Ch. 17

A/N: Crazy Long Chapter for this Sunday.... I could have made it shorter, but then I'd probably disappoint everyone else, including myself. :) Shout-out to my new commenters! You totally made my day! Can't wait to interact more with you! For today's soundtrack we are going a little MTV OldSkool with a guy that was labeled too quickly as Ashlee Simpson's boyfriend and not as the good musician he really is...and just look at that crazy hair! (just click on the song title and it will take you to the video in case you didn't know)

You don't know what you do
Everytime you walk into the room
I'm afraid to move
I'm weak
It's true
I'm just scared to know the ending
Do you see me too?
Do you even know you met me?

I've waited all my life to cross this line
To the only thing that's true
So I will not hide
It's time to try anything to be with you
All my life I've waited

This is true

Ryan Cabarea - True

Ch. 17

I scored another goal on Saturday against the Sabres, but once again we found ourselves on the losing end.  The flu hit the team hard and nobody was really feeling their best as we headed back to NYC on the train.  Sunday it all came to a head when we played the Rangers.  We were dealt our worst loss since the early 90’s, being shut-out 7-0 to the team we had beat every other time we played them this year.  We made Ryan Callahan look like he was the next Alexander Ovechkin, allowing him to score 4 goals and an assist.  Richie fought Dubinsky and got his ass handed to him.  Carter ended up being a late scratch because the flu hit him hard once again.  We were dead tired on our skates and it showed.  I was embarrassed, the team was embarrassed and I was ecstatic to hear the words, “No Practice Monday,” from Lavy who surprisingly had nothing much to say to us before we headed back to Philly.  But the silence from him and the rest of the coaching staff was deafening to say the least.

It was still early when we got home, but after losing like that I was in no mood to be sociable, so I ended up spending the rest of the evening in my apartment watching movies, texting with a couple friends and my brothers.  Mitch was trying to talk me into driving up to Reading tonight for the game, but it just didn’t make much sense to run up there and come back to go back there tomorrow.  I just dozed off in the middle of one of the Indiana Jones movies that were being shown when my cell phone beeped and vibrated across the end table.

Gabby: “Tough game, huh?”

I looked up at the clock and saw it was already 9pm.  I smiled as I replied: “Tough doesn’t even begin to explain it.  R u on ur way home?”

Gabby: “Yup, on the bus now.”

Me: “I could use some company, I don’t want to be considered an alcoholic.”

Gabby: “I’ll be over after I get changed.”

About 20 minutes later, there was a knock on the door.  “Come in!” I yelled.

The door slowly opened and I craned my neck to look over and find her peaking in with a shy smile on her face.  “Looks like you already went to bed!” she laughed quietly while she walked over to the fridge to help herself with a beer.

“I’ve been a bum since I got home,” I yawned as I sat up to make room for her on the couch.

“I’m fairly sure you’re always a bum,” she chirped, handing me a beer and taking a seat at the opposite end of the couch.

“And once again I see you broke out the special clothing for me,” I chuckled as I took in her relaxed, black fleece pants, Nike hoodie and rainbow toe socks.  I liked how she was comfortable around me without being in the most flattering of clothing.

“I’ve had a chill all day with this rain and you are lucky I didn’t bring over my blankie,” she informed me with a playful sneer.

“Do you want a blankie?”

“I’ll be fine,” she smiled easily at me before taking a long sip of her beer.  “Shitty day, huh?”

“Shitty weekend to be truthful,” I mumbled as I left my head fall back to hit the arm of the couch.  “I just wish we could get our heads out of asses, hopefully not having practice tomorrow will help things…” I continued while staring at the ceiling, watching the shadows of the TV dance above me.

“No practice tomorrow?  Wow, that’s definitely a statement.”

“You ain’t kidding,” I said, realizing she might just know more about hockey than what she let on, but my mind was too tired to begin my prying games.

 “So since I’m off tomorrow, would you be willing to leave around lunch to head up to Reading so maybe we can surprise my brother for lunch?” I suddenly thought of the idea.

“Sure.”

“Cool.”

I wanted to ask her how her weekend was, but I didn’t really want to hear about her date with Dr. Dreamy.  We sat in silence for a while until I decided to un-mute the TV, allowing us to watch the rest of Indiana Jones.  The occasional smart ass remark was thrown back and forth, but just her being in the same room with me seemed to calm me and it was nice to be hanging out with someone who didn’t need to be entertained by anything more than a beer and the TV.

