Chapter 21

When I cry, I close my eyes
And every tear falls down inside
And I pray with all my might
That I will find my heart in someone's arms
When I cry, cry
When I cry, when I am sad
I think of every awful thing I ever did
When I cry, there is no love
No, there is nothing that can comfort me enough
When I cry

(lyrics to “Hanging by a Thread” by Jann Arden)

Chapter 21

“Penny for your thoughts?” I’d woken up in the middle of the night to find the space in the bed next to me empty and cold. It hadn’t taken long to find her, sitting in one of the oversized leather chairs in my living room, one of my mother’s home made afghans wrapped around her, staring into the dark. She didn’t react to my presence, didn’t look up at me as I slid onto the arm of the chair, waiting for her to make room for me to slide down onto the cold leather with her. Instead, I reached over and brushed her hair away from her face and ran my thumb along the sharp line of her cheekbone. “Mon ange, it’s cold, come back to bed.” Summer was gone and the cool fall air chilled my skin. Even under that afghan, she was only wearing one of my t-shirts. She had to be cold.

She turned and looked up at me and even in the dark I could see the shimmer of tears in her eyes. It made me feel guilty and it made me feel selfish but mostly it made me feel inadequate. I couldn’t bring her mother back and I couldn’t turn back the clock and give her the time to say goodbye. I couldn’t take back that we’d been making love while her mother took her last breath. I wanted to make her feel less guilty but I didn’t even know how to do that. The only thing I could do was be here, to try and be man enough to be here for her now.

She leaned into my hand, the soft round of her cheek fitting perfectly into the palm of my hand, and closed her eyes. I tracked the silver trail of a tear down her cheek with my eyes and knew that I was at least partly responsible for it being there.

“Come to bed,” I plead again but she doesn’t make a move, even when I stand up and reach for her hand, intending to pull her up to her feet and make her come with me.

“There’s something…something you should know.” Her voice is strangled, small and hurt sounding. Her eyes are still closed and her hand is limp in mine. I feel my heart constrict hard in my chest. ‘She’s going to tell me she doesn’t love me’, I think as I take a knee in front of her, telling myself I can take it, that maybe she won’t really mean it, that it’s only the emotion of the moment, the deep dark hours of the morning that is going to make her say it.

“What is it?” I keep her hand in both of mine and wait, steeling myself like I do when I know that I’m about to pounded in the boards by some goon like Boogard, knowing it’s going to hurt but if I get close enough to the boards that they’ll take some of the blow. There are no boards now. There’s nothing to take the sting out of whatever words she’s about to speak.

She finally opens her eyes and looks at me and my chest get tight. She looks so sad and so afraid at the same time that she reminds me of a child, about to tell some truth that she knows is going to result in her getting a beating. One day I’ll ask her about her past, if anyone ever raised a hand to her. Not tonight though. Tonight I’ll just listen to whatever she has to say and then I’ll deal with it.

“I’m pregnant,” she says after a long pause and then she tries to pull her hand free from mine, but I won’t let her. Her eyes are too wide. She looks like a startled doe. She looks like she expects me to yell, maybe to hit her. I hate that she thinks I’d ever do either of those things.

She watches me like a dog in a cage, like a pound dog does from behind bars. Like maybe you’re just as bad as the last person who owned her. Like maybe you’ll hurt them but then maybe not. There’s hope in her eyes too. Hope that I’ll do and say the right thing and I want to fulfill that wish.

“It’s…is it Max’s?” I ask, a heavy feeling in my gut wanting it not to be true but knowing that even if it is, I will somehow deal with it. I don’t know how, not yet, but I will, at least that’s what I tell myself. I’ll figure out the rest later.

“No,” she replies simply, her gaze holding mine, still with that same guarded expression in her eyes. “It can’t be,” she adds more firmly. “It’s maybe…maybe six weeks and he’s been gone….”

“Eight,” I reply quietly, doing the math quickly in my head. “So…it’s…?” Shit! It’s impossible to say it out loud. My blood is rushing in my veins, my heart hammering so loud in my ears that I can’t think. I’m glad I’m on my knees or they’d have given out on me. She nods and bites down on her bottom lip, still watching me, still waiting for me to react. ‘Can’t she hear my heart beating?’ I think, but can’t make my mouth form the words. I press her hand to my chest instead and press my forehead to her thigh. “Thank you,” I mumble into her soft, cool skin. “Merci mon ange.”

There is a long silence, and then I feel her hand, her fingers cool against my skin as she raises my face and stares down into my eyes, surprised yes and confused.

“You’re not…you don’t think I’m trying to capture you? Control you?” she asks, blinking rapidly and it’s my turn to fit my cheek into her hand but I smile up at her, a stupid, far too happy grin.

“Tie me down, mon ange, s’il vous plait. I want to be captured by you, forever.” 

Telling Kris had turned out to be easy, far easier than I’d suspected after I’d made up my mind in the middle of the night that, if he wanted it, I wanted to keep the baby. He does. He wants it and he wants me and as he holds me in his arms, he tells me what our future will hold. More babies, a big family. Summers in Montreal, with his family, his friends, a big welcoming family that he promises will not only accept me, but love me as much, maybe more, than he does.

He has names picked out; Geneviève for a girl and Antoine if it’s a boy.

We’ll marry, as soon as possible, maybe in Mario’s back yard. Or just at the town hall if that’s all I want. We can always have another ceremony, later, during the summer, with everyone, with the baby too.

“You make it sound so easy,” I whisper, my cheek pressed to his chest, listening to the steady beating of his heart, feeling it beat under the palm of my hand.

“It is, il est facile parce que je t’aime.” His fingers lace with mine and I watch our fingers fit together and they look like they should, like his hand is meant to hold mine.

