Chapter 6

Happy Turkey Day to all my US readers. Thank you for your patience, I know a couple of you have been all over me to post this week and I am sorry that it took so long but I wasn't in a fab head space this week. More soon, promise.

“Thank you for dinner,” she sighs as she looks at her empty plate and then across the table at the gentle smile of the woman who made it. 

“Well after you told us what you had plans to eat, what could we do?” Veronique beams a playful smile in her direction and then pushes her chair back, taking her own plate that still has a few spoonfuls of mashed potato and half a slab of pork roast on it. It’s no wonder the girl is wafer thin. 

“There’s nothing wrong with macaroni,” she replies, pushing her own chair back and reaching for Marc’s plate. 

“You sit,” Veronique, whom Marc affectionately calls V and who has instructed Fern to call her Vero, smiles and leans in to kiss her boyfriend’s cheek before she takes his plate and cutlery and heads towards the kitchen with its stainless steel appliances, granite counter-tops, terracotta floor  tiles and glass tile back-splash; the best and newest of everything.Fern stares after her, partly grateful to sit and let her dinner settle, while the other part of her knows she would be more comfortable elbow deep in hot sudsy water, talking girl talk and waiting for the kettle to boil than sitting across the table from the slight young man with the kind eyes and the soul patch.   

“She’s so pretty,” she says finally, shooting him a shy glance. His thin lips pull into a wide grin as he sits back in his chair, hands on his flat stomach as if he can feel the food working in his belly. 

“Oui,” he agrees as if it’s something he hears every day and she thinks that maybe he does. Maybe every single day someone tells them that they’re a cute couple. 

“I noticed the ring,” she adds a little sheepishly. The big gem is hard to miss, though Vero doesn’t make a show of it. “So, you’re finally going to do it? Get hitched?” Marc inclines his head and shrugs his broad shoulders. The whole city knows that the two of them have been together since they were kids, that the kind, pretty girl in the kitchen has been waiting patiently for years for the Pens goalie to pop the question. “Can I ask...I mean...if you don’t mind, what took so long?” 

“He wants a big family.” Fern jumps, as much as it’s possible to, in her chair when Vero reappears with a plate of small fancy pastries, the kind that you keep frozen in case company shows up that she slides into the middle of the table and then wraps her arms around Marc’s neck. He puts his hand over bother of hers, making hers’ disappear, and presses his cheek up against hers’. It’s an endearing sight and one that makes her feel very alone. 

“So uh...shouldn’t you be getting started instead of putting it off?” she asks, reaching for a small tart and lifting it to her lips. A blast of tart lemon pours over her tongue and she licks the frosting from her lips. When the silence has drawn out to the point of becoming uncomfortable, she looks up at the adorable pair expecting to find them smiling in that sort of secretive knowing way couples do but instead neither is looking at the other and the air around them feels heavy with things unsaid. “Or there’s lots of time, no need to rush, y’know, like me,” she quickly adds, turning the attention back on herself. “Is there more of these?” she adds, holding up the now empty aluminum cup. 

“Oui, be right back!” Vero brightens and disappears towards the kitchen while Marc gives Fern a grateful smile.

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There is always someone’s daughter, niece, or sister being offered to him. Usually he tries, as politely and politically as possible, to turn down the offers of pimped out family members but it isn’t always possible and sometimes, like tonight, he doesn’t mind the company. Tonight is not a night for a power shake and a pb&j in front of the tube. Tonight he does not want to listen to the voices in his head. Tonight he doesn’t mind the incessant and nervous chatter of the blue eyed blonde seated across the table, the highlights in her hair glowing like spun honey in the flickering candle light. 

She is a little thin for his taste but he already knows that this will not be going anywhere. She is only a momentary distraction, a tool not unlike his stick or skates, to keep him from thinking too much, from brooding. He doesn’t even need to listen to what she is saying. He’s become adept at nodding and making the correct sounds at the right times to keep her talking. He uses the same skills he’s developed over years of dealing with reporters to give her just enough information without actually telling her anything at all. 

Not that she seems to notice. She preens like a peacock and her smile brighten volubly every time he looks directly at her. This is a big deal to her but not to him. He’s hardly even touched his pasta. It’s not the carb loading that he has a problem with, but his appetite has been oddly absent since he got back into town. 

“Do you want to get out of here?” he asks, motioning a passing waiter for the bill. Her eyes get wide and she looks down at her still half full plate, the lobster barely touched probably because she hasn’t figured out how to eat it gracefully. He briefly wonders why women are always ordering it if they aren’t actually going to eat it.

“You mean like a club?” she asks, looking down at the lobster like she’s considering putting it in her purse.

“No,” he says simply. He doesn’t expand, he doesn’t need to. The blush that rises in her cheeks is evidence enough that she understands his meaning clearly. He wants to erase Fern and the entire idea of unwillingly becoming a father from his mind. One way to do that is to practice, hard and often, but the team’s brass isn’t ready to let him do that. So the next best thing is a warm body, in his bed, to help him take his mind off of everything else. “Ready?” he asks as he gets up, drops a hundred dollar bill on the table and holds his hand out towards her. She glances longingly one last time at the lobster on her plate and then puts her hand in his. 

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“Thanks for dinner,” she smiles across the dark interior of the car. Marc nods and smiles back. “And for the ride home, you honestly didn’t have to.” 

“It’s late, we couldn’t let you go home on the bus,” he replies sincerely, not taking his hands off of the wheel but angling his body towards hers. She puts her hand on the door handle but doesn’t push it open. There’s something she wants to ask but doesn’t quite know how to say it. 

“I like Vero,” she says quietly. She hears him chuckle, pictures the way his lips curve up a little at the corners.

