Chapter 13

Summer moved on
And the way it goes
You can't tag along

Moments will pass
In the morning light
I found out

Seasons can't last
And there's one thing
Left to ask

Stay, don't just walk away
And leave me another day
A day just like today
With nobody else around

(From “Summer Moved On” by a-ha)

It was my turn to be up in the middle of the night, pacing his Montreal apartment in the dark, trying to decide what, if anything was the right thing to do. 

We’d just been for dinner with a giant of a man, Georges Laraque who, though just his size had been intimidating, turned out to be a giant teddy bear. He’d spent the entire night talking about his home town and everything that was going on there and then Max had asked me to go with them on a mission of mercy to Haiti, just like that. 

Part of me had wanted to say yes, because the idea of being without him made my stomach hurt and because big Georges had made it sound like it would change my world to go. 

It was the reply I didn’t give, the one I heard in my head and couldn’t believe I almost said that made up my mind. ‘I just escaped the trailer park. I don’t want to go back to poverty ever again’. The words had nearly escaped from lips and probably would have had I not been saved by a hovering waiter that Max was sure was leering at me. I didn’t think so. I was pretty sure he could see what I am through the black halter dress and the diamond tennis bracelet. 

I’m a fraud. 

I don’t belong in this world and that waiter had seen it, probably even when I had declined the menu, unwilling to even try to decipher its’ contents. If it hadn’t been then it had probably been the look on my face when Max told me what foi gras was. 

I like the nice cars and the good wine and all of Max’s other toys but I like them too much and I like him, but not enough. I’m doing exactly what my mother had told me to do. I’ve been clinging to him like a life raft, sure that if I let go I’ll get sucked back to the trailer park and my second hand life. 

I have to let go. I have to learn to tread water and not just so that I can hold my own head up, but so that one day, maybe, I can be the kind of woman that I feel like when Kristopher looks at me. 

“Jesus fucking Christ Tanger! Sensitive little ears here!” Sidney shushes me, clapping his hands over Cody’s ears and actually looking shocked, which, I don’t know why, but it surprises me that he is. 

“Oh please,” Tabby bounces Toby on her knee, holding his arms out and grinning down at him. “Our sons are going to grow up around a hockey rink full of hockey players who have potty mouths. Not to mention an Aunt whose mouth is almost as rank as her father’s,” she adds with a raised eyebrow as she sneaks a glance at Sid’s little sister who is folding baby clothes, warm and fragrant and fresh out of the dryer so quietly that I’d actually forgotten she was there. I feel my entire face get hot and let my hair fall in front of my eyes when she looks up and grins. 

“Do you want our kids talking about a ménage a trois on their first day of school?” Sid hisses, under his breath, as if Cody isn’t engrossed in everything he says no matter how loud or how soft he says it. 

“Oh hell, I am so expecting a call on their first day of kindergarten from some frantic teacher telling me that Toby’s pile driving some kid in the head and calling him a stupid inbred mother fucker,” she says in that high pitched cooing sort of voice that you only use for little kids and dogs. I look over at Sid whose staring daggers at his wife, but either she doesn’t notice or that particular look no longer works on her because she just continues to make faces at Toby and ignoresSid.

“So what am I going to do?” I ask, looking between the two of them and trying to forget that Sid’s sister is staring at me with that ‘I know what you did’ expression on her face. Whatever she thinks about it, it can’t be as bad as the way I’m already judging myself for it and I haven’t even told anyone about the actual detail of the physical interaction because I can’t say it without stuttering. 

“I told you there’s something off about that girl,” Tabby says in a matter of fact sort of way and I hate that I feel sort of relieved that it’s Rebecca being judged badly and not me, for now anyway. 

“But you told Max you liked her,” Sid interjects and Taylor snorts and then quickly hides her laughter behind her hand. “What?” he turns and the look he gives his younger sibling makes me shift uncomfortably on my spot on the couch. 

