Wednesday, August 21, 2013

eight

Meghan considered turning her headlights lights off but that smacked of sneaking in.  She was an adult.  She’d been on a date.  It was not a crime.  Still the lights seemed awfully bright as they bathed the door of James’ garage.

Inside the house was quiet.  It was nearly midnight and James had an early workout, so the curfew was to be expected.  Still part of her had expected to find him waiting up, checking his watch.  The rest of her would put money on him doing exactly that now, in his room in the dark, like she wouldn’t know.

On the drive home from John’s, Meghan felt like the first Taylor Swift album was playing inside her body.  She wanted to pull over and twirl in a field of fireflies and all sorts of other ridiculousness.   Maybe John’s dorkiness was contagious by contact.  The kiss was still on her lips, the adrenaline still in her veins.  More than delicious it had been surprising - John would have kissed her if she hadn’t met him halfway.  He was the one to deepen the kiss, pressing their bodies together and holding her tight.  That little bit of force surprised her and made her weak with desire.

Desire.  That was going to be a problem.  Now that they’d had a date and a kiss and practically run from each other to keep from turning into a full-on make-out session, Meghan had her hands full with another matter.

James.

She walked quietly through the house.  His light was off.  Just as well, nothing to get into tonight.  Meghan shut herself into her room with her happiness and hormones.  She was just slipping into pajama shorts, thinking about what John might be thinking about, when her phone chirped.

John: Home okay?
Meghan thought maybe John knew his way around girls after all.
____

John was worried.  What if Meghan changed her mind, what if he was a bad kisser, what if she had really just wanted to go to the concert?  No, she wouldn’t do that.  But she might realize on the way home that pretty much every guy in her life was cooler than John and she’d somehow chosen from the bottom of the batting order.

He was also concerned about James.  Neal was a wildcard.  He hadn’t made a play for Meghan but he had gotten plenty upset over the idea of another guy trying.  Maybe it was just the first time Meghan had responded to someone else.  That made John smile.

Too bad, Nealer.

In reality, John wasn’t that flippant.  He wanted this to go right and end up with definitely more kissing.  The way Meghan had caught his bottom lip gently between her teeth and tugged at his hair... the memory gave him chills.   Guilty ones.  She would be definitely fun in bed - something John had never really experienced.  The kiss made him ache.  This train of thought made him blush.

Three day rule be damned.  He texted her politely.  She replied immediately.

Meghan: Home safe. Had a great time.

John felt more at ease behind a screen, with more time to think and fewer Meghan-shaped distractions drawing his mind from the task at hand.  Flirting did not come easily to John.

John: Me too.  I didn’t make it far enough into the playoffs to get sick of that song.

Meghan: Next year.

John: That’s what I always say.
____

James got up the next morning feeling like crap.  He’d been awake in bed until Meghan came home.  Not even midnight, he’d sneered in the darkness.  Tavares must’ve turned into a pumpkin.  James hadn’t returned a date home before midnight since junior hockey and he sure as hell didn’t send them home alone.  That was just proof that Tavares was a clown and Meghan was out of his league. He lay there thinking about it - why he cared, why not John - and came up with no answers.  Then he heard the chime of her phone as a text arrived.

It had him tossing and turning for hours.  Meghan, on the other side of a wall or two, having a silent conversation with another guy, about God knows what - probably Disney movies and peanut butter & jelly vs. ham & cheese.  But for every derisive thing he assigned to John, he was also assigning that to Meghan.  James knew it wasn’t fair.

Finally out of bed and partially alive, he made it to the gym and carefully placed his bag in a locker.  James was never early for a workout and Scary Gary looked a little concerned at the state of his charge.  Clearly James could have used another thirty minutes sleep, but it wouldn’t come.

Maybe in Meghan’s bed, he thought.  But there’d be no sleeping if he ever got in there.

Tavares came in one minute early, whistling something off-key and horrible, probably by One Direction.  He was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as a Scout who’d left his date before the date got to the good part.  James busied himself chatting with the hot blond who taught Zumba and was under threat of firing to never see a hockey player outside of work.  That was the kind of challenge James liked.  Only the fear of Roberts’ workouts kept him from making sure the girl needed a new job by morning.  She giggled appropriately while James pretended not to watch John skip toward the locker room.

Be cool, he repeated inside his head.  Obviously another round of nothing had happened between John and Meghan. She would quickly tire of his fumbling and go back to being... whatever she was.  Single.  James puffed his chest out, considered swatting the hot trainer on her toned backside for good measure and was first in line for the morning workout.

