Dreaming Out Loud // Jonathan Toews, Chris Kreider, Nathan MacKinnon

Denver, Colorado

Denver, Colorado, September 27, 2019

"So does a six year, 55.5 million dollar extension sound good to you?"

Mikko looks up from his food with his eyes wide.

"Seriously?" He is still chewing the steak he just put in his mouth.

Caterina nods at him as she takes a sip out of her red wine. She had negotiated with the General Manager's office earlier today and received this offer in response to her demand for 10 million dollars per year for six years. When Cat sensed that she is not going to get a better offer from the front office, she informed Joe Sakic's representative that she will talk to her client first before getting back to them.

Cat called Mikko to schedule this dinner as soon as she got off the phone with the organization. They are here now, five minutes into their main course, when Cat decides to break the news.

"Is that a yes?" She chuckles.

Mikko finishes chewing his food before responding.

"I'll take it!"

"Great, I'll reach out to the GM's office first thing in the morning to confirm your acceptance. Congratulations!"

The Finnish hockey player grins at her cheekily and returns his attention to his food. He is relieved that the organization wants him around for a long period of time and is willing to pay to keep him around. He knows he has Cat to thank for getting such a good deal from the front office and even if her representation really solidifies the fact that he can never get what he wants from her outside of a professional relationship, this is worth it. His career is on an upwards trajectory as long as he continues to focus on his game.

"There are several things I want to discuss with you but I do not think it is appropriate to bring this up in public," Cat pulls him out of his thoughts.

Mikko is curious as to what she wants to discuss with him. He suspects it may be about their personal relationship.

"We can head over to my place," he suggests.

Cat shakes her head quickly.

"I think we should arrange for a meeting in my office on Monday," Cat starts and then realizes how personal this conversation can get.

She is already embarrassed that their last conversation occurred in her office. Her door was shut so no one in her office could have heard the brief altercation they had about what occurred between them the past summer. Still, she really needs to start separating her personal life and her professional life. More importantly, she has to put whatever is still festering between them to bed.

Cat does not want to go to his place. It brings too many memories from the summer.

"Or we can head over to my place for a bit? We can discuss business there privately," she emphasizes that this is all business.

This man had been her greatest weakness and the last thing she wants to do tonight is cave in again. Things are different this time around. They have a professional relationship, which means that they most certainly cannot go anywhere beyond that.

"That sounds good to me," Mikko agrees.

After the two finished their meal, they walk out of the restaurant and into the streets of Denver. Cat looks to Mikko, realizing that she took an Uber to the restaurant. He glances back at her, smirking.

"Need a ride?"

Cat sighs, nodding.

Mikko beckons for her to follow him to his parked car. She spots his black Volkswagen Atlas and gets into the passenger seat. Mikko is in the driver's seat, inserting his keys into the ignition. He gives her another look before pulling out of his parking spot.

This is not the first time Cat has been inside his vehicle like this. She tries to shake off memories of Mikko taking her to and from his house in this car after they had spent the night together. She also tries to forget about the night they drove to the middle of nowhere in Alamosa and made love in the backseat of this car. It might have been the first night they both acted on the sexual tension that was festering between them.

Cat is pulled out of her thoughts when she realizes that Mikko had asked her a question.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"I asked if you are okay with the temperature in here," Mikko chuckles.

"I'm good, thanks!"

When Mikko pulls into her driveway, she unbuckles her seatbelt and turns to get out of the vehicle. She hears him turn off the engine and follow suit. This time, he is not walking her to the door and kissing her goodbye. Caterina continues to remind herself that this is different. They will discuss business and Mikko will be on his way.

Cat unlocks her front door and invites Mikko in. She realizes at this moment that this is the first time he has been inside her home. She turns on the light and closes the door behind her. She notices Mikko admiring the interior of her home as he walks into her living room.

Cat walks into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of red wine and a glass of water for Mikko. She can see Mikko situate himself on the leather couch in the living room. She mumbles a good luck to herself before walking to the living room area with the two drinks in hand.

