Chapter 19

Saturday morning, Karen groaned when she heard the alarm go off.

"What the hell is that thing going off on a Saturday? There is to be no alarms going off on Saturday." Karen said as she dug her head deeper into the pillow.

Sidney rolled over and shut off the alarm "sorry baby, I set it last night when you changed. I have practice this morning." He said cuddling back into her.

"Alarm bad, sleep good." Karen said getting a laugh out of Sidney. "Saturday and Sunday are the only two days I get to sleep in. I must break you of your habit of setting that thing when you stay over."

"What happens if I stay over and need to get up for practice? I need an alarm to get me up."

"Then put the alarm in the hallway and then you will have to get your ass out of bed to shut it off."

"Are you ever pleasant in the morning baby?"

"Give me a morning when we can stay in bed until we both feel like getting up, then I promise to be pleasant."

"It will happen soon baby, I promise."

"What are you doing after practice today? Spending time with your dad?"

"Probably. He'll go to practice and watch then we'll go out for lunch afterwards. Want to meet us later for lunch?"

Karen opened her eyes and looked at him "are you insane? Did you stop a puck with your head lately?"

"No" Sidney started laughing. "You guys had a bad first meeting, the next one will be better."

"Well if the next time is in August when I come to see you, that will be soon enough for me."

"What happened last night when I went to get dinner?"

"I told him all about me when he asked, but he still seemed set that I wasn't the one for you like there was nothing I could say to change his mind."

"He told me that he thought you were a wonderful person but he didn't see it ending well if we made us public."

Karen got up and put on her robe "you better get up or you'll be late. Did you want to shower here?"

"Do you mind?"

"No. I'll go make us something to eat."

"Karen, wait?" Sidney got up and stopped her before she left the room, holding her close. "I'm sorry baby. I thought between my mom and dad, he would be more open minded to this. I just want them to see why I love you so much."

"No one is going to see it when they won't be able to get past the age difference. The only people it should matter to is us and we don't care."

Sidney lifted her chin to look at him "I know I don't." He leaned down and kissed her softly. Karen could feel him get turned on the longer they kissed.

"You may want to get a cold shower." Karen said with a smile.

"He just wants you to know how happy he is that we're together."

"Um, he? Please tell me you didn't actually named it."

"Excuse me? He is not an it and I would appreciate it if you wouldn't talk bad about him."

"Well, for what I did for HIM last night, he shouldn't be complaining about what I call him. Go get your shower before you're late." Karen said before kissing him again and leaving him standing naked in the doorway.

Twenty minutes later, Sidney came down and met Karen in the kitchen. "I don't think I have time for breakfast since I still need to go change" he said.

"If you take this with you, you will have time to eat."

"What is it?"

"It's a breakfast burrito so you can take it with you" She said handing it to him.

"What's in it?"

"Um eggs, bacon, green peppers, hash browns, and cheese. It's good, just try it."

Sidney unwrapped the foil and took a bite, liking what he tasted. "That is really good baby. You might have to make this more often for me."

"Anytime. You better go."

"I know." He kissed her and Karen licked her lips tasting the breakfast on them "I'll call you later, ok? I love you."

"I love you too."

He kissed her again and left Karen in the kitchen to clean up. When she was done, she went to the living room and laid down on the couch, watching tv. She thought back to what Sidney said that his dad didn't see the relationship ending well if they went public with it. Karen didn't want to just date him in private, she wanted to go out and do things she loved to do and share them with Sidney. She wondered if maybe this realtionship with Sidney shouldn't happen. A few tears escaped as she closed her eyes and tried to fall back asleep. Ten minutes later, Karen opened her eyes knowing sleep wasn't going to happen. She got up and went upstairs to get dressed, heading to the one place that always made her feel better.

A while later, Sidney was at lunch with his dad and Mario. After they ordered, he tried to call Karen to see if she was ok.

Karen didn't realize how long she skating around until her cell phone started ringing. She took it out of her pocket and answered it.