It was long and tough but unlike the last time where Gary had given him the business for being slow, James was at the top of his game.  He channeled his frustration and confusion; Tavares and even Stamkos had to work to keep up.  When it was over they were all heaving.

“You’re sick,” Steven wheezed.

James glared at the floor instead of John.  Two hours of output had not improved his mood.  “Don’t be a pussy,” he said and stormed toward the lockers.

“Dude,” Steven said, leaning against a weight rack.  John was bent at the waist, gasping.  “You keep Meghan out all night or something?”

“No.”  John wished he could say otherwise.  “She left my place around eleven.  Why?”

“‘Cause if you ever get some, Nealer will kill us all.”  

John straightened up, causing a stitch in his side.  “I didn’t, I mean, we didn’t....”

Steven tried to laugh but no sound came out.  “Maybe she said your name in her sleep.”
_____

Meghan was laying by the pool when the screen door slid open.  She’d been dozing, a magazine open on the ground nearby.  Her heart skipped a little, hoping to see John but she knew it would be James.  The days of him bringing John around were numbered, if not over.

James looked like hell - or as much hell as a professional athlete in nothing but shorts could look.  Straight from the gym, his too-long hair was slick with sweat.  Dark circles bruised beneath his eyes.  He walked to the edge of the pool and right off, surfacing after a few moments with a sigh.

James knew she’d be here - he wanted and didn’t want to be right.  Seeing her alone was a victory, but seeing her sprawled out in another scrap of bikini, tanning skin he’d never get to touch, was like a knife to the gut.  This suit it was yellow and blue, strapless across the rise of her chest and stretched between the points of her hip bones.  Her legs were bent at the knees, revealing the smooth skin of her inner thighs.  He wondered if John wanted to touch that spot as much as he did.

Meghan rolled onto her stomach, facing the pool, and rested her chin on the back of her hand.  That charged feeling was back in the air but she could hardly get up and leave.

“How was the gym?” she tried.

“How was last night?” James shot back without looking.

Here we go, Meghan thought.  “Fun.  Good show.”

“Good date?”

There was only the truth to tell.  “Yeah, it was.”

The words fell on James like pianos in a cartoon.  Date.  Good date.  He shouldn’t have asked a question he didn’t want to know the answer to.  Risking a glance at Meghan didn’t help - her long hair was twisted into a plait and pulled forward over one shoulder.  He wanted to swim in front of her and balance his elbows on the edge, knowing she’d have nowhere to look but his face and body while he freed the braid and ran his fingers through her locks.  She wouldn’t be able to get away when he held her there and kissed her, his wet lips against her dry ones, until she forgot there were any other guys in Ontario or Canada or the NHL.  No one could see into the yard, so he’d pull her in and take her first in the pool, their swimsuits floating uselessly nearby.  Then maybe again on the chair, quickly enough not to sunburn unprotected places.  Then he’d bring her inside inside and have her again again in every room until she could not be in this house and think of any other man.

James dunked himself underwater.  He was losing his mind.  This was Meghan.  His friend - his roommate.  She was sexy as hell but come on, he’d had girls and then some since meeting her.  Never had he thought this way.

Okay, the sex in every room part, yes, he admitted to himself. But the tightness in his chest was new.  James swam to the ladder, heaved himself out of the pool and marched inside silent and dripping wet.  Meghan heard the screen clatter shut.

“That went well,” she mumbled to no one.
_____

Meghan went to her parent’s house for dinner, as much to be out of James’ place as to fulfill obligations.  Her parents had known the Neals forever.  Still some curious glances were exchanged over the idea of grown Meghan and grown James living together, especially when they’d grown to look the way they both did.  A marriage would have been welcomed by either side.  Instead they watched Meghan saw mercilessly at defenseless chicken picatta and considered the likelihood their daughter was living in sin with Whitby’s most eligible bachelor.

Exhausted from being angry and confused all day,  Meghan just wanted to text John.  She just didn’t know what to say.  Should she warn him that James was mad?  Maybe his anger didn’t extend to John, but centered somehow on her alone.  That would be better - John had done nothing wrong.  Neither had Meghan, but it felt increasingly like she was missing something.  She watched half a Blue Jays game with her dad and fell asleep cranky on the couch.
____

James went to bed at one.  Meghan was nowhere to be found.

He woke up at eight.  Meghan had not been home.