He smiles at her softly as she hands him the glass of water. She makes sure to take a seat as far away from him as possible, which is at the end of that couch.

"So..." she starts.

"What did you want to talk about?"

Cat tries to calm her nerves before speaking.

"What happened that night?"

Mikko sighs, running a hand through his curly blonde locks. She notices a drastic change in his body language at the mention of that night. He is tense and she hates herself for having to dig that memory back up.

Unfortunately, this is part of her job now.

"You know what happened," he says.

Cat takes a long sip of her wine.

"I want to hear it from you."

Mikko sighs again and eyes the wine glass in Cat's hand almost longingly. He knows she poured herself one because she anticipates needing it but he needs the glass more than she does. He suspects that she is afraid of getting him too intoxicated to the point of having to host him here. She has been adamant about keeping her distance and he does not blame her for it. He wants her to, but he understands why she can no longer act on her desires.

"You know that earlier that day, you broke it off with me..." he starts.

Cat takes another long gulp of the wine. She remembers that morning clear as day. She woke up in his arms, praying that this summer long daydream would never end. She had reached for her phone on his nightstand when reality hit her like a ton of bricks. I'm flying in tonight, Nathan's text message to her had said.

Caterina knew that her summer romance with Nathan's teammate was over the moment she saw Nathan's name on her phone screen. She could not bear the thought of him finding out that she was with Mikko the entire summer. There was nothing wrong with what they were doing but she felt so guilty, like she was no longer prioritizing Nathan and his needs. She never wanted to put him in a difficult situation of dealing with his agent and her intimate relationship with someone he works with day in and day out.

Cat dressed quickly after reading that message, which woke Mikko up. She had been honest with him, that she wanted more than anything to keep seeing him and living life like this with him. The reality was that, Nathan was coming back and things had to go back to normal. They had to stop seeing each other.

Mikko had not taken it well at all. He first pleaded with her and tried to reassure her that Nathan would not care if they came clean with him about what happened this summer. He told her that he wanted more with her. It had been difficult for Cat at first because for a moment, she imagined a world where Nathan would be happy for them and everyone would treat a potential relationship between herself and Mikko as normal. Cat may have been afraid and thought walking away and pretending like this whole summer did not happen was easier. She was not ready to take that risk, especially when she felt like her career was on the line at the time.

"I was distraught," Mikko continues, "After you left that morning, I went straight to my liquor cabinet."

Since news broke out of what happened that day, she knew it had started with what she did to Mikko that morning. Hearing it from him directly hurts even more.

Cat puts her glass of wine on the coffee table and gets up to grab the bottle of wine from the kitchen counter. She opens the bottle and takes a jig from it directly. She walks back to the living room and decides to sit closer to Mikko.

"Looks like this story is making you go straight to the alcohol too," Mikko comments bitterly.

Cat leans over to put a comforting arm on his bicep.

"I take full responsibility for what happened that night," she confesses, "This is all my doing."

Mikko's expression softens as he studies her. He can tell she is starting to loosen up from her wine consumption throughout the evening. She had been dead set on maintaining a distance between them and now she is not giving a second thought to consoling him with direct physical contact.

"A part of me wishes I can blame you for what happened but I chose my actions after that morning."

Cat removes her hand from him.

"I can imagine what happened after that but I want to hear your side of the story," Cat says softly.

Mikko nods and continues.

"You can imagine what happened. I drank for the rest of the day, went out at night to the bar, talked a lady up because I was so drunk that I thought she was you or looked like you, I don't know."

Caterina sucks in her breath as Mikko resumes his story. She knows generally what is to come but she has to hear him say it and figure out how to do damage control. Although in Mikko's defense, he handled it pretty well with his former agent. His former agent did not do a shabby job before he stopped working with Mikko.

