Chapter Twenty Four;

After a long day of fun in the sun, the sun was finally setting and everyone was hungry for dinner. They decided to put on some nice clothes and go out to eat at a local seafood restaurant. Calamari Mike’s was the name. Max claimed he heard some good reviews on the place and rounded up the whole team and their ladies to give it a go.
“So since this was your idea, does that mean you’re paying, Maxy?” Marc-Andre asked his teammate as the group walked into the restaurant. They were following a short, red-headed waitress back to banquet room where it was more private.
“Ha, no actually. I was thinking mister a billion million dollars over here could cover it.” Max replied, giving Sidney a love tap on his ass as he spoke.
“Whoa there.” Sid said, startled by the random ass smack. “I’ll pay as long as you stop doing that, man.”
Max laughed, “Deal.”
“Besides,” Ashlen added with a joking smile, “No one touches my boy’s huge ass but me.”
Sid chuckled in agreement. Max placed his hand on Ashlen’s shoulder, “You’re one lucky girl, let me tell you,” He told her, glancing back and forth from her eyes and Sid’s bottom, “An ass like this guy’s is one in a billion.”
“Okay, okay!” Sidney protested, trying to keep from drawing attention to himself. Max, Ashlen, and Flower were laughing. “Enough with the ass jokes, please.” Though he wasn’t really mad, he was getting annoyed.
“Sorry, Sid.” Ashlen smiled at him. He smiled back and kissed her to show that he had forgiven her.
“Yeah, sorry Sid.” Max imitated Ashlen’s voice, or at least tried to, and then puckered his lips for a kiss of his own. Sid wasn’t having that.
“No thanks, dude.” He put his hand up in front of Max’s face.
Max just chuckled, “Your loss.”

Everyone sat down at one of two long tables. The left consisted of Sidney, Max, Evgeni, Jordan, Tyler, Marc-Andre, Brooks, Chris, Eric, Philippe, Kris, Emily, Ashley, Lauren, Leah, and Ashlen. While at the right table were some of the coaching staff and the rest of the team.
At the left table, seated left to right on one side was Brooks, Chris, Eric, Kris, Philippe, Marc-Andre, Sidney, and then Ashlen. On the opposite side went Tyler, Lauren, Leah, Max, Geno, Emily, Ashley, and then Jordan. Everyone was talking casually as the waitress came around and took the drink orders.
Kris looked mildly depressed sitting there looking lost and bored. Max, who was sitting across from him, noticed. He watched as he looked down at his lap and every once in a while stole a glance up at where Emily and Geno were sitting, next to Max. It must have been hard for him to see them together.
Geno was telling her, Ashley and Jordan a story about back at his home in Russia involving his brother, Denis, himself and some of their friends. The four of them laughed as he concluded his reminiscence.
“Wow, Geno,” Jordan laughed, “Maybe I was wrong about you. You and your Russian buddies sound like you know how to have yourselves some fun.”
“You’d be surprised.” Geno just smiled. He was holding Emily’s hand and had them resting on the table. His thumb made circles over her skin as she smiled at him. “You’ll have to come with me to Magnitogorsk sometime.” He said.
Emily nodded, not sure how to respond. “That’d be fun.” She decided upon.
“Yeah,” Geno smiled again, “I told my parents about you. They really want to meet you.”
Oh god. Emily thought, hoping that the slight panic she was feeling didn’t show. She had nothing against his parents, but if Geno told them about her then he had to be serious about their relationship. That comment made what she was planning on doing on Monday that much harder.
“I’ll be right back.” Emily told him, standing up from her seat. She grabbed Ashley’s arm to bring her with her to the restroom. Ash didn’t fight it, easily agreeing to accompany her. It’s just what girls do.
“Do you want me to order your drink?” Geno asked her before she could walk away. The waitress was down at the other end of the table now but would soon make her way to theirs to take their drink orders.
“Uh, yeah. Water’s fine.” Emily replied.
“You know what I like.” Ashley smiled at Jordan who winked back at her as her and Emily hurried back to the bathroom.


