Chapter 5

Pulling up outside of Big Sam’s I find myself grinning when I see Becks standing outside of the front door in a pair of skin tight well worn, faded jeans and one of those artfully ripped up concert t-shirts that falls over her shoulder baring a leopard print bra strap and at least a couple of those loose fitting belts slung low over her hips with all the silver studs and loops. The outfit is topped off with a pair of shiny black platform heels that wouldn’t look out of place dancing around a pole. It’s cheap, it’s rocker chic and somehow she pulls it off, looking like a Vogue cover model slumming it on a sunny Sunday afternoon and when she tips her rhinestone encrusted sunglasses down and smiles in my direction I grin back thinking she’s my cover model. 

“You’re late,” she admonishes me as she turns her head to spit a wad of well chewed bright pink bubble gum out on the sidewalk. 

“You could let me pick you up,” I point out to which her only reply is to laugh, toss her hair back over her shoulder and lean in for a long, simmering kiss that leaves me wanting to take her straight back into my car, skip the food and go straight for the sex I’ve been day dreaming about for days. Instead, I reach for her hand, only to find myself staring down at another set of bike chain, black rubber and silver stud accessories on her wrist where I’d expected the elegant diamond tennis bracelet. 

“You’re not wearing it?” I ask, turning my eyes up to meet hers and I realize that I’m expecting her to have broken into a sweat, for her to stammer out some half assed obviously bull shit explanation about having lost it. 

“I’m about to have barbeque sauce up to my elbows,” she answers with a snicker, giving my hand a squeeze and turning around to pull me into the restaurant. “Did you want me to lose it in a vat of extra smoky sauce?” Shaking my head and laughing at my own bias, I stumble after her, wondering how she can not only walk backwards in those six inch heels but how I didn’t realize that she’s also taller than me in them and that I don’t actually mind. 

“Becky! Becks!” Her name seems to ring out from everywhere and I find myself following the echo of the sound of her name from the front of the restaurant to the back before I turn curious eyes on her. 

“I kinda like barbeque,” she explains with a shrug and a not very innocent bat of her long eyelashes. I had picked the restaurant. Well, I’d asked around and some of the guys had heard about the place, mostly from some kind of contest that it had either won or was held here, none of us were quite sure. It isn’t really the kind of food we’re normally allowed to eat during the season. 

“You here to eat me out of house and home Becks?” A handsome, very tall, and very dark African American man with a long row of very straight, very white teeth meets her with a crushing hug and I watch her practically disappear into him while I stand there still wondering what the hell is going on. 

“Becky?” I ask as she turns around, looking sheepish. 

“Okay, so I kinda won a wing eating contest once,” she mumbles, rolling her eyes like it’s no big deal, except the big man with the big plastic menus in his hand laughs out loud, throwing his head back as his belly jiggles with mirth. 

“Once?” he snorts, shaking his head as he gives her a little push that nearly sends her flying except that I’m between her and the wall, “Rebecca is the Pittsburgh wing eating champ three years running,” he says to me which makes her groan and give him a very dark look, which I make a mental note never to be on the other side of. 

“Thanks Samson,” she sighs, shrugging her shoulders and shaking her head. “It’s not like I’m not obviously on a date here. Kinda making me out to be some kind of pig when we can all clearly see that I’m not,” she adds, rubbing his generous ponch before placing her hand over her flat stomach. 

“Yeah, I’ve never figured out where you put all of those wings. I’ve always thought you were cheating,” Samson laughs heartily but I can tell just by the way he looks at her that their relationship is almost fraternal and that he doesn’t really mean it, but looking at her, I can’t help but wonder myself. 

“Speaking of wings,” she grins at him, ignoring his taunting remark, “find us a table and bring me a big basket of the little buggers will you?” 

“Same as always?” he asks, and she nods enthusiastically. “You got it Becks. Why don’t you take your man out on the patio? I’ll be right back.” 

“So…how many chicken wings did you eat?” She makes a face but then shrugs and gives me a half smile.

“I don’t know…,” she begins until I raise my eyebrow at her and then she rolls her eyes and lets out a long sigh. “Okay, last year it was a hundred and forty-eight in fifteen minutes.” I’m shocked and not entirely unimpressed by the feat and it must show on my face because I can’t stop staring at that little strip of bare skin between the bottom of her t-shirt and the top of her low slung jeans. “It’s just little bits of chicken sucked off little bits of bones, and don’t look at me like that,” she laughs, giving me a playful cuff across the cheek, “what are you, twelve?”

“It’s just you said suck and my mind just went blank,” I explain, laughing as she turns with an impatient huffing sound and struts away from me towards the patio. I watch her go for a moment, admiring the view as I think how this girl is a never ending set of mysteries and how much I’m enjoying unraveling them all. 

“I told you,” I grin across at him, using one of the wet naps I had stashed in my purse to wipe a smear of barbeque off of his cheek. “So do you forgive me for not wearing the bracelet now?” 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman dive into her food like that,” he chuckles, sitting back and spreading his fingers over his stomach, making a face like he shouldn’t have eaten that last hush puppy. “Not that I’m complaining,” he adds quickly with one of his devious grins. “It was kind of a turn on to watch you suck the meat off of all those bones.” 

“Yeah?” I grin over at him, sticking my thumb in my mouth and sucking the last spot of barbeque off it, watching his gaze settle on my thumb as it disappears into my lips as his gaze becomes unfocussed. 

