“So, what’s with you and the new girl?” TK paused with a fork full of pasta in mid-air.
I had been waiting for someone to ask. There was no way they missed me staring at her in the meeting, and my graceful reaction to seeing her for the first time. A handful of us were at lunch near the rink - because this was the kind of thing I did now.
“I had no idea she was coming here. Even though her dad was out in Dallas, I figured she would stay.”
He raised an eyebrow like I was trying to con a conman. “You looked pretty excited to see her.”
“It was....” It was like being stabbed by a lightning bolt, really. It was sharp and hot, electric and scary. One of those things that would never happen twice. Like that kiss.
“It was a surprise.”
I couldn’t tell the guys that it was a huge relief. To have someone from Dallas was like a gift on Christmas morning. I’d made a home for myself in Texas, and just come back from summer at my real home. Even with the progress over the last few weeks, I still felt a little out of place in the ‘Burgh. To have a little piece of home here was joy.
The fact that it was Natalie... it was like scratching off a lottery ticket and winning the jackpot.
The moment she opened her office door, almost as if her dad were roaming the halls and she didn’t want him to catch us, it all came back. Natalie pulled me in and I willed her to kiss me again - just do it, take us back there to where I could have done things differently. The taste of vanilla cupcakes reappeared on my lips. I had remembered her face so many times, had conversed with her in my mind that she seemed like a character in a book.
Except she was real and in my arms. My hands were finally empty, so I clutched her to my chest and closed my eyes as her body poured over mine like water on a burn. No kiss was coming, and rightly so. Once again I was too scared to do anything about it.
“Well she’s hot,” Jordan said, smiling into his plate and interrupting my train of thought. “So if you’re not on that then you won’t mind if I am.”
I gripped my knife till my knuckles were white and dug the serrated edge against the table. A single white-hot moment of fear. “No,” I said more forcefully than I intended.
He looked up. “So you are planning to hit it?”
Hit it. Like she was something you’d dump on the side of the road. I shook my face into a smile, a joking tone into my voice. “No, I mean she’s been around hockey forever. She’s not going to risk her new job. Never did in Dallas.”
“Well,” he grinned all the way into his blond sideburns. “Her dad’s not around this time. No one here to lock up his daughter.”
If my chuckle sounded forced, Staal didn’t notice. It tasted like bile in my throat. TK watched me, probably wondering if I was going to do something that would get him in trouble with his own girlfriend. Because Allison wasn’t my girlfriend, not officially. But she knew people and got at least some credit for me even being at this lunch. She had contributed a lot to my season and it had barely started. Allison was ingrained.
Natalie was new, but not to me.
____
I made it all the way home after work. Inside the still-empty apartment I left my shoes by the door, ditched my skirt on the rug and curled my legs underneath me on the couch. Only one pillow had been unpacked and it twisted between my fingers to keep them from shaking.
James.
Jesus I had let my imagination run away with itself. A season and a half of seeing James all the time - of watching him while he played, sneaking glances at him on the bus or plane, or sleeping down the hall from him in a thousand hotels - had not prepared me for the singular sight of his face today. In the six months that had passed I’d relived the kiss a thousand times. I’d shined both the kiss and James until they shone like gold. Yet somehow, he was better in real life.
He smelled like laundry and apples - he must have eaten one before I saw him. It was the scent of fall. I’d pushed my face right into it, holding him close and finding the shape of his body all the way down to the floor.
I should have called him. I should have warned him and let myself ease into this. Instead I’d plunged headfirst into the deep end and been surprised to find I couldn’t breathe underwater.
Fearless, yes. And foolish.
Because I still had a job to think about, friends to make and a new life to build. I’d gotten in the easy way once, thanks to my dad. I wasn’t going to let Pittsburgh be another place where my connection to someone else lingered over all my accomplishments. I had to spend time with the guys, to travel with them and be trusted. All my life I’d maintained that relationship - even when it took an extra glass of wine and rewinding the Team Jacob highlights a few times.
