Chapter 9

A Party Tonight

Chelsea, Tina and Halley walked down the hallway going to the ice rink. It was crowed to capacity with hockey players from all over the world. Of course, the girls loved every minute of this. As they walked by the Norway team, a guy whistled at Halley and Chelsea gave her a dirty look. Chelsea always got jealous when a guy was more interested in her friend that in her. Tina, seeing what had happened, said, "Look over there girls! I spy some cutie American guys!"

Chelsea and Halley turned to look.

"Oh wow! They are super hot, especially the one with the goalie gear on!"

She was, of course, talking about Jim Craig.

"How about you, Chelsea? Who do you think…?"

Tina started, but turned to see that Chelsea wasn't there. She had walked over the USA captain Mike Eruzione.

"Um, hi." Said Chelsea, trying to sound like a sweet innocent girl, who she obviously wasn't, "Your Mike Eruzione, right?"

He smiled at her and said, "Well that's what my shirt says! But most of my friends call me Rizzo"

"Of course," She said, "Well, I heard that there is going to be a pretty cool party on the 7th floor of the athlete's hotel. I was wondering if you were going."

"Yeah, Brooks said it would be okay if we came back by 9:30 and only had one beer."

A party until 9:30 didn't sound like a very fun thing to Chelsea, but she wanted this guy so badly that she gave in. She didn't usually give in to anyone.

"So, do you want me to go with you?"

Chelsea said, giving her famous "I'm too hot for you to say no'" smile. Eruzione smiled at her and said, "Yeah, that would be great! Do your friends need dates? I have two buddies that are looking for hot girls!"

Chelsea gave Tina and Halley a smile and said, "That would be perfect."

She kissed Rizzo lightly on the lips and walked away. Halley and Tina saw her going so they followed. Rizzo jogged over to tell his buddies what happened. Chelsea was also discussing this with her friends.

"Ohemgee! He was so hot!" Screamed Tina, "I really need a date, now!"

"Don't worry girls. Rizzo said that he'll get you both dates with his hot friends."

"Did he say that they were hot?" Halley asked cautiously.

"Ugh, of course not!" Said Chelsea, "I just said that!"

"Oh, good!" said Tina, "You know, I actually feel sorry for Nadia and Sally— wait, no I don't!"

"You know guys," said Halley, "They might have founddates too."

Chelsea and Tina looked at Halley like she was crazy.

"Are you kidding me?" Said Chelsea angrily, "Of course they don't! Nadia's little crush probably dumped her for a real Russian girl!"

"Well, I'm just saying if they come to that party with boyfriends, I won't be surprised."

Tina shoved Halley and they all walked back to their room.

Meanwhile…

"So Nadia," Vlad said.

He and his team were in the locker room, along with Nadia and Sally.

"I heard the goalie from Team USA talking with some of his buddies. They said there was going to be a party in one of the floors of the hockey players hotel tomorrow night."

"That sounds like fun. Do you want to go?" she asked.

"I was just going to ask you the same thing." He said, "Yeah. I'll go."

"What about your coach? Is he okay with that?"

"Surprisingly, yes." Said Vlad, "He told me to obey his wishes, though. No—."

"I know," said Nadia, "No doing something that you'll regret later on. But, it would really be me that would pay the most, right?"

"How do you mean?" he asked.

"Well, I could get pregnant and—"

"Okay Nadia!" he said quickly, "I see your point!"

She giggled and said, "What? You wouldn't do it with me?"

Vlad started to laugh, "Of coarse I would! I mean, look at you!"

He ran his hands down her figure and she blushed.

Nadia looked over her shoulder and saw Sally sitting on the bench.

"I haven't been paying much attention to Sally." She said, "I was the one who begged her to come, too."

"Maybe she can go to the party too, with one of the guys." suggested Vlad.

"Yeah! But who?" she asked.

Nadia walked over to Sally, who was looking sad sitting on the bench.

"Hey Sally." She said, "What's wrong?"

"Oh, you remembered my name?" she said sarcastically.

"I'm sorry Sally. It's just that I haven't seen Vlad in a long time and--"

"So? You had to have me come! And for what? For me to watch you and Vlad make out every ten minutes?"

Nadia, for the first time, grew very angry with her best friend.

"Don't be like that! You know he means the world to me!"

"And I don't mean anything, right?"

Nadia sighed.

"Look, there's going to be a party tomorrow night and me and Vlad thought that you should take a someone. We can double date."

"I don't know anyone, though." Sally said, stiffly,"And the one guy that I thought was cute probably already has a girlfriend."

"One, only Vlad has a girlfriend and two, who did you think was cute?"

"The really tall guy with the brown hair." She pointed across the locker room.

Nadia looked and saw who she was talking about.

"That's Boris Mikhailov." Nadia said, "He's really good friends with Vlad."

"Can you ask him?" Sally asked.

"Sure." Said Nadia.

Nadia walked through the locker room and saw a couple of the guys changing.

"Nadia? Why are you in here?" asked Vladimir Krutov embarrassed, "I know you've seen Vlad's boxers but, that doesn't mean... you know what,nevermind."