"Hello."

"Hey baby."

"Hey" Karen said not sounding happy.

"What's wrong? I usually get a better greeting than that."

Karen tried to play it off "Sorry stud, I'm just a little preoccupied."

"That's a little better, but there still seems to be something wrong."

Karen skated over to the bench and sat down taking a deep breath before speaking, "maybe your dad's right."

Sidney looked at his dad with angry eyes before getting up and walking outside to finish his call. "No he's not right and especially not right about us. What happened from this morning? I thought we were fine."

"We are, but after you left all I thought about was what your dad said to me. Maybe this shouldn't happen between us now."

Sidney could tell she was crying and the hurt was pouring out with each word she spoke "baby, please don't do this to us. Let me come over and we can talk about this more. I am not about to let you out of my life this easily."

Karen thought this was going to be easy but Sidney was showing her that he did care about her "I'm not at home. My thoughts were taking over and I had to leave to clear my head."

"Where are you? I will come to you so we can talk."

"Sid, just let me call you when I get home ok. I need some time alone to think about all this."

Sidney sighed and gave in "Ok, but please don't decide anything until we talk, ok?"

"Ok. I'll let you get back to whatever you were doing and see you later."

"Alright baby, I love you."

"I love you too."

They hung up and Sidney stood outside and took a couple breaths before going back inside to finish lunch with his dad and Mario. He thought he was fine, but when he saw his dad staring at him as he walked in, his anger came back.

"Anything wrong Sid?"

"As a matter of fact there is" Sidney said trying to stay as calm to not make a scene. "Called Karen and she was upset like she was crying before saying to me that maybe you were right and this shouldn't happen between us."

Troy could see the hatred in his son's eyes and knew this wasn't going to be easy "Sid, if she's having second thoughts about you two being together, maybe it's for the best right now."

"She's only having second thoughts because you put them there. She might have been scared to be together because of what happened in a past relationship, but we're working on it. Why can't you just let me see if this is right. Let me decide when to end this. I will take the heat from the media or fans, even mom, but I will deal with it. If she is who I want to be with, and right now she is, then I will make that decision."

"I want you to be happy Sid and if she is what makes you happy, then I will back off. But I still can have my reservations about you dating her."

Mario decided to chime in and hopefully calm things down between Sidney and Troy. "Maybe your dad has a point Sid. You don't need all these distractions when you guys are so close to advancing to the finals. I love Karen to death and she's a great friend, if you decide to slow things down and wait until the playoffs are over, things might work out better. Karen will certainly understand this."

"She was crying and hurt from what you said to her last night dad. I wish I knew where she was."

"She's not at home?" Troy asked concerned.

"No. She said she had to get out of the house and clear her mind. I just want her to be ok."

"Karen's fine Sid" Mario said.

"And you know this how?"

"Because I know where she is. Karen goes to Iceoplex to skate around and think about whatever is bothering her. She had a huge fight with Rick and ended up skating around for 7 hours until she felt better. I can almost bet she's there now."

"I'm going to find her. Thanks Mario."

Troy and Mario watched Sidney practically run out of the restaurant. "What's the real reason you don't like Karen?"

"I found her to be wonderful, and she has a great head on her shoulders with her job and about money, but I don't think she can make Sidney happy in the long run."

"I don't think Karen has thought that far ahead and we both know Sid isn't thinking about all that. This could be over once he goes back home for the summer or it could last for another year. This is for them to decide Troy."

"I know it is." They finished their lunch then headed back to Mario's house.

Sidney walked in the building and headed over to the glass overlooking the ice. He saw Karen skating around and shooting at the many pucks every now and then. Sidney could tell she had still been crying after they hung up and went down to the locker room to put on his skates. He came out onto the ice and skated to center ice, waiting for Karen to look up and see him. Sidney watched Karen take a slapshot and when the puck bounced off the crossbar, it shot back to his direction and stopped it with his skate. Karen watched the puck head towards center ice and took her eyes off the puck to see Sidney standing there. When she looked at him, all he could do was skate over to her and hold her until she settled down. Sidney decided to wait to start talking to her after a little bit.

