Chapter 8

To make up for the wait, this chapter is looooong

"Santa's a little handsy," I explained as I swatted Manny's hand away from my bright red skin tight short shorts for about the fourth time. "Other than that, I'm having a great time." 

"Good. I was sorry that you were going to be stuck back here most of the time," Katie apologized as I balanced Cole on Manny's knee and leaned in to smile at the camera. "You have to try and get some time on the ice too," she added from her spot just out of camera range and far enough from Santa to keep her daughter from screaming blue murder. Reese was rubbing at her eyes, her round little cheeks bright red from crying. No amount of pleading could convince her to get on Santa's knee, not even when Manny pulled the fluffy white beard down to prove that she knew him. 

"I'll try but I'm fine here," I promised, lifting Cole onto my hip and handing him a candy cane. 

"You look great like that," Kev whispered in my ear. "You're a natural."

"If you weren't already taken Juice I'd be asking for a sample in a cup," I whispered back. Kev laughed and goosed me before taking Cole from me and tossing him high in the air. His blue eyed son squealed and begged his dad to do it again. I watched them head back towards the ice and sighed. I reached up to readjust my blue and green Canuck's floppy Santa hat when my head was very suddenly and painfully yanked backwards. "Ow!" I complained loudly, staggering backwards in hopes of not losing a handful of hair.

"What is this whore doing here?" Andrea. Of course. "This is a family event. She's not supposed to be here," she complained loudly, a handful of my hair still in her claws. She gave it another yank for good measure and I whimpered. 

"Andy, put the nice lady down," Kess growled at her. Not as threateningly as he would have had his daughter not been on his shoulders. Despite the pain and the awkward position she had me in, I smiled up at Makayla and she, in turn, beamed down at me. 

"I never got to come to this," Andy hissed, not at her husband but at me. I could feel her spittle warm and wet on my face as she glared at me. 

"Maybe because you couldn't play nice," Ryan told her matter-of-factly as he, one handed, peeled her fingers from around my hair. 

"I don't want her here," Andrea whined in a tone that made me think that the American military should use her voice as a biological weapon. 

"She has as much right to be here as you do." I knew the voice, I'd heard it in my dreams every night since I'd taken the position, despite the fact that he'd barely had a decent word to say to me and I couldn't believe the words had just come from his mouth. By the look on her face, neither could Andrea. 

"Pardon me newbie but she's not a WAG, even if you're all fucking her," Andrea sniffed and stuck her surgically corrected nose in the air. I felt about an inch tall until I felt a strong arm drape around my shoulder and could barely contain my disbelief when I saw that the arm belonged to Chris and not, as I'd first assumed, Kess.

"She's here at my request, okay?" he asked, that big easy smile of his that makings his blue eyes sparkle and the creases around his eyes deepen which made my knees weak despite the fact that I knew damn well he was only doing this to be the knight in shining armor and not because he meant it. Andrea looked down her nose at me and the expression in her eyes was clear as day. I may have won this round but she was determined that she was going to run me out of town as soon as she could. 

With her nose still in the air and with a flip of her frosted hair, she turned and headed away with the stroller.

I watched her go, still feeling about an inch tall and having definitely lost the Christmas spirit. Chris's arm slipped from my shoulder and it immediately felt like as though someone had taken off my winter coat in the middle of an ice storm. I went from cozy and warm to cold and vulnerable. 

"You should give your woman a little support man," Chris said quietly to Kess. I expected Ryan to argue but with a glance at the little girl with the pig tails on his shoulders he nodded and headed after his wife. 

"Thanks," I said quietly, unable to look at him or the soft grey blue sweater that he was wearing. 

"It wasn't so much for you. He spends too much time with you. Can you really blame her for feeling insecure?" he asked and while I watched Ryan pressed an affectionate kiss to his wife's cheek, a peck that had nothing to do with the animal that came to my bed and always left me boneless, sweat soaked and sated.

"I guess not," I muttered, feeling even less than an inch tall. I didn't really feel bad about what  I was doing, at least until I was around him. Then I felt like the whore he obviously thought that I was. 

