Chapter 9

Afraid that everything remains unchanged
In this fragile dream, yeah
Ashamed of the shattered remains
Of promises made, yeah

(lyrics from “Sweet Pandemonium” by HiM)

You trick your lovers
That you're wicked and divine
You may be a sinner
But your innocence is mine

(lyrics from “Undisclosed Desires” by Muse)

“I like her,” Tabby says, grinning in that way that makes me nervous and when I glance over at Sid he’s sporting the same wary look on his face. “She’s got…spunk,” she adds as she carefully lowers one of my godsons in my arms. 

“Buuuttt?” I ask, making a face at Toby who gurgles happily and squirms in my arms. I pat myself on the back for getting the little monsters monogrammed sleepers. 

“But nothing,” Tabby sighs as she drops onto the couch and into the circle of Sid’s arm which he immediately drapes around her shoulders, bringing her against his side. “I think you need a girl with some life to her. I think that’s why girls don’t last with you Max. They don’t keep you guessing enough.” 

“Huh,” is the only answer I can come up with and when I look over at Sid, he looks just as surprised as I feel. 

“What?” Tabby look from me and then to Sid and then back at me, “if you honestly thought we were all going to disapprove of her, why did you bring her?” 

“I didn’t, Kris did and I didn’t think you were going to disapprove…exactly,” I admit, still unable to get that sexy black satin number out of my head. It doesn’t seem to matter what Becks wears, she looks great in everything. “I just wasn’t sure she’d fit in.” 

“She seems fine,” Sid offers, only to have Tabby poke him in the ribs. 

“What does that mean, fine? What about her wouldn’t we like? She’s funny, opinionated…oh, you mean the sex in the bathroom thing?” Tabby laughs as I feel my ears get warm and the creep of blood up my neck and into my face. It’s one thing to have the guys know but the disapproving looks that Mel and Vero gave us when we came back to the table are something else I can’t exactly get out of my head. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from you Max,” Tabs adds, yawning and snuggling tighter to her man. 

“So what is it about her that you thought we wouldn’t like?” Sid finally asks the question that I still don’t know the answer to. 

“There’s just…I don’t know, something about her that…her whole life is like this big mystery,” I explain as best I can only to have the two of them look at one another with these smirks on their faces. “What?” 

“Well c’mon Max, getting to know someone is part of the whole…process,” Sid says, his hand going to Tabby’s hair, wrapping her jet black waves around his finger as he looks down at her with that completely gone look on his face that he always seems to have these days. 

“And how many times have you complained about girls that do nothing but talk?” Tabby adds as she shuts her eyes and this completely contented look comes across her face. “If you ask me, this girl is smart if she’s keeping you guessing.” 

“Yeah but she doesn’t talk about her life…at all,” I explain, wrinkling my nose as the little bundle of joy in my arms makes a face and promptly fills his diaper. This is the part I like best about just being a godfather; I hold the kid out away from me and Sid rolls his eyes, untangles himself from his mate and walks over to take his son in his arms and disappears to the twin’s room and the diaper genie. “Shouldn’t I worry about that?” I ask Tabby as she straightens and stifles another yawn. It must be a bitch to have to get up for all the feedings. I’m betting she’s looking forward to us getting kicked out of the Playoff run so she can get a little more help around the house. Of course they could afford a nanny, or ten, but she’s been pretty adamant about being the only one to bring up their kids.

“Do you ask her? Or is it just pretty much sex between the two of you?” she asks, pushing herself to her feet and going over to the blanket on the floor where Cody has been kicking and reaching for one of those toys that hangs over his little sausage of a body. 

“Mostly sex,” I admit, my body going warm all over at the thought of Becks naked. “But it is the best sex I’ve ever had,” I add to which Tabby rolls her eyes as she picks her other son up right into the air and sniffs at his but before cuddling him to her chest and going back to her spot on the sofa. 

“Well you might like to try having an actual conversation. I mean, if you actually intend to continue this past the point where the sex isn’t quite so explosive. I mean, look at Mel and Johnny. That was all just crazy do it everywhere new crazy sex but now they’re going to be parents and they’re like…well, I guess kinda like me and Sid. Old boring sit around and watch movies kind of a couple,” she adds as Sid reappears with a fresher smelling Toby who’s wriggling in his arms and making motorboat noises, which tells me it’s time for me to make my exit before Tabby whips out her boobs and I get uncomfortable. 

“Yeah well, I like the great sex part. I’m not really ready for that to be over and besides,” I add, getting to my feet, “I heard Johnny admit once that he’s a little worried that after the baby’s born that Mel will want to go back to hanging from the chandelier and he won’t be able to keep up with her.” I watch the two of them share one of those looks that couples get, all that silent conversation thing that I just don’t understand. 

“So back to the original question, Max,” Sid turns to me after putting his other son in Tabby’s arms and taking Cody in his own, “are you bringing her when we go? I just need to know for uh…for booking rooms,” he lies, giving me one of those looks that tells me that Tabby still hasn’t caught on to his little plan.