"I'm sorry" Karen said looking up into Sidney's eyes.

"Sssh baby, you have nothing to be sorry about. It'll be ok, we will be ok."

"What if it's not?"

Sidney didn't know how to answer that since he didn't really know if it will really be ok. He wanted to be with Karen, she balanced his life. "Baby, I know my dad said some things to make you second guess us, but I want to know why you're not listening to your heart. You realized that you love me, that feeling doesn't happen often for anyone."

"Did you just tell me that you loved me only because you heard me tell Samantha first?"

Sidney lifted her face so she could look into his eyes. "No. I said it because that's what I feel for you. The first night we made love, after you fell asleep I whispered that I was falling in love with you."

"You did?"

"Yes I did. I knew I was feeling something they way we click and have a great time together. It wasn't until that night that I knew what I felt was love. I would have said it first, but you just beat me to it." Sidney smiled at her and that made Karen smile through her tears.

"Sorry. Um, how did you know I was here?"

"Mario" He saw Karen smile "he said you would come here when you needed time to yourself to think about problems."

"Because of the fight I had with Rick one night. I was here for like..."

"7 hours" they both said at the same time then laughed. "Mario told me that too" Sidney added.

"Do you want to play around with me?"

"You could get frost bit in places you wouldn't want bitten." Sidney said with an evil smirk.

"Not that kind of playing around you sex fiend. I meant...."

Sidney kissed her "I know what you meant baby. How about we just skate around?"

"Sounds good."

Karen leaned up to kiss him and Sidney started to skate backwards with Karen still attached to his lips. He let go of her long enough to skate over to the cd player and played whatever was in there. He smiled when he heard it was a slow song, skating back over to Karen and grabbing her hand to skate around the ice. They skated for a couple hours and then stopped at the net to pick up all the pucks.

"You made some good shots before I came down. Why did you ever stop playing?"

"I blew out my knee in the gold medal game. One of the girls from the Canadian team hit me as I was going to the net. She hit me from behind and my knee went right into the post."

"Ouch."

"Then it went hard into the boards to stop me. There was like less than 2 minutes left in the second period when I hobbled to the locker room. The trainers and doctor all told me that I was done playing but the stubbornness in me told them otherwise."

"You continued playing on it?"

"Yep. It was the Olympics, not to mention the gold medal game. Well I couldn't not play the final game of the Olympics. I told them to tape it, wrap it but I was not coming out. So we iced it down during the intermission then taped it and wrapped it and I went back on the ice."

"Were you able to really play on it?"

"Yes and no. It didn't hurt as much when I was skating around, but stopping and standing around waiting for faceoffs killed me. After it was over and we won, I could barely stand on it. I knew what damage I was doing to my knee but it was worth it to beat Canada for the gold medal." Karen smirked a little too much on her last comment and Sidney just glared at her before laughing himself.

"That was a low blow baby."

"I know but it's the truth." Karen skated over to Sidney, who tried to move away from her, and she wrapped her arms around him "you're not mad are you?"

"Maybe."

"Ok then." Karen went to skate away from him when Sidney grabbed her and brought her back to him. Only he pulled her too hard and they both fell to the ice laughing.

"I like the smile on your face better baby."

"You can always make me smile."

"And I hope I get to continue to make you smile for a long time." Sidney captured her lips and rolled them onto his back so Karen wasn't lying on the ice. They continued to kiss for a few more minutes until Karen pulled away and got up, bringing Sidney with her. "What?"

"There's still something we need to talk about Sid."

"Ok, why don't we head back to your house and talk about it all?"

Karen just smiled and kissed him again. They headed off the ice and put the pucks away, then took off their skates. Sidney held Karen's hand as they walked to their cars. He told her he would meet her at the house and they drove off.