"Besides, I kinda owed you one," he mumbled and shoved his hands deep into the front pockets of his jeans. It took an effort not to look at the bulge between them. "I was kind of an ass at your Christmas thing. If I ruined it for you, I'm sorry," he added quietly. I blinked and for once was rendered speechless. "And just so you know, I know Macie cooked them or whatever but...they were good cookies," he added with a half wattage smile before he turned and headed back towards the ice. 

I stared after him, unsure what had just happened. I couldn't understand how it was that he could make me feel like a common prostitute one minute and still leave me all tingly and with the urge to run around squealing like a giddy school girl the next. 

"What was all that?" Manny asked, pulling off his Santa hat and rubbing his bald head. 

"I have no idea," I muttered, shaking my head and leaning in to his side. "Not a single clue." 

______________________________________________________________________________

 

Even though the hostess had invited me, I knew it was a courtesy invite that I probably shouldn't have accepted. Marinette was too nice for her own good and I was too stupid to turn down what basically amounted to a pity fuck. The last place on earth I should have been was at the grown-up celebration after the family skate. 

With that in mind I resolved to stay as far under the radar as I possibly could. Wherever Andrea was, I did not want to be.

 

The children had been shipped off for the evening to a nanny-supervised sleepover at Sami and Johanna's place so the celebration was underway as soon as the first drink was poured. 

I was happily manning the keg and participating in casual conversation with the few ladies that had congregated in the kitchen, hoping I was out of the way enough to get through the evening without causing too much chaos. 

Of course that plan went up in flames the moment Lappy's girlfriend Michelle realized who I was and for the first time I was completely vulnerable since the boys were spread out in the other rooms entertaining themselves with video games or cigars or something equally manly that their significant others were likewise not interested in sharing. 

"Hmmm, Max said you weren't that pretty." I waited, gripping my drink a little too tight for her to add a polite `but he obviously lied' or even a catty `I guess he'd know the difference' but she just stood there, smiling like pretty girls who are used to being the center of attention often do. I blinked and kept my mouth shut. After all, what could I say to that?  

"Yeah what is she doing here? I mean it was bad enough she was squeezed into that stupid costume at the rink but seriously Marinette this is your house, why would you let her in here?" Amanda, Eddie's rat faced girlfriend sneered at me and looked down her long nose at me as if I was a cracked out hooker standing on the corner of Quebec and East First.

"Girls, I'd appreciate it if you aren't rude to my guest," Marinette said quietly but firmly, like you would to an irascible child in front of company. I hated that she had to say it at all and sent her a grateful smile. 

"It's Christmas," Katie added with a big smile as she brought another plate of cookies and desert bars from the kitchen, "if Marinette had wanted to invite the WAG's from Boston we'd be nice to them on Christmas." I doubted it, even coming from Katie who probably believed it, but I liked the sentiment. Amanda and Michelle made faces but turned away from me and for a moment I thought I could breathe and that everything would be fine. Tense, but fine. 

"Maybe if you were enough for your man you wouldn't need to worry about her." I don't think that Nancy meant to say it loud enough that the two, as yet unmarried members of the group, would overhear but the way that Amanda's back suddenly became very rigid and straight proved that the barb had struck dead center.

"Oh fuck," Joann, Manny's wife muttered under her breath right before she hooked her arm into mine and pulled me back, deeper into the kitchen. 

"You need to take that back," Amanda growled without turning around.

"Je voulais dire chaque mot, you skinny bitch," Nancy replied calmly. I wondered if that's one of the things that had drawn Burr to her, that she was feisty just like him. 

"Oh no you didn't." As we watched Amanda handed her drink to Michelle, ran her long fake fingernails through her cheap extensions and then turned around. 

"Ladies," Johanna, Hank's wife, not Sami's, stepped between them. "A little decorum if you please." 

"I doubt she even knows what that word means," Joann breathed and I fought not to laugh.

"If you were going for decorum you wouldn't have invited the whore of Babylon." The small hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and I sucked in a sharp breath through my teeth. I shot a worried glance towards Katie who had promised that Andrea had begged off, saying she had a migraine and couldn't possibly come.

"Then we wouldn't have invited you," Gina, Lou's wife, appeared near Katie's elbow like a middle linebacker wearing a poisonous smile. 

"Oh damn," I sighed and heard a barely stifled giggle from beside me. It was interesting how, in the midst of everything, I'd been all but forgotten. Johanna was still standing beside me though, prepared to do what, I wasn't sure, but it was nice to know that at least she was on my side. 

