Chapter 17

& now the face off you have all been waiting for....drum roll please

The corridor is nearly empty of human beings by the time he is making his way through it, still straightening his tie, his jacket over his arm, his hair still wet from the shower. He’d normally have a wool cap over it or have spent half at least half an hour gelling it half to death, but tonight is not a normal night. Normally after a win he’d be looking forward to a late night snack with the guys, maybe a few drinks before bed but not this night. Tonight he has come to a realization, an epiphany, and tonight will not be about hockey or about being one of the boys. 

‘Family man’. It’s a term he’s heard used about some of his teammates, a term that he himself has used when defending Cookie to other players or the media for instance. It is not a term he has thought about a great deal, just a couple of words thrown together that seem to signify certain virtues like patience, reliability, maturity. They are all words that have been applied to him but he’s never felt actually described him.

Until now. 

‘I’m going to have a family’, he thinks to himself with a smile, still trying out the description, rolling it around in his mind to see how it feels. His stomach still jumps when he thinks about the responsibility but the words no longer strike fear in his heart. In fact he is wearing a smile that he has not been able to wipe off of his face ever since he got on the ice and it does not just have to do with having a four point night. 

“Did they leave you here on your own?” he asks as he pushes open the door to the lounge to find her standing on her own, her back to him, studying a team picture on the wall, their Cup win in ’09. Her jacket is also hanging from her arm but that isn’t what he notices first. He had noticed before the t-shirt she is wearing, one of his own, and that knowledge makes his smile grow by a degree but so does the way the jeans she is wearing pull snugly across her ass. He tries to remember if he had noticed it before, maybe that first night, and then dismisses the thought. It doesn’t matter, he decides, if he had noticed it before, he is noticing it now.

“Did you win?” she asks and he stops, almost skidding to a stop, his brow creasing. She watched the game. She knows. 

“Yeah five nothing,” he tells her, his eyes narrowed as he stares, disbelieving, at her narrow back. If he didn’t know she was seven months pregnant it would be hard to tell from this angle. From this angle she is a girl that he, or any of his teammates, would look twice at on the street.

“I mean that night,” she corrects him, turning her weary, tear stained face towards him. “The dog fight...did you win, because I’d hate to be a disappointment and everyone knows how competitive you are.” 

The smile he has been wearing since almost the very moment his skates hit the ice this evening is erased, suddenly and indefinitely. He stares back at her, stunned and open mouthed but can think of nothing to say to take the sting back from the knowledge her big brown eyes are suddenly filled with, to dampen the pain that is plain in the crease on her brow or to turn up the corners of her full mouth. He can’t blame Flower, or not entirely, he has done this. He has lived with the knowledge, the shame of it, for some time but as long as she did not know he thought that he could forget about it. Clearly he can no longer live in that delirious state of denial. 

“I’m sorry.” It’s not enough, he knows, not nearly enough to encompass all of the things that he has done and not done but it is a beginning. One corner of her mouth tilts up but the darkness in her eyes remains deep and angry. 

“Sorry for getting caught or just sorry that you’re in this position?” she asks, tilting her head to one side and looking at him as if she’s disgusted with what she sees, as if he’s grown horns and a tail since he saw her in the dressing room. 

“It’s not...,” his voice drops away to nothing. He was about to tell her that it isn’t like that except that he knows that it is exactly like that, or it was, right up until about three hours ago. Her mouth twists into a bitter smirk and her shoulders lift and drop in a sigh before she drops her gaze from his as if she can’t completely keep up the sinister angry mask. 

“I know I’m not pretty like Vero or a lot of those other girls but...a dog, really?” She glances up at him through her bangs and the anguish in her eyes is so palpable that he lifts his hand and covers the spot on his chest under which his heart should be beating if he had one because clearly, to hurt this girl he must not have.

“You are,” he insists, taking a step forward but she shakes her head and sends him the kind of warning look that a dog will right before it bites. He stops, the distance between them seeming as vast as the expanse of the Grand Canyon. 

“Don’t,” she cut him off with a wave of her hand, “please, don’t patronize me. I know what I look like and it’s not like...,” she looks towards the doorway and he can clearly see her thinking about Marc’s lithe, petite and pretty girlfriend. 

“Not like Veronique?” he takes a tentative step forward. “She didn’t always look like that...she’s had a couple of small things done,” he assures her, “not that Marc thought she had to but because they made her feel better,” he adds quickly and, he hopes, reassuringly. “Not that it matters,” he adds when her mouth purses and she looks at him as if she’s going to argue about it. 