“It seems too easy,” I sigh, closing my eyes again, reveling in the warmth of his skin and of the nearness of him.

“It won’t be,” he says more seriously, his arm that’s been resting around my back presses me close to the solid lengths of his body. “Passion is easy. Love takes years to pull off.” I turn to look up at him and he smiles at the ceiling. “I don’t remember where I heard that but I think it must be true, ne penses pas?” I nod and then dig my chin into his chest, looking up him, at his full bottom lip, his dark eyes, the hair that’s always falling onto his forehead. “We’ll make it work though,” he promises quietly, his hand travelling up my back until his fingers brush the nape of my neck, making me shiver. “Je vais tu faire plaisir, je tu promets.” His voice brushes against my skin, soft like velvet and smooth like melted chocolate and his serious gaze draws me to him like a magnet. I slide my body up and he slides his down and our mouths meet somewhere in the middle.

I feel his hand on my cheek, sliding up into my hair as he his tongue caresses mine, rolling over it, brushing against it. His other hand slides down my back and onto my ass, pulling me up over him until I’m straddling him and our bodies are pressed tightly together and there’s nowhere for his rock hard erection to go as my stomach presses against it.

He holds my mouth to his, his lips soft but forceful, his fingers splayed across the back of my head as if I might want to be doing anything but this, kissing him, touching him. His other hand works its’ way down over my ass and works his cock free until he can angle it up into me, and I press my body down over it, sheathing him inside of me.

“Mon dieu!” he groans against my collarbone as I arch my back, pressing him down into the mattress, using his shoulders to push myself up and press myself down all at the same time. I don’t want to move. I want to stay, like this, with him filling me, his lips and tongue on my neck, his arms locked around my shoulders and our bodies pressed tightly together. “Mon dieu, tu me défaire,” he hisses into my jaw, his teeth digging into the thin skin just below my ear.

I’m not good at the sweet words like he is. I don’t know if it’s a French thing or if it’s just Kristopher, but I wish I had the poetic words to say back to him about the way this makes me feel; safe and wanted and needed. Max wanted me, but I don’t think he needed me.

I need Kris. I know that much.

“Never let me go,” I plead as he pushes himself up into me, our bodies barely moving and yet I can feel myself falling already, and now I know the difference. This is what it’s like when you love someone, when your body fits so perfectly and the emotions overwhelm everything else. This is making love.

“Je tu promets que je ne te quitterai jammais,” he promises, his tongue sweeping around my ear as he presses my ass down and pushes up into me at the same time.

At this angle, the head of his cock hit the spot inside of me every time, ripping the air from my lungs, making it impossible to breathe and I don’t want to breathe. I don’t want to think. I don’t want to do anything but this. I want him inside of me and I want to be in his arms, forever.

“Love me forever,” I gasp, knowing that I’m about to lose the fight, feeling that clenching at the base of my spine, that tightening in my stomach that’s a warning sign for impending fireworks.

“Pour toujours,” he whispers back and then grunts and pushes up into me and I let go, sobbing his name as he jettisons himself inside of me, groaning my name in return.

“Saint-ciboire du saint sacrement!” I dip my head into the icy stream of water and let it pour over the back of my neck. Squeezing my eyes tight, I let out a couple more choice epithets before shutting the water off and shaking like a Lab puppy crawling out of a pond. “So was that what you two were doing in my bed? Celebrating?”

“It wasn’t like that and you know it,” Becky says quietly from where she’s leaning against the kitchen counter looking bored with my dramatics.

“No, tell me what it was like then,” I snap back at her, reaching for a tea towel and rubbing it across my head.

“I’ve apologized Max, and I’m sorry I hurt you…that we hurt you, but if you’re just going to be an ass then I’m going to go back next door and leave you in your shitty diaper.” The glance she affords me is full of disappointment mixed with a liberal dose of hostility at this point. Well, she did fuck my best friend in my bed, I’m not just going to roll over and let her think she’s gotten away with it am I?

“Well if you knew that you were pregnant, then why did you let me think it was going to work between us? Why did you stay here with me in my bed? Why didn’t you just go over there while I was gone?” At first she just shrugs and then she heaves a heavy sigh, uncrosses her arms from in front of the Birthday Massacre tour t-shirt that’s artfully torn at the neck so that it bares one of her ivory shoulders and the lipstick red bra strap that belongs to that black and red lace number that I bought her. Talk about rubbing salt in the wound.

“I wasn’t sure, about the pregnancy and I didn’t think I was going to keep it. I didn’t intend to have anything to do with him, that’s the honest truth,” she adds with a long look at me that ends in another one of those shrugs that makes the t-shirt fall further down until I have to go over and straighten it or end up looking at her tits and that really would be rubbing salt in the wound.

“Are you sure it’s his?” I ask quietly as my hands slide over her smooth flesh. She lets me straighten her shirt or at least doesn’t make a move to stop me.

“I am, yeah,” she says quietly, her dark eyes looking into mine and I feel my heart breaking all over again. I want to tell her I couldn’t sleep without her last night and that I tossed and turned and seriously thought about holding a pillow over my head and just letting the world go.  “I am sorry Max. I know that…well I know you want to be a dad.”

“Yeah well, I could be now, we don’t know right? I mean toutes les belles dames que j’ai eu dans mon lit.” Becky looks unimpressed and manages to look like she pities me, all at the same time. I still want to kiss her though, even with pity in her eyes. “There’s lots of fish in the sea right?” I add, not that it helps my cause and Becky sees right through it, like I knew she would. She smiles sadly and grabs my face in her hands and presses her full lips onto mine in a soft, too brief kiss.

