Chapter 47

Chapter 47
A few days later, Lauren was in Sidney’s bathroom, getting ready for the Lemieux’s annual Christmas Eve party. She had shooed him out of the bathroom so she could get dressed. She couldn’t wait to show him her dress. She slipped into her classic black pumps and let her long strawberry blond hair fall in gentle waves. She zipped her dress up as far as she could reach and opened the door. Sidney was standing there fixing his tie and his jaw dropped when he saw her. He looked at her from head to toe. He always loved looking at her long legs, but with those heels, they seemed to extend for miles. “You like it?” she asked.
“Like it? Damn, I’m going to have to beat my teammates off with a stick when they see you. You look gorgeous.”
“You look pretty handsome yourself.” She said, walking over to him. His knees went weak when he saw her hips gently sway back and forth in the black satin of her dress. She gently straightened his tie for him and then turned around and lifted her hair off her neck. “Can you finish zipping this?” she asked him, looking at him over her shoulder.
He gently zipped her dress the rest of the way up. “Keep batting your eyelashes like that and I’ll just have to un-zip it.” He grinned.
“Play your cards right, Sid, and I just might let you take it off later.” He wiggled his eyebrows up and down.
“That sounds like a wonderful idea. But right now, I want to make everyone jealous by walking in with the most beautiful woman in the world.” He said, offering his arm to her.
She looked all around the room. “Eva Mendes is here?! Where? Is she hiding in your closet?” He looked at her confused for a second, then smiled when he realized she was teasing him. He had stated in an interview once that Eva Mendes was his celebrity crush.
“Gorgeous, she’s got nothing on you.” He said as they walked down the stairs together.
They enjoyed spending the evening with their friends and family (Sidney’s family had flown in the day before). Around 11, Lauren stepped out onto the deck to get some fresh air, and Sidney followed her. “Okay, baby?” he said, offering her his jacket. She smiled as he put it on her shoulders and wrapped his arms around her.
“Perfect. My family is here, my friends are here, and I have the most perfect boyfriend in the world.”
“Wait here for a second. Don’t go anywhere.” He said, kissing her forehead before disappearing suddenly into the house. While she was waiting for him to come back, Marc stepped outside.
“You’ve come a long way from being covered in vomit.” He remarked, causing her to laugh. “You look lovely.”
“Thank you, Marc. You look pretty spiffy yourself.” He flashed her a toothy grin.
“Vero picked out the tie.” He said.
“She has good taste.” Lauren said.
“Well, she picked me, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” He joked.
“Oh, stop. You’re quite the catch, Marc. She loves you.” Lauren said, patting his arm.
“Yeah, I think she does." he said with a grin. "What the heck are you doing out here anyways?” Marc asked her, scrunching up his eyebrows.
“Well, I stepped out for a breath of fresh air, and then Sid asked me to wait here, and that he’d be right back.” Lauren explained.
As if on cue, Sidney stepped back out onto the deck. “Well that’s my cue to head back inside. I have a beautiful date that is probably looking for me.” Marc winked at Lauren before heading back inside.
“I was going to wait until we went home to Cole Harbour to give this to you, but I can’t wait.” He said, holding a small wrapped box in his hands.
Lauren smiled as she pulled the ribbon away and pulled the lid of the box off. Inside was a diamond circle pendant on a silver chain. The way the diamonds were set immediately reminded her of the identical rings that wrapped around her finger. Her mouth opened wide as she looked up at him. “Sidney,” she said softly. “This is beautiful.”
“I hoped you would like it.” He grinned, taking the necklace out of the box and putting it on her.
“I love it. Thank you.” She said, kissing his lips.
“You’re welcome. Merry Christmas, baby.” He said, holding her close against his chest.
They re-joined the party inside and Sidney went to get them some hot apple cider from the kitchen. “Ahhh, so he couldn’t wait until tomorrow?” Nathalie grinned, nodding towards Lauren’s necklace.
Lauren grinned as she ran her fingers over the diamonds. “Yeah.”
“That man has excellent taste. He showed it to me a few weeks ago and asked me if I thought you would like it. I told him you would love it – any woman would.”
Lauren smiled. She loved how thoughtful Sidney was – how he even got another woman’s opinion on her gift.
“I love it. It’s the nicest necklace I’ve ever owned.”
“Well you’re the nicest girl that he’s ever had in his life, so I guess it works out well.” Nathalie winked at her before joining her husband with some other guests.
Around 1:30, the party was over and Lauren and Sidney helped Nathalie and Mario and the caterers clean everything up before heading up to bed.
As they crawled into bed, Sidney pulled Lauren close. “I can’t wait to wake up tomorrow morning with you in my arms. This is going to be the best Christmas I’ve ever had.” She smiled at him and kissed him softly on the lips.
The next morning, Alexa ran into Sidney’s room and jumped on their bed. Lauren yawned and wiped the sleep from her eyes, but Sidney was already jumping out of bed. Lauren laughed. He was just as excited as the kids were. “Alexa, we’ll be out in a few minutes. I promise.” He put his hand over his heart to show her he meant his promise. She bounced out of the room and he climbed back into bed on top of Lauren, kissing every inch of her face.
“Well that bought us a few minutes alone.” He murmured between kisses.
“Merry Christmas, baby.” She giggled, pushing him up so they could get up.
“Merry Christmas, Lauren.” He said, pulling her up and into a tight embrace.