Of course, there may not have been a connection at all. James was a nice guy being nice. He hadn’t dropped to one knee and proposed or thrown me on the desk and made me scream till security came running. I couldn’t get so worked up about a guy who hadn’t even kissed me. Just because James looked at me with hunger his eyes didn’t mean he was going to do something about it.
And I couldn’t either, or risk the whole reason I moved here.
In the morning, I headed back to the rink feeling more resolved. James and I were friends, same as always. A photographer from ESPN Magazine was in to shoot the Pens fitness testing day as a complement to The Body Issue they do every October. I let the photographer into the empty gym to arrange the equipment for action-type photos, then we scouted locations around the rink for other photo ideas. Players passed as we were roaming around - I smiled when they remembered my name. Today was my first real assignment for the Pens and I felt capable. Nothing was going to get in my way.
Until I blundered into the gym the way I always do, with the photographer right on my heels. Sure it was full of sweaty man candy and compression shorts never left anything to the imagination, but it smelled like an armpit in a hot car. That ruined anything sexy about the guys inside. But not in Pittsburgh.
The bikes were arranged three deep and four across in the spacious workout center. And every one of them was occupied by a Penguin. Judging by the perspiration, they’d been pedalling for quite a while. Smack in the middle of the front row was James. He wore a backwards baseball cap over his long hair and basketball shorts over compression shorts. His gray Pens t-shirt was stuck to his chest and dappled with sweat.
His feet slowed when he saw me, eyes wide and mouth open, then scrambled to catch back up to the test pace. His face was flushed with exertion and he quickly wiped it on his short sleevet. I nearly stopped only to have the photographer bump into me. It would have been helpful if I’d just fallen to the floor.
“Hi guys, I’m Bruce,” the photographer introduced himself, stepping around my stumbling form. Everyone was expecting him. He circled the room once, checking the light meter on his camera and trying some angles. After consulting the digital screen on his camera, he came back to the front.
“This is for the Body Issue so feel free to sweat it out. And for this first setup I need you to all take your shirts off.”
I choked on a gasp and looked away, finding something fascinating on the blank wall. A hot blush crept up my neck and I put one hand over the stain, trying to hide my surprise by dropping my gaze. Wet shirts slapped the floor all around the room.
Someone chuckled. “Do we make you nervous, new girl?”
Jordan Staal had a square acre of solid chest and abs going on the bike diagonally behind James. I had to look right past James’ face to see him. I could feel his eyes on me as I tried not to look at the defined muscles of Jordan’s torso. I bit my lip to keep from panting. Jordan just smiled and shook his head, then resumed a serious face as the photographer went to work.
I backed up to the wall and edged toward the corner, pretending to get out of the picture. What I needed was at least ten feet between me and James. James never took his shirt off, never worked out in compression gear - the guys in Dallas ragged him for sometimes wearing two layers of shirts and shorts. But as I pressed myself into the space as far from him as possible, I couldn’t help but look.
Of course there was no reason for James to by shy. He was perfect. Not ripped like Letang, who had tattooed muscle bulging on the bike next to him. But James was well proportioned and ridiculously fit - a body for use, not for show. But the rounded heft of his biceps and the solid slab of stomach that chased a trail of soft dark hair into the waistband of his shorts... I glued my eyes to the wall again and pressed my knees together.
“Natalie, could you?” The photographer broke my attempt at zen concentration and waved me over near where Niskanen was riding the last bike on the left. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to him yet.
“Hey Nat,” he said a little quietly, sensing this was not the best place for a reunion. Matt was cute in his own way, hair sticking out all over the place. But even he was rocking the defined upper body display more than I could handle.
“Hey Nisky. Good to see you.”
The photographer handed me a light box and instructed me to hold it up high while he took a knee and angled his shot up from the wheel. Nisky gave me a questioning look, then glanced from James back to me. Eyebrow wiggle. Sweaty as he was, I wanted to hug him. But I just stuck out my tongue and lifted the light higher. Nisky made a “yeah right” face and went back to riding.