“Oh don’t look at me like that big bro. C’mon, we all know that Max is all kinds of fucked up so of course Tabs said she was alright for him. Do you think that your everyday, garden variety nice girl next door would make it two weeks with Johnny Vegas?” As I watch, Sid’s dark, unhappy expression slowly softens and then he too shrugs and nods. 

“Exactly my point,” Tabby says, suddenly appearing beside Sid and lifting Cody out of his lap one handed, scooping him by his pajama clad bottom. “She’s fine for Max but for Kris we want someone who whistles while she works,” she grins over at me and a DVD magically appears in Toby’s hand and he chews on the edge of the box, sending a line of spittle down the face of it, right over the picture of Snow White and some of her dwarves overlooked by her evil step mother.

“But you don’t know…she’s had it really rough,” I explain, thinking about her mother still lying in a coma in hospital and the dad who disappeared when she was little. 

“And that’s Max’s problem to deal with,” Tabby responds affectionately, a maternal sort of smile on her face that’s not for her sons but for me. “You don’t want a complicated girl Kristopher. You want the nice girl from next door, some primary school teacher or a nice receptionist or something.” 

“And what if he loves her?” I look over at Sid who’s watching me with that expression on his face that he usually wears out on the ice when he’s analyzing the space between players, playing the moves they haven’t made yet in his head. It makes me feel naked and not like naked physically because I’ve grown up getting changed around other guys and that doesn’t phase me. Being emotionally naked though, that blows.

“Jesus, am I that transparent?” I ask, more to myself than to him and Sid looks back at me with a sympathetic, almost sad expression on his face as he nods. 

“Then he does what a good white knight on his trusty steed does,” Taylor says quietly as all of our attention swivels to her. “You save her from the dark night’s evil clutches with a single kiss.” 

“Please come.” 

I’m begging and I fucking hate it. I hate that she’s making me do it and I hate that she’s wearing another one of those outfits that he picked out for her while she makes me do it. She looks great but she also looks corporate hot and that’s more his thing than mine and it pisses me off. I hadn’t thought of it that way before. I’d just thought he has good taste and if she looked kinda hot, it didn’t matter if it was more the kind of hot that got Tanger off or not, but now it does. 

“I’d just be farther away if something happened and besides,” she says softly, wrapping her arms around my waist and laying her head on my shoulder, “I should go back. I mean, I don’t have any reason not to go back home now that she’s not there and…you’ll be so busy you don’t need to have me under your feet while you’re being the big, strong man building that…what is it a hospital or a school?” She looks up at me with those big dark eyes and I still feel mad, but just not at her. She doesn’t really look like she wants me to go and the way she’s been touching me all the way here and the way she’s holding onto me now, it’s like a little kid not wanting daddy to leave and it fucking well is playing havoc with my head. 

“Hospital,” I sigh, cupping her cheek in my hand and leaning down to kiss her, capturing her full lips with mine and tasting the saccharine sweetness of her lip gloss. “Who’ll kiss my booboos better if you’re not there?” 

“Big Georges can,” she grins up at me with that sleepy look she gets when she’s been thoroughly banged and I know I made sure neither of us got much sleep last night. If she wasn’t going to come with me to Haiti then she was damn well going back to the ‘Burgh not walking right for a week. 

“You’ll be there when I get back though right? At my place I mean,” I add needing to think of her in my bed, in my house, still mine. 

“Mmm, I don’t know,” she mumbles, looking down and away from me and I can feel that green gremlin rising inside of me, but she runs her hands up my back and presses herself close to me. “I should clean up my place, make it ready for if…,” she catches herself and squares her shoulders as she takes a deep breath. “For when she comes home,” she says, correcting herself and then she looks up at me again with those limpid pools of melted chocolate and smiles. “But phone me when you’re on your way back and I’ll be there. I’ll even wear that purple velvet thing you like,” she adds, that sad smile of hers suddenly turning into something that I’m more used to, that playful, seductive smile that makes me want to drag her onto the plane and make her a member of the mile high club. 

