(no subject)
Title: Phone Messages
Fandom: Hockey RPF
Characters: Always-a-Girl!Evgeny Malkin/Sidney Crosby, Always-a-Girl!Alexander Semin
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Work of fiction. Never really happened.
Summary: After Game 3, in Philadelphia.
Author's Notes: Starting in response to a anon meme prompt requesting Always-a-Girl!Geno, abandoned a week later, then later this summer I decided to finish it after all.
She’d been through this before. They’d all been through this before. And anyone who’d done the kind of thing she’d had, had this kind of regular season followed by this kind of playoffs, would be in for the same media reaction, albeit on a different kind of scale. And probably with quicker forgiveness later, but that didn’t affect anything just yet. But as Evgenia Malkin finally escaped the media for the team bus-they’d held her longer than Sid even, which, she couldn’t help but observe, had never happened during the regular season-she couldn’t help feeling outraged against everyone. The world in general, her teammates, Sid most definitely included, the Flyers, that sexist asshole Jagr especially(even on a day where everyone had behaved pretty badly, she still couldn’t believe he’d said that), every single reporter who had asked her in those oh-so-concerned voices what she was going to say to those who said this was only indication that the women couldn’t keep up with the men when it mattered the most, and, yes, herself.
But she couldn’t fault the guys for the kindness they showed her then. Gruff voices asking if she was okay, Dan’s gentle word, and finally Sid, the seat next to him held, the hairbrush in his hand, ready for the first of their post-game rituals.
“Pull hard, Sid,” she told him as she sat down. “Make hurt.”
God bless him, he was the only man who wouldn’t blanch, or ask questions. And after eight months together he was starting to get really good at this, having learned it meticulously and thoroughly like he did any hockey play. As the bus took off, he took hold of her head and yanked, taking some of his own frustration out on her hair, probably. It felt like he might tear her scalp from her skull; she could feel the pain down through her neck, almost. It had been so long after showering her hair was nearly dry, which made it hurt worse. She closed her eyes, listening vaguely to the low murmur of sad and tired conversation rising, and let the pain and his big hand strangely gentle against her head bring her relief.
When she could tell he had gotten the worst of her tangles out by the pain receding, Sid leaned in and said, “I think we should have a quiet dinner tonight, Genie. Just the two of us and room service,” and she was quick to agree. She already knew how the night would end. The same way Wednesday and Friday nights had ended, except in a Philadelphia hotel room instead of at her place, tearing frantically at each other’s clothes and him howling as he fucked her hard. Except tonight, he might very well cry; he’d broken down in her arms after sex once before.
For now, he was perfectly composed, though, as he said, “You know, maybe you should check your phone.”
“When we in room, Sid,” she said. He meant it well, of course, but she didn’t want anyone else to see her possible reaction to the messages of support that were no doubt waiting for her from the other girls. Not to mention how the other Penguins might react if they found out she had one from Dani Briere. But Genie already knew for a fact the other woman had defended her in the post-game interviews and thoroughly confused her own teammates doing so. Even Sid didn’t really understand, though he had learned the hard way to keep his mouth shut about it.
She got wolf-whistled at in the lobby. It was so obviously maliciously meant that all the guys with her immediately crowded around her, and she saw Jordan cock his fists. Though she nearly laughed when she saw the guy responsible; he was a fat slob and she could’ve kicked his ass herself had she needed to. “Don’t,” she told the other guys. “You all fight enough today already.” Still they stayed in their positions until they all reached the elevator.
She and Sid ended up walking to their hotel room alone, and she had to ask him, “No head hurt? No dizzy?”
“No, nothing like that,” he said, but he spoke as darkly as if otherwise. “Though God, I want out of this fucking town.”
“Bad mood, I see,” she quipped. She’d heard about the way he’d talked to the reporters, too. It could just be their now dire situation in the playoffs, but she had the sense something was bothering him even besides that.
She was right. When they were in the hotel room, he said, “I just read a newly published article on my phone. One that actually made me really mad.”
It must have been a truly terrible one to affect him like that. “What say?”
“Go through your phone first,” he said. “I want you to do that before you hear about this.”
He didn’t look at her as he said this, and she knew. “Is about me,” she said. “Yes?”
“About both of us,” he said. “They may reference it in the messages, even. You’ll have more than usual, I think.”
