"I am tryin' not to tell you, but I want to
I'm scared of what you'll say
So I'm hidin' what I'm feelin'
But I'm tired of holdin' this inside my head." Colbie Caillat
"Where's Jordan?" I call out probably a little louder than I should.
Bella laughs from her position at the other end of the couch. "I haven't seen him in an hour."
"Guess he left," Anna says from her position at the breakfast bar where she is glaring at me.
She looked pissed. Maybe my ego was growing out of control the drunker I got but I could only imagine it was because I had just spent the last hour talking to Bella and only Bella. I couldn't help it. She was incredibly entertaining. She was talking about sports and psychology and giving these really cool examples of why certain players act the way the act and perform – or don't perform – on the ice.
And then she started talking about New England and I started telling her about growing up in the Maritimes because it was so similar to her stories about beach parties and clam bakes and 10 foot high winter snow banks.
"He was my lift!" I suddenly realize and my inebriation has me saying it out loud.
"Well I can drive you home," Anna volunteers suddenly turning the glare off and smiling brightly. "I don't mind at all. I mean we can't have hockey's best player taking a plain old cab or anything."
I look around the room realizing for the first time that while Bella and I have been talking everyone else – not just Jordan – seems to have disappeared. Max and Meagan are gone. Clay and the taller of the blondes, I think her name was Casey or something, are nowhere to be found.
"Where is Ness?" I ask Bella and she shrugs her tiny shoulders.
"She was drunk. Probably passed out in her room." Bella replies. "We had the worst double date ever tonight. The guys were total airheads."
"Was it that blonde thing from the bar the other night?" I can't help but ask.
She nods. "Yeah. What a disappointment he turned out to be. No personality at all. Ness and I pretended we had to go to the bathroom and stopped by the bar to do shooters. It was the only way to make it through his boring conversation about how many twitter followers he has."
Anna is now standing before us and I don't remember seeing her move from the breakfast bar. But yet there she is, standing in front of me staring down at me expectantly. She has an annoyed look on her face again. Her friend Darci is standing beside her but I can't tell if she's annoyed. I can't see her face. Her tits are blocking it.
"So do you want a lift or what?" Anna asks.
"You know, you can totally just stay here," Bella offers with a smile and for a second my heart jumps until she follows it up with. "This couch is a pullout. It's even got a pillow top mattress."
Anna shoots Bella a withering look. "Why would he want to stay here, alone, when he could sleep in his own bed…"
She lets her voice trail off and we all know the part of the sentence she doesn't say is "With her."
"Well, my car is still at the rink," I explain quietly. "And it'll be easier to get it and get to practice from here in the morning."
What I can't say is that although sleeping in my own bed would be lovely I would be sleeping alone there too since I can't exactly parade Anna into the Lemieux house even if I wanted to, which I don't.
"Well, you have my number," Anna says giving up but clearly not happy about it. She leans down and kisses me on the cheek and I fight the urge to move away. "Call me."
I nod and watch as Bella follows Anna and Double D Darci to the front door and locks it behind them. She makes a pit stop at the linen closet in the hall beside the spare bedrooms and comes back with blankets and pillows as I start to take the cushions off the couch.
She leans in to help me pull the mattress part from inside the couch and our shoulders bump. She gives me a playful shove and because of the alcohol I tip over and land on the pile of discarded cushions.
"Wow, you're pretty unstable on your feet for a superstar," she jokes.
"Not fair," I complain and try to gracefully clamour my way off the cushions. "I'm drunk."
"But yet still not completely out of control," she says a little judgementally.
"What are you talking about?" I wonder and clamor haphazardly to my feet again.
"You just blew off a free and easy good time," Bella informs me. "If you weren't still thinking too hard you'd have grabbed that action just like Max and Clay have."
"So you're saying I should have gone home with her?" I question feeling a little confused and maybe even embarrassed. If she didn't want me to stay why did she offer? Maybe she wasn't having as good a time talking to me as I was to her.
"Honestly?" she says softly and plops down on the edge of the bed she just finished making for me. "I didn't want you to."
I smile at that and she blushes and stares at her hands playing with the edge of the duvet.
"But," she starts again. "The fact that you didn't just indulge yourself and go home with her means you're still wound too tight. You gotta loosen up."
"Stop psych-analyzing me," I demand with an slight chuckle. "Little Miss Sports Psychology."
I sit down beside her and fall backward so I'm flat out on my back across the bed. I move my arms behind my head and sigh.
"I told you how I feel about girlfriends," I remind her. "It's not a coincidence that most of our best players – Staalsy, Talby, and now your brother – are unattached."
"I wasn't telling you to date the blonde," she reminds me and giggles.