“You think she’s alright?” Kris whisper-asked Philippe after seeing Emily suddenly jump up from her seat and leave the table.
“Yeah, her and Ashley are probably just gonna go fix their makeup or something. Girls do that a lot.” Philippe shrugged.
“It’s not like she needs to.” Kris sighed, picturing her face smiling at him in his head, “She’s already beautiful.”


“And what can I get for you, Mr. Kennedy?” The redheaded waitress smiled at Tyler, throwing a flirty wink his way. Lauren’s eyes narrowed at the tiny woman. She had taken Brooks and Chris’s drink orders without a problem. Who did she think she was flirting it up with her boyfriend?
“I’ll just have a Pepsi.” TK replied, as if he hadn’t noticed her looking at him as if he were a piece of meat.
“Alrighty.” She smiled big at him and took her time writing it down on her tablet. How long could it possibly take to write Pepsi? When she finished her masterpiece she looked up from the paper at Lauren with a sour look on her face, “And you?”
“This beautiful girl of mine would like some lemonade,” Tyler spoke for her, smiling, before Lauren could get a word out, “Right, babe?”
Lauren smiled back at him, knowing what he was doing. “That’s right, Teek.” She said, glancing up at the waitress with a smirk. Ginger scowled at her and quickly scribbled it down on the tablet, avoiding looking at the couple as they shared a kiss.
Lauren and Tyler chuckled as the waitress moved further down the table without looking back.
“I think she’s jealous.” Lauren whispered with a grin on her face.
“She should be. You’re insanely beautiful and amazing and I wouldn’t trade you for anything. How could she not be jealous?” Tyler said.
“I love you.” Lauren blushed at his complement.
He smiled and kissed her again, “I love you too.”


“What’s the matter, Em?” Ashley asked her friend once the door labeled ‘Women’ shut behind them. Emily was standing in front of the long row of seashell encrusted sinks, just staring straight ahead at her reflection in the mirror.
“I-I don’t know.” She replied. There was little emotion in her voice or expression. She felt tired. Like she hadn’t slept in days. And her head hurt. Not to mention the nauseous feeling that was stuck in her stomach.
“Is it Geno?” Ashley asked, concerned with what was going on with her.
Emily sighed, “Kind of.”
“Did he do something wrong?” Ash wasn’t sure what to say to help. Normally she was the one that needed the advice that Emily had to give. Now that she was put in that position, she felt she was obligated to do what she could to help, even if she was no good at it.
“No, not him.” Emily replied simply.
“Did you do something?” Ashley tried. Emily turned away from the mirror to face her friend.
“Sort of.” She told her. She wanted to talk about her and Kris without letting any details slip out about what they did.
“Well, what’d you do?”
“Kris.” Emily said, but then quickly added, “I mean, I still have feelings for him.”
“Oh,” Ashley looked at her sympathetically, “Are they strong feelings? Like, more than you feel for Geno?”
Emily bit her bottom lip and nodded, yes. “I mean, I like Geno. He’s really sweet and a great, great friend. But I love Kris. I really do. So much.”
“But you don’t want to hurt Geno because you know how much he likes you, maybe even loves you, and you’d feel awful if you broke his heart since you’re such good friends.” Ashley said, knowing just what to say as if she were speaking Emily’s actual feelings.
“Yeah,” Emily said, surprised at how accurate her response was, “How’d you know that?”
“Remember Mitchell?” She shrugged, and Emily immediately knew the answer to her question. “He was one of the best guy friends I had. When we dated, yeah I liked him, but for him it was so much more. He told me he loved me. I couldn’t bare to break his heart, but I couldn’t go on being with him when I didn’t feel the same way.” She paused and took a deep breath, “It was hard, but he eventually understood it wasn’t meant to be. If we would’ve stayed together we may never have found our true soul mates. Now, I don’t know about him, but mine’s right out there.” Ashley smiled a small smile and pointed to the door, where Jordan was in the room on the other side. “The question is, where’s yours?”
“First of all, thank you.” Emily smiled at Ashley, who smiled back happy she was able to help, “Second of all, I’m gonna have to wait till we get back to the Burgh until I do anything about this. But the answer to your question is the same as yours. He’s right out there. And his name is Kristopher Allen Letang. And I’m madly in love with him.”