He clearly still didn’t want to tell her any more than that, and at the moment she was too tired to argue with this stubborn a Sidney. Sitting down next to him on the bed, she took out her phone and turned it on.
Of course there were messages from the other girls. There were seven of them now at the NHL level, down this year, actually, after Angela’s retirement the previous summer. But Sid was right; three of them had sent a second message, which was less usual, and the retirees and AHL level girls had also all sent at least one, which was likewise. Also, there was at least one message from most the league’s Russians, even from Bryzgalov, which was a huge surprise.
She read the second three messages from her fellow female NHLers first. Hayley Wickenheiser’s was the only voice message; Genie played it for Sid to hear too: “Have you heard about the shit the Globe and Mail just put out? Who does that asshole think he is? If you haven’t, take my advice and avoid their website for a while. God, over fifteen years and they’re still writing nonsense like this?” Sasha Semina’s second text message mentioned the Globe and Mail as well; she too told Genie not to read it. Tessa Bonhomme, meanwhile, merely expressed her indignation that Genie had been the one written about when she hadn’t even been involved in the afternoon’s more colorful action.
Half the Russians seemed to have read the article before calling her, half didn’t. Several of them offered to have a word with the author. Sanja offered to round all the guys up to have a word with the author together. After she’d read through similar expressions of indignation from the AHLers and three retirees, as well as from Taylor, and the earlier more basic messages of support, from Trish Kane’s short misspelt note to her brother’s five minute voicemail, she played and translated for Sid Sanja’s message, which made him really smile for the first time since the final horn. “I may not like him that often,” he commented, “but in this case...”
None of them, however, had made quite clear what the article in question was about, so Genie asked. Sid sighed, “It’s really terrible. Especially given what you did this season while I was out...”
“Know that much already, Sid,” she said impatiently. “What they say?”
He lay back into the pillows, and said, “They said basically that you’ve ruined me. That because I’d been introduced to the world of sex, I was no longer that pure undistracted hockey god, and that I was never going to be as good as I’ve been, because of you. I mean, it didn’t use quite those words, but that was the gist of it.”
Genie had these past few minutes, been imagining horrible allegations about them having some sort of bounty system or something, or possibly another accusation of her going after his C. To hear it was just that was positively relieving. She knew Sid had to be disturbed by her utter lack of insulted indignation, and even more so by her laughing, but she just couldn’t help it. “They still think Sid virgin, I take virginity?”
“It’s not that funny if you’ve read it, Genie,” insisted Sidney. “And the amount that writer knew...it was scary.”
That was all scary. They hadn’t even intended to be known by the public. But someone had snapped a photo back in December of them exchanging their normal goodbye kiss before going their separate routes to the dressing room-because Sid would always walk his route alone-and their representation had talked them into admitting it was them; they’d figured a love story would endear them to people. For a large part, they’d been right, but obviously there were going to be detractors, especially amoung those who already hated either Sid or there being female NHL players, or both.
It was nothing Genie wasn’t used to. Though still, as Sid continued to glare out at the world, she found herself thinking that this writer had been right, in a way. While he had gathered a respectable, if modest, amount of sexual experience before her, there was the fact that when they’d finished that first time, even with all the thousand kinds of awkwardness it had involved, he’d fallen back on the bed with eyes wide, and when prodded gasped out that it had never felt like that. She had since gotten the impression he had always been able to dismiss sex as not anywhere near as good as hockey, while sex with her might be more like a next best thing. And certainly it was true that being with her had added a whole new dimension to his life he’d never given any thought to, to a life that had been very simple and very exclusively devoted to hockey without it. Of course, given how much of the last year he’d spent unable to play hockey, that had undoubtedly been a good thing.
It felt like a good thing to have something besides hockey in both their lives right now too, and Genie cautiously lay herself down next to him, though she got no reaction; he remained wound up and looking at the ceiling like he might like to give it a punch. “I order usual?” she asked.
“Yeah, go ahead,” he said without moving, and she decided to give up for the next few minutes. Reception was a bit unsteady in the room, which she used as an excuse to get out into the corridor and away from him.
Outside, with the food ordered, she called Sasha. Though the other girl wasn’t particularly nice, asking immediately how bad her boyfriend was sulking. “Pretty badly,” Genie told her. “He read the Globe and Mail article too.”
