028

He said lunch. Not lunch, dinner and drinks later. Where were they? I paced around the living room a few more times before crashing on the couch. I flipped through the channels, but nothing interesting was on. I fell asleep watching Platinum Weddings, the bitches on that show really bored me. Sorry gold diggers. After what felt like a few minutes I could feel Sidney lift me up in his arms. I squinted one of my eyes open and he laid me down on the bed. "Where the hell have you been?" I asked still half asleep. "I've been with your dad, I will tell you all about it in the morning," he whispered before stripping down and crawling in next to me. I looked at the clock and noticed it was one AM. What the hell? He had a thirteen hour date with my dad? He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me into him. I was out within seconds.

The sun peaked through the window and I rolled over to stretch my arms out. Just like every other morning my back cracked and Sidney woke up. "So what happened yesterday? I called you a few times, went straight to voicemail," I began to nag him. "My phone died. We went to lunch, then I took him to practice. Mario insisted the three of us went to dinner, then we ended up at a bar. Your dad was my ride, because you have my car. I thought your dad had called you to tell you, he told me called you," he explained to me. "He does that, when he's having a good time, he will pretend to let the woman know, but man fun is sacred to him so no he didn't call me," I laughed. "So what did you guys talk about?" I asked him and he immediately became a little uncomfortable. "Just stuff, he told me a lot about your brother but never said why you guys don't talk anymore." My eyes grew wide. Always daddy's little boy. "I'm not a good person, according to Robert I am not a good person. I will never be good enough for anyone, and I will never be good enough for anything I do in my life. I'm pretty much a life failure and according to him it was a mistake for my parents to have me," I became very pissed off, jumping off the bed and starting to pace around. "The words he said to me were stuck in my mind for a very long time, and then when Riley did what he did, I knew my brother was right. And then again with Scott. I'm not good enough for anybody. But I'm starting to think I'm proving him wrong with you, I don't know though, I've fallen and been hurt before." Sidney got up off the bed and wrapped me in his arms. "Avery, you can't say those things about yourself, sometimes I think I'm not good enough for you, and why in the world you would be with me, a nerdy athlete. But I know we are meant for each other, and I truly believe that you can do anything you set your mind to, look at the brewery. You have proved your brother wrong in so many ways. Is he going to be at the opening?" The tears began to flow down my cheeks, and I didn't even think about the opening. "I would imagine, but I don't really want him there. I know he will find something wrong, he will start pointing things out, he will try everything he can to ruin the night for me. I don't want him there."

The season came to an end and the Penguins managed to clinch the Atlantic division and finished second behind Montreal in the eastern conference. The stress in the house was almost unbearable and there were times when I really wanted to kick Sidney out, make him go back to Mario's. It all came down to when we crawled into bed though and he would pull me into him. We could be screaming and yelling at one another trying to tear the other down, but as soon as he wrapped his arm around me, all worries were gone. He wanted me to go to all of his away games, but it just seemed impossible with the days flying by and the opening of the brewery quickly approaching. I was starting to receive media attention with the brewery, it was becoming the big talk of the town, which was very exciting for me.

"Hi babe, how's New York?" I asked Sid as I made my way into downtown. "It's New York, are you getting a car today?" he had been bugging me about getting a car, I think he was sick of driving around with Max. "I might go look later, but right now I have an interview and photo shoot with the Gazette. I'm very nervous." "That's awesome babe, why don't you tell me these things?" he laughed. "Because I don't want to think about it, and knowing you you would bring it up a million times," I laughed right back. I pulled up in front of the brewery and saw a few vans were already there. "What will you do if they ask you about me?" My eyes grew wide a little, I never really thought about that. "What do you want me to say? It's up to you babe." "Tell them we're in love. I think it's time, we can't hide it anymore." Is he serious? "Okay babe, well I better go, call me after the game. Love you."

The interview was going great, this was really going to give great exposure to the brewery and I was very excited about it."So we will take a five minute break and then I want to ask some questions about you, and where you have come from," Jessica the interviewer informed me. No you are going to ask questions about Sidney. I smiled and headed straight for the coffee. "How's it going?" James asked. "It's going great so far, but now the personal questions are going to start coming," I chuckled stirring the cream into my coffee. "Well you had to of known that was coming, I mean you are dating the town's prince. Anyways, are you sure you want me in this photo shoot? This is all you dear." "Yes I want you to be apart of this, you have helped so much in this process, honestly I wouldn't have known where to start without you," I smiled and then was called back over to continue the interview.

I picked at my nails and I knew it was only a matter of minutes before she brought Sidney up. I talked about growing up in Seattle, being around the bar all the time, graduating early then going to school in South Africa. We spent a bit of time on my decision to turn down medical school for the brewery, and then it came out. "There have been many pictures snapped of you and Sidney Crosby around town, and the one that sticks out the most is a picture of you in his arms after the Winter Classic game on New Years day, can you confirm that you two are in fact dating?" I took a deep breath and a large smile came over my face. "Yes, we are dating. We've been together for just about six months now." "How do you manage to keep a healthy relationship with your career and with his, it must be hard." "It is hard, we really have to work, but it feels so effortless. When we go home at the end of the day, it's just us, there's no superstar hockey player or brewmaster. If I had a bad day and I come home, he knows, he can sense it, as I can with him. Things just flow very nicely between us," The huge smile was still on my face. "Do you think he can bring the Stanley Cup to Pittsburgh?" "Oh no, we don't dare say those words, even though it's in the back of our minds, we don't talk about that," I laughed. "Will there be a wedding in the near future?" WHAT? "Oh no, we're still just having fun, we have plenty of years ahead of us to think about marriage. Right now I want to get this brewery up and running, and Sidney wants to focus on hockey, we have plenty of time." "So how did you two meet?" I went on to tell her the whole story, the broken nose, seeing Colby, I felt like the interview turned out really well.