The Girl Next Door Chapter 37

The next day, all Kate could think about while she was in school was the hockey game that night. She was on the edge all day, and could not pay attention in class. Finally, the school day ended, and Kate and Rachel went home. When they got home, they saw Nikki.
“Katie!” Nikki said excitedly as Kate walked into the kitchen. Nikki walked up to her and gave her a big hug.
“Hey, Nikki,” Kate said, returning the hug.
After the hug, Kate said, “Nikki, this is my friend Rachel. Rachel, this is Bobby’s wife, Nikki.”
“You’re the one that lives in Texas, right?” Nikki asked as she shook Rachel’s hand.
“That’s me!” Rachel replied.
“That’s so great you flew up for this! Don’t you have school?” Nikki asked.
“No, spring break, and I would have missed anyways, for this,” Rachel explained.
Nikki laughed, and said how she was excited. Everyone agreed.
“Well,” Kate began, “I’m scared shitless. I’m nervous, I couldn’t concentrate in school; I am scared shitless.”
“Watch your mouth Katie,” Sarah said. “You’re not on the ice…yet.”
“You’ll be fine, Katie,” Bobby assured her.
“Ya,” Allison agreed. “You’ll be great, Katie. Once you get out there on the ice, it’ll just be a regular game.”
Everyone assured Kate that she would be great, and Kate began to believe it too.
While she was sitting at the table, she got a call on her cell.
“Hey,” Sidney said.
“Hey, how’s Montreal?” she asked him, standing up and going to another room.
“Crazy, we got to our hotel late last night, and this morning I could barely even walk across the street with Colby after practice to go to Tim Hortons.”
“Wow,” she said. “That bad already?”
“We haven’t seen the worst of it yet,” he told her. “And while I was in Tim Hortons, I signed a cut-out poster of myself.”
Kate laughed.
“Wow, that’s a photo-op, way to go phenom,” she laughed.
“Thanks,” he joked. “You know how I love those,” he added sarcastically.
They paused for a second, and then Sidney wished her luck. They talked for a couple more minutes about both of their games this weekend, and then said good-bye.
“Who was that?” Sarah asked when Kate walked back into the room.
“You know who,” Kate stated.
“Ahh,” Allison said, nodding her head.
“Wait, what’s going on?” Bobby asked.
“That was Kate’s boyfriend on the phone,” Neal said.
“Katie?” Bobby asked, eyes wide in shock. “You’ve got a boyfriend, and you didn’t tell me, your favorite cousin?”
Kate laughed and said, “Fine, I’ll tell you now.”
“Who is it?” he asked.
“Sidney Crosby,” she told him with a serious look on her face.
“Uh-huh, sure,” he said. “I know you’re just friends with him. Really, who is it?”
“Sidney Crosby,” she told him again, more firmly.
Bobby’s and Nikki’s jaws dropped.
“Are you serious?” Nikki asked.
“Dead serious,” she told her.
“But he’s single,” she said. “That’s what he keeps saying.”
“He hasn’t been single since the day he got here,” Neal laughed. “It just took them until mid-October to actually start dating. Before that, they were ‘just friends.’”
They talked about it for awhile, and Kate made them swear not to tell anybody, and they agreed to keep it a secret from everybody.
*****
So, that night, at 7:30, the puck dropped for the second state semifinal game of the day. A team from Philadelphia had won the first game that day, and whoever won this game would play them at 2:30pm the next day. Kate’s team came out strong, scoring in the first three minutes, and they kept their lead, winning the game 6-3. Kate had her second hat trick of the season, and could not have been happier. She told her team to get home and to get to bed, because they had to play in the afternoon tomorrow. After she got cleaned up, and packed up her things, she went out to her family and Rachel, and they congratulated her. She then called Sidney, and she gave him a play-by-play of the game. They talked for the ride home, and then he had to go, and that he would call her before her game the next day.