Chapter 14

Chapter 14

He hurts, or more correctly he aches in places like his neck and hip from sleeping in a strange position. He stretches and readjusts and then goes to put his arm back around the warm bundle that had been pressed against his side but his hand slides down the smooth leather of the couch and catches in the throw that is bundled in his lap. She is gone. 

Sid rubs at his eyes and blinks into the half light that is leaking through the blinds. He can hear the sizzle and pop of bacon in a pan and can smell coffee brewing. His stomach rumbles. Rubbing sleep from his face and a line of dried drool from his chin, he pulls the throw around him and pads towards the kitchen. 

“Hey,” she says simply, breaking an egg over the pan with one hand. It is as impressive a move to him as when Flower snatches a rising puck out of mid air. He watches her do it again before he takes another step onto the tile floor. 

“I don’t eat breakfast,” he explains, though his stomach disagrees with him, loudly. She smiles and makes a dismissive sound as she reaches for the pepper grinder and twists the head on it in a way that makes him grind his molars together. 

“Are you kidding? It’s the most important meal of the day and you can’t go to the rink on an empty stomach,” she says, not unreasonably. She puts the pepper mill down and moves gracefully despite her present bulk, to the fridge, pulling it open and pulling out a bag of oranges. “Cut these, throw them in the juicer,” she instructs, leaving the bag on the counter beside the cutting board where a big knife is waiting. Dropping the throw onto one of the stools he does as he is bid, slowly, careful not to cut any of his fingers. He doesn’t want any reason not to be back in the line up when the team comes back in a few days. 

“I usually eat when I get finished with my work out,” he explains as he takes one half moon section of orange and rips into the tart flesh with his teeth, letting the vitamin c explode into his mouth. 

“Well that’s stupid and your trainer would probably agree with me that you should have something in your stomach or your body won’t have anything to use as fuel,” she replies in a matter of fact tone that puts him in mind of both his mother and Mario’s wife and he cannot help but imagine her giving their son the same advice. 

“Well I don’t eat bacon unless it’s turkey bacon,” he says, peering at what is in the pan in front of her and deciding that it is definitely not a low fat version. The pieces currently snapping and popping in the fat in front of her are thick and streaky and the sight of them makes his mouth water. 

“A couple of pieces won’t kill you and you’re going to need all the strength you can get,” she shrugs, turning the temperature down on the pan and reaching for a thick slice of multigrain bread which she drops in the toaster. “Marc says you’ve got testing today, to clear you to play. I’d say that’s important enough to make sure your brain and the uh,” she glances at his bare chest, her eyes wandering downwards before they snap back up to meet his, a little too round, like she’s been caught red handed with her hand in the cookie jar, “the umm, rest of you is good to go too.” He squares his shoulders and puffs out his chest and flexes just enough to make her cheeks turn a bright shade of pink before she turns back to the pan and lets her hair hide her expression from him. 

It’s something Jordan would do, he thinks, and maybe a bit childish but he delights in her discomfort all the same. He shouldn’t do it, he tells himself as he goes back to the juicer and drops the orange segments in it, not if there is never going to be anything more than a platonic relationship between them and yet when he steals a glance back at her and finds her watching him his chest expands and so does his smile. 

“Do you want to come to the rink? Watch me pass all the tests with flying colours?” he asks, thinking if she is impressed now how much more impressed she could be. 

“I have to work but uh...maybe another time,” she replies, reaching to get a plate down from the cupboard. His gaze travels down her legs as she goes up on tip toe and he remembers, with a start that makes him cough to cover the gasp that escapes from his lips, what it felt like to have those legs wrapped around him. If only he hadn’t been such a god damned heel.... 

“You don’t have to work,” he snaps a little defensively as he turns back to the juicer, glad of its sudden mechanical roar, hoping that she won’t hear the sudden increase in his heart rate. He makes two full glasses of freshly squeezed juice before he turns the thing off and trusts himself to turn and face her. She is walking two plates towards the breakfast bar. It’s only then that he realizes that she is wearing a property of the Pittsburgh Penguins t-shirt, a shirt that must be his he knows but that isn’t what has him standing stock still in the middle of the kitchen. For a moment he feels the world teetering on its axis, light swirling around him but not in the way he’s become accustomed to. This has nothing to do with any concussion symptoms and everything to do with her maybe, finally admitting to being ‘his’. 

“What am I gonna do, sit around here and watch soaps all day?” she chuckles as if that’s not a possibility.

“Or, like I said, come to the rink,” he replies sincerely, putting the glass down beside her plate and taking a sip from his before he slides onto the stool beside hers. “We could go for lunch after, do some shopping. You said you needed some things...uh...diapers errr whatever,” he adds, trying to remember what it was she had been saying to Vero before they left and wishing now that he had paid better attention. 