The battle of the broads in the middle of the kitchen looked like it had the potential to go pear shaped in a hurry. Andrea all but had her teeth bared and was inches away from going for Gina's throat. One glance at Sarah proved that she was about a heartbeat away from wanting us all kicked out or bursting into tears and Michelle was looking entirely too smug about the hornet's nest she had kicked over. Someone obviously had to do something. 

"Ah, Johanna?" I had to nudge her and raise my voice just to be heard. "Johanna?"

Distracted by the sniping in front of us she barely spared me a glance. "Hmmm?"

With one eye on the girls and another on the plastic cup of beer I was filling, I took a dive off the board headfirst into the shallow end. "So, um… I taught your husband that thing you like." When her disbelieving eyes cut to mine, I gave her an awkward smile. "You're welcome?"

Yep, that's me, champion tension breaker. 

The absolute and total silence was twice as loud as the arguing had been. All attention was on me and I mentally calculated how many steps I'd have to run to make it out the back door. 

"Jesus," Gina huffed from the spot she'd settled in at the table with her glass of red wine in hand, "I wish someone would teach it to mine."

Okay, so I hadn't seen that one coming. 

Joann chuckled. Then she started to giggle. Then it was full out, `clutching her pearls', side-splitting laughter that even got Marinette going. 

"Gina!" Megan Raymond scolded, trying not to look as amused as she was. 

A grin was tugging at the corners of Johanna's mouth as Gina rolled her eyes, aiming a cranberry tipped fingernail in accusation. "Don't even try and tell me you don't wish your sweet little farm boy knew a little more about how the west was won."

Megan's cheeks pinked but we all noticed that she didn't disagree. In fact, Adrianne, Aaron Rome's wife, placed a consoling hand on her shoulder and offered a sympathetic, understanding smile. "Don't feel bad. One of these days I'll finally get around to explaining to Aaron that it doesn't matter how many times you hit the button, the elevator isn't going to come any faster!"

Sarah snorted wine out her nose. 

Gina raised her glass in triumph. "Exactly my point! Thank God for Penny. Some of you lucky bitches don't have to tell your men anything. She gives them a lesson or two and we all reap the rewards. Let's raise a glass to a specialist that finally isn't a gold digging slut." 

The focus was back on me again and my eyebrows crawled into my hairline. "Um… thank you?" I squeaked and took a quick sip of the beer in my hand. "I'm glad to help." 

"Ummm I wondered…," I glanced over to see Jamie Ballard watching me with a speculative gleam in her eyes. "I have to admit, I'd never met a team's specialist before coming here and I've always been a little bit curious about…well, certain things. I just wouldn't want to make you uncomfortable by asking about…well I'm not really comfortable doing…."

"You don't want to make her uncomfortable?" Andrea, who had been sidetracked from getting her rage on, stepped in and aimed a dark glare in my direction. "That's a joke, right? She makes her living being bent into `uncomfortable' positions while your husband pounds his dick through her." Her girl next door pretty features twisted with malice as she laughed darkly and rounded on Sarah who was practically hiding behind Katie. "Do you think she's `uncomfortable' when your holier-than-thou husband pulls her hair and fucks her throat until she's hoarse? You wanna ask questions? Ask her what kind of names he calls her while he's pretending you don't exist."

There wasn't a single person who didn't adore cute, soft-spoken, wholesome Sarah, so everyone was plenty offended by the direct attack. Everyone except Sarah who's back straightened and eyes lit up with fire. I was a little worried when she turned in my direction but she smiled and simply said, "Does he call you `cum slut' too? I've been trying to get him to use some variety once in a while."

"Atta girl," Gina winked and promptly drained her glass. "Now it's a party."

Joann nearly peed right there on the floor and leaned against me while she giggled as if she didn't trust her own legs to hold her up while she wiped at her eyes. Hearing those dirty, filthy words come out of Sarah's sweet, cupid bow lips was too funny and had certainly broke the tension in the room. Andrea, Michelle and Amanda went off into a corner to sulk and after that it got… better in a really strange way. Andrea and her dwindling band of cronies took off for parts unknown – I was glad I hadn't brought my car since the windshield probably would have been her next victim – and the rest of us stayed in the kitchen with a new agenda. 