Watching movies and drinking a few beers with Kris was a nice culmination to a long weekend.  I had no problem going over to hangout with him, especially knowing how down a player can get when his team is in a bit of a rut.  I had seen it enough with my brothers and I had been the silent friend more than once in my lifetime whether it was with my brothers, best friends or boyfriends.

The weekend started off as planned, Jackson was waiting out in my parking lot, leaning against the hood of his SUV with a shit-eating grin on his face.  As I got over to him, he picked up my hand and kissed it like my knight in shining armor; I instantly felt the heat rise up my neck and cheeks.

“Why the blushing, my lady?” he asked in his thick English accent.

Why the hell not?! He was perfect looking in his dark, fitted jeans and off-white, ribbed sweater/turtle-neck and black canvas vest.  “I’m not used to having my hand kissed by a hot English guy,” I smiled.

He chuckled and shrugged his shoulders, “I guess it’s just the English manners…”

Yeah, and they are definitely different from any of the American or Canadian manners I had dated in the past.

While heading outside of city to the indoor arena, Jackson explained that rugby was usually played outside, but since this was winter league, the games were held inside.  He went on to explain some of the silly rules, but after watching the 1^st half of the game, I realized it was a lot like the football I had grown up around, except with a lot less padding.  This was not a sport for the faint of heart and the guys that played were ripped.  I had to stop myself from drooling when I noticed the killer leg muscles on Jackson when he walked out onto the playing “field” in his uniform that was basically a modified soccer get-up.  There were a fair amount of people watching the game, but it was nothing like the atmosphere I was used to for hockey games.

At the end of the game, I just stayed in the stands, waiting for Jackson to get showered and back into his street clothes.  I was texting with my dad about the plans for my trip to Toronto when I felt a presence behind me.

“I do hope the game did not bore you that much that you were texting this whole time?” Jackson mused in his deep voice that sent shivers down my spine.

I turned around and looked up at him with an easy smile.  “I found the game quite entertaining,” I told him.  “I just started texting after it was done…my dad just wanted to finalize plans for this week.”

“Oh? For what?”

“I’m heading back to Toronto for a couple days this week.  It’s my twin sisters 16^th birthday.”

“Sweet 16?”

“Yeah, I can’t believe they are getting so old, it makes me feel old…” I said thoughtfully as Jackson helped me up from the bleachers.

“Ah, but age is a mere number.”

“Speaking of which, it’s a number of yours that I don’t know,” I mused.

“I’m 27. You?”

“I’m 24.”

He dramatically wiped at his brow and said, “Phew.  Probably should have asked that right away, you never know these days…”

I slapped at him as his laugh rang out in the empty hall of the small arena.

For lunch, we headed back over to his place in Haddonfield.  His house was a beautiful brick Tudor home and definitely looked too big for a bachelor.  It never made much sense why people owned big beautiful houses like this when they rarely spent anytime in it.  Of course I was thinking about this when we walked inside and I was totally thrown for a loop when a young child came running into the vestibule of the house screaming, “Daddy!”

I found myself looking around like I had missed the person the kid was yelling to, but it was soon made very apparent that Jackson was the person the little boy was yelling out to.  Oh holy hell.  Jackson dropped my hand so that he could free it up to catch the leaping child.

A nervous smile decorated my face when Jackson turned to me and said, “Gabby, I’d like to introduce you to my son, Brady.”

Over lunch I learned that Brady was 4 years old and was the product of a failed college relationship.  The mother of Brady hadn’t seen him since a week after he was born because she decided she couldn’t handle being a mother.  Last thing Jackson knew of her is that she had moved to Wales.  Jackson’s parents took care of Brady until he finished his under-grad and moved here to the States.  Now a nice older Spanish lady by the name of Tess was Brady’s live-in Nanny.  Brady was a total cutie pie and I could tell that he meant the world to Jackson by just the way he doted on the little boy.  As much as I wanted to be angry about him not telling me about having a son, I couldn’t because it wasn’t like I was being 100% truthful with him either.

“I hope you aren’t too upset with me about not telling you about Brady…” Jackson said as he drove me back to the apartment.  I had to be home so that I could go to work that night, hence the whole early afternoon date.

“Well, it was a bit of a shock,” I laughed nervously, “But I can understand that really wouldn’t be a cool thing to announce on a blind date,” I finished with a smile as I squeezed his hand.

