Chapter 4

I woke up the next morning to my alarm and my first thought was dinner with Sidney that night. I groaned while thinking about it. What had I been thinking agreeing to go with him? I was kidding myself if I thought this wasn't going to be a date. I showered and got dressed then drove in to work.

"So did you make it to the game yesterday?" Nancy asked me practically as I walked in the door. I continued back to my office followed closely by both her and Violet.

"Good morning to you too," I said instead of answering her question.

"Of course she did. How could you resist someone so cute?" Violet asked. Neither of them made a move like they were going to leave my office and I knew that they would stand right there all day if they had to until they heard about the night before.

"Yes, I went," I answered. I took off my coat and sat down at my desk preparing for the day.

"And?" Nancy asked. "Did you see him?" I looked up at them and realized that they were both married and hadn't been on a date with a new guy in years.

"I waited for him after the game. I just wanted to thank him for the ticket," I threw in at the end when I saw the looks on their faces. They both started giggling like teenagers. "It wasn't a date! I'm not interested in dating him."

"Are you going to see him again?" Violet asked. I let my head fall to the desk.

"We're having dinner tonight," I mumbled keeping my head down. I didn't want to see the looks on their faces.

"You like him!" Nancy called.

"I do not!" I protested.

"You don't what?" Tom asked coming to the door. I was thankful for the interruption. Well, I was until Violet spilled.

"Loralei's dating Sidney Crosby," she told him. His eyes opened wide in shock. I knew he was a Penguins fan.

"I am not. We're just friends. I hardly know him," I explained. I felt like I wanted to die. Thankfully they all cleared out a few minutes later and I got to work.





Sidney walked into the rink with a smile on his face. He'd convinced Loralei to go to dinner with him tonight. Whether she wanted to call it a date or say it was just friends going to dinner, he didn't care. Either way he was looking forward to spending some time with her and getting to know her.

"Sorry about the doc not showing up last night," Marc-Andre Fleury said to him as he walked into the lockerroom.

"She was there. She just came late. Emergency at the clinic she said," Sidney explained.

"Alright then. How'd she like it?" Maxime Talbot asked.

"I guess I'll find out at dinner tonight," Sid said with a smile on his face. The guys started to give him a hard time and he laughed it all off.

That practice was probably one of is best. He was in a great mood and it obviously translated into his play. He was scoring left and right and blowing past all the defenseman. Even Therrian commented on it.

"Where are you going to take her?" Jordan Staal asked while they were getting dressed.

"I'm thinking that nice Italian place downtown. There's no way she doesn't like Italian." Sidney walked out of the rink and to his car with a permanent smile on his face. There was no way anything was going to ruin tonight.





I stood in my towel staring at the clothes in my closet. What the hell was I doing to wear? I didn't know where we were going so I wasn't sure how nice to dress. I settled on a pair of nice jeans and a black shirt. I'd told him not to make it a date so I knew I didn't have to look too nice. It was then that I smacked myself. Why was I stressing over what to wear? I didn't even like him! I'd just finished getting ready when I heard the doorbell ring.

"You look nice," Sidney said when I opened the door. I was glad to see that he was pretty casually dressed as well.

"Thank you. You don't look so terrible yourself," I replied. He smiled and I got into his car.

"I thought we could get some Italian since I know this really great place. Is that okay with you?" he asked. I nodded.

"Sounds good to me," I said. We drove downtown and walked into a small Italian restaurant. I was glad to see it didn't look to particualrly nice. Maybe he'd taken me seriously and wasn't trying to date me.

"So you said you moved here from New Jersey. Are you from there?" he asked after we ordered.

"No, I was actually born in Montreal," I told him.

"So you're Canadian, eh?" he asked putting extra emphasis on the "eh." I laughed.

"I actually have duel citizenship. I was only in Montreal until I was 6. Then my family moved to LA." Now he looked confused. I braced myself for the questions that I knew were coming. Even so, I still didn't want to have to explain who my father was.

"Okay, you were born in Montreal, lived in LA, and then ended up in New Jersey somehow. You're well traveled. How long were you in LA?" I took a deep breath before continuing.

"I was in LA for three years. I moved back to Montreal for a year after that before moving to New Jersey for two years. Then it was back to LA for another four years, and then it was New Jersey from then on until I moved to Pittsburgh for work last year," I explained.

"Why all the moving?" he asked.

"It was for my father's job," I said leaving it at that. "How about you? You've gone from Nova Scotia, to Minnesota, to Quebec, and now Pittsburgh. It's really not all that different."

"I guess you're right," he replied. Dinner came then and I couldn't believe the size of the portion sitting in front of me.

"I hope you're hungry because I'll be lucky to get through half of this," I joked. He laughed.

"I always have room for food."

"So, tell me about growing up for you. What was it like to have the media all over you for most of it?" I asked genuinely curious. It couldn't have been easy to always be in the spotlight.

"Ah, the fun part of growing up," he said sarcastically. "Honestly it was cool at first and then really began to suck. It was a lot of pressure and I felt like I could never have an off day without somebody jumping down my throat. There were always people just waiting to throw me under the bus saying I'd never live up to the hype."

"I couldn't even imagine having to go through that. I don't understand why people are such assholes."

"Yeah, well, thankfully I have great parents who always said I could quit if I wanted to because it made no difference to them." Wow, parents that let a kid make their own decisions. Too bad I didn't have parents with the same philosophy.

"I bet it got you a lot of girls though," I joked lightening the conversation. He laughed.

"A lot certainly threw themselves at me that's for sure. Of course when you don't have to work for something it's a lot less fun," he said pointedly looking into my eyes. Oh no, not this again.

"Well, I am officially full. Take what you want," I told him pushing my plate to his side of the table. He laughed.

"I'll gladly polish that off."

"Hey, look who's here! What a coincidence!" I heard a guy yell coming up to our table. I saw Sidney shoot daggers at the guy with his eyes. "You must be Loralei," he said.

"Yes, I am," I said with a smile.

"I'm Colby Armstrong and this is Ryan Whitney," he said introducing himself and the other guy that was with him. I shook their hands.

"It's nice to meet you," I said.

"What are you two doing here?" Sidney asked.

"We were hungry and thought, 'hey, I'm in the mood for some good Italian,'" Ryan said grinning at Sidney. "Mind if we join you?"

"Actually we're just finishing up," Sidney began to protest. They sat down in the two vacant chairs anyway.

"Well surely you guys are going to get dessert," Colby said grabbing Sidney's soda and taking a sip.

"So our boy Sid said that it's been tough to get you to agree to come out with him," Ryan said taking a bite of Sidney's dinner. I tried not to laugh at the look on Sidney's face.

"I'm just busy and don't have a lot of time for things like this," I told him.

"Hey, a couple of beers and some tiramisu please!" Colby called out to a waitress walking by. Sidney's face was turning bright red although I couldn't tell if it was because of anger or embarrassment.

The rest of the night was an absolute riot. Colby and Ryan were hilarious making fun of Sidney and doing everything they could to embarrass him. When they check came we said goodbye to the two of them and got into Sidney's car.

"I'm so sorry about them. They're completely embarrassing," Sidney said as we headed home. I laughed.

"They weren't that bad. I thought they were funny," I told him.

"Yeah, you would," he said with a laugh.

"Good luck on the road," I told him before I shut the door and walked inside. Once in I realized that I truly had had a great time at dinner.