"So the fact that I'm not a manwhore makes me uptight?" I think I am too drunk to follow her logic.
"In a way, yes," she admits. "I mean not that I want everyone to be manwhores. But I don't have anything against a random make-out session. It's fun and spontaneous. And you don't seem to have much of that in your life."
"I can be fun and spontaneous," I argue confidently. "I'm just selective. If I'm going to do it I wanna make sure it's worth it."
"She's pretty and skinny and blonde and she sat here all night fawning all over you," Bella informs me. "What more could you possibly want?"
She turns her upper body and stares down at me, her hair falling over her shoulder in a silky auburn wave. Her green eyes are wide and curious.
I prop myself up on an elbow and look at her. Really look at her. My tongue slides out and wets my lips nervously.
"Someone who's funny and intelligent and calls me on my shit." I tell her quietly. "Someone with the most fantastic green eyes I have ever seen in my life. That's what more I could want."
She looks a little like a deer in headlights for a second and then her cheeks turn a pretty shade of pink. I reach out and cup the back of her head pulling her to me until our lips touch.
"So let's just try to cool it down
The fighting, this feeling of flames
And let's just try to slow it down
We crash when we race." Colbie Caillat
I've been staring at those lips all night. Watching his pink tongue moisten them, watching the way they separate and turn upward when he's laughing. The pale rosy shade of them. And now that they're finally touching mine I realize I haven't just been fascinated with them, I've been craving them.
My mind goes completely blank and my eyes fall shut and all I can think of is how soft they are and how incredibly euphoric this is making me feel. I kiss him back instinctively, my hand reaches over and grazes his cheek before tangling itself in his hair. I have also been suppressing the overwhelming need to touch that dark, mass. It's softer and thicker than I realized.
I let his lips part mine and let him pull me down on top of him. As I willing meet his tongue with mine.
I've never felt such a strong electrical current of desire run down my spine and pool in my abdomen. Never. I'm overwhelmed and all I can do is kiss him harder and deeper.
His hands are gliding down my back and cupping my ass and my legs fall over each of his hips so I'm straddling him and I have both hands in his hair my fingernails grazing his scalp causing him to tighten his grip on my ass.
This make-out session goes on forever but yet when we finally pull apart with swollen lips and panting for breath, it feels too soon.
"Spontaneous enough for you?" he whispers against my ear and I giggle into his shoulder.
"Spontaneous and stupid," I reply with a smile. "My brother could walk out here any second and see us."
"Will he kill me?" Sidney wants to know.
"He'll kill me first so you'll have time to run," I explain thinking of the lecture he would give me and the look of anger and disappointment on his face.
I slowly pull away from Sid so I'm now sitting on top of him looking down from a safe distance. His hands slide around to hold my hips and I am completely aware that he's probably picture me in this position minus the clothes. Because that's exactly what I'm picturing and it's making me wet.
"We should stop," I say but it's the farthest thing from what I actually want to do.
"Now look whose the uptight one?" he gives me the most adorable smirk.
I lean forward and press my lips to his again and this time there's no first kiss hesitation or patience. My tongue finds his immediately and I feel his hips below me push upward intuitively and I'm rolling mine teasingly.
I'm drunk. We're drunk. This is really really really stupid. I know this. I have no doubt about this. But yet, I can't stop. I won't stop.
He pulls me down on top of him again and his hands slide across my back under my tank top as mine slide up under his Penguins hoodie and the feeling of his smooth muscled chest is intoxicating me in a very different, much better way than the alcohol.
Our lips detach only long enough for him to pull my top over my head and I'm suddenly grateful I wore my only black lace bra instead of my usual juvenile Target polkadot cotton ones. He tries to capture my lips again but I pull back and pull his shirt from his body. My god, he's got the most perfect body I have ever seen. Ever.
He's half sitting up now and he wraps his arms around my back and kisses my neck softly sending chills down my spine.
"we can't do this…" I start and shudder. "Not out here."
I get off of him and take his hand and pull him toward my bedroom. As I turn to open my bedroom door, he's got his hands wrapped around my waist, his fingers dipping under the waist of my shorts and his lips land on my shoulder and he nips it lightly as I open the door.
We're greeted by the sight of Max Talbot lying face down on top of that Meagan girl, his naked ass on display for the world to see.
I stifle a squeal of shock and horror as Sid reaches around me and pulls the door firmly closed again before we wake them up.
I spin around to face him and see him equally stunned. And then we burst out laughing.
"I forgot you told him he could use your room," he says as we giggle and stumble our way back into the living room.
"I did?" something is starting to float through the alcohol and to the surface of my brain. "Right… well I didn't mean he could sleep there just….. sleep there."