“Oui,” he replies breathlessly as I ease my thumb out, a millimeter at a time, until it comes out clean with an audible ‘pop’. “Tabernak! Si vous ne me prenez pas la maison et me fair l’amour ma tête va exploser.” It’s funny how I’m beginning to get the hang of this French language, or at least half the time I don’t need a literal translation to get the gist of what he’s saying. The look of pure, unadulterated lust on his face as I reach across the table and insert his index finger into my mouth to lick a spot of sticky red sauce from it is enough. “Your place or mine?” he asks suddenly, springing to his feet and digging in his pocket for his wallet, pulling out a handful of bills and tossing them onto the table. 

“So that’s it? A few wings and a couple of ribs and I’m all yours?” I ask, sitting back in my chair and crossing my arms over my breasts, regarding him with skepticism.

“I didn’t…I thought….” Looking crestfallen and a little embarrassed, Max stands there across the table from me like a little boy whose just had his hand slapped and is waiting for a scolding.

“You’re funny,” I laugh, grabbing my purse and pushing my chair back with a loud scraping noise. “Like I made your bed for no reason.” 

“So it’s my bed?” he growls, giving my ass a hard enough smack that I can’t help but let out a yelp as he reaches past me to push open the door to the parking lot. 

“What? You don’t think I’m going to look amazing on all that shiny black satin?” I ask as I walk around to the passenger side of his sleek, dark car. 

“If you make me imagine that we won’t get very far,” he warns, stopping to look at me over the roof of the car, with a sort of half assed grin on his face that’s kinda like throwing a red flag in front of a bull. 

“Oh so you mean you don’t want to think about me, naked, in your bed,” I begin, hooking my thumb beneath one of my bra straps and pulling it down over my shoulder. 

“Tabernak! Get in the car,” Max groans, sliding into the driver’s seat while I giggle hook my thumb under the waistband of my panties, pulling it up over my hip so he’s forced to see it. “Do that when I’m driving and we’ll crash.”

“Do what?” I ask batting my eyelashes at him before flipping my hair over my shoulder, bending over and reaching for the fly on his jeans. I wait for him to object but all I hear is a long low groan and the sound of the seat sliding back as I slide my lips down over his half flaccid dick. 

I’m scared to death. I’m probably more turned on than I’ve ever been in my entire life but I’m also scared to death. 

With my pasty white ass pressed against the window, I can’t help but glance nervously around as Becky struggles out of her tight jeans, pushing them over her hips and wiggling like a happy puppy beneath me as I hold myself over her, partially because there’s nowhere else for me to go and partially to help give her the sense of privacy I no longer have because somehow I’m already naked as the day I was born while she’s still got her heels and jeans on. 

All I know is we’re somewhere between the restaurant and my house and that with her lips wrapped around my dick, I don’t want to or maybe can’t wait until we get back to my place. I pulled into what I am praying is an empty alley, and it didn’t take more than that to get Becks to hop into the back seat and yank off her top.

Grabbing one of her feet, I marvel for a second at the width of the platform on her shoes and the slim, almost weapon like narrowness of the steel stiletto before tugging it off and tossing it into the front seat and then grabbing at the bottom of her jeans and sliding them off over her blood red toenails. Now all that’s between us is a pair of black bikini bottoms with the word ‘rowrr’ written across her mound in leopard print. 

There’s a joke in that, I know there is, but right now my mind can’t form the words to say it out loud. Later, maybe in the dressing room tomorrow, it will come to me, but for right now, all I want is inside those panties and inside of her. Grabbing her with one hand and the panties with the other, the little shred of material joins the rest of our clothes in the front seat while she rips a condom package open with her teeth. It’s a savage sound and the grin she gives me while her teeth rip into the foil packaging sends a shiver down my spine and straight into my cock which is saluting her craziness in a painful sort of way. 

I can’t even manage a full word as she strokes the latex sleeve over my Johnson. All I can do is groan and mumble something unintelligible as she leads me down between her thighs, down into the dripping wet folds of her pussy and finally into the tight, hot centre of her and then I can’t think at all. My brain is full of explosions, like the fucking Fourth of July, Canada Day and New Years fucking Eve all at once. 

It takes a full minute before my brain can even send the signal down to my hips to move and even then, I’m more worried about slamming her head into the inside of the door or whether or not someone’s going to look in and see me, Superstar, doing it in the alley like some kid out of grade school. But once I do start to move, once we start to move, I forget about being seen or whether or not she’s going to slide off the seat. Once I feel her hands on my ass, her nails digging into my skin, and watch her mouth fall open and realize that I’ve done that, that I’m the one making her arch her back off of the leather seat and squeal like an eight year old girl getting an easy bake oven for Christmas, I stop worrying about getting caught and then all I can think about is how good it feels inside of her, how hot and wet and fucking tight she is. 

“Merde woman! Fuck I’m not going to last long,” I manage to pant, hanging onto one headrest while I brace my other arm against the back of the passenger seat. 

“That’s okay,” she grins back up at me, her eyes flashing in the full dark. “This is just an appetizer lover,” she promises as she meets me thrust for thrust before tipping her head back and letting out a feral growl that sounds like it should be coming from a mother bear and not the full, pink lips slightly stained by hot sauce that recently looked so amazing locked around my cock. “Oh yeah! Do that again!” 

“Quitter!” 

I give his ass a hard, open handed slap, admiring the red, perfectly hand shaped welt it leaves behind. But it doesn’t make him move. He just lies there, prone, naked, on his stomach and groans. 