“You will be fine, mon ami, because you’re a good man, and a sweet man and some woman will be very lucky to have you. It just turns out that it’s not me.” Giving up my boy wonder routine, I smile and open my arms to her and she walks into them and presses her cheek against my shoulder and hugs me hard. “Thank you for not being a total ass.”

“I’ll probably be an ass yet,” I promise into her hair and I feel her body tremble in my arms and I know she’s laughing even though she isn’t making a sound. We stay like that for a long minute, maybe more and part of me is memorizing the feel of her in my arms, knowing how much I’ve missed it already and how much I’ll miss it when she goes. “Congratulations,” I tell her finally, as she unravels herself from my arms and takes a step towards the hall, like she’s going to leave. “I know you’re probably shitting a brick but…you’ll be fine, especially with Kris. He’s kind of a vain fuck but…he’s a good guy.”

“I’m glad you think so,” she smiles, a genuine smile that, while it’s small and doesn’t really reach her eyes is still better than her leaving still thinking I’m a sad, pathetic fuck.

“I don’t have to like him and I may still kick his ass at the rink but…if it can’t be me…I guess he’s better than that ugly fucker TK,” I add with a smirk that makes her shake her head.

“This isn’t all his fault, Max. It’s not anyone’s fault. I’d like it if you two were friends again.” I must be making a face because she sighs and shrugs her shoulders and then she turns to go.

“That might take a while,” I say to her retreating form and she nods and turns back to give me another sad smile before I watch her walk out of my house, and out of my life.

Chapter 20

Thanks again for waiting. My computer should be a little more free for the next week now that midterms are over...

I expected crying, wailing and sobbing. I expected stammered apologies. I expected her to plead for my forgiveness. I even expected Kris to put up his dukes. Instead, he hands her his t-shirt, which she silently pulls over her head and then stretches over her knees as she pulls them up to her chest, making herself as small as possible, entirely avoiding eye contact with both of us while Kris tugs his jeans back on and then sits at the end of the bed staring at the floor between his feet. I can’t help but notice that he leaves the top button undone, as if he’s ready to get back to it, as if he’s not planning to leave.

“So how long has this been going on?” Kris is hiding behind his hair and Becky’s staring at her feet but I wouldn’t exactly say either of them is looking particularly guilt ridden. He looks back at her and she merely shrugs one shoulder, like it’s up to him to say. I feel my hands clenching and unclenching at my sides. I want to fucking drag him to his feet by his hair and punch his teeth down his throat. The only thing holding me back is the code; you don’t fight guys on your own team.

“While you were gone…in Haiti,” Kris says quietly, looking up at me through his hair like he knows he deserves a fucking beating but there’s a defiance there too, a look that says he’ll take the beating but he’s not going to apologize.

“Oh I get it, so while the cat’s away…,” I begin but Becky looks up at me and her expression is even more rebellious. There is only the slightest hint of contrition in her eyes.

“It wasn’t like that. We tried not to. Both of us...we really tried to avoid this.” I hate that I want to believe her. I hate that I want to say it’s okay, so instead I focus on the churning in my gut and think about all the times I lay in my shitty little motel room in Haiti thinking about her when I could have been out dancing like the rest of the guys.

“Yeah, I can see you were trying really hard not to fuck him in my bed,” I snarl, mostly at Kris because somehow it’s easier to be angry at him. Not only has he fucked my girl but he’s broke the code and somehow that’s worse.

“I love her,” he says simply and firmly, his gaze meeting and holding mine.

“Yeah, I heard.” I suddenly feel awkward, like I’ve stepped into someone else’s private moment. I don’t know where to look and I hate that I can feel this energy running between the two of them, like they’re touching even when they’re not.

“It’s not like we planned this and we didn’t do it to hurt you,” he adds, like it matters why. I don’t want them to see it though, that it does hurt, so I take in a deep breath, roll my shoulders back and lift my chin, giving them my best ‘I’m not bothered’ look.

“Who’s hurt?” I shrug, sneering at them both like I could care less that the room reeks of sex and I wasn’t even involved. “I fucked a ton of girls down in Haiti. I was getting my dark meat on,” I lie, wearing my biggest, fakest shit eating grin. Kris looks like he believes me, like he’s shocked that I’d do that to her. Becky, on the other hand, only glances at me quickly. She knows I’m bullshitting, but she has the decency not to call me on it in front of him.

“So you’re saying you’re okay with this?” Kris asks, looking up at me hopefully. As if I’m going to give him the ‘father, son and holy ghost’ wave and make this all above board and kosher. Yeah right, as if he’s getting off that easy.

“Fuck no,” I laugh, or make a sound that’s as close to laughing as I can while I’m choking on my pride. “Vous pouvez sortir, for a fucking start,” I growl, “et prendre ta putain avec vous.”

“Don’t…don’t call her names. If you want to blame someone, blame me, not her,” Kris growls back at me, finally showing some signs of having rediscovered his balls, his hands curling into fists on his lap while he glares at me.

“Je vais lui dire de me sucer la bite si je veux,” I reply calmly, smirking back at him until I see the red haze fill his eyes, his jaw clenching, his lips forming a thin, angry line. I’ve seen him like that before, right before he pummels the shit out of a guy out on the ice and truth be told, I’m kind of looking forward to it. Physical pain would be way better than standing here, feeling like the odd man out, like I’m so fucking secondary to requirements it’s not funny.

“Ta gueule fils de pute,” he growls back at me, getting to his feet and closing the distance between us until his nose is almost pressed against mine.