Playing spin the bottle. 

Okay, maybe it should have been called Spin the Specialist since, after a couple of drinks in, I was perched precariously on the Lazy Susan in the middle of the table being carefully whirled until I came to a stop in front of one of the remaining WAGs. Said WAG would then have to do a shot – free-poured down the hatch by the lovely Katie – and then could ask me any question they could think of pertaining to me, my role as a Specialist or my thoughts on how to add some spice to their sex lives at home. Out of respect for my liver I only had to do a shot every third question. 

It got out of control in a hurry. 

It started out mostly with tips on giving good head and the pros and cons of digital manipulation and quickly devolved into a truth or dare contest that had a lot to do with certain fruits and vegetables being used as props and stand-ins and finally ended up with Gina daring Katie to kiss me. The girls were cheering so loud that the guys came looking for the source of all the noise just in time to get an eyeful of our lip lock. 

"Wait a God damn second, why am I not in on this?" Juice whined but with a big, Cheshire cat grin on his face. 

"Fuck that, why are you not kissing my wife?" Lou demanded. 

"Oh I didn't want her to kiss me," Gina purred and reached to spin the Lazy Susan until I was facing her. "I was thinking about something much more fun!" 

"Oh holy shit who's got a camera?" Kess roared and before I had time to even object Gina had me by the bra straps and was pulling me towards her. I had visions of Girls Gone Wild in my head and wondered if Holly would fire me if this got leaked out onto the internet but before Lou's usually reserved and classy wife could motorboat me the Lazy Susan tipped and I spilled onto the floor, bringing her and Katie with me. We lay on the floor laughing our asses off until their husbands and Chris offered us all a hand up. 

"Thanks," I breathed, putting my hand in Chris's huge calloused one. He smiled down at me, a genuinely happy smile. 

"You okay?" he asked, helping to dust me off once I was back on my feet. 

"I thought it would be Andrea wrestling me onto the floor tonight so…yeah, all things considered, I'm good," I replied and his grin broadened. 

"Well you look like you're having fun," he added quietly and then, as if by magic, melted into the crowd around the table. I stared at the spot he had just been in and frowned. That was twice now that he'd been gracious to me in one day and my poor little heart was trying to kick and claw its way out of my chest in an effort to go after him while my brain was busy flipping him the bird for once again stranding me on my own in a crowd. 

"Shots!" Juice suddenly cried and I groaned, my stomach having had enough already. What I needed was food to suck up some of the alcohol. 

And definitely a ride home… eventually.

____________________________________________________________________________

My folks might not have done Christmas in the traditional Norman Rockwell sort of way but they had their own traditions. Every Christmas eve, without fail, we'd listen to The Shepherd on the CBC and then we'd go to a movie, usually something Disney and animated, after which we'd go for Chinese, Peking duck, the works. It was too late for a movie but my stomach growled loudly as I pushed open the doors to my favorite late night restaurant deep in the heart of Chinatown. 

I didn't need a menu, I knew it off by heart, and as usual I ordered too much. I'd have leftovers for a week. 

As I sat down to wait I was wishing I'd brought a book or a magazine with me to help pass the time. I pulled out my phone intent on kicking some pig and bird ass but what I saw reflected in the black display made my heart stop beating in my chest. 

There was no place to hide. Other than a large, boisterous family near the back of the restaurant I was the only person in the place and before I even turned around, I knew he'd seen me.

"Hey," he said quietly. "I guess great minds think alike huh?" 

"I guess," I replied automatically and thumbed the lock on my phone open. I assumed he'd walk past, find another table and order his own take out. He surprised me by pulling a chair out at my table and sitting opposite me. He didn't even ask if it was taken. 

Hey, it could have been.

"You order yet?" he asked and I nodded. Just for a second I thought I'd seen disappointment in his sky blue eyes but he dropped his gaze to the menu he'd picked up at the door and scanned it. "I've only been here once, I think with Max and Burr or something. What's good?" I stared at him, wanting with every nerve in my body to ask why small talk, why now, but I just pulled that little sling shot back and sent one of those black bomb birds into a stack of squealing green pigs instead. "So have you got lots of family waiting for you at home?" he asked and it took a concerted effort not to take my eyes off the screen. I knew, hell everyone knew that he came from a big Irish Catholic family and I well…didn't. It made me want to kick him in the shins for even asking. 