James was furious.  His anger from the day before was doubled and it had no outlet but an empty room where she should have been sleeping.  This would have been the day to no-show at training, but nothing was worth the wrath of Roberts.  James didn’t even need to warm up, his heart rate was going full bore when he walked into the gym.

“Hey man,” John said, racking some weight plates.

James could not stop his feet.  Communication with his brain was severed somewhere around his lap and anything below moved on its own, until it was practically knocking John over, chest to chest, staring down the three inches between their heights.  Tavares grabbed the bar for balance.  

“Have fun last night?  You wear her out by coming on the first pump every time?  Keep her up all night trying to get her off, figure out how to drive a car like that?”  James felt the words tear their way out of his throat; he could barely hear them over the blood rushing in his head.

“What the fuck?” John shoved James back a step.  Hockey players had a fighting side when they got agitated, it didn’t turn off when the season ended.

“Exactly.  What kind of fuck could you possibly give her?” James hissed.

John stepped forward, getting solid footing.  Neal’s face was red, his words clipped.  John gave a few inches to him but they weighed the same and John could throw a punch.  “I didn’t see Meghan last night.”

James felt like John had punched him in the gut.  Tavares couldn’t lie, his nose would grow.  Plus who would lie about not banging a girl like Meghan?  Goody two-shoes, probably, but out of manners and chivalry.  He’d protect her honor but he wouldn’t outright lie.  If John said Meghan’s wasn’t there, then she wasn’t there.

“Did something happen?”  John felt a spot of concern in his chest, blossoming like a bloodstain.

“She didn’t come home. I...,” James racked his brain for alternatives.  John’s worried expression was real - this noob couldn’t fake anything that well.  “I thought she was with you.”

John shook his head.  “Haven’t talked to her since Wednesday night.”

“Her parents’.  Or Lucy’s,” James said.  His brain was finally beginning to function and a whole list of possible explanations came to him.  He had not even considered them before.  “She must’ve stayed out.”

John was still a foot away, the distance he’d pushed James.  He might be quiet and a little shy but John could hold his ground on the ice and he wasn’t about to give any here, not to Neal.  But James’ face had changed - pushing a hand through his thick mop of hair, he suddenly seemed embarrassed.  

“Sorry,” James mumbled.  His heart was racing.  From minute one of the morning he’d been furious at Meghan and John and that girl in the bad dress he couldn’t get off on the other night and Del Zotto for his shark scar and Steven for getting some girl to say yes and a million other little things that seemed to work for everyone else but not for him.  They fell away like drops of rain and left a dry husk in his chest.

“Hey, you okay?”  John, now all concerned, made to follow.  

Neal waved him off.  That last thing James needed now was John’s sympathy.  He went to the locker room and ran his head under the tap until he heard footsteps.  Of course it was Steven.  James had given him hell the day before on the golf course for being all loved up on his chick, as if this girl was going to ditch her life and run off to Happily Stammer After.  Why were these guys so fucking naive?

“Robs is counting down,” Steven said.  Missing the zero mark meant suicide sprints for every second late, especially if you were already in the building.  James whipped his wet hair back, avoided his own reflection, and went to work.
____

James didn’t stick around after practice, which suited John just fine.  John was anxious to get out of there and call Meghan to make sure she was okay.  He knew James would never hurt her, but he didn’t want to be the reason they had a fight either.  Unless Meghan thought he was worth it.  She picked up on the third ring.

“Hi John.”

The bright sound of her voice meant James had not come home yet.  To hear her say his name gave John’s heart a different reason to beat faster.  “Hey.  Uh, happy Friday.”

“You too.  How was your workout?”

“Horrible,” John admitted.  He was laying flat on his back in the middle of his living room beneath the central air conditioning vent.

“Are you laying on the floor?”

John actually looked around as if someone could be watching.  “How’d you know?”

“Like in that Reebok commercial you’re in.”  Meghan was sitting in the yard at her parents’ house, contemplating going back to James’.  She may have Google - and Facebook and Twitter - stalked John just a little bit the night before.  The Reebok ad in which he lay down, brow sweaty and chest heaving post-workout, had been played a few times.  For inspiration.

The rules of dating said John would wait three days to call.  Meghan never expected him to make it more than one.  At a day and a half, she was pretty impressed.

John laughed.  “Just like that.  Only I have no plans to get up.”