"She took me back to her apartment. I guess it was a bad night to be talking to this woman and going to her place since based on my recollection, her ex-boyfriend or someone romantically involved with her had planned to find her and hurt her for hurting him. He had a gun."

Cat continues drinking the wine from the bottle and listens to his story intently. She knew that the assailant had a firearm, which was probably the only fact that really absolved him from further public scrutiny. If she represented Mikko at the time, she would have fought tooth and nail to prevent this from getting out. Would she have succeeded and done better than his former agent, she did not know. Seeing the pure agony on his face now stirs up this feeling in her. She would have done anything in her power to protect him from this level of danger and scrutiny.

"She was terrified. I fought him off in whatever drunken stupor I was in. I knew she was in danger and I had to neutralize him. Don't think he had a chance to fire that gun. We tumbled on the floor, threw some punches, and I think I knocked him out at some point. I called Denver PD as soon as I got my bearing," Mikko explains.

Cat knew the story in the media was far from the truth, and the real story was herself placing Mikko in a vulnerable position that led him to that woman's apartment. The rest of the world thinks he stole another man's woman and beat him up during a fight. The woman has yet to comment on the event, which is why the world does not know the whole story. As far as the media is concerned, Mikko is a playboy who took it too far and assaulted someone while under the influence.

She has to fix this and she will do whatever she has to do to fix his reputation. Cat is about to secure a six year deal for him, assuming nothing happens between now and the morning, and she will continue to clean up his image during the season.

"We will fix this, I promise! I will talk to that woman and get her to come forward with the story. You will volunteer a lot this season. Soup kitchen, skates with kids, hospital visits, basically anything and everything. I'll get you some endorsement deals. We got this, Mikko," Cat puts down her wine bottle on the coffee table and leans toward him to give him a reassuring pat on the arm.

Mikko smiles at her sadly.

"I trust you with my life, I know you will be able to fix this. I'll do anything you ask of me."

"Mikko..."

"I'm sorry for overreacting about Mack the other day. I have no place to be jealous of him, not now and not back then."

Cat swallows nervously as her hazel eyes connects with his bright blue ones. At this moment, she realizes how screwed she is, bringing herself in such close proximity to him.

"I led you on and it wasn't fair to you. I knew this would never have worked out and I kept going anyway..."

"You don't date athletes, you made it very clear to me from the get-go. I just thought I'd be the one to change your mind," Mikko interrupts.

Cat can feel her heart pounding against her chest and blood rushing to her face. It may be the alcohol buzzing in her or a rush of feelings she has been trying to fight off. She finds it difficult to do any fighting or suppressing when she is sitting this close to him.

"I..." Cat is stunned when Mikko leans toward her to close the distance between them. She closes her eyes as his lips land on hers roughly, arms naturally snaking around his neck.

The next thing she knows, her back is pressed against the leather on her couch. Mikko hovers over her, cradling her body as his lips continue to move against hers with desire. Cat moans softly against his lips. Just like every single time they were in this position, she is powerless to rationalize with herself that everything about this is wrong. Cat should not let this go any further but her body aches for the man above her. Her heart aches for his touch and for his lips over hers, kissing her like he has never wanted to kiss anyone else. She gasps against his lips when she feels a hand trail up her leg.

She mumbles his name the second their lips took a quick break. He runs a hand through her messy brown hair, looking at her with so much intensity in his eyes that she can melt. His other hand trails up her bare leg, under her dress and to the band of her underwear. Cat gasps when he gently pulls her underwear down her legs.

"I miss this," he murmurs against her lips.

His fingers begin traveling up to the wetness between her thighs and at this moment, Cat reminds herself that if she does not stop this now, she never will until she wakes up next to him tomorrow morning feeling the dread of regret. By some miracle, it is at this moment that she has finally come to her senses.

"Mikko, wait," she gasps, getting up and gently pulling herself away from him.

Mikko gasps loudly as he removes himself from her. He continues to stare at her and realization hits him that they should not have gone this far.

"I'm sorry," Cat apologizes.