“I can’t…feel…my dick,” he moans, his face pressed into the only pillow remaining on the bed. The rest are either on the floor somewhere, or shredded, in pieces, with feathers scattered everywhere, including in his hair. Plucking one of the small grey feathers out form his light brown locks, I bend down to press my lips lightly to the tip of his hair. “Non, arrêter. I can’t do it anymore. If I try again it might fall off.” 

“Oh I don’t know about that,” I whisper, curling my body next to the immobile flesh that is his body. “I pulled pretty hard on it before and it didn’t come off.” This description earns me another groan but his hand also twitches, moving faster than the naked eye can see, and his fingers curl around my wrist. 

“I think there’s something wrong with you,” he says quietly, turning so that I can just see one green eye surrounded by a fan of long, dark lashes. “I’m a fucking professional athlete and you have just complètement worn me out. What are you? Some kind of succube?”

“I prefer the term sexual vampire,” I purr back at him, hooking my leg around the back of his so that I can bring my entire body in line with his warm, languid one. “If it makes you feel any better,” I add, nipping at his earlobe, “I can’t remember the last time anyone could even keep up with me this long.” 

“And what did you do with votre dernière victime? Bury him? Burn him?” he asks, a playful smile creeping across the half of his mouth I can see. 

“Oh him,” I roll my eyes and shrug before pulling my hand free and giving his ass another hard, vociferous, slap. “I had Samson cook him out in his smoker, covered him in barbeque sauce and ate him.” With a snort and a shake of his head, Max reaches for me and pulls me against his body before reaching for the sheet and pulling it up to both of our chins. 

“Well then I’ll just have to do better. Let me sleep,” he begs with that devilish grin of his, “just for a un peu de temps, and then…I think there is some whip cream and some sauce au chocolat down in the fridge you can eat me with.”

Chapter 4

 sorry, been down with the flu...I hardly had the strength to check my email the last few days never mind write but I hope this chapter will hold you for a few days more

All these pick-up lines from hell
Icebreakers infernal
from a heart so black and blue
only for you

I'm not afraid to admit I adore you
any more than I was before, babe
I am scared to death, I am scared to death
to fall in love
with you

with you...

scared to death...

I'm scared to death..

And you're sweet like poison (lyrics from “Scared to Death” by Ville Valo, HiM)

“At least he’s not here this time so there’s no chance of catching him in his underwear,” my sister says in that tone that says that I’m a constant source of embarrassment to her. I consider telling her that I know he’s not home, that I think he’s in Columbus or Detroit or something like that but then decide to keep my mouth shut, that she’d only tell me that he’s only seeing me because I’m easy or that he’d never take me seriously if he knew that I lived in a trailer park. It’s nothing that I haven’t already thought myself and I don’t really want to hear it said out loud, so I just say nothing and follow her inside. 

“I’ll take upstairs,” I mumble, grabbing a mop and a bucket and heading up the stairs that I would have gone up the other night if I had been the easy lay from the trailer park that my sister and my mother think I am. Max knows different. Not that he was happy about it but….

The bed is wrong. 

Standing in the doorway, I stare at the big pine sleigh bed with fluffy looking quilt with its old fashioned homemade looking blue and white design. It’s nothing like the four poster wrought iron king size bed Max has in his room with the black and red silk sheets. 

“Jen!” I yell over my shoulder, frozen to the spot, staring at a family portrait of smiling faces around the Stanley Cup. Max isn’t one of them but Kristopher Letang is. “Jen, we’re in the wrong house,” I yell again. 

“We’re doing both!” she yells back up at me, “they’re right next door to each other.” I mumble something under my breath about not telling me that isn’t at all nice and something even worse about my being too tired and too stupid to notice as I walk over towards another picture of Kris with what looks like a bunch of club kids. His hair is up in some kind of pompadour, his smooth chest his bare and the elastic of his underwear is showing as he gives the camera a seriously sexy come hither look while snuggling up to a couple of girl with big hair and too much make up next to another guy wearing a necklace and a fairly serious fro. 

There’s another picture next to that one of him in the same outfit with a couple of the same girls and a few more thrown in for good measure, but he doesn’t have his arms around them. He’s not even touching them and the look on his face says that he likes whoever is behind the camera better than the present company anyway. 

I wonder if that person is the one in a few of the smaller photographs in simple frames on the top of a dresser and on his bed stand.  One of them shows him with some other buy with the same sort of thick, dark, un-groomed eyebrows but shorter hair and a wider, more confident smile, both of them holding a trophy and wearing medals. Right next to that one was with the same young man, but this time on a golf course, obviously sharing some kind of joke, looking close and intimate. 

The last one was the one on his nightstand of the two of them in Canadian jerseys, arms around one another, looking up at something, a flag maybe. Comrades in arms or…more?

Feeling nosey, I turn my attention to his closet, opening the sliding slatted doors to find a perfectly organized system of both folded and hung clothing as well as one entire set of shelves for a variety of shoes from combat boots to expensive looking alligator loafers, in between which is quite a collection of trainers, few of which look as if they’ve ever been worn.

“Damn, definitely gay,” I mutter to myself as I run my fingers over thick, soft cashmere sweaters and down subtly printed silk ties.  