“I’ll really miss you,” I tell her, meaning it and she smiles brilliantly at me and offers me her mouth and I kiss her hard, wanting her to leave her looking like a woman that’s been kissed often and by a man who knows how to please a woman. 

“I’ll miss you Maxy,” she purrs, running her hand down until she’s cupping my ass and giving it a good squeeze. “Who else will spank me when I’m bad?” She’s making me hard and she knows it and the light in her eyes tells me that this is her own way of sending me off so that I really will miss her. 

“I’ll just have to give you some extra strokes when I get back to make up for it,” I growl at her, pressing my erection into her stomach, letting her feel how much I’m going to miss her. I glance around, wondering if there’s a washroom nearby that I can take her into and take her one more time for good measure, make her walk out of here with my cum dripping down her legs but what I see is some of the guys I’m going with giving me that look like they know what I’m thinking and Rupper even taps his watch and shakes his head at me. “I’ll text you and I’ll call when I can,” I tell her instead. “I don’t know what it’s like for making calls. Georges said a lot of the lines are still down and that but I’ll try.” 

“You’ll come back all tanned,” she sighs, like that’s the one thing she’s missing out on by not going, but then she looks up at me and lets me see in her eyes that she’s thinking about how I’ll look naked with a tan and that makes me groan out loud.

“Seriously, you’re killing me, you know that,” I sigh and force myself to think about anything else but her body, Flower’s skinny white ass, Sid’s disgusting jock and Brooksy’s rank shoulder pads. “I have to go ma petite,” I add, kissing her forehead and then her cheek. “Please be good, huh? Be a good girl and I’ll be home soon.” She nods and kisses me once more before Rupper physically drags me away from her and I go stumbling down the corridor to the plane, glancing back at her in that clinging black dress that screams sexy secretary and I pray that she isn’t going back to Pittsburgh to the guy that helped her buy that dress.

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.”

Chapter 7 (Smut alert)

I walk the line of the disappointed
I celebrate when I'm in pain
My heart and mind can be disjointed
I built a bed in this hole I made
I recognize that I'm damaged
I sympathize that you are too
But I wanna breathe without feelin' so self-conscious
But it's hard when the world's starin' at you

 

(lyrics from “What are you Lookin’ For” by Sick Puppies)

just a note to say I know some of you don't like when I use a lot of French but a friend helped me out with some truly colourful and foul language that I think is just hot so google translator is great

I can’t remember the last time I woke up feeling absolutely rested, like I could run a marathon right away, no stretching needed. Warm, rested and cradled in a mountain of pillows, I almost don’t want to open my eyes in case I’ve been dreaming about the luxurious bed in the beautifully furnished home that seems a lot like a palace and yet the strong, earthy aroma of coffee tickling my nose has me yawning and reaching full awareness.

“Oh good, you’re awake. Tea or coffee? I couldn’t decide.”

“Oh god, coffee please,” I grin, reaching for the steaming mug of hot inky goodness and holding it in both hands while sticking my nose right in the steam. It smells strong and rich, just the way I like it. I hear Max chuckle while he puts the tray down on end of the bed and picks up the delicate china tea-cup and makes a show of sticking his pinky out while he takes a sip. 

“So are you feeling better this morning?” he asks, reaching for a bear claw which he unabashedly munches on, crumbs falling down his t-shirt.  

“Yeah, I am, thanks,” I grin at him and am rewarded with a pleased, self satisfied smile that says he’s proud of being the man who came to my rescue. “And thanks for letting me stay,” I add, letting him pop a piece of the sugar and cinnamon encrusted dough into my mouth. 

“To be honest, I kinda liked having you here,” he says sweetly, brushing some stray sugar from the corner of my mouth. “And before you say it, I don’t say that to all the girls,” he added, his tropic breeze blue green gaze softening as it holds mine for a long moment before he leans in and presses his lips briefly to mine. 