“It’s surprising he had the time,” Sasha remarked. “I would’ve thought he was too busy sulking.”
“He had some time while I was still with the press,” she explained.
“They let him go first?” Sasha sounded really surprised now. “Why didn’t they keep him around to make as many bratty remarks as possible?”
“Maybe they were afraid his logic circuits would implode from the bad PR alert,” Genie replied, which made the Siberian woman laugh. “Though I think a large part of the reason they held me longer was they were hoping I’d make a comment against Dani. I didn’t, of course.”
“Makes sense,” Sasha agreed. “They must have been so disappointed you both stayed out of the fighting, Zhenya; they would’ve loved to see...what do they call it in English? A catfight?”
“I think if I actually challenged her to one, Dani would refuse,” Genie noted. She’d been literally the first woman ever drafted by the NHL; the second to play and the first non-goalie, and one thing Danielle Briere had always emphasized was the need for they, the groundbreakers, to not work against each other, especially in public. It was thanks to her Sasha always had someone to argue that just because she wasn’t good at expressing it in English didn’t mean she didn’t care, that Trish had had the group to call out the press when they ripped her last summer for getting photographed having done something they’d shrug at the men doing(Genie included, and she didn’t even like Trish), and Genie now had a dozen extra phone messages now.
“Well you shouldn’t anyway, Zhenya,” said Sasha. “After all, there has to be one of us to be the role model for little Russian girls, and I don’t have that ability.”
“You should’ve thought of that before you got yourself drafted first, Sasha,” Genie reminded her; that was something about which the ribs went between them freely.
Even though Sasha then felt the need to say, “You do have to, you know, Zhenya. On the ice too.”
“I’m doing my best,” she reminded her.
“I know,” said Sasha gently. “And surely we’re all allowed to have a bad playoffs sometimes.” But this was something they’d had far more serious conversations about than this one, because the truth was, Russian woman’s hockey needed this opportunity. Their own country was never going to grow and mold any large group of female players at even half their level on its own. People now fussed that there were more Russian women in the NHL than American ones-because there was the two of them and with Angela gone Trish stood alone, but while there were two Russian girls playing on men’s teams in Western Europe, it would be decades at best before they were welcome in the KHL.
Sanja had even said to the two of them not too long ago, “If we guys all run back home, it’ll be up to you women to make our country proud over here,” and he’d meant it only half-jokingly. Of course he wasn’t going anywhere, but there was that chance that his successors might not come over, while theirs would have to.
But Sasha was still the one of the two of them with more to think about when it came to delivering in the playoffs, and that might have been why she then said, “Well, I can’t stay. I have my own game tomorrow to prepare for.”
“Good luck, Sasha,” said Genie, and she genuinely meant it. Much as it would’ve horrified her teammates to know it, their current standing combined with Angela’s retirement would have Genie cheering for the team with a female player in that series, even if that team was the Caps. “Score a hattrick.”
When she came back, Sid thankfully had not turned the TV on, which would’ve worsened his mood if he had, but he had turned his angry glare to the wall and was trying to will it to fall over and cause the room to cave in. Genie didn’t try to touch him, though she’d been planning to; she wanted to very badly. He was getting very good with dealing with touch so long as he could anticipate it, but she didn’t want to freak him out and set back months of work, for herself as well as for him, though hard as it was for her to believe, until he’d escaped to Shattuck-St. Mary’s his teammates had actually been even crueler than hers. She knew she was lucky there; she could’ve suffered what Sasha had.
She had lain herself next to him a safe distance away for maybe a couple of minutes, or maybe longer, Genie wasn’t sure, when he asked, “Do you think things will be better for Taylor?”
“How so?” she asked. “If you mean media better, not much. But if you mean just better, is different.”
“Bit of both, maybe,” he said. “If Mario drafts her, I suppose accusations of nepotism will be unavoidable.”
“But still would be better, Sid,” she told him. “She have you, then. She have me. But she have all us girls, whatever team she is on. Is good there are more of us now.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” said Sid, not that he sounded any less tense, but she didn’t expect him to. There was no way out of that unless they somehow pulled off a miracle win. She supposed this couldn’t be any harder than the first few months of their relationship, when he’d been off the ice, endlessly frustrated, and more terrified for his future than he was ever going to admit to.