Besides the tasteful and expensive clothes and the organization bordering on OCD, there doesn’t seem to anything to clean. Running my bare finger along the crown molding over the closet, there wasn’t a grain of dust to be found. Nor were there any lumps of solidified toothpaste in the sink of the en suite, or a gross ring in the toilet. There was definitely no sticky mess on the floor which indicated to me that he had better aim than most men.

“Are you done snooping, or are you going to clean something?” I whirl to find my sister holding a bottle of bleach out toward me. 

“Clean what?” I ask, going so far as to pick up the spin-brush sitting on the counter so I can run my thumb along the granite countertop beneath it, coming up with nothing.  “Either someone’s already been here and you have your schedules messed up or this guy is a neat freak and we’re getting paid to do nothing.” 

This has my sister grabbing her cell and wandering off, muttering something under her breath about schedules and using particularly colourful adjectives for the receptionist, leaving me to stare at a picture of Kris and Max, one on either side of the Cup, huge grins on their faces. 

Comrades in arms or….

“What the fuck was that about?” 

I’m expecting it so it comes as no surprise when Max forcibly drags me down into the seat beside him in the plane and gives me that look, the one that says ‘if we hadn’t been friends forever I’d be kicking your ass right now’. On the other hand, even though I’m expecting it, I’m not about to just give in to his little green monster pity party. 

“Qu’est-ce que tu racontes?” Max hates being toyed with, and his eyes grow dark with a threat that isn’t usually aimed in my direction, but because I’ve been expecting it I don’t flinch, though I should. I’ve been witness to the aftermath of a couple of go rounds with he and Jordan have had and neither time ended well.

“You, hitting on my girl,” he snarls, giving me a look that dares me to deny it, which I do with a single shrug. 

“I spoke to her, oui, but hit on her? Non mon ami, je n’ai pas flirter avec ton fille.” I look him directly in the eye as I say it so he can see that I’m not lying. At least I don’t think that I’m lying. Did I want to flirt with her? Of course I did and not just because she was pretty. Lots of the girls that hang around us at bars are pretty but there was something different in her eyes that drew me in. “I know the rules and I’m not GoGo or Gronk. I don’t break the rules. She’s your girl Max, c’est fini.” Max stares me down and I let him because I feel guilty. I feel guilty for thinking about her sweet half smile and the way she looked at me from beneath her lashes. She might be his girl but there was something there, something between us and I know she felt it too. “You took her home didn’t you?” I ask when I feel like I’m going to break, when I’m about to spill my admission like a teenager in confession after he’s wacked off for the first time.

“No,” he grumbles and sits back in his seat, starting at the back of the seat in front of him. “She said she had a headache or something; that she’d been drinking too much.” It’s all I can do to keep my expression neutral as I nod sympathetically even while my mind is racing through the details of the night. She neither smelled of alcohol nor do I remember her ever having so much as a single drink in her hand. 

“Meilleure chance la prochaine fois, mon frère,” I offer to which he only shrugs one shoulder and continues to stare sullenly at the back of Flower’s seat. 

I tell myself not to read anything into it but there’s a little part of me, somewhere in the pit of my stomach that does a little happy dance at Max’s expense. 

I can’t help but compare the items in Max’s closet as I dust his room, which can use it. He’s definitely not as much of a housekeeper as his teammate. 

Where Kris’s closet was divided and carefully organized by type of clothing, colour and type of care required, Max’s closet is a jumble of both wire and wooden hangers with everything, including his jeans, hung up and where Kris’s closet was generally made up of more muted tones, Max’s is a virtual rainbow of bright primary colours.

“Chalk and cheese,” I mutter to myself as I head for Max’s private en suite, which, in all honesty is not as bad as I’d anticipated. There are a few petrified wads of toothpaste in the sink and I’m not sure I’d actually sit on the toilet seat but I have seen worse. 

I’m about to spray the mirror over the sink when my breath warms the cool surface and a message begins to appear. With a grin, I lean forward and blow, revealing a note scrawled in block letters:

I hate that you’re in my bedroom without me

Shaking my head I spray the mirror and wipe the message away. He might not be the neatest member of his team but he’s definitely charming. Sliding my cell out of the back pocket of my jeans I send him back a message that reads:

Maybe we’ll remedy that when you get back

I’m half way through cleaning the shower when my phone vibrates in my pocket and it’s not a text, it’s a call. 

“That’s not fair,” a voice thick with sleep slurs on the other end of the line. Stepping out of the shower, I peer out the en suite door, looking for my nosy sister. 

“What’s that?” I ask, knowing damn well what but wanting to tease him, especially considering the barely stifled long drawn out yawn I’m currently listening to. 

“Mmm, you’re in my bedroom ma petite coquina favorite,” he growls, a sound that has my skin breaking out in chicken flesh all at once. 

“To be honest, I’m in your shower,” I correct him only to hear him groan, followed by the rustle of sheets. “What are you doing sleeping in the middle of the day anyway?” I ask, stepping out of the shower and sitting down on the cleaned, closed lid of the toilet. 

“We nap before a game, but how can I nap now with cette image in my head?” he asks, and I can hear the sultry grin he’s wearing in his voice. “Qui va être impossible. Just tell me, promets-moi that you’ll take care of this…condition when I get home.” 

“And what condition is that?” I ask, playing the innocent, just to hear him groan out loud again. 

“I think we both know exactement what you do to me, mon petit chat,” he argues and I can’t keep a straight face. I do know and it was only because his handsome teammate had thrown me off that I hadn’t taken advantage of the state I’d left him in at the club but there had definitely been no doubt about how much he’d been enjoying my company. 

