I uh, wanted to know if you wanted to come over and have dinner with me tonight."

I rolled my eyes knowing that my hunch had been exactly right. Now that the Pens were home for a little bit, Sidney could obviously make room in his life of hockey for me. That's why he was calling me.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" I said letting just the right amount of sarcasm creep into my voice. "I'm swamped with work right now and I have to meet a few people tonight to plan for the next CPP event."

He didn't need to know that the 'few people'  really meant Vero, Eliza and a few other girls and the charity event we were going to work on was my life.

"Okay well, call you later?"

"Sure, whenever." I said trying to keep it casual. Suddenly I felt like crying because even when we were friends we weren't this awkward or weird around each other.

"Bye, Em" he stated getting off the line and leaving me alone in my office once again. Back at square one.

I pushed all poisonous thoughts of Sidney Crosby out of my mind and buckled down to finish tax forms by the time I left that evening. I was supposed to meet up with everyone at 6 over at Station Square and I was hoping that they would be able to impart some much needed wisdom to me about relationships with NHL players. How did all of them make their relationships work for the long-term and I was struggling to even get mine lifted off the ground?

I told the girls this exact same thing as they looked on with sympathetic smiles. One thing that I could always count on them for was advice and the fact that they would side with me.

"I just don't understand why he didn't call. Was it wrong for me think that he should call? Even text?" They had all ganged up on me and were covering my tab. Right now the force of Captain Morgan was leading me on towards general dislike of the male species.

They all looked at me sympathetically but no one rose up in solidarity and agreed with me. That I had been expecting. So when they continued to look back in forth between me and each other with hesitant smiles, I got nervous.

"What?"

"Well it's just that," Vero was the one to speak up first with the others looking grateful to her. "You do remember who you're dating, right?"

"V, if this is some weird thing about him being famous, you know that I don't care about that."

"I know, I know. It's not the famous hockey Sidney I'm worried about you forgetting."

"Well then what is it?" I asked feeling completely confused now. Had I missed some sort of Jekyll and Hyde trait in him all of these years???

"I think that you've forgotten that you're dating Sid, the person." Around her all of the girls nodded doing their best impression of bobble heads in sync.

"What? No offense but I think I know Sidney pretty well by now."

"Sweetie, we know you do" she winked suggestively. "I just think that in your excitement of finally taking that next step with him, you've forgotten that it's Sid you're dealing with. He's one of the most intense people that I know but in that intensity, he forgets other things. Like how to be a good boyfriend."

"I agree" Eliza said jumping in. "I love that boy but there's no way he knows how to be a good boyfriend. He's been dating hockey his entire life."

"Exactly" Vero said nodding her head. "He just needs to be reminded of what you need. That includes all of your needs."

Despite the Captain Morgan, I blushed at her suggestion. I loved them all but I was not willing to talk about my sex life with them. Especially when so far, I didn't have any complaints in that area of our relationship.

"You really think that he needs to just be told that I expect a phone call while he's gone?"

"Yes" they all said in unison. "Lay out the ground rules." Vero added picking up her menu.


Sidney's POV:

I spent the rest of the day and part of the next day going through the motions of having some brief time off from the road. In my free time I did what I normally did while home: worked out, took a nap, took care of some business that I couldn't do on the road and spent every other minute wondering what the hell had happened between Emma and I.

I wasn't stupid. I knew an angry woman on the phone when I heard one and I especially knew all of Emma's moods. There were a lot of them but it had been awhile since one of them was directed at me.

All throughout the day I tried to think of what I could have possibly done that would have pissed her off. Her birthday wasn't for a few more months and I had been following through on different committments for charity that I had agreed to.

So seriously, what did I do?

I called her cell phone again and got her voicemail immediately. Either that meant that her phone was turned off or she had hit the ignore button. Both of these options worried me but I tried to pass the time doing something that I didn't always get to enjoy: watching mindless TV.

I only made it through an hour when I threw down the remote, realizing how ridiculous the situation was. I wanted to see her, even if she was mad about something. So what was I doing in my house alone sulking about it?

It was only quarter after 12 and I knew for a fact that she usually stayed at her office on Fridays for lunch so that she could leave earlier in the evening. Still she would have to be hungry, right?

I decided to take my chances and not call her ahead of time. I would have better luck if I could talk to her in person rather than have her ignore my calls and never give me a chance at all. I made a phonecall to a nearby deli and tried to hurry up in case she did leave that day for a business lunch or something.

By the time I fought my way downtown and into the doors of her office, I wasn't sure that the food was completely warm anymore but there wasn't much I could do at this point but hope that she didn't care or at least didn't say anything about it.

Her door was cracked already so that when I pushed it open even more, it revealed an office empty of Emma. Music was still playing softly on her computer and the lights were on so I knew that she couldn't have gone far.