Satisfied with his shot, Bruce moved around the room. Trainers were photographed monitoring stats, increasing incline or resistance, administering breathing tests. The guys joked with each other, but mostly concentrated on hitting their levels. I moved to the back corner and let my eyes roll over the impressive display of shoulders and laterals laid out before me.
“Again, Natalie. Right here.”
Of course he was standing inches from Jordan - arguably the most impressive phsyique in the room for both size and thickness. The big blond gave me a smile that would have made Little Red Riding Hood drop that basket and run for her life. Bruce passed me reflective screen the size of a trash can lid and maneuvered me into to front wheel of Jordan’s stationary bike.
Jordan was tall. Even leaning forward on the bike and with me in heels, his face hovered above my forehead. Bruce wanted to photograph his back, the muscles etched to definition as he pumped away with his long legs.
“Hold that up.”
The screen went over my head, elongating me and tipping my face up toward Jordan. He looked right down at me with those baby blue eyes, then let them drop to where the bike wheel spun between my knees. I felt his gaze on every inch of my thighs and hips and stomach. My breasts were pushed up and forward by my pose and he didn’t bother pretending not to take in that sight too.
“Good thing you’re not wearing a skirt,” he said too softly for anyone else to hear.
Then he smiled. It was disarming - he was completely fucking gorgeous, but the smile was aw-shucks and I’m-fun and Let-me-take-your-pants-off. My stomach dropped.
“Okay, thanks,” Bruce said. I jumped away so quickly I nearly took out Craig Adams on the bike behind me. When I looked at what I’d nearly crashed into, Craigh laughing good-naturedly at my clumsiness, I ended up with James staring me in the face, having seen the whole interaction with Jordan. And behind me, I could hear Staal laughing.
____
I had been waiting for someone to ask. There was no way they missed me staring at her in the meeting, and my graceful reaction to seeing her for the first time. A handful of us were at lunch near the rink - because this was the kind of thing I did now.
“I had no idea she was coming here. Even though her dad was out in Dallas, I figured she would stay.”
He raised an eyebrow like I was trying to con a conman. “You looked pretty excited to see her.”
“It was....” It was like being stabbed by a lightning bolt, really. It was sharp and hot, electric and scary. One of those things that would never happen twice. Like that kiss.
“It was a surprise.”
I couldn’t tell the guys that it was a huge relief. To have someone from Dallas was like a gift on Christmas morning. I’d made a home for myself in Texas, and just come back from summer at my real home. Even with the progress over the last few weeks, I still felt a little out of place in the ‘Burgh. To have a little piece of home here was joy.
The fact that it was Natalie... it was like scratching off a lottery ticket and winning the jackpot.
The moment she opened her office door, almost as if her dad were roaming the halls and she didn’t want him to catch us, it all came back. Natalie pulled me in and I willed her to kiss me again - just do it, take us back there to where I could have done things differently. The taste of vanilla cupcakes reappeared on my lips. I had remembered her face so many times, had conversed with her in my mind that she seemed like a character in a book.
Except she was real and in my arms. My hands were finally empty, so I clutched her to my chest and closed my eyes as her body poured over mine like water on a burn. No kiss was coming, and rightly so. Once again I was too scared to do anything about it.
“Well she’s hot,” Jordan said, smiling into his plate and interrupting my train of thought. “So if you’re not on that then you won’t mind if I am.”
I gripped my knife till my knuckles were white and dug the serrated edge against the table. A single white-hot moment of fear. “No,” I said more forcefully than I intended.
He looked up. “So you are planning to hit it?”
Hit it. Like she was something you’d dump on the side of the road. I shook my face into a smile, a joking tone into my voice. “No, I mean she’s been around hockey forever. She’s not going to risk her new job. Never did in Dallas.”
“Well,” he grinned all the way into his blond sideburns. “Her dad’s not around this time. No one here to lock up his daughter.”