“Gabby, I can understand if you don’t want to see me again…”

“Is there a reason I wouldn’t?” I asked honestly.  So far both of our dates had been nothing but wonderful and I truly enjoyed getting to know someone that had nothing to do with the hockey world.  I will admit that I was finding myself in territory that didn’t always make me feel comfortable, but that’s what came along with breaking out from the norm, right?

“I hope not,” he smiled broadly.  “So can I take you out when you get home from Toronto?”

“I would enjoy that.”

This time I allowed Jackson up to my apartment, which was more for the fact he had offered to drop me off at work.  We talked while I got ready and even though it seemed completely normal to have him there, I still felt a little nervous.  It wasn’t the nervousness that said something bad was going to happen, but the nervousness that came to someone when they still weren’t sure if something was going to work out.

Before we headed back out to his car we kissed a few time like we had on Thursday night after our date.  He was an awesome kisser, but truthfully I didn’t seem to feel that spark that I had instantly felt when Tyler fist kissed me and deep down that bothered me.  Along with that, as much as it annoyed me to admit this, I didn’t feel the warm feeling I had experienced when Kris happened to touch me.  Of course I pushed that last thought way back in my mind and continued to press my lips to Jackson’s and revel in the moment of lovely attention he was giving me.

The rest of the weekend was filled with work.  Saturday night was totally crazy and when Sunday morning rolled around I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to roll myself out of bed.  Somedays there is not enough make-up in the world to make you look awake and Sunday was one of those days.  I started at 1pm and literally left out a sigh when I sat down on the bus, just happy to allow my feet some rest for the first time all day.  I pulled out my phone to check my messages when I something inside of me told me to check out the hockey scores for the day.  If I would have been eating or drinking, I probably would have choked when I saw the Flyers/Rangers score.  The Flyers had been completely shut-down and were now officially on their worst losing streak since before Christmas.  I flipped into my contact list and quickly found myself texting Kris.

“Are you really wearing that?!” I chirped her as soon as she opened her door.  She was wearing a pair of skinny jeans, a plaid patterned shirt that boasted bright blues and greens over top a tight black t-shirt and a pair of black Uggs.  I found her laid back look very sexy, the less is more approach worked wonders for her.

It took all I had to stay serious when as I watched her bright green eyes fly open wide and look down at her outfit.  “Why?!  What is wrong with it?!”

“I’m just so used to you wearing gym clothing or your work get-up; I’m just not sure if I’m comfortable taking you out looking like a normal girl…Umph!”  I grunted at the end of my speech as she whacked me across the stomach.  “All I’m saying Gabby, is that I might get used to looking all cute-like and insist that you always dress like that around me!” I yelled after her as she tromped down the hallway towards the elevators.

“If you don’t shut your mouth now, I’m going to just turn back around and lock myself in my apartment,” she grumbled back with humor pouring out from all sides of her voice.  “I was going to compliment your glasses today, but I think I’ll just pass.  Besides, it’s bad enough you tried to talk me into being your “body pillow” last night.”

“I’ll still take that compliment about my glasses,” I continued the banter.  I usually didn’t wear my glasses, but since it was time to change the contacts, I figured I’d rock them for the day.  “And about last night, I’m positive that I almost had you convinced,” I mused while hitting the ground floor button.

“And at what part did you think that?  Was it the part where I scowled at you or the part where I blew you a kiss and smacked my ass as I walked out the door?”  I laughed out loud while watching her green eyes sparkle while she also lost it.  This is going to be a fun day.

The trip to Reading took about an hour and a half, but it went really quick as we talked a lot about me and my brothers growing up.  She asked me questions about how close we were growing up and if I thought it was hard on Mitch not getting drafted while watching me hoist the Stanley Cup.

“As brothers we are always competitive, but I know my brothers are my biggest supporters,” I answered.  “I’m sure it’s tough on him, especially since every time there is an article about a good play he made during a game, the press always finds a way to write about the fact that he is my younger brother…Hopefully he’ll be able to grow out from under my shadow sooner than later.  I’m really proud of him,” I said with a big smile.

“I can tell,” Gabby said, smiling easily back at me.  Something about that smile made my hands suddenly get sweaty; causing me to realize once again that she wasn’t just some girl I wanted to jump in and out of bed with.  There was definitely more to this whole ordeal.

