thank you first and foremost to everyone who's been sending me their hillarous notes on this, thank you! And thank you for your patience. I promise I won't torture Sid too much longer!
“Just like that?” Max was staring at Kris, looking shocked and it seemed to Sidney that they all were as the normally quiet or at the very most playful Tanger sat in his stall looking like a little black raincloud. Sidney didn’t remember seeing him like this since the death of his friend Luc Bourdon.
“Yeah, just like that. We had the best sex of my entire life, and the next thing I know I’m waking up with her handing me a glass of orange juice and telling me that she’s breaking up with me.” Tanger was staring at a spot on the carpet between his feet, his hand hanging loose between his knees, still in his street clothes while everyone else was either half way or fully into their gear. Girlfriend or not, Sidney thought to himself as he laced up his left skate, Tanger had better get a move on or he was going to be doing wind sprints for being late.
“Maybe it was just nerves,” Jordan was pointing out helpfully. “I mean you waited a long time to get her to sleep with you. Maybe she was just worried now that you had what you wanted....”
“Yeah, I thought of that,” Tanger sighed, finally dragging his sweater over his head and laying it on the bench next to him. “I think maybe she was expecting me to say it you know?” he continued, looking up his tall blonde teammate who nodded as if he understood exactly what Tanger was saying. Sidney looked up at Jordan and then back at Tanger and then went back to his skates, deciding against asking for details. After all, he had enough women problems of his own.
“We’ll tu es dans l’amour avec la fille so why didn’t you just say so?” Max offered in his best Frenglish, his full brows lowering over his eyes as he shook his head at his friend before getting to his feet and slapping his stick against Tanger’s as yet unprotected shins. Tanger winced and shot Max a dirty look.
“Hello? She’s the one who’s been withholding everything. Why should I say it first? Put myself out there like that...she broke up with me. Or did you miss that part?” he asked, getting to his feet and turning his back on all of them, reaching for his under gear as if that was it, case closed.
“So that’s it? She’s available?” Max asked, stepping just out of reach as Tanger wielded his shoulder pads like a pair of nun-chucks.
“No she’s not. I talked her out of it. She said she thought there might be a problem with her job if we got serious so I told her it wasn’t it isn’t serious, that she didn’t need to worry about my parents finding out she’s a stripper just yet. I played it cool. So no, she’s not fucking available, tu foutu idiot!”
Max was ducking and diving like a prize fighter as Tanger went after him and the rest of the room cheered Tanger on. Sidney took his stick and went out into the hall to tape it. He had enough on his mind. He didn’t need to get involved in other people’s problems.
Strippers, families...Sidney shook his head as he wound the tape around the grip of his stick. He knew the guys wouldn’t think his problems were that serious in comparison, but his heart knew better.
He’d sat outside her apartment last night, watched her light come on in the middle of the night. He thought maybe that meant she couldn’t sleep either, that maybe she was thinking of him too, but he hadn’t managed to gather the courage to actually buzz her apartment. He knew if he left it much longer that she probably wouldn’t even give him a chance to explain, if she even would now.
Would he, if he was in her shoes, he wondered as he twirled the tape to make the grips he preferred. No, he probably wouldn’t he had to admit. Too much time had passed. There would be no other way to think about what he’d done other than what she must already think. That he’d just used her.
He’d even written a letter. It was still in his car. He’d almost put it through the mail slot in the front door last night. He’d actually gotten out of his Land Rover to do it. He’d walked right up to the steps before he’d realized that anyone might pick it up and read it. He only had her name to put on it, her name and apartment number. That didn’t guarantee that she would get it, that no one else would read it.
So he’d turned around and gone home and lay awake in his own bed, staring at the ceiling until it was time to come to practice. He was dog tired. He couldn’t keep doing this, he knew it, and yet every time he told himself to just give up on it all...something in the back of his brain told him that he couldn’t.
“Hey space case.” Sidney looked up to find Jordan grinning curiously at him. “You look dead tired. Been up jacking off to porn too late?”
“Beating Ovie’s ass on NHL 09 more like,” Sidney lied, grinning back at his friend. Jordan threw back his head and laughed and then turned towards the ice. Taking a deep breath, Sidney squared his shoulders and followed him.
There was time enough to worry about this shit later. Hockey first.
________________________________________________________________________
“You keep staring at that screen like that and you’ll go blind,” Hannah noted as she slid into the chair next to Mya at the make-up table. Mya grinned but didn’t look away from the glowing screen. She was on a roll.
“They’re going to give me some credentials and let me do some interviews at the Steelers game,” Mya explained. “I’m doing my research. I have no clue about football at all,” she added, scrolling down the huge list that made up the Steeler’s active roster. “I can’t believe there’s this many guys on one team.”
“So it is true,” Hannah observed, puckering her lips and applying a deep crimson stain to them, “all you Canadians care about is hockey.”
“Pretty much,” Mya laughed, opening up on the bios and leaning in to read the fine print. “That and curling, if you live on the Prairies.”
“Shuffle board on ice, sounds like a blast,” Cassidy added in her two cents, putting her high heel clad foot up on the chair next to Mya as she adjusted her garters. “Hey, speaking of ice, haven’t I seen you getting into a very nice car lately? With some cutie patootie that plays for the Pens?” Mya rolled her eyes but nodded. “Well give me a heads up if you’re going to interview them. You can take me into their changing room any time. I’d love to give that Sid kid a lap dance he won’t forget if you know what I mean.” All the girls in the room laughed but Mya bristled. Her protective instincts began to surface, but she shoved them back down, silently counting to ten.
“Do you think Kris would mind if I gave the Kid a lap dance?” she asked, playing along, and was rewarded by barks of raucous laughter.
“If he does, then hand him over girlfriend,” Hannah snorted, making a ‘come hither’ Mae West face in the mirror. “I could definitely teach that little Frenchie a thing or two.” Mya laughed but inside she thought to herself that no one knew how much she wished she could just hand him off to someone.
If only it were that easy, she thought to herself as she closed her laptop and reached for her red wig. He’d practically begged for her not to break up with him with heartfelt assurances that his mother would like her just as much as he does and that she had nothing to worry about on that score, that they would never judge her for having to pay her own way through school.
She’d really thought she had the perfect out. She’d been so sure that he would have to admit his Catholic parents would never approve of his relationship with her. Once he’d talked around her only argument, Mya had had nothing to come back with, no real reason to continue the argument.
Well that wasn’t true she thought as picked up her blow up fire hydrant and headed for the stage. She could always tell him that she’d had sex with his teammate.
She just wasn’t ready to play that card yet and she wasn’t sure if she ever was going to be.
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“Don’t forget, your paper on the founders of baseball is due next class!” she called after the retreating students who’d actually stayed for her study group. This was the part she liked best about being a teacher’s aid. It was like practice for actually doing the job itself. Not that she ever saw herself as a teacher, but it was good to get feedback and hear other people’s opinions. Plus, she’d been able to pickt he brains of a few of the other students about the Steelers players and she was pretty sure she had some fairly good insight into some of the star players now. At least she wouldn’t be entirely useless by the weekend when she’d finally be doing some live interviews. She couldn’t believe how much she was looking forward to it.
The anticipation almost made her forget about the horrible mess she was making out of the rest of her life. Unfortunately, the rest of her life was waiting outside the room to take her home. She’d seen Kris peek in the door a few minutes ago.
He was prompt and attentive. She had to give him that.
“You don’t have to do this you know,” Mya said quietly as she heard his footfalls on the floor behind her as the last of the students strolled out the door.
“It’s dangerous out there at night. I can’t have my girlfriend wandering the streets now can I?” he asked, his voice husky as he slid his arms around her waist, pressing the width of his chest to her back, his lips falling on the curve of her neck.
“Public transit is perfectly safe,” Mya muttered, closing her eyes and fighting the urge to peel his hands off of her midsection and maybe breaking a finger or two in the process. It wasn’t that she was repulsed by his touch, the opposite was true. It was just that she didn’t melt into his arms either.
“Not as safe as my car,” he whispered, biting down on her earlobe which sent an involuntary shiver down her spine, making him chuckle.
“And what am I supposed to do when you have a game or you’re on the road?” she asked, wriggling free of his grasp and returning to stacking and filing her notes before putting all of her books in her book bag which he immediately took out of her hand. She stared at the brown leather satchel and then up into his dark eyes and bit back her immediate retort. He was trying to be solicitous and chivalrous. She didn’t need to be rude in return.
“Take a taxi,” he suggested, putting his hand on the small of her back and leading her out of the room.
“Yeah, just what I need to do when I’m trying to save all my pennies,” she muttered, opening her umbrella as soon as they emerged into the winter weather. His hand slid from the small of her back around her waist as he drew her close, huddling under the umbrella with her. Mya told herself to breathe, not to let herself get irritated. After all, he’d done nothing to incur her wrath and yet she felt herself withdraw from his touch, and half way out to the parking lot she stopped in her tracks, shaking her head. “I’m sorry Kris. I can’t do this.”
“Do what?” he asked, moving back so that he was under the umbrella with her. Mya took another step back, drew a long slow breath and then looked over at him.
“I can’t do this to you. I can’t pretend anymore.” He looked crestfallen and confused and her heart ached to see his handsome features altered in that way, but she couldn’t make herself feel something that she didn’t. It wasn’t fair to either of them. “I don’t know how to make this any easier. I adore you Kris...but there’s someone else.”
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He drummed his palms against the steering wheel in time to the Nickelback song on the radio as he sat in the parking lot, watching the rain beat down on the windshield. He wasn’t sure how he’d ended up here, but it wasn’t the first time. He’d told himself, the last time he’d found himself sitting outside of the campus, that maybe he’d go in and look into taking a course or two, but he never did. He never went in. He just sat in his Land Rover and stared at the doors, waiting for her to come out.
He’d explained it away, this urge to watch her, by telling himself that it was only because she reminded him of Randi with her green eyes and dark hair. He never even got out of the car or spoke to her. He just watched her walk to the bus stop, chatting with her fellow students, or, on days that were nicer than this, watched her leave on her bike. He didn’t even follow her to wherever it was that she lived.
He’d just go home, or out with the guys, or wherever he was going after her class and forget about her.
Well no. That wasn’t strictly true.
He didn’t forget about her. He just pushed any thoughts of her to the back of his mind; sure it was somehow unfair to Randi’s memory to think of anyone else. Which was the same reason that he’d left PEI without letting her know, without talking to her again and why he’d run out on her that night. It was too soon and really, the only reason he’d felt anything at all was because she reminded him of Randi.
Yet, here he was, sitting in his car, in the rain, waiting just to catch a glimpse of her, of Mya.
Guilt sat in the pit of his stomach like a brick as he watched her push the door open, chatting animatedly as she crossed the courtyard towards the parking lot. Sid reached to turn the keys in the ignition before his hand froze mid motion. She wasn’t with just another one of the regular students, the ones who wore the regular thrift store student clothes. She was with someone he recognized.
She was with Tanger and if she was with him that meant that she was...the stripper.
His blood boiled in his veins. First, to see Tanger with his arm possessively around her and secondly to know that she’d let just anyone see the body that haunted his dreams. He wanted her. He wanted her all to himself. He hated it, but he knew it was true.
Stuffing his keys in his pocket, Sidney found himself walking across the parking lot, ignoring the beating rain that plastered his dark hair to his face, only pausing when he saw her step backwards. She’d seen him. She was going to run.
But no, she was looking straight at Tanger and he couldn’t tell what she was saying. The umbrella shaded her face. He wished he could see Tanger’s face. His reactions he knew, just like he knew those of most of the guys on the team and on other teams. It was part of knowing the game, being able to read people.
Would she be angry? Of course she would, Sidney thought as he slowed his pace, unsure now of what he was going to do, what he’d say when he got between them. Would he actually fight his friend for her? Why was he even doing this? She wasn’t the kind of girl he could even see himself with....
Then her eyes met his, over Tanger’s shoulder and she smiled. She actually smiled and then she was walking towards him and he froze in his tracks, taken entirely off guard.
“Play along,” she whispered, throwing her arms around his neck, her green eyes searching his for a brief moment before she laid a kiss on him that made his insides turn into silly putty.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Chapter 9
“I just feel like I might have made a huge mistake,” Mya sighed, wrapping her arms and her jacket closer around her as she crouched near her Aunt’s grave, brushing snow off of the small brass name plate. “I’m just so far from home and I miss my friends. I thought I’d make more and I guess I have, like at work but...it’s not the same. I don’t have anyone but you to talk to and if you don’t mind my saying so, you sort of suck at advice now,” she added as she chuckled to herself. “I mean, I guess I could talk to your Stevie boy but...it’s not the same as getting advice from a woman,” she added with a sigh, pressing the potted poinsettia down into the snow beside the plaque. “But, on the other hand, they like me at the network and they’ve offered me a job there, on air and everything. I mean, not full time, obviously because they want me to finish my masters as much as I want to but still...on air, that’s pretty cool. But then I just think I could probably do it back home too, maybe even easier...I don’t know,” she let out another long sigh and then got up, stretching her arms over her head. “Maybe it’s just this dreary gray cold fucking city or maybe I need to just give in to Kris so I can get laid,” she mumbled, staring down at the lonely little plaque, a tiny island of colour in the white blanket of snow. “See you next week. Miss you,” she mumbled, blowing a kiss towards the plaque and then turning and heading back towards the cleared walkway, taking small, tentative steps so she didn’t slip on the ice.
She glanced up the hill towards the spot she’d seen him before. It seemed like a year ago but it had only been a few months, three and a bit. He wasn’t there and she wasn’t sure if she was relieved or not by his absence. Part of her still longed for him. Just thinking about that night Sidney had come to her sent a shiver down her spine that had nothing at all to do with frosty weather.
Turning back to where she was heading, she met the dark, brooding gaze of the man who was waiting patiently for her. He watched her, heat and barely checked desire clear in his eyes, his inviting mouth set in a determined line, his hands deep in the pockets of his leather jacket, his muscular thighs wrapped tightly in dark denim. He was every inch the bad boy and his slicked dark hair and pork chop side burns only added to his image, and to his desirability.
Mya let her gaze roam over him, reaching deep to blow on those embers deep in the pit of her stomach, the ones that Sidney had left behind and were almost cold now. She blew on them, kindling them, making them blink red and orange as his assessing gaze met hers. She’d made him wait so long, too long she knew. What she should have done, what would have been the right thing to do, was to break up with him a long time ago. She should have told him about Sidney. She should have admitted that even though she found him attractive and that he was possibly the most perfect boyfriend she’d ever had that she wasn’t now and possibly never would be in love with him.
And yet she couldn’t let go of the sweet and saucy Frenchman. Like now, as she drew near him and his lips turned up into a roguish grin that made her heart skip a beat.
Mya was so very tired of holding him at arms length. She was tired of being lonely and she was just so fed up with wanting something she was obviously never going to have.
“You can’t wait forever girl,” she whispered to herself as she picked her way towards him along the paved walkway, “and he’s not going to wait forever either,” she added as she stepped off of the walkway and onto the paved parking lot, where her feet promptly went out from under her. Black ice, she thought as she threw her arms out, waving them like helicopter rotors, trying to maintain her balance.
His strong arms caught her, his knee under the small of her back, his arms around her and his body bent over hers’. Mya looked up into Kristopher’s handsome face and smiled.
“You saved me,” she whispered, reaching up to run her fingertips along his cheekbone, down to his jaw line and then back, through his hair until her hand wrapped around his neck. She pulled his lips down over her own and kissed him. Closing her eyes she chased away those thoughts that always came racing now, unbidden and unwanted passengers in the rise of her own lust. She forced them back into the darker recesses of her brain as she kissed this man who did want her, feeling his grip tighten around her as he pulled her up onto her feet, his tongue darting between her lips as he pulled her up against his body, his hands sliding down, down until he gripped her ass and pulled her against him, his need hard and obvious.
He moaned into her mouth, anticipating her withdrawal, knowing full well this was usually the time when she would turn away from him, making some pathetic excuse to throw cold water on the heat they’d created between them. Not today, she thought, ignoring that little voice in the back of her head reminding her that she didn’t love this man, that she could never give him her heart. Today, she promised herself silently as she laced her fingers in his long dark hair and deepened the kiss, grinding up against him, forcing his body against the car, raising her leg so her thigh rode high along his.
“Today,” she promised him quietly as his lips brushed her jaw, trailing kisses down her neck. “Take me home today.”
He didn’t need to hear more, his dark eyes searching hers’ for one brief moment during which she lied with her own gaze, putting things behind her eyes she would never feel. He grinned, bright and dazzling before bending over her hand, kissing the back of her hand like he was greeting royalty, thanking her silently before he yanked open the passenger door and practically ran around the car and cranked the engine over before he’d even settled into the driver’s seat.
Mya couldn’t let the embers die down, she knew, or she’d lose her nerve. Eschewing safety and decorum both, she reached for his belt buckle, allowing her stage character to take over as she urged him free of the tight and now obviously uncomfortable confines of his jeans. She wrapped her fingers around him, enjoying the strangled cry that escaped his throat. Slipping beneath his arm, Mya slid her mouth down over him and closed her eyes.
Only now, when Kris had to keep his eyes on the road or kill them both, did Mya allow herself to think about the hazel eyed dark haired boy, the one and only who made her heart skip a beat. She brought his handsome face to mind, let her imagination strip his muscular athletic body naked in her mind’s eye and lost herself in the idea of kneeling before him and performing this act while his hazel eyes looked own at her, full of love and affection, his full pink lips curled up into an angelic smile.
______________________________________________________________________________
“You have to snap out of it,” Jordan said quietly, his eyes trained above on a spot on the ceiling as Sidney took the weight bar out of his hands. “If you’re not going to apologize or at the very least go see her, then you have to snap out of it.”
“I don’t remember you saying that after Randi died,” Sidney replied just as quietly, exchanging places with his taller teammate and waiting while weight was added to each side of the bar. He too stared at the ceiling, but it wasn’t just a plain white ceiling he saw, nor was it the angelic face of his ex. It was Mya’s face. Contorted by passion and bathed in sweat, her eyes bright with ecstasy, her full lips turned up in feral grin. It was a vision he couldn’t get out of his head.
“That was different and you know it,” Jordan hissed, gingerly lowering the bar into Sidney’s hands and waiting until he had full control of it before stepping back just enough to give him room to lift it. “This woman’s alive and you’re acting like you’re dead. You didn’t even do that after Randi died.”
“I had the Cup then and I’m not acting like I’m dead. I’m concentrating. I’m focussed. You should try it,” he replied, keeping his voice level, conscious of their teammates working out around them. They didn’t need to know his business. It wasn’t good for them to know that their captain was off, even a little bit. And that’s all this was, Sidney told himself as he grunted with the effort of lifting the heavily burdened bar. This was a blip. He’d get over it, eventually.
“There’s hundred of fish in the sea,” Jordan reminded him, sounding just like the team psychologist. That’s what she kept telling him every time he tried to broach the subject of how to get over his one night stand, how to get this woman out of his head. That seemed to be everyone’s answer. Just go on to the next pair of tits. Go home with the next girl that offered. Have sex with some other stranger and he’d feel better.
But he wouldn’t. He knew that. He knew it as well as he knew that when he went out on that ice tomorrow that everyone would be expecting him to score, that half of the people in the stands would be wearing his number on the back. It was just something that true and he couldn’t get around it.
He was in love with a ghost and he was in love with a woman he didn’t even know. How much more fucked up could you get?
“I’m not interested in fish,” he snarled, managing to push the bar up one last time, every muscle in his arms and chest straining, grunting with the effort. He was glad when Jordan finally took the bar from him and rolled back into its’ resting spot.
“You say that, but you don’t do anything about it, and that’s the part I don’t get Creature.” Jordan tossed him a towel and stood over him, looking down at him, mystified. “You’re the most fucking determined person I’ve met in my entire fucking life, and that’s fucking saying something considering my family,” he began, shaking his head. “If you wanted her, you’d have gone after her a long time ago. I just don’t get it.” Jordan gave him one last, long look and then shook his head dismissively and turned and walked towards the bikes. Sidney watched him go and then pulled the towel over his head and hung his head between his knees.