“She likes you too,” he replies. It feels like he wants to say more but he doesn’t. The engine rumbles behind them, making the car vibrate around them and the big invisible pink elephant in the car with them. Taking a deep breath she takes her hand off of the handle and sits back in the seat.

“Why are you being nice to me? I mean...everyone knows you two are besties or whatever,” she says quietly, staring out at the dark street because she’s afraid to look into the kind eyes of the man sitting in the dark next to her, afraid there will be pity in his gaze. He sits silently for a long time and she begins to think that he isn’t going to answer and then he drums his fingers on the steering wheel. 

“It’s wrong...what he did...what he’s doing to you,” the young Francophone replies finally. She tries not to smile but can’t help it just the slightest selfish grin. “He’s still my friend,” he adds, his voice a soft lisp. Fern nods and puts her hand back on the door handle. “I think it’s brave...what you’re doing...keeping it.” 

“Oh that,” she smiles to herself and as it has so often since she took that test at the doctor’s office that morning a few weeks back, her hand slides down over her stomach. “I’m not sure I’m not just too chicken to do anything else,” she admits with a rueful smile. She looks over at him and he is looking at the spot where her hand rests over the swelling of her stomach.

“Do you...do you feel anything yet?” he stammers. 

“Yeah,” she replies, feeling that sort flipping over sensation beneath her hand. “You wanna?” His eyes get wide and then he nods. Reaching for his hand she guides it to the spot hers has just vacated. She looks down to see his long fingers spread out over her stomach and then she presses her own over his and guides him to the spot. It only takes a moment or two and then she feels it again, that rolling feeling beneath their joined hands. He grins up at her like he’s just made a save in the third period to keep them in the game. 

“C’étonnant,” he breathes, his gaze filled with child like wonder. 

“I completely freaked out the first time it happened,” she admits readily as he reluctantly withdraws his hand, “but I’m getting used to it now.” 

“It’s pretty amazing,” he agrees but there is nothing in his eyes or in his melancholy smile that tells her that he’s truly happy for her and her own smile quickly fades. 

“You don’t have to be nice to me. I’m really not expecting anything from him or...or any of you,” she says, almost under her breath, withdrawing into herself and folding her arms protectively around her middle. The darkness outside seems to creep into the car and with every silent second that goes by she becomes more and more uncomfortable until she’s reaching for her phone and considering calling a cab.

“We made a mistake...V and I,” he begins haltingly and so quietly that she isn’t sure at first if she is even meant to hear it. “We were ... sixteen...too young so she had a termination but...it went so wrong.” His voice trails away to a sob she can hear him trying to swallow and when she reaches across the interior of the car for his hand he grasps hers as if she is a life line. She feels the bones in her hand rub together. “If I could take it back,” he adds in a hoarse whisper. 

“You would, of course you would,” she finishes his thought, giving his hand a squeeze. “You really love her,” she adds unnecessarily but he gives her a weak but grateful smile all the same. 

“We haven’t told anyone that,” he says as he straightens, lets go of her hand and reaches to put the car in gear. It rumbles to life and lurches forward, tires squealing on the wet pavement. 

“Who am I gonna tell?” she replies with a wink that secures her a broader smile from the Pens goal tender and then he puts his foot to the floor and the low slung Italian sports car almost turns sideways, making her squeal with delight. 

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He sits on the side of the bed, in the dark, his mind racing, too wide awake to even consider sleeping. He glances back at the pale form behind him, her blonde tresses turned to liquid silver by the moonlight. She is sleeping soundly, her lips parted in a contented smile that will be erased in the morning when she finds him gone without a note, without leaving his number or a promise of another date behind. As willing as she was, he knows in a day or two he will have forgotten her name and a few days after that he will hardly remember this night at all. 

Getting to his feet he silently makes his way across the cool wood floor of her room, past the overflowing clothes hamper by the door and out into the hallway. The door to the bathroom is still ajar from when he chased her from the shower to the bed. There wet foot prints are still on the cheap linoleum floor. 

Shutting the door he turns on the light and reaches for the nearly flattened tube of toothpaste. Squeezing some out along his index finger he rubs it along his teeth, the sharp taste of mint chasing the dry taste of the red wine from his mouth. As he rubs his finger along his gums he stares at his reflection. He looks tired. There are dark hollows under his eyes and his skin is parchment pale. 

“You look like shit buddy,” he tells his reflection as he spits into the basin and runs water over his finger and then rinses the bowl. “You are shit,” he tells himself mostly under his breath as he reaches under the cold water and splashes it up onto his face. “And your little plan didn’t work worth shit either,” he adds, lecturing himself as the cold water runs down his face and onto his chest. He doesn’t feel better and despite her best attempts, the blonde sleeping in the next room has not managed to erase the thoughts that now swim to the surface of his mind. 

Fern. 

Jesus, what kind of name is that anyway he asks himself as he leans on the counter and stares at his reflection. He doesn’t recognize the man in the mirror. He thinks that man looking back at him is trying hard to be someone that, deep down, he knows he is not and never wants to be. Not really. He is not Max, not Jordy. He thinks that he wants to be but he can’t turn off his emotions the way they seem to be able to. If he could she wouldn’t still be in his head and he wouldn’t have the lead weight in his stomach right now. 

“Asshole wanna be,” he smirks at his reflection and then runs his fingers through his dark hair before giving his head a shake. “Fucking boy scout,” he mutters under his breath and then turns to pick up the pants he’d abandoned a few hours ago and pulls the cheque out of one of the pockets. He contemplates tearing it up but he only turns it over and over in his hands, knowing that he won’t. “Try again tomorrow,” he sighs and then slides it back into his pocket before tugging his pants on and reaching for his shirt.