Sidney

Shit, that ice is cold. My knuckles are starting to bruise and it's only been four hours since I punched Rossi. I've been icing it, like both Chris and the doctor told me to do, and I've been sitting alone at home like Anna told me to do. She was right that the news hit social media quickly. There's no way to trace who posted it first but it's all over now. Pat says that his phone has been blowing up and reporters have even called my parents. It must be making everyone crazy because my phone won't stop vibrating and it's making me nuts.

What's worse is that I haven't heard from Anna. I sent her a couple of texts to let her know that my hand was ok and again when I got home but she didn't respond. I was going to call her but my saner side prevailed. If she's not texting me back then she's really pissed or really busy, or maybe both, and I don't want to aggravate her further. I know it was insanely stupid to talk to Rossi and punching him made it exponentially worse. I saw red when I heard about the article he was going to write. From that point on, it was like I couldn't control myself never mind think clearly.

For the last weeks, I've been incredibly worried about Anna, that this job is too much for her, and hearing about Rossi's article just confirmed everything I've been thinking. With her past, our past, and her family, there's too much fodder for people like Rossi to write stories about her and perpetuate the sleaze. She should probably step back and let Adam take over for her. She can advise him but stay out of public about it. I'll probably need to wait for this Rossi shit to blow over before I suggest it to her.

My stomach rumbles telling me that it's past dinner and my watch confirms it. The last thing I want Anna to have to do is make dinner when she gets home so I call delivery since I can't go out. I don't know when Anna will be home but we can reheat dinner whenever she arrives.

My phone rings but it's Duper, not Anna.

"Hi Dupe."

"What the fuck did you do kid?"

"I know, it was stupid" I admit.

"Beyond stupid Sid. What were you thinking?"

"Clearly I wasn't. Do you know what his next article is about?" I ask.

"I know Sid but you can't go around punching everyone who pisses you off or goes after your girlfriend" he tells me.

"It was going to rip her apart, Duper. I had to do something."

"It's her job to handle the press, not yours, and you've made her job infinitely more difficult Sid."

"Yeah" is all I can say.

"She's been trying to put a pin in this all day" he tells me.

"What are they going to do? Do you know?"

"All I've heard is that they've made a deal and Rossi won't speak about what happened or write an article. She's good, man. She put the pin back in the explosive."

"What kind of deal?" I ask because this doesn't sound good.

"I don't know but it has to be good and something Rossi really wants, to knock him off of his story."

Shit.

"What do I do now?" I ask.

"Whatever it is, there's going to be a lot of begging involved kid."

"Yeah, but seriously Duper, what am I going to do?"

"Listen to her, apologize, and do whatever she says."

"Any other advice?" I ask.

"Beg, beg, and then beg some more."

I chuckle.

"Ok, thanks Dupe."

We say goodbye and disconnect at the same time as I hear the garage door open. Let the begging begin.

I pour us each a glass of wine and wait for Anna in the kitchen. Her heels click, slowly, as she walks down the hall and toward the kitchen. She drops her purse and bag on a kitchen chair and lifts the glass of wine. I watch as she drinks it down and places the empty glass on the counter. She looks exhausted and even paler than at the beginning of the day. It has clearly been a very long and hard day. and I feel guilty knowing that I caused this recent headache.

"More?" I ask and point at the glass.

"Yes" is all she says.

After I refill her glass, she picks it up and takes a sip this time. We stand on either side of the counter staring at each other. I want to talk, ask how she is, but I can't think of anything that won't simply piss her off. Duper said that I'll need to beg so it's probably not a good a good idea to start by pissing her off. I watch as she walks to the kitchen table and sits. I follow silently and sit across from her.

"How is your hand?" she asks.

"It's sore but there's no damage" I reply.

At least she's talking to me now.

"Good" she replies.

"Is there anything I can do?" I ask her.

I don't need to say more because she knows that I'm asking about the Rossi thing.

"There is nothing for you to do now Sidney. I've handled the organizational backlash."

It's the word 'organizational' that catches my attention. I know Anna and she is only talking professionally by that one word.

"Ok" I reply.

She stands with her wine and leaves the kitchen. I pick up my wine and follow her down the hall. At the bottom of the stairs, Anna stops and turns back to me.

"Sidney, I'm going to soak in the tub for a while."

"Need someone to wash your back?" I ask and smile trying to change her mood.