I had tried to busy myself with a girl in New York City on Saturday night, but after she gave me a blow job in her hotel room, I couldn’t stomach the thought doing anything more with her because all I could think about was Gabby.  I thought that if I got laid, it would help me move on a bit, but that was obviously not going to help anything.  The only person I wanted to get laid by was Gabby and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, I wanted more than just that with her.  Things were obviously very comfortable between the two of us, and I actually felt closer to her in some ways than I never felt with Dawn, yet she was such a mystery.  One of the bigger mysteries being whenever I asked her about her family or something remotely close to that subject, she instantly shut herself off to me.

“So what plans do you have this week that you needed off from work?” I asked her at one point, remember she had made a comment about it last night, but I was too down on myself to even ask more about it at the time.

I watched from the corner of my eyes as she took a breath and looked out the window.  “I’m going to Toronto.  It’s my twin niece’s 16^th birthdays…” she mumbled quietly.

“Oh, cool,” I said, acting like I hadn’t noticed her change in demeanor.  “Brian’s girls, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So are you close with all your cousins?”  She just nodded her head as she pursed her lips.  “One of the guys on the Leafs, Tyler, was dating your cousin Abby…”

“Yeah, I know,” Gabby said with no inflection in her voice.

“The green eyes must run in the Burke family,” I said thoughtfully, thinking about how Abby’s eyes reminded me of Gabby’s.

“Why do you say that?” she asked, suddenly sounding curious.

“Oh, I just remember seeing Abby around at some of the team functions and I remember her green eyes, they were as striking as yours.  However, she never seemed to smile as much as you do.”

“Oh.”

“You two as close as you and Patrick?”

“Yeah,” she said, sounding slightly annoyed once more that I was asking questions about her personal life again.  I just nodded and decided to change the subject to something different, of course it probably wasn’t the best topic to change to, but I never claimed to be overly bright.  “Hey, how did your date with Jackson go on Saturday?  How did you like rugby?”

This garnered a slight glare from her beautiful eyes as she looked over at me with a slight rise of an eyebrow.  “What you are really asking is if we are going on another date, right?”

I chuckled, “Heh, sure, if you want to get right to that point, you can.”

“Well, I had a lovely time again on Saturday.  Rugby is quite the rough sport,” she continued.  “He has a beautiful home in Haddonfield…”

“But?”

“But?”

“You faded off, so I’m can only assume there is a ‘but’ in this somewhere.”

She took in a deep breath and blew it out before speaking.  “He has a kid.”

“Oh, ouch.”  I bit the inside of my cheek to make sure I didn’t bust up laughing and begin cheering for myself.  She was obviously more than a little put out by this fact because I watched her drop her head back onto the head-rest of the seat and slightly throw up her arms and drop them onto her lap again before going continuing.

“I feel like I’m being a bitch if I say that I kind of have a problem with it…I totally love kids and I definitely want kids, but I don’t know if I’m okay taking on someone else’s kid right now.  I have a master’s degree that I’m going to be pursuing in the fall and I have some plans of my own where getting involved with someone with a kid is just not what I need to be doing.  I mean it was a little different when…Yeah.” she blurted out quickly, the last part confusing me a bit, but I didn’t ask. 

It was obvious this had been gnawing at her since Saturday and it seemed like I was the first person she had confided in about it, which made sense for the simple fact she probably felt bad talking to Kristy about it since she had been the person who had initiated their first date.  As much as I wanted to sit there and say that she was totally right, that she should just dump the guy; something told me that I needed to be her friend before being the guy who was trying to be her boyfriend.

“I’m not quite sure how I’d handle it if the girl I was interested in had a kid…” I confided.  It was the truth; she totally was in a tough spot.  “I can totally understand why you are worried about feeling like the bad guy, but you need to remember that we were given a mind to make choices so don’t let yourself feel like you can’t say no to him.”

“Everything about him seems perfect though,” she whined practically to herself.

“Do you feel comfortable with him?” I asked.

This question left her silent and all she could do was shrug her shoulders for an answer that was totally answered when I looked over to find her uncertainty written all over her face.  Instead of saying anything more, I kept my mouth shut.  My mom would be so proud of me.