“Yeah, me neither,” Sidney said quietly. “Me fucking neither.”
_____________________________________________________________________
Mya looked over at the inert form beside her, watching his back move up and down at regular intervals as he slept deeply. The sleep of the dead and the innocent she thought as she reached over for the cigarette pack on her nightstand.
It was a bad habit she’d picked up at Blush from the other girls. It steadied their nerves but Mya had never had nerves, not even when she got naked in front of a room of strange men. But she had them now and had had them ever since she’d been with Sidney in this bed.
She hadn’t really hoped that bringing Kris here would erase the past, she had far too good a grip on reality for that, but she had prayed it would lessen the sting. It hadn’t.
Reaching for her robe, Mya tugged it around her and took her lighter and the pack of cigarettes and slipped down the hall. She couldn’t sleep, not with him there, looking all sweet and innocent in his sleep when she felt anything but.
Shaking a cigarette out of the pack, she put it in her mouth and lit it, taking two long hard drags off of it before she took it out of her mouth and coughed. She wasn’t really good at smoking and she hated the stink of it but it gave her something to do with her hands when she couldn’t sleep like this, which lately, seemed like all the time.
He’d done his best, she was fairly certain of that. Her joints ached and the smell of stale sweat and sex clung to her body just as it should after hours of romping between the sheets with an indefatigable athlete. She’d even done things she didn’t really like doing but seemed to please him in hopes of making it last longer, of bringing on the sleep of the truly well consumed.
But she wasn’t. She was sitting in her kitchen, smoking, and hating herself.
She thought about the ice cream in her freezer and the cookies in the cupboard. She could make herself a sundae and turn on the horror channel and really and truly let herself fall into a deep depression. Except at some point she was bound to wake Kris up and then she’d have to explain and how exactly was she going to do that, she wondered, as she flicked the ashes from the end of the cigarette into an empty bowl.
No, seriously, you’re amazing in bed. A fucking silver medalist if I’m any judge. Why not gold? Well you see you have this teammate and....
No, she thought ruefully as butted out the cigarette and stared longingly towards the freezer. That conversation probably wouldn’t go down that well. Although he deserved some sort of explanation because this couldn’t go on and she knew it. Especially not now, not after they’d had sex, not after the way he’d looked at her as he held her in his arms after the first time.
He was in love with her. It had been written all over his handsome features. He’d looked down at her with this sappy puppy dog look in his eyes and she’d almost called it all off then. She should have. Right there and then, she should have crawled out of the bed and ordered him out. But she hadn’t had the courage and part of her was still hoping that something inside of her would answer him, would suddenly realize that he was just as perfect as he seemed to be.
But it didn’t and it hadn’t and she knew that it wouldn’t.
Tugging her robe closer around her to ward off the chill she walked back down the hall and to the bathroom, careful to close the door quietly behind her. As soon as she turned the water on the room would fill with steam, but if she left the door open the fire alarm would go off.
Dropping her robe to the floor Mya reached to turn on the water and caught sight of herself in the mirror. Turning back to the mirror she arched her neck, looking for any of the obvious signs left behind and found none. Of course Kris would be more careful, mindful of her trade. But then Sidney didn’t know. She could hardly blame him for the fact that she hadn’t been able to work for days afterward.
And therein lay the answer to it all.
While Montréal was, in all likelihood, a very modern place, most of its’ inhabitants were also very religious. Kris wore a small gold cross and he often played with it when he was concerned or concentrating. Maybe he was okay with what she did to pay her bills but his family, in their suburban home on the outskirts of Montréal would probably see it differently.
And Sidney? Well that was a no go from the beginning. His squeaky clean image would never withstand the kind of scrutiny that even a whisper of her occupation would likely raise.
Not that she’d ever done anything that she was strictly ashamed of and there weren’t any nude pictures for anyone to find and publish, just the same sort of suggestive ones that were posted outside Blush and on their website. Still, it would be enough because even though no one even so much as touched her, being a stripper was equated to being a porn star. Mya knew the difference but she also knew that most people couldn’t care less that there was a difference.
And that was exactly what she was going to tell Kris and it was also exactly what was going to help her get over the idea of her and Sidney, because it could never happen. She’d made her bed and she was going to have to lie in it...alone.
She glanced up the hill towards the spot she’d seen him before. It seemed like a year ago but it had only been a few months, three and a bit. He wasn’t there and she wasn’t sure if she was relieved or not by his absence. Part of her still longed for him. Just thinking about that night Sidney had come to her sent a shiver down her spine that had nothing at all to do with frosty weather.
Turning back to where she was heading, she met the dark, brooding gaze of the man who was waiting patiently for her. He watched her, heat and barely checked desire clear in his eyes, his inviting mouth set in a determined line, his hands deep in the pockets of his leather jacket, his muscular thighs wrapped tightly in dark denim. He was every inch the bad boy and his slicked dark hair and pork chop side burns only added to his image, and to his desirability.
Mya let her gaze roam over him, reaching deep to blow on those embers deep in the pit of her stomach, the ones that Sidney had left behind and were almost cold now. She blew on them, kindling them, making them blink red and orange as his assessing gaze met hers. She’d made him wait so long, too long she knew. What she should have done, what would have been the right thing to do, was to break up with him a long time ago. She should have told him about Sidney. She should have admitted that even though she found him attractive and that he was possibly the most perfect boyfriend she’d ever had that she wasn’t now and possibly never would be in love with him.
And yet she couldn’t let go of the sweet and saucy Frenchman. Like now, as she drew near him and his lips turned up into a roguish grin that made her heart skip a beat.
Mya was so very tired of holding him at arms length. She was tired of being lonely and she was just so fed up with wanting something she was obviously never going to have.
“You can’t wait forever girl,” she whispered to herself as she picked her way towards him along the paved walkway, “and he’s not going to wait forever either,” she added as she stepped off of the walkway and onto the paved parking lot, where her feet promptly went out from under her. Black ice, she thought as she threw her arms out, waving them like helicopter rotors, trying to maintain her balance.
His strong arms caught her, his knee under the small of her back, his arms around her and his body bent over hers’. Mya looked up into Kristopher’s handsome face and smiled.
“You saved me,” she whispered, reaching up to run her fingertips along his cheekbone, down to his jaw line and then back, through his hair until her hand wrapped around his neck. She pulled his lips down over her own and kissed him. Closing her eyes she chased away those thoughts that always came racing now, unbidden and unwanted passengers in the rise of her own lust. She forced them back into the darker recesses of her brain as she kissed this man who did want her, feeling his grip tighten around her as he pulled her up onto her feet, his tongue darting between her lips as he pulled her up against his body, his hands sliding down, down until he gripped her ass and pulled her against him, his need hard and obvious.
He moaned into her mouth, anticipating her withdrawal, knowing full well this was usually the time when she would turn away from him, making some pathetic excuse to throw cold water on the heat they’d created between them. Not today, she thought, ignoring that little voice in the back of her head reminding her that she didn’t love this man, that she could never give him her heart. Today, she promised herself silently as she laced her fingers in his long dark hair and deepened the kiss, grinding up against him, forcing his body against the car, raising her leg so her thigh rode high along his.
“Today,” she promised him quietly as his lips brushed her jaw, trailing kisses down her neck. “Take me home today.”
He didn’t need to hear more, his dark eyes searching hers’ for one brief moment during which she lied with her own gaze, putting things behind her eyes she would never feel. He grinned, bright and dazzling before bending over her hand, kissing the back of her hand like he was greeting royalty, thanking her silently before he yanked open the passenger door and practically ran around the car and cranked the engine over before he’d even settled into the driver’s seat.
Mya couldn’t let the embers die down, she knew, or she’d lose her nerve. Eschewing safety and decorum both, she reached for his belt buckle, allowing her stage character to take over as she urged him free of the tight and now obviously uncomfortable confines of his jeans. She wrapped her fingers around him, enjoying the strangled cry that escaped his throat. Slipping beneath his arm, Mya slid her mouth down over him and closed her eyes.
Only now, when Kris had to keep his eyes on the road or kill them both, did Mya allow herself to think about the hazel eyed dark haired boy, the one and only who made her heart skip a beat. She brought his handsome face to mind, let her imagination strip his muscular athletic body naked in her mind’s eye and lost herself in the idea of kneeling before him and performing this act while his hazel eyes looked own at her, full of love and affection, his full pink lips curled up into an angelic smile.
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“You have to snap out of it,” Jordan said quietly, his eyes trained above on a spot on the ceiling as Sidney took the weight bar out of his hands. “If you’re not going to apologize or at the very least go see her, then you have to snap out of it.”
“I don’t remember you saying that after Randi died,” Sidney replied just as quietly, exchanging places with his taller teammate and waiting while weight was added to each side of the bar. He too stared at the ceiling, but it wasn’t just a plain white ceiling he saw, nor was it the angelic face of his ex. It was Mya’s face. Contorted by passion and bathed in sweat, her eyes bright with ecstasy, her full lips turned up in feral grin. It was a vision he couldn’t get out of his head.
“That was different and you know it,” Jordan hissed, gingerly lowering the bar into Sidney’s hands and waiting until he had full control of it before stepping back just enough to give him room to lift it. “This woman’s alive and you’re acting like you’re dead. You didn’t even do that after Randi died.”
“I had the Cup then and I’m not acting like I’m dead. I’m concentrating. I’m focussed. You should try it,” he replied, keeping his voice level, conscious of their teammates working out around them. They didn’t need to know his business. It wasn’t good for them to know that their captain was off, even a little bit. And that’s all this was, Sidney told himself as he grunted with the effort of lifting the heavily burdened bar. This was a blip. He’d get over it, eventually.
“There’s hundred of fish in the sea,” Jordan reminded him, sounding just like the team psychologist. That’s what she kept telling him every time he tried to broach the subject of how to get over his one night stand, how to get this woman out of his head. That seemed to be everyone’s answer. Just go on to the next pair of tits. Go home with the next girl that offered. Have sex with some other stranger and he’d feel better.
But he wouldn’t. He knew that. He knew it as well as he knew that when he went out on that ice tomorrow that everyone would be expecting him to score, that half of the people in the stands would be wearing his number on the back. It was just something that true and he couldn’t get around it.
He was in love with a ghost and he was in love with a woman he didn’t even know. How much more fucked up could you get?
“I’m not interested in fish,” he snarled, managing to push the bar up one last time, every muscle in his arms and chest straining, grunting with the effort. He was glad when Jordan finally took the bar from him and rolled back into its’ resting spot.
“You say that, but you don’t do anything about it, and that’s the part I don’t get Creature.” Jordan tossed him a towel and stood over him, looking down at him, mystified. “You’re the most fucking determined person I’ve met in my entire fucking life, and that’s fucking saying something considering my family,” he began, shaking his head. “If you wanted her, you’d have gone after her a long time ago. I just don’t get it.” Jordan gave him one last, long look and then shook his head dismissively and turned and walked towards the bikes. Sidney watched him go and then pulled the towel over his head and hung his head between his knees.
“Yeah, me neither,” Sidney said quietly. “Me fucking neither.”
_____________________________________________________________________
Mya looked over at the inert form beside her, watching his back move up and down at regular intervals as he slept deeply. The sleep of the dead and the innocent she thought as she reached over for the cigarette pack on her nightstand.
It was a bad habit she’d picked up at Blush from the other girls. It steadied their nerves but Mya had never had nerves, not even when she got naked in front of a room of strange men. But she had them now and had had them ever since she’d been with Sidney in this bed.
She hadn’t really hoped that bringing Kris here would erase the past, she had far too good a grip on reality for that, but she had prayed it would lessen the sting. It hadn’t.
Reaching for her robe, Mya tugged it around her and took her lighter and the pack of cigarettes and slipped down the hall. She couldn’t sleep, not with him there, looking all sweet and innocent in his sleep when she felt anything but.
Shaking a cigarette out of the pack, she put it in her mouth and lit it, taking two long hard drags off of it before she took it out of her mouth and coughed. She wasn’t really good at smoking and she hated the stink of it but it gave her something to do with her hands when she couldn’t sleep like this, which lately, seemed like all the time.
He’d done his best, she was fairly certain of that. Her joints ached and the smell of stale sweat and sex clung to her body just as it should after hours of romping between the sheets with an indefatigable athlete. She’d even done things she didn’t really like doing but seemed to please him in hopes of making it last longer, of bringing on the sleep of the truly well consumed.
But she wasn’t. She was sitting in her kitchen, smoking, and hating herself.
She thought about the ice cream in her freezer and the cookies in the cupboard. She could make herself a sundae and turn on the horror channel and really and truly let herself fall into a deep depression. Except at some point she was bound to wake Kris up and then she’d have to explain and how exactly was she going to do that, she wondered, as she flicked the ashes from the end of the cigarette into an empty bowl.
No, seriously, you’re amazing in bed. A fucking silver medalist if I’m any judge. Why not gold? Well you see you have this teammate and....
No, she thought ruefully as butted out the cigarette and stared longingly towards the freezer. That conversation probably wouldn’t go down that well. Although he deserved some sort of explanation because this couldn’t go on and she knew it. Especially not now, not after they’d had sex, not after the way he’d looked at her as he held her in his arms after the first time.
He was in love with her. It had been written all over his handsome features. He’d looked down at her with this sappy puppy dog look in his eyes and she’d almost called it all off then. She should have. Right there and then, she should have crawled out of the bed and ordered him out. But she hadn’t had the courage and part of her was still hoping that something inside of her would answer him, would suddenly realize that he was just as perfect as he seemed to be.
But it didn’t and it hadn’t and she knew that it wouldn’t.
Tugging her robe closer around her to ward off the chill she walked back down the hall and to the bathroom, careful to close the door quietly behind her. As soon as she turned the water on the room would fill with steam, but if she left the door open the fire alarm would go off.
Dropping her robe to the floor Mya reached to turn on the water and caught sight of herself in the mirror. Turning back to the mirror she arched her neck, looking for any of the obvious signs left behind and found none. Of course Kris would be more careful, mindful of her trade. But then Sidney didn’t know. She could hardly blame him for the fact that she hadn’t been able to work for days afterward.
And therein lay the answer to it all.
While Montréal was, in all likelihood, a very modern place, most of its’ inhabitants were also very religious. Kris wore a small gold cross and he often played with it when he was concerned or concentrating. Maybe he was okay with what she did to pay her bills but his family, in their suburban home on the outskirts of Montréal would probably see it differently.
And Sidney? Well that was a no go from the beginning. His squeaky clean image would never withstand the kind of scrutiny that even a whisper of her occupation would likely raise.
Not that she’d ever done anything that she was strictly ashamed of and there weren’t any nude pictures for anyone to find and publish, just the same sort of suggestive ones that were posted outside Blush and on their website. Still, it would be enough because even though no one even so much as touched her, being a stripper was equated to being a porn star. Mya knew the difference but she also knew that most people couldn’t care less that there was a difference.
And that was exactly what she was going to tell Kris and it was also exactly what was going to help her get over the idea of her and Sidney, because it could never happen. She’d made her bed and she was going to have to lie in it...alone.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Chapter 8
I just want to say thankyou for your patience. I have had one hell of a week so if you have been waiting, thank you and I hope you will not be disappointed and also I hope you will give Sid a little break after reading this chapter.
Sidney stood over her grave, a dozen roses wrapped in cellophane in his hand. He couldn’t speak, or rather, he wouldn’t. What could he say? How do you apologize to a dead woman? How do you explain that you didn’t mean for something to happen, unless of course you did?
Closing his eyes, Sidney took a deep breath but the fresh oxygen caught in his throat and his hand shook as he began to peel the cellophane away from around the stems of the roses. He caught his finger on a thorn and swore quietly. Nothing seemed to be going right for him lately.
“I wish you could just tell me...give me some kind of sign. I mean if it’s what you want...the whole Mya thing,” he mumbled as he began placing the long stemmed red roses in the vase one by one. “Because if you do...if you did then I’ve probably totally screwed it up anyway,” he added with a sigh, twirling one of the dark green stems between his finger and thumb. “I mean if you did...then I should probably be mad at you. I mean...I’m clearly not ready for anything now. I mean...I wasn’t really ready for you but...it was just different with you.” He put the last of the roses in the vase and then knelt by the brass plaque and ran his fingertips lovingly over her name. “I loved you so much,” he whispered, the words catching on the ball of emotion that formed in his throat whenever he came here. “I just...how could I even give her or anyone else what’s left of...of my heart?” he asked, a tear escaping from the corner of his eye. He brushed at it impatiently with the back of his hand. “Why’d you have to go?” he asked, sniffing back a sob as his fingers slid over the now familiar raised pattern of the letters, slightly shinier than the rest of the plaque from where his fingers trailed over her name so often. “I don’t know what to do Rand...I wish...I wish you were here.”
Pushing himself up to his feet, Sidney brushed at his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket and turned and headed away from the silent grave that gave him no answers but tugged at his heart in a way that was almost too painful to bear.
__________________________________________________________________________
He was waiting for her when she walked out into the alley after her shift, perched on the hood of his car, arms crossed, watching the alley like a hawk. Mya flipped the loose end of her scarf over her shoulder and strode forward into the wind that whistled eerily around her, clutching at loose strands of her hair and sending them whipping against her cheeks, stinging where they struck. The wind clutched at the hem of her jacket, wrapping it around her legs as if it were a live thing, as if it were trying to trip her up.
“No one claimed it,” Kris said firmly, holding the money out towards her, folded neatly in his hand. “You may as well take it.” Mya stared at the stack of folded green bills, chewing on her lip as she considered the ramifications. “Whoever he is, he already got the message that you didn’t immediately go on a spending spree, oui?” he said, thrusting the bills towards her and raising his eyebrow. “You may as well take it now.” Reluctantly Mya held out her hand, palm up and Kris put the money down on her hand, folding her fingers over it. She looked down at his hand covering hers’ and then up into his dark eyes. “You’re not going to tell me what this is about are you?”
“He’s your friend, your teammate. You’d only take his side,” she said quietly, withdrawing her hand from his and reaching to slip the money into her purse.
“You seem certain about that.” She looked up to find him standing straight up, his body almost pressed against hers’. She looked up into his face and saw a flash of fierce protectiveness in his eyes. It made her knees weak.
“You have to work with him...I would understand,” she continued but fell silent when he captured her face in his hands and kissed her, ardently, his lips moving hungrily over hers, teeth knocking, tongues dancing as she reached to hold onto him, eager to be held. Still holding her face in his hands, he unlocked his lips from hers’ and stared down at her, his eyes wild with desire.
“I worked hard to be here and I don’t want to be sent back down to Wilkes, but I won’t just give up what’s mine to someone else. I don’t care if it’s Sidney fucking Crosby.” Mya felt her breath catch in her throat, and fought to keep the truth from her eyes even as his gaze searched hers’. As angry as she was she’d had time to think and there had been something in the way he’d made love to her...if she could even call it that, that had her wondering.
“What’s yours?” she asked, blocking out all the rest and batting her eyelashes playfully at him instead.
“I’m very competitive,” he admitted with a feral grin that sent a shiver down her spine. If only he knew.
“I can see that,” she replied quietly, her gaze travelling slowly from his lips up to his eyes and down again. Taking the hint, he captured her lips in his and kissed her slowly, leisurely, his tongue slipping between her lips and curling around her own. His moustache tickled. It should have made her toes curl. It should have made her knees turn to Jello but all she could think about was another kiss that had lit a fire inside of her that was yet to go out, no matter how hard she tried to extinguish it. “Maybe that’s why, no matter how many times you kiss me, I’m still not going to tell you.” With a half a smile he bowed his head and his dark hair fell over his eyes as he shook it.
“Will you at least tell me...,” he fell silent as she leaned in to kiss him, pressing her lips lightly against his.
“Either take me to dinner or take me home. Those are your choices.” With a sigh and a wry smile, he agreed, turning and opening the car door for her with a flourish, bowing over his hand, all the while watching her, mischief making his dark eyes dance.