"Seriously?" she asks with a lot of incredulity in her voice, then her eyes narrow and her brow furrows. "No."

With that one, hard word, she turns and walks back up the stairs with her wine. As I try to decide what to do, the gate rings and our dinner arrives so the decision is made for me.

I take care of paying for dinner and then leave it in the kitchen. I desperately want to go upstairs and talk to Anna but her 'no' made it clear that she really doesn't want me to follow her. In the past, I've had arguments with girlfriends, some of them were even deep and lasted days, but they never felt like this. There is a fear niggling in the back of my head that threatens to turn into panic. I do the only thing that I can and grab my phone.

"Hey kid" Duper answers on the second ring. "Long time no talk."

"I need help" I tell him. "Anna came home, drank a glass of wine and then went upstairs to soak in the bathtub. She clearly told me that she wants me to be alone. Now I'm sitting here not knowing what to do. What do I do Dupe?"

"You can't force her to talk to you Sid. Carole-Lyn can go a whole day without talking to me if she's good and truly pissed. Thankfully it doesn't happen often but it has happened. You need to give her space kid."

This is not the advice that I wanted. He's been married for fifteen years; doesn't he have any better advice?

"You're not helpful" I tell him.

"Yes I am. I've told you how to put down the shovel. Remember, the first rule when you are digging yourself into a hole?"

"Yeah, put down the shovel."

"So put down the shovel Sid."

"Ok, fine, I will."

"Good. See you tomorrow."

"Yeah, thanks Dupe."

I know that I should listen to him but I really want to talk this out. I'm convinced that if Anna understands my point of view, and knows that I just want to help her, then she'd be ok with what I did. Maybe she wouldn't be exactly ok but she might understand at least and be less pissed off. I also bought dinner. She must be hungry.

I go upstairs and stand outside the bedroom door. I can hear the shower running so Anna must have decided on a shower instead. She'll probably be finished in fifteen minutes, and hopefully she'll come back downstairs, so I return to the kitchen to heat up dinner.

It takes the full fifteen minutes to get dinner ready and set the table. Expecting Anna will want more, I open another bottle of wine and put it on the table too. I hear her coming down the stairs so I uncover the dishes with the food and wait.

Anna walks into the kitchen, looks over the table and goes directly to the wine to fill up her now empty glass. She takes a long drink, refills and then looks at me for the first time.

"Thank you" she says.

Her voice is neutral, like she's completely devoid of emotion, and leaves me confused. Are we going to talk? Does she want to talk? What the fuck am I supposed to do?

I'm given a clue when Anna sits down at her place at the table and waits for me to do the same. I quickly follow and hand her the bowl with the salad. We fill our plates and begin to eat in silence. It seems that Duper's advice was right and I need to let her take the lead. At least we're at the same table and eating dinner together.

"To answer your earlier question" she begins. "We made a deal with Rossi. I'm going to give him an interview so that he can write an article and he won't write about or sue for the 'altercation'."

"Sue? He was going to sue?"

"Yes Sidney, he was going to sue you and the Penguins and then write an article, maybe even a book, about it all. Now he's not."

"You need to be interviewed by that asshole? No, absolutely not!" I tell her. "There is no way that you are going to spend any time with that ass. He's not going to get anywhere near you, ever again. I'll call the Trib's owner, or have Mario do it, and put a stop to this immediately."

I take a deep drink of my wine and look at Anna. She's put her fork down, her elbows are on the table and her fingers clasped. She's sitting straight up, her eyes are dark and her expression pissed.

"Are you done?" she asks.

This tone is worse than her previous neutral one. I can hear the barely restrained rage as clearly as if I could see it sitting across from me.

"Yes" I say softly and then wait.

"There are a couple of things that we need to be clear about Sidney" she says. "The first is that I wouldn't be in a position to be interviewed by that troll if you had stayed out of the situation and let me handle it. It's only because of you that I had to make that deal."

I start to speak but she holds up her hand. Wisely I stay quiet.

"Second" she continues. "I don't work for you and I don't take orders from you Sidney. I am the head of PR for the Pittsburgh Penguins and I've spent most of my day fixing a situation that you put us in. And don't even think of trying to say that Rossi started it. My team was creating a plan to solve the issue when it was small and manageable. We were handling it."

She takes another drink from her wine and I stay silent, waiting.