There were some points in the drive to Reading that the questions got a little more personal than I wanted them to be.  There were also some times that I was very close to just coming clean with Kris, but I just kept telling myself that it would only just be a big mistake.  The lie had gone on this long, what would it hurt?  The season was quickly coming to an end and I already made up my mind to head back to Boston by May to spend sometime with my mom and then up to Toronto to the Burke Compound for the summer.  By the time fall came back around, I planned on having an apartment of my own and I figured Kris would forget about me by then.  If for some reason he didn’t forget about Gabby, then Patrick could just tell him that I decided to transfer somewhere far away…  Wow, since when did I become so good at lying?!

Mitch was the spitting image of his older brother.  I just laughed to myself when he came bouncing out into the hotel lobby, exactly the same way Kris would have.

“Mitch, this is my friend, Gabby.  Gabby, my middle brother, Mitch.”

“Geesh, Bryce wasn’t joking when he said your neighbor was hot,” Mitch unabashedly chirped as he gave me the one-over while shaking my hand.

“Thanks,” I said with a roll of my eyes, following the guys out to the car.  I looked over to find Kris just grinning broadly.  It was obvious the Versteeg’s raised their boys to be bluntly honest about everything.  The sad part was his goofy grin made him that much more endearing.  I’m thinking his black-rimmed glasses and day old scruff helped tremendously today.  As dorky as they would probably look on most other men, Kris pulled them off with style while wearing them with a light blue cotton shirt and a pair of stone-washed jeans.  Of course the backwards baseball hat was a staple, making me wonder how he could make looking like a bum almost seem sexy. 

Thankfully Mitch’s voice pulled me from a complete lapse in judgment.  “So this town is a little rough around the edges, I talked to the people at the Sovereign Center where we play tonight, and got permission for you to park you car in the gated area where all the Royals players park…Definitely don’t want the Audi to get hurt…”

“Oh no, wouldn’t want the audacious car to get hurt,” I snorted.

Mitch looked over at Kris with a questioning face and Kris just muttered, “She isn’t a big fan of the car…”

“Ahh, are you sure she isn’t the one who scratched it in Toronto?” Mitch asked in a tone that I might have taken serious if I hadn’t hung around Kris enough the last few weeks.

“It might have been…she was still probably living in Toronto at that time,” Kris said thoughtfully while scratching at the fuzz on his face.

“Hello?! She is right here!” I squawked, becoming annoyed that they were talking about as if I wasn’t sitting in the backseat of the car.  Hell, I was even sitting in the middle, scrunched up so that I could feel like I was apart of their conversation as we made our away to Olive Garden.

“Oh? Oh, hey Gabby,” Mitch joked as he turned towards me and winked.  “So, since you are here, were you the one who keyed up the precious car?” Mitch asked, placing his fist in front of my mouth like he was interviewing me for a TV news show.

“No, it was not me.  But now that you mention it, I wish I had only thought of the crime myself,” I said into the handmade microphone as I looked up into the rearview mirror to find Kris scowling at me while Mitch cracked up laughing.

“She’s good, Kris,” Mitch said while still laughing and bumping fists with me.

“Yeah, if she gets too good, I just might have to leave her in this rough-edged town,” Kris grumbled.

“Oh, who can’t handle the jokes now?!” I punched him in the arm.  “Can dish it but can’t eat it, huh?”

Kris glanced back at me into the mirror, stuck out his tongue and then went back to paying attention to the road like a good driver.

Mitch and Gabby actually hit it off quickly and soon they were picking on each other like her and I constantly did.  It bothered me a little that she seemed just as comfortable around Mitch in under an hour and a half as she was with me after 3 and a half weeks.  If he wasn’t my brother, I might have actually been jealous.  After lunch at Olive Garden, we dropped Mitch back off at the hotel and decided to go and walk around the mall that was right down the street.

“You two definitely can’t say you aren’t related,” Gabby mused as we walked down the parking lot.

“I guess we do look a lot alike,” I said thoughtfully.

“Looks are not the only you have in common,” she giggled.  “You have the same sense of humor…”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Definitely not,” she said unabashedly.  “I think it’s great, it reminds me of Patrick and Brendan,” she smiled as she was most likely thinking back.  I completely adored this Gabby, the one whose smile made me believe she could stop all the bad things in the world from happening.  So instead of making a comment that might cause her to revert back to half shy/half happy Gabby, I decided to just smile back at her and think about how much I wouldn’t mind having her in my life long term.

