Daughter // Tyler Seguin

1.0

We walked to the arena as it's only a few blocks away from our hotel, which is probably for the best seeing as it's so busy tonight. Sophia is lagging behind so I end up carrying her  as we approach the ticket booth. We have to stand in line for a good twenty minutes before we're next in line. I'm surprised Sophia hasn't started whining at this point.

"Hi, we need to pick up our tickets." I say to the girl behind the glass and she smiles at me.

"Your name please?"

"Harley, but I think they're under Brad Marchand I'm pretty sure." I laugh slightly and the girl smiles at me.

"Ah okay, yes there's a couple things here for you. I'll be right back." She gets up and leaves into a different room as Sophia starts to get restless from standing here.

"Come on Soph stop wiggling around please." I set her down on the ground and bend down to talk to her quietly.

"I just wanna go inside and see Tyler mommy."

"We will , we need our tickets first though baby."

"Okay."

The girl comes back and hands me two tickets as well as an envelope that's pretty thick. My name is written across it in messy handwriting and I smile at her as I take them.

"Great, thank you so much."

"No problem, enjoy the game!" I take Sophia's hand in mine and lead her through to the front doors.  We have to get through the security and everything before I can take Sophia into the bathroom. Once we reach the bathroom Sophia is doing nothing but asking questions as again we have to wait in a line.

"What's that mommy?" She points to the envelope in my hand.

"I'm not sure, I think it's from Brad. Maybe he's giving us a surprise too."

"Can I open it?"

"Can you use the bathroom first and I'll be right here waiting for you." I say as there's a empty stall and I lead her over to it. Sophia goes into the stall and I stare at the envelope, trying to figure out what it is before I open it. She comes back out and washed her hands before trying to take the envelope from me.

"Let's open it!" She jumps around me in excitement and I can tell she won't be tired tonight when we get back to the hotel at all.

"Okay, okay." I rip the top open and the first thing I see is a bunch of cash, I
 take it out to count it as Sophia stares up at me waiting.

"What is that?"

"American money, it's different than the money we use at home."

"Oh okay, that looks like a lot." I nod as I count out the money and once I pass fifty dollars my eyes start to get a bit wide.

"It's two hundred dollars." I say quietly once I finish counting it all and Sophia's eyes get really big.

"Woah! That's so much!"

"I know, we'll have to say a big thank you to Brad later then."

"Okay! What else is there mommy?" I pull out two lanyards that have security passes on them.

"It's so we're allowed to just go downstairs tonight and we show the security guys these passes and we get to see Tyler."

"Yay! I'm so excited to see Tyler!" Sophia grabs the lanyards from my hand and looks at them. She looks amazed by them and she holds onto them super tightly.

"How about I put everything in my purse so we don't lose them at the game, okay?" Sophia nods and hands them back to me. I put them into the inside pocket of my purse. I put the cash into my wallet and take Sophia out of the bathroom.

"Can we sit down now?"

"Yeah, we'll find our seats and then go find somewhere to sit close to watch warm up. We'll be able to see Tyler from there."

"Yay okay!"

I pull out our tickets and see that they're only three rows up from the ice, at the end behind here Boston will shoot twice. We find our seats quickly and easily, Sophia gets super excited while we wait a little bit.

"We'll have to go onto the other side of the ice if you want to see Tyler at warm up. This is where New York is going to warm up."

"Okay, let's go then!" We make our way back up the stairs to walk around the arena to get down to the home warm up side. Sophia holds onto my purse strap as we walk and every so often I can feel it being tugged as she lags behind in the big crowd.

"Soph, hurry up baby."

"There's too many people mommy!" Sophia whines and I look back at her, she looks as if she's going to cry so I hold out my arms to carry her.

"You'll have to walk down the stairs yourself, but I'll carry you to the top." Sophia nods against my shoulder as we continue on our way to the other side of the rink. Once we get to the opening right near where the guys will  come out for warm up I set Sophia down.

"Can we stand right where Tyler will go onto the ice?"

"That's what I was thinking baby. We just have to walk right down these stairs." I point and she looks out to where I've pointed and starts down the stairs. A security guard stops me as I go to follow to look at our tickets.

"Are you seated in this section?"

"No, she just wants to watch the warm up from here, if that's alright?"

"Oh yeah, of course. Just make sure you don't stand on the stairs please."

"Okay, thank you." I smile and continue down the steps, Sophia is almost at the glass now so I quickly catch up to her.

"Mommy! Hurry up!" Sophia waves at me from the front row and I laugh as I come up beside here.

"I wasn't that far behind silly girl." Sophia giggles and then grabs onto my hand.

"I wanna stand near the edge to see Tyler right when he comes on, but there's big kids over there."

"It's okay Soph, he'll still be able to see us here. You just have to bang on the glass a bit and wave at him."

"He'll see us?"

"Yeah of course, he always skates around and looks at the people who are here. Plus even if he doesn't see us Brad will make sure he does don't worry."

"Promise?"

"I promise." The lights go down slightly and I can tell the warm ups are about to start. Sophia looks up at me and I smile at her.

"He's coming out now?" I nod and Sophia turns quickly to the ice to watch for Tyler. I get a nervous feeling in my stomach about seeing him again, even though it is just through the glass.

I watch as each player comes out one by one and Sophia scans each jersey for Tyler's name and number. He's usually one of the last ones out, I see Brad and he skates over and taps his stick on the glass and I wave. He shoots me and smile and points behind him, where I look in time to see Tyler look over at us.

His face breaks into a huge grin and he skates right over and taps the glass by Sophia's face. She giggles and waves like a mad man as he returns it to her, making her laugh even harder. Tyler takes off his glove and puts his hand on the glass, Sophia puts hers there too like a high five and he smiles. Tyler gestures with his head for me to do the same, I place my hand against the glass as he smiles and mouths "love you". I nod and motion for him to go join his team in the rest of his warm up.

"He loves you." Sophia says as we watch Tyler skate away with a big grin on his face. Brad skates over and nudges him, to which Tyler puts his arm around his shoulder and gives him a side hug.

"Yeah, I know."

"And you love him too."

"Sadly." I mutter quietly to myself as Sophia turns back to finish watching the rest of warm up.