Words her brother had once said to her came back to Genie, “Be careful about falling in love with a great man, Zhenechka. No woman who ever has has had an easy life, and yours will be hard already.” But what could she do when she was in love already, had been before she thought he would ever be willing to date a member of his team? In any case, it couldn’t be worse than being in love with a man who merely thought he was great. She’d been through that, and that had been scary.
When Sid spoke next, it seemed to push in his point, “You think you’ll just go straight back to Russia if...” He couldn’t finish it, of course, couldn’t face it.
“In a few days,” she said, because she really would want to see her family, and more than that, she would want to get away from the NHL. “You come with, maybe?” she suggested. “Meet my brother.”
“I’ve met him already,” Sid said. He sounded genuinely confused.
“You spend only a little time with him,” she said. “You not really know him.” She wasn’t entirely being fair, she supposed. They’d even had Sid over for dinner once when he’d accompanied his parents visiting her. But she wanted her brother to really get a chance to talk with Sidney, to really find out what kind of man he was. What she really wanted, she supposed, was to get him to approve of her great man, convince him Sid would treat his sister right, if in his own way. Right now she knew he was rather skeptical.
Much to Genie’s surprise, her boyfriend then turned himself to face her. “If you want, I’ll see what I can do. But I’d kind of like us to spend at least a couple of weeks together during the summer. Especially if I get talked into attending one of those highbrow functions; those’ll be much easier if you’re with me. But more than that, I want you by my side for the CBA negotiations. I don’t know how many of you girls are going to be there, but at least some of you should be, and at the front of it. Especially if they try to give you a lower minimum salary than they give the guys.”
And then she had to sigh, and say, “Why you think we not have plan, Sid? Dani and Hayley and Kim, they go already. Ask me if maybe I come, maybe I will come with them, I don’t know yet. Why you think you need be one to make that happen?”
She could tell it annoyed him to hear that, but at least he had to decency not to say so, but to just say, “Well, if you have a plan already you can go with that. But like it or not, they might hear you better if I help out.”
“True, but maybe bad idea,” Genie argued. “Maybe they say I am only heard as girlfriend. Accuse me of controlling you. Very bad accusation.”
He saw her point there, but his response was, “I wish they wouldn’t, you know. You’re the best female player in the world right now, the best player on our team, maybe the best period, even. You deserve to be heard on your own accord.”
“Best player last month, maybe,” sighed Genie.
“Whatever. You still deserve to be heard on your own accord.”
“I love you,” she said, because she really did, especially when he said things like that. But his words made her sad, too, as she thought about how now she probably never would be again, if she and Sid stayed together. Which she wouldn't have even minded at all, except that when what her heart now hoped for would have to include living out her years in Pittsburgh or Nova Scotia as just Genie Crosby, wife of the more famous guy, it also meant only going back to Russia for visits, still working to promote the sport for young girls there, but not able to do nearly as much for it as she would be able to if she remained Evgenia Malkin and went back home after her career. Sometimes she wondered if she could really let that go like that, even for a man she loved as much as she loved Sidney Crosby.
Maybe she’d try to make up for it by going back and spend time working with the next generation if there was a lockout. Maybe she’d even pull off getting Sid into a KHL team, or at least one on the Eastern side of Europe, so she could easily travel back and forth to see him. He’d probably prefer if she signed to a team with him, but he’d understand. She hoped.
Sid had closed his eyes and breathed in and out; it wasn’t that the sentiment was new, even if Genie wasn’t sure either of them had vocalized it before; it was simply he still didn’t really know how to deal with it head-on. She suddenly wasn’t sure she hadn’t said it in Russian though, and though she was pretty sure he knew what it meant even if she had, they could pretend he didn’t.
She herself wasn’t sure how to deal with it either, when it came down to it, which might have been why she stood up again and asked out loud, “Where is our food?”
“Probably taking too long on purpose,” Sid grumbled, and it was both endearing and irritating, and Genie kept her phone in her hand as she stepped outside to see if they were coming. The hallway was empty, and she once again checked her phone.
There was a second text message from Dani, which momentarily confused Genie, since she’d sent her first after reading the Globe and Mail article. It read: 4 the record, im proud of how u did with the media 2night. Better than ur boyfriend, anyway.
After a moment’s hesitation, Genie answered, Urs teach u how 2 text? Or 1 of ur 4 kids? She really didn’t expect an answer for that one, though, so she turned her phone off.