“My lady’s chariot awaits,” he grinned, closing the door and whistling as he walked around the car. Mya watched him, enjoying the view. He looked good in those jeans. She liked the way they hugged his muscular thighs. Yes, she thought, the view was more than satisfactory. She just wished that her heart would beat just a little faster when she looked at him, or when he kissed her but it seemed her heart only beat faster for another.
She hoped her heart would learn in time as he slid behind the wheel and glanced over at her, desire clear in his eyes.
____________________________________________________________________________
“Mon Capitain, une autre?” Max pushed another shot of Patron towards Sidney, watching with seemingly rapt fascination as the usual controlled exterior of his friend and team captain crumbled beneath the weight of grief and alcohol. Sidney downed the shot and wiped his mouth along his sleeve, pushing the glass back towards Max who raised his eyebrow in query. “Encore?”
“Yes another!” Sidney grumbled, pushing the shot glass closer to the bottle, eschewing the salt and the lime. He was passed caring about the bitter taste of the golden liquid, he was only concerned about reaching oblivion sooner rather than later.
“Mon ami, je pense que tu as eu assez,” Fleury suggested quietly, laying his hand gently on Sidney’s shoulder. Sidney shrugged off the young goaltender’s hand and gave the shot glass another shove, wincing at the clinking sound the two pieces of glass made.
“At least slow it down there Creature,” Jordy piped up from behind him where he was hooked up to the Xbox. Sidney turned on the bar stool and stared at him, wondering how in the hell his tall blonde friend was going to be a father in a few months when he was still more likely to be found attached to a video game or a beer bottle.
“You should talk,” Sidney pointed at his tall friend; the single movement almost making him slip off of the chrome and leather bar stool. “Why are you even here dude? You have someone to go home to. Why aren’t you there?” Jordan turned and regarded Sidney with a bemused grin and then went back to racing his viper through the streets of San Francisco.
“My chick has hormone issues. I’m safer here but I’m not drinking my head off,” he added, raising his half empty beer bottle for all to see before putting it back down and putting both hands on the controller.
“What...what about you?” Sidney asked, turning his attention to Fleur, his speech beginning to become slurred. “You have Vero...she’s so nice. Sooo nice.”
“He’s going to start saying ‘I love you man’ soon,” Jordy called without looking away from his game and Max snorted in response. Sidney looked from one to the other with narrowed eyes and started to stand, intending to argue, but the room spun around him and he settled back onto the stool, holding on to the edge of the bar to steady himself.
“Tu as eu assez tout à fait,” Fleur decided, wrenching the bottle from Max’s hand and sweeping the shot glass away from Sidney’s hand. “No more and you’re sleeping here.”
“Nooo, noo, you don’t understand. You all have someone. I have no one,” Sidney moaned, dropping his forehead down onto the back of his hands.
“Max doesn’t,” Jordy pointed out helpfully.
“He doesn’t want anyone, doesn’t count,” Sidney countered miserably, his voice muffled. “I want someone...someone like Vero, someone to come home to, to be there.” He looked up at Fleur who looked back at him with sympathy. But then Fleur was always the understanding one. Fleur understood. “Is it too much to ask?”
“No mon ami,” Fleur replied quietly, coming around the bar to put his hand on Sidney’s arm. “I’m not sure you’re ready for someone mon ami. Tu es toujours trop triste, que tu pense?” Sidney hung his head and let out a long low sigh.
“I miss her,” he whispered, feeling Marc’s grip on his arm tighten in response.
“Je sais mon ami,” the young Frenchman replied quietly as Sidney looked up at him, hating that he was about to cry in front of his friends. “Of course you do mon ami, of course you do.”
“I told him he just needs to get laid,” Max offered, as if Sidney wasn’t sitting just there. He narrowed his eyes at Max who held up his hands defensively and laughed nervously.
“I tried, okay? J’ai essayé. It didn’t work...it’s...it’s too hard. It just fucked with my head. I like the girl too much,” Sidney snarled, dropping his head into his hands again and rubbing at his eyes, hating how weak he felt.
“Oh god, you went after Miss P.E.I. didn’t you?” Max groaned, laughing again, but this time at his expense. Sidney looked up at him and again Max held up his hands in supplication. “What? Did I tell you to do it with someone you know? Es-tu fou? Pick a girl, any girl from outside the arena, a bar...fuck Sid! Complicate shit much?”
“Who’s this?” Jordy asked, putting down the controller, suddenly interested.
“This hottie he met on vacation. She’s going to school here,” Max explained before Sidney could even open his mouth, despite the dark look he shot at his friend.
“And you fucked her? Nice,” Jordy laughed, nodding, like it was a good thing.
“No...no, not nice,” Sidney replied, pressing hard against his throbbing temples. “You don’t get it. None of you get it. I could have something with her. I think I could even fall in love with her but now I’ve screwed it all up beyond fucking belief.”
“You don’t know that,” Fleur offered softly. “Pas à coup sûr.”
“I do...I fucking ran like an idiot. I left her...and I...I just fucked up okay?” he grumbled, kneading at his sore head, swallowing the information about the money he’d left behind. It was bad enough someone else knew, he didn’t need anyone else to know and he was fairly sure if one of these three knew they’d have said something by now. “She probably hates me. I hate me.”
“You could always try apologizing. I’m told it works,” Max offered, glancing towards Jordy who shot him an evil look.
“What did I say about her hormones? I can’t keep apologizing for shit I haven’t done,” Jordy shot back, turning back to his game.
“He’s right,” Fleur said quietly. Sidney turned to look at his friend and nodded. He could go back and apologize. God knows he should. He just didn’t know what to say. How could he explain how impossibly fucked up he was? How could he possibly ask her to believe he hadn’t meant anything by leaving the money on the floor? “Just try. What have you got to lose?”
“My sanity?” Sidney offered quietly, closing his eyes and leaning his head on the bar. “That is, if I haven’t lost it already.”
___________________________________________________________________
Mya’s eyes fluttered closed and she bit down on her bottom lip as his kisses blazed a trail of fire down her neck. She concentrated on trying to wake the butterflies in her stomach she had felt when first he’d kissed her but as hard as she tried, and as ardent as he was, she felt nothing more than the faintest of fluttering as his hand moved gingerly up over her breast.
She should want him. There was no reason not to. He was handsome and attentive and generous and if she was completely honest, the whole possessive thing was a turn on and yet, she felt nothing. Not even as it became unmistakably apparent how much he wanted her, the hard thickness of him straining against his jeans, grinding into her thigh as he kissed his way over her collarbone.
She should be hot, panting, dragging him into her apartment. She should be tearing at his clothes.
Instead, she pressed her hand flat against his chest and pushed.
He looked up at her with a wide eyed ‘are you fucking kidding me’ look and Mya winced. It was no use telling him she was as disappointed as he looked. She could well imagine his dark hair falling into her face as his athletic body moved over hers’ and there was not a doubt in her mind that he would be a skilled and thorough lover.
But she couldn’t do it. He was too sweet, too nice, too much of a gentleman to take him into her apartment just to fake it or worse, to end up with that awkward moment afterwards when he would realize that she’d been thinking of someone else the entire time, because she already had been. As he’d kissed her, she’d shut her eyes and called up the wavy dark hair and pale skin of his teammate and felt the butterflies rise to his call.
But she wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t. It was as simple as that.
“Goodnight Kris,” she whispered, offering him a quick peck on the cheek as he stood there, staring back at her, stunned into silence. She dug her keys out of her purse and hurried into her apartment before she changed her mind and dragged him in after her to feed the need that she was trying hard to ignore.
Leaning against the door, Mya closed her eyes and cursed the hazel eyed boy wonder who had stolen her heart. It was the last thing he deserved.
Sidney stood over her grave, a dozen roses wrapped in cellophane in his hand. He couldn’t speak, or rather, he wouldn’t. What could he say? How do you apologize to a dead woman? How do you explain that you didn’t mean for something to happen, unless of course you did?
Closing his eyes, Sidney took a deep breath but the fresh oxygen caught in his throat and his hand shook as he began to peel the cellophane away from around the stems of the roses. He caught his finger on a thorn and swore quietly. Nothing seemed to be going right for him lately.
“I wish you could just tell me...give me some kind of sign. I mean if it’s what you want...the whole Mya thing,” he mumbled as he began placing the long stemmed red roses in the vase one by one. “Because if you do...if you did then I’ve probably totally screwed it up anyway,” he added with a sigh, twirling one of the dark green stems between his finger and thumb. “I mean if you did...then I should probably be mad at you. I mean...I’m clearly not ready for anything now. I mean...I wasn’t really ready for you but...it was just different with you.” He put the last of the roses in the vase and then knelt by the brass plaque and ran his fingertips lovingly over her name. “I loved you so much,” he whispered, the words catching on the ball of emotion that formed in his throat whenever he came here. “I just...how could I even give her or anyone else what’s left of...of my heart?” he asked, a tear escaping from the corner of his eye. He brushed at it impatiently with the back of his hand. “Why’d you have to go?” he asked, sniffing back a sob as his fingers slid over the now familiar raised pattern of the letters, slightly shinier than the rest of the plaque from where his fingers trailed over her name so often. “I don’t know what to do Rand...I wish...I wish you were here.”
Pushing himself up to his feet, Sidney brushed at his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket and turned and headed away from the silent grave that gave him no answers but tugged at his heart in a way that was almost too painful to bear.
__________________________________________________________________________
He was waiting for her when she walked out into the alley after her shift, perched on the hood of his car, arms crossed, watching the alley like a hawk. Mya flipped the loose end of her scarf over her shoulder and strode forward into the wind that whistled eerily around her, clutching at loose strands of her hair and sending them whipping against her cheeks, stinging where they struck. The wind clutched at the hem of her jacket, wrapping it around her legs as if it were a live thing, as if it were trying to trip her up.
“No one claimed it,” Kris said firmly, holding the money out towards her, folded neatly in his hand. “You may as well take it.” Mya stared at the stack of folded green bills, chewing on her lip as she considered the ramifications. “Whoever he is, he already got the message that you didn’t immediately go on a spending spree, oui?” he said, thrusting the bills towards her and raising his eyebrow. “You may as well take it now.” Reluctantly Mya held out her hand, palm up and Kris put the money down on her hand, folding her fingers over it. She looked down at his hand covering hers’ and then up into his dark eyes. “You’re not going to tell me what this is about are you?”
“He’s your friend, your teammate. You’d only take his side,” she said quietly, withdrawing her hand from his and reaching to slip the money into her purse.
“You seem certain about that.” She looked up to find him standing straight up, his body almost pressed against hers’. She looked up into his face and saw a flash of fierce protectiveness in his eyes. It made her knees weak.
“You have to work with him...I would understand,” she continued but fell silent when he captured her face in his hands and kissed her, ardently, his lips moving hungrily over hers, teeth knocking, tongues dancing as she reached to hold onto him, eager to be held. Still holding her face in his hands, he unlocked his lips from hers’ and stared down at her, his eyes wild with desire.
“I worked hard to be here and I don’t want to be sent back down to Wilkes, but I won’t just give up what’s mine to someone else. I don’t care if it’s Sidney fucking Crosby.” Mya felt her breath catch in her throat, and fought to keep the truth from her eyes even as his gaze searched hers’. As angry as she was she’d had time to think and there had been something in the way he’d made love to her...if she could even call it that, that had her wondering.
“What’s yours?” she asked, blocking out all the rest and batting her eyelashes playfully at him instead.
“I’m very competitive,” he admitted with a feral grin that sent a shiver down her spine. If only he knew.
“I can see that,” she replied quietly, her gaze travelling slowly from his lips up to his eyes and down again. Taking the hint, he captured her lips in his and kissed her slowly, leisurely, his tongue slipping between her lips and curling around her own. His moustache tickled. It should have made her toes curl. It should have made her knees turn to Jello but all she could think about was another kiss that had lit a fire inside of her that was yet to go out, no matter how hard she tried to extinguish it. “Maybe that’s why, no matter how many times you kiss me, I’m still not going to tell you.” With a half a smile he bowed his head and his dark hair fell over his eyes as he shook it.
“Will you at least tell me...,” he fell silent as she leaned in to kiss him, pressing her lips lightly against his.
“Either take me to dinner or take me home. Those are your choices.” With a sigh and a wry smile, he agreed, turning and opening the car door for her with a flourish, bowing over his hand, all the while watching her, mischief making his dark eyes dance.
“My lady’s chariot awaits,” he grinned, closing the door and whistling as he walked around the car. Mya watched him, enjoying the view. He looked good in those jeans. She liked the way they hugged his muscular thighs. Yes, she thought, the view was more than satisfactory. She just wished that her heart would beat just a little faster when she looked at him, or when he kissed her but it seemed her heart only beat faster for another.
She hoped her heart would learn in time as he slid behind the wheel and glanced over at her, desire clear in his eyes.
____________________________________________________________________________
“Mon Capitain, une autre?” Max pushed another shot of Patron towards Sidney, watching with seemingly rapt fascination as the usual controlled exterior of his friend and team captain crumbled beneath the weight of grief and alcohol. Sidney downed the shot and wiped his mouth along his sleeve, pushing the glass back towards Max who raised his eyebrow in query. “Encore?”
“Yes another!” Sidney grumbled, pushing the shot glass closer to the bottle, eschewing the salt and the lime. He was passed caring about the bitter taste of the golden liquid, he was only concerned about reaching oblivion sooner rather than later.
“Mon ami, je pense que tu as eu assez,” Fleury suggested quietly, laying his hand gently on Sidney’s shoulder. Sidney shrugged off the young goaltender’s hand and gave the shot glass another shove, wincing at the clinking sound the two pieces of glass made.
“At least slow it down there Creature,” Jordy piped up from behind him where he was hooked up to the Xbox. Sidney turned on the bar stool and stared at him, wondering how in the hell his tall blonde friend was going to be a father in a few months when he was still more likely to be found attached to a video game or a beer bottle.
“You should talk,” Sidney pointed at his tall friend; the single movement almost making him slip off of the chrome and leather bar stool. “Why are you even here dude? You have someone to go home to. Why aren’t you there?” Jordan turned and regarded Sidney with a bemused grin and then went back to racing his viper through the streets of San Francisco.
“My chick has hormone issues. I’m safer here but I’m not drinking my head off,” he added, raising his half empty beer bottle for all to see before putting it back down and putting both hands on the controller.
“What...what about you?” Sidney asked, turning his attention to Fleur, his speech beginning to become slurred. “You have Vero...she’s so nice. Sooo nice.”
“He’s going to start saying ‘I love you man’ soon,” Jordy called without looking away from his game and Max snorted in response. Sidney looked from one to the other with narrowed eyes and started to stand, intending to argue, but the room spun around him and he settled back onto the stool, holding on to the edge of the bar to steady himself.
“Tu as eu assez tout à fait,” Fleur decided, wrenching the bottle from Max’s hand and sweeping the shot glass away from Sidney’s hand. “No more and you’re sleeping here.”
“Nooo, noo, you don’t understand. You all have someone. I have no one,” Sidney moaned, dropping his forehead down onto the back of his hands.
“Max doesn’t,” Jordy pointed out helpfully.
“He doesn’t want anyone, doesn’t count,” Sidney countered miserably, his voice muffled. “I want someone...someone like Vero, someone to come home to, to be there.” He looked up at Fleur who looked back at him with sympathy. But then Fleur was always the understanding one. Fleur understood. “Is it too much to ask?”
“No mon ami,” Fleur replied quietly, coming around the bar to put his hand on Sidney’s arm. “I’m not sure you’re ready for someone mon ami. Tu es toujours trop triste, que tu pense?” Sidney hung his head and let out a long low sigh.
“I miss her,” he whispered, feeling Marc’s grip on his arm tighten in response.
“Je sais mon ami,” the young Frenchman replied quietly as Sidney looked up at him, hating that he was about to cry in front of his friends. “Of course you do mon ami, of course you do.”
“I told him he just needs to get laid,” Max offered, as if Sidney wasn’t sitting just there. He narrowed his eyes at Max who held up his hands defensively and laughed nervously.
“I tried, okay? J’ai essayé. It didn’t work...it’s...it’s too hard. It just fucked with my head. I like the girl too much,” Sidney snarled, dropping his head into his hands again and rubbing at his eyes, hating how weak he felt.
“Oh god, you went after Miss P.E.I. didn’t you?” Max groaned, laughing again, but this time at his expense. Sidney looked up at him and again Max held up his hands in supplication. “What? Did I tell you to do it with someone you know? Es-tu fou? Pick a girl, any girl from outside the arena, a bar...fuck Sid! Complicate shit much?”
“Who’s this?” Jordy asked, putting down the controller, suddenly interested.
“This hottie he met on vacation. She’s going to school here,” Max explained before Sidney could even open his mouth, despite the dark look he shot at his friend.
“And you fucked her? Nice,” Jordy laughed, nodding, like it was a good thing.
“No...no, not nice,” Sidney replied, pressing hard against his throbbing temples. “You don’t get it. None of you get it. I could have something with her. I think I could even fall in love with her but now I’ve screwed it all up beyond fucking belief.”
“You don’t know that,” Fleur offered softly. “Pas à coup sûr.”
“I do...I fucking ran like an idiot. I left her...and I...I just fucked up okay?” he grumbled, kneading at his sore head, swallowing the information about the money he’d left behind. It was bad enough someone else knew, he didn’t need anyone else to know and he was fairly sure if one of these three knew they’d have said something by now. “She probably hates me. I hate me.”
“You could always try apologizing. I’m told it works,” Max offered, glancing towards Jordy who shot him an evil look.
“What did I say about her hormones? I can’t keep apologizing for shit I haven’t done,” Jordy shot back, turning back to his game.
“He’s right,” Fleur said quietly. Sidney turned to look at his friend and nodded. He could go back and apologize. God knows he should. He just didn’t know what to say. How could he explain how impossibly fucked up he was? How could he possibly ask her to believe he hadn’t meant anything by leaving the money on the floor? “Just try. What have you got to lose?”
“My sanity?” Sidney offered quietly, closing his eyes and leaning his head on the bar. “That is, if I haven’t lost it already.”
___________________________________________________________________
Mya’s eyes fluttered closed and she bit down on her bottom lip as his kisses blazed a trail of fire down her neck. She concentrated on trying to wake the butterflies in her stomach she had felt when first he’d kissed her but as hard as she tried, and as ardent as he was, she felt nothing more than the faintest of fluttering as his hand moved gingerly up over her breast.
She should want him. There was no reason not to. He was handsome and attentive and generous and if she was completely honest, the whole possessive thing was a turn on and yet, she felt nothing. Not even as it became unmistakably apparent how much he wanted her, the hard thickness of him straining against his jeans, grinding into her thigh as he kissed his way over her collarbone.
She should be hot, panting, dragging him into her apartment. She should be tearing at his clothes.
Instead, she pressed her hand flat against his chest and pushed.
He looked up at her with a wide eyed ‘are you fucking kidding me’ look and Mya winced. It was no use telling him she was as disappointed as he looked. She could well imagine his dark hair falling into her face as his athletic body moved over hers’ and there was not a doubt in her mind that he would be a skilled and thorough lover.
But she couldn’t do it. He was too sweet, too nice, too much of a gentleman to take him into her apartment just to fake it or worse, to end up with that awkward moment afterwards when he would realize that she’d been thinking of someone else the entire time, because she already had been. As he’d kissed her, she’d shut her eyes and called up the wavy dark hair and pale skin of his teammate and felt the butterflies rise to his call.
But she wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t. It was as simple as that.
“Goodnight Kris,” she whispered, offering him a quick peck on the cheek as he stood there, staring back at her, stunned into silence. She dug her keys out of her purse and hurried into her apartment before she changed her mind and dragged him in after her to feed the need that she was trying hard to ignore.
Leaning against the door, Mya closed her eyes and cursed the hazel eyed boy wonder who had stolen her heart. It was the last thing he deserved.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Chapter 7
“Captain pays,” Max yelled as he walked away with his white chocolate mocha, pushing Jordy ahead of him and shooing TK and Tanger away from the cashier with their wallets still out. Sidney watched them, shaking his head. He wasn’t the only guy on the team making plenty of money but he reached into his pocket all the same.
Drawing out his wallet, Sidney flipped it open and stared into the black void inside. There was nothing there. No bills at all.