“Well yeah I do but...I can’t just quit my job. I mean, not if I want to go back to it,” she replies simply, lifting a piece of buttered toast to her lips. He watches the multigrain bread disappear between her white teeth, watches those teeth bite into it and shifts uncomfortably on his stool. 

“Why would you want to, if you didn’t have to?” he asks, tearing his gaze away from her mouth as she chews and staring at the greasy bacon and two over easy eggs on his plate. He pokes one of the yokes with his fork and watches the yellow insides leak out. Tearing a piece of toast in two, he dips a corner into the yellow goo and lifts it to his mouth. 

“Because I don’t know what’s going to happen...after,” she answers quietly and he swallows with some difficulty. Just when he thinks they are getting along, after she slept in his arms and they had been chatting so easily, he feels the hair on the back of his neck stand on end and his heart squeeze painfully in his chest. After the baby is born...and then what, it’s a question he knows he’s been avoiding, a place he hasn’t wanted to go yet because he isn’t sure what the answer is or how he will feel. 

“Yeah, I guess there’s that,” he mutters as he feels that wall that he had thought had been coming down between them go back up again and they sit, side by side, slowly and silently eating their breakfasts. 

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She sits on the edge of the bed she did not sleep in, wearing her uniform, and stares at her feet. She can hear him in the room down the hall, hears him pull the zipper on his gym bag, hears him pulling drawers open and shoving them closed again. The smile that she had worn when she found herself waking up in his arms, her cheek pressed to his shoulder, her head full of his warm musky scent is long gone, replaced once again with the wariness she knows she must maintain. They are not a couple and they are not even friends. This is still a business transaction and despite how it had felt last night when they shared popcorn and laughed at the witty dialogue in the old movie, she is well aware that she is not here in his house because he really wants her here. She can’t remember which song it is but the term ‘comfy prison’ keeps coming to mind as she slips her feet into her comfortable shoes. 

Despite the way it felt to wake up in his arms, she reminds herself of the paperwork in the manila envelope in the drawer of her bedside table that reminds her that a blood and hair will be taken the moment the child is born to prove that he is the child’s father but that there are no promises beyond that moment. Their deal does not go beyond that point but she knows that there will be another deal then, more paperwork and more lawyers. It is a thought that makes her feel cold inside. 

Her hand moves to her stomach as she feels their son stretch and tumble in a way that makes her wince. He was not made out of love and though she knows that she will love him, no matter what, the murky future ahead of them fills her with a sort of dread that makes it difficult for her to plan for his arrival and even more difficult for her to look forward to that day.

The vibration of an incoming text pulls her back to the present and she reaches for her phone to find a text from Vero. 

Just saw the cutest bassinette on line, Marc & I so buying it 4 u

Fern’s fingers hover over the keys, wanting to tell her not to, that it would be too much but instead she asks the slim brunette to wait. 

B 4 U do, send me the link. Saw 1 the other day at a 2^nd hand store

She sends her reply and then slips her phone into the front pocket of her apron. She can hear the door to his room opening and knows that he will call for her when he gets to the top of the stairs. Fern gets to her feet with some difficulty and then waits for a wave of nausea to pass before she crosses the floor and reaches for the door handle. 

A quiet, respectful knock stops her from opening the door.

“Fern, you want a ride?” he asks through the door. She smiles but tries to dampen that smile before she opens the door. 

“Thanks, that would be great,” she says quietly as she opens the door. He has a ball cap pulled down over his eyes but it is to his full, sensuous mouth that her gaze is drawn. Just as she had when she’d woken up, she feels the inexorable pull towards that mouth, whetting her own lips with the tip of her tongue as she looks at it. 

“You okay?” he asks as she nearly stumbles, his strong, steady hands clasping her upper arms and steadying her.

“Yeah, just...dizzy or something. I’ll be fine,” she mutters, putting on a brave face and her professional waitress’s smile. 

“Are you sure? I can take you to the doctor or the ER if you want,” he says, actual concern making his brow knit and his mouth purse. She stares at his mouth and then gives her head a shake. 

“I just get a little faint sometimes when I get up. I’ll be fine,” she assures him and his hands slide from her arms, leaving behind a faint tingling feeling that is both warm and the tiniest bit painful. His eyes narrow as if he doesn’t believe her but then he looks away and waits for her to pass him. Her heart sinks, just a little. There is a part of her that had hoped he would insist, that he would put aside everything to be with her but the more pragmatic side of her dismisses that thought as she holds her chin up and makes her way out to his car.