I have a moment to enjoy the soft press of his lips before the scalding heat of the tea pouring out of his cup down my chest makes me drop my own coffee as I scramble out of the bed, screaming and running for the en suite. Ripping the t-shirt he’d put me in before putting me to bed, I reach for the tap but Max pushes me into the shower and cranks on the cold water.

At first the freezing cold spray is almost worst than the burning sensation heating my skin, but then I feel the solid warmth of Max behind me, and then it’s not so bad. Maneuvering me to the side, he angles the shower head to the side and away from me so that can just reach up and hold a wash cloth beneath the spray which he then presses to my red, scalded skin.

His touch is tender but the look in his eyes, the real, honest to god remorse and distress is even more poignant and after a few minutes of his careful ministrations the washcloth gets discarded in favor of the light brush of fingertips and the warm press of lips to chilled skin. When or how he turns the water to warm, I don’t know, but I’m not cold for long or at least the only part of me that remains cold is my back where it’s pressed against the tiles where his cock has me pinned while the rest of me is wrapped around him, holding on for dear life.

The sting of the burn is completely forgotten in the midst of the twining of tongues, fingers digging into hair and skin and urgent meeting of our bodies. I’ve heard about endorphins and their effect on pain, but I’ve never really understood it until now. With his cock buried deep inside of me, his teeth and lips on my neck, the coarseness of his unshaven cheek on my skin and the steam and heat of the shower has every nerve ending in my flickering like I’m tied to the stake and being burned alive, except that I like it. 

I like hearing the words whispered hoarsely in my ear in the language that I don’t understand as his thrusts become more erratic, harder, faster. I like the way his thick fingers dig into the soft flesh of my ass as he pulls me down over him, even though I’m sure I’ll be able to see the impressions of his hands on me for days. I like the sensation of his strong, straight teeth nipping at my bottom lip and the taste of sugar on his tongue. What I don’t like is that I can hear my mother’s voice in my head, telling me to fuck my sugar daddy good, wrap him around my finger so he’ll keep me.

Shutting my eyes tight and burying my face in the crook of his neck I do my best to dismiss her spectral presence, concentrating instead on the tightening of my muscles at the base of my spine and the pressure in my belly that tells me I’m close, so close. 

I want to be gentle. I mean to be until I dump scorching hot tea all over her and even then, my only intention was to help…until I get her out of the t-shirt she’d spent the night in and then all my good intentions go out the window. 

Now I can’t get enough of her mouth, of her skin, of the taste and feel of her. She’s like a magnet and I’m a paper clip, helpless to do anything but be dragged to her, to attach myself to her and I don’t want to let go. It’s like when you go into a fight out on the ice. If you’re going to fight, you drop your gloves and you go all in. You can’t half ass it. You have to hate the guy. 

This is like that. I can’t just fuck her. Even when I feel her entire body shudder, hear her whimpering in my ear and feel her body tighten around mine, I don’t want to stop. I want to keep going, keep having her make those sounds, keep feeling her body pressed to mine.

I’ve never believed all that lock and key shit. Even when Crosby told me when he met Tabby he just knew I couldn’t believe it. I thought maybe it was just him, because he didn’t have a lot of experience. Even after seeing the two of them so fucking loved up it makes me sick, I still didn’t believe that you could feel that much that fast. 

I think I could actually be fucking wrong. 

As I lower her to her feet and turn her to face the wall, spreading her legs with my foot so that I can slide into her tight wet centre, I suddenly get the whole key and lock thing. Long ago I lost count of the number of women I’ve been with but I don’t remember ever feeling like this; like I can’t get enough of her and like her body was made to fit mine. 

It’s kind of freaking me out. 