"Look, Sid, it's been a very long day and I'm physically and mentally exhausted. I really can't talk this through any more today. Quite simply, I'm talked out. I'm also still pissed and don't think that continuing our conversation will be constructive tonight."

She doesn't want to talk? I'm a mess over here and she doesn't want to talk? Duper said to leave it alone and give her space but that doesn't feel right.

"Anna, I don't like the idea of going to bed mad."

She rubs the bridge of her nose and sighs.

"I don't either Sid but, honestly, I can't talk about this right now. It's probably better to go to bed mad then potentially say something that we don't mean."

She has a good point. We really don't want to say something that we can't take back.

"Ok" I agree. "In the morning?"

"Fine" she replies and gives me a small smile.

We both clean up the dishes from dinner and go upstairs, together. It looks like I won't be riding the sofa tonight.

We each go through our regular bedtime routine. It feels familiar and yet I can feel the unfamiliar tension between us. Even when we kiss tonight, it feels forced because she gives me her cheek instead of her lips.

Thankfully, I'm used to falling asleep even when extremely stressed, so I do.

Anna

I wake up at 3am and can't go back to sleep. My mind won't stop whirling and playing the day over and over in my mind. This is much more difficult than I thought it would be. I thought that it would be simple to slip back into Sidney's life and the job with the Pens fulfills my need to be useful and do the work that I love. Instead, I've been crazy busy, although I do love it, and Sid has been completely crazy. I've noticed a few times that he's been concerned and has offered to help me; but, I never anticipated that he would go so far as to punch out a reporter.

My mind won't quiet so I slip out of bed and go downstairs to the kitchen. Maybe some tea will help me sleep. The act of filling the kettle and picking out an herbal tea is soothing. While I wait for the water to boil, I sit at the breakfast bar and let my mind go. Surprisingly, it takes me to my relationship with Matt. We slipped into our relationship so easily, so simply, that I thought it would be the same with Sid. Why isn't this easier? We love each other, we want a life together and we are really together now. Why aren't we able to make this easier?

"Couldn't sleep?"

I startle when I hear Sid as he walks into the room. He's in shorts and no shirt. He must have come directly from bed when he saw that I wasn't beside him in bed.

"Yeah, thought I'd try some tea" I tell him.

As my kettle boils, Sid picks it up and fills up my cup. I swirl my teabag and watch Sid get a bottle of water out of the fridge then sit at the breakfast bar beside me.

"You couldn't sleep?" I ask Sid.

"No and then I noticed that you weren't in bed with me so I came down here."

I sip my tea while Sid takes a drink of his water. I hate this awkward silence and the tension between us. Slowly I feel the intense anger slip away and the only thing that I have left is weariness.

"Sid, you've been concerned and stressed out about me working ever since I started. Why?"

Sid takes a deep breath before he answers me.

"I want to see you succeed" he tells me. "You've jumped from being on the campaign directly into the meat of the season. It's a lot, I've seen it for twelve years and I know how much work it can be. Essentially you went from being a candidate's fiancé to leading PR for the Penguins."

I feel the anger begin to rise again.

"Sid, are you listening to yourself? I was much, much more than 'the candidate's fiancé'. I created the media strategy for the campaign, a winning campaign by the way. I'm not going to lie and say that this job is easy but I love it and I'm really good at it too. What makes you think that I can't handle it?"

I turn my chair so that I can look at him. Sid purses his lips for a moment and I know that he's thinking. That's when my question to Sid really hits me hard. The underlying problem is that Sid doesn't think that I can handle this job and doesn't trust me to do it well.

"I don't know" is all he says.

While he isn't saying why, he is answering part of my question; he's admitting that he doesn't think I can do the job.

"If you don't know then we aren't going to solve this Sidney. I need to be able to do my job without my boyfriend jumping in to rescue me. What happened today wasn't professional; it makes my job more difficult and reflects poorly on all of us including you and the Pens. Next time I may not be able to put a pin in it and negotiate our way out."

"I know" is all he replies.

I feel myself getting frustrated.

"At dinner, all you wanted to do is talk and now you say essentially nothing" I tell him.

"We disagree. What more is there to say?"

"We disagree?" I ask. "What do we disagree about?"

He looks directly at me and I know that I'm right and he thinks that I'm not able to do the job. He believes that I'm in over my head, drowning, and need his help. I don't get it. What could I possibly have done to make him thing this way?

"Anna, you are incredibly talented" he tells me.

"But" I continue for him.