“Well I suppose we’ll have to see if you’re a good boy or not,” I chuckle, listening while he growls with frustration. 

“Go to my bed, open the drawer on the bedside table on the right hand side,” he instructs me impatiently, his words succinct and to the point, his tone abrupt. Getting up, I walk over to the King Size bed with its canopy of fairy lights and its mountain of lavish opulently embroidered pillows and slide my hand into the drawer of the table on what I assume is his side of the bed, with its photos of Max with what can only be his brothers and his mother. My fingers slide over a long, thin box covered in soft velvet and I know he hears my sharp intake of breath when he laughs. “Open it.” 

“Max…you don’t even know me,” I sigh, pulling out the black velvet hinged box with shaking hands. 

“Just open it mon ange,” he insists in that offhand jovial way he has. Tipping the lid open I find myself staring down at a diamond tennis bracelet with a single charm hanging from it, a heart with the Pens logo that spins in the middle from each end of the hockey stick with a diamond in the centre of the Penguin’s chest. 

“Max…this is too much,” I hiss into the phone, thinking more about my mother finding it and pawning it for booze and cigarettes, or worse, my sister finding me with it and thinking I stole it than about how truly pretty it is. 

“Just a little thank you for cleaning up after me,” he chuckles, steering the tone of the conversation in a more comedic direction, a talent, I’ve noticed, that he uses to his advantage a lot. 

“Well then I hope you left one downstairs for my sister because whatever you cooked last is still all over the stove,” I muse as I consider taking the fragile sparkling bracelet out of the box, but decide to close it instead. All I’d need now is Jen finding it, or seeing me on the phone, and having to explain it. 

“I promise I’ll put an extra twenty in when I pay the bill for her,” he laughs as I slip the box into my back pocket. “So, will I see you when I get back?” 

“When is that?” I ask, like I’m checking my date book, as if I have a line of suitors out the door waiting to ask me out and the inbred loser with the missing front teeth and rusty TransAm in front of his place in the trailer park doesn’t count.

“A couple of days, ma petite colombe, and then I will take you out somewhere coûteux et impressionnant and you can wear it for me, d’accord?” 

“I don’t know what you just said but yeah…why, you can take me wherever you want Mr. Talbot,” I add, throwing in some real Scarlett O’Hara Southern twang just to get even with his using his accent against me. 

“Puis il est convenu,” he adds with a throaty chuckle that reminds me that I’ve awoken him from his pre-game nap, “a black tie dinner for two, my treat, bien sûr, at the finest restaurant in Pittsburgh in two days time. Shall I pick you up?” 

“Uh no,” I mumble, beads of sweat breaking out across my forehead as I try and think of how I’m going to scrape enough together for another new outfit to wear. “You know you could just take me for hamburgers, or barbeque, I like a good rack of ribs,” I offer, realizing at the last minute just how that could be taken. 

“A simple girl with simple tastes. Comme vous le souhaitez,” he adds and I can’t help but hear the grin in his voice when he says it although I can’t truly decide if it’s genuine or a rueful sort of smile. “I’ll ask around and see if I can find a good restaurant de la bière et le barbecue, just for you sweet Rebecca. I’ll text you when I get home.” I hang up and blow out the air that’s accumulated in my lungs while I’ve been talking to him and then I can’t help but laugh. You can take the girl out of the trailer park but apparently you can’t take the trailer park out of the girl.

“Did you buy twenty of those…,” Geno mimes the shape of something round around his wrist and looks perturbed that he can’t think of the word. 

“Bracelets,” I tell him and shrug, “yeah but I only had a couple left and she’s worth it.” 

“You like all the ladies,” the big guy laughs, rolling over onto his side to face me and supporting his big head on his big hand. 

“I don’t know about all, but generally yeah,” I agree with a yawn, “but there’s something about this girl…don’t know what it is but I like her…a lot.” I hear a chortle and glance over to see the big Russian looking back at me with sincere disbelief on his face. “What? You have Oksana, Sid’s got Tabby…why shouldn’t I have someone too?” 

“I never knew you are a…,” he thinks for a moment and then smiles and nods, happy with where his thoughts have taken him, “sheep.” 

“Ouch!” I grab my chest over my heart roll my eyes back in my head and collapse back on my bed. “You kill me big guy. Here I am, opening my heart to you and you shoot me down like that and I thought you were my friend.” 

“I am friend,” Geno laughs, tossing a pillow at me that lands right on my face. If there’s one thing you can’t fault the big lug for it’s his aim. “That’s why I tell you I think is funny you can be with one girl only. Eto tol’ko nyeestestvennoe.” I toss his pillow back and raise my eyebrow at him, which is one of the ways we have of reminding one another to speak English. “It not…not Superstar” he manages and I shrug and roll back on to my back, my arms behind my head as I close my eyes.

“Yeah well, I think you better get used to the idea of Superstar being off the market big guy because I’m telling you…there’s something about this girl…something different and I plan on getting to the bottom of it.”

Chapter 3

Just a warning on this chapter, there's some pretty strong and generally objectionable language and I wouldn't normally warn about something like that, but this is 'locker room talk' and I don't mean for it to be offensive, it's just boys being boys and is important to the story so here goes

"Bonjour ceci est bouilloire pot," I begin, glancing at the multi coloured cardigan that he seems to favor, despite the fact that it looks like something his mother would have forced him to wear in grade school and is definitely not something I'd be caught dead wearing. 