Even looking at her fingers spread out on the tiles, I can’t stop thinking about how they look when they’re wrapped around my cock or how they feel when they’re laced with mine. Wrapping her wet hair around my hand, I gently tug her head up until she turns to look at me over her shoulder and the look in her eyes undoes me, completely. 

“Sainte bénite!” My chest literally hurts as I watch her bite down on her bottom lip, tugging it into her mouth as her gaze slides up my chest until her eyes meet mine. 

“Déguidine,” she growls, having obviously picked up on one of my favorite sayings. I didn’t think I could get any harder, but I feel my cock swell as she gives me another one of those looks that seems to say that she could fucking eat me alive, and I slam it into her, making her gasp out loud. 

“Charrue,” I groan, pulling my hand back that’s been holding her hip and letting it drop down onto her ass, hard, leaving a livid red welt behind. 

“Is that the best you can do?” she purrs back at me, licking her lips as grinds her ass against me. 

“Christ de plote sale,” I growl back at her, giving her ass another hard smack and pulling back on her hair enough that I can tell that it’s just starting to hurt, but the look on her face doesn’t change. The challenge is still there and then she tightens her pussy muscles around my dick and all I see is stars. “Sacrament de calvaire woman! I can’t hold it.” 

“So don’t,” she grins, sliding one of her hands down the slick, wet tiles and then sliding it down her body and between her legs. I can feel the walls of her pussy clenching as she fingers her clit, and suddenly it’s like I can’t breathe. I’ve never, ever, been with any woman as uninhibited as she is. “C’mon Max, give it to me,” she says in that breathless way that tells me that she’s close again. As if I need to be told. I can feel those little waves building around my dick and I know as soon as she goes, I’ll go too. She looks me right in the eye, something most women I fuck never do, and clenches her teeth as she fights to hold out until I let go.

“No way,” I grunt, slapping her ass again, harder this time. “You first.” 

“Nuh uh,” she hisses, grinning at me around her clenched teeth. And then suddenly I’m standing there and she’s on her knees in front of me looking up at me with this impish look on her face as she continues to play with herself with one hand while she reaches for my dick with her other hand. “You first.” 

“Aw crisse! Susse ma graine,” I groan as she licks her way up the underside of my cock, her tongue sweeping over my head, stealing the breath from my lungs all at once. “T’envalles-tu ma cochonne?” I groan, wrapping her hair around my hand and wrist again so that I get an unimpeded view of her lips wrapped around my cock as I fuck her mouth, slowly, slipping my dick almost entirely out of her sweet lips before pumping in far enough to make her gag. It’s fucking heaven and the entire time she’s looking up at me, grinning around my cock like she can’t get enough. “Tabernac, suce ma queue ‘tite pute!”

I can’t last. I want to. I want her hand wrapped around the base of my dick and the head of my cock bouncing off of her tonsils forever, but I can’t last much longer. Not the way she’s sucking my knob like a fucking pro. Especially not when she slides her hand down until she cups my balls and gives them a firm but gentle twist before she takes the rest of my shaft as far as it will go, sucking hard. 

That’s when I see nothing but stars and my knees get weak and all I can feel is balls exploding, sending what feels like a fucking litre of jizz down her throat. She gobbles it all, and licks my dick clean like she doesn’t want to miss a fucking drop. 

“I think I’m in fucking love,” I mutter, putting my hand out to brace myself against the wall, not trusting my legs to hold me up. 

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” Becky smiles seductively as she runs her thumb along the edge of her mouth, before sticking the digit between her lips and sucking it clean, her seductive gaze holding mine the entire time. 

“No,” I admit as I give her a hand up, even though it scares me to do it. “It’s not usually my world getting rocked,” I add honestly, surprising myself a little. Reaching behind her, I turn off the water and then I pull her into my chest, wrap her up in my arms and find myself searching her face, trying to figure out what it is about her, besides how god damn cute she is, that has me so fucked up. 