"But, you are young, inexperienced and this is a hugely important job. You were an intern last time you were here."

"That was two years ago Sid. You do realize that I have more experience with the media than you do."

"I started being interviewed when I was six years old" he tells me in a condescending tone.

"I did it from birth. My father was already in politics when I was born and, even though it was city politics, there were always reporters around" the frustration I'm feeling burst through. "Why do I have to convince you of my abilities? You've always been supportive of me and my work. What's changed?"

"Nothing's changed Anna. That's the whole point! Jen has been doing PR for fifteen years and with the Pens for eight. It takes time and experience."

"Sidney, I'm not the girl I was two years ago!"

And that's the point. Sid still sees me as that girl I used to be who was a good intern but still learning how to be a PR professional. He still sees me as the meek, young, sexually inexperienced girl who relied on his experience and direction. Oh my God! Does he even know who I am now? If not, how can he possibly love me for who I am now?

Sid slides off of his chair and turns me so that I'm facing him. His hands come up and cup each of my cheeks so that I'm looking directly into his eyes.

"I know you've changed Anna" he says softly and lightly kisses me.

His lips rub against mine lightly, again and again, and I can feel his fingers tighten gently. His tongue slides out and runs along the seam of my lips to gain entrance to my mouth. I have never been able to resist Sidney and I can't now. My lips open for him to gain entrance and the kiss deepens immediately. As our lips become more insistent, Sid pushes my legs open with his body so that our centres can meet. I can feel how hard he is through his thin shorts and my panties. I'm lost.

His lips travel across my cheek and jaw until he settles on my neck beneath my ear. He nips the soft skin he finds and licks to sooth causing a shiver to flow through my body.

"I know who you are" he whispers. "I love you."

That catches my attention, not the 'I love you', but rather the statement 'I know who you are.' He thinks he does but he's demonstrated that he really doesn't. Again I wonder if he doesn't know who I am now then how can he love me now? That question throws a bucket of cold water over my libido.

"Sid, please stop" I tell him and push my hands against his bare chest.

He moves back just enough so that we can look into each other's eyes. His are confused. I suspect that mine are sad because that's how I feel. A deep sadness and pathos fills my soul as one thought fills my head: this will never work.

Sidney

When I wake up, there is morning light peeking through slates of the California shutters. Anna is gone, having left much earlier for Consol, but it's still before my alarm. I run my hand over the cool pillow where Anna's head rested hours before. We settled nothing last night. It took me a few hours before I could fall asleep after we had our 3am talk. I'm even more confused now than I was before we spoke.

I supported Anna's ambitions when she was an intern. Of course she was better than every other intern that year and Jen utilized her advanced skills to help Geno. That year was a turning point for Go. He got married and then had a son at the end of the season. What an ending that season was too: we won the Cup. Of course it was bittersweet for me, having lost the only person that I really wanted to share it with. Why can't Anna see that I love her and only want the best for her?

I'm brought out of my musings when my phone vibrates. I can only sigh when I see that it's Tanger telling me to open the gates. Fuck. It's barely morning. What the fuck is he doing here?

Quickly, I pull on shorts and a tee shirt then buzz the Frenchman through the gates. As I'm opening the front door, Tanger walks up the walkway with Duper and Flower in tow. Great, the entire French mafia is here. I guess I might as well get this over with before I have to call my parents. A quick text to say that I'm ok was good enough for yesterday but they'll want to talk to me today.

"We brought coffee" Tanger says as he passes me to walk into the house.

Flower and then Duper follow him and Duper hands me a cup of coffee as he passes. I follow the guys into the kitchen and we all sit at the kitchen table. They've clearly come with a purpose so I wait them out. Fortunately, it doesn't take long.

"I know that we talked last night but I need to hear it again to really believe it. What the fuck did you think you were doing kid?" Duper asks me.

I really don't have the energy for these guys this morning.

"Specifically?" I reply.

"Don't be an ass" Tanger says. "You know exactly what he means."

"Fine" I reply. "What would you, any of you, do if you heard that your girl was about to get crucified in the press by Rossi?"

"If my girl was the head of PR for the Pens and had already heard about the article that would eviscerate her the press? I'm hopeful that my brain would win out over my dick" Duper replies.

"Yeah right" I say.

"I said 'hopeful' but you always think before you act Sid. What the fuck?" he asks.

I sigh.