"No," I muttered quietly and grinned just a little as the black bird sent evil little piggies flying everywhere. "All your family here?" I asked, to be polite. 

"No," he replied quietly and I didn't need to look up to detect a note of desolation in his voice. I cursed silently. He was doing it again. He was making it damn near impossible for me to stay mad at him. 

"No?" I shut off my phone and put it back in my purse, folded my hands on the table and took a deep steadying breath before looking up at him. "How come?" 

"City employees don't really get time off over the holidays," he shrugged and just one corner of his full mouth turned up in an almost smile, "it's a pretty violent time of the year; lots of trees going up in smoke and domestic disturbance calls." He looked almost sorry to be missing out on it. I fought hard not to smile at the idea of him a uniform. He'd look fucking hot in either uniform. 

"So why didn't you fly there?" I asked, though I knew a home game yesterday and a home game on Boxing Day hadn't really left a lot of wiggle room for a cross country trip. "Yeah, sorry," I replied before he had a chance to explain. 

"So what's your excuse?" he asked me before I could ask anything else and I shrugged. "C'mon, Hank didn't insist you stay over, have Swedish midnight gift opening or whatever?" he grinned and I was glad I was sitting down or my knees would have buckled. That smile went all the way up to his eyes and made them crinkle at the corners. I had the urge to moan out loud. 

"This is my Christmas eve tradition," I replied just as my order was delivered to the table. He eyed the two stuffed bags and then looked across at me. 

"You must have a bunch of friends waiting," he said brightly but the way his eyes dimmed told another story. Damn it again. 

"Oh hell…no this is just for me." It was a lot of food for one person. And since he hadn't ordered yet… maybe… "Look…it's my night off or whatever so I'm going to my place…I mean not `the condo'," I put the rabbit ears around the words and he made a quizzical face. "I'm going back to my old place. It's not much and I haven't even been there in like a month so it's probably cold as hell but, I don't… um… if you want to come with…?" I didn't even get the chance to beg him. He was handing his credit card over before I was even finished. Chris Higgins was buying me dinner. 

Damn, it was almost a date.

My old apartment wasn't exactly what anyone would describe as spacious. When I had originally found the place the ad had actually used the words "cozy" and "efficient" in the property description. It was nothing more than a galley kitchen, a living room that was barely big enough for a love seat and chair, a bedroom only big enough for a double bed and a tiny bathroom. For me it was fine, but standing in the middle of my living room, Chris made the place look miniscule. By extension, he looked twice as large.

His eyes swept the space, taking in a million tiny details at once, and I grimaced internally, wondering again what in the hell I'd been thinking bringing him here. 

I glanced over at the bags of takeout on the kitchen counter and figured we could just haul the lot of it to the condo instead. "We don't have to stay here," I said in a rush, reaching out to swipe the battered teddy bear I'd had since birth, off of his perch at the end of the couch and searched for some place to hide him.

Chris was no slouch, his eyes tracked the movement easily as they followed puck movement on the ice and he took a couple of steps in my direction. Patiently he held out both hands and waited for me to reveal what I had tried to stash behind my back.

I made a pathetic attempt to look confused but was given away by the blush I could feel staining my cheeks. I ducked my head, chuckling at my idiotic attempt at innocence.

Chris simply stepped forward into my space and reached both arms around me, his hands sliding along my forearms until he could feel the matted "fur" I had clutched in my fingers. He shook my wrists a little. "Let me see,"

"My life could be better without handing you proof that I'm a complete and utter dork."

His chest rumbled with a laugh but he didn't step back. "You think Lou is actually funny. I already knew you were a dork." He eased his thumbs into my palms. "C'mon, show me."

My shoulders dropped and I slowly surrendered the bear, keeping my head down but my eyes on the slightly worn and slightly matted stuffed toy whose head flopped forward in Chris' large hands.

Chris stared down at it and tipped his head to the side. "Does he have a name?"

Well, in for a penny... "Huggy."

One of his eyebrows lifted as he looked over at me. "Huggy... Bear?"

I shrugged. I didn't really have any defense here other than to say, "I spent a lot of time with the TV as my only source of company. 'Nick at Nite' was the best. Starsky and Hutch was on right before The Patty Duke Show."