A silence fell between them.  If ever there were an opening, this was it.  Meghan could hear him breathing.  John really needed a reason if he were going to stand up again.  Like a second date.

“Do you want to do something later?  Tonight?” he said.  “Uh, if you’re not busy?  I know it’s Friday, but if you....”

“Okay,” she said quickly.

John went silent.  Just like that he had another date, in a few hours, with the girl he’d been thinking about all week.  He’d nearly had a fight over her this morning and now she wanted to go out with him again.  He glanced around his house again as if to make sure he’d come home to the right life.

“John?” Meghan asked.

“Yeah, sorry.  What do you want to do?”  He made a mental note to facepalm himself when he hung up.  “Wait, I asked you out.  I’ll think of something.”

Meghan giggled.  After a brief stint as Confident John Who Called Her, now Nervous John was back.  He was pretty adorable too.  “Okay.  I’ll drive to your place again.”

Just as well.  John had spent his mojo asking her out and faced the daunting task of making it a good night.  He might as well admit that getting any other action was out of the question.  “Seven again?”

“Perfect.”
____

Meghan was not surprised to find James asleep in a pool chair when she got home.  It was just after eleven and from the looks of him, he’d come straight from the gym to the pool again only.  He’d passed out shirtless and probably without any sunscreen on.

Boys, she thought as she got a clean button down from the laundry room, opened it wide and laid it over his exposed skin like a blanket.  He shifted a little.  With his eyes closed and mouth open, he looked so vulnerable.  That guy, the peacefully sleeping one, could never be unkind.  Meghan wondered if that’s why he never liked girls to spend the night.  She tucked a dark curl behind his ear before going inside.

Date night, she texted Lucy.  The response was a demand for another fashion show.  Meghan showered and dried her hair nicely and flat ironing the unruly bits around her face.  A summer of not working meant no mani-pedi splurges, but she did a nice enough job on her own nails and finished with bright purple tips of both hands and feet.  A quick check out the window told her James’ cover was still in place.  She had plenty of time before there was anywhere to go, but Meghan took advantage of the time alone to primp without having to answer questions.  

She snapped a photo in the mirror of one outfit: denim shorts, a white linen button down tucked in and open low to the top of her cleavage.  Nude-colored canvas espadrilles with platform cork soles made her taller and gave the illusion of much longer legs.  The look was so summery and cool it begged to be taken out on the town. [photo]  She checked her height against the mark on the wall - Meghan always measured six feet somewhere in her room and tried not to go over it in heels, as a guideline.  With a smile she noted that was John’s height too.  

Lucy: That’ll give James something to be jealous about.

Once that was settled, Meghan got back into her regular clothes.  No sense in making a show of anything.  She went downstairs to check on James.

He tipped his head back when she opened the door.  The shirt was in his hand.  “Did you put this on me?”  

Meghan nodded.

Still taking care of me, James thought.  It was one of the many small things he was sure he’d lose if she started taking up with another guy and James would be left the way he always had - to the bachelor life he chose and the tiny disasters that came with it.

“Thanks,” he said.  “Your hair looks nice.”

She smiled thinly, surprised he noticed.  Meghan settled onto the chair next to him and they sat quietly for a few minutes.  James ran through the list of things he could say, hoping she would say something first and wondering if John had called her up and ratted him out for his meltdown earlier.

“Stay at your parents’ last night?” he finally asked.

“Yeah.”

“Text me when you do that okay?  So I don’t wake up and worry?”

The idea was sweet.  Meghan felt bad for all the negative thoughts she’d been harboring about James the last few days.  He was just a little scared and insecure - she was well aware of the weaknesses he tried hard to cover up.  And he hated - hated - talking about feelings.  In his own fashion, walking about when he got upset was James’ way of telling Meghan how he felt.

“Okay, I will,” she said.

James could not promise that he’d never stay out without letting her know.  Meghan didn’t ask.
____

James knew Meghan had some kind of plans.  He agreed to dinner with  Stamkos but didn’t invite her because he didn’t want to get turned down.  He was dying to know what she was doing but couldn’t; he simply lingered around the house until she was ready to leave.

He was coming from the kitchen, full bottle of Gatorade in hand, when she reached the top of the stairs.  James dropped his drink before the cap was even off.

“You, uh, look great,” he said.  Inside he was thinking, Fuuuuuuuuuuckfuckfuck.