"She's struggling guys" I tell them. "Anna has never done anything this big with this much pressure before. She needs help even though she won't take it."

"She's not struggling" Flower says. "She's really doing great Sid. If you watch her, you can see why Jen chose her for the job and that she's clearly talented. If Jen decided not to come back after she had the baby then Anna could easily fill the role."

Is he crazy? I look around at all of them and they're nodding. Are they all crazy?

"You don't get it" I tell them. "You don't know her guys. She has always put on a façade so that no one can see how scared and unsure she is underneath the mask. Everyone would think that she's completely on top of everything and knows exactly what she's doing at every moment. She acts the part."

"She doesn't need to act Sid" Tanger says. "She's a bad ass."

Is he out of his mind? When I think about it though, it does make sense that they would think that she's great at the role. Most of her life has been spent 'acting' as if she's strong and able even though she's not underneath. They don't know the real Anna like I do. She is smart and capable, she could definitely do this job in the next five years or so, but she needs help right now to be successful. I wouldn't be a good guy if I didn't help her when she needs it most.

"She is" Flower agrees. "There's a lot of work to do, which isn't different from when Jen did it, but she's all over it and doing really well. Look at how she fixed the Rossi thing."

"The Rossi thing that you created kid" Duper says.

"I was fixing the situation" I tell him. "It would have been a nightmare if he'd written that article. Sure, I could have handled it better and I definitely shouldn't have hit him but it's better than the alternative."

"So those were the only choices?" Flower asks. "Rossi writes the article or you hit the guy?"

"No, that's not what I meant."

"Then what do you mean?" Tanger asks.

"I mean that it would have been disastrous if Rossi had written that article."

"But there were other options" Tanger tells me.

"What? What other options could there possibly be?"

"I don't know because I'm not the head of PR" Tanger raises his voice. "She is. She's the expert. Anna knows what she's doing. You should have gone to her."

"How can you possibly know that?" I yell.

"All you have to do is watch her Sid" Tanger yells back. "Watch her in the locker room during the media scrums. She sees everything that's going on around her yet she doesn't interfere with her team. If she needs to speak with one of them then she does it quietly and where no one can hear what she's saying. She's a great leader Sid. The interns have a lot of respect for her and in a very short time too. I've heard Adam say how she's giving him his own projects and more of a leadership role with the other interns. He loves the added responsibility."

I'm not surprised that they think this and see Anna this way. They don't know her and they don't get to see who she really is behind the mask. I know her. I see her when she's scared and unsure of what she should do and what if that happened at a crucial moment when I can't be there for her?

"I've been around longer than all of you and I've seen a lot of interns and PR teams" Duper begins. "She's one of the best I've seen Sid."

There's no need arguing with them anymore. They don't really know her so it's going to be impossible for them to understand what I'm doing and why.

"Guys, I know Anna and I know what I'm doing" I tell them. "I agree that I went off the deep end with the Rossi thing but I know when she needs help and I'm not going to stop supporting her. I love her."

"Supporting is different than interfering kid" Duper tells me. "You can love and support without interfering with her job. It is a job and she is a professional so you have to let her do it. This isn't personal."

"We're going to have to agree to disagree, guys" I tell them.

Tanger shakes his head.

"You're going to lose her" he tells me. "If you don't trust her and truly support her then you are definitely going to lose her."

"We'll see" I tell them.

I can see that they are frustrated and I am too. The conversation is going nowhere.

"We need to get going or we're going to be late for practice" I say.

They reluctantly agree and we leave.

As I drive alone to the rink, I think back over the conversation with the guys. They haven't often given me personal advice but, when they have, it's usually been spot on right. Why are they so wrong this time?

Anna

It's taken a lot to push all of my personal feelings aside and focus on my job today. I have to draw on all of my life experiences of presenting a professional façade to the world to make it believable. At least I have a few moments to myself right now so I shut my office door and sit on one of the comfy chairs. I'm tired physically, having not slept well or long last night, and emotionally I'm empty. Talking with Sid solved nothing last night and actually made things worse in my mind, in my heart, since we didn't make any progress.

Although, I guess you could call it progress since I understand Sid's motivation now. He thinks that I'm completely incapable of handling this job on my own and especially without his help. How can someone I love so deeply not know me at all? I need some time to think this through. No sooner does the thought go through my head then there is a knock on the door. I sigh knowing that I won't get a moment to myself now.

"Come in" I say.

Adam enters and asks "is this still a good time to meet?"