“No,” she says quietly, but firmly, “it really doesn’t and it doesn’t change the fact that I know that I’m not...pretty like that,” she adds and then tilts her head so that her bangs fall into her face, like a kitten hiding in plain sight behind a lamp stand, tail twitching, waiting to be found and pounced on. The thought makes him smile. 

“Maybe not but...I’ve gotten used to it...your face,” he says suddenly, the words escaping all in torrent. He is shocked by his sudden admission but once the words have escaped and she is looking back at him like he’s said something completely peculiar he knows that it is nothing more than the truth. “I like it,” he adds a little more softly, taking another step forward, “your face, I’ve grown used to it.” 

“You don’t have to say things just to make me feel better. Or would that be to make you feel better?” she says accusingly. It isn’t even as much as he deserves, he knows, but he takes it and lets it roll off of his back just like he does the jabs and the names he is called on the ice and in the press. 

“It actually doesn’t,” he smirks feeling that flutter of fear in his chest that’s not unlike when he glides up to the face-off circle at the beginning of the game, the sense that you never know what to expect. “In fact I’m scared shitless,” he admits, taking that final step that closes the distance between them. 

“What are you doing?”she asks as she watches him with distrust while he reaches out to brush her hair back from her cheek. 

“Fucked if I know,” he admits as he leans in and presses his lips over hers.

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It’s a soft kiss, a tender and hesitant kiss. It’s a kiss that she wants, very much, to lose herself in but she does not. She cannot. She breaks off the kiss, closing her eyes and turns away. 

 

“Don’t tease me, please,” she whispers, brushing fat, hot tears from her eyes. “I don’t deserve that,” she adds, trying to sound more fierce than she can actually muster. 

“No,” he replies. She feels his hand on the small of her back and bites down on her bottom lip. She wants to lean back against him but will not allow herself to find the comfort in his touch, “No you don’t,” he agrees, his breath warm on her cheek. “I know that you have no reason at all to trust me and I know that this is probably seems like it’s come out of the blue but...tonight I realized that I was glad you were here...that I was actually looking forward to seeing you.” Her heart squeezes hard in her chest and she gnaws anxiously on her bottom lip to stop from sniffling out loud. 

“That’s not fair,” she hisses, wrapping her arms around herself to stop herself from flying apart, a sensation that she has become accustomed to whenever he is this near to her. “You know I like...that I liked you. So now you hold out a crumb to keep me sweet and keep me quiet, to stop me from running off to the nearest reporter and telling them exactly what you’ve done.” 

“You won’t,” he says, sounding more certain than she thinks that he should. She turns to him, ready to tell that she will, that she might, but the honesty in his eyes gives her pause. “You won’t but not because of me but because you’re a good person, a thoughtful person. It’s probably the same reason that you decided you could keep the baby despite everything,” he adds, his gaze slipping down to her protruding belly. He reaches to touch it and though she grows still, holding her breath, she forces herself not to flinch when his hand caresses her swollen belly. “I don’t deserve your trust. I’ve been a fucking ass to you but...,” his gaze slowly rises to meet hers and there is a man in his eyes she doesn’t think that she has ever seen, “I’m not lying, not now.”  

She looks down at where his fingers are splayed across her belly and then up into his eyes, that familiar fluttering in her chest making it hard to for her to maintain the seething anger that has allowed her to maintain the emotional wall she’s built around her heart. 

“So what are you saying?” she asks, a little voice in the back of her mind telling her that she can’t trust him, that she should run as far away from him as her legs will carry her but the other part, the part that wants to taste the mint on his lips one more time, to trust the look in his eyes keeps her rooted to the spot. 

“I’m not sure,” he admits, a half a smile tugging at the corner of his full mouth as he looks down at her belly and then up into her face. His other hand reaches up to cup her cheek and his gaze searches hers. “I’m still scared about this whole thing, like shit scared but...now I’m kinda looking forward to it too,” he adds as his grin grows and his lips pull back from his teeth, “kinda like I look forward to seeing this face when I come home.” 

A shudder runs down the length of her spine and a whimper of defeat escapes from lips as she realizes that he has detonated a stick of dynamite beneath the walls around her heart as his lips brush gently over hers and her body sways into the warmth of his arms. 

“Ready to go? You hungry?” he asks, as if it is a normal, everyday thing to go out to dinner with Sidney Crosby after a game. She nods and allows him to guide her out of the room, her head still spinning, her knees a little weak and her breathing short and shallow.

