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There’s a quick little knock on the diving door and Sid pushes it half open to call in, “You ready yet?”
Neither of them have dates to drag around at this thing, so they decided to just show up together. They laughed about it earlier. Constance is kind of sorely regretting that, now, with the outfit changes she’s suddenly decided to make.
“Um. Yes?”
Sid’s slightly frowning in concern as he steps into her room. Then he stops, with his mouth half open like he was beginning to say something, and blinks at her a bunch. “Does it look terrible? It might look terrible.” She looks down at herself, running her hands down her sides and smoothing out the fabric. Bright red and screaming.
Sid still looks kind of shell shocked, but he recovers quickly enough to reassure her. “You look great, honestly. I just feel like I've missed a memo.”
Constance looks him over. He’s dressed as he usually is. Nicely tailored suit. The same kind of bland, regular blue he’s rarely seen not wearing. She looks back in the standing mirror at her bright red monstrosity.
“Might have to go change into my tux, eh? Probably fits the dress code better, anyways.”
“Well, it is black tie. Were you planning to wear your tux, originally?”
Sid steps further into the room, leaving the door open. He joins her at the mirror. “Yeah. But, I assumed you’d be wearing that one dress you always wear, or one like it, not… this one.”
She flushes and pulls on the top of the dress, hiking it up. “I don't know- You dressed down to match me better?”
Sid grins. “Taylor’s got me trained good for these events.”
Constance giggles. Literally giggles. The nerves and her own insanity have gotten to her. “I just- I wanted to be… pretty. I’m never pretty.” She giggles harder. “I think I’m losing it.”
“You’re always pretty, Connie.”
“Girly-pretty. I’m never girly. I wanted to try.” She runs her hand along the edge of the slit, looking down and away from Sid’s eyes.
He stays quiet for a moment and she gathers herself to look at his expression. If Sid thinks she looks weird, she’ll have to change, because Sid’s the one that doesn’t care. Everyone else is gonna care about what she looks like and what she’s wearing. Not that he would even say anything.
He’s frowning at her over her shoulder. “Are you ready? Your hair and jewellery and everything?”
Constance blinks. “Uh, Yes? I don’t really have any jewellery. Especially anything that would look good with this.”
Sid nods. “Okay, give me a second to change into my tux.” He leaves without another word.
It makes her think about her hair. She was just gonna put it in a ponytail like usual, but now she’s rethinking it. Should she leave her hair down? Put it in a high ponytail? She doesn’t know how to do anything fancy, and they don’t have much time.
Sid comes back with his nose in his phone. “Okay. I’m doing your hair.”
“You are?”
“Do you have any ideas?”
she blinks at him, baffled beyond belief. “I was just gonna put it back. Like I usually do.”
“You sure? I do a great braid.”
Constance looks at him and huffs out a breath. “Fuck it. Go big or go home, right?”
Sid grins and tugs her over to the chair by the window, then goes to town. She zones out through most of it, worrying about his comment about jewellery. She barely has any jewellery. The tiniest gold studs in her ears and nothing else, not even a chain.
He’s close to being done when she abruptly asks, “Should I get a necklace?”
He hums. “Do you want a necklace?”
“I don’t know. I have no sleeves. It feels weird.”
“Would you wear it again? If you did buy one.”
She doesn’t know. It feels like a cop out answer. “Maybe.”
She can hear his smile when he says, “If not, you can just pawn it off to Marns.” He gives her a light shove off the chair. “I’m done, go check it out.”
Constance snaps her fingers. “Marns! Marns would have a necklace I can borrow.”
“Is she here?”
“Yeah, they asked her to come with Tavares. Probably so they can show off all the women with letters-“ She cuts herself off with a gasp when she sees herself in the mirror. Sid did a great job. Her hair is done up in this half up half down thing, pulled away from her face like she likes, but fancy looking. She twists her head to see the braids he’s done to pull it back.
She looks pretty.
“You like it?” Sid sounds kind of anxious, for some reason. A wide grin splits on her face in response.
“I love it.”
She sits there for a second, just admiring her hair, before remembering about Marns. “I’ll text her and find out if she’s still here.”
Sid settles on her bed while they wait for an answer. Constance resumes admiring her hair in the mirror. “So… What’s up with the sudden change? Are you having a midlife crisis?”
“I’m not even thirty. In no way am I midlife.”
“Mid-career crisis, then.”
She groans, throwing herself onto the bed next to him. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
She rests her elbows on her knees and places her chin in her hands. “Sorry, I just- It’s weird. Because I’m Connie McDavid.”
She winces the instant she’s finished saying that, but Sid just places his hand on her shoulder. “I get it. Well, maybe not exactly this, but, I get it. It’s probably worse for you.”
“I feel like I never learned how to be a girl. Because I was too busy playing hockey. Too busy being good at hockey for anyone to let me try to learn how to be a girl, really.”
He squeezes his hand. “That’s shitty. I’m sorry.”
Constance sniffles. “It’s never bothered me before. I think I’m just tired of losing.”
“I mean, yeah, that’s probably part of it. Losing when you’re playing your best sucks, but losing when you’re giving part of yourself up? It… hurts.”