They joined the Lemieux’s and the Crosby’s in the living room to open gifts. Lauren loved the black cashmere sweater she got from the Lemieux’s. She had gotten them some wine glasses and a few bottles of wine from a Montreal winery they both loved. For the kids, Lauren and Sidney gave Lauren (Mario’s daughter) some new soccer gear and Stephanie got tickets to the Hannah Montana concert, something she had been dying to see. Austin got some new hockey stuff, including some custom-made stuff from Sidney’s RBK line. For Alexa, Lauren had picked out some art supplies, for her to draw some more pictures for her.
Lauren had had a lot of trouble deciding on a gift for Sidney. What do you get the man who has everything and more money than he knows what to do with? He was delighted when she showed him the screensaver she had set up on his computer with pictures of them. She had also downloaded a playlist of songs that she loved, or that reminded her of him. Now when Sidney was traveling, he would be able to take a little piece of Lauren with him on the road. Everyone cracked up when he opened a package of socks from Lauren (she had rolled her eyes when he specifically requested them). “I have another gift for you too, but you can’t have it today.” She told him with, kissing his cheek.
“But today’s Christmas!” he whined, sounding like a little kid. He pouted his full, bottom lip and she leaned up and kissed it.
“Sorry, babe, but this gift is a little, umm, bigger. Just wait and see. I think you’ll like it.” She said with a wink, which was more like a blink since Lauren couldn’t really wink. He just laughed at her and handed her a beautifully wrapped box.
“Sidney!” she hissed. “I thought you already gave me your present.” She said, running her fingers over the necklace she hadn’t taken off from the night before.
“Oh hush and just let me spoil you today. Open it.” Sidney urged. Inside, Lauren found a dark grey turtleneck sweater she had pointed out at the mall, a dark grey North Face winter coat, gloves, an RBK toque, and a wool scarf. She looked at him strangely.
“You’re going to need them.” He said with a grin. She gave him an even more puzzled look, and he pulled out an envelope from under the tree and handed it to her.
She opened the envelope and found two tickets to the 2009 Winter Classic in Chicago. Her eyes widened and her entire face broke out into a smile.

“Sidney!” she squealed, crashing into his arms and kissing his cheek. “How did you get these?” she asked, noticing they were passes to a private box.
“What good is being ‘Sidney Crosby’ if you can’t use it to pull a few strings and spoil your girlfriend?” he grinned at her. “Besides, this is sort of selfish gift, because I really want to go to this game.” He admitted.
“Lauren, open my gift next!” Taylor squealed, dropping a box in Lauren’s lap. “Well, actually, it’s from my whole family.”
Lauren admired the beautiful wrapping paper before peeling it back and opening the box. Inside, she found a scrapbook. It was filled with pictures of Sidney, starting with pictures taken at the hospital when he was born and going all the way through his life. The back of the book was filled with pictures of Sidney and Lauren, including some humorous newspaper clippings about the two of them. Trina and Taylor had written captions for just about every picture, detailing the special moments of Sidney’s life. On the last page was a picture of Sidney and Lauren sitting down on the dock at his house in Enfield. Across the top of the picture, Taylor had written “Sidney’s true love” is a silver pen. The caption below the picture read,
“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” -Emily Brontë
Lauren looked up at Trina with tears in her eyes. “This is beautiful. Thank you.” She said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“You’re welcome.” Trina said simply, knowing no other words were needed.
“Thank you. This is really special.” Lauren said to Taylor, who just grinned in response.
After everyone finished opening their presents, Sidney and Lauren got dressed and headed over to her parents’ house to open gifts with her family. On the car ride over, Lauren was flipping through her scrapbook from the Crosby’s. “I didn’t know they were doing this – it’s pretty cool.” Sidney said.
“It’s the best present I have ever received. Besides you, of course.” She said, squeezing his hand.
After they opened gifts with Lauren’s family, they had lunch with her family and spent the day curled up on the couch watching Christmas movies. Around 7, they headed back to the Lemieux’s to spend some more time with his family since they were flying back to Cole Harbour the next morning. They spent some time with them, drinking hot cocoa and playing with all the kids’ new games and toys. At around 10, the Crosby’s headed up to their room to get their stuff packed since they had an early flight the next day. “We have to pack too.” Lauren said with a sly grin on her face.
“For what?” Sidney has curiously.
“For the rest of your Christmas present.” She smiled, pulling him to his feet.
“Where are we going?” he asked excitedly.
“That’s still a surprise.” She said.
“But what about your stuff? You didn’t bring a bag with you when we left your house earlier.” Sidney said.
“Ahh, but I did. I snuck out and threw my bag in the back of the car while you were playing Guitar Hero with Jake.” She said.
When they got to his room, he pulled out his suitcase and she started pulling things from his drawers. “Will you please tell me where we’re going?” he said, bouncing up and down on the bed.
She just laughed and shook her head. “It’s cold there, I can tell you that much.” She said, nodding towards the sweaters she packed.
“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to tell me?” he said, pouting.
“Well, maybe if you’re really good…” she said. He stood up and pulled her into his arms.
“Really?” he asked, raising his eyebrows suggestively. He kissed her passionately, causing her to drop the socks she was holding and wrap her arms around his neck. “Well then let’s get this suitcase packed so I can continue spoiling you. Christmas isn’t over yet, and I can think of one more present that we will both like.”
“I like the way you think.” She said giggling.