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The maitre d did a double take when he took Fern’s coat and now the waitress is openly gawking at Fern as she mulls over the menu. This is his favourite Italian restaurant where they have always been respectful of his privacy but now he is beginning to wonder if he should have taken her somewhere he is not quite so well known.  

“I’m not really that hungry,” she sighs, flipping the menu over to look at the deserts, licking her lips as her gaze scans the page. 

“I’m always hungry after a game,” he explains as he hands his menu to the waitress after ordering lobster ravioli with white wine sauce and a side salad. “Sometimes the team orders in, sometimes we all go out after.” 

“And pick up girls?” she finishes for him, raising an eyebrow as she too hands off her menu. “Just the chocolate and orange mascarpone canolli and some blueberry tea please.”  

“Yeah, sometimes,” he agrees, keeping his voice low and shrugging, feeling a slow burn that rides up his neck to the tips of his ears. “Not all of the guys...not Pascal or Brooks, definitely not Marc.” 

“Just Jordy, TK, Kris...and you,” she adds with a smirk. He tries not to smile but fails and reaches for warm roll and begins to tear it apart on his side plate. 

“Oh damn. I have this craving for fresh baked bread all the time lately,” she sighs and reaches for the basket just as he is about to spread the herb and garlic butter on it. She stares at his plate and laughing he offers her the first half. She takes a bite and then closes her eyes and lets out a long low moan. “Oh god, it’s heaven,” she mumbles with her mouth full and he feels a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. A half an hour earlier she had been cold and reserved and now she is practically having an orgasm in public. It is moments like these that are drawing him towards her. Buttering the other half of the bun he hands it to her and lets his fingers brush along hers. Their gazes lock. She smiles shyly. 

“Say the word,” he whispers, his stomach suddenly full of butterflies, “and there will be no other girls.” Her smile disappears and her gaze drops to the white table linen. “Too far,” he admonishes himself, sitting back in his chair and draining half a glass of rich red wine. 

“Just a little,” she agrees and when he looks up he is relieved to see that she is wearing a small but still wary smile. “It’s probably a good idea that we don’t get ahead of ourselves. I mean...I’m all hormonal or whatever and you’re probably still suffering from that bump on your head.”  She is graciously providing him a means to back out on what has already occurred this evening. He imagines that she expects him to backtrack. He does not plan to.

“You’re right, this probably isn’t the time,” he says, ripping open another bun and handing her half. There is always later, he thinks to himself as he watches her happily fill up on bread. 

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She is nearly dead on her feet by the time he pulls his SUV into the driveway. She waits for him to come around and open the door and leans heavily on him as she gets out of the vehicle. She has been stifling yawns all of the way home and now that her bed is within reach, her eyes are drooping. 

“Here, let me carry you,” he offers, pushing the door open and pocketing his keys. 

“I can walk,” she insists just as both of her hands fly up to cover another jaw unhinging yawn. 

“Yeah, right,” he laughs and with ease sweeps her up off of her feet and cradles her against his mile wide chest. 

“You’ll take any excuse to show off,” she grumbles but leans her cheek against his neck as he kicks the door shut behind them. He carries her with ease up the stairs and through the darkened house but instead of turning left as he passes through the living room, he turns right. “Sidney,” she hisses, and wriggles to slide free but his grip is like an iron claw and he only tightens it the more she strains to get free. “First of all I don’t even know how that would work and second of all I’m exhausted and....” The air is driven momentarily from her lungs when she is tossed onto his king sized bed. 

 

“And my bed is bigger, you should have it. I should never have let you talk me into letting you take the smaller room,” he chuckles, leaning near her to turn on the light on the side table. “I’ll start moving my stuff out tomorrow,” he adds with a playful smirk while she rolls her eyes into the back of her head and wishes for a giant hole to open up in the time space continuum and swallow her whole. “Anything you need from your room?” he asks in a less playful. more gentle tone, dropping a kiss onto her forehead, “or are you just gonna keep stealing my t-shirts?” 

“They’re comfortable and it’s cheaper than buying new pj’s,” she smirks and he grins. 

“Okay...see you in the morning?” he asks and she’s sure the real question he’s asking is if she’s going to bolt in the middle of the night. 

“Bacon and eggs or pancakes?” she asks. 

“Surprise me,” he replies and then a little awkwardly, with a couple of starts and stops he leans down and presses a quick kiss to her lips and then turns and leaves the room. She stares at the door he pulls closed behind him and then lays flat on his bed, surrounded by his scent, his things and pulls a pillow over her face and muffles a long, high pitched scream.