"No, I shouldn't have..."

"We work together now, we can't..."

"I know."

Cat curses herself for giving into him so easily. She has never met someone she could not resist before him. He is absolutely her kryptonite and she just signed herself up to work with him.

"I should go," Mikko gets up from the couch and scurries out of her place.

Cat does not say a word as she watches him close the door behind him. She wants to blame this all on the buzz of the wine she consumed tonight but this is all her. She is still stone cold sober and she could not fight her urge to be with that man.

Cat pulls her underwear back on and walks to the bathroom to freshen up. When she is done, she makes the decision to head over to Nathan's place to check on him. Cat has not spent any quality time with Nathan outside of business since he returned to Denver last month. He has been focused on training camp and getting himself back in the mindset of completing. She buried herself in work in an effort to forget the events of the summer. Cat needs to learn to put this behind her and force things to go back to normal.

She will drop by, offer to play some video games with him, and hope that things resume to how they had been before the summer.

Cat quickly slips on a leather jacket and makes a beeline for the door. Mikko's vehicle is already pulled away from the driveway, meaning that he left in quite a hurry. Shaking thoughts of the Finn off, Cat unlocks her red Volkswagen Jetta and hops in her vehicle.

Cat is at Nathan's front door within fifteen minutes and knocks on the door. She waits for a while before the door is thrown open. Expecting Nathan or one of his teammates, she is taken aback at who actually answers the door. A woman around her height with jet black hair and smudged makeup stares back at her with the same look of confusion.

"Who are you?" she asks, not unkindly.

"I'm Nate's agent," Cat responds, "who are you?"

It is Caterina's job to know everything there is to know about Nathan's personal life. If he is seeing someone, she makes it a mission to vet the woman herself. Nathan has never withheld any of his girlfriends or hookups from her. Guess I'm not the only one keeping secrets, Cat thinks to herself.

"Nate!" The woman calls back into the home, "your side bitch is here!"

The brunette is offended and flabbergasted at the same time. She may be dressed too casually to be his agent at the moment and it may not be appropriate for an agent to visit a client so late in the evening, but there is no way this dark haired lady does not buy her explanation.

By the time Nate shows up to the door, Cat already lost all motivation to spend time with him. Cat turns from the door and starts making her way to her vehicle.

"Cat," she can hear him behind her

"Hey, I'm sorry, I can see that you are busy. I'm going to go now," Cat apologizes quickly as she unlocks her vehicle.

Before she even got inside the car, a strong pair of arms pulls her back. She is pressed against his hard, stiff chest in an instant.

"Hannah, go back inside," Nate calls back to the lady with the jet black hair.

Hannah gives Nathan a smile before leaving them alone outside.

"She doesn't believe I'm your agent," Cat jokes.

Nate chuckles.

"You're used to everyone underestimating you your whole life, it doesn't matter what Hannah thinks."

"I should've known you were seeing her, Nate," Cat remarks seriously.

Nathan's gaze on her narrows.

"And I should've known you were seeing Moose," he counters.

Cat raises an eyebrow.

"Where on earth did you get this idea?" Maybe Mikko or someone told him this information but Nate is not supposed to know.

Nate backtracks.

"I don't know, you guys are both acting strange. Not sure if something happened while I was gone, but you're not seeing him?"

"I don't date athletes, let alone my clients. You know me, Nate."

The blonde hockey star sighs in acceptance.

"I know, Cat. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Hannah. I really like her and I'm not ready for the world to know it yet. I mean now that you know, you can go do your thing I guess..." he trails off.

"You bet your ass I will!"

Nathan clears his throat.

"So... did you need something while you're here?"

Cat laughs awkwardly.

"No, I stopped by to see if you wanted to play some Mario Kart or something. I see that you're busy so I'm gonna head out, okay?"

Nate smiles, patting her shoulder. Cat knows he is eager to get back to his new girlfriend.

"Have a good night, Cat!"

"You too, Nate."