He’d been in a hurry when he left that beer and wine store, he remembered. Sure it had been a few days ago, before they began the three day road trip, but he was almost sure he’d put the change back in his wallet. He dug into the pocket of his jeans but came up empty. Of course he hadn’t been wearing these when....
“Ugh how come Geno never pays?” he suggested loudly as he reached for his Visa, something he didn’t like to do. It came from growing up where money was tight and the first credit card he’d ever had had been when he was at Shattucks and it had been strictly for emergencies only. It seemed stupid to use plastic to pay for coffee, even if it was for ten of them and he didn’t even drink the stuff.
“I pay, no problem. Big hockey star, lots of money. You single?” Geno asked, leaning towards the cashier with the sort of smile on his face that told everyone in Starbucks that he was imagining her naked already. The guy had a girlfriend, but that obviously wasn’t stopping him from looking.
Taking his passion ice tea, Sidney joined the rest of his teammates back out in the parking lot, who all seemed to be gathered around Tanger, who was cursing at his cell in two languages.
“Merde. Women! Je ne comprends pas,” he was grumbling which seemed to make Max and Fleur laugh.
“What’s up?” he asked MAF who smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“His girlfriend isn’t returning his calls,” the goalie replied quietly.
“Girlfriend? You mean in Montreal,” Sidney corrected him but Fleur only shook his head, smiling.
“No, he’s started seeing someone here.”
“He’s kept that quiet,” Sidney began, glancing towards the long haired, usually very quiet and normally private Quebecois defenseman.
“You would too in his case,” Flower began to explain but Max’s booming voice overrode them all.
“Does this mean she’s available? I’m all over that if she’s available. I’ll show her what a real man can....”
“Aucun tu pas!” Tanger snarled but with a grin on his face. It was hard to take Max seriously at the best of times but Sidney could see something in his friend’s face that told him that he wasn’t entirely joking. They were all so damned competitive but other than the pucks, this was one thing that there had to be an agreement on. Teammates don’t fight over women, ever. It was a hard and fast rule on every team. That didn’t mean it never happened but he didn’t think anyone was itching to get traded right now and that would be the automatic result of anyone caught with their hand in that particular cookie jar.
“It’s not like she’s your girlfriend, you only went out once,” Max complained but the rest of the guys were laughing and Tanger was doing his best to look hurt and outraged all at once.
“Mon fils, you kill me. Truly. It’s true love. How could you doubt it? You saw the way she looked at me. She couldn’t keep her eyes off of me,” Tanger insisted but Max was waving his arms as if to ward off a blow and doing his best not to laugh at the same time.
“It was me she couldn’t keep her eyes off of. Are you kidding me? Je suis la première étoile. I scored the goals in game seven. All the women want a piece of Superstar vingt-cinq.”
“Tue s fou,” Tanger was laughing right along with everyone else, waving Max off as he headed back towards the bus. “What woman would ever want anyone as hairy as you?”
“I keep the women warm mon ami, I keep them very warm!” Max called after him, a big shit eating grin on his face. “Now what about you mon capitaine? How goes your love life? How is this student body of yours?” he asked, drawing a shapely figure in the aIr in front of him with his hands. Sidney felt his grin disappear as heshrugged and tried, in vain, not to think about just how good that shape looked bared to his hungry eyes.
“We’ll see when we get back,” Sidney muttered, stepping onto the bus.
“I thought we talked about getting back in the saddle mon ami? I promise you, it’s just like riding a bike you have to....” Sidney held up his hand and his sometime winger fell silent. They knew each other well enough by now that even Max didn’t push his luck when given the hand. He merely put his hand on his friend’s shoulder as Sidney slid into the seat next to Flower. They shared a brief smile and then the bus lurched into motion and Sidney reached for his iPod and let the heavy sounds of Finger Eleven take him away.
______________________________________________________________________________
Mya snapped her phone closed for the third time and dropped it into the bottom of her book bag. She should block his number she thought irritably as she went back to watching the curser blinking at her on the blank screen.
Damn them both, she cursed as she tapped her fingers against the edge of the desk. She hadn’t been able to think straight for days and she was finding it impossible to sleep to boot, which was not helping in the least. She had a deadline on this story and it was her first attempt for WPXI and she didn’t want to fuck it up. She’d met with the station manager who had been impressed enough with the articles he’d already read but had as soon as they’d sat down one on one, he’d offered her an on camera position if she wanted it. Weather girl of course, which she’d politely turned down.
What was it about men and a pair of tits? Obviously it made their brains stop working, she mused as she took to chewing thoughtfully on the end of her pen. She didn’t need any more evidence of that then the wet t-shirt contest they’d had at the bar last night. The amount of noise the crowd had made, you’d have thought they’d never seen a pair of tits in their life.
Mya wrinkled her nose and shut her eyes tight, willing herself to stop imagining the look on Sidney’s face as he’d looked down at her, his hazel eyes glazed over with lust. Every time she thought about it she wanted him and she hated that.
Sliding her hand into her book bag, she took out wallet. She hadn’t spent any of the money he’d left. It wasn’t that she couldn’t use it; it was just that she wanted to toss it back in his face at the earliest opportunity.
Her phone vibrated again, making her book bag rattle against her chair. Rolling her eyes, Mya reached down and grabbed it and stared down at the display. It was Kris, again. She started to close her phone and then a wry smile crept across her face.
“Hi Kris? You back in town yet?”
_____________________________________________________________________
She lost her nerve. As soon as she saw him standing there, leaning against his car in his charcoal gray suit, not even having taken the time to go home to change, she knew that her intricately orchestrated plan to embarrass him and make him take her anger out on Sidney was out the window. How could she when he looked so handsome with his dark hair slicked back and a warm inviting smile on his face?
Taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, Mya fought the urge to turn and hide inside her apartment, dive into bed and pull the covers over her head and make like an ostrich with its head in the sand. That wasn’t going to solve anything though.
Forcing one foot in front of the other, she made herself walk toward him, reminding herself with each step how humiliated she felt as she wrapped her fingers around the folded bills in her pocket. The dry crisp feel of the faded bills were an indisputable reminder of that.
“Ma Cherie,” he began, straightening up and reaching to brush a stray strand of hair behind her ear, his grin broad and confident. Some of that confidence began to leak away when she noticeably flinched at his touch.
“Who have you told?” she asked, point blank, doing her best to keep her voice strong and steady, not to let it waiver and sound weak.
“About what?” he asked, looking confused, his fingers frozen where they brushed against her ear. She tried to ignore the warmth of his skin and the way the small hairs stood up on the back of her neck when his dark gaze searched hers. She held her chin high and met his gaze, refusing to let his puppy dog brown eyes and soft lips liquefy her resolve.
“How many of your teammates have you told about me?”
“All of them,” he began, his lips turning up into that cocky grin that made his eyes light up and made her want to return his smile. Instead she bit down on the inside of her cheek until she could taste the tang of copper as her own blood ran between her teeth. His grin faded at the edges as she continued to stare back at him, unmoved by his boyish features.
“About what I do...about my job,” she continued, her voice low, pitched for his ears alone. Bewilderment filled his eyes for a moment and he looked past her, like he was going through the roster, seeing the faces of each of his teammates and finally he came back to himself and turned his gaze back on her.
“Only Pascal, Fleur and Max,” he replied, counting them off on his fingers.
“Are you sure?” she asked again, tilting her head to one side so that his hand naturally fell away and she didn’t have to feel his skin on hers. She narrowed her eyes at him when he looked back at her as if butter wouldn’t melt, as if momma’s little boy couldn’t possibly tell a lie.
“Sur la vie de ma mere!” he exclaimed, reaching for her hands which she pulled from his grasp. “I promise you. Why would I tell them so they could go there and ogle you? I told you, ma chérie, I don’t intend to share you with them.” She wanted to believe him. She looked into his velvet brown eyes and almost gave in the plea she saw there, but the crisp bills in her pocket told her otherwise.
“Well then you’d better take this,” she replied quietly, pulling the stack of bills from her pocket and held them toward him. “Ask your friends which one of them left them in my apartment.” She turned to go, expecting him to know immediately, half expecting him to defend his teammate to her, but instead he grabbed her arm and pulled her roughly to him.
“Who gave you this?” he demanded his Québecois accent thickening with emotion as fury and jealousy flared in his dark eyes.
“Ask your...friends,” she replied, as calmly as she could manage, peeling his fingers from her arm and turning away again, heading for the safety of her apartment where she could lick her wounds in privacy.
_________________________________________________________________________
Sidney stared at the crumpled, wadded up handful of bills lying in the middle of the room, in the centre of the Penguins logo. He felt as the wad of bills had eyes and was staring back at him, accusation in its’ gaze. A shudder went down his spine, but not of fear.
He couldn’t erase her from his mind, as much as he’d done everything he could think of to do just that. He wished he could expunge the memory of her curvaceous body pressed against his but every time he tried, the memory only seemed to become even more clear, until he could smell the sweet floral scent in her dark hair and the spicy musk of her skin.
He wanted her. Even now, sitting in the funk of the room, when he should be thinking of the game ahead, he was thinking of her, imaging her golden skin, warm under his lips. He ached for her. She invaded his every thought. It was like a disease he couldn’t shake and the worst part of it was, he didn’t want to.
He’d almost made up his mind to go to her this afternoon. To beg her to forgive his cowardice and beg her to take him to her bed and punish him in any way she thought fit, but his courage had failed him before he had turned the corner towards her apartment. He’d been certain she’d throw him out and now, with the reproachful wad of bills staring back at him, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that she’d do more than that.
The money must have fallen out of his wallet when he’d kicked off his pants. It was the only explanation that he could think of. Of course he hadn’t left all of that behind on purpose; not that she wasn’t worth all of it and more, much, much more.
And now, to make things worse, someone else on the team knew how he’d treated her, what he’d done.
He was afraid to look around the room, afraid whose eyes he’d see staring back at him, accusing him. He kept his head down, concentrated on his routine, on not breathing too heavily, on not giving his guilt away even as it ate at his gut.
You left this where you shouldn’t have. She’s not a whore. You and I have some business to discuss.
That was it. That was all that the note sitting with the money said. Not who it was he’d wronged, or who knew. But someone knew and he was sure if he looked up now, whoever it was that had laid the trap for him would know just by the look on his face. ]
They’d know and then everyone would know. Everyone would know what he’d done and then everyone would remind him how he said he wouldn’t, not after Randi. Even if they were joking around they’d say it. Even if they didn’t mean it they’d say it.
He didn’t need anyone to say it. He’d disrespected her memory and in the process disrespected a perfectly innocent bystander and now he couldn’t go back to her. How could he? How could possibly apologize for this? ]
She thought he believed she was some kind of...prostitute, night walker, whore and how could he blame her? He’d treated her exactly that way. He’d used her and left behind a pile of crumpled bills. She must hate him, he thought resignedly as he pulled on his second skate. She must want to rip his out balls off and wear them as earrings. First he’d left and then the money?
No there was no going back now, no matter how much he ached.
It would just have to be another ache he had to get over. Like Randi, a memory to fade away, no more, no less, because he couldn’t go back now.
Drawing out his wallet, Sidney flipped it open and stared into the black void inside. There was nothing there. No bills at all.
He’d been in a hurry when he left that beer and wine store, he remembered. Sure it had been a few days ago, before they began the three day road trip, but he was almost sure he’d put the change back in his wallet. He dug into the pocket of his jeans but came up empty. Of course he hadn’t been wearing these when....
“Ugh how come Geno never pays?” he suggested loudly as he reached for his Visa, something he didn’t like to do. It came from growing up where money was tight and the first credit card he’d ever had had been when he was at Shattucks and it had been strictly for emergencies only. It seemed stupid to use plastic to pay for coffee, even if it was for ten of them and he didn’t even drink the stuff.
“I pay, no problem. Big hockey star, lots of money. You single?” Geno asked, leaning towards the cashier with the sort of smile on his face that told everyone in Starbucks that he was imagining her naked already. The guy had a girlfriend, but that obviously wasn’t stopping him from looking.
Taking his passion ice tea, Sidney joined the rest of his teammates back out in the parking lot, who all seemed to be gathered around Tanger, who was cursing at his cell in two languages.
“Merde. Women! Je ne comprends pas,” he was grumbling which seemed to make Max and Fleur laugh.
“What’s up?” he asked MAF who smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“His girlfriend isn’t returning his calls,” the goalie replied quietly.
“Girlfriend? You mean in Montreal,” Sidney corrected him but Fleur only shook his head, smiling.
“No, he’s started seeing someone here.”
“He’s kept that quiet,” Sidney began, glancing towards the long haired, usually very quiet and normally private Quebecois defenseman.
“You would too in his case,” Flower began to explain but Max’s booming voice overrode them all.
“Does this mean she’s available? I’m all over that if she’s available. I’ll show her what a real man can....”
“Aucun tu pas!” Tanger snarled but with a grin on his face. It was hard to take Max seriously at the best of times but Sidney could see something in his friend’s face that told him that he wasn’t entirely joking. They were all so damned competitive but other than the pucks, this was one thing that there had to be an agreement on. Teammates don’t fight over women, ever. It was a hard and fast rule on every team. That didn’t mean it never happened but he didn’t think anyone was itching to get traded right now and that would be the automatic result of anyone caught with their hand in that particular cookie jar.
“It’s not like she’s your girlfriend, you only went out once,” Max complained but the rest of the guys were laughing and Tanger was doing his best to look hurt and outraged all at once.
“Mon fils, you kill me. Truly. It’s true love. How could you doubt it? You saw the way she looked at me. She couldn’t keep her eyes off of me,” Tanger insisted but Max was waving his arms as if to ward off a blow and doing his best not to laugh at the same time.
“It was me she couldn’t keep her eyes off of. Are you kidding me? Je suis la première étoile. I scored the goals in game seven. All the women want a piece of Superstar vingt-cinq.”
“Tue s fou,” Tanger was laughing right along with everyone else, waving Max off as he headed back towards the bus. “What woman would ever want anyone as hairy as you?”
“I keep the women warm mon ami, I keep them very warm!” Max called after him, a big shit eating grin on his face. “Now what about you mon capitaine? How goes your love life? How is this student body of yours?” he asked, drawing a shapely figure in the aIr in front of him with his hands. Sidney felt his grin disappear as heshrugged and tried, in vain, not to think about just how good that shape looked bared to his hungry eyes.
“We’ll see when we get back,” Sidney muttered, stepping onto the bus.
“I thought we talked about getting back in the saddle mon ami? I promise you, it’s just like riding a bike you have to....” Sidney held up his hand and his sometime winger fell silent. They knew each other well enough by now that even Max didn’t push his luck when given the hand. He merely put his hand on his friend’s shoulder as Sidney slid into the seat next to Flower. They shared a brief smile and then the bus lurched into motion and Sidney reached for his iPod and let the heavy sounds of Finger Eleven take him away.
______________________________________________________________________________
Mya snapped her phone closed for the third time and dropped it into the bottom of her book bag. She should block his number she thought irritably as she went back to watching the curser blinking at her on the blank screen.
Damn them both, she cursed as she tapped her fingers against the edge of the desk. She hadn’t been able to think straight for days and she was finding it impossible to sleep to boot, which was not helping in the least. She had a deadline on this story and it was her first attempt for WPXI and she didn’t want to fuck it up. She’d met with the station manager who had been impressed enough with the articles he’d already read but had as soon as they’d sat down one on one, he’d offered her an on camera position if she wanted it. Weather girl of course, which she’d politely turned down.
What was it about men and a pair of tits? Obviously it made their brains stop working, she mused as she took to chewing thoughtfully on the end of her pen. She didn’t need any more evidence of that then the wet t-shirt contest they’d had at the bar last night. The amount of noise the crowd had made, you’d have thought they’d never seen a pair of tits in their life.
Mya wrinkled her nose and shut her eyes tight, willing herself to stop imagining the look on Sidney’s face as he’d looked down at her, his hazel eyes glazed over with lust. Every time she thought about it she wanted him and she hated that.
Sliding her hand into her book bag, she took out wallet. She hadn’t spent any of the money he’d left. It wasn’t that she couldn’t use it; it was just that she wanted to toss it back in his face at the earliest opportunity.
Her phone vibrated again, making her book bag rattle against her chair. Rolling her eyes, Mya reached down and grabbed it and stared down at the display. It was Kris, again. She started to close her phone and then a wry smile crept across her face.
“Hi Kris? You back in town yet?”
_____________________________________________________________________
She lost her nerve. As soon as she saw him standing there, leaning against his car in his charcoal gray suit, not even having taken the time to go home to change, she knew that her intricately orchestrated plan to embarrass him and make him take her anger out on Sidney was out the window. How could she when he looked so handsome with his dark hair slicked back and a warm inviting smile on his face?
Taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, Mya fought the urge to turn and hide inside her apartment, dive into bed and pull the covers over her head and make like an ostrich with its head in the sand. That wasn’t going to solve anything though.
Forcing one foot in front of the other, she made herself walk toward him, reminding herself with each step how humiliated she felt as she wrapped her fingers around the folded bills in her pocket. The dry crisp feel of the faded bills were an indisputable reminder of that.
“Ma Cherie,” he began, straightening up and reaching to brush a stray strand of hair behind her ear, his grin broad and confident. Some of that confidence began to leak away when she noticeably flinched at his touch.
“Who have you told?” she asked, point blank, doing her best to keep her voice strong and steady, not to let it waiver and sound weak.
“About what?” he asked, looking confused, his fingers frozen where they brushed against her ear. She tried to ignore the warmth of his skin and the way the small hairs stood up on the back of her neck when his dark gaze searched hers. She held her chin high and met his gaze, refusing to let his puppy dog brown eyes and soft lips liquefy her resolve.
“How many of your teammates have you told about me?”
“All of them,” he began, his lips turning up into that cocky grin that made his eyes light up and made her want to return his smile. Instead she bit down on the inside of her cheek until she could taste the tang of copper as her own blood ran between her teeth. His grin faded at the edges as she continued to stare back at him, unmoved by his boyish features.
“About what I do...about my job,” she continued, her voice low, pitched for his ears alone. Bewilderment filled his eyes for a moment and he looked past her, like he was going through the roster, seeing the faces of each of his teammates and finally he came back to himself and turned his gaze back on her.
“Only Pascal, Fleur and Max,” he replied, counting them off on his fingers.
“Are you sure?” she asked again, tilting her head to one side so that his hand naturally fell away and she didn’t have to feel his skin on hers. She narrowed her eyes at him when he looked back at her as if butter wouldn’t melt, as if momma’s little boy couldn’t possibly tell a lie.
“Sur la vie de ma mere!” he exclaimed, reaching for her hands which she pulled from his grasp. “I promise you. Why would I tell them so they could go there and ogle you? I told you, ma chérie, I don’t intend to share you with them.” She wanted to believe him. She looked into his velvet brown eyes and almost gave in the plea she saw there, but the crisp bills in her pocket told her otherwise.
“Well then you’d better take this,” she replied quietly, pulling the stack of bills from her pocket and held them toward him. “Ask your friends which one of them left them in my apartment.” She turned to go, expecting him to know immediately, half expecting him to defend his teammate to her, but instead he grabbed her arm and pulled her roughly to him.
“Who gave you this?” he demanded his Québecois accent thickening with emotion as fury and jealousy flared in his dark eyes.
“Ask your...friends,” she replied, as calmly as she could manage, peeling his fingers from her arm and turning away again, heading for the safety of her apartment where she could lick her wounds in privacy.
_________________________________________________________________________
Sidney stared at the crumpled, wadded up handful of bills lying in the middle of the room, in the centre of the Penguins logo. He felt as the wad of bills had eyes and was staring back at him, accusation in its’ gaze. A shudder went down his spine, but not of fear.
He couldn’t erase her from his mind, as much as he’d done everything he could think of to do just that. He wished he could expunge the memory of her curvaceous body pressed against his but every time he tried, the memory only seemed to become even more clear, until he could smell the sweet floral scent in her dark hair and the spicy musk of her skin.