Fandom: Hockey RPF
Characters: Always-a-Girl!Evgeny Malkin/Sidney Crosby, Always-a-Girl!Alexander Semin
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Work of fiction. Never really happened.
Summary: After Game 3, in Philadelphia.
Author's Notes: Starting in response to a anon meme prompt requesting Always-a-Girl!Geno, abandoned a week later, then later this summer I decided to finish it after all.
She’d been through this before. They’d all been through this before. And anyone who’d done the kind of thing she’d had, had this kind of regular season followed by this kind of playoffs, would be in for the same media reaction, albeit on a different kind of scale. And probably with quicker forgiveness later, but that didn’t affect anything just yet. But as Evgenia Malkin finally escaped the media for the team bus-they’d held her longer than Sid even, which, she couldn’t help but observe, had never happened during the regular season-she couldn’t help feeling outraged against everyone. The world in general, her teammates, Sid most definitely included, the Flyers, that sexist asshole Jagr especially(even on a day where everyone had behaved pretty badly, she still couldn’t believe he’d said that), every single reporter who had asked her in those oh-so-concerned voices what she was going to say to those who said this was only indication that the women couldn’t keep up with the men when it mattered the most, and, yes, herself.
But she couldn’t fault the guys for the kindness they showed her then. Gruff voices asking if she was okay, Dan’s gentle word, and finally Sid, the seat next to him held, the hairbrush in his hand, ready for the first of their post-game rituals.
“Pull hard, Sid,” she told him as she sat down. “Make hurt.”
God bless him, he was the only man who wouldn’t blanch, or ask questions. And after eight months together he was starting to get really good at this, having learned it meticulously and thoroughly like he did any hockey play. As the bus took off, he took hold of her head and yanked, taking some of his own frustration out on her hair, probably. It felt like he might tear her scalp from her skull; she could feel the pain down through her neck, almost. It had been so long after showering her hair was nearly dry, which made it hurt worse. She closed her eyes, listening vaguely to the low murmur of sad and tired conversation rising, and let the pain and his big hand strangely gentle against her head bring her relief.
When she could tell he had gotten the worst of her tangles out by the pain receding, Sid leaned in and said, “I think we should have a quiet dinner tonight, Genie. Just the two of us and room service,” and she was quick to agree. She already knew how the night would end. The same way Wednesday and Friday nights had ended, except in a Philadelphia hotel room instead of at her place, tearing frantically at each other’s clothes and him howling as he fucked her hard. Except tonight, he might very well cry; he’d broken down in her arms after sex once before.
For now, he was perfectly composed, though, as he said, “You know, maybe you should check your phone.”
“When we in room, Sid,” she said. He meant it well, of course, but she didn’t want anyone else to see her possible reaction to the messages of support that were no doubt waiting for her from the other girls. Not to mention how the other Penguins might react if they found out she had one from Dani Briere. But Genie already knew for a fact the other woman had defended her in the post-game interviews and thoroughly confused her own teammates doing so. Even Sid didn’t really understand, though he had learned the hard way to keep his mouth shut about it.
She got wolf-whistled at in the lobby. It was so obviously maliciously meant that all the guys with her immediately crowded around her, and she saw Jordan cock his fists. Though she nearly laughed when she saw the guy responsible; he was a fat slob and she could’ve kicked his ass herself had she needed to. “Don’t,” she told the other guys. “You all fight enough today already.” Still they stayed in their positions until they all reached the elevator.
She and Sid ended up walking to their hotel room alone, and she had to ask him, “No head hurt? No dizzy?”
“No, nothing like that,” he said, but he spoke as darkly as if otherwise. “Though God, I want out of this fucking town.”
“Bad mood, I see,” she quipped. She’d heard about the way he’d talked to the reporters, too. It could just be their now dire situation in the playoffs, but she had the sense something was bothering him even besides that.
She was right. When they were in the hotel room, he said, “I just read a newly published article on my phone. One that actually made me really mad.”
It must have been a truly terrible one to affect him like that. “What say?”
“Go through your phone first,” he said. “I want you to do that before you hear about this.”
He didn’t look at her as he said this, and she knew. “Is about me,” she said. “Yes?”
“About both of us,” he said. “They may reference it in the messages, even. You’ll have more than usual, I think.”