“Puppies!” she squeaked as we walked by the pet store that just so happened to be right next to the entrance.  Gabby’s excitement was probably exactly the response the store owners had in mind when they rented the store space.  I laughed when she grabbed my hand and pulled me into the store, leading me right over to a puppy playpen that held 5 beagle pups.  I always wanted a dog, but with my hectic schedule it was useless.  Dawn and I had talked about it, but she was not really interested in dogs, she was more of a cat person.

“Does our apartment allow pets?” I asked as I watched Gabby fawning over the cutest sad faced beagle puppy.

“I think so, I’ve seen several people walking in and out of the building with dogs,” she said, speaking to the puppy in a high pitched voice.  The puppy licked her nose, just making Gabby giggle even more.

“Why don’t you get one?” I suddenly asked.

She looked over at me with a face that said, “You did not just dare me to do that.”  She shook her head back and forth and said, “Patrick would probably kill me.”

“Oh.”

“Someday,” she sighed as she put the puppy back into the pen.  It proceeded to howl loudly and we ran out of the store, covering our ears as if it would hide the fact that it was our fault the whole store was now erupting in loud barking from all the cages.

“Way to go!” I teased as we jogged down a couple stores before slowing our pace back to a normal walk.

“It’s sooo your fault, you allowed me to go in there,” she laughed back.

“Oh no, wait a minute.  You drug me in there…”

“Like you aren’t strong enough to stop me?” she challenged.

I just sighed and grabbed onto her hand.  “Fine, from now on I’m in charge, you can only go into stores I say yes to.  You can’t let go of my hand because I can’t allow you to get out of control. 

I thought she was going to put up a fight but she surprised me by intertwining our fingers and squeezing my hand as an over exaggerated, “Fiiiinnneee,” came out of her mouth.

We didn’t stop laughing for the rest of our walk around the mall.  At one point we found ourselves in a toy store, putting on an impromptu puppet show with some hand-puppets we found on a rack.  Of course we garnered a few strange looks from the customers, including one kid that ran away crying after I beat Gabby’s Elmo puppet with my Police Officer puppet.  Then there was a point where we were in Spencers and I insisted on trying out the pair of handcuff’s that someone had left sitting on the shelf next to all the other sex toys.  What I didn’t realize was that there was no key to be found, so $25 dollars later and another pair of handcuff’s that actually included the key, we were separated once again.  Of course that whole scene did not come with some hissing and scowling from Gabby when I told her that she would just have to deal being handcuffed to me because I couldn’t reach my wallet with my free hand.  I was slightly shocked as she shoved her hand down into my back pocket, pinched my ass really hard and grabbed my wallet.

“Ouch!”  I yelped.

“I didn’t want you getting any wrong ideas,” she smirked as she dangled the wallet in front of me.

“The only idea I have is the fact that I now have my own set of handcuffs to use on you the next time you fall asleep on me,” I wiggled my eyebrows at her.  She just shook her head and quickly raised our hands so that I ended up lightly punching myself, pushing her into a giggling fit while the scowling store clerk finally unlocked us.

By 7:05pm we were in our seats at the Sovereign Center in downtown Reading.  It was a nice-sized arena, but like many minor league hockey teams that aren’t affiliated with the hometown major league team, the seats were relatively empty with about 3500 people filling up the 10,000 seats.  I actually knew some of the guys on the Reading Royals because one of their parent teams was the Maple Leafs, so I had trained with a few of them during pre-season.  The Royals were having a decent season, Mitch’s team, the K-Wings were also having a hell of a season so the teams were evenly matched, making for a hard bout.

“You know, I could so out-skate half of the guys on both teams,” Gabby commented as we stood in line for a soft pretzel.

“Yeah, but that’s why it’s a minor league team…it gives guys a chance to hone their skills,” I said thoughtfully.

“Your brother skates a lot like you.”

“Is that a good thing of bad thing?”

“You are fast.”

“So you’ve watched me?” I asked, suddenly a little more interested in what she said.  I was always happy to hear about a hot girl watching my skills on the ice.  Get over yourself Versteeg.

“Well when the camera is trained on you, I do,” she smarted back.  “I’m glad it’s not on you all the time because it really annoys the shit out of me that you insist on never having your mouth-guard properly in your mouth.  Tell me, how is it that you haven’t lost any teeth?”

I chuckled at this observation and said, “To be honest, I’m not quite sure.  My two front teeth are actually caps because I chipped them on the boards when I was in the WHL…”

“See, if you would have had your mouth guard in, it might not have happened,” she said, completely sounding like my mother.