If my chuckle sounded forced, Staal didn’t notice. It tasted like bile in my throat. TK watched me, probably wondering if I was going to do something that would get him in trouble with his own girlfriend. Because Allison wasn’t my girlfriend, not officially. But she knew people and got at least some credit for me even being at this lunch. She had contributed a lot to my season and it had barely started. Allison was ingrained.
Natalie was new, but not to me.
____
I made it all the way home after work. Inside the still-empty apartment I left my shoes by the door, ditched my skirt on the rug and curled my legs underneath me on the couch. Only one pillow had been unpacked and it twisted between my fingers to keep them from shaking.
James.
Jesus I had let my imagination run away with itself. A season and a half of seeing James all the time - of watching him while he played, sneaking glances at him on the bus or plane, or sleeping down the hall from him in a thousand hotels - had not prepared me for the singular sight of his face today. In the six months that had passed I’d relived the kiss a thousand times. I’d shined both the kiss and James until they shone like gold. Yet somehow, he was better in real life.
He smelled like laundry and apples - he must have eaten one before I saw him. It was the scent of fall. I’d pushed my face right into it, holding him close and finding the shape of his body all the way down to the floor.
I should have called him. I should have warned him and let myself ease into this. Instead I’d plunged headfirst into the deep end and been surprised to find I couldn’t breathe underwater.
Fearless, yes. And foolish.
Because I still had a job to think about, friends to make and a new life to build. I’d gotten in the easy way once, thanks to my dad. I wasn’t going to let Pittsburgh be another place where my connection to someone else lingered over all my accomplishments. I had to spend time with the guys, to travel with them and be trusted. All my life I’d maintained that relationship - even when it took an extra glass of wine and rewinding the Team Jacob highlights a few times.
Of course, there may not have been a connection at all. James was a nice guy being nice. He hadn’t dropped to one knee and proposed or thrown me on the desk and made me scream till security came running. I couldn’t get so worked up about a guy who hadn’t even kissed me. Just because James looked at me with hunger his eyes didn’t mean he was going to do something about it.
And I couldn’t either, or risk the whole reason I moved here.
In the morning, I headed back to the rink feeling more resolved. James and I were friends, same as always. A photographer from ESPN Magazine was in to shoot the Pens fitness testing day as a complement to The Body Issue they do every October. I let the photographer into the empty gym to arrange the equipment for action-type photos, then we scouted locations around the rink for other photo ideas. Players passed as we were roaming around - I smiled when they remembered my name. Today was my first real assignment for the Pens and I felt capable. Nothing was going to get in my way.
Until I blundered into the gym the way I always do, with the photographer right on my heels. Sure it was full of sweaty man candy and compression shorts never left anything to the imagination, but it smelled like an armpit in a hot car. That ruined anything sexy about the guys inside. But not in Pittsburgh.
The bikes were arranged three deep and four across in the spacious workout center. And every one of them was occupied by a Penguin. Judging by the perspiration, they’d been pedalling for quite a while. Smack in the middle of the front row was James. He wore a backwards baseball cap over his long hair and basketball shorts over compression shorts. His gray Pens t-shirt was stuck to his chest and dappled with sweat.
His feet slowed when he saw me, eyes wide and mouth open, then scrambled to catch back up to the test pace. His face was flushed with exertion and he quickly wiped it on his short sleevet. I nearly stopped only to have the photographer bump into me. It would have been helpful if I’d just fallen to the floor.
“Hi guys, I’m Bruce,” the photographer introduced himself, stepping around my stumbling form. Everyone was expecting him. He circled the room once, checking the light meter on his camera and trying some angles. After consulting the digital screen on his camera, he came back to the front.
“This is for the Body Issue so feel free to sweat it out. And for this first setup I need you to all take your shirts off.”
I choked on a gasp and looked away, finding something fascinating on the blank wall. A hot blush crept up my neck and I put one hand over the stain, trying to hide my surprise by dropping my gaze. Wet shirts slapped the floor all around the room.
Someone chuckled. “Do we make you nervous, new girl?”