He wanted her. Even now, sitting in the funk of the room, when he should be thinking of the game ahead, he was thinking of her, imaging her golden skin, warm under his lips. He ached for her. She invaded his every thought. It was like a disease he couldn’t shake and the worst part of it was, he didn’t want to.
He’d almost made up his mind to go to her this afternoon. To beg her to forgive his cowardice and beg her to take him to her bed and punish him in any way she thought fit, but his courage had failed him before he had turned the corner towards her apartment. He’d been certain she’d throw him out and now, with the reproachful wad of bills staring back at him, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that she’d do more than that.
The money must have fallen out of his wallet when he’d kicked off his pants. It was the only explanation that he could think of. Of course he hadn’t left all of that behind on purpose; not that she wasn’t worth all of it and more, much, much more.
And now, to make things worse, someone else on the team knew how he’d treated her, what he’d done.
He was afraid to look around the room, afraid whose eyes he’d see staring back at him, accusing him. He kept his head down, concentrated on his routine, on not breathing too heavily, on not giving his guilt away even as it ate at his gut.
You left this where you shouldn’t have. She’s not a whore. You and I have some business to discuss.
That was it. That was all that the note sitting with the money said. Not who it was he’d wronged, or who knew. But someone knew and he was sure if he looked up now, whoever it was that had laid the trap for him would know just by the look on his face. ]
They’d know and then everyone would know. Everyone would know what he’d done and then everyone would remind him how he said he wouldn’t, not after Randi. Even if they were joking around they’d say it. Even if they didn’t mean it they’d say it.
He didn’t need anyone to say it. He’d disrespected her memory and in the process disrespected a perfectly innocent bystander and now he couldn’t go back to her. How could he? How could possibly apologize for this? ]
She thought he believed she was some kind of...prostitute, night walker, whore and how could he blame her? He’d treated her exactly that way. He’d used her and left behind a pile of crumpled bills. She must hate him, he thought resignedly as he pulled on his second skate. She must want to rip his out balls off and wear them as earrings. First he’d left and then the money?
No there was no going back now, no matter how much he ached.
It would just have to be another ache he had to get over. Like Randi, a memory to fade away, no more, no less, because he couldn’t go back now.
Chapter 7
“Captain pays,” Max yelled as he walked away with his white chocolate mocha, pushing Jordy ahead of him and shooing TK and Tanger away from the cashier with their wallets still out. Sidney watched them, shaking his head. He wasn’t the only guy on the team making plenty of money but he reached into his pocket all the same.
Drawing out his wallet, Sidney flipped it open and stared into the black void inside. There was nothing there. No bills at all.
He’d been in a hurry when he left that beer and wine store, he remembered. Sure it had been a few days ago, before they began the three day road trip, but he was almost sure he’d put the change back in his wallet. He dug into the pocket of his jeans but came up empty. Of course he hadn’t been wearing these when....
“Ugh how come Geno never pays?” he suggested loudly as he reached for his Visa, something he didn’t like to do. It came from growing up where money was tight and the first credit card he’d ever had had been when he was at Shattucks and it had been strictly for emergencies only. It seemed stupid to use plastic to pay for coffee, even if it was for ten of them and he didn’t even drink the stuff.
“I pay, no problem. Big hockey star, lots of money. You single?” Geno asked, leaning towards the cashier with the sort of smile on his face that told everyone in Starbucks that he was imagining her naked already. The guy had a girlfriend, but that obviously wasn’t stopping him from looking.
Taking his passion ice tea, Sidney joined the rest of his teammates back out in the parking lot, who all seemed to be gathered around Tanger, who was cursing at his cell in two languages.
“Merde. Women! Je ne comprends pas,” he was grumbling which seemed to make Max and Fleur laugh.
“What’s up?” he asked MAF who smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“His girlfriend isn’t returning his calls,” the goalie replied quietly.
“Girlfriend? You mean in Montreal,” Sidney corrected him but Fleur only shook his head, smiling.
“No, he’s started seeing someone here.”
“He’s kept that quiet,” Sidney begian, glancing towards the long haired, usually very quiet and normally private Quebecois defenseman.
“You would too in his case,” Flower began to explain but Max’s booming voice overrode them all.
“Does this mean she’s available? I’m all over that if she’s available. I’ll show her what a real man can....”
“Aucun tu pas!” Tanger snarled but with a grin on his face. It was hard to take Max seriously at the best of times but Sidney could see something in his friend’s face that told him that he wasn’t entirely joking. They were all so damned competitive but other than the pucks, this was one thing that there had to be an agreement on. Teammates don’t fight over women, ever. It was a hard and fast rule on every team. That didn’t mean it never happened but he didn’t think anyone was itching to get traded right now and that would be the automatic result of anyone caught with their hand in that particular cookie jar.
“It’s not like she’s your girlfriend,
you only went out once,” Max complained but the rest of the guys were laughing and Tanger was doing his best to look hurt and outraged all at once.
“Mon fils, you kill me. Truly. It’s true love. How could you doubt it? You saw the way she looked at me. She couldn’t keep her eyes off of me,” Tanger insisted but Max was waving his arms as if to ward off a blow and doing his best not to laugh at the same time.
“It was me she couldn’t keep her eyes off of. Are you kidding me? Je suis la première étoile. I scored the goals in game seven. All the women want a piece of Superstar vingt-cinq.”
“Tue s fou,” Tanger was laughing right along with everyone else, waving Max off as he headed back towards the bus. “What woman would ever want anyone as hairy as you?”
“I keep the women warm mon ami, I keep them very warm!” Max called after him, a big shit eating grin on his face. “Now what about you mon capitaine? How goes your love life? How is this student body of yours?” he asked, drawing a shapely figure in the aIr in front of him with his hands. Sidney felt his grin disappear as heshrugged and tried, in vain, not to think about just how good that shape looked bared to his hungry eyes.
“We’ll see when we get back,” Sidney muttered, stepping onto the bus.
“I thought we talked about getting back in the saddle mon ami? I promise you, it’s just like riding a bike you have to....” Sidney held up his hand and his sometime winger fell silent. They knew each other well enough by now that even Max didn’t push his luck when given the hand. He merely put his hand on his friend’s shoulder as Sidney slid into the seat next to Flower. They shared a brief smile and then the bus lurched into motion and Sidney reached for his iPod and let the heavy sounds of Finger Eleven take him away.
__________________________________________________________________________
Mya snapped her phone closed for the third time and dropped it into the bottom of her book bag. She should block his number she thought irritably as she went back to watching the curser blinking at her on the blank screen.
Damn them both, she cursed as she tapped her fingers against the edge of the desk. She hadn’t been able to think straight for days and she was finding it impossible to sleep to boot, which was not helping in the least. She had a deadline on this story and it was her first attempt for WPXI and she didn’t want to fuck it up. She’d met with the station manager who had been impressed enough with the articles he’d already read but had as soon as they’d sat down one on one, he’d offered her an on camera position if she wanted it. Weather girl of course, which she’d politely turned down.
What was it about men and a pair of tits? Obviously it made their brains stop working, she mused as she took to chewing thoughtfully on the end of her pen. She didn’t need any more evidence of that then the wet t-shirt contest they’d had at the bar last night. The amount of noise the crowd had made, you’d have thought they’d never seen a pair of tits in their life.
Mya wrinkled her nose and shut her eyes tight, willing herself to stop imagining the look on Sidney’s face as he’d looked down at her, his hazel eyes glazed over with lust. Every time she thought about it she wanted him and she hated that.
Sliding her hand into her book bag, she took out wallet. She hadn’t spent any of the money he’d left. It wasn’t that she couldn’t use it; it was just that she wanted to toss it back in his face at the earliest opportunity.
Her phone vibrated again, making her book bag rattle against her chair. Rolling her eyes, Mya reached down and grabbed it and stared down at the display. It was Kris, again. She started to close her phone and then a wry smile crept across her face.
“Hi Kris? You back in town yet?”
__________________________________________________________________________________
She lost her nerve. As soon as she saw him standing there, leaning against his car in his charcoal gray suit, not even having taken the time to go home to change, she knew that her intricately orchestrated plan to embarrass him and make him take her anger out on Sidney was out the window. How could she when he looked so handsome with his dark hair slicked back and a warm inviting smile on his face?
Taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, Mya fought the urge to turn and hide inside her apartment, dive into bed and pull the covers over her head and make like an ostrich with its head in the sand. That wasn’t going to solve anything though.
Forcing one foot in front of the other, she made herself walk toward him, reminding herself with each step how humiliated she felt as she wrapped her fingers around the folded bills in her pocket. The dry crisp feel of the faded bills were an indisputable reminder of that.
“Ma Cherie,” he began, straightening up and reaching to brush a stray strand of hair behind her ear, his grin broad and confident. Some of that confidence began to leak away when she noticeably flinched at his touch.
“Who have you told?” she asked, point blank, doing her best to keep her voice strong and steady, not to let it waiver and sound weak.
“About what?” he asked, looking confused, his fingers frozen where they brushed against her ear. She tried to ignore the warmth of his skin and the way the small hairs stood up on the back of her neck when his dark gaze searched hers. She held her chin high and met his gaze, refusing to let his puppy dog brown eyes and soft lips liquefy her resolve.
“How many of your teammates have you told about me?”
“All of them,” he began, his lips turning up into that cocky grin that made his eyes light up and made her want to return his smile. Instead she bit down on the inside of her cheek until she could taste the tang of copper as her own blood ran between her teeth. His grin faded at the edges as she continued to stare back at him, unmoved by his boyish features.
“About what I do...about my job,” she continued, her voice low, pitched for his ears alone. Bewilderment filled his eyes for a moment and he looked past her, like he was going through the roster, seeing the faces of each of his teammates and finally he came back to himself and turned his gaze back on her.
“Only Pascal, Fleur and Max,” he replied, counting them off on his fingers.
“Are you sure?” she asked again, tilting her head to one side so that his hand naturally fell away and she didn’t have to feel his skin on hers. She narrowed her eyes at him when he looked back at her as if butter wouldn’t melt, as if momma’s little boy couldn’t possibly tell a lie.
“Sur la vie de ma mere!” he exclaimed, reaching for her hands which she pulled from his grasp. “I promise you. Why would I tell them so they could go there and ogle you? I told you, ma chérie, I don’t intend to share you with them.” She wanted to believe him. She looked into his velvet brown eyes and almost gave in the plea she saw there, but the crisp bills in her pocket told her otherwise.
“Well then you’d better take this,” she replied quietly, pulling the stack of bills from her pocket and held them toward him. “Ask your friends which one of them left them in my apartment.” She turned to go, expecting him to know immediately, half expecting him to defend his teammate to her, but instead he grabbed her arm and pulled her roughly to him.
“Who gave you this?” he demanded his Québecois accent thickening with emotion as fury and jealousy flared in his dark eyes.
“Ask your...friends,” she replied, as calmly as she could manage, peeling his fingers from her arm and turning away again, heading for the safety of her apartment where she could lick her wounds in privacy.
______________________________________________________________________________
Sidney stared at the crumpled, wadded up handful of bills lying in the middle of the room, in the centre of the Penguins logo. He felt as the wad of bills had eyes and was staring back at him, accusation in its’ gaze. A shudder went down his spine, but not of fear.
He couldn’t erase her from his mind, as much as he’d done everything he could think of to do just that. He wished he could expunge the memory of her curvaceous body pressed against his but every time he tried, the memory only seemed to become even more clear, until he could smell the sweet floral scent in her dark hair and the spicy musk of her skin.
He wanted her. Even now, sitting in the funk of the room, when he should be thinking of the game ahead, he was thinking of her, imaging her golden skin, warm under his lips. He ached for her. She invaded his every thought. It was like a disease he couldn’t shake and the worst part of it was, he didn’t want to.
He’d almost made up his mind to go to her this afternoon. To beg her to forgive his cowardice and beg her to take him to her bed and punish him in any way she thought fit, but his courage had failed him before he had turned the corner towards her apartment. He’d been certain she’d throw him out and now, with the reproachful wad of bills staring back at him, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that she’d do more than that.
The money must have fallen out of his wallet when he’d kicked off his pants. It was the only explanation that he could think of. Of course he hadn’t left all of that behind on purpose; not that she wasn’t worth all of it and more, much, much more.
And now, to make things worse, someone else on the team knew how he’d treated her, what he’d done.
He was afraid to look around the room, afraid whose eyes he’d see staring back at him, accusing him. He kept his head down, concentrated on his routine, on not breathing too heavily, on not giving his guilt away even as it ate at his gut.
You left this where you shouldn’t have. She’s not a whore. You and I have some business to discuss.
That was it. That was all that the note sitting with the money said. Not who it was he’d wronged, or who knew. But someone knew and he was sure if he looked up now, whoever it was that had laid the trap for him would know just by the look on his face.
They’d know and then everyone would know. Everyone would know what he’d done and then everyone would remind him how he said he wouldn’t, not after Randi. Even if they were joking around they’d say it. Even if they didn’t mean it they’d say it.
He didn’t need anyone to say it. He’d disrespected her memory and in the process disrespected a perfectly innocent bystander and now he couldn’t go back to her. How could he? How could possibly apologize for this?
She thought he believed she was some kind of...prostitute, night walker, whore and how could he blame her? He’d treated her exactly that way. He’d used her and left behind a pile of crumpled bills. She must hate him, he thought resignedly as he pulled on his second skate. She must want to rip his out balls off and wear them as earrings. First he’d left and then the money?
No there was no going back now, no matter how much he ached.
It would just have to be another ache he had to get over. Like Randi, a memory to fade away, no more, no less, because he couldn’t go back now.
Drawing out his wallet, Sidney flipped it open and stared into the black void inside. There was nothing there. No bills at all.
He’d been in a hurry when he left that beer and wine store, he remembered. Sure it had been a few days ago, before they began the three day road trip, but he was almost sure he’d put the change back in his wallet. He dug into the pocket of his jeans but came up empty. Of course he hadn’t been wearing these when....
“Ugh how come Geno never pays?” he suggested loudly as he reached for his Visa, something he didn’t like to do. It came from growing up where money was tight and the first credit card he’d ever had had been when he was at Shattucks and it had been strictly for emergencies only. It seemed stupid to use plastic to pay for coffee, even if it was for ten of them and he didn’t even drink the stuff.
“I pay, no problem. Big hockey star, lots of money. You single?” Geno asked, leaning towards the cashier with the sort of smile on his face that told everyone in Starbucks that he was imagining her naked already. The guy had a girlfriend, but that obviously wasn’t stopping him from looking.
Taking his passion ice tea, Sidney joined the rest of his teammates back out in the parking lot, who all seemed to be gathered around Tanger, who was cursing at his cell in two languages.
“Merde. Women! Je ne comprends pas,” he was grumbling which seemed to make Max and Fleur laugh.
“What’s up?” he asked MAF who smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“His girlfriend isn’t returning his calls,” the goalie replied quietly.
“Girlfriend? You mean in Montreal,” Sidney corrected him but Fleur only shook his head, smiling.
“No, he’s started seeing someone here.”
“He’s kept that quiet,” Sidney begian, glancing towards the long haired, usually very quiet and normally private Quebecois defenseman.
“You would too in his case,” Flower began to explain but Max’s booming voice overrode them all.
“Does this mean she’s available? I’m all over that if she’s available. I’ll show her what a real man can....”
“Aucun tu pas!” Tanger snarled but with a grin on his face. It was hard to take Max seriously at the best of times but Sidney could see something in his friend’s face that told him that he wasn’t entirely joking. They were all so damned competitive but other than the pucks, this was one thing that there had to be an agreement on. Teammates don’t fight over women, ever. It was a hard and fast rule on every team. That didn’t mean it never happened but he didn’t think anyone was itching to get traded right now and that would be the automatic result of anyone caught with their hand in that particular cookie jar.
“It’s not like she’s your girlfriend,
you only went out once,” Max complained but the rest of the guys were laughing and Tanger was doing his best to look hurt and outraged all at once.
“Mon fils, you kill me. Truly. It’s true love. How could you doubt it? You saw the way she looked at me. She couldn’t keep her eyes off of me,” Tanger insisted but Max was waving his arms as if to ward off a blow and doing his best not to laugh at the same time.
“It was me she couldn’t keep her eyes off of. Are you kidding me? Je suis la première étoile. I scored the goals in game seven. All the women want a piece of Superstar vingt-cinq.”
“Tue s fou,” Tanger was laughing right along with everyone else, waving Max off as he headed back towards the bus. “What woman would ever want anyone as hairy as you?”
“I keep the women warm mon ami, I keep them very warm!” Max called after him, a big shit eating grin on his face. “Now what about you mon capitaine? How goes your love life? How is this student body of yours?” he asked, drawing a shapely figure in the aIr in front of him with his hands. Sidney felt his grin disappear as heshrugged and tried, in vain, not to think about just how good that shape looked bared to his hungry eyes.
“We’ll see when we get back,” Sidney muttered, stepping onto the bus.
“I thought we talked about getting back in the saddle mon ami? I promise you, it’s just like riding a bike you have to....” Sidney held up his hand and his sometime winger fell silent. They knew each other well enough by now that even Max didn’t push his luck when given the hand. He merely put his hand on his friend’s shoulder as Sidney slid into the seat next to Flower. They shared a brief smile and then the bus lurched into motion and Sidney reached for his iPod and let the heavy sounds of Finger Eleven take him away.
__________________________________________________________________________
Mya snapped her phone closed for the third time and dropped it into the bottom of her book bag. She should block his number she thought irritably as she went back to watching the curser blinking at her on the blank screen.
Damn them both, she cursed as she tapped her fingers against the edge of the desk. She hadn’t been able to think straight for days and she was finding it impossible to sleep to boot, which was not helping in the least. She had a deadline on this story and it was her first attempt for WPXI and she didn’t want to fuck it up. She’d met with the station manager who had been impressed enough with the articles he’d already read but had as soon as they’d sat down one on one, he’d offered her an on camera position if she wanted it. Weather girl of course, which she’d politely turned down.
What was it about men and a pair of tits? Obviously it made their brains stop working, she mused as she took to chewing thoughtfully on the end of her pen. She didn’t need any more evidence of that then the wet t-shirt contest they’d had at the bar last night. The amount of noise the crowd had made, you’d have thought they’d never seen a pair of tits in their life.
Mya wrinkled her nose and shut her eyes tight, willing herself to stop imagining the look on Sidney’s face as he’d looked down at her, his hazel eyes glazed over with lust. Every time she thought about it she wanted him and she hated that.
Sliding her hand into her book bag, she took out wallet. She hadn’t spent any of the money he’d left. It wasn’t that she couldn’t use it; it was just that she wanted to toss it back in his face at the earliest opportunity.
Her phone vibrated again, making her book bag rattle against her chair. Rolling her eyes, Mya reached down and grabbed it and stared down at the display. It was Kris, again. She started to close her phone and then a wry smile crept across her face.
“Hi Kris? You back in town yet?”
__________________________________________________________________________________
She lost her nerve. As soon as she saw him standing there, leaning against his car in his charcoal gray suit, not even having taken the time to go home to change, she knew that her intricately orchestrated plan to embarrass him and make him take her anger out on Sidney was out the window. How could she when he looked so handsome with his dark hair slicked back and a warm inviting smile on his face?
Taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, Mya fought the urge to turn and hide inside her apartment, dive into bed and pull the covers over her head and make like an ostrich with its head in the sand. That wasn’t going to solve anything though.
Forcing one foot in front of the other, she made herself walk toward him, reminding herself with each step how humiliated she felt as she wrapped her fingers around the folded bills in her pocket. The dry crisp feel of the faded bills were an indisputable reminder of that.
“Ma Cherie,” he began, straightening up and reaching to brush a stray strand of hair behind her ear, his grin broad and confident. Some of that confidence began to leak away when she noticeably flinched at his touch.
“Who have you told?” she asked, point blank, doing her best to keep her voice strong and steady, not to let it waiver and sound weak.
“About what?” he asked, looking confused, his fingers frozen where they brushed against her ear. She tried to ignore the warmth of his skin and the way the small hairs stood up on the back of her neck when his dark gaze searched hers. She held her chin high and met his gaze, refusing to let his puppy dog brown eyes and soft lips liquefy her resolve.