"Je sais, mais…well, give me some points for at least going through with it," Max shrugs, his gaze suddenly taking on that far off quality as he stares into space with this goofy…well, goofier than usual grin on his face.

"And you're glad you did by the look of it," Gronk chuckles, snapping a soaking wet towel at Max's face, missing by a cunt hair. Max doesn't flinch. He never does. "So you got some of the old in out last night?" 

"Must you be so crude Jordan?" I mutter, earning myself one of the tall blonde forward's patented sarcastic eye rolls. 

"Must you be so gay?" Jordan snorts, and half the guys in the room laugh, like they always do. I don't rise to it. I never do anymore. I know they don't really mean it, and I know that it only gets worse, the longer my hair gets towards the end of the season. I don't care if they all think it's some kind of fashion statement, it's really more of a superstition thing, along with the beard, which itches like crazy. "So did you?" he asks, giving Max's foot a kick. 

"Would I kiss and tell?" Max asks, with that `as if I'd tell you' look on his face which is beyond bullshit because he's usually the first one to blab. 

"Which means no, loooser," TK laughs and then it starts, who got what and how many times. It's like this all the time. It reminds me a bit of high school that way. 

"There's something about her. I can't put my finger on it," Max sighs and that makes me stop and look at him, really look at him, because Maxime Talbot is not the kind of guy that sighs over a girl. 

"Well, une fille qui n'est pas le donner à la première date est une denrée rare et précieuse," I tell him which earns me another raised eyebrow and a shake of his head.

"Tabernak, sometimes you really are a fag," Max groans and finally gets up to his feet. "Maybe you should take her shopping for some like less skanky clothes," he continues, giving me a bright smile, like a light bulb has just gone on over his head. "You know, because you're a fag and they have all that Queer Eye style stuff," he adds, as if more explanation is required. Frankly I'm getting a little sick of the `jests', but I'm still not going to rise to it. 

"À tout moment," I grin back at him, because not reacting is good but actually playing along really confuses him and that way I get to have my fun too. 

"Are you two cock bandits planning a shopping trip?" Crosby smirks as he walks by and then laughs when I give him a dirty look. "Oh c'mon Tanger, you don't want to be the only single guy left on the team, do you?" 

"Pourquoi pas? Then I'd get all the girls," I grin back at him. 

"Girls? Tanger sucks cock, he doesn't like girls. Ain't that right Tanger?" Cookie laughs as he goes by, banging my shins with his stick. 

This shit really is getting old. 

"Becca!" 

I pull the pillow over my head and squeeze my eyes shut. Maybe if I just go back to sleep she'll go away. 

"Becky!" 

Reaching for my one other pillow, I toss that on top too and curse quietly. 

"Rebecca, get in here you stupid, fucking, whore!"

Oh no she didn't. 

For a minute I just lie there, trying to pretend I can't hear her. Then I wonder if I run to the kitchen, grab a cleaver and kill her how much of a mess I'll have to clean up and if my sister has the right kinds of chemicals to do the job, but then I think that I'm too pretty and too straight to go to jail. 

"What the fuck do you want?" I holler back, ripping the pillows off of my head, dropping them on the floor in disgust. 

"I'm out of cigarettes!" she screams back and the tone of her voice is shrill enough that it makes me actually check my ears to see if they're bleeding. Mumbling something under my breath about her being a lazy, stupid cunt, I slide out of my bed and reach for my jeans on the floor and my phone falls out and sits there, blinking up at me. 

Scooping it up off of the floor, I scroll through the usual text messages from my friends who abandoned me at the bar last night as they disappeared into the night with the usual drunk, slobbery idiots with their cheesy pick up lines, to find two messages from Max. The first is the usual and expected `had a good time, looking 4ward 2 c-ing u again', the second though is a little more unusual. 

 There's a picture of him, from the back, wearing only the water from the shower he is standing under, one hand on the tiled wall in front of him, fingers spread. The other hand can't be seen, which I suppose is the point, considering the message beneath which reads `Max missing you already, T'. 

"Who the fuck is T?" I ask myself as I peer at the picture, which, although too small to see any kind of detail, still allows me to appreciate his very pale but highly muscular ass. 

"Rebecca!" Rolling my eyes I pull my jeans on, grab a t-shirt off the pile of clean ones on my dresser and shove my phone in my back pocket, mulling over a perfect reply to that photo while I head out the door. 

"You better run, tu petite morceau de merde," I call after TK who's bugging it for his car after I found the email that had resulted in the text message I'd just received from Becky; `I'm up 4 a little fun in the sun, looks like u need it'. 

"I wish he moved that fast on the ice every night." I turn to find Crosby's crept up on me, wearing the same maniacal grin he's been wearing for a while now, like creating life has actually turned him into a super hero. 

"Le pervers peu took a picture of me in the shower on my own phone," I explain, handing him my phone and listening to him giggle like a schoolgirl at my expense.

"At least he got your best side," Sid snorts as he hands my phone to Jordan who nearly chokes on his power bar as he howls with laughter. 

"What are you so upset about anyway? It's not like we all know that you're counting the hours until you're getting this chick naked anyway," Jordan adds, like it's a foregone conclusion that the only thing I can't want is a sexual relationship. Not that I don't want to see her naked, and soon, but it's just not the only thing I want to do with her.