Sidney's laugh is high and light and it makes me giggle even harder. We both collapse onto the sofa bed still in a giggle fit. When we finally calm down we're lying face-to-face, side-by-side inches apart.
"I want to kiss you again," he whispers.
"I want you to kiss me again," I confirm in a whisper.
He inches closer and his lips fall on mine and the kiss is instantly intense. Before I can blink he's on top of me, his hips grinding into me. And I'm wrapping my legs around his waist, tilting my hips toward his erection which is pressing hard against his jeans.
His tongue is soft but urgent in my mouth and I reluctantly pull away and tug his lower lip with my teeth.
"We can't," I whisper. "We… not here."
"I know," he agrees. "I just… I have to keep kissing you."
"Yeah you do," I agree and he covers my lips again.
I don't know how or when it happened, but eventually exhaustion overcame us. I remember Sidney rolling off me and onto his back, pulling me into his side. I curled up, my head in the crook of his arm which was wrapped snugly around me, and the last thing I felt was his lips pressed softly to my forehead.
As my brain swims back to consciousness now I hear a door click and a floorboard creek. I stretch and feel the warm skin of his bare chest wrapped around my spine.
I want to drift back into blissful sleep but then I hear the voice.
"What the fuck?"
Suddenly I'm wide awake, my heart hammering wildly in my chest. I hurl myself into a sitting position and find Nessa at the foot of the sofa bed in a pair of sweats and a tank top, her delicate hand covering her wide open mouth.
I scramble off the bed, my eyes darting around the room to see if anyone else is witnessing this. Luckily no one is there.
I grab her hand and yank her back toward her bedroom. Once inside, I close the door behind us.
She pulls the hand from her mouth and gives me a delirious grin.
"Oh my god you fucked Sidney!" she says in a voice way louder than I would like.
"Shut up!" I demand grabbing her hands and giving her a little shake. "No! I swear to god! No I didn't."
Her eyebrows rise and her gaze lowers from my face to my body. "Dude, you're half naked."
I glance down at my bra and bare torso. "Fuck! Can I borrow a shirt?"
She starts laughing and pulls away from me and starts digging through her suitcase.
"So how was he?"
"I did NOT sleep with him," I argue knowing my face must be tomato red right now. "I…. I couldn't sleep in my room. Max is still in there with whatsherface. And Sid was too drunk to drive. I…. I should have just come in here with you, but I was drunk. And he kissed me."
"And you fucked him," she tries to finish the story for me. I pull the T shirt she hands me over my head.
"No!" I argue back and then start to laugh. Because it's all I can do. This whole thing is so ridiculous. "I mean I wanted to. But I didn't. And thank god, because I would have regretted it."
"No you wouldn't have," Nessa smiles sheepishly. "Hockey players are fanatastic in bed."
I give her a hard stare. "You sleep with one guy and now you're an expert on hockey players sexual abilities."
"Okay well maybe I am reaching but…. Jordan was…. The best I've ever had," Nessa confesses softly. I don't like the lilt I hear in her voice. It's more than just an impartial observation. It's still filled with longing.
"Where did he go last night?" I ask suddenly seeing the room for the first time. The sheets are a total mess. There's a pillow clear across the room and the duvet is in a heap on the floor. I step around the bed and notice not one but two shiny, square silver condom wrappers on the ground.
"You slept with Jordan!" I find myself struggling to keep my voice below a bellow. "Again!"
"I didn't mean to," she croaks but her smile is so bright she's beaming. "He came in here and just… started taking my clothes off. I couldn't say no. It would have been rude."
I laugh at that. "I'm calling you Molly Manners from now on."
"Don't you dare lecture me about hockey players now," she warns me. "You clearly broke your own rule. Again."
My laughter stops and the smile slides from my face. She's right. I totally fucked up.
"I made a mistake," I tell her solemnly. "It won't happen again. Can you say the same?"
She hesitates and averts her eyes, staring at the duvet on the ground. "Yeah. I mean we'll be going back to Cali soon anyway. This Jordan thing is just a one… two time thing."
I nod and crawl onto the bed beside her. "I need more Zsss."
"Me too," she mumbles and flops down beside me.
I close my eyes and try not to think about how much I absolutely loved being with Sid. I think instead of all the sweet emails and texts that Ryan used to send. Of all the private late night phone calls from the road and the promises he'd whispered in my ear that night that turned out to be lies. It was all lies.
Yeah, Sidney felt good. And Sidney was fun. But Sidney was still a hockey player. Besides, he was probably going to feel as awkward as me in the morning. He's not looking for a relationship, he hasn't lied about that at all.
Yeah. This will never happen again.