“Tu es la personne qui est le vissage d’un sale pute,” I hiss back at him, giving him a bump with my chest, and then shoving him back onto the bed. Not that he stays down long. He bounces right back up and nearly lands what would have been a savage left hook, only I step back just in time and go cross-eyed as I watch his knuckles go by within a cunt hair of the bridge of my nose.

“Don’t!” We both look back to where Becky is struggling into her jeans. “Don’t fucking fight over me. Shit! I’m not worth fighting over. I’m not…this isn’t…,” she tosses Kris’s t-shirt at him and reaches for her own sweater, dragging it down over her head and I don’t want to stare at her chest, but knowing it may be the last time I get to look at her tits, I can’t help it. “Fuck! This is exactly what I didn’t want. I didn’t want this…I don’t want anyone fighting, especially not over me.”

“Amie, s’il vous plaît ne dis pas que tu n’es pas la peine.” Kris gives me a dark look and then goes to her, tries to put his arms around her but she pushes him away and reaches for her shoes.

“And stop doing that,” she adds, tugging one shoe on while hopping on one foot. “Stop being all…frenchy lovey dovey. I can’t…I can’t think straight when you do that.” He gives her his arm for balance, like as if that’s something that’s second nature to him, very knight in shining armour kind of shit. She looks up into his face and the expression on both of their faces…well shit.

“You love him…you really fucking do, don’t you?” I ask, the words tasting like dog shit in my mouth. She keeps looking at him, but not like she’s looking for answers but like she’s telling him and not me.

“Yeah, I guess do,” she says simply and he gets this goofy ass grin on his face that makes me want to be sick.

“Then do me a solid and get the fuck out of my face.” 

“I should go.”

She sits there, perched on the edge of the couch like she is going to get up and leave any minute. I want to sit next to her but I don’t, because she wouldn’t even let me hold her hand when we walked across the driveway. She’s jumping at every sound and I can’t blame her. That was too easy, way too easy. Even I keep looking towards the door, expecting him to come in and start breaking shit.

“And where are you going to go? The trailer park?” I ask, a little more sharply than I mean to. She winces and goes back biting her nails.

“It isn’t sold yet. I could,” she mutters with just enough of a petulant and childish tone to make me smile.

“Well you’re not going there,” I tell her, reaching out to cup her cheek and this time she doesn’t draw away, “and not because it’s a trailer park, just because I want you here.”

“Do you think that’s fair, to him?” she asks, looking up at me and where I keep expecting tears and even sympathy for Max, instead I see a resolve I hadn’t expected to find.

“No, probably not, but this is my house and he’s not going to tell me who can stay here and who can’t. Besides,” I add more softly, pressing my lips to her forehead, “I’ll sell this place, right away and we’ll find a place, a better place.” I expect my offer to meet with  grateful approval but all I get from her is a blank look. “What? This is about us now.” Bending down in front of her, I pull her hand gently away from her mouth, kissing her torn nails and shaking my head. “Do you think that my heart is something I give easily, mon ange? Did you think I wasn’t serious when I told you that I love you?”

“No,” she sighs as she slowly raises her gaze to meet mine. “I just think this is such a bad idea. You’ve seen where I come from…what I am….” Her voice trails off and her gaze follows and I follow her gaze in time to see Max walking across the driveway with purpose. Cursing under my breath, knowing that I should have locked the damn thing I let go of her hand and stand up in front of her in time for him to come storming through the door.

“Tu ne pouves pas venire ici,” I grumble, knowing before he even says it exactly what his comeback will be.

“Ne pas baiser une pute dans mon lit et je ne vais pas.” I can’t argue the point, so I don’t. Instead I offer Becky my hand and feel her trembling fingers lace with mine against my thigh. “I came home to tell you something,” he says directly to her. “I think you can understand why I kinda forgot, what with all the searing of my eyes when I saw Tanger’s naked ass in the air,” he adds and for some reason I know it’s going to be alright when he says it. “It’s your mom,” he adds more seriously and in a softer, gentler tone. “I’d just walked you out to the taxi when your sister came looking for you. I’m sorry Becks. Your mom, she died.” 

It’s almost too much to take in. I hadn’t even wanted Max following me to the room but he’d been too hyper according to Sidney’s wife, to hang out with the rest of the group in the maternity ward and I didn’t want to leave the hospital without at least looking in on my mom. I’d had to tell him something, another lie, of course to explain why I hadn’t at least said something to him about it before. I’d told him she’d been ill, which isn’t so far from the truth. I just hadn’t told him that she’d got uproariously drunk and then fell down.

I hadn’t stayed long either. As soon as my sister showed up with her loser husband in tow, I made my excuses and Max had put me in a cab.

At least I’d seen her, I think to myself as Kris reaches over for my hand. I let him take it but only because I don’t have the strength to take it back. I don’t look over at him. I know if I do he’ll have one of those puppy dog sympathetic looks on his face and I’ll start to bawl and once I start, I have a feeling they’ll have to tranquilize me to get me to stop.

“I didn’t want to hurt him,” I say out loud, and Kris snorts in response.

“You’re thinking about him right now? Vraiment?” I do glance at him then, because it’s not like Kris to be unsympathetic.

“Don’t you think we should talk about it?” I ask and he sighs as he returns his gaze to the road. “He is your friend and you do have to see him all the time. I think you’re making a huge mistake.” I know he’ll object and I don’t even listen to his argument as he does. Part of me, the little part of my heart that’s still beating wants him to argue, but the rest of me...well, it just doesn’t believe in fairytale happy endings and or that a man as handsome and as good as he is could possibly want to make any kind of sacrifice for a person like me. “I’m homeless,” I add quietly, and Kris stops, mid argument, even mid-word and stares at me, open mouthed. “I am,” I insist with a shrug. “When you think about it, I’ve really been squatting at Max’s and then if I move in with you I’m really doing the same thing...”

