049

Two weeks flew by, and Sidney and I managed to pack up the house, keeping everything in storage while we stayed at the Lemieux's. We hadn't heard anything else about Scott, and didn't know if he was in jail or not, but for the first time in the past three weeks I felt safe. I was sitting in my office and my alarm went off at 3 PM, just like it does everyday. Man I'm old if I have an alarm to tell me when to take my meds! I pulled my prescription bottles out of my purse and looked at them for a moment. "Why do I take these again? I feel great!" I said to myself spinning one bottle round and round on my desk. I walked out of my office and went to the bathroom to take them. I looked down at my hand that was holding seven pills. "Nope, not doing it," I whispered to myself then walked into the stall and threw all the pills into the toilet, quickly flushing them. I washed my hands clean and went back into my office. I check my cell phone real quick to see I had a text message from Sidney. 'We can go home this weekend.' What? I called him, but it went straight to voicemail. "Hi Sid, what do you mean we can go home this weekend? Where's home again? I know you love your new car and all, but we can't live in it, my couch won't fit, and you know how much I love that couch! Well call me when you get this message, I'm just sitting at my desk, love you." I hung up the phone and put all my attention back to my work.

Another two hours passed and I locked up my office and headed downstairs. "Avery!" Brad shouted to me as I passed through the bar. I walked over to him and he held a key up in front of my face. "What's this?" I asked taking it from him. "Sidney dropped it off earlier, I told him you were upstairs and he could just go up there and give it to you himself, but he said he didn't have time," he explained to me before he poured up a beer for one of our regulars. What's the key for? "You still with the kid Avery, I haven't seen him around here lately?" Aaron, our regular asked me. "He's far from a kid," I began to laugh, "he comes around every once and awhile, but we're usually upstairs." "Well you tell him I said hello and he better help you out with your jersey idea for the rafters," he smiled before taking a big gulp of his beer. Yeah, I do need those jerseys! I said my goodbye's and headed home. I pulled in the driveway to see Sid's Range Rover, but no Jaguar. What's going on? I walked in the house to find Mario in the kitchen pulling out a beer. "Where's Sid?" I asked setting my purse down on the counter. "Oh, he wants you to meet him at your house, he said to pack an overnight bag," Mario replied smiling at me. I looked at him confused and he just shrugged his shoulders and headed to the family room.

I pulled into the driveway, next to Sidney's car and headed inside. There were rose petals scattered everywhere. Usually when rose petals were involved it was a trail leading to the bedroom, but they were everywhere, if there was a trail, I couldn't see it. "Sid?" I asked as I walked around the empty house. I found him sitting on the floor up against the wall where our bed once was. "Come sit next to me," he smiled patting his hand on the hardwood floor. I sat next to him and leaned into him a bit as he threw his arm over my shoulders. I looked up at him and he had a goofy sideways smile, I leaned up and kissed him on the lips, holding it there a little bit longer than usual. "So what's up with the rose petals, and the key, and why are we here?" I asked laughing. "The rose petals, I don't know, I felt like being romantic and that's what romantic guys do right?" he asked laughing and I just shook my head laughing with him. "We're here because I just want to remember all of the memories we had in here, good and bad." "The key?" I asked looking up at him. "We'll get there, let's just think back for a minute. Remember cutting my hair?" he asked with a chuckle. I looked into the bathroom and remembered how happy I was to see his hair short once again. "Never, ever --" "Grow it that long again, I know," he laughed finishing my sentence. I looked around a bit and my eyes were set on my closet. "I remember that time I was doing laundry and I came in here, and all the clothes I just folded were in a huge pile on the ground. I was so pissed off, I started picking them up and you jumped out of the pile, scared the crap out of me." I leaned my head up against his shoulder and laughed thinking about all the times we shared in the house. "You know what makes me smile the most?" Sidney asked. "What?" "Our Christmas tree."

I laughed thinking about all the times we shared in that house, but I was brought back to reality when I heard something fall out of my pocket, the key. "The key Sid, what's the key for?" I asked holding up in the air to look at it. "Our house, in Ben Avon Heights," even though I wasn't looking at him I could tell he was smiling. "We got the house!? When did you find out?" I asked jumping up a bit throwing my legs over his. "Last week, ready to go check it out?" "Last week and you didn't tell me?" "I wanted it to be a surprise, come on let's go!" I jumped up, and held my hand out to help Sidney up. Like he needs help getting up, that boy is a gazelle. We walked to the front door, and we both stopped and took one last look around. I leaned up and gave him a kiss before we headed out to our cars, I followed him there and was shocked to see that not once he did get lost.

