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.
______________________________________________________________________________

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.