He laughed, looking between Huggy and I, smiling like I'd surprised him. "He looks well loved,"

Gently, I took the bear back from him and stroked my hand over the little fuzzy head. "Best friends usually are." I laughed softly at myself again and then made a face when I realized I was cuddling Huggy protectively against my chest. "And doesn't that just scream 'sexy'." Casually - though carefully - I tossed Huggy onto the couch and turned toward the kitchen. "So I guess plates and cutlery are in order," I muttered and eased past him, noting that he didn't move to get out of my way so that my ass brushed his massive skater thighs. I shut my eyes and told myself over and over to be cool and to remember to breathe when what I really wanted to do was some kind of goofy celebratory dance to mark the occasion of Chris Higgins being in my apartment letting me touch him without running a mile.

I could hear him taking the food out of the bags and laying it out on the coffee table. I tried not to think about the soft grey sweater he was wearing or the way that it pulled across his wide shoulders or how his biceps would look as he stretched across the tiny table to put the hot and sour soup in the middle. 

I came back to the table with forks and spoons and chop sticks, not knowing which utensil a boy from New York would choose and put plates and bowls out. "Beer or something less alcoholic?" I asked, wondering if I had either in the fridge and wishing that I'd thought about that before this moment. 

"Beer, if you have it," he added, that boyish grin of his making me want to sweep all of the steaming food from the table and offer myself up instead. I nodded and went back into the kitchen where I promptly stuck my head into the freezer in a naïve attempt to cool my jets. I'd had half of his teammates in my bed and they all popped my cork in their own way, but none of them, not a single one of them, made me get all fan girl, weak kneed and silly like he did. 

Luckily for me there was a six-pack of Dead Frog in the back of the fridge and I retrieved them as well as a bottle opener and returned to the table, offering him an open one. I watched him take a swig, his lips closing around the top of the amber bottle and bit back a whimper, thinking about the way I wanted his lips to close around one of my nipples and suck on it. I watched the muscles in his throat work and thought about licking his skin. 

He looked at the bottle as he wiped his muscular forearm across his mouth and then ran his hand down to the thicker part of the bottle and left his hand there, his fingers caressing the bottle, the condensation on the bottle dripping over his thick fingers. I damn near came. "That's good. I haven't had that one before." 

"Uh huh," I muttered and reached for sweet and sour pork, dumping some onto a plate and stabbing a piece mercilessly with a fork. I didn't trust myself with chopsticks right at that moment. With my luck my first bite would go right down my top. I raised the piece of pork to my lips and was about to put it in my mouth when I realized he wasn't eating. He wasn't even looking at the food. He was watching me. I wanted to put my fork down. I also wanted to climb under the table to hide. The appraising way his gaze traveled down to the `v' of my sweater made me squirm in my seat.

"So how come you're alone on Christmas Eve?" he asked slowly and then lifted the bottle to take another sip. 

"I could ask you the same thing," I replied quickly and defensively and then shoved the piece of sauce covered pork in my mouth and reached for the container of Shanghai noodles. I shoveled some of the thick noodles onto my plate and then stabbed one with my fork. "You and Grizz are like…the most eligible bachelors on the team," I reminded him, or was it myself. "Shouldn't you be out with some…I don't know, local actress or weather girl or something?" I stabbed another piece of pork and added a pineapple to the mouthful and shoved both into my mouth, chewing hard. 

Chris scratched the back of his head. "Yeah well…there's this person I've had my eye on," he replied quietly. I bit down hard on the inside of both cheeks to stop from growling. Of course there was. He was hot and that picture of his abs had been making its way around the internet for a couple of weeks now. I'd drooled over it myself. I knew damn well I wasn't the only red blooded woman in the city that wanted to play tic-tac-toe on his six pack.

"Mmmhm," I murmured encouragingly because I felt like it was the right thing to do. I simultaneously imagined clawing out the eyes of whoever the bitch was.  

"Yeah," he cleared his throat and sat up a little straighter. "But she has all these guys she's with all the time when I'd like to spend time alone with… her." My hand hesitated over the container of fried squid and I nearly choked on the juicy bun I'd just bit into. 