“Thanks,” Meghan smiled.  She was trying to be cool.  Maybe he’d think she was going out with Lucy or something - after all, it was Friday night.  Single girls made plans.  Not all of them involved roommates, right?  Of course, no one else’s roommate looked like James.  It would be difficult for Meghan to explain to another woman why she was leaving the man before her - 6’3”, 200 pounds of long, lean muscle in a t-shirt one size too small and broken-in jeans, his dark hair curling around his neck - for someone else.  James blinked those big, blue-green eyes and it shuddered right through Meghan’s body.  

James stepped back as she reached the foot of the stairs, afraid to be too close.  He didn’t know what was going on.  Meghan had dressed up more and worn less plenty of times.  Now she was glowing, showing enough to make his mouth water at the prospect of more.  The sunny, flowery scent of perfume reached his nose and he ached to grab her tight and bury his face in her long brown hair.

They stood there staring at each other for what seemed a long time.  If they’d never met as kids, never played in the yard or thrown snowballs or teased each other over a crush at school, this might have been what it felt like for James and Meghan to meet for the first time.  Now it was built on all those things, endless memories and the the knowledge they did not want to be together.

Or did they?

“See you later,” Meghan finally said, tearing her eyes from the face she knew so well that seemed to have changed.

“Will you be home tonight?”  It sounded fatherly but James didn’t care.  He couldn’t wake up and find her gone again, not when she left looking like that.  Not when he knew exactly where she was going.

“Yeah.”  Meghan nodded, her earring tinkling softly.  “I’ll be home.”

He watched her go, all long legs and swinging hips, right out the door to meet another guy.
____

“I think I’m losing my mind,” she said out loud to the car.

“Why now?” Lucy’s voice echoed over BluTooth.

“I just left the house and James was... Luce, I swear I thought he was going to kiss me.”  

Meghan gripped the wheel.  She felt shaky from her encounter with James.  He’d never come within arms’ reach but she was sure he wanted to.  Something in his expression, the soft curve of his lip while he tried to think of how to say what was on face - it gave her chills.  This was James.  

“Woah, what?”

“He didn’t - nothing happened.  But he just stood there like he’d never seen me before.  It was weird.  He didn’t even ask where I was going.”

“Are you wearing the outfit you showed me?” Lucy asked.  Meghan said she was.  “Then he doesn’t have to ask.  You look like you’re going on a hot date.  With Tavares.  Which, remind me again, why is that happening?  When James is looking at you like you’re the cherry on a sundae, you’re driving across Canada to see an Islander?”

Meghan growled.  “Lucy!”

“Inquiring minds want to know, Meg.  Including James’.  He’s probably freaked out because he thought he knew what girls liked and clearly, you have proven him wrong.”

“John is hot, okay?  And he’s nice.  Luce, he’s so cute it hurts.  He got all brave on the phone and the second he asked me out, he started word vomiting.  I had to interrupt him just to say yes.”

“If you said yes to James, you’d be saying it a lot louder.  All night long.  And with more biting.”

Meghan stopped at a red light and leaned her head back.  “He can find a girl, or two, in every bar in town.  Why all of a sudden is he giving me a hard time?”

“Guys always want what they can’t have,” Lucy said wisely.  
____

5 comments:

  1. So many fantastic lines in this one. And I can't wait to see Meghan and James actually saying everything they need to say to each other. Update soon!

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  2. I SHIP JAMES AND MEGHAN SO HARD AHHHH is that bad?? Ok not gonna lie-- I really cannot stand Tavares. He just... Nah uh. James is sooo sexy and oh my god just mouthwatering!!! There is so much tension between them! I soo hope Meghan realizes that John is too goody two shoes for her and goes to James, who clearly really cares for her. I CANNOT WAIT for the next chapter!!!! You're KILLING me with these descriptions of James! (like when he's asleep) AHHHH

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  3. There's some classic he doesn't want her, he just doesn't want anyone else to have her going on and a bit of James Neal being scared that the guys he hangs out with are growing up and settling down now and he doesn't want to be the last man standing.

    Even as recently as the chapter with the pool party James thought that if helping Meghan clean up HIS back yard after HIS party is what he has to do to be with her then she's not worth the effort.

    Meghan needs to not mess this up by letting James' indecision and conflicting emotions eat away at the back of her mind. Because the man who saw her worth when everyone else overlooked it is the man she should be with - team Tavares all the way!!

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  4. Meghan better end up with Tavares...just sayin'. Great update and can't wait for more!

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  5. please update! can't wait to find out what happens with Tavares and Meghan - love those two!

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