"Sidney, what are you doing here?"

I turned to see her watching me from the doorway, a pile of papers clutched tightly in her left hand. She didn't look happy to see me but she didn't look like she was about to boot me out either. All in all, a good sign.

"I wanted to see you so I came by. I brought lunch" I said gesturing to the soup and paninis that I knew she liked.

"Oh, well that's really nice of you but I'm swamped" she said crossing the room to her desk. She kept her eyes away from mine and out of focus on the ground. Before she coud pass me, I stopped her and drew her closer to me instead. She stiffened and tried to lean away when my lips descended on hers. Or tried to at least.

She denied me a second time and I definitely knew that something was wrong. "What's going on?" This couldn't be a coincidence or a weird mood she was in if I wasn't even allowed to kiss her.

"I'm sorry, I just have so much to do" she said placing her hands on my chest and trying to push me away. Not only was she physically denying me, but she was pushing me away mentally now too.

"So much to do that you can't eat?" I kept a firm grip on her hips in front of me determined to fix what was wrong. Whatever the hell it was.

We both knew that she didn't have an excuse and I finally let her go when she shook her head no. She walked to her chair and I laid out the food pulling out a can of coke from the bag for her.

"Thanks" she said popping it open and taking a sip. "That was really nice of you to bring me lunch."

"No problem- I wanted to." An awkward silence descended on us and something still didn't feel right between us. She saved me from further embarrassing comments by beginning to talk and explain the new project she was working on for the CPP. Different galas would be happening in the next month or two before crunch time in the post-season when a lot of the team functions stopped.

"I was thinking that we could hold a skate with the players event for the kids in the inner city leagues and have a lunch or something afterwards. Give the kids an opportunity to skate on the ice with you guys and learn a few pointers. Do you think they would go for it?"

I recognized the anxious look on her face from all of the other events that she had coordinated. Even though she came up with amazing ideas and always pulled them off, she was never convinced that they would all pan out until after the events were over. The pre-planning stages were always the worst.

"It's a great idea and I know the guys will be on board. They'll do anything when it comes to kids. I will too" I said trying to make her feel better in the best way I knew how.

She looked up and smiled at me slightly. "I know you will, but thanks."

We finished eating and the mood between us had lifted considerably. I had even managed to make her laugh which I knew was a good sign all things considered.

"Thanks again for lunch Sidney" she said as I helped her clean up her office. "It was really sweet of you."

"I wanted to" I reminded her. For some reason I couldn't bring myself to tell her that the lunch was mostly for my benefit anyway. I got to see her and it took the edge off me missing her.

"Well, still, thanks" she smiled and stopped in front of me long enough to give me a quick kiss on the cheek. Now that she was close enough, I pulled her hips firmly to mine and held her so that she couldn't run away this time.

"You could thank me another way" I said planting a kiss on the tender side of her neck. She arched into me slightly and I grinned against her flesh. Apparently she had missed me too.

"And how is that?" she asked sounding just a little bit restless from all of the attention I was paying to her neck. She smelled amazing and now I knew the secret of where it came from- the little bottle of perfume she kept on the dresser in her room.

"Come to dinner with me tonight" I asked her biting down slightly on her earlobe. She moaned and I knew that I was breaking down her walls even if I didn't know why she had put them up again in the first place.

"Dinner?"

"Yeah, do you want to go out?"

"In a restaurant?"

I pulled back laughing at all of her questions. "Yeah, in a restaurant. Where people take other people out on dates." She looked so confused at my offer that I kissed her lips, unable to resist. Her green eyes closed slowly as she returned my kiss and the hands at my shoulders slid up into my hair where she knew that I liked to have my scalp rubbed. This was my signal that everything was okay- she wasn't pissed off anymore. At least not too much.

"So is that a yes?" I asked pulling back slightly so that we could both breathe again.

"Yeah, that sounds nice" she smiled and I felt like a weight had been lifted off of my chest that I didn't know was there.

I leaned down to kiss her again, reluctant to let her go so that we could both continue on with our days.

"So are we good?" I asked grabbing my keys and sliding into my coat.

"Yeah, why wouldn't we be?" she asked meeting me at the door to say goodbye.

"I don't know" I tried to find the right words to say. "You just seemed sort of pissed off when I talked to you yesterday."

Her face fell a little until she was no longer smiling as widely as she had been. "Oh, nothing. It was just sort of a bad time yesterday, that's all."

She didn't sound too convincing but I let the subject drop, too eager for this evening to ruin it by asking questions now. She let me kiss her again goodbye and I left feeling confident that the night was going to go well.

Relationships were like hockey in some respects. You had to be strategic. If I could make tonight go well then everything would be fine again.