"I'm going to try not to," I admit, shrugging my shoulders and then rolling my eyes when they both stare at me, eyes wide and obviously disbelieving. "What? Do you really think I'm not capable of having a normal, adult relationship without having sex right away?" 

"Yes," they both answer, immediately and without a moment's thought, in unison. 

"Not to mention you're planning on leaving for Haiti soon," Tanger adds as he joins our little band of merry men. "After the wedding of course Cap," he adds with a grin. 

"If she says yes," Sid sighs and we all laugh. The poor guy; Tabby's really made him work for it, but we all know they're happy as two bugs in a rug together, which is all I want. 

"She will," Jordan says firmly, like maybe he's got inside information, and though we all assume that when he's with Trina there's probably not a lot of time for pillow talk, I guess there has to be some. 

"Maybe she'll be my date to the wedding," I add, keeping things positive but when I look around me at my friends, they're all still staring back at me, unconvinced.

"Who are you and what you done with Max?" Jordy shakes his head and then, after firmly squeezing my shoulder he heads to his truck. I consider sticking my tongue out at him but decide that doesn't really go with the new me I'm striving for. 

"So you're going to say no to me if I say let's go to DejaVu tonight?" Kris asks, scrutinizing my face, as if he too doesn't quite believe what he sees. 

"Maybe Becky will want to go," I offer, snatching my phone from his hand. He rolls his eyes, shakes his head and makes a derisive noise deep in his throat before walking away from me. "What's with him?" I ask as I turn back to Sid who shrugs and grins at me. 

"You know Tanger's no good at picking up women on his own. He's too fucking shy to actually hit on girls by himself. Unless he's hammered," Sid adds with a chuckle. "But he's running out of wingmen, and like Tabby says, that boy is not meant to be on his own." 

"You sure you don't mind?" Max asks as he helps me off with my jacket before handing it to the coat check girl, along with his own. "It will just be a few of the guys, maybe a couple of the Steelers," he adds, but not like he's bragging, just like it's a matter of fact. 

"I think I should be asking you that," I reply, waiting as he takes the ticket she gives him and I can't help but notice the way her fingers brush against his and her gaze lingers a little too long on his tattoo where it peeks out from beneath his sleeve. 

"We don't have to stay if you don't want to," he adds, reaching for my hand and lacing his thick fingers into mine. "We can leave any time you want. All you have to do is say, d'accord?" I can't help but nod and smile in response to the earnest expression on his face. He's not just saying it, he actually means it and I can't even think of the last time any guy I'd dated made an offer with that much class behind it.

We fall into step behind a bouncer who dwarfs both of us and blocks out the lights as the sea of patrons parts for him in front of us as he leads us across the polished wood floors and up the stairs to the VIP section were a few guys have already made themselves comfortable and the champagne is already flowing. Max leads me over to one of the wrap around couches where a tall blonde is sitting with a leggy Asian on his lap who seems to be threatening him with a bottle of Patron. 

"Becks, this is Jordan and his girlfriend Trina." 

"Hey…less of the girlfriend," the woman cries, tipping the bottle into the tall blonde's mouth who gulps the golden liquid down like a baby calf, his long throat working rhythmically as he easily swallows half of the bottle. "I'm his dirty hot mistress and we both like it like that," she adds with a growl before nipping at Jordan's bottom lip while he gives her ass a smack that reverberates loudly in the room, making everyone turn and stare. Trina doesn't so much as wince. 

"I'd say ignore them," Max leans in to whisper in my ear, "but he's one of my best friends and they're pretty much always like this. Je suis désolé." 

"Why are you sorry?" I ask, letting go of his hand long enough to give his ass a firm squeeze. "Or are you just sorry you're missing out?" 

"Don't get him started, he'll start sucking his thumb and asking you to change his diaper." I turn to look into the dark, dark brown eyes half hidden behind long, brown bangs that make him look like some kind of Prince out of a Disney movie. 

"Hmmm…well…I do have the boots," I point out, glancing down at my black patent, knee high stiletto boots which could definitely be dominatrix gear. 

"And if anyone's sucking anyone's thumb around here, it's me," Jordan growls, before grabbing Trina's hand and promptly sticking her thumb in his mouth and making loud, over exaggerated lip smacking noises. 

"Okay, you're right, your friends are weird," I laugh, giving Max's ass a smack and realizing that not only is there no give to his ass but that my hand actually hurts. 

"Do that to Sid and your hand won't hurt as much," the dark haired prince promises, but a quick look around tells me that the most famous of the Penguins is nowhere to be found. 

"Do that to Sid and Tabby will rip your arm off and beat you to death with it," Trina warns me in a no nonsense voice that tells me that what she's saying is absolutely true. 

"Do that to Sid and I might rip your arm off," Max says in an entirely different tone as he reaches for my hand and lifts it to his mouth, brushes his lips over my knuckles and looks up at me with his leaf, green eyes. "I don't really want you touching any other guys' derrieres." 

"No?" I ask, feeling my cheeks grow warm as Max's gaze holds mine long enough to send a shiver straight down to the butterflies in my stomach and sets them fluttering. 

"Non," he replies, his smoldering gaze turning into an inquisitive smile.

 

"Wow." 

"Je sais ce que tu entends," Dupes grumbles into his beer. "It's sickening."

"I've never seen him like this," I add, trying not to look at Max with that girl's tongue down his throat. 

"That's bullshit," GoGo smirks, downing the remainder of his rum and coke. "I can't even count how many times I've seen him with his tongue down some girl's throat. It's like a regular thing." 