"Of course" I smile and gesture for him to join me in the sitting area.

He sits and frowns at me.

"Is something wrong?" I ask him.

"Yeah" he says and frowns deeper. "This is difficult, this you and me thing, so I don't know what to do."

Confused, I ask "what 'you and me thing' Adam?"

"You're my boss, and not technically or anything, you are actually my boss. The problem is that you're also a friend and you could clearly use one right now. How do we navigate this to be professional and keep our friendship?"

Oh. Maybe he's right. Maybe I really could use a friend right now.

"How about this?" I begin. "Let's put away the work for a few minutes and just talk."

Adam visibly relaxes.

"I like that" he agrees. "So, what the hell is going on?"

I sigh then put my face in my hands and take a couple of deep breaths.

"Ok" I tell him as I sit up. "Over the past few weeks that I've been back, not a day goes by that Sid doesn't ask how I am and if I need help."

"So, he cares about you and is worried."

"That's what I thought at first Adam; but, there's actually a deeper and more disturbing reason for his concern. He doesn't think that I can do this job and he believes that I'm over my head and not ready. He still sees me as that intern and girl that I was two years ago. How can he love me and not really know or understand me?"

"Oh Anna, I'm so sorry. Are you sure that you understood him right?"

"Definitely. He said that I don't have the experience to do the job. There is no interpretation or perception involved. Sid actually said it."

"Oh" is all he says for a few moments. Eventually he continues "well that's just shit. You are doing this job better than I could ever have done it. Jen makes it look really easy so I guess I thought I could do it too; but, seeing you here and filling in for Jen makes me see how difficult it really is. You are doing a phenomenal job and I could never have done it. You are simply incredible."

"So how come Sid doesn't see it?"

"I don't know. Maybe he's trying to adjust to this new relationship and it is new Anna. You said it yourself, how different you are, so it makes sense that the relationship is different too."

"Maybe" I relent. "If it was only that he was worried or that he was driving me crazy by asking me how I am every two minutes then I would agree; but it's become so extreme that he punched out a reporter."

"Could it be, without the reporter punching, that he's simply worried?"

"No, it isn't simple" I concede.

"If he doesn't understand what you are truly capable of, and doesn't really know you, then how can he love you, right?"

I can't speak. To have my deepest fear verbalize by Adam has paralyzed me.

"Anna" he says and covers my hand with his own. "What can I do to help?"

I smile and finally say "this helps."

Adam smiles back and we sit in companionable silence for a few moments.

Finally, I take a deep breath and say "let's focus on work, ok?"

"Sure" he agrees and opens his laptop. "Let's talk Winter Classic in New York."

Adam runs through the overview of timelines that have been reviewed by the Rangers and approved by the league. There is nothing unexpected until I see a review meeting that I'm invited to a week from now.

"Why do I need to be there?" I ask.

"The Rangers specifically asked that you participate. They've scheduled it when they are playing at Consol so I didn't see a way out of it."

"Ok, good call, but I'm only a participant. This is your project and your meeting. I'm there to listen and that's it."

"Ok" he says and smiles.

He goes into a little more depth on the preparation timelines and he has everything figured out. I only interrupt when I hear a name that definitely catches my attention.

"Go back" I say. "Who is leading the project for the Rangers?"

"Oh yeah, it's Meagan. Do you remember her? She was an intern here for the first few weeks when we started and then she moved home to New York and an internship with the Rangers."

"Yeah, you could say that I remember her."

Adam raises an eyebrow and waits for me to continue. There is no reason for me to feel weird or odd about seeing Meagan but I do and feel a shiver of trepidation.

"What's wrong?" Adam asks.

I shouldn't tell him. I know that I'm supposed to keep what happened with Meagan confidential but Adam is my friend and I need to talk to someone. Briefly, a thought flies through my head that the person I should be able to speak with is Sidney.

"Ok, I guess it's time that I gave you the whole story" I say and then proceed to tell him everything.

I talk about Meaghan's taunts and bullying in the beginning and then threatening me and Sidney later. I even tell him about her accusations against Mario. Adam sits throughout my recounting silently and waits for me to finish. It's only when I'm done that he speaks.

"Wow" is all he says.

"Yeah."

