The Pact(77)

In fact, sometimes she looks at me in this way I can’t really describe but it does things to my heart. It warms me up, from head to toe and my chest is the epicenter. I just want to bottle that look and hold onto forever, open it on a cold, foggy day and feel bright and alive all over again.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m falling in love with her.

Sometimes I wonder how long I can pretend I’m not.

Just after the third period starts, that bloody Dentyne-sponsored “Kiss Cam” goes into action and after making two other couples awkwardly make-out, it settles on us.

Yup. Our faces are up there on the Jumbotron for all the fans to see.

I shrug and look at Steph and she smiles shyly at me, trying not to look in the direction of the hidden camera. I put my hands on both sides of her face and kiss her passionately. Like, I really go at it. If you’re going to do something, do something right.

A few people around us applaud and whistle and then it’s back to the game.

Later that night, after the Sharks beat the Bruins in overtime, we go to her place and fall into bed together. The talk of tying me up is gone and I don’t care. I just want to be inside her, feeling every square inch of her soft, warm body. I’m getting buried in what we are, what we make each other feel and I don’t care. It’s so good. What we have is so fucking good.

“I think I’m losing myself,” I whisper to her after we’ve come, our bodies naked, sweaty and sated, limbs draped over limbs, hands holding onto hands. My throat feels thick, my breath heavy, my words weigh a ton. “Every time I’m inside you, with you, I think I lose a little bit more.”

I turn my head to the side to look at her. She’s staring at me with big, wet eyes so full of everything I could ever want from her. “In the end you might have all my pieces,” I tell her. “Please be gentle with them.”

I don’t know why I expect her to laugh at that or call me cheesy again but she doesn’t. Maybe because it’s true and she can see that. She reaches over and traces my lips with her fingertips. They smell like sex. They smell like heaven.

“Linden,” she says and her voice sounds like snow. “Please be gentle with me.”

Something in my chest snaps and shakes loose.

I love her.

I love her so god damn much.

“I promise,” I say and hold her close to me. I count the steady beats of her heart against mine before we both fall asleep. There is nothing but warmth in my dreams.



***



The next morning I drop Stephanie off at work. Already I know something between us has changed, another layer uncovered. There is this air of tenderness permeating every look, every touch. It makes me feel more fragile than I would like.

So I go to the gym and spend a few hours there working my legs and arms before my afternoon flight. Then when that’s all over, I pop into The Burgundy Lion to get my bearings and have a pint.

James is there and so is Penny. I’m especially glad to see her, though I’m not really sure why. I haven’t talked to James much the past couple of weeks, not really since Thanksgiving, and I haven’t been into the Lion. Naturally, I’ve been in Steph’s bed and she’s been in mine.

The guilt is starting to get to me, I must admit. At first I really was doing it out of courtesy, or at least just to put off the inevitable awkwardness. I didn’t want my relationship with James to change. But it is changing and I can’t be the only one who feels it. Now the fact that I’ve secretly been sleeping with Stephanie for six weeks seems like dirty pool. It feels like a big, shameful lie when it should be anything but.

“Well, look who it is,” Penny says as I step into the bar. She at the counter, in her usual spot. I pull up a chair next to her and catch James’s eye as he tends to a customer. He nods back but doesn’t smile. In fact, he looks a bit ticked off. I really hope he’s just in a mood and it has nothing to do with me.

“Hey sugarcakes,” I tell her.

“Sugarcakes?”

I shrug. “Why not? Those are two good things aren’t they?”

She purses her red lips and eyes me through her glasses. “Depends if you’re on a diet or not. Where have you been, stranger?”

“Around,” I say, deflecting. “How are you?”

“Not drunk enough.”

“Well it is only five in the afternoon.”

“You’re Scottish, who are you to talk?”

“Good point. I should get started.” I wait until James has a free moment and then I wave him down. “Hey fuckface,” I say.

He doesn’t even blink. “Fuckface?”

“He called me sugarcakes,” Penny mumbles into her drink.