He clearly still didn’t want to tell her any more than that, and at the moment she was too tired to argue with this stubborn a Sidney. Sitting down next to him on the bed, she took out her phone and turned it on.
Of course there were messages from the other girls. There were seven of them now at the NHL level, down this year, actually, after Angela’s retirement the previous summer. But Sid was right; three of them had sent a second message, which was less usual, and the retirees and AHL level girls had also all sent at least one, which was likewise. Also, there was at least one message from most the league’s Russians, even from Bryzgalov, which was a huge surprise.
She read the second three messages from her fellow female NHLers first. Hayley Wickenheiser’s was the only voice message; Genie played it for Sid to hear too: “Have you heard about the shit the Globe and Mail just put out? Who does that asshole think he is? If you haven’t, take my advice and avoid their website for a while. God, over fifteen years and they’re still writing nonsense like this?” Sasha Semina’s second text message mentioned the Globe and Mail as well; she too told Genie not to read it. Tessa Bonhomme, meanwhile, merely expressed her indignation that Genie had been the one written about when she hadn’t even been involved in the afternoon’s more colorful action.
Half the Russians seemed to have read the article before calling her, half didn’t. Several of them offered to have a word with the author. Sanja offered to round all the guys up to have a word with the author together. After she’d read through similar expressions of indignation from the AHLers and three retirees, as well as from Taylor, and the earlier more basic messages of support, from Trish Kane’s short misspelt note to her brother’s five minute voicemail, she played and translated for Sid Sanja’s message, which made him really smile for the first time since the final horn. “I may not like him that often,” he commented, “but in this case...”
None of them, however, had made quite clear what the article in question was about, so Genie asked. Sid sighed, “It’s really terrible. Especially given what you did this season while I was out...”
“Know that much already, Sid,” she said impatiently. “What they say?”
He lay back into the pillows, and said, “They said basically that you’ve ruined me. That because I’d been introduced to the world of sex, I was no longer that pure undistracted hockey god, and that I was never going to be as good as I’ve been, because of you. I mean, it didn’t use quite those words, but that was the gist of it.”
Genie had these past few minutes, been imagining horrible allegations about them having some sort of bounty system or something, or possibly another accusation of her going after his C. To hear it was just that was positively relieving. She knew Sid had to be disturbed by her utter lack of insulted indignation, and even more so by her laughing, but she just couldn’t help it. “They still think Sid virgin, I take virginity?”
“It’s not that funny if you’ve read it, Genie,” insisted Sidney. “And the amount that writer knew...it was scary.”
That was all scary. They hadn’t even intended to be known by the public. But someone had snapped a photo back in December of them exchanging their normal goodbye kiss before going their separate routes to the dressing room-because Sid would always walk his route alone-and their representation had talked them into admitting it was them; they’d figured a love story would endear them to people. For a large part, they’d been right, but obviously there were going to be detractors, especially amoung those who already hated either Sid or there being female NHL players, or both.
It was nothing Genie wasn’t used to. Though still, as Sid continued to glare out at the world, she found herself thinking that this writer had been right, in a way. While he had gathered a respectable, if modest, amount of sexual experience before her, there was the fact that when they’d finished that first time, even with all the thousand kinds of awkwardness it had involved, he’d fallen back on the bed with eyes wide, and when prodded gasped out that it had never felt like that. She had since gotten the impression he had always been able to dismiss sex as not anywhere near as good as hockey, while sex with her might be more like a next best thing. And certainly it was true that being with her had added a whole new dimension to his life he’d never given any thought to, to a life that had been very simple and very exclusively devoted to hockey without it. Of course, given how much of the last year he’d spent unable to play hockey, that had undoubtedly been a good thing.
It felt like a good thing to have something besides hockey in both their lives right now too, and Genie cautiously lay herself down next to him, though she got no reaction; he remained wound up and looking at the ceiling like he might like to give it a punch. “I order usual?” she asked.
“Yeah, go ahead,” he said without moving, and she decided to give up for the next few minutes. Reception was a bit unsteady in the room, which she used as an excuse to get out into the corridor and away from him.
Outside, with the food ordered, she called Sasha. Though the other girl wasn’t particularly nice, asking immediately how bad her boyfriend was sulking. “Pretty badly,” Genie told her. “He read the Globe and Mail article too.”
