**This is a short chapter but i think its fun! tell me what you think!**

Chapter Eighteen

"You're sure I can't convince you to come? There's nothing I can do?" Sid asked for what seemed like the hundredth time.

"I have to get back to work. I told you. And besides, you're going to be busy, you only have a short period of time with your family, you should make the most of it…"

"I know… I just want them to meet you. They really will love you, my sister especially… maybe less with my dad, but he'll come around… he just worries about me."

"I will meet them eventually, just not right now. Soon… maybe, when we have answers to the questions…"

"You mean, when you stop being stubborn and give up and move in with me?" Sid asked, only half teasing. She knew he couldn't move to Ottawa. If they wanted this to work, the onus would be on her to relocate. He knew it wasn't fair but he planned on making it worth her while.

"Sid, come on, I don't want to do this again, especially not here…" She looked out the car window, around at all the people, climbing in and out of cabs and cars, heading towards the airport doors with their luggage in tow. "You need to get going…"

"You'll meet me in Toronto though right? And then you'll come to the home opener for sure?" Sid asked.

"I have to check my schedule but I don't think it will be a problem…" Amber reassured him.

"Okay…" Sid mumbled. "So I guess this is good bye then?"

"Hey! Don't be like that! Call me when you land?" Amber tried to lighten the mood.

"For sure," Sid leaned in to kiss her but paused, looking back out the window for one last sweep of the crowds. It was the first time he had ever kissed a girl in public and he didn't want it getting back to anyone or showing up in the papers in the morning. Convinced that there was no one around, he softly touched his lips to hers. This was going to have to sustain him for quite a while, so he didn't want to rush.

"You need to go…" Amber mumbled into his mouth.

"Okay, okay, I'm going," Sid climbed out of the passenger seat and grabbed his bags out of the back seat, before returning to the passenger door.

"I love you," he offered, looking at her through the open door.

"I love you too and I'll see you soon."

With that reassurance, Sid closed the door to the car and walking into the Montreal airport.

-.-

"I hate coming back to work…" Amber mumbled to her co-worker Mark, as she plopped down in her desk chair. Her and Mark had shared an office since she started with Hockey Canada and they had become fairly close.

"Wow… good to see you too…" Mark joked.

"Sorry, I just know I am going to have a million emails to sort through…"

"Most of them are from me!" He laughed. "What? I had to keep you abreast of the gossip!"

"For a supposedly straight man, you are a gossip whore!" Amber laughed, turning to face her monitor.

"So do anyone good while you were on vacation?" Mark asked, sliding his chair over towards Amber's desk.

"Actually yes, but I am sure to hell not going to tell you!"

"WHAT? Seriously! You have to tell me!" Mark demanded.

"Um, not unless I want the whole world knowing, and I am not quite ready for that!"

"Oh, come on! I can keep a secret!"

"Yeah right!"

"I'll put it in the vault! It's made of steel!"

"You're vault is missing a door… I remember when Stan drunk confessed to you on a road trip that he was cheating on his wife… the whole office knew by four o'clock the next day!"

"That was different… he was doing the girl from the Cafeteria, it was written all over his face… it would have come out eventually…" Mark defended himself. "And unlike with Stan, nobody cares about who you're banging."

"Oh, people will care…" Amber confessed.

"Oh yeah? Sounds juicy… is it someone from international development… you did spend a lot of time with them this year…"

"Shut the hell up! I would never sleep with anyone in this office!" Amber was disgusted by the suggestion.

"Ouch… we're not all bad," Mark said, sitting up in his chair and straightening his tie.

"Um, yeah, you pretty much are…"

"Anyways, when and if it comes out as to who I am sleeping with, you can remember this conversation and laugh… and then lie and tell the whole world that you were the first to know," Amber offered him a peace treaty.

"If? Oh, it will come out, because I will find out!" Mark promised her as he swung his chair across the room. Amber just smiled and decided to turn her attention to her work. It was better to stop now then have Mark go digging to find out more details.

-.-

Her damn phone had been buzzing in her bag for over an hour. She was in a meeting and Mark couldn't concentrate on anything. She had been back in the office for only a week and he already wanted to kill her. He hated that she had the job that he wanted, got to go to the meetings he wanted, get the assignments he wanted. The hockey world was no place for a woman… or at least men's hockey. He would be perfectly content if she left for women's hockey. She was always so damn smug, acting like it didn't mean anything when she got to fly across the world to championship games, meeting the best of the best. He had worked his ass off to get to where he was and she got hired, why? 'Cause she was a woman and the guys would respond to her better.' Fuck that.

*Buzz* Buzz*

"Ahhhh!" He yelled in his office, slamming his fist into his keyboard. As if she couldn't turn it off! He got up from his desk, practically knocking over his chair and walked over to her desk, grabbing her purse and started digging. He pulled out her phone and unlocked the key pad. Eleven new messages.

'I should just delete them all!' He thought to himself. Over the years he had pulled a number of pranks, trying to make her look bad but none seemed to work. 'I bet one of the messages is from someone important, maybe I could just delete that one.' He opened her messages folder and scrolled through. They all seemed to be from the same person… … 'fuckin bitch…that bitch is friends with Sidney Crosby' It was like salt on an open would, not only did she have his job, but she got to be friends with his favourite player.

Mark opened the latest text.

"The suite is booked under your name, cant wait 2 c u there… hopefully naked LOL."

"Apparently more then friends," Mark said out loud, looking up from the phone, immediately searching the hall for someone to tell. He scrolled through the last couple texts, nothing that said 'just friends' there. Apparently other then being a great hockey player, 'Sid the kid' was a horny bastard.

"Hey ready to go for lunch?" a co-worker popped his head in the door to the office.

"Oh yeah! And you're never going to believe this one…" Mark smiled an evil smile, waving Amber's phone in front of his co-workers face.