emma and sidney walked into the practice facility a month later. he opened the door for emma and heard gasps in the room followed by squealing. she looked at the man who was making the noise and he rushed towards her, hugging his new teammate.
"ahem." coach sullivan cleared his throat, "six feet, guentzel."
"sorry." the blonde backed up and smiled under his mask, "it's really great to meet you."
"you too." she crossed her arms, looking around the room and seeing a bunch of eyes on her, "hi."
she received a bunch of replies and the players finally looked away from her, no longer caring that she was in the locker room. the initial craze of her being their teammate had quickly faded as they all found their spots in the rearranged room. sidney directed her to her cubby and noticed that his was right next to it.
"hm." he put his bag down and sat down, making eye contact with geno, "what's up, g?"
"no much." he shrugged, looking over sidney's shoulder.
sidney turned around, seeing emma taking off her sweatshirt. "geno. no."
the russian shrugged, removing his gaze from emma. sidney felt confused by the rush of jealousy he got when he saw his teammates looking at his girlfriends body. the girl didn't seem to notice though, she just dug through her bag, setting up her things in a certain way.
once a disheveled john marino ran into the room, the practice officially started. john walked by emma and stopped, turning towards her and freezing, "h- hi."
"what's up?" she asked and he just stared at her.
coach sullivan blew his whistle and marino jumped, rushing away from the woman. "no more staring at emma like she's a puck bunny, boys. she's one of us now."
"do you have a boyfriend?" jake whispered loudly, making everyone look towards them.
"yeah." she nodded, not daring to even glance at sidney.
"perfect!" coach sullivan looked stressed, "now that that's out of the way how about we play some hockey."
the coaching staff went on to explain how practice was being set up. on ice practice would be the same with some extra spacing between players but training off ice was different. the coaches had divided the team into two groups of seven and one group of eight. because the staff knew that sidney and emma were living together, they put them in the same group. that group also had malkin, letang, guentzel, kapanen, and dumoulin.
"let's get dressed and onto the ice. i'll see you there in three minutes." mike sullivan looked at his watch. he didn't like giving the players too much time to mess around, especially since they were on a specific schedule.
the players all got up and started changing. emma put on a compression shirt over her sports bra and sidney was glad that she finally covered up. he understood that it wasn't her fault that the team was looking at her but her being covered made him feel better.
emma put on all of her gear quickly, sliding a black jersey over her head. she put her brown hair in a tight low ponytail and stood up, taking off her mask and walking out of the room. she stepped onto the ice after grabbing a stick and skated around while waiting for everyone else.