“Well yeah, if it’s okay with you two,” I reply, happy to find out that they don’t think she’s some kind of tramp that they don’t want around their little ones.

“It’s totally okay Max,” Tabby answers with a smirk. “We’re just glad we don’t have to watch you moping around all by yourself while everyone else has someone, for once,” she adds giving me one of those affection laden pity looks of hers’. “Now if we could just find someone for Kris,” she adds, like an afterthought and both Sid and I laugh.

“Maybe we could get a hold of Justin Bieber for him,” I suggest and Sid shakes his head. 

“No, no, one of the Jonas Brothers,” he suggests, laughing until he realizes Tabby isn’t laughing, at all. 

“You guys are such losers,” she mutters, sliding her t-shirt up and that’s when I turn and head for the door. “Stop teasing him about his hair,” she calls after me. 

“When he cuts it,” I call back and Sid chuckles, but quietly and we share a look and both break out laughing again. “I guess we shouldn’t be talking about the season being over yet,” Sid adds as he walks me to the door.

“Yeah, well, if they don’t put Price the sieve back in, it will be,” I mutter and Sid nods, heaving a heavy sigh. 

“I hear that, mon ami, I hear that.” 

Tugging my robe closed, I slip out onto the front stoop and across the driveway to grab the paper rolled up on Kris’s front step. I’m just straightening up and turning to head back to Max’s front door when I hear the unmistakable sound of a highly turned German engine behind me. 

Fuck! Busted. 

Turning slowly, I hold up my hands like I’m being met with a pointed gun, but instead Kris gets out of his expensive Mercedes and laughs. 

“You should tell Max that you actually know how to read and maybe he’d get you your own paper,” Kris smirks, heading for his front door without another comment, either about my still being in my robe at eleven in the morning or about my taking his paper. 

“I was just going to look through the classifieds,” I explain, still standing on his doorstep, barefoot, with my hair pulled back in a simple pony tail and not a stitch of make-up on. “Find a job and some cheap place to rent and then I was going to bring it back, I  promise.” I add with a shrug. Kris pauses, his key half way into the lock.

“Did you and Max have a fight or something?” he asks without looking at me, but he doesn’t move either, just stands there with his key half way into the lock, waiting for my answer. 

“No, I just…well, you saw my sainted sister the other day,” I sigh, thinking how great that day was considering how badly it started out. “So I obviously can’t go back to working with her and I realize you guys are all going to disappear soon so, y’know, I feel kinda like it would be weird if I asked if I could stay here,” I add, tapping the rolled up newspaper against my thigh. “Anyway, you’re home early. Max said he wouldn’t be home until after lunch.” 

“That’s because he’s getting physio and then he was going over to Sid’s,” Kris explains, shoving his key in the lock and pushing the door open. “Do you want some coffee?” he asks, turning only enough so that I can see one dark brown eye through his still wet hair. 

“I…uh…,” I look down at my current lack of clothes and then decide it doesn’t matter. After all, it’s not like he bats for the team that would care about what’s under this old robe of mine anyway. “Sure. Maybe you make better coffee than I do.” I follow him into the darkened house  that looks almost exactly like Max’s, except that it doesn’t scream ‘bachelor pad’ in quite the same way that Max’s does. There are warmer coloured accents like throw pillows and other little touches that say that make his place look less like each room was copied entirely from a page in a catalogue. 

“So he still hasn’t asked you to Sid’s wedding?” Kris asks after dropping his gym bag at the top of the stairs as he turns to head into the kitchen.

“No, he hasn’t talked about it at all,” I reply quietly, slipping into the breakfast nook and unrolling the paper in front of me while he starts opening cupboards and measuring out espresso into an expensive looking shiny unit that looks like it should be in some fancy Italian café and not on the kitchen counter of a single guy that probably hardly drinks the stuff. “Which is fine except…,” I flip open the paper and pretend to get engrossed in some story about the Pens in the sports section. 

“Except?” I hear him sliding into the leather banquette across the table from me and look up to see his soft milk chocolate brown eyes watching me patiently but there is also a certain amount of concern in his dark gaze. 

“Nah…you don’t need to listen to my shit,” I mutter, feeling my face flush with shame as I start to imagine Kris telling Max how insecure and silly I am.

“Hey,” I feel his hand cover mine and look up to see that half smile of his where only one corner of his mouth turns up and so does the eyebrow on the same side. It’s cute in a totally GQ model kind of way and I remind myself, again, that there isn’t any point to thinking of him like that. “I thought we were friends now.” 

“Well he says I’m his girlfriend, you know? But…I mean I don’t know what that means to him and I don’t want to be pushy,” I admit, feeling a little embarrassed to actually put voice to the trepidation that’s been keeping me from coming right out and asking him what his plans are for the summer. Kris’s hand slides away from where it’s been covering mine and he sits back with his fingers just on the edge of the table, like he’s going to push himself away, but he doesn’t, he just sits there and stares at the empty table. “See, I told you that you didn’t want to listen to me whining about my problems,” I insist, trying to sound cheerful to mask the fact that what I want to do is leave his house at a dead fun and dive under my pillow and stay there for about a year.