"Oh yeah, she gets around huh?" I muttered, spearing a couple of pieces of squid and pretending to study the white coils of chewy saltiness. I wasn't going to cry. I wasn't. It just really sucked that while he thought I was the sluttiest person alive, he was secretly jonesing over someone who actually was an easy piece of ass. 

Hypocrite.

"Penny,"  he leaned forward again, obviously trying to get me to make eye contact but I couldn't do it. "Penny?"

"Hmm?" I gestured to his empty plate with my fork and forced a smile. "You'd better eat, Christopher, I'm not afraid to finish this without you."

He exhaled hard and pushed his sleeves up to his elbows. "Penny, I'm… I… there's this girl –"

I had an overwhelming urge to stuff rice in my ears just to drown him out. Sure I made myself available for the guys when they wanted to talk about their love lives since nothing was better than a woman's opinion on the subject, but not this time. Not with him. The last thing I wanted to hear about was this mystery chick he wanted to spend time with. Time that I really wanted to have him spend with me. "I'm sure she's a peach," I grated out, tearing another piece out of the bun with my teeth.  Mouth full, I mumbled, "At least I don't have to worry about her trying to snatch me bald since you generally avoid me like the plague." 

He was quiet for so long that I finally risked looking at him only to find him practically gaping at me. "Unreal."

It sounded accusatory.  "What?" It's hard to sound defensive around a wad of meat and yeast. I swallowed quickly, managing not to choke, just. "You do. You treat me like I'm some kind of disease. Whatever, it's fine. I get it. You like some other girl, who apparently likes other men, and you want to spend time with her alone. Awesome," I scoffed. "Can't fault you there. One wonders though why you aren't trying to spend time with her tonight."

"I am," he groaned. 

Say what? I blinked at him, absolutely bewildered. "Huh?"

Chris raked both of his hands through his hair and then picked up his beer again, taking a long pull and eying me over the bottle. "She's a little dense sometimes," he began, "and a bit slow on the uptake. She sucks at poker and can't walk and chew gum at the same time. She can't skate, she can't bake, she can't hold a tune and I'm pretty sure she has a magnet for trouble imbedded in her ass." The bottle found a home on the table again and he rested his elbows on his knees. "She's afraid to fly, she can't drive standard, and she's a bit of a dork."

Those were… I couldn't… I… Oh. 

Oh.

His lips curled a little at the corners and he shook his head. "But she's got these killer eyes. And she makes me laugh. And when she smiles at me, just at me, it makes me forget there are other men in her life." He looked at me across the little table as though he was the one trying to fit the puzzle together. "She cares about them a lot. And they say she cares about me the most, which probably proves that her taste in men is as shitty as her taste in music."

Oh God. I dropped my eyes to my plate, food suddenly the last thing on my mind.

"You know who I'm talking about," he said quietly and I heard him rising from his chair and pushing it back. I shook my head but didn't look up. This wasn't happening, I told myself, even as half my brain tried to reason with me, tried to remind me that this was what I wanted after all. The other part of my brain was squealing like a stuck pig as I listened to his footsteps as he made his way around the table. 

"Nnnnoooo," I groaned as I wished that I didn't have sweet and sour sauce at the corner of my mouth as I felt his hand cup my chin. 

"Pen…look at me." I fought not to. I actually pressed my chin down into his hand and did my best not to look up. As if I could fight someone with muscles like his. "I hate that I have feelings for you while you fuck all my teammates," he said softly as he physically forced me to look up at him. "I know you know that I want you," he added even while I shook my head vehemently, or at least a little. "C'mon, you think I'm a dick like that to everyone?" Again I shook my head and he rolled those big blue eyes with their fringe of dark blonde lashes. "I hate what you do," he added very softly as his lips drew near to mine, "but I don't hate you Penny."

When he kissed me I wanted to cry. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. I'd imagined this kiss a hundred, maybe a thousand times and it was never like this. It wasn't in a tiny little one-bedroom apartment and I wasn't sitting with a fork in one hand wearing a Christmas sweater. It was sweet like this though, soft and slow, like warm butterscotch dripping down the slope of cold vanilla ice cream. When he pulled back my eyes were still shut and I thought maybe I could hear birds singing and bells ringing. 

"Merry Christmas Pen," he said softly and then I heard him turn and head through my kitchen and before I could even get to my feet, as if there was a chance in hell my knees would hold me up at that moment, he was out the door.