"But he looks happy," I point out, "not just lecherous like he usually does." 

"Does he? Or is he just drunk?" GoGo sighs, motioning for the waitress to bring us another round. "I think you're just jealous that your boyfriend is making out with someone other than you for a change," he adds, his face a barely contained mask of pure resentment. Dupers and I both look over at him and then at each other and I know we both are wondering whether to say it. Shrugging, I do. 

"You're still pissed about Mel and Johnny," I tell him and for once he doesn't deny it. Instead he shrugs and glances over at the two pairs of lovers making out at the other end of the couch. 

"Is it wrong to want someone in my life Tanger? I mean, is that so wrong?" GoGo asks and then we both sigh. 

"Non," I mumble, turning my attention back to the bottom of my drink. "Je pense que nous devons tous quelqu'un, but then you had someone and you messed it up," I add, not being helpful. 

"Thanks for reminding me," he grumbles, reaching for my drink but then his hand pauses in mid air and he makes a face. "Jeeezus Tanger, even your drink is gay."

"Merci," I snap, grabbing my martini and dragging myself to my feet. Right now, I neither want to watch Max making out with his new girlfriend nor do I want to hear Dupers and Goligoski make fun of my choice of beverages, which will naturally lead to making fun of my hair and then my clothes and then….

"Hey, mon ami, où allez-vous?" Max, his mouth smeared with bright red lipstick, grins up at me. "Get me another drink?" 

"L'obtenir un pour vos soi," I snap, allowing myself one quick look at those fishnet stockings disappearing into those shiny black boots and shake my head. Why is it they all gravitate to Max? 

"Ah c'mon mon ami, don't be such a spoil sport," Max calls after me. "You can see I'm busy here," he adds, grinding salt into the wound. 

"J'espère que tu attraper quelque chose qui va tu tuer," I call back over my shoulder and then slide into the crowd. 

"Hey, what was that?" I ask, craning my neck to follow the vision of Prince Charming making a disgruntled exit stage right. "I thought these guys were your friends?" 

"Teammates," Max corrects me, trying to turn my attention back to him by nipping at my earlobe, but I'm still staring at the denim clad back of the dark haired boy with the sweet smile and the deeply soulful eyes. "And now, ma douce, you are making me jealous." Considering that I can no longer find him in the crowd, I turn my attention back to the man on whose lap I am sitting and give him my best innocent bat of my fake eyelashes.

"I just wondered why he seems so pissed off at you." Searching his face, it seems clear that Max isn't entirely sure himself why his friend is in such a huff, but then he shrugs and goes to use his hands to talk and that leaves me slipping off of his lap and down onto the floor and unceremoniously onto my ass.

"Fuck! Je suis désolé!" Max is immediately onto his feet pulling me onto mine while I rub at the spot on my ass cheek that I'm sure will be black and blue in no time. 

"You see what that fucking queen does? Throwing a pissy little tantrum and your girl ends up on her ass." I turn to see Jordan with his arm around the waist of his date, a huge livid hickey on his neck, looking happy and drunk all at the same time.

"Q…queen?" The word doesn't sound right on my tongue. Something in my head screams that it's unfair that someone that pretty should bat for the other side, but then again, the other part of my brain says `of course'. 

"He just likes having me all to himself," Max explains going to brush at the back of my skirt with his hand but I bat his away and smooth the back of my skirt down myself while Trina gives me just the slightest shake of her head to say `you're good to go'. It's only then that what my date has just said sinks in and I turn to Max, tipping my head to one side as I stare at him, disbelief clouding my vision as I try in vain to look for anything about his masculine form, his stubble, his broad forehead and that Roman nose that looks like there's been more than a couple of attempts to beat it into the other side of his head, that would suggest in even the tiniest way that he could possibly be a double agent. "No, no, you don't understand," Max suddenly gets why I'm staring at him and a bark of laughter erupts all around me. "I'm not like that! Ne vous inquiétez pas de ton jolie petite tête à ce sujet," he insists, and though I'm not really sure what he's saying, I get the jist that it's meant as both a compliment and an assertion of innocence. "I'm as straight as they come, mon petit chou, believe me," he adds, giving me that same cocky grin that says he will happily and skillfully take care of any sexual cravings I might have at the drop of a hat. "We were just roommates and we hang a lot, both of us coming from Montréal," he explains with a shrug, as if there couldn't possibly be any other explanation for what has just happened. 

"C'mon you guys. Don't go tagging Tanger with that shit," Trina begins and I turn and look up at her but Jordan is shaking his head, like whatever she's about to explain is verboten. "Well?" she tries again but the big man just shakes his blonde locks and she rolls her eyes and shrugs as if to say `I tried'. 

"So he's really…," I pitch my voice low and glance around, realizing that even if he is out amongst his teammates that he probably isn't in general. "He's really gay?"

"Oh Kris is a total fag alright. He's got more fucking hair products in his bathroom than I've ever used in my entire fucking life." One of the other guys, the young one who looks a little like a monkey mated with a pig, chimes in as he arrives with a pitcher of beer in each hand. "Now who's going to help me drink these?" 

The entire discussion forgotten in the light of the arrival of free cold beverages, Max and Jordan and the rest of their remaining teammates fall on the pitchers of beer like carrion birds on a corpse and leave me, standing at the rail, searching the crowd for their shy, beautiful teammate, feeling a little wistful and just a little bit proud of him at the same time.