Nadia stuck her tongue out playfully at Krutov. She knew that he was teasing her. Nadia asked Boris if he was interested in going with Sally to the party and he said, "Sure, she seems nice enough."

Nadia reported back to Sally excitedly.

"He said yes?" asked Sally.

"Yeah! You'll have fun! Boris is really sweet!" said Nadia.

"I am so excited!" said Sally, "Do you think the Terrible Three will be there?"

"Probably." said Nadia, "They only did this project to meet hot guys! Knowing what they'll be wearing and how some of these guys think, they'll havedates in no time!"

Vlad came over to Nadia and kissed her on the cheek.

"I thought you weren't supposed to do that." Said Nadia, slyly.

"It's only on the cheek," he said, "And besides, Tikhonov said he didn't want me to fool around, and this really isn't doing fooling around."

"Yeah, your right." She said, "So, do you want to get some pizza a little later?"

"Sure, I'll buy." He said, "Do you want to come, Sally?"

Sally looked shocked that he was inviting her along on their date. She saw Nadia smile at her, like she really wanted her there. That's when Sally realized that Nadia was a true friend, willing to stay with her even when she was falling in love. She felt silly for thinking that Nadia would abandon her. Sally still felt like she was intruding, though.

"No, that's okay, I'm going to work on the report." She said.

"Sure?" asked Nadia.

"Yeah, I'm sure." She said.

"Alright…" said Nadia, "Do you want me to bring you back a slice?"

"Okay," Sally said, "that sounds good."

Vlad patted Sally on the shoulder and left the locker room with Nadia by his side.

Sally sat in the locker room and sighed. Boris came over and sat down next to her.

"Hey." He said.

"Hey…" she said sadly.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing." She said.

"Okay, I may not know you," he said, "but anyone can see that something is bothering you."

"It's Nadia." She said.

"What about her?"

"She's falling in love with Vladislav and she's my best friend. I don't want our friendship to be lost because of her love."

"I know how you feel. Vlad and I were best friends, and I mean,we still are, but it's not the same. Love does change things, but not always for the worst. Vlad and I can talk about women now without feeling awkward, thinking we've never had anyone special in our lives. Nadia's a sweet girl, and she won't leave you because of love. I remember when they met. It was at a restaurant and he spilled a soda on her. It was rather funny, actually. But, anyway...he let her borrow one of his shirts and then, it was all up hill from there."

"Have you ever had a girlfriend?"

"Once." He said, "She and I got along great until I found out she was cheating on me with Valery Kharlamov. Well, I'll tell you, I'm not friends with him anymore!"

"That's what happened to me…" said Sally, "He was dating another girl the whole time… I never even knew, until Nadia told me."

"I'm sorry." He said.

"I'm sorry for you too." She said, "Well, since we're kind of going on a date tomorrow, we should probably know a little about each other."

"I agree. My name is Boris Mikhailov, I'm 36 years old, I am the captain of the USSR team and I am 6-foot-3."

"I'm Sally Zhao, I'm 27 years old, I am in my last year of college, and I am 5-foot-7."

"You're 27?"

"Yeah… a little young, I know. If it's too young, I'll understand."

"No, no, it's great."

"How long have you known Vlad?"

"It has to have been 9 years now. We go way back, even though I'm way older than he is."

"Same with me and Nadia."

Sally and Boris talked for a few hours, even when everyone had left the continued to talk. Sally thought that they could develop a good friendship over time and maybe even something more.

Later…

"Oww, hot! Shoot!" said Nadia.

She bit into the smoldering hot cheese on her pizza and it burned her tongue.

"What?" Asked Vlad.

"I burned my tongue!" she said.

"Let me see." He said.

She stuck out her tongue like a first grader at the doctor's office and Vlad looked at it.

"It's really red." He said.

"Too bad I can't put a band-aid on it." She said, with her tongue still sticking out.

"If I wasn't in training right now, I'd know exactly how to make it better." He said, slyly.

"Vladislav Alexandrovich Tretiak!" Nadia said, trying to sound like his mother, "Now that'll be enough of that kind of talk!"

"Yeah, I probably shouldn't say that." He said, "At least… not right now."

He grinned,picking up Nadia's pizza. Hetook a big bite out of it.

"Hey!" she said, grabbing his pizza and eating the crust off of it.

"Hey, that's my favorite part of it!" he said to her.

"Have mine." She said, "You already devoured most of it."

He laughed and ate her pizza. Nadia laughed at how fast he ate it. She turned around to get some napkins and saw everyone looking at them. Well, they were mostly looking at Vlad in shock to see a Soviet talking like that to a woman. Nadia glared at them and continued to eat. As Nadia and Vlad were eating, Halley walked by the pizza place. She looked in the window at them and couldn't believe her eyes. Her first instinct was to tell Chelsea and Tina, but then she thought about it and decided not to. You see, Halley wasn't as evil as the other two were. She was actually happy to see Nadia enjoying herself. Halley looked in again and saw Vlad take a sip out of Nadia's soda.

'That must be Vladislav.' She thought.

She saw Nadia take a straw and shoot the wrapper at him. They both laughed and looked like they were having fun.

'The only difference between their relationship and the one's I've had,' She thought, 'is that they are friends as well.'

Halley thought about this and walked away, back to her room.