“You’d better watch yourself Maxie boy,” she whispers, still giving me that seductive half smile that makes me wish she hadn’t just drained me dry, “you’ll have a hard time getting rid of me if you keep giving out the compliments like candy.”

“Not sure I can let you leave,” I reply, giving into the siren song of her lips, covering her mouth with mine. 

“Can’t sleep?” I turn to see Becky leaning on the railing of Max’s back deck, staring up at the sky, dressed in nothing more than a thin black satin robe that leaves most of her legs bare, cinched at the waist. 

“I’ve got some issues with the mid day nap thing,” I reply, leaving out the part about how I used to sleep like the dead, until recently. I watch her run her fingers through her long dark hair, watch it spill down her back and my hands itch to gather those soft curls in my hand, to feel how soft they are, to bury my face in the silken strands and lose myself in her sweet scent. Instead I sit on my back step, forcing my gaze back to my concrete patio. 

“What happens when the season ends?” I glance back up to see her still staring up at the sky but I can tell by the troubled expression on her face that it isn’t fluffy white clouds that she’s looking at. “Do you go back to Montreal?” 

“Me? Or me and Max?” I ask, knowing that she’s asking about him, that I don’t even enter into her thoughts. The slightest hint of a smile plays at the corner of her full mouth and then she turns and leans on the railing, making the robe gape around her cleavage. 

“Max…,” she shrugs and sighs, a bittersweet sound. “He goes back to where you guys are from, doesn’t he?” 

“We do, yeah,” I tell her, watching resignation turn her Mona Lisa smile into something cheerless, disappointment drawing the colour from her face. “Not right away, this year anyway,” I add, feeling like I have to do something to cheer her up, to take the edge off of the distress that’s clear in the way she’s gnawing at the corner of her bottom lip, the way that Sid does when he’s thinking. “Sid…you haven’t really met him but uh…most of us are going to his place. He’s planning to get married this summer.” 

“I think Max told me,” she sighs again and it makes me grind my teeth. Why hasn’t he asked her to go? Can’t he see what it’s doing to her thinking of him leaving?

“We’re not out yet,” I remind her, and she nods mutely. “I mean…I don’t think we’re going all the way this year,” I admit, running my hand through my hair, slicking it back. I’d never admit it to the rest of the boys, but none of us are playing as well as we did last year. 

“He’s not playing well though, is he?” she asks, looking straight at me, like she’s daring me to lie. I don’t. I nod and she nods in return, as if she didn’t really need me to confirm what she already knows. “Is it my fault…do you think? I mean, I know he just came back from injury and….” I shake my head and that brings back that half smile of hers’. 

“It’s hard to come back from injury,” I explain, still feeling like I have to do something to alleviate her mood. “He isn’t up to speed yet.” 

“Can he get traded?” My hands curl into fist and I make a mental note to ask one of the Habs players to put him into the boards, preferably head first, for me. 

“This season, no,” I tell her, getting to my feet and making my way over to where the fence between our houses so that I’m closer to her. “You should really be talking to him about this stuff.” She nods, but wrings her hands like the idea of talking to Max is something she doesn’t want to do which just brings back images of the two of them dashing into his place, mostly naked. It’s not an image I want to dwell on. 

“I don’t want to be that girl, that clingy girl that he has to worry about,” she sighs, resting her chin on the back of her hand and crossing one foot over the other. 

“You don’t seem like that girl,” I offer and she gives me a sardonic sort of smile. 

“You don’t know anything about me.” 

“I could,” I blurt out, my mouth engaging before my brain can edit my thoughts. Her smile actually grows, much to my surprise, and she straightens, looking down at me like she’s actually contemplating the implied offer. 

“I guess if I’m going to be living here, even for a little while, I should get to know Max’s friends,” she says finally, and then stifles a yawn behind her hand. “I’m gonna need some new clothes, considering I left without most of them. Wanna go shopping tomorrow? I mean, can you?” 

“I’d love to.”