The Girl Next Door Chapter 20

That Monday, Maxime Talbot was brought back up to Pittsburgh by Therrien, so Sidney and Kate went out to the airport to pick him up after the Penguins practiced on Monday. Both were very excited, and so was Max. Sidney had been down a little bit since he found out he would not be playing for the Canadian Olympic Team, so Max coming really helped to cheer him up. They hung out the rest of the day, since Kate didn’t have school, and then took Max to his hotel downtown, which was right across from Mellon Arena. Max told them that there was talk that Colby was being sent up to Pittsburgh after the Christmas break, and all of them hoped it was true. Sidney and Kate had kept in touch with Colby, hoping that he would come back up. Max, Colby, Sidney, and Kate had hung out a lot during rookie orientation and training camp, and they had had a lot of fun. Kate said bye to Max, and said she’d see him later in the week. All of them (well, Sidney and Max), had to finish up their Christmas shopping, and Kate promised to help them. Kate’s family was coming in Thursday night, and any time that Kate could spend away from them would be great.
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Sure enough, on Thursday, Kate’s family came in, but Kate wasn’t around for their arrival. She was out shopping, helping Sid and Max finish their shopping. They were helpless; Kate had to help them out a ton. Apparently, Sidney had already bought her present a long time ago, and Kate had done the same with his present. They would exchange them after the game on Friday night, because Sidney was leaving early on Christmas Eve to fly back to Nova Scotia for two days. When Kate got home (she stayed out as long as she could, in order to avoid her relatives), she talked to her relatives, and went up to bed, and made sure her door was locked, so her cousins couldn’t come in to wake her up at 6am.
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That day, Kate got up, and started making cookies for a Christmas Eve party she was going to at Erik Christensen’s apartment. Erik was inviting all of the guys over that weren’t going home for Christmas, and even though Sidney was going home to Cole Harbour, Erik invited Kate and Neal over. She told her cousins to stay away from the sugar cookies that she had to ice and decorate, and they threw a fit, but Tom came in and told them that Kate was going to a party, and that they couldn’t have any. Mary and Andrew stomped out of the room, and Kate and Tom couldn’t help but laugh.
Kate finished up the cookies, and made sure she had everything she needed to make chocolate chip cookies the next morning. She then spent time with her cousins, so they would, as Kate put it, “shut up”, and then got ready for the hockey game. Kate and Neal were going, but no one else was, so they gave their extra tickets to the people that sat next to them, since they needed them. They were constantly trading tickets that they didn’t need, and it worked out well. Her aunt and uncle, as she found out from her mom later in the day, thought that Kate and Neal should be taking Mary and Andrew to the game, since they’re cousins and all. They had thought about that before they came, but decided against it, because there was no way she was taking them down to the locker room after the game, and her aunt and uncle did not know about Kate dating Sidney either. For all they knew, Kate was still single, and Kate let them keep thinking that.