“How many of your teammates have you told about me?”
“All of them,” he began, his lips turning up into that cocky grin that made his eyes light up and made her want to return his smile. Instead she bit down on the inside of her cheek until she could taste the tang of copper as her own blood ran between her teeth. His grin faded at the edges as she continued to stare back at him, unmoved by his boyish features.
“About what I do...about my job,” she continued, her voice low, pitched for his ears alone. Bewilderment filled his eyes for a moment and he looked past her, like he was going through the roster, seeing the faces of each of his teammates and finally he came back to himself and turned his gaze back on her.
“Only Pascal, Fleur and Max,” he replied, counting them off on his fingers.
“Are you sure?” she asked again, tilting her head to one side so that his hand naturally fell away and she didn’t have to feel his skin on hers. She narrowed her eyes at him when he looked back at her as if butter wouldn’t melt, as if momma’s little boy couldn’t possibly tell a lie.
“Sur la vie de ma mere!” he exclaimed, reaching for her hands which she pulled from his grasp. “I promise you. Why would I tell them so they could go there and ogle you? I told you, ma chérie, I don’t intend to share you with them.” She wanted to believe him. She looked into his velvet brown eyes and almost gave in the plea she saw there, but the crisp bills in her pocket told her otherwise.
“Well then you’d better take this,” she replied quietly, pulling the stack of bills from her pocket and held them toward him. “Ask your friends which one of them left them in my apartment.” She turned to go, expecting him to know immediately, half expecting him to defend his teammate to her, but instead he grabbed her arm and pulled her roughly to him.
“Who gave you this?” he demanded his Québecois accent thickening with emotion as fury and jealousy flared in his dark eyes.
“Ask your...friends,” she replied, as calmly as she could manage, peeling his fingers from her arm and turning away again, heading for the safety of her apartment where she could lick her wounds in privacy.
______________________________________________________________________________
Sidney stared at the crumpled, wadded up handful of bills lying in the middle of the room, in the centre of the Penguins logo. He felt as the wad of bills had eyes and was staring back at him, accusation in its’ gaze. A shudder went down his spine, but not of fear.
He couldn’t erase her from his mind, as much as he’d done everything he could think of to do just that. He wished he could expunge the memory of her curvaceous body pressed against his but every time he tried, the memory only seemed to become even more clear, until he could smell the sweet floral scent in her dark hair and the spicy musk of her skin.
He wanted her. Even now, sitting in the funk of the room, when he should be thinking of the game ahead, he was thinking of her, imaging her golden skin, warm under his lips. He ached for her. She invaded his every thought. It was like a disease he couldn’t shake and the worst part of it was, he didn’t want to.
He’d almost made up his mind to go to her this afternoon. To beg her to forgive his cowardice and beg her to take him to her bed and punish him in any way she thought fit, but his courage had failed him before he had turned the corner towards her apartment. He’d been certain she’d throw him out and now, with the reproachful wad of bills staring back at him, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that she’d do more than that.
The money must have fallen out of his wallet when he’d kicked off his pants. It was the only explanation that he could think of. Of course he hadn’t left all of that behind on purpose; not that she wasn’t worth all of it and more, much, much more.
And now, to make things worse, someone else on the team knew how he’d treated her, what he’d done.
He was afraid to look around the room, afraid whose eyes he’d see staring back at him, accusing him. He kept his head down, concentrated on his routine, on not breathing too heavily, on not giving his guilt away even as it ate at his gut.
You left this where you shouldn’t have. She’s not a whore. You and I have some business to discuss.
That was it. That was all that the note sitting with the money said. Not who it was he’d wronged, or who knew. But someone knew and he was sure if he looked up now, whoever it was that had laid the trap for him would know just by the look on his face.
They’d know and then everyone would know. Everyone would know what he’d done and then everyone would remind him how he said he wouldn’t, not after Randi. Even if they were joking around they’d say it. Even if they didn’t mean it they’d say it.
He didn’t need anyone to say it. He’d disrespected her memory and in the process disrespected a perfectly innocent bystander and now he couldn’t go back to her. How could he? How could possibly apologize for this?
She thought he believed she was some kind of...prostitute, night walker, whore and how could he blame her? He’d treated her exactly that way. He’d used her and left behind a pile of crumpled bills. She must hate him, he thought resignedly as he pulled on his second skate. She must want to rip his out balls off and wear them as earrings. First he’d left and then the money?
No there was no going back now, no matter how much he ached.
It would just have to be another ache he had to get over. Like Randi, a memory to fade away, no more, no less, because he couldn’t go back now.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Chapter 6
Shout out to everyone who's been sending the messages and letting me know that they're concerened for Sidney...not sure this is going to help but...here goes
He thought she was a whore, a prostitute. Some men assumed it was the same thing, stripping and tricking.
Curling around herself, Mya brought her knees up to her chest and willed the shaking away but wasn’t ready to get up or turn off the shower, despite the fact that the water spilling out over her had long since gone cold. She wanted not to feel his touch, wanted to wash away their mingled sweat and mostly she wanted to wash away his sticky seed that still clung to her thighs.
Kris must have told Sid about her job. She couldn’t remember him ever being at the club. She was sure she’d remember if he had. There was no other explanation for it, for the change in the way he behaved, in the way he’d treated her and the fact that he left...he’d just...left.
She’d gone from elation, hoping, no believing that he’d come to his senses and was finally admitting that there was something between them. She’d felt it every time they’d met, a sort of electricity in the air. Not to mention the fluttering birds that always showed up in her stomach every time he even looked at her. He’d kissed her like he meant it, like their lips were meant to be locked - forever. And the sex...Mya shut her eyes tight and tried to shut the vision of him moving over out of her mind but it wouldn’t go.
He was amazing. No, he was better than amazing but she couldn’t think of any words that went together with douchebag and loser.
He’d left a wad of bills on the floor, on the fucking floor. He’d gotten up and left right afterwards without so much as a fucking word and tossed money on the floor. Like she wasn’t even a good enough lay to leave it on the pillow, she was supposed to crawl on the floor to pick it up. Like she was the pond scum.
The fucking asshole.
She’d feigned sleep. He hadn’t seemed to be in the mood for talking and he’d already left her boneless and she hadn’t quite trusted herself to say more than some gibberish like she loved him or something, so she’d kept her mouth shut too. It had seemed like that’s what he wanted, to just fuck and go to sleep so she had closed her eyes and did her best to let him think that’s exactly what she was doing, assuming he’d do the same.
It had taken every last ounce of willpower not to get up and run after him to the door, to drag him back inside, to beg him not to leave.
She just couldn’t believe it. Not of him. He’d always seemed so nice, so polite. What was it the Americans always said? Wasn’t it something about polite unassuming Canadians? Good Canadian boys?
Not for the first time, Mya cursed herself out for believing in fairytales that never come true as she leaned her forehead on her knees and cried. She cried for the dream that would never be. She cried because she’d believed she could do what she did for money and leave it behind and not have it affect the rest of her life. She cried because she’d truly believed Kristopher when he’d said that it didn’t matter. She cried because it was so unfair. She cried for herself. She cried for every woman that those boys would make cry.
And they would, the assholes. They would.
________________________________________________________________________________
It had been a monumental mistake. A mistake of utter nuclear proportions, Sid thought as he drove across the highway at speeds that would earn him a night in the clink if he was caught and yet he didn’t care. He had to get away from there, miles and miles away and still that wouldn’t be far enough.
He could taste her skin in his mouth. She tasted like lavender and Dove soap and fucking baby powder. She was beautiful and amazing and fucking mind-blowing and he hated her, every fucking gorgeous inch of her.
He closed his eyes, just for a moment and called up Randi’s memory, bringing her sweet open face to the forefront of his memory and only then could he breathe. It was still there. She was still there in his memory. For a moment he’d actually believed she might be gone, as punishment, his memories of her might have been erased. But he could still see her, still feel her, still hear her voice when he closed his eyes and reached for her.
Taking a deep breath he opened his eyes and turned the vehicle towards the off ramp.
He hadn’t been able to sleep. Not for a long time. In fact he couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually slept all the way through the night.
The pain was stronger then he was and it worried him. He worried what it would mean for the season. He’d found out tonight.
He was a count slow. He hadn’t won a single war over the dot. He’d met the boards face first too many times to count. He’d missed three open net shots. He was sluggish. He was tired. He hadn’t been a Stanley Cup champion out on the ice tonight and Max’s words had haunted him. He wanted to feel better. He didn’t want to let his teammates down. He didn’t want to disappoint the fans.
Just have sex with some girl and you’ll feel better.
But he didn’t feel better. He felt like he was drowning. He was kicking and treading water but he was drowning.
At least before he’d felt like he was just sort of floating, aimlessly, but floating. Now he felt the rip tide beneath him and it was dragging him under and he didn’t think he had the strength left to fight.
What he should have done was pick one of those pucks out of the stands. One of those girls who waited around outside the arena in their too short skirts, their white ,white teeth chattering in the cold even as they refused to put on a coat that would hide their over inflated cleavage. He should have picked one of those girls that Max and Jordy and TK shared around. The pucks, pass them around. He should have chosen one of them.
Instead he’d gone to Mya.
Shaking his head, Sidney slammed his fist against the steering wheel. The damned woman had some kind of hold over him. He didn’t want to want her but he did.
Well that was more than obvious. Even when he’d come up with the idea, sitting in the penalty box for losing his cool at the ref, what he’d planned, what he’d wanted was to just to have a couple of drinks and work his way up to it.
So much for going slow he thought as he sighed and slammed on the brakes, spinning the steering wheel until he slid into a spot outside the arena.
He came here a lot when he had shit on his mind. How many other guys could say they had keys to the arena they played in? That they could just show up in the middle of the night and turn on the lights and skate?
Not many he thought as he juggled the keys in his hands. Maybe Ovie, maybe.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Mya opened the bottle of the expensive red win and poured herself a very full glass. If it was part of her payment, she thought miserably, the least she could do was raise a toast to the memory of her idealistic vision of him. That was fucking over, she sighed, pouring the entire glass down her throat as she took both bottle and glass with her to the living room. She would never think of him as the smiling, polite young man again.
Yes, that was definitely not the way she would think of him now. Fucking great in bed, but an asshole, she thought grimly as she poured herself another glass and sat pondering its ruby depths. Yeah, that was it. He was a self absorbed asshole like every other athlete she’d ever met. Just like the basketball players in her high school back home. They were the kings. They ran the school and they got all the pussy, whether the girls wanted to be fucked or not and no one would even say as much as boo to them about it. They ruled, everyone else drooled, wasn’t that their motto?
So the Pens and Steelers ruled the city. Not the Pirates. Not since the early eighties. They pretty much sucked now. Still, even their players could toss their money around like it meant nothing to them and all the pretty pretties would come running.
Is that what he thinks of me? She wondered as she downed her second full glass of the warm, rich red with an undertone of chocolate covered cherries. A puck fuck? Smooth as peanut butter, she spreads easy? Did he think she’d been asking for it? Did he and Tanger and Max and the rest of the boys think that just because she got her gear off for money that she deserved it? Would they all be lining up at her door pretty soon? Maybe he just got the first crack because he wore the C stitched to his chest? Was that it?
“Assholes,” she muttered, dragging herself back to her feet, taking the glass and bottle with her as she headed for the door. She liked this apartment, she thought resignedly as she reached up and threw the dead bolt and lifted the chain into place, but she’d have to start looking for new digs in the morning. She couldn’t stay here.
Not without worrying about another one of them showing up at her door wanting their piece.
She’d put the bed on craigslist too, she thought as she tipped the bottle to her lips. Maybe if she added that it had recently been rumpled by the Kid it would sell for more.
________________________________________________________________________
It wasn’t her fault. He couldn’t blame her, Sidney realized as he turned the SUV back onto the road and pointed it in the direction from which he’d come. Mya was pretty...no, not pretty, beautiful and obviously far more understanding than he deserved.
The way he’d treated her, Sidney felt his cheeks get hot as he shook his head at himself. From standing her up back on the Island to being rude to her at the cemetery to...to this. She deserved better. It wasn’t her fault that he was grieving and not dealing with it well. She deserved an explanation, at the very least.
He might not want to want her, but it had become clear to him as he’d skated lap after lap of the ice in the Mellon, that he was strongly attracted to her and that fate kept throwing them together. Fate or...he shook his head at the idea again but couldn’t quite get it out of his head.
Randi.
He didn’t believe in ghosts and all that stuff. He’d been brought up pretty much agnostic like most of his friends had. Hockey was the religion. Sure he knew about God and the Saints and all that but it’s not like he went to church on Sunday. He went to the rink. He didn’t pray before a game like Jordy or Geno did. He concentrated, he visualized. So he didn’t believe in Heaven and Hell, not strictly. He didn’t really know what he believed as far as that went. In fact he didn’t really want to think about it at all, but ever since Randi’s death he’d kind of had to.
He wanted very much to believe she’d gone to a better place. A place where she wasn’t in pain, where she had all her hair back and healthy and happy and...and waiting for him. More than anything else he’d wanted to believe that. He pictured himself being with her again, making love on a cloud with sunshine all around them, with her skin glowing and healthy.
He smiled now as he thought about it. That was what he imagined when he thought about heaven. He and Randi, making love, just as she’d said.
But maybe she was trying to tell him something else.
He’d hated it when he’d first woken up in a cold sweat, thinking about Mya. He’d felt awful, felt sick to his stomach. He didn’t want to think about anyone else but Randi that way. It felt wrong. It felt like a betrayal.
But maybe this was Randi’s doing. If he could think of her up on some cloud somewhere, all pink and naked and glowing with ethereal wings sprouting from her back, looking down on him, then he had to think she might want him to be happy too and maybe this was her way of trying to make him happy. To put a woman like Mya, a determined, smart, sexy woman in his way over and over again until he got the message.
He had to admit it was a possibility.
So he pulled into a parking space outside her apartment and took a deep, steadying breath as he tried to work up the courage to go back in there, to finish what he started, to wake up with her, to make love in the half light of morning and to tell her everything that was in his head. He had to tell her about Randi and how afraid he was and to ask her to be patient with him.
Juggling his keys in his hand he put his head down and headed in the doorway and up the stairs, telling himself to be brave, that this was something he had to do, for himself, for her and for Randi. With every step he grew calmer and more certain.
Then he put his hand on the door and twisted and it didn’t move.
He hadn’t been able to lock it from the inside when he’d left. He’d felt bad about that. It had left her vulnerable and though Pittsburgh wasn’t exactly a crime ridden city by Detroit or Philadelphia’s standards, it wasn’t safe to sleep with your door unlocked. Especially a single female with no guard dog, no alarms.
He tried the door again. It was locked. He could even hear the slight rattle of the chain on the inside of the door when he tugged. It was locked tight, which meant she knew he was gone. She knew he’d left, that he’d slunk out in the middle of the night.
She knew and all he could think was she must hate him right now. If he’d been in her place he’d feel the same.
He raised his hand to knock, wake her up and apologize, explain but his hand fell back down to his side.
Maybe it was better this way, he told himself. It was crazy to think this was some kind of fateful meant to be thing.
True love happened once. It had already happened to him. All the rest of that shit was just wishful thinking. Guilt and grief and stupidity he decided as he walked back out to his car and slid behind the steering wheel, putting the key in the ignition and leaning his forehead on the steering wheel. He’d almost made a complete ass of himself. He should be feeling relief. It had been a narrow escape.
So why did he feel so fucking empty?
He thought she was a whore, a prostitute. Some men assumed it was the same thing, stripping and tricking.
Curling around herself, Mya brought her knees up to her chest and willed the shaking away but wasn’t ready to get up or turn off the shower, despite the fact that the water spilling out over her had long since gone cold. She wanted not to feel his touch, wanted to wash away their mingled sweat and mostly she wanted to wash away his sticky seed that still clung to her thighs.
Kris must have told Sid about her job. She couldn’t remember him ever being at the club. She was sure she’d remember if he had. There was no other explanation for it, for the change in the way he behaved, in the way he’d treated her and the fact that he left...he’d just...left.
She’d gone from elation, hoping, no believing that he’d come to his senses and was finally admitting that there was something between them. She’d felt it every time they’d met, a sort of electricity in the air. Not to mention the fluttering birds that always showed up in her stomach every time he even looked at her. He’d kissed her like he meant it, like their lips were meant to be locked - forever. And the sex...Mya shut her eyes tight and tried to shut the vision of him moving over out of her mind but it wouldn’t go.
He was amazing. No, he was better than amazing but she couldn’t think of any words that went together with douchebag and loser.
He’d left a wad of bills on the floor, on the fucking floor. He’d gotten up and left right afterwards without so much as a fucking word and tossed money on the floor. Like she wasn’t even a good enough lay to leave it on the pillow, she was supposed to crawl on the floor to pick it up. Like she was the pond scum.
The fucking asshole.
She’d feigned sleep. He hadn’t seemed to be in the mood for talking and he’d already left her boneless and she hadn’t quite trusted herself to say more than some gibberish like she loved him or something, so she’d kept her mouth shut too. It had seemed like that’s what he wanted, to just fuck and go to sleep so she had closed her eyes and did her best to let him think that’s exactly what she was doing, assuming he’d do the same.
It had taken every last ounce of willpower not to get up and run after him to the door, to drag him back inside, to beg him not to leave.
She just couldn’t believe it. Not of him. He’d always seemed so nice, so polite. What was it the Americans always said? Wasn’t it something about polite unassuming Canadians? Good Canadian boys?
Not for the first time, Mya cursed herself out for believing in fairytales that never come true as she leaned her forehead on her knees and cried. She cried for the dream that would never be. She cried because she’d believed she could do what she did for money and leave it behind and not have it affect the rest of her life. She cried because she’d truly believed Kristopher when he’d said that it didn’t matter. She cried because it was so unfair. She cried for herself. She cried for every woman that those boys would make cry.
And they would, the assholes. They would.
________________________________________________________________________________
It had been a monumental mistake. A mistake of utter nuclear proportions, Sid thought as he drove across the highway at speeds that would earn him a night in the clink if he was caught and yet he didn’t care. He had to get away from there, miles and miles away and still that wouldn’t be far enough.
He could taste her skin in his mouth. She tasted like lavender and Dove soap and fucking baby powder. She was beautiful and amazing and fucking mind-blowing and he hated her, every fucking gorgeous inch of her.
He closed his eyes, just for a moment and called up Randi’s memory, bringing her sweet open face to the forefront of his memory and only then could he breathe. It was still there. She was still there in his memory. For a moment he’d actually believed she might be gone, as punishment, his memories of her might have been erased. But he could still see her, still feel her, still hear her voice when he closed his eyes and reached for her.
Taking a deep breath he opened his eyes and turned the vehicle towards the off ramp.
He hadn’t been able to sleep. Not for a long time. In fact he couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually slept all the way through the night.
The pain was stronger then he was and it worried him. He worried what it would mean for the season. He’d found out tonight.
He was a count slow. He hadn’t won a single war over the dot. He’d met the boards face first too many times to count. He’d missed three open net shots. He was sluggish. He was tired. He hadn’t been a Stanley Cup champion out on the ice tonight and Max’s words had haunted him. He wanted to feel better. He didn’t want to let his teammates down. He didn’t want to disappoint the fans.
Just have sex with some girl and you’ll feel better.
But he didn’t feel better. He felt like he was drowning. He was kicking and treading water but he was drowning.
At least before he’d felt like he was just sort of floating, aimlessly, but floating. Now he felt the rip tide beneath him and it was dragging him under and he didn’t think he had the strength left to fight.
What he should have done was pick one of those pucks out of the stands. One of those girls who waited around outside the arena in their too short skirts, their white ,white teeth chattering in the cold even as they refused to put on a coat that would hide their over inflated cleavage. He should have picked one of those girls that Max and Jordy and TK shared around. The pucks, pass them around. He should have chosen one of them.
Instead he’d gone to Mya.
Shaking his head, Sidney slammed his fist against the steering wheel. The damned woman had some kind of hold over him. He didn’t want to want her but he did.
