Chapter 6

We need more positive healing thoughts for Shan, she's really down and out with this bug but we managed to pump this out over the last couple days

As an only child, living with the team, especially on the road was like being adopted into a family of boys; a big, boisterous, fun loving bunch of older and younger brothers. When I got home, back to my new apartment I didn’t know what to do with myself. Without roommates to greet me, the place felt too big, too quiet and it didn’t take me long to miss them. I was on the verge of rearranging my closet for the tenth time when I got a text, from Kess. 

Boys night. Bring chips.

When I got there Sami, Hammer and Keith were in the kitchen but when I offered to help with prep I was instructed to drop my shopping bags and join the guys outside. Not being much for cutting wielding a paring knife, I did as I was told and headed out to the yard, beer in hand. 

Most of the guys were horsing around with Sami’s son Oliver, Hank’s son Valter, Juice’s son Cole and Grayson, Rome’s son. The rookies, CoHo and Weise were valiantly taking part in a tea party on the deck and looked up hopefully as I passed them by but I did my best not to make eye contact and kept walking. I just did not feel like wearing a doily on my head and the last time I had a feather boa around my neck I wasn’t wearing much else and I didn’t think I should be thinking about that around Peppi and Gabriella.

I paused half way down the stairs to the back yard, trying to decide if I wanted to get into the game of tag with the boys when a high, ear piercing shriek of pure joy made me look down. Reese, Kev’s daughter, was free falling towards Chris’s outstretched arms, a gleeful grin on her cherubic little face that matched the delighted one aimed up at her. It was a sight that made my ovaries feel like they were about to explode. So much so that I actually dropped my hand down to cover my stomach, as if my fallopian tubes had developed to draw sperm from a distance. 

“You want one of your own soon?” I looked over my shoulder to find the two goalies, Lou and his sidekick GingerLou watching me. 

“Soon? Hell no,” I replied quickly, taking a swig from the bottle in my hand. “At some point, muuuuch later, of course,” I added before either one of them had a chance to call my bluff. 

“You don’t want to wait too long,” Lou told me with a smirk, “you enjoy them more when you’re young.” I thought about saying something about missing out on a lot too, what with road trips, practices and such but decided to keep my mouth shut. Everyone seemed to be in such a good mood, there was no point in being a little black rain cloud at the picnic. 

“Still, I think I’ll wait a little while longer,” I grinned and then headed down the stairs. 

Reese was no using Higgy’s hair as reins and calling him ‘horsey’, drumming her heels against his shoulders in an effort to make him gallop across the patio faster. His laughter made me grin. I couldn’t help it, even if my ovaries were popping like cherry bombs. 

“Here,” Chris said breathlessly, bending and trying to slide Kev’s daughter into my arms, “why don’t you get Aunty Penny to give you a horsey ride?” 

“No!” Reese screeched in that outside little girl voice that borders on ear drum splitting arterial vein popping pitch. “Higgy horsey! Go! Go fast!” 

“Juice!” Chris called, wincing when Reese tugged a handful of his dirty blonde hair hard enough that some of it came out in her hand. She looked down at it, puzzled, and then tossed it aside and reached for another handful. “Juuuuuuuuice!” I hid a giggle behind my hand as I watched a big, tough hockey player flinch as Reece’s little fists closed around clumps of his hair and pulled back. Kev took his time ambling over but the minute her big blue eyes focused on her father she let go of Chris’s hair and reached out. 

“Daaa Daaa!” she crooned happily as Kev lifted her from Chris’s shoulders onto his own. 

“Hey you little ruffian, wanna get a hot dog from Uncle Kess?” I watched them go, watched her little blonde curls bobbing as her father bounced her on his shoulders and smiled to myself. I’d like not one but maybe a half a dozen of those for myself. 

“Better not let Katie see you drooling after her man like that.” I turned and made a face at Chris. 

“I wasn’t actually looking at Kev,” I corrected him. “I was looking at Reese. She’s got to be the cutest kid ever.” 

“Sounds like someone’s broody,” he teased. I stuck my tongue out at him. He laughed and held his beer towards me. I clinked his with the neck of mine.  