“Don’t...juste s’il vous plaît ne dis pas des choses comme ça.”  I open my mouth to object, to tell him I don’t understand but as we come to a red light, he puts the car in park and turns to face me, reaching for my other hand. “This isn’t just some...some guy thing, some fight over a girl and now that I’ve won...,” I try to pull my hand away, to tell him that I’m not a pawn in his game of chess but he holds my hands even harder. So hard I can feel the bones in my hands disintegrating. “I’ve been thinking of you...of us being together.... J’ai fait un rêve...I want to make a life with you Rebecca. That’s all I want. So if I say that I want you to live with me, I’m saying that you are my home and.... And I hope you feel the same about me.” 

“Mother and son are resting,” Johnny grins as he comes out of the room, beaming, cigars bursting from his pockets. Everyone goes to congratulate him, everyone but me. Well me and, I guess, Tanger and Becks. I stand apart, the fun completely gone from the occasion for me.

“What’s up?” Tabby asks, one eye on her husband and the cigar that Johnny’s sticking in his mouth and one eye on me. “Where did you disappear to?”

“Did you know that Becky’s mom was here?” I ask, watching Jordan trying to take a cigar away from Trina, who threatens to ram his where the son doesn’t shine if he touches hers’ again. Tabby shakes her head and her brow furrows as she tilts her head to look at me again.

“No...why?”

“She wanted to see her. I didn’t even know she was sick. She never said anything,” I shrug, wanting to laugh as Flower sticks two cigars up his nose and makes a barking sound. I guess he thinks walruses make seal noises. Maybe they do. “He did though. He knew. She told him but she didn’t tell me.”

“Tanger?” Tabby guesses without my having to tell her and when I nod, she closes her eyes and shakes her head. “I’m sorry Max. I should have known....”

“You knew?” I feel like I should be angry, but sort of like how Becky didn’t cry I can’t manage to stir up any indignation at the thought that somehow I’ve ended up being the last to know that my girlfriend...or at least the woman I thought was my girlfriend has been seeing my best friend.

“Well...let’s just say that I knew that Kris had feelings for her but...I wasn’t sure she felt the same.” I feel Tabby’s hand on my arm and I know it’s supposed to be comforting but it just makes me realize how alone I am and so I push her hand away, gently.  “Max...?” she looks at me, her eyes narrowed, her mouth pursed and it’s that look she gives Sid sometimes when she thinks he’s keeping something from her, which is usually no more than he has some photo shoot that means he’s going to miss dinner or something, nothing like this.

“I went home to find her...her sister came looking for her...her mom died,” I explain. Maybe because I think I have to or maybe to delay the inevitable.

“Oh that’s so sad. Is Becky o....” Tabby’s voice drops away and then I feel her hands on my arms as she tries to get me to look at her. I don’t want to look at her. I don’t want to look at anyone. I’m the fucking super stud who just found his girlfriend in bed with another man. How can I look at anyone again? “Max! What’s going on? You just said you didn’t even know the woman was sick so...?” she gives me a little shake but I still can’t look at her. I guess I think she’ll laugh even though I know Tabby’s better than that, that she won’t see it as my failing. She’ll probably even be totally on my side but I still don’t want to say it.

“They were in bed together when I got home.” I have to look at her, to see if she knows who I mean and I can tell by how wide her eyes get that she does. “They were in my bed. They did it...in my bed.”

“Oh...oh fuck Max.” I feel her arms around me and it feels like a mom hugging me, like she’s kissing the boo boo better, only I keep thinking it should hurt worse, but all I feel is...empty. 

The room is empty, or almost empty. The bed has been stripped and there are two orderlies taking her mother away on a gurney, under a sheet. I stop them but though she tries, once, twice, Rebecca can’t make herself lift the sheet.

“You don’t have to,” I tell her, putting my hands on her shoulders and drawing her back against the safety of my body. She’s stiff, like a board and it’s a struggle to pull her against me, but I do it anyway.

“I need to know,” she whispers and I watch her hand go out for a third time, shaking the last leaf in fall during a wind storm. It seems to take five minutes but she finally raises the sheet and looks down at her mother’s drawn, pale face. Her eyes are closed and the only thing that hints that she’s not just sleeping, is her blue lips. “Ding, dong the witch is dead.”

The orderly looks up, scandalized. His eyes are wide and his mouth hangs open but Becky just grins at him and then drops the sheet.

“You can take her now. She’s in whatever corner of hell is reserved for sad creatures like her.” Maybe I’m a little shocked too but I keep my opinions to myself. She wasn’t my mother. I didn’t have to grow up with her. We watch them wheel the gurney away and then Becky breathes a long, heavy sigh of relief. “I can’t promise I won’t be like her,” she says quietly, almost under her breath as she leans into me, feeling relaxed for maybe the very first time.

“You’re already nothing like her, mon ange,” I tell her, brushing her temple with my lips. “You’re you, you’re Rebecca, la femme que j’aime.”

“Was that...that was your mother?” We both turn to see a young nurse standing nearby, a handful of photos in one hand and a stuffed bear in the other. Rebecca nods and turns her gaze back to the hallway, from which the orderlies and her mother’s body have disappeared. “You were here before, right? But...you were with...,” she looks at me and then looks quickly away. It’s a mannerism I recognize. It means she recognizes me but is trying for cool. “You were with someone else.”

“I was,” Rebecca says coolly, reaching up to lay her fingers against mine where they’re still on my shoulder.

“And that was...it was Max Talbot...right?” the girl says, looking up at me from beneath her lashes and a curly red bangs. She blushes bright red beneath a myriad of freckles that cover her nose and round cheeks.