“Whatever, Mom.”

She smiled broadly as she leaned in and took a sip from my soda straw.

“I told you I would buy you a drink…” I reminded her as I watched her suck down a fair share of soda.

She smacked her lips as she stood up straight again and said, “I didn’t want a full soda; I figured sharing would be okay.”

“I don’t want your cooties.”

“Heh,” she snorted.  “You could have fooled me.”

I had nothing to say to that because she was totally right and at that moment I realized I was totally being strung along for the ride with no way off the bus.

I started dozing off halfway home back to Philly.  I couldn’t help it, the seats in the Audi were too comfortable for their own good and Kris was playing a playlist of Ray LaMontagne, Eric Hutchinson, and Adele…it mellowed me out after what had been somewhat of a long day.  It took a lot of energy to laugh as much as I did today.  I couldn’t deny that every time Kris and I spent substantial time together, I found that I couldn’t stop smiling.  If I wanted to be truthful to myself, it had been a long time since I had been this happy and I was finally realizing that I was myself every time I was with him.  In fact it really hit me when he had made that comment on the way to Reading about “my cousin Abby” not smiling as much as I do.  That’s because that Abby wasn’t her normal self, not the Abby I was finally acting like once again.  While thinking about all of this, a smile must have formed on my face without even noticing it.

“What are you smiling over there about?” Kris picked quietly, obviously humored by this.

“Hmm?” I asked, opening my eyes slowly, playing like I had been sleeping.

“Don’t play innocent with me.  What are you smiling about?”

“None of your business…”

“It’s totally my business.”

“How so?”

“Because I just spent one of the most fun days I’ve had with someone of the opposite sex in a long time and I’d like to know if that’s maybe why you might smiling,” he said seriously.

I kept my head resting on the seat as I stared over at him for a long moment of silence, hearing only the music, the hum of the car and my heart pounding in my head.  It had been a long time since I had met someone so honest with his feelings.  “It’s been a long time for me too…” I finally opened up.

Instead of making a smart ass comment back, like “I told you so,” he just nodded and smiled.  After staring at him, waiting for him to possibly say something more, I fully dozed off and woke up to find us parked in the apartment lot with him turned towards me in the driver’s seat, resting his head on his own head rest, watching me.

“When did we get here?” I mumbled, beginning to stretch out my cramped muscles.

“Just a minute or two ago,” he said quietly, still watching me intently.

“Mmm.”  I reached over and un-clicked my seatbelt and before I could open my door, Kris was already out of the car and opening the door for me.  I took his offered hand and used it to get out of the car, it had become a routine for us it had seemed.  Instead of letting go of my hand this time, he held onto it, like we had done while walking through the mall and I fell into an easy step aside of him as we walked into the apartment lobby.  And just like in the mall, I felt the warmth of his hand travel up my arm and flow through my body.  By the time we stepped into the elevator together it felt like a million dull pins just prickling my skin.  It was somehow soothing and I felt light headed as I thought about how it had been a long time since I had felt something like it.  I dropped my head back against the elevator wall, making a slight thud sound.

“Something wrong?”

“Nope, just tired,” I said with my eyes closed, afraid to look over his way.

“If nothing is wrong then look at me,” he said quietly, so quiet that I almost didn’t hear him over the hum of the elevator.

I turned my head dramatically towards him and opened my eyes really wide, keeping them wide as I said, “I’m looking at you.”

My smart ass remark was quickly taken from my lips as Kris leaned in and pressed his to them.  As much as my mind was screaming to pull away, the rest of my body pushed me towards him, gluing my lips to his.  Shit.

I shivered when I felt his finger tips at my neck and then on my cheek.  They were calloused, but not too rough that they felt uncomfortable on my skin.  They were hockey player hands; hands that did a lot of work.  I subconsciously felt myself turn into him and my arms begin to snake around his torso to pull myself against him.  All the energy between us went straight to our lips, causing me to feel lightheaded as I breathed him in.  I’m positive I heard myself moan, but with the blood loudly pumping through my ears, I wasn’t totally sure.  He tasted of sweet mint, from the piece of gum he had been chewing on during our ride home, making his mouth a cool contrast to mine when our tongues tangled.  When the elevator dinged, reminding us that we were at our destination, he bit playfully at my lower lip and pulled back, officially ending our first kiss.