“I’m not planning on having one of those any time soon,” I told him sincerely, and then, as more of an afterthought and because he looked particularly good in the well worn NYPD sweatshirt, “just practicing making them,” I added a little playfully. His smile faded a little at the edges. I should have taken the hint but it was getting under my skin that he hadn’t approached me yet. It was have a deleterious effect on my self esteem. “I hear you work really hard at practice.” I waited for the smile, for the playful grin that comment would have gotten from any other guy on the team but he doesn’t smile. In fact he looks away and I’m left staring at a tic in the corner of his jaw. “Jesus, I just asked a question,” I mutter, my teeth clenching now. He hasn’t yet, but I can feel the rebuke coming all the same.

“Can’t you take the hint? I just don’t want your...services, alright?” I’m watching that tic in the corner of his be-whiskered jaw, the quick, tiny spasm that suggests either anxiety or irritation. In this case I have no choice but to assume irritation...with me. 

“Whatever, I’m not just for that,” I remind him quietly. “I just hang out with some of the guys too you know. Shoot the shit. Play some x-box, watch a movie, eat some popcorn; it doesn’t have to be more complicated than that but you don’t have to treat me like something you just scraped off the bottom of your shoe with a stick Chris. I mean, just because I have this job doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings.” 

“Yeah well...I guess I can’t even begin to understand how that works.” My feelings, such as they are, are far more raw in this moment than they should be. I know that. I can hear Holly’s warning in my head; ‘don’t let them get under your skin. Wear them like a second skin, but a skin you can wash off in the shower’. Chris Higgins was under my skin, waaaay under my skin, like a tick. 

“That’s not what I meant,” he said quietly but with those cold, storm tossed waves in his eyes that were much more ‘get lost’ than ‘stay and listen’. 

“Yeah...of course it wasn’t.” I made myself meet his gaze and told myself that it didn’t matter if one guy on the team thought I was no better than a ten dollar whore down on Quebec Street. I lifted my chin and did my best to show him that he couldn’t wound me. 

“Hey Higgy, we’re getting a game going, you in?” I wanted to hug Lou in that moment and I had rarely felt any warm feelings to the usually aloof goaltender but as I watched Chris turn and jog towards the house while Bobby Lou made a show of expertly shuffling a deck of cards, I even blew him a kiss.

“What was all that about?” Kess asked, appearing at my elbow as if out of nothing and nowhere. I considered pretending I didn’t know what he was talking about and then decided that it would make me feel better to push Chris under the proverbial bus. 

“Your teammate is a dink,” I replied with a smile. Kess tilted his head like a mina bird and raised an eyebrow. 

“Uh huh...aaaaand?” I took a sip of my beer, which was now warm and not at all tasty and considered whether or not to back the bus up and take another pass. 

“He doesn’t like me, I guess, or, more specifically, my job.” I batted my eyelashes and did my best ingénue routine. When Chris had been standing right here, looking down his nose at me, I’d wanted to cry but now, when I wanted sympathy, I was too angry to squeeze out a single, solitary tear. The vague smile that had been on Ryan’s face a moment ago transformed immediately into that ‘I’m going to beat your ass into submission’ look he gets out on the ice when someone’s slashed him across the hands. A little shiver ran down my spine. 

“Well we’ll fucking see about that,” he growled but as he started to step away from me I chickened out and grabbed his arm. 

“Oh please Ryan don’t,” I said quietly, realizing that Juice and Hank were watching us and would, without a shadow of a doubt, join in on the Higgens beat down if Kess told them to. “He’ll come around...probably.” Ryan’s mouth was still pressed into that angry line and I sighed and leaned against him, petting his chest coquettishly. “It’s not like everyone has to like me, right?” It was beneath me and I didn’t like doing it but I didn’t like the idea of world war three breaking out over...well...just my pride being hurt. Team camaraderie was at stake and that was much more important than my feelings getting hurt. 

“Just say the word,” Kess whispered, wrapping me up in a protective bear like hug. “Say the fucking word and I’ll bash his brains in.” I knew he would too and I did feel a little better.

“Promise,” I whispered. 

“Cuz I give great advice,” he told me, his cocky grin reappearing. 

“Yeah well...I think I’d rather get advice from someone who can run a barbeque without charring everything,” I teased. He laughed and kissed the top of my head.

“Okay,” he smiled and then took away the special protective shield his body afforded. “Who wants to lose some fucking money around here?” 

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The little ones were all down for a nap upstairs and the WAGs weren’t due back from their spa day for another couple hours yet. CoHo, Raymond and Weise were gossiping while they cleaned up and picked over the left-overs. Kev had declared me bad luck after he’d lost a hand while I sat on his lap so I was wandering aimlessly around the house looking for something to occupy my brain so I didn’t obsess on the fact that Chris had shot me down in flames, again. I’d thought about leaving, of course, but I’m not much good at quitting and running away just seemed like letting him win, so I’d stayed.