“I’ve told you, he’s crazy about you,” Kris says finally, in this utterly dead pan voice that is entirely devoid of emotion. “If you want,” he adds, finally pushing himself to his feet and turning his back on me, heading for the espresso maker, “I can mention something to him,” he adds and then turns on the milk frothing wand as if to end the conversation. 

I take the hint and turn the conversation to more casual, upbeat things while he fills two cups, topping them with chocolate drizzle before returning to the table and sliding my mug in front of me. I smile down at the happy face he’s drawn in the foam with the drizzle and then look up at him to find him watching me with that bleak, wary look of his.  

“I know I should just count myself lucky that he even looks at me.” I raise my hand and shake my head before he can object. “No, you don’t know where I come from. You guys…you have it all and I should just be happy to have a little of his time. I shouldn’t bitch. Don’t…just don’t tell him I said anything, promise?” Kris’s shoulders slump and at first he just shakes his head, making all that dark, still damp hair fall into his eyes but then he sighs and nods. 

“I won’t, pour l’instant,” he says, holding my gaze with his, very serious one. “But if he doesn’t say something…if he doesn’t ask you about the wedding by the end of the week, you ask him, d’accord?” I want to say no, that it’s too much to ask but he raises that eyebrow again and I end up nodding and then he changes the subject to tell me more about Sid’s planned surprise wedding. 

‘Why are you torturing yourself, you dickhead’ I ask myself as I take her empty cup, chocolate filled foam clinging to the inside of the cup and the corners of her full mouth. Even as I tell myself not to do it, my hand reaches out to wipe away the smear of chocolate drizzle at the corner of her mouth and when her gaze locks on mine, I feel my heart squeeze painfully in my chest. 

‘Imbécile, lui dire’ I tell myself, my thumb still pressed to her lip while she gives me that smile that, while it holds appreciation, screams nothing but ‘platonic relationship status’, which may as well be pity. 

“You shouldn’t think that you’re any different from us,” I tell her quietly, “we didn’t always have money. This is all new to us too.” She nods, but doesn’t get a chance to argue or even answer me. The sound of a car pulling into the driveway interrupts the moment and she bounds to her feet and goes tearing around the corner and down the stairs. 

I listen to the sound of her hurried, even excited, footsteps and find myself grinding my teeth. He doesn’t deserve to have her doe eyes look into his. He doesn’t deserve to kiss those full lips, he….

“No, you go!”

 Dropping the mugs in the sink, I lean to look out the window to see Becky with her hands on her hips, facing her sister and not looking at all happy. I tell myself I shouldn’t eavesdrop, or worse, interfere, but there’s no reason that I can’t at least back her up, as her friend. Max would, or maybe that’s just an excuse I use as I hurry down the stairs and out the front door. 

“Oh so you’re fucking him too?” her sister says, inclining her head in my direction and making a face like I had better not open my mouth. My mère has a similar expression she uses when she doesn’t want to hear my father’s opinion. 

“Aren’t I the lucky girl?” Becky grins spitefully which only causes her sibling to roll her eyes and make one of those noises that strongly suggests both disgust and disdain. 

“Whatever, I don’t have time to think about your…activities,” her sister grumbles. “Just get dressed and get to the hospital.” 

“And like I said, why don’t you go, be the dutiful daughter? She only likes you anyway,” Becky adds dismissively.  

“You know that’s not true and besides I have a job, which you seem to have forgotten about or you think you’re too high and mighty to do, considering you’re wandering around in…well, in that in the middle of the day,”  her sister adds, giving Becks’ satin robe a withering look. “Plus I have the kids to pick up from school so, if you can find time in your obviously very full schedule to look in on your mom who’s in the hospital because you didn’t look after her like you’re supposed to be doing…,” she adds with a quick glance towards me, I’m sure to make sure I’ve heard. “Do you think you can manage that Rebecca?” 

“Yeah, I guess, if you can wait for like ten minutes while I pull on some jeans,” Becky sighs resignedly, turning towards Max’s front door. 

“Get yourself there Rebecca, I have a fucking schedule to keep. I don’t have time to wait on you,” her sister calls as she climbs back into her minivan and quickly throws the beast into reverse. Becks turns and watches her go, her expression hard to read but I can tell she’s trying really hard not to look at me. 

“I’ll take you,” I offer but she shakes her head vehemently. “Becky, I’ll take you,” I insist, reaching for her, wanting to comfort her even though I can see she’s trying to wish me away, probably wishing that I’d never heard any of what just happened. So I wait, my arms open uselessly, until she half turns, a distrustful look in her eye. She reminds me of a dog that’s been kicked too many times looking at someone holding a leash out towards her. “Whatever it is Becky, it’s not like I’m going to say anything. Family…who’d have them?” 

“Promise?” she replies quietly, still looking cautiously at me. “Not even Max…especially not Max?” 

“Oui, je vous promets.”