“It’s surprising he had the time,” Sasha remarked. “I would’ve thought he was too busy sulking.”
“He had some time while I was still with the press,” she explained.
“They let him go first?” Sasha sounded really surprised now. “Why didn’t they keep him around to make as many bratty remarks as possible?”
“Maybe they were afraid his logic circuits would implode from the bad PR alert,” Genie replied, which made the Siberian woman laugh. “Though I think a large part of the reason they held me longer was they were hoping I’d make a comment against Dani. I didn’t, of course.”
“Makes sense,” Sasha agreed. “They must have been so disappointed you both stayed out of the fighting, Zhenya; they would’ve loved to see...what do they call it in English? A catfight?”
“I think if I actually challenged her to one, Dani would refuse,” Genie noted. She’d been literally the first woman ever drafted by the NHL; the second to play and the first non-goalie, and one thing Danielle Briere had always emphasized was the need for they, the groundbreakers, to not work against each other, especially in public. It was thanks to her Sasha always had someone to argue that just because she wasn’t good at expressing it in English didn’t mean she didn’t care, that Trish had had the group to call out the press when they ripped her last summer for getting photographed having done something they’d shrug at the men doing(Genie included, and she didn’t even like Trish), and Genie now had a dozen extra phone messages now.
“Well you shouldn’t anyway, Zhenya,” said Sasha. “After all, there has to be one of us to be the role model for little Russian girls, and I don’t have that ability.”
“You should’ve thought of that before you got yourself drafted first, Sasha,” Genie reminded her; that was something about which the ribs went between them freely.
Even though Sasha then felt the need to say, “You do have to, you know, Zhenya. On the ice too.”
“I’m doing my best,” she reminded her.
“I know,” said Sasha gently. “And surely we’re all allowed to have a bad playoffs sometimes.” But this was something they’d had far more serious conversations about than this one, because the truth was, Russian woman’s hockey needed this opportunity. Their own country was never going to grow and mold any large group of female players at even half their level on its own. People now fussed that there were more Russian women in the NHL than American ones-because there was the two of them and with Angela gone Trish stood alone, but while there were two Russian girls playing on men’s teams in Western Europe, it would be decades at best before they were welcome in the KHL.
Sanja had even said to the two of them not too long ago, “If we guys all run back home, it’ll be up to you women to make our country proud over here,” and he’d meant it only half-jokingly. Of course he wasn’t going anywhere, but there was that chance that his successors might not come over, while theirs would have to.
But Sasha was still the one of the two of them with more to think about when it came to delivering in the playoffs, and that might have been why she then said, “Well, I can’t stay. I have my own game tomorrow to prepare for.”
“Good luck, Sasha,” said Genie, and she genuinely meant it. Much as it would’ve horrified her teammates to know it, their current standing combined with Angela’s retirement would have Genie cheering for the team with a female player in that series, even if that team was the Caps. “Score a hattrick.”
When she came back, Sid thankfully had not turned the TV on, which would’ve worsened his mood if he had, but he had turned his angry glare to the wall and was trying to will it to fall over and cause the room to cave in. Genie didn’t try to touch him, though she’d been planning to; she wanted to very badly. He was getting very good with dealing with touch so long as he could anticipate it, but she didn’t want to freak him out and set back months of work, for herself as well as for him, though hard as it was for her to believe, until he’d escaped to Shattuck-St. Mary’s his teammates had actually been even crueler than hers. She knew she was lucky there; she could’ve suffered what Sasha had.
She had lain herself next to him a safe distance away for maybe a couple of minutes, or maybe longer, Genie wasn’t sure, when he asked, “Do you think things will be better for Taylor?”
“How so?” she asked. “If you mean media better, not much. But if you mean just better, is different.”
“Bit of both, maybe,” he said. “If Mario drafts her, I suppose accusations of nepotism will be unavoidable.”
“But still would be better, Sid,” she told him. “She have you, then. She have me. But she have all us girls, whatever team she is on. Is good there are more of us now.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” said Sid, not that he sounded any less tense, but she didn’t expect him to. There was no way out of that unless they somehow pulled off a miracle win. She supposed this couldn’t be any harder than the first few months of their relationship, when he’d been off the ice, endlessly frustrated, and more terrified for his future than he was ever going to admit to.