I was about to give in and join the ping pong tournament in the basement, or at the very least go and cheer Burr on in his attempt at beating at least one of the twins when I found Grizz examining some of the memorabilia in Kess’s office. As I watched him pick up a stick from the rack to study the signature more closely a plan began to form in my head. 

Hank had warned me about our newest addition, that he was a good Christian boy and that I shouldn’t offer my ‘services’ as Chris had called them, unless Booth approached me first. None of us wanted to offend our blue eyed American boy but right at this moment my ego needed a boost more than I cared about offending his sensibilities.  

“All by yourself?” I purred, crossing the carpet to the desk and perching on it. “Not joining in on the big stakes poker game?” 

“I don’t gamble,” David replies with that slightly crooked easy going grin of his that makes it hard for me to remember that he likes to kill and eat Bambi. 

“Ah…and ping pong?” I ask, running my finger along the scroll work on the edge of the desk. His gaze follows my finger. 

“Those guys are too intense about it. If they were just having fun, maybe, but they’ve got their own paddles,” he adds with a mock shudder. I laugh, maybe a little too loud but his grin gets bigger, which is all I’m aiming for. 

“And not interested in doing the dishes either eh?” I ask with a wink and it’s his turn to laugh. “So then,” I say quietly, running my bare foot up the inseam of his jeans, “I guess we’re all on our own.” He swallows, audibly and for a minute I almost feel sorry for him, but even as I tell myself that it’s too easy I’m already pulling him towards me by his belt loops and biting down on my bottom lip while I aim him my best ‘come hither’ look at him. 

“Uh…yeah, I guess,” he mumbles and turns red to the tips of his ears. 

“What will we think to do?” I coo at him as I run my hands up under his faded American Eagle t-shirt. He’s all solid washboard abs and smooth, warm skin and he leans into my touch like I’m a magnet and he’s got no more power to stop moving towards me than a paperclip. 

“Not play hangman?” he laughs nervously and I grin up at him as I run my palms over the tiny solid buds of his nipples. He shudders involuntarily. Hook. Line….

“I was thinking of another game I like to play,” I whisper, right before pushing his shirt up to his collarbones so I can flick my tongue over his nipple, making him moan out loud. 

“What…what game is that?” he asks and I have to give him credit for having the ability to try and talk as I unbutton the fly on his jeans. 

“The game where we see if we can be very, very quiet,” I whisper against the sharp line of his jaw as I slide the last button of his 501’s free but as I begin to slide my hand beneath the waist band of his tightie whities he grabs my wrist in and stops me. 

“Wait,” he says breathlessly. I curse inwardly, thinking he’s going to say something like he’s a virgin and this would be his first time but with his other hand he cups my face and presses his lips over mine in a soft, almost chaste kiss. “Will you pray with me first?” I stare into his robin’s egg blue eyes and bite back my first ‘are you crazy’ response. It’s sweet, really and at this point, as long as he doesn’t turn me down I’m just about willing to do whatever he asks. 

So we get down on our knees, right there beside Kess’s desk and he bows his head and does some kind of our father and then he reaches for my hand and holds it in both of his. 

“Heavenly father I want to thank you for the blessing of this woman and the tender mercy she provides out of the goodness of her heart and I ask you to send your holy spirit into our hearts and help us share this moment in the spirit of openness and truthfulness and help our physical union to be good and worthy of your name in Jesus name we pray.” I consider pointing out that I’m being paid but this feels sort of off the clock even if it is a team function so I decide against it and just smile at him when he raises his gaze to meet mine. “Ready?” he says, like this is a time for on your mark, get set but as we get to our feet he lets go of my hand and slides one up my sweater and the other down the front of my jeans and my brain fizzles as I whisper ‘go’ against his mouth. 

Okay so not so ‘white bread’ I think as his tongue duels mine and he shoves two fingers up inside me, while his body presses me against the edge of the big wooden desk. I tell myself to remember later to ask his forgiveness for thinking that I’d be the one popping his cherry, that I’d be making his night. Instead I was trying to dig my nails into the top of the desk and holding on for dear life while he made me cum not once but twice with just his hand. Then, when my legs were already doing their impression of the funky chicken, he turned me around, tugged my jeans down to my knees, bent me over Kess’s desk and made me howl at the moon. 