Well that was more than obvious. Even when he’d come up with the idea, sitting in the penalty box for losing his cool at the ref, what he’d planned, what he’d wanted was to just to have a couple of drinks and work his way up to it.
So much for going slow he thought as he sighed and slammed on the brakes, spinning the steering wheel until he slid into a spot outside the arena.
He came here a lot when he had shit on his mind. How many other guys could say they had keys to the arena they played in? That they could just show up in the middle of the night and turn on the lights and skate?
Not many he thought as he juggled the keys in his hands. Maybe Ovie, maybe.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Mya opened the bottle of the expensive red win and poured herself a very full glass. If it was part of her payment, she thought miserably, the least she could do was raise a toast to the memory of her idealistic vision of him. That was fucking over, she sighed, pouring the entire glass down her throat as she took both bottle and glass with her to the living room. She would never think of him as the smiling, polite young man again.
Yes, that was definitely not the way she would think of him now. Fucking great in bed, but an asshole, she thought grimly as she poured herself another glass and sat pondering its ruby depths. Yeah, that was it. He was a self absorbed asshole like every other athlete she’d ever met. Just like the basketball players in her high school back home. They were the kings. They ran the school and they got all the pussy, whether the girls wanted to be fucked or not and no one would even say as much as boo to them about it. They ruled, everyone else drooled, wasn’t that their motto?
So the Pens and Steelers ruled the city. Not the Pirates. Not since the early eighties. They pretty much sucked now. Still, even their players could toss their money around like it meant nothing to them and all the pretty pretties would come running.
Is that what he thinks of me? She wondered as she downed her second full glass of the warm, rich red with an undertone of chocolate covered cherries. A puck fuck? Smooth as peanut butter, she spreads easy? Did he think she’d been asking for it? Did he and Tanger and Max and the rest of the boys think that just because she got her gear off for money that she deserved it? Would they all be lining up at her door pretty soon? Maybe he just got the first crack because he wore the C stitched to his chest? Was that it?
“Assholes,” she muttered, dragging herself back to her feet, taking the glass and bottle with her as she headed for the door. She liked this apartment, she thought resignedly as she reached up and threw the dead bolt and lifted the chain into place, but she’d have to start looking for new digs in the morning. She couldn’t stay here.
Not without worrying about another one of them showing up at her door wanting their piece.
She’d put the bed on craigslist too, she thought as she tipped the bottle to her lips. Maybe if she added that it had recently been rumpled by the Kid it would sell for more.
________________________________________________________________________
It wasn’t her fault. He couldn’t blame her, Sidney realized as he turned the SUV back onto the road and pointed it in the direction from which he’d come. Mya was pretty...no, not pretty, beautiful and obviously far more understanding than he deserved.
The way he’d treated her, Sidney felt his cheeks get hot as he shook his head at himself. From standing her up back on the Island to being rude to her at the cemetery to...to this. She deserved better. It wasn’t her fault that he was grieving and not dealing with it well. She deserved an explanation, at the very least.
He might not want to want her, but it had become clear to him as he’d skated lap after lap of the ice in the Mellon, that he was strongly attracted to her and that fate kept throwing them together. Fate or...he shook his head at the idea again but couldn’t quite get it out of his head.
Randi.
He didn’t believe in ghosts and all that stuff. He’d been brought up pretty much agnostic like most of his friends had. Hockey was the religion. Sure he knew about God and the Saints and all that but it’s not like he went to church on Sunday. He went to the rink. He didn’t pray before a game like Jordy or Geno did. He concentrated, he visualized. So he didn’t believe in Heaven and Hell, not strictly. He didn’t really know what he believed as far as that went. In fact he didn’t really want to think about it at all, but ever since Randi’s death he’d kind of had to.
He wanted very much to believe she’d gone to a better place. A place where she wasn’t in pain, where she had all her hair back and healthy and happy and...and waiting for him. More than anything else he’d wanted to believe that. He pictured himself being with her again, making love on a cloud with sunshine all around them, with her skin glowing and healthy.
He smiled now as he thought about it. That was what he imagined when he thought about heaven. He and Randi, making love, just as she’d said.
But maybe she was trying to tell him something else.
He’d hated it when he’d first woken up in a cold sweat, thinking about Mya. He’d felt awful, felt sick to his stomach. He didn’t want to think about anyone else but Randi that way. It felt wrong. It felt like a betrayal.
But maybe this was Randi’s doing. If he could think of her up on some cloud somewhere, all pink and naked and glowing with ethereal wings sprouting from her back, looking down on him, then he had to think she might want him to be happy too and maybe this was her way of trying to make him happy. To put a woman like Mya, a determined, smart, sexy woman in his way over and over again until he got the message.
He had to admit it was a possibility.
So he pulled into a parking space outside her apartment and took a deep, steadying breath as he tried to work up the courage to go back in there, to finish what he started, to wake up with her, to make love in the half light of morning and to tell her everything that was in his head. He had to tell her about Randi and how afraid he was and to ask her to be patient with him.
Juggling his keys in his hand he put his head down and headed in the doorway and up the stairs, telling himself to be brave, that this was something he had to do, for himself, for her and for Randi. With every step he grew calmer and more certain.
Then he put his hand on the door and twisted and it didn’t move.
He hadn’t been able to lock it from the inside when he’d left. He’d felt bad about that. It had left her vulnerable and though Pittsburgh wasn’t exactly a crime ridden city by Detroit or Philadelphia’s standards, it wasn’t safe to sleep with your door unlocked. Especially a single female with no guard dog, no alarms.
He tried the door again. It was locked. He could even hear the slight rattle of the chain on the inside of the door when he tugged. It was locked tight, which meant she knew he was gone. She knew he’d left, that he’d slunk out in the middle of the night.
She knew and all he could think was she must hate him right now. If he’d been in her place he’d feel the same.
He raised his hand to knock, wake her up and apologize, explain but his hand fell back down to his side.
Maybe it was better this way, he told himself. It was crazy to think this was some kind of fateful meant to be thing.
True love happened once. It had already happened to him. All the rest of that shit was just wishful thinking. Guilt and grief and stupidity he decided as he walked back out to his car and slid behind the steering wheel, putting the key in the ignition and leaning his forehead on the steering wheel. He’d almost made a complete ass of himself. He should be feeling relief. It had been a narrow escape.
So why did he feel so fucking empty?
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Chapter 5
She tried to be surreptitious about it, but she kept a close eye on her watch with the promise to herself that she wasn’t going to wait for him as long as she had done last time. Sure it was Sidney Crosby and of course there were plenty of reasons he might not be able make it, more so in the ‘Burgh than in P.E.I. but still, if he was going to stand her up again, she’d promised herself she wouldn’t wait an hour. Luckily it wouldn’t be quite so obvious in a Starbucks as it had been in the quaint little restaurant on the Island.
Mya had the paper open in front of her but found that she was only reading the same lines over and over again. She was also nervously drumming her fingers on the table. She wondered if he kept all of his dates waiting like this. That would explain why a catch like him was still single she mused as she raised her personal cup to her lips and took a long swig of the still warming but definitely cooling liquid.
That’s when she caught sight of him sitting behind the wheel of his Land Rover in the parking lot, staring into the window at her, like maybe he was having second thoughts. Like maybe he wasn’t planning on coming in.
She wondered if it might be because of Kris, but then he’d said that he and Sidney weren’t really that close. Actually what he’d said was that Sidney wasn’t that close to anyone, except maybe Max and Fleury which hadn’t made much sense to her as those two were the ones he’d been with when he’d been at Blush. Not that she’d asked too many questions. She’d done her best to keep it on the down low as far as Sidney was concerned.
After all, it wasn’t like she was committed to the guy. She hadn’t even let Kris into the apartment, despite the fact that he’d left her feeling like a bowl of Jello, all wiggly and unable to stand without support. Of course he hadn’t pressed her either. He’d actually been a complete gentleman the entire night.
Not like Sidney, she thought as she watched him sit there, as if she couldn’t see him. What did he think he was doing? Damn it, she sighed, forcing herself to stare down at the paper in front of her as if she hadn’t seen him. What did he think she was going to do? Bite? Well she would if he asked nicely but only if he ever got off that insanely round ass of his and got himself in here.
It wasn’t like there was a big crowd around for him to worry about either. At this time of the day most of the students were either heading home or to work. There were just a few stragglers who looked like they needed an iv of joe before they were willing to dare getting on the roads and a few evening students grabbing their double latté before heading to class.
She briefly considered taking her coffee and walking out to his Land Rover but just as she’d worked up the courage and rolled up her newspaper, he slid into the seat across from hers’, ball cap pulled low over his eyes, which was very incongruous with the dark blue and lilac pinstriped suit he was wearing with the matching lilac tie.
“You look sharp,” she offered as he glanced around like he was expecting to be rushed at any moment and Mya decided until she’d been in his shoes she had no right to the unkind thoughts that entered her mind about his ego. She was still a little bitter about being stood up before, she decided, leaning back in her chair and regarding him casually.
“Thanks. Uh...I hope you haven’t been waiting long.” Mya narrowed her eyes at him. Was he kidding? He’d been sitting out there watching her. She opened her mouth to say as much when his gaze finally met hers’ and she could see the strain in his face.
“Whatever, it’s fine,” she mumbled instead, swallowing the biting words that were on the tip of her tongue. “I guess this isn’t really your usual pre-game thing,” she added, trying to sound understanding. He nodded, his hands clasped on the table as his caramel coloured gaze searched hers’ and Mya felt her heart start to do that fluttery bird thing again. It always seemed to do that around him but this time it seemed sort of unfair, what with Kris and all....
“Well I thought I...no, I owe you an explanation about before,” he began, taking a deep breath before blowing it out through his full pink lips like he does before a face off she thought. Oh hell, this can’t be good.
“You have a girlfriend. That’s it isn’t it?” she said suddenly, putting the pieces together. The corners of his lips turned up in a smile but his eyes looked sad as he shook his head.
“No, nothing like that. I just...,” his voice trailed off as he unclasped his hands and began to pick at the edge of the table. Mya’s attention was naturally drawn to his hands. He had long, strong looking fingers. “I just have so much going on. I didn’t want you to think it had anything to do with you or anything.” Mya chewed on her lip as she tried to decipher what he was trying to say and the earnest look in his eyes as he looked up at her from beneath the brim of his ball cap. He obviously wanted her to believe him and there was no way to deny that he was probably the busiest guy in the city but then again, she’d never asked anything of him either.
“Yeah, I imagine you are a busy guy,” she began, wondering if she should tell him that whatever he was thinking he was off the hook, that she had Kris but the words died on her lips when he began picking at the edge of the table and continued his explanation.
“I just didn’t want you to think that I umm just go around standing people up. I mean, that’s not normally me but things are kind of...complicated right now and I’d like to be able to like...keep in touch and maybe when things settle down I can call you?” Mya’s heart did that fluttering thing again as he looked up at her for the second time with that same intense plea in his gaze.
“Yeah, of course,” she heard herself answer before she even had a chance to absorb what he was saying. He was putting her on the sidelines and making her feel grateful for it, and yet she couldn’t be mad at him. How could she when he was giving her those great big puppy dog eyes?
“Thanks,” he said, letting out a long, relieved sounding breath. “Can I pay for that?” he asked, reaching into his breast pocket, that wide boyish smile of his reappearing. Mya shook her head, gathering her books and coffee and pushing her chair back. “Can I at least drop you off somewhere?” Mya considered having him drop her off at the club but decided against it. After all, she knew he had to be at the arena soon. Kris had said something about their having to be there by four thirty. It seemed ridiculously early to her but then she wasn’t a professional athlete and she knew it took her ages to be ready to go on stage, with the make-up and costumes and stretching.
“Thanks but maybe some other time,” she muttered as she stepped around the table, finding herself with her chest nearly pressed against his. She looked up into his handsome features, trying very hard not to look like an owl as he reached for her books.
“I don’t mind. It’s the least I can do,” he insisted, sliding her books from beneath her arm. Mya nodded mutely and followed him out the door to his waiting vehicle, walking around to the passenger side and waiting patiently, if nervously for him to open the door. Her mind was reeling. Had any other man in the history of the world given her a brush off like that, Mya knew she would normally have laughed in his face and told him that he could easily be replaced and yet here she was, silent and meek sitting next to him like she was happy about it.
This was so not her.
“I only live a couple of miles from here. You can drop me off there. I need to pick something up before I go to work anyway,” she lied, suddenly making the decision that she didn’t want him to know where she worked and she was even beginning to feel more than just a little foolish.
“So I guess I can’t offer you tickets to the game tonight?” he said suddenly, reaching into his pocket. Mya afforded him half a smile but shook her head.
“I’d like to but gotta pay the bills. Class during the day, work at night.” She had been going to say ‘you know how it goes’ but he didn’t. Of course he didn’t. Just like he was probably assuming that she was going to be just thrilled to sit around and wait for him to call her. The boy had some nerve.
“So you’re putting yourself through college?” he asked, having the cheek to actually look at her as if he admired her for it. Mya nodded and turned her attention to the passing streetlights. It was too hard to look at his dimples and his long eyelashes and those plush pink lips of his and be mad and right now, she wanted to be mad. “I wanted to take some courses. I looked into it but uh...just no time you know?” She didn’t know but she could imagine so she shrugged and made a noise that if he wanted to, he could take as agreement.
“It’s just right up here, at the corner,” Mya pointed to the apartment building and Sidney slowed, looking for a parking spot. She wanted to open the door and sprint into traffic. She wanted to turn and call him names for making her feel about an inch tall. She wanted to cry.
She didn’t do any of those things as he pulled the SUV to a stop in front of her building. Instead she reached for her books and found his hands on top of hers’. She looked down at his hands and then up at those gold flecked eyes and felt her anger and resolve melting away. His gaze held hers’ and she knew, without a shadow of a doubt that he was thinking about kissing her.
His gaze was fixed on her mouth and as she watched, he bit down on the corner of his bottom lip. Her pulse sped as he leaned towards her and she felt her hands go clammy as his gaze lost focus.
“I’ll...I’ll call you sometime,” he mumbled, letting go of her hands and turning away from her, looking into his rear view mirror and checking his side mirror, like he hadn’t just been studying her lips like they looked like they might be edible.
Mya stared at him, open mouthed and then shut her mouth with an audible click of teeth and climbed out of the car, running towards her front door, dropping her keys twice in her haste to get inside, away from where he might see the tears streaking down her cheeks.
______________________________________________________________________________
“She said yes!”
Sidney looked up from tying his skates and watched Jordan crash through the doors, his arms held high, a broad smile of triumph on his face. Most of the guys got up to high five him but Sidney didn’t move from where he was. It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy for his friend, because he was. Tish and Jordy made a good couple and he was happy for them both. He was also jealous as hell and he knew it and the last thing he wanted was for the little green monster to get in the way of his friendship any more than it already had.
So he kept to himself and knew that Jordy would understand.
“You want girl? I get nice Russian girl. One phone call.” Sidney looked up at the big Russian and couldn’t help but smile. Geno was getting more gregarious by the day as his confidence in his English grew. Still, he didn’t talk a lot and though Sidney liked him well enough, he didn’t really thing that Geno paid that much attention to the other guys lives outside of the arena. With a shrug, he shook his head.
“Thanks Geno but not right now. I don’t need a girlfriend.” Sidney wondered if he was saying that more to convince himself than his teammate, but decided he was thinking too much about that topic altogether for it being right before a game and an important game at that. The first game was always important. You had to set the tone for the season. He wanted to concentrate on what he had to do out there. He didn’t need to be thinking about women.
“You know what you need,” Max said, suddenly appearing before him. Sidney looked up at his be-whiskered friend and shook his head.
“I’m afraid of what you think I need,” he admitted, thinking of all of the different drink concoctions and party ideas Max could come up with.
“You need to get laid. Forget all this relationship shit,” he added with a mischievous grin, “just pick a girl, any girl, and take her home and fuck the shit out of her. You’ll feel lots better, I promise.” Normally Sid would either be dismayed by Max’s bluntness or he would laugh. Today, he did neither. He had a point but at the same time, Sidney didn’t think he could actually bring himself to do it. It seemed like it would dishonour Randi’s memory somehow, which is exactly what he’d been thinking when he’d almost been overcome by the urge to kiss Mya.
“I just...after Randi...I don’t think I could just go back to...that,” Sidney tried to explain, shrugging as he went back to wrapping his laces, tugging them hard before going on to the left skate.
“Buddy, mon ami,” Max dropped onto the bench beside him and slapped his back, hard enough to make Sid sputter and cough. “First, you need to get that out of your system.” Max held his hands up defensively when Sidney shot him a dark look. “I’m not saying forget her, Je dis seulement fais un petit pas en avant. Ayes le sexe avec une fille, you’ll feel sooo much better. Uncle Max guarantees it.” Sidney shook his head. There was no way it would make him feel better to have a one night stand. He’d only end up feeling even guiltier than he did right now and he knew it.
“Thanks Max but I’ll pass,” he muttered, snapping off the laces in his hands as he pulled them too tight. He stared down at the frayed ends in his hands and then up at Max who threw up his hands and gingerly backed away.
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Mya was putting her key in her lock for the third time today when she heard footsteps behind her. She smiled to herself. She’d managed to catch some of the third period on the television backstage. The Pens had won and she’d wondered if Kris would be in the mood to celebrate. Not that she’d called him. She didn’t want to push. After all, she couldn’t help but think what just stopping to say hello to Sidney had gotten her.
She was still aggravated when she thought of it but she wiped those feeling from her face as she turned to face Kris, painting a welcoming smile on her face instead.
Except it wasn’t Kris. Instead, standing there with a bottle of wine in his hand was Sidney, looking sheepish but determined, his dark wavy hair still wet and plastered to his head in places, his tie askew, his dress shoes untied.
Mya was struck dumb with shock and for the second time, (or was it the third?), her keys dropped from her hand and rattled noisily on the floor. She looked down at them and then up at him and suddenly he was two steps closer to her, picking up her keys and reaching past her to put them in the lock.
She opened her mouth to ask him why he was there but his mouth was already on hers’, kissing her until she couldn’t breathe, his arm locked around her waist, his hard solid body pressed to hers’, her back pressed firmly to the door. His tongue demanded entrance and she wasn’t about to deny him, nor did she put up any kind of fight when his hand slid up the back of her sweatshirt and deftly undid the hook on her bra. The most she did do was squeal a little in surprise when the door swung open behind her. But even then, his grip told her that he wasn’t about to let her fall.
“Where’s the bedroom?” he asked hoarsely as he kicked the door shut behind him, reaching back with one hand to snap the bolt closed. She merely pointed, blinking at him in shock. He reached for her again, grabbing a handful of her hair and tugging on it just hard enough that she had to offer him her mouth, and he took it, hungrily. He began to walk her backwards, but seemed to decide it was too much trouble and grabbed a handful of her ass instead, encouraging her to wrap her legs around him which she did happily as she fed from greedily from his mouth.
He put her down on the bed carefully enough but was less careful with his clothes, yanking at his tie hard enough that Mya reached to help, afraid he’d hang himself with it but it was already sailing across the room and in a moment his dress shirt followed, landing somewhere on the floor behind him. The wine he left on the bedside table, for later she supposed, as if he was letting her know she was going to need hydration.
She didn’t wait for his help, or for him to ask. Mya was already tugging off her sweatshirt and shrugging out of her bra, her hands shaking as she reached for the top button on her jeans but as she fumbled with them, is hands were suddenly there, tugging the denim off of her hips, taking her white cotton bikinis with them.
________________________________________________________________________________
She’d been in his head all day, with her green eyes and her dark hair and her tanned skin. Max’s words had also been in his head, playing with his mind, making his imagination go to dangerous, dark places that he wasn’t sure he was ready for.
He’d wanted to kiss her this afternoon. Wanted it like he wanted to win, needed it like he needed air. It was only the thought of Randi’s sweet and trusting face in the last moment that had stopped him from actually doing it. He’d told himself once he passed that line, there would be no going back and he knew he wasn’t ready for that. No he wasn’t ready for this but once he’d started to imagine it, imagine her soft supple skin under his hands, the taste of her in his mouth, he couldn’t stop thinking about it either and somehow he’d found his way here and once he’d seen her...there wasn’t going to be any going back.