“Mmm,” Becky replies dispassionately. “And this is Kristopher Letang and you are?”

“Oh I’m no one,” the nurse blushes even more deeply and looks away. “I just...well I’m a fan,” she admits, looking up at me and I nearly open my mouth to ask her if she’s seriously going to ask for an autograph when she knows damn well Rebecca’s mother has just been wheeled away. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she adds quickly, regaining some of her composure and straightening her shoulders. “And these were your mother’s,” she adds, holding the bear and the photos out. Becky starts to refuse, but I hold the hand out that she isn’t holding and take the items. She might want them later. “I met Max once,” she says, mostly to me, and in the sort of tone that says she doesn’t want to be considered one of those girls who giggles and wiggles. “You guys were here for a charity visit or something but he took all this time with this little girl with leukemia and...I just thought he was amazing. I just...I thought if he was here, again, I could tell him. I didn’t get the chance earlier.”

“He’s upstairs,” Rebecca says before I get the chance, “in maternity. One of our friends...one of his friends just had a kid,” she adds, and when I look down she’s wearing the barest hint of a smile. “You should tell him, really. I think he’d really appreciate that.” 

Chapter 19

I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to pace around the hospital waiting. I didn’t want to listen to the excited, anticipatory half whispers from the other WAGs. I didn’t want to watch Johnny pass out cigars. I didn’t want to be where people were happy, their lives moving forward, sharing in love and joy.

What I wanted to do to wallow in self pity. I wanted to sit alone, in the dark and wish for things I couldn’t have. I wanted to close my eyes and think about the few, the brief stolen moments, those golden images I hold in my imagination like warm coals from a fire. I wanted to think about Rebecca.

As I lay there, alone, in the dark, on my bed, I decided that I hated her. I hated her for choosing him. I hated her for loving me and not letting me love her. I hated her letting him touch her, letting him hold her in his arms when I knew that she wanted to be in mine.

But even as much as I decided that I hated her, I knew I hated myself more. I hated myself for not having the guts to take what I wanted. I hated myself for sticking with the code. I hated myself for putting my friendship with him ahead of my heart. Mostly I hated myself for being weak enough to give into temptation in the first place.

There are so many women, younger, older, that offer themselves to us every day. It’s like being at a smorgasbord of ripe, juicy loveliness. Everywhere you look, their cherry coloured lips smiling, their glittering eyes promising carnal gifts that make your cock hard just to think about it. When I was a rookie, it was like being at a desert buffet and every night you took a different desert home and rolled around in the hot fudge and whipped cream and took a bite out of all of the strawberries and cherries until you hated the taste, until you couldn’t look at another desert, until all women looked like whores, all perfume smelled cheap and you looked forward to going to bed, alone.

I could have one now. I could go to a bar and there would be a few girls who would know who I am and I could bring one home and sink my cock balls deep into her. I could, but I know it wouldn’t make me feel better. It wouldn’t make me forget. Because those girls are like having a cookie from a bag you get at the grocery store, sort of crumbly and dry and they don’t satisfy. They’re nothing like the ones your mom makes that you get straight out of the oven, still maybe a little too hot to eat, but they’re so sweet and so gooey and melt in your mouth that you don’t care if maybe they burn you a little. That’s what Rebecca is to me, hot and sugary and so delicious that I don’t care if I burn my fingers and my tongue and….

The light in Max’s bedroom goes on. I glance at the clock on my nightstand. It’s only been an hour. I can’t believe that Mel has had the baby yet.

Rolling over, I sit up and look over. It’s just Rebecca, no Max in sight, but that doesn’t mean he’s not there except that I don’t hear his voice. I didn’t hear them arrive either, I realize as I watch her shuck her leather jacket onto the bench at the end of the bed. I didn’t hear the car. I didn’t hear him nattering away like a fish wife all the way into the house like I usually do.

Maybe she walked.

That would be so much like Max to just let her walk home alone, just so he can be there when the cigars are handed out.

I tell myself not to, to go back to my own bed and continue to do what she’s asked me to do; leave her alone. I tell myself to but instead I sit there on the edge of my bed and watch her, like I’ve been doing ever since I woke up alone in that trailer park. It’s like being on a diet but staring at a cake, wanting it so much you can practically taste it, but that’s all you do. You know you won’t let yourself eat it but you keep looking anyway.

She stands in front of the full length mirrors on the front of his closet. I remember when he had them put in, he was so proud of his choice, thinking about all the girls he was going to fuck while he watched himself in the mirror. It was only Sid and I that managed to talk him out of putting mirrors on the ceiling too, telling him that girls would think that was tacky, that they might leave and he’d end up jerking off looking at himself but that was it. I think Jordan still did it though.

She turns, looking at her profile, her hands sliding up over her stomach, pushing the soft black sweater up and up until it bunches beneath her breasts and then she tilts her head to one side and pushes her stomach out, to simulate being pregnant I guess. It can’t be because she thinks she ate too much, she hardly ate at all at Sid’s house.

I watch her smile at herself in the mirror, a silent sort of laugh that lights up her entire face and makes my chest ache at the same time. She’s so fucking beautiful it hurts to watch her and know I can’t have her, that she won’t ever be mine and yet I can’t look away as she pulls the sweater up over her head and tosses it behind her so that it lands on the end of Max’s king sized bed with it’s black silk sheets. I squeeze my eyes shut. I’ve imagined her pale skin against all that darkness so many times and I can’t help but do it now, my fingers making quick work of the button and zipper on my jeans, freeing my throbbing dick as I imagine her ivory skin on those black sheets and me, kneeling between her milk white thighs…..