Jordan Staal had a square acre of solid chest and abs going on the bike diagonally behind James. I had to look right past James’ face to see him. I could feel his eyes on me as I tried not to look at the defined muscles of Jordan’s torso. I bit my lip to keep from panting. Jordan just smiled and shook his head, then resumed a serious face as the photographer went to work.
I backed up to the wall and edged toward the corner, pretending to get out of the picture. What I needed was at least ten feet between me and James. James never took his shirt off, never worked out in compression gear - the guys in Dallas ragged him for sometimes wearing two layers of shirts and shorts. But as I pressed myself into the space as far from him as possible, I couldn’t help but look.
Of course there was no reason for James to by shy. He was perfect. Not ripped like Letang, who had tattooed muscle bulging on the bike next to him. But James was well proportioned and ridiculously fit - a body for use, not for show. But the rounded heft of his biceps and the solid slab of stomach that chased a trail of soft dark hair into the waistband of his shorts... I glued my eyes to the wall again and pressed my knees together.
“Natalie, could you?” The photographer broke my attempt at zen concentration and waved me over near where Niskanen was riding the last bike on the left. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to him yet.
“Hey Nat,” he said a little quietly, sensing this was not the best place for a reunion. Matt was cute in his own way, hair sticking out all over the place. But even he was rocking the defined upper body display more than I could handle.
“Hey Nisky. Good to see you.”
The photographer handed me a light box and instructed me to hold it up high while he took a knee and angled his shot up from the wheel. Nisky gave me a questioning look, then glanced from James back to me. Eyebrow wiggle. Sweaty as he was, I wanted to hug him. But I just stuck out my tongue and lifted the light higher. Nisky made a “yeah right” face and went back to riding.
Satisfied with his shot, Bruce moved around the room. Trainers were photographed monitoring stats, increasing incline or resistance, administering breathing tests. The guys joked with each other, but mostly concentrated on hitting their levels. I moved to the back corner and let my eyes roll over the impressive display of shoulders and laterals laid out before me.
“Again, Natalie. Right here.”
Of course he was standing inches from Jordan - arguably the most impressive phsyique in the room for both size and thickness. The big blond gave me a smile that would have made Little Red Riding Hood drop that basket and run for her life. Bruce passed me reflective screen the size of a trash can lid and maneuvered me into to front wheel of Jordan’s stationary bike.
Jordan was tall. Even leaning forward on the bike and with me in heels, his face hovered above my forehead. Bruce wanted to photograph his back, the muscles etched to definition as he pumped away with his long legs.
“Hold that up.”
The screen went over my head, elongating me and tipping my face up toward Jordan. He looked right down at me with those baby blue eyes, then let them drop to where the bike wheel spun between my knees. I felt his gaze on every inch of my thighs and hips and stomach. My breasts were pushed up and forward by my pose and he didn’t bother pretending not to take in that sight too.
“Good thing you’re not wearing a skirt,” he said too softly for anyone else to hear.
Then he smiled. It was disarming - he was completely fucking gorgeous, but the smile was aw-shucks and I’m-fun and Let-me-take-your-pants-off. My stomach dropped.
“Okay, thanks,” Bruce said. I jumped away so quickly I nearly took out Craig Adams on the bike behind me. When I looked at what I’d nearly crashed into, Craigh laughing good-naturedly at my clumsiness, I ended up with James staring me in the face, having seen the whole interaction with Jordan. And behind me, I could hear Staal laughing.
____
I hate to be the one with the critique, but I noticed this chapter says Kristen instead of Natalie a few times.
ReplyDeleteIt happens to me all the time when I write stories; I forget and use the name of my old main character in my new story. :-)
Anyways I'm loving this so far!!! Can't wait to see where it goes!
Hahahaha, not at all! This is why you shouldn't have a few drinks before you start writing. ;) It's fixed now.
ReplyDeleteI really like this! Neal's a cutie. The end of the last chapter made me melt a little, and this one really made me laugh! I can see Jordan being just like that.
ReplyDelete