 _____________________________________________________________________________

I grinned to myself as I wobbled down the driveway in the dark. Some of the guys had left already but there were still spaces between the cars where I had to turn sideways to get through. I was digging through my purse for my keys and my iPod and thinking of grabbing some ice cream on my way home when a voice floated out of the darkness.

“Do you have any shame at all?”  I stopped, mid step, and looked up. Chris was leaning against the hood of my Mini, his arms crossed over his chest, looking delicious in faded jeans that were frayed at the seams and strained across his massive thighs. My fingers twitched with the desire to run my fingertips over the stubble on his cheeks. I looked around to be sure he was really talking to me. Not like I didn’t know it, but I still hoped that maybe he was pissed with someone else for a change. 

“What did I do now?” I sighed, putting my keys into the palm of my hand and letting them dig into my skin. 

“Like you don’t know,” he grumbled, rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Well I guess not, so you better tell me,” I challenged. He snarled and looked disgusted. 

“You just had to make sure that everyone knew exactly what you were doing, had to make sure we all heard you moaning and screaming like a porn star,” he hissed. The small hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. He looked disgusted but there was something...else, in his eyes when he looked at me that made my knees give, just a little. 

“Jealous much?” I purred, taking the few steps necessary to get past him to the passenger door on my car. I opened it and tossed my purse and my ruined panties inside. 

“If I was I’d do something about it,” he whispered into my ear, the heat of his body so close to mine it was like a touch, like his fingers were already stroking my heated skin. I trembled. The air around us snapped like it does on a hot summer night when an electrical storm is on its way.

“Then why don’t you?” I dared him, my hand still on the car door. I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t. If I did he’d see right through me, see how much I wanted him to do something about it and I didn’t want to give him that much satisfaction.

“Because I have standards,” he responded arrogantly and suddenly the air cooled around us. 

“Or because you can’t?” I argued, trusting myself to allow myself to look at him now that we were back to him basically calling me a ten dollar whore. “Is it broken?” I asked, sarcasm dripping from my tongue as I held up my little finger and then bent it, tipping my head to the side and making a pouty face. 

It happened quicker than I could blink. One minute there was a foot of space between us and the next there was none. His body pressed mine against the side of my car and there wasn’t room to pass a sheet of paper between us. 

“If I did, you’d scream louder than you did for Booth. You’d scream so loud the neighbors would call the cops.” If I’d have been wearing panties in that moment they would have spontaneously combusted. As it was I had to fight the urge to press my lips against the sneer on his handsome face. 

“You’re all talk,” I told him, keeping my expression as blank as I could, letting my top lip ride up just a bit.

“I wouldn’t do it around the rest of the guys, they’d know I ruined you for all of them,” he growled at me. It was so hard not to kiss him, his lips so close to mine I could taste wine on his breath.

“Promises, promises,” I countered. His nostrils flared and the grip he had on my upper arms tightened. They’d be able to take fingerprints from my skin.

“You know why I won’t?” he asked, heat, desire and rage burning behind his blue eyes. I shook my head. “Because you want it to so bad it’s pathetic.” I raised my eyebrow. 

“What’s wrong with liking sex Higgy? I mean, fuck, even the good little Christian boy likes to fuck once in a while. What are you so scared of?” I countered. “That you might like it?” 

“No,” he hissed and then smiled a Joker smile that would have made Heath Ledger jealous, “that you would, too much.” I blinked. I did, I blinked first and that cruel smile grew and it felt like a knife being turned slowly in my back. 

“Why are you being so...nasty to me?” I asked in a voice that sounded small to my own ears. “You were there when I was recruited. If you hate what I am so much why didn’t you walk up to me and say something then?” I pleaded. His wide shoulders lift and lower as he sighs and his gaze searches mine as if he’s trying to make up his mind whether or not to tell me and then he shrugs.

“Because she got there first. I was going to buy you a drink and she got there first.” I gasp, out loud and that cruel smile comes back. I feel tears filling my eyes, making them burn and then he leans in and my eyes close and for a brief shining moment I think he’s going to kiss my cheek “It could have been different but....I don’t share,” he whispers in my ear. “Now go home and take a shower, you smell like other men.” 

I don’t open my eyes until I feel the heat of his body dissipate and the cool night air surrounding me once more and the heat of tears on my cheeks.