I should just get rid of it, I know. Get rid of the evidence and there won’t be any questions. Get rid of the evidence and soon, before I start to think of it as something real, something I’m responsible for.

He’d probably even pay for it, if I asked. Except he wouldn’t, he’d probably try and talk me out if it, which is why I won’t tell him. I won’t tell anyone but I especially will never tell Kris. It would break his heart.

I can close my eyes and see his dark eyes light up and his lips turn up in a broad smile. He’d be so fucking happy. He’d beg me to leave Max and I would, I would, to be with him, except it would all turn into a fucking disaster. He’d just end up hating me. Maybe we’d end up hating each other. Either way, there’s no point in telling him. I just need to get rid of it and I need to do it before the idea of it fucks up my head any worse than it is now.

Besides, I’d be a terrible mother. Look at the example I’ve had. I wouldn’t do that to some poor innocent kid. At least not yet, not until I get my shit together and get my head on straight, actually finish some of the things I’ve been working on.  

If I had to, I could probably convince Max it’s his. I didn’t think he was really into that whole happy families thing until this afternoon. Being with him, all afternoon, with those women and their happy fucking lives, and then he starts in on wanting a sprogue of his own…it’s a good god damn thing that woman’s water broke or he might have suggested some kind of sex party right there in the kitchen he was so turned on by the idea of making a baby, or having a baby or…or whatever.

Well maybe they’re ready, or think that they are, but I’m not. The whole idea makes me sick to my stomach. For one thing, I can’t imagine putting my body through that right now, being all big and uncomfortable like the backup goalie’s girlfriend, although she had a certain glow…

Turning sideways in front of the mirror I pull up my sweater and stick my stomach out, trying to imagine what I’d look like. It makes me laugh. I remember my sister being like that. The first time she thought it was fun but what did she know, she was just a stupid teenager then.

I wonder if she’d do it again, get herself tied down again, if she had the choice to be free. She got so old before she had to be. She missed so much and I’ve hardly done anything with my life yet. I feel like Max has just pushed aside a curtain, given me a glimpse of so many possibilities, shown me that there are things I can have if I just try and I don’t think I can give that up for anything or anyone.

It has to be hormones, I think as I slide my hands up over my bra. My nipples have been aching for a week. I looked that up online, that and my popping antacids like they’re Smarties are definitely signs that if I actually work up the courage to pee on a stick it’s going to tell me something I won’t like.

Sliding my hands into the lace cups of my bra, I wonder if it’s my imagination or if my breasts are actually heavier, fuller. I look at them in the mirror and gently run the pads of my thumbs over the dark pink areolas. Are they darker than they were a week ago? That’s another sign I remember reading.

Fuck they’re more sensitive, that’s for sure, even more than they can be right before my period. I draw a ragged breath as I roll the pebble hard points between my finger and thumb. It hurts, yes, but I can’t help but wonder what it would feel like if he touched them, if he took them in his lips, bathed them with his tongue.

Pulling off my sweater and tossing it behind me, I close my eyes and imagine the soft brush of his hair against my skin as he bends to draw my nipple into his mouth. A shudder runs through my body and an answering vibration inside of me sends my other hand down to the fly of my jeans.

Unsnapping the button and peeling down the zipper, I slide my hand down, dipping my fingers into the anticipatory moistness that occurs every time I think about him. Pressing on the button and squeezing my nipple at the same time makes me gasp. Fuck! Everything is so sensitive. It feels like a breeze could blow across my clit and it would send me into paroxysms of pleasure.

With a glance towards the door I remind myself that she’ll probably still be in labor for hours and even if Max gets bored he won’t be back soon and then I unsnap my bra and shimmy out of my jeans and crawl onto the bed. This won’t take long.

With a groan I squeeze the base of my dick, tightening my fingers around it trying to delay the orgasm as I watch her slide onto his bed, draw he knees up and slide her fingers into her black lace panties. Licking my lips, I easily recall the taste of her skin, the feel of the hard bud of her nipple in my mouth and my dick gets even harder, throbbing in my hand. Her full lips open and I imagine I hear her cry out, though no sound reaches my ears.

“Me dis que tu veux que je l’intérieur de vous,” I hiss through clenched teeth as I watch her cup her full breasts, running the palms of her hands over the pink erect nubs of her nipples. I know how they feel pressed against the palms of my hands. I know the sounds she makes when my hand gently squeezes them. I imagine that sound and feel my cock pulse against the pressure of my palm. “Pas encore,” I whisper as I watch her slide her panties off and toss them aside, spreading her thighs farther apart.

Moaning, I stumble towards the window, wanting to be closer, hoping to catch the scent of her heated pussy on the late afternoon breeze. With one hand braced on the window sill, I slide my hand up the full length of rock hard pole, giving the angry red helmet of my cock a squeeze before sliding my hand back down to the base. I don’t want to cum too soon. I want to cum with her. If I can’t be inside of her, it’s the next best thing.

The problem is I don’t know if I can last that long, especially when I realize she’s watching herself.

She’s propped herself up on the pillows and she’s watching her reflection in the mirror as she slides her fingers slowly in and out of her pussy. I wonder what she’s thinking. Is she imagining that it’s someone else touching her there? Or is she imaging that she’s being watched, that the mirror is someone standing there, watching her play with herself?

Is she imaging me? Or is it Max; or maybe someone else entirely?

“Oh mon dieu ce soit moi,” I groan, moving my hand slowly up and down the length of my cock, thinking about the soft wet heat of her pussy and the way it fits so perfectly around my shaft, like a glove. I feel my balls tighten as I think about the way her pussy lips sucked at my dick, pulling it deeper, milking it as she came for me, her entire body glowing as her hips bucked against mine. “Ostie!” My cock throbs in my hand and my entire body sways forward, wanting to be inside of her, filling her, instead of bare to the cool breeze.