Words her brother had once said to her came back to Genie, “Be careful about falling in love with a great man, Zhenechka. No woman who ever has has had an easy life, and yours will be hard already.” But what could she do when she was in love already, had been before she thought he would ever be willing to date a member of his team? In any case, it couldn’t be worse than being in love with a man who merely thought he was great. She’d been through that, and that had been scary.
When Sid spoke next, it seemed to push in his point, “You think you’ll just go straight back to Russia if...” He couldn’t finish it, of course, couldn’t face it.
“In a few days,” she said, because she really would want to see her family, and more than that, she would want to get away from the NHL. “You come with, maybe?” she suggested. “Meet my brother.”
“I’ve met him already,” Sid said. He sounded genuinely confused.
“You spend only a little time with him,” she said. “You not really know him.” She wasn’t entirely being fair, she supposed. They’d even had Sid over for dinner once when he’d accompanied his parents visiting her. But she wanted her brother to really get a chance to talk with Sidney, to really find out what kind of man he was. What she really wanted, she supposed, was to get him to approve of her great man, convince him Sid would treat his sister right, if in his own way. Right now she knew he was rather skeptical.
Much to Genie’s surprise, her boyfriend then turned himself to face her. “If you want, I’ll see what I can do. But I’d kind of like us to spend at least a couple of weeks together during the summer. Especially if I get talked into attending one of those highbrow functions; those’ll be much easier if you’re with me. But more than that, I want you by my side for the CBA negotiations. I don’t know how many of you girls are going to be there, but at least some of you should be, and at the front of it. Especially if they try to give you a lower minimum salary than they give the guys.”
And then she had to sigh, and say, “Why you think we not have plan, Sid? Dani and Hayley and Kim, they go already. Ask me if maybe I come, maybe I will come with them, I don’t know yet. Why you think you need be one to make that happen?”
She could tell it annoyed him to hear that, but at least he had to decency not to say so, but to just say, “Well, if you have a plan already you can go with that. But like it or not, they might hear you better if I help out.”
“True, but maybe bad idea,” Genie argued. “Maybe they say I am only heard as girlfriend. Accuse me of controlling you. Very bad accusation.”
He saw her point there, but his response was, “I wish they wouldn’t, you know. You’re the best female player in the world right now, the best player on our team, maybe the best period, even. You deserve to be heard on your own accord.”
“Best player last month, maybe,” sighed Genie.
“Whatever. You still deserve to be heard on your own accord.”
“I love you,” she said, because she really did, especially when he said things like that. But his words made her sad, too, as she thought about how now she probably never would be again, if she and Sid stayed together. Which she wouldn't have even minded at all, except that when what her heart now hoped for would have to include living out her years in Pittsburgh or Nova Scotia as just Genie Crosby, wife of the more famous guy, it also meant only going back to Russia for visits, still working to promote the sport for young girls there, but not able to do nearly as much for it as she would be able to if she remained Evgenia Malkin and went back home after her career. Sometimes she wondered if she could really let that go like that, even for a man she loved as much as she loved Sidney Crosby.
Maybe she’d try to make up for it by going back and spend time working with the next generation if there was a lockout. Maybe she’d even pull off getting Sid into a KHL team, or at least one on the Eastern side of Europe, so she could easily travel back and forth to see him. He’d probably prefer if she signed to a team with him, but he’d understand. She hoped.
Sid had closed his eyes and breathed in and out; it wasn’t that the sentiment was new, even if Genie wasn’t sure either of them had vocalized it before; it was simply he still didn’t really know how to deal with it head-on. She suddenly wasn’t sure she hadn’t said it in Russian though, and though she was pretty sure he knew what it meant even if she had, they could pretend he didn’t.
She herself wasn’t sure how to deal with it either, when it came down to it, which might have been why she stood up again and asked out loud, “Where is our food?”
“Probably taking too long on purpose,” Sid grumbled, and it was both endearing and irritating, and Genie kept her phone in her hand as she stepped outside to see if they were coming. The hallway was empty, and she once again checked her phone.
There was a second text message from Dani, which momentarily confused Genie, since she’d sent her first after reading the Globe and Mail article. It read: 4 the record, im proud of how u did with the media 2night. Better than ur boyfriend, anyway.
After a moment’s hesitation, Genie answered, Urs teach u how 2 text? Or 1 of ur 4 kids? She really didn’t expect an answer for that one, though, so she turned her phone off.