“Does winning hurt, too?”
She looks over at him, and he’s sadly smiling at her. “Yeah. So It’s good you’re having this crisis now. Quit while you’re ahead, eh?”
The knocking startles her. Mitch’s voice floats through the door, “Connie! I got your text, but I was just about to leave so I just decided to come to you.”
Constance opens the door with a smile on her face, brought on by just the sound of Mitch’s voice. “Hi, Marns.”
Mitch practically jumps on her. “Hi! That dress looks so good on you! I didn’t bring much, because I already had my whole outfit planned, but I always bring silver stuff and gold stuff. Just in case.” She bounds into the room, stopping short when she sees Sid sitting on the bed. “Oh. Hi, Sid.”
Constance shuts the door and smiles. “He’s my date. I kidnapped him.”
Sid nods with mock seriousness. “I’m also her hairdresser.” Mitch turns around to look at her hair at that, gasping and reaching out her hand to hover above it.
“It looks so good!” She places her jewellery box down on the desk and opens it, wiggling her fingers around. “What do you want?”
Constance doesn’t know. She doesn’t know a lot these days. Luckily, Mitch can clearly tell.
“I’ve got these cute diamond studs. And you definitely need a necklace.” She brings out the studs she was talking about and sets them down gently.
“A diamond necklace, maybe? To go with the earrings.” Constance peers into the jewellery box while speaking. It’s unorganized and has seemingly everything someone could want. And a couple things someone probably doesn’t want. There’s even one of those braided friendship bracelets that looks so old it could fall apart the second she touched it. It’s all so sparkly. She feels a bit overwhelmed, and a bit more overwhelmed with how overwhelmed she is. This probably isn’t a good thing to be doing right before an event she'll have to smile into cameras for.
Mitch rescues her again, pulling out a thick necklace. “This one. Bit of a statement piece, fits the earrings and the whole no sleeves.” She stands behind Constance to attach the necklace. It rests heavy on the base of her neck, and dips down onto her chest, spreading into multiple strands in a way that makes it look like vines. Then, Mitch hands her the earrings and she stands in front of the mirror to put them in.
The hotel room lights shine on the diamonds, making them dance and glitter. They look awesome with the red. She smiles at herself.
She turns around to Mitch holding up an even bigger, chunkier necklace to Sid’s neck. “Davo, what do you think? He needs to match you.”
“Well, obviously,” Constance giggles. Mitch giggles back.
Sid clears his throat. “I have diamond cufflinks?” He sounds nervous, like he did earlier when asking if she liked her hair.
Mitch smacks his shoulder in delight. “Go get ‘em!” Then when he shuffles through the connecting door, Mitch looks at her with her eyebrow arched, trying to ask a question with her eyes. Constance can’t figure out what it is.
Sid walks back in, fiddling with his sleeves. He holds them up next to her face, halfway between her earrings and necklace, and Mitch’s smile grows somehow wider. He brings his arm down to show Constance.
The cufflinks are pretty, dainty almost. Something Mitch would wear when she chooses a suit over a dress. Or even a pair of earrings she could pull out of that jewellery box.
Mitch makes eye contact with her, and it seems like whatever her question was, it’s been answered. “You guys look great together. I feel like a proud mom.”
“I’m ten years older than you.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m your mom now, and I want a picture.”
The two of them huddle close together, putting their arms around each other for Mitch to take a picture of them with her phone. Her shoulders shake with laughter the whole time.
She slips her phone back into her purse and claps her hands. “All right! Are we done gettin’ girly because we are gonna be so late. We can be late if we’re doing makeup.”
Constance looks at the time and gasps, shoving her shoes on. “We are not doing makeup, I would smudge it all off.”
“Doesn’t mean we can’t do it!” Mitch protests as they squeeze out the door. “I do great makeup! You’ve said!”
Constance huffs quietly. “I’m not going that far. Not today.” Mitch whines, but lets it drop with only one more attempt at puppy eyes.
She starts feeling nervous in the elevator, looking down at herself and running her hands down her sides again. It’s fine. It would be weird for anyone to ask. Probably.
JT’s waiting for Mitch in the lobby. Constance’s heart beat goes wild as he blinks at her, but the only thing he says is “You look very nice, Constance.”
Mitch looks at her, and this time Constance can tell what she’s trying to say, because she says it out loud all the time. He talks like a Grandpa.
“Thank you, John.”
Mitch snorts and gestures down at her pale blue and sparkling dress. “What, I don’t look very nice?”
“You look good, too, Sid.”
Sid grins over the sound of Mitch’s protests. “You too, JT.”
They pile into the uber JT ordered, Mitch calling shotgun as a reward for “The emotional damages of her captain not thinking she’s pretty.” Constance bumps knees with Sid and JT the whole way there because the car is too tiny to fit three hockey players in the back seat. She halfheartedly glares at Mitch, who just smiles back.
They’re just barely not late. It’s fine. Constance is usually fifteen minutes early to everything, being exactly on time one time is fine. Mitch bumps shoulders with her. “You look great. Everyone already loves you, they’re just gonna be in love with you now.”
She takes a deep breath, then wraps her arm around Sid’s. Just because it makes him laugh at her.