I used my key to open the door and before I could walk in, Sidney swept me up into his arms to carry me in. "Welcome home baby," he smiled walking me into the living room which wasn't empty. "How did you move all of our stuff in here?" I asked as he set me down and I walked around. "Mario and I did it this past week. This house is a lot bigger than our last one, so there are a few empty rooms, but what we had is already in here." "So the stuff we packed up this past week you never took to storage, you brought straight here huh?" I asked laughing. "Yeah pretty much, then the stuff you took to storage I just went and got out the next day." I pulled him into a deep kiss then dragged him around the house. It really was beautiful, the family room had two story windows from floor to ceiling looking out over the backyard and pool. A beautiful country kitchen with a huge island, a room in the basement with floor to ceiling wine racks, the sauna and a stunning master bathroom with a huge bathtub, the one thing I was most excited about. I spun around one of the empty guest bedrooms and started laughing. "You know what we need to do?" He looked at me as he leaned against the door jam. "We need to go furniture shopping," I smiled. "Are you going to keep putting it off like last time?" "No, last time you came for moral support, this time we're going to pick things out for OUR house."

I sat down on the couch and Sidney put a DVD in the DVD player. He walked over to me and laid down, placing his head on my lap. "So I put a lot of thought into what I wanted to do our first night in here, and this just made sense," he laughed as he turned the TV on and the menu for the second season of Fraggle Rock appeared. "Season two? You went out and bought season two?" I asked with the excitement of a five year old. "Seasons two, three and four. It's going to be a long night," he laughed starting the DVD. "I knew I loved you for more reasons than just your body." "Thanks Winters, appreciate that," he laughed hitting me in the head with a pillow. We sat there and watched a few shows and I looked down at Sidney. "You're starring at me," he mumbled. "You remind me of Gobo," I laughed and he turned his head to look up at me. "Gobo?"
"You're telling me we've been sitting here watching Fraggle Rock for the past two hours and you don't know who Gobo is? He's the main guy, the one with the Canadian accent," I continued to laugh running my fingers through his hair. He rolled his eyes and moved his head back so he was watching the TV again. "I can see it now, 'Sidney Crosby what do you like to do on your free time?' 'Well Tom I like to sit at home with my girlfriend and watch Fraggle Rock'."

We woke up the next morning to the sun coming in hard through our bedroom window. "We need blinds," I moaned as I rolled off the bed. I headed into the bathroom and sat down on the tub while I brushed my teeth. Is all of this really happening right now? For once in my life things are going the way I imagined them to be. I washed my face, threw my hair up into a messy bun and walked back out into the bedroom to see Sidney sitting on the edge of the bed with a large box between his legs. "There's one last thing. I hope you didn't think I forgot, it's just taken me longer than I thought to get these, and Marty called, he said he put a box in the mail two days ago," he explained smiling at me before he opened the box. He began to pull out jerseys and I wanted to start jumping up and down in excitement and kiss Sidney all over the place, but I managed to keep my composure. "We were just talking about this last night at the bar, Aaron, one of regulars, said I needed to get on you about the jerseys," I laughed looking through them. Jack Johnson, Danny Briere, Alexander Ovechkin, Ryan Miller, Vinny Lacavalier, Ilya Kovalchuk, Markus Naslund, they went on and on. "And the best for last," he smiled pulling out a black trash bag. He opened it up and I saw the gold and black. "There's three in here that are mine, a Penguins jersey, Team Canada jersey and a Rimouski jersey. We got Army's Pens jersey and Thrashers jersey. Talbot, Orpik, Whitney, Flower, Geno, Letang, Kennedy and of course Jagr and Lemieux. Then there are a few baby penguin jerseys in here too," he said pulling each jersey out one at a time. I couldn't hold it back anymore. I jumped around before tackling Sidney on the bed. "Thank you so much babe, this means a lot to me," I smiled before pulling him into a kiss.

The next week flew by and before I could blink Sidney was at training camp. I stayed busy at the brewery while he was away and took my time hanging the jerseys up in the rafters. It truly did look amazing. I hung all the Penguin jerseys over the bar so they were easier to see, and I'm sure the local die hards would enjoy that. Marty sent a bunch of jerseys too, a lot of Stars and a lot of Kings, which I was very, very happy about. Brad and I were just hanging out in the bar after we hung the last jersey and we saw Sidney on the TV being interviewed after that day's practice. "Oh turn it up," I smiled before pouring myself a beer. I can drink again! They talked about expectations for this year, and how he wants to do things differently. They did hit a few soft spots talking about losing the Cup last season, but Sidney was a professional he flew right through the questions. "So Sidney, how has your summer gone?" "It was great, went to Ireland, went to Seattle, just had a fun time, very relaxing." They continued to talk about the summer before a peppy little blond asked, "what do you like to do with your free time?" He did that confused look where he pulls the corner up his lips back a bit, his eyes get wide and he tips his head. "I like to sit at home with my girlfriend and watch Fraggle Rock," he said it with such a serious tone, I don't know how he pulled it off. I sat there stunned, then the laughter poured in. Did he really just say that on national television? "You guys watch Fraggle Rock huh?" Brad asked laughing. I couldn't answer Brad or watch the interview anymore I was laughing so hard. I pulled my phone out and shot a text message to Sid, 'do you know how many girls are going to be wearing Fraggle Rock t-shirts to the games now instead of your jersey? Reebok is going to be mad!'