"So, if I understand the current situation correctly, you broke up with your fiancé then moved in with Sid. Rossi was going to write about it all, Sid found out and punched him so now you need to give a one on one interview with that ass. You doubt your relationship with Sid, that he even knows who you are and can he really love the real you. Finally, we need to work with the biggest bitch in the world who made your life hell once upon a time. Does that cover it all?"

I chuckle and reply "yeah, that about covers it all."

"Ok, that's quite a list of issues" he agrees. "First, we can't do anything about Meaghan. She's a bitch and we'll need to work with her. There's nothing we can do about it so let's take that off of the list."

I have to chuckle again at his matter-of-fact recounting of my life.

"Ok, we'll take the bitch off of the list" I agree.

"We can't do anything about Rossi at this point either. Sid hit him and you had to make a deal. All we can do is plan which day it is, the least stressful but most busy, so he has less alone time with you. Hey, you didn't agree to how long it will be or if he gets a specific amount of time with you?"

"No."

"See" he says and gestures to me. "You made a great deal with that ass. I didn't even think about it until right now. Brilliant. Anyway, that can't be changed either so let's take that off of the list too, ok?"

"Ok."

"So that leaves us with Sid. I love you like a sister, and I ask this with love: did you really think that after two years of not seeing Sid, after the way you broke up, after you ended your engagement to Matt and went directly from his bed to Sid's, did you really think that everything would be fine?"

Put that way, in all of that detail, it seems extraordinarily idealistic. How could I really think that everything would be fine after all this time and everything that's happen to me?

"I didn't think it would be easy, I knew that we'd have to rebuild our relationship, but we had a couple of great talks about what happened both before my internship and when we broke up, I thought that we were well on our way."

Adam frowns.

"You're telling me" he begins. "After only two conversations, you thought that you and Sid had healed your relationship and were on your way to nirvana?"

"As I said, put that way, it does sound idealistic" I admit.

"Idealistic? Anna, it sounds bat shit crazy."

He looks so, well, the only word that I can think of is befuddled. Adam looks befuddled.

"Ok, we've analyzed the shit out of this" I tell him. "What do I do now?" He purses his lips but remains silent. "Tell me what you're thinking Adam. Don't hold back now."

"When you and Sid had these two epic conversations, did you ask him what he did during the two years that you were apart?"

I thought that I couldn't be surprised anymore, not after Sid slugged Rossi, but Adam has managed it.

"No" I reply. "I didn't, why?"

"I think you need to ask Sid but I can tell you what I observed of Sid after you left and over the two years. Anytime the team did anything social, Sid was alone or with the few single guys on the team. He didn't date Anna but it was more than that. He seemed sad. Even with the happiness of winning the Cup and all of the success we had, there was always sadness just below the surface. He was even more reserved than usual and rarely smiled. Of course he became even better on the ice since all he did was work out, practice and watch game film. Unless he was on the ice, he became essentially a shadow of who he before you left."

I never thought about what Sid did while we were apart or how he handled our break up. He's the one who was angry and didn't want to be together anymore so I always thought that he was fine. How can I be mad at Sid for not knowing me when I clearly don't know him either?

"Anna? Earth to Anna" Adam says.

"Sorry. You're right Adam. Not only didn't I ask him about that time we were apart but I never even thought about it during that time." I consider his words. "I did go directly from one man to another. Oh my God, how could I be so stupid? We moved in together so that we could actually be together, since we work so many hours, but we skipped so many steps. The most important of these steps was getting to know each other again rather than assuming we could pick up where we left off, before the break up."

"Um, yeah" he agrees sarcastically.

"Nice" I tease him. "I keep saying that Sid doesn't know me so how can he really love me, the 'me' that I am right now? So how can I say that I am in love with him when I don't even know the real Sid, who he is right now?"

"I'm not sure that I like the way you're going with this" Adam says.

I don't either but it's clear to me what I need to do.

"Adam, have we finished with our meeting?"

"Um, yeah, I think you're caught up on the project."

I smile and say "good. Thank you so much for helping me work out this thing with Sid. I know what I need to do next."

"And that is?" he asks.

"Do you like the Hilton or Regency down the street?"

"The hotels?"

"Yeah."

Author's Note:

Hi all, I hope that you are still enjoying the story and not hating me or sticking pins in some voodoo doll you've made to represent me. Good news: my wrist is doing better so I should get back to one chapter a week ... if you're still with me :-)

For the couple of you who messaged me about Meagan, good catch in the last chapter that the Winter Classic was going to be with the Rangers! Yes, she's back