The Road to the Cup ~ Wattys 2015

Lost in D.C.

"Beau?"

"Sunshine?"

"Bennett?"

The team, Johnston and I were yelling for our lost right winger in the middle of our night monuments tour.

"How could we lose someone?" I demanded, becoming increasingly stressed out.

"We should have made a buddy system," Marc-Andre Fleury said.

"Who last saw him?" Johnston asked calmly.

"I dunno, I wasn't really paying attention," Sutter shrugged.

"Wasn't my turn to watch him," Lapierre replied sarcastically.

"He's an adult, I'm sure he's fine," Sidney said.

"He at the monument," Geno said.

"What? How do you know?" I asked.

"He call me. He call you, too, but you no answer," Geno explained.

"Which monument?" Letang asked, "We've already been to, like, five of them."

"King," Geno said.

"Let's go. Do we have everyone else?" I asked before we retraced our steps to the monument.

"The gang's all here," Kunitz said, and I glared at him. "Well, almost," he amended.

I practically ran back to the Martin Luther King Jr. Monument. When we got there, the whole place was flooded with tourists. I stood on tip toe trying to find Beau, but I couldn't see him. The other players stood around me looking for him as well. "No wandering off," I glared at them and they nodded. We peered around at the crowd. I couldn't see anything because I was too short, but soon enough, Geno spotted him. "Beau!"

The blond bobbed towards us and pushed through the last few people in front of me. "Thank God," I said, hugging him, "Why'd you wander off?"

"Jeez, Mom, chill," Beau joked and I glared at him, "Sorry, Erin. I didn't wander off, I was reading what was written on the monument. You guys left without me."

My cheeks turned pink and I was quiet for a minute. We all stood there until Johnston said, "I think we've had enough excitement for one day." The rest of the team nodded and we made our way back to the trolley.

The next day we had our morning skate. The guys were cracking jokes about losing Beau and I couldn't keep myself from laughing at a few of them. They seemed ready to go, which was good, because we were down 2-0 in the series and we weren't playing in front of our home crowd.

Back in the hotel, I sat with Geno as Sidney showered. "Are you ready?" I asked.

"Yes, Ovi need to lose," Evgeni nodded.

"I can agree with that."

"He being asshole to you. He usually nice, I no know why he act like this. Maybe he get a little crazy with old age," Evgeni smiled at me.

"Aren't you two the same age?"

"Yes, but I no crazy."

"Exactly my point, Geno. How can he be going crazy with old age and you aren't, when you're the same age?" I asked.

"Crazy genes. Too much alcohol. Could be anything," he shrugged.

"You said he used to be nice."

"He is nice. We friends. Both from Russia. We play together in Olympics and Worlds. Same draft year. He weird with girls. I no weird with girls."

"I beg to differ," Sidney snorted as he came out into the room.