My gaze is riveted to her fingers as they work her pearl, moving in tight hard circles as her she bites down on her bottom lip, her eyes half closed. ‘Oui mon chéri’ I think towards her, sending her my thoughts, ‘venu pour moi’.

Her head tilts back and her other hand leaves her breast and slides down over her stomach and down, down between her thighs until one then two fingers dive into her slick pussy and she cries out, a wordless sound of anguish mixed with pleasure. I grab a tissue from my bed stand, prepared to shoot my load as she cums, my hand working my knob vigorously, beads of perspiration breaking out on my face as I get close.

“Oh god yes! Yes Kristopher! Oh god Kris, fuck me!”

I freeze, my hand stopping mid stroke, my fingers digging into the window sill as she calls out my name, her voice carried on the wind like a song.

Oh hell…what do I do now? 

My hips lift off of the bed and I scream out his name, imagining his thick cock buried deep inside of me, his lips fastened around one of my aching nipples, his thick fingers working my clit, making me cum for him. My entire body is like the string of a bow, pulled taught, quivering and humming with energy and then suddenly released, my body falling back onto the bed, spineless, boneless, quaking like jelly released from a mold.

“Oh Kris,” I whisper, my eyes squeezed shut against the sudden feeling of loss that materializes every time the fantasy is over. “I love you,” I whisper to his vanishing specter.

“Et je t’aime ma chérie.”  

“No, no you shouldn’t.” It’s the same every time I fantasize about him. It’s so real that I can hear his voice, smell the warm musk of his skin, feel his tender touch and every time I have to dismiss him, force away the sweet memories so I can go back to trying to make something with Max.

“But I do mon coeur.” I shake my head and brush at the tears that escape and roll down my cheeks. It’s so hard. I don’t want to feel this way. I don’t even understand it. How can I love someone so much that I hardly even know? “Avec tout mon coeur.”

“No, no you can’t,” I whisper, rolling myself into a ball, and then my eyes pop open when I find myself pressed against a warm body. “No…no you can’t be here,” I hiss, pushing at him, shaking my head even as his strong arms lock around me, holding me to him.

“You called me,” he whispers, kissing away my tears and then kissing my lips, his mouth moving gently over mine until, with a whimper of defeat, I kiss him back. His tongue moves softly against mine and he groans into his mouth as he tucks my body beneath his. “I want you amoureux. I want to be with you,” he whispers against my mouth as his hands skim over my heated skin, making me gasp as my sensitive flesh shivers under his touch.

“Yes, yes now,” I gasp as his fingers slide into the slick wetness between my thighs, as he gently begins to massage my tender clit, the look in his eyes telling me he knows he can bring me just like this, that he won’t have to do more but that he will, and that he can’t wait.

“Tell me,” he whispers, his handsome face hovering just above mine, his eyes the colour of hot chocolate searching mine. “Tell me you want me. Tell me you love me.”

“No,” I whine, turning my face away and shutting my eyes tight. I won’t say it. My body presses down against his hand, wanting him, showing him how much I want him, but I won’t say it out loud.

“Say it, dire que tu me veux Rebecca. Dire que tu m’aimes.” His lips are warm and insistent on my neck, his teeth digging into my shoulder, grazing my collarbone, until they close around my nipple and he sucks it into his mouth, sending me over the edge, my body pressing up to his, and down onto his fingers, fucking his hand as I cum again. “Dire que tu m’aimes,” he whispers again, kneeling over me as he drags his shirt over his head and shakes his hair out until it falls into his eyes as he looks down at me. “Tell me.” 

“I...I love you,” she sobs and looks so despondent that I think I’ve done the wrong thing, that I’ve made her say it, but then she reaches one trembling hand out and I lay my cheek in her hand and she presses her lips up to mine in a long, soft kiss that makes my  heart swell. I may have made her say it, but she feels it too and that’s all that I need.

Scrambling out of my jeans, I finally free my throbbing shaft and guide it gently into her hot, wet tunnel. I want to bury it, all at once, but I don’t because even though I’m sure I won’t last long, I don’t want to cum all at once. I want to enjoy the feeling of her wrapped around me, I want to feel myself buried deep inside of her and I want to hear her scream my name when I make her drop over the edge before I do.

“No more denials,” I tell her as I hold her close, feeling her muscles tighten around my shaft. “We’re meant to be together ma chérie. You know it,” I whisper into her ear before kissing my way down her neck and up again. “You break my heart,” I tell her, stroking her hair back from her face. Her lips press up to mine and I can feel her pouring her heart into that kiss.

We hold onto one another like we’re holding onto a life raft and neither of us is willing to let go. Our bodies melt together and we move in unison, parting and coming together in soft, slow movements. I want to make it last and it feels like a dream, like it could go on and on and on. I feel like I could stay inside of her, stay in her arms forever but I feel her body tighten and her fingernails dig into my shoulders and I can’t hold back any longer.

Burying myself deep inside of her I let go, emptying myself into her and for the first time in my life tears follow on the wave of the orgasm. I’ve seen women do it, and as I gaze down at the woman I love, tears spill down her cheeks, but it’s never happened to me. Pressing my forehead to hers’ I tell her everything that I feel and this time, I don’t see her trying to fight back, fight me.

“I love you,” she whispers against my mouth.

“Je t’adore, je t’aime Rebecca,” I whisper back, kissing her softly, tasting her tears mingled with mine.

“Well I’m so fucking glad everyone’s so fucking in love,” Max’s voice rips into our momentary Eden, “but I think you’ve got some fucking explaining to do.”