Fortunately she didn’t seem opposed to the idea. Part of him wished she would say no, at least long enough for him to regain his composure, to gather his wits about him, but as he looked down at her with his heart racing, there was still a part of him that knew that he shouldn’t be doing this but he was also half afraid that if he stopped now he’d never work up the courage to do this again.
He was on her then, without so much as a word, dragging her hips to the edge of the bed and kneeling between her thighs, forcing them apart as his lips and tongue swept their way up her inner thighs until they found the soft wet heat of her pussy and he dove in like a man dying of thirst.
Her fingers dug into his scalp and he could hear her whimpering and crying out and those sounds only stoked the fire within him, like the crowd in the Mellon arena chanting ‘go Pens go’ when they were down by one in the middle of the third period. His blood boiled and his pulse beat like a war drum in his head and when he came up for air he heard himself growl, like he was no longer a man but a beast made of lust and desire. Like he had no control, like he’d given himself over to the darkness that lived within him.
Her whimpering did something else then as the red mist came down. She became prey to his predator and when his fingers dug into the muscular flesh of her thighs he knew that no matter what happened now, there would be no going back. She was his as surely as the puck was on his stick in the corner and he would defend all comers and fight with tooth and claw and blood would be spilled.
When she arched her back, her body pushing against his, fitting over his, her breasts offered themselves up like rich, ripe fruit and he bit into the soft flesh as if he expected juices to flow from them, leaving dark, angry red welts behind and he didn’t care because it wasn’t enough. When she dragged a ragged breath through her clenched teeth and rolled her head to one side, exposing the long elegant white line of her neck, he bit into that, his teeth sinking into the thin flesh until he could taste the copper of her blood, until her pulse jumped under his tongue and still his hunger wasn’t slaked.
He drove into her like a rutting bull, pushing hard and fast, as if he was searching for the end, as if he could never be deep enough and she raked at his back and begged him to go deeper, harder. Their bodies fought. Hers’ to take him deeper, to force him over that sweet spot and his to have dominion, to force her to submit, but even when she did, even when her nails dug in and ripped at his flesh and she screamed out his name, it wasn’t enough.
He shut his eyes against the pain and against the hot sucking heat of her body and drove on, reaching for that one moment when pain and desire gave way to the sweet oblivion of that little death and then it wasn’t her whose body he was ploughing, nor was it Randi’s. It was just a body. It could have been anyone’s. He didn’t want to see her green eyes then, or her dark hair. He just wanted release. Release from it all.
And so, Sidney, who never let go of control, gave up at last and with an agonized cry mixed with a choking sob. Spent, both physically and emotionally, he collapsed on top of her, burying his face in her neck so he wouldn’t have to face her. She held tightly to him, her arms wrapped around his neck, her fingers twined in his hair. He could feel her chest rising and falling quickly beneath his, the sweat cooling on their skin, her pulse rapid against his cheek.
He wanted to apologize but didn’t know how to begin. It was on the tip of his tongue to explain but didn’t know where to start. So instead he just lay there, letting himself be held until she squirmed from beneath him and curled up in his arms.
He waited until her breathing slowed, until all he heard was the deep, slow breaths of sleep, and then he unwound himself from around her and slid out of the bed. Gathering his clothes, he crept out into the darkened living room and dressed quickly, silently, before slipping out the door and into the night.
Mya had the paper open in front of her but found that she was only reading the same lines over and over again. She was also nervously drumming her fingers on the table. She wondered if he kept all of his dates waiting like this. That would explain why a catch like him was still single she mused as she raised her personal cup to her lips and took a long swig of the still warming but definitely cooling liquid.
That’s when she caught sight of him sitting behind the wheel of his Land Rover in the parking lot, staring into the window at her, like maybe he was having second thoughts. Like maybe he wasn’t planning on coming in.
She wondered if it might be because of Kris, but then he’d said that he and Sidney weren’t really that close. Actually what he’d said was that Sidney wasn’t that close to anyone, except maybe Max and Fleury which hadn’t made much sense to her as those two were the ones he’d been with when he’d been at Blush. Not that she’d asked too many questions. She’d done her best to keep it on the down low as far as Sidney was concerned.
After all, it wasn’t like she was committed to the guy. She hadn’t even let Kris into the apartment, despite the fact that he’d left her feeling like a bowl of Jello, all wiggly and unable to stand without support. Of course he hadn’t pressed her either. He’d actually been a complete gentleman the entire night.
Not like Sidney, she thought as she watched him sit there, as if she couldn’t see him. What did he think he was doing? Damn it, she sighed, forcing herself to stare down at the paper in front of her as if she hadn’t seen him. What did he think she was going to do? Bite? Well she would if he asked nicely but only if he ever got off that insanely round ass of his and got himself in here.
It wasn’t like there was a big crowd around for him to worry about either. At this time of the day most of the students were either heading home or to work. There were just a few stragglers who looked like they needed an iv of joe before they were willing to dare getting on the roads and a few evening students grabbing their double latté before heading to class.
She briefly considered taking her coffee and walking out to his Land Rover but just as she’d worked up the courage and rolled up her newspaper, he slid into the seat across from hers’, ball cap pulled low over his eyes, which was very incongruous with the dark blue and lilac pinstriped suit he was wearing with the matching lilac tie.
“You look sharp,” she offered as he glanced around like he was expecting to be rushed at any moment and Mya decided until she’d been in his shoes she had no right to the unkind thoughts that entered her mind about his ego. She was still a little bitter about being stood up before, she decided, leaning back in her chair and regarding him casually.
“Thanks. Uh...I hope you haven’t been waiting long.” Mya narrowed her eyes at him. Was he kidding? He’d been sitting out there watching her. She opened her mouth to say as much when his gaze finally met hers’ and she could see the strain in his face.
“Whatever, it’s fine,” she mumbled instead, swallowing the biting words that were on the tip of her tongue. “I guess this isn’t really your usual pre-game thing,” she added, trying to sound understanding. He nodded, his hands clasped on the table as his caramel coloured gaze searched hers’ and Mya felt her heart start to do that fluttery bird thing again. It always seemed to do that around him but this time it seemed sort of unfair, what with Kris and all....
“Well I thought I...no, I owe you an explanation about before,” he began, taking a deep breath before blowing it out through his full pink lips like he does before a face off she thought. Oh hell, this can’t be good.
“You have a girlfriend. That’s it isn’t it?” she said suddenly, putting the pieces together. The corners of his lips turned up in a smile but his eyes looked sad as he shook his head.
“No, nothing like that. I just...,” his voice trailed off as he unclasped his hands and began to pick at the edge of the table. Mya’s attention was naturally drawn to his hands. He had long, strong looking fingers. “I just have so much going on. I didn’t want you to think it had anything to do with you or anything.” Mya chewed on her lip as she tried to decipher what he was trying to say and the earnest look in his eyes as he looked up at her from beneath the brim of his ball cap. He obviously wanted her to believe him and there was no way to deny that he was probably the busiest guy in the city but then again, she’d never asked anything of him either.
“Yeah, I imagine you are a busy guy,” she began, wondering if she should tell him that whatever he was thinking he was off the hook, that she had Kris but the words died on her lips when he began picking at the edge of the table and continued his explanation.
“I just didn’t want you to think that I umm just go around standing people up. I mean, that’s not normally me but things are kind of...complicated right now and I’d like to be able to like...keep in touch and maybe when things settle down I can call you?” Mya’s heart did that fluttering thing again as he looked up at her for the second time with that same intense plea in his gaze.
“Yeah, of course,” she heard herself answer before she even had a chance to absorb what he was saying. He was putting her on the sidelines and making her feel grateful for it, and yet she couldn’t be mad at him. How could she when he was giving her those great big puppy dog eyes?
“Thanks,” he said, letting out a long, relieved sounding breath. “Can I pay for that?” he asked, reaching into his breast pocket, that wide boyish smile of his reappearing. Mya shook her head, gathering her books and coffee and pushing her chair back. “Can I at least drop you off somewhere?” Mya considered having him drop her off at the club but decided against it. After all, she knew he had to be at the arena soon. Kris had said something about their having to be there by four thirty. It seemed ridiculously early to her but then she wasn’t a professional athlete and she knew it took her ages to be ready to go on stage, with the make-up and costumes and stretching.
“Thanks but maybe some other time,” she muttered as she stepped around the table, finding herself with her chest nearly pressed against his. She looked up into his handsome features, trying very hard not to look like an owl as he reached for her books.
“I don’t mind. It’s the least I can do,” he insisted, sliding her books from beneath her arm. Mya nodded mutely and followed him out the door to his waiting vehicle, walking around to the passenger side and waiting patiently, if nervously for him to open the door. Her mind was reeling. Had any other man in the history of the world given her a brush off like that, Mya knew she would normally have laughed in his face and told him that he could easily be replaced and yet here she was, silent and meek sitting next to him like she was happy about it.
This was so not her.
“I only live a couple of miles from here. You can drop me off there. I need to pick something up before I go to work anyway,” she lied, suddenly making the decision that she didn’t want him to know where she worked and she was even beginning to feel more than just a little foolish.
“So I guess I can’t offer you tickets to the game tonight?” he said suddenly, reaching into his pocket. Mya afforded him half a smile but shook her head.
“I’d like to but gotta pay the bills. Class during the day, work at night.” She had been going to say ‘you know how it goes’ but he didn’t. Of course he didn’t. Just like he was probably assuming that she was going to be just thrilled to sit around and wait for him to call her. The boy had some nerve.
“So you’re putting yourself through college?” he asked, having the cheek to actually look at her as if he admired her for it. Mya nodded and turned her attention to the passing streetlights. It was too hard to look at his dimples and his long eyelashes and those plush pink lips of his and be mad and right now, she wanted to be mad. “I wanted to take some courses. I looked into it but uh...just no time you know?” She didn’t know but she could imagine so she shrugged and made a noise that if he wanted to, he could take as agreement.
“It’s just right up here, at the corner,” Mya pointed to the apartment building and Sidney slowed, looking for a parking spot. She wanted to open the door and sprint into traffic. She wanted to turn and call him names for making her feel about an inch tall. She wanted to cry.
She didn’t do any of those things as he pulled the SUV to a stop in front of her building. Instead she reached for her books and found his hands on top of hers’. She looked down at his hands and then up at those gold flecked eyes and felt her anger and resolve melting away. His gaze held hers’ and she knew, without a shadow of a doubt that he was thinking about kissing her.
His gaze was fixed on her mouth and as she watched, he bit down on the corner of his bottom lip. Her pulse sped as he leaned towards her and she felt her hands go clammy as his gaze lost focus.
“I’ll...I’ll call you sometime,” he mumbled, letting go of her hands and turning away from her, looking into his rear view mirror and checking his side mirror, like he hadn’t just been studying her lips like they looked like they might be edible.
Mya stared at him, open mouthed and then shut her mouth with an audible click of teeth and climbed out of the car, running towards her front door, dropping her keys twice in her haste to get inside, away from where he might see the tears streaking down her cheeks.
______________________________________________________________________________
“She said yes!”
Sidney looked up from tying his skates and watched Jordan crash through the doors, his arms held high, a broad smile of triumph on his face. Most of the guys got up to high five him but Sidney didn’t move from where he was. It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy for his friend, because he was. Tish and Jordy made a good couple and he was happy for them both. He was also jealous as hell and he knew it and the last thing he wanted was for the little green monster to get in the way of his friendship any more than it already had.
So he kept to himself and knew that Jordy would understand.
“You want girl? I get nice Russian girl. One phone call.” Sidney looked up at the big Russian and couldn’t help but smile. Geno was getting more gregarious by the day as his confidence in his English grew. Still, he didn’t talk a lot and though Sidney liked him well enough, he didn’t really thing that Geno paid that much attention to the other guys lives outside of the arena. With a shrug, he shook his head.
“Thanks Geno but not right now. I don’t need a girlfriend.” Sidney wondered if he was saying that more to convince himself than his teammate, but decided he was thinking too much about that topic altogether for it being right before a game and an important game at that. The first game was always important. You had to set the tone for the season. He wanted to concentrate on what he had to do out there. He didn’t need to be thinking about women.
“You know what you need,” Max said, suddenly appearing before him. Sidney looked up at his be-whiskered friend and shook his head.
“I’m afraid of what you think I need,” he admitted, thinking of all of the different drink concoctions and party ideas Max could come up with.
“You need to get laid. Forget all this relationship shit,” he added with a mischievous grin, “just pick a girl, any girl, and take her home and fuck the shit out of her. You’ll feel lots better, I promise.” Normally Sid would either be dismayed by Max’s bluntness or he would laugh. Today, he did neither. He had a point but at the same time, Sidney didn’t think he could actually bring himself to do it. It seemed like it would dishonour Randi’s memory somehow, which is exactly what he’d been thinking when he’d almost been overcome by the urge to kiss Mya.
“I just...after Randi...I don’t think I could just go back to...that,” Sidney tried to explain, shrugging as he went back to wrapping his laces, tugging them hard before going on to the left skate.
“Buddy, mon ami,” Max dropped onto the bench beside him and slapped his back, hard enough to make Sid sputter and cough. “First, you need to get that out of your system.” Max held his hands up defensively when Sidney shot him a dark look. “I’m not saying forget her, Je dis seulement fais un petit pas en avant. Ayes le sexe avec une fille, you’ll feel sooo much better. Uncle Max guarantees it.” Sidney shook his head. There was no way it would make him feel better to have a one night stand. He’d only end up feeling even guiltier than he did right now and he knew it.
“Thanks Max but I’ll pass,” he muttered, snapping off the laces in his hands as he pulled them too tight. He stared down at the frayed ends in his hands and then up at Max who threw up his hands and gingerly backed away.
______________________________________________________________________________
Mya was putting her key in her lock for the third time today when she heard footsteps behind her. She smiled to herself. She’d managed to catch some of the third period on the television backstage. The Pens had won and she’d wondered if Kris would be in the mood to celebrate. Not that she’d called him. She didn’t want to push. After all, she couldn’t help but think what just stopping to say hello to Sidney had gotten her.
She was still aggravated when she thought of it but she wiped those feeling from her face as she turned to face Kris, painting a welcoming smile on her face instead.
Except it wasn’t Kris. Instead, standing there with a bottle of wine in his hand was Sidney, looking sheepish but determined, his dark wavy hair still wet and plastered to his head in places, his tie askew, his dress shoes untied.
Mya was struck dumb with shock and for the second time, (or was it the third?), her keys dropped from her hand and rattled noisily on the floor. She looked down at them and then up at him and suddenly he was two steps closer to her, picking up her keys and reaching past her to put them in the lock.
She opened her mouth to ask him why he was there but his mouth was already on hers’, kissing her until she couldn’t breathe, his arm locked around her waist, his hard solid body pressed to hers’, her back pressed firmly to the door. His tongue demanded entrance and she wasn’t about to deny him, nor did she put up any kind of fight when his hand slid up the back of her sweatshirt and deftly undid the hook on her bra. The most she did do was squeal a little in surprise when the door swung open behind her. But even then, his grip told her that he wasn’t about to let her fall.
“Where’s the bedroom?” he asked hoarsely as he kicked the door shut behind him, reaching back with one hand to snap the bolt closed. She merely pointed, blinking at him in shock. He reached for her again, grabbing a handful of her hair and tugging on it just hard enough that she had to offer him her mouth, and he took it, hungrily. He began to walk her backwards, but seemed to decide it was too much trouble and grabbed a handful of her ass instead, encouraging her to wrap her legs around him which she did happily as she fed from greedily from his mouth.
He put her down on the bed carefully enough but was less careful with his clothes, yanking at his tie hard enough that Mya reached to help, afraid he’d hang himself with it but it was already sailing across the room and in a moment his dress shirt followed, landing somewhere on the floor behind him. The wine he left on the bedside table, for later she supposed, as if he was letting her know she was going to need hydration.
She didn’t wait for his help, or for him to ask. Mya was already tugging off her sweatshirt and shrugging out of her bra, her hands shaking as she reached for the top button on her jeans but as she fumbled with them, is hands were suddenly there, tugging the denim off of her hips, taking her white cotton bikinis with them.
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She’d been in his head all day, with her green eyes and her dark hair and her tanned skin. Max’s words had also been in his head, playing with his mind, making his imagination go to dangerous, dark places that he wasn’t sure he was ready for.
He’d wanted to kiss her this afternoon. Wanted it like he wanted to win, needed it like he needed air. It was only the thought of Randi’s sweet and trusting face in the last moment that had stopped him from actually doing it. He’d told himself once he passed that line, there would be no going back and he knew he wasn’t ready for that. No he wasn’t ready for this but once he’d started to imagine it, imagine her soft supple skin under his hands, the taste of her in his mouth, he couldn’t stop thinking about it either and somehow he’d found his way here and once he’d seen her...there wasn’t going to be any going back.
Fortunately she didn’t seem opposed to the idea. Part of him wished she would say no, at least long enough for him to regain his composure, to gather his wits about him, but as he looked down at her with his heart racing, there was still a part of him that knew that he shouldn’t be doing this but he was also half afraid that if he stopped now he’d never work up the courage to do this again.
He was on her then, without so much as a word, dragging her hips to the edge of the bed and kneeling between her thighs, forcing them apart as his lips and tongue swept their way up her inner thighs until they found the soft wet heat of her pussy and he dove in like a man dying of thirst.
Her fingers dug into his scalp and he could hear her whimpering and crying out and those sounds only stoked the fire within him, like the crowd in the Mellon arena chanting ‘go Pens go’ when they were down by one in the middle of the third period. His blood boiled and his pulse beat like a war drum in his head and when he came up for air he heard himself growl, like he was no longer a man but a beast made of lust and desire. Like he had no control, like he’d given himself over to the darkness that lived within him.
Her whimpering did something else then as the red mist came down. She became prey to his predator and when his fingers dug into the muscular flesh of her thighs he knew that no matter what happened now, there would be no going back. She was his as surely as the puck was on his stick in the corner and he would defend all comers and fight with tooth and claw and blood would be spilled.
When she arched her back, her body pushing against his, fitting over his, her breasts offered themselves up like rich, ripe fruit and he bit into the soft flesh as if he expected juices to flow from them, leaving dark, angry red welts behind and he didn’t care because it wasn’t enough. When she dragged a ragged breath through her clenched teeth and rolled her head to one side, exposing the long elegant white line of her neck, he bit into that, his teeth sinking into the thin flesh until he could taste the copper of her blood, until her pulse jumped under his tongue and still his hunger wasn’t slaked.
He drove into her like a rutting bull, pushing hard and fast, as if he was searching for the end, as if he could never be deep enough and she raked at his back and begged him to go deeper, harder. Their bodies fought. Hers’ to take him deeper, to force him over that sweet spot and his to have dominion, to force her to submit, but even when she did, even when her nails dug in and ripped at his flesh and she screamed out his name, it wasn’t enough.
He shut his eyes against the pain and against the hot sucking heat of her body and drove on, reaching for that one moment when pain and desire gave way to the sweet oblivion of that little death and then it wasn’t her whose body he was ploughing, nor was it Randi’s. It was just a body. It could have been anyone’s. He didn’t want to see her green eyes then, or her dark hair. He just wanted release. Release from it all.
And so, Sidney, who never let go of control, gave up at last and with an agonized cry mixed with a choking sob. Spent, both physically and emotionally, he collapsed on top of her, burying his face in her neck so he wouldn’t have to face her. She held tightly to him, her arms wrapped around his neck, her fingers twined in his hair. He could feel her chest rising and falling quickly beneath his, the sweat cooling on their skin, her pulse rapid against his cheek.
He wanted to apologize but didn’t know how to begin. It was on the tip of his tongue to explain but didn’t know where to start. So instead he just lay there, letting himself be held until she squirmed from beneath him and curled up in his arms.
He waited until her breathing slowed, until all he heard was the deep, slow breaths of sleep, and then he unwound himself from around her and slid out of the bed. Gathering his clothes, he crept out into the darkened living room and dressed quickly, silently, before slipping out the door and into the night.
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