You Always Go And Rescue Me

“I can’t believe I already have to go back to work!” My time at home was peaceful. Occasionally boring but I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. It gave me time to regroup and spend all my free time with Zach when he was home.

“I know, I’m kinda going to miss you being home even though you practically work with me,” Zach laughed. He was sitting on my couch, watching tv and eating a sandwich and I just watched his adorability. “What?”

“You realize we practically live together?” I teased.

“Yeah,” he smirked. “It’s ironic how you said you couldn’t live with someone until you got married but I’m always here.”

“Yeah, well, I compromised a lot of my rules for you,” I gave him the side eye glare.

He stared me down for a second before he said, “I’m not going to lie, it won’t be the worst thing in the world having you there tonight. You want to know something?”

“Sure.”

“You know I’m so proud of you for everything you’ve accomplished. If it weren’t for your job we might never have met. The thing is, I wish sometimes that we didn’t have to be so…discrete about everything; that you could just be in the stands and I could just look at you.”

“You don’t want me to work?” I looked at him in confusion.

“No, no, I do, but my paycheck is more than enough to take care of you, and someday I’d like to do that- have a family and take care of you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that before.” I was being sarcastic, and he knew I was kidding, but this conversation wasn’t something I wanted to have without him backing it up.

“I’m serious.”

“I know you are,” I didn’t want to seem all needy, so as much as I secretly enjoyed hearing him say this, I was also uncomfortable. “Look, I have to go now because I have to go meet with my boss before the game tonight, so you can chill here, eat and watch tv, do what you want, but I’ll see you later,” I said as I put on a pair of earrings.

He looked up at me as I was looking in the mirror. “Wow. You look amazing.”

“Oh you finally stopped eating long enough to notice huh? I don’t have any bruises or anything anymore, right?” I was partially kidding, but kind of serious at the same time.

He got up and came over to me. “No sweetie,” he said as he put his arms around my waist. “You look perfect.” I smiled up at him and felt my shoulders relaxing. I reached for him and his lips met mine much to my satisfaction.

“I’ll see you tonight! First game back since…well, you know.” He grimaced at the thought of it all and kissed my forehead. “I can’t wait to see you there. I know the guys are looking forward to seeing you too.” Yeah, the locker room was well aware that we were together. I couldn’t really think of any of the guys that didn’t know. They weren’t the people that we had to hide it from though, and I was friends with everyone, so it didn’t matter.

“Well I miss them too! I can’t wait to see everyone again.”

“Yeah well don’t be surprised if they bombard you.”

“It is my life-long dream to be smothered with affection by sweaty hockey players,” I teased.

He gave me the look. Everyone gets it at comments like that. “Ha, ha. You’re soooo funny. The only hockey player that’s going to be smothering you is me.”

“I can’t object to that,” I winked at him. “Gah! I gotta run or I’m going to be late!” I kissed him so quickly that he couldn't respond and I started to run out the door, but he lightly grabbed my wrist to pull me back. I turned to look at him, “please, be careful. I love you.”

I tried to give him a look of reassurance, “I love you too. I’ll see you in a little while!” I ran out the door and made my way to my meeting. I didn’t really know what I had to have it, but I never asked any questions. It just felt good to be productive again and I finally felt like Sean wasn’t affecting my life anymore. I hated him with more venom than I thought I could produce and I was secretly glad that Zach loved me enough, and his friends cared enough, to remedy the situation-even though they’d never say a word.

When I got to my boss’s office, I was called in and asked to sit down. I didn’t think it would be long meeting, I figured it was just a getting back into the groove of things conversation, but I soon was feeling a lump in my stomach as I realized there was more to it than I thought.

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Zach’s POV

I was getting ready to go out for warm-ups. It was a big game but I wasn’t nervous, we were on a hot streak and all we needed to do was hold onto the division. I felt someone throw a towel at the back of my head. I turned around and saw Jamie.

“So Trav said that Sarah’s going to be back tonight.”

I nodded. “Yeah she is.”

“That’s good, how’s she doing?”

“She’s doing alright. Working on getting back to normal again.”

“I still can’t believe he did that, what an asshole. I mean, we all knew he was but…” he was aggravated, so was I. Every time I thought about it, I wanted to slit his throat.

“Want me to tango with him?” That was Clarkson and he would have loved to go after him. Everyone wanted to. I just laughed to myself. “Well, he’s not going to be playing for a little while.”

“I know she’s your girl, but she’s our friend too.”

“I know, I know. She and I both appreciate how much you care. You’ll see her later, she’s got a meeting with her boss now but she’ll be here tonight!”

“You gonna finally take care of what you should’ve done a while ago?”

“I’m already on it, man.” I thought girls were supposed be to the gossip queens.

“Okay because if you don’t, I will.” I threw a roll of medic tape at him, all in good fun though.

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It was midway through the first period and I hadn’t seen her yet. I knew she had that meeting, but it was hours ago and she definitely should have been here by now. I was sitting on the bench after a long shift and looking anxiously around for her.

“Is she here yet?” Travis was happy to see her back, I was just thrilled they liked each other.

I shook my head as I still searched all the places she usually would be. “No, I don’t see her.”

“That’s weird. You think everything’s okay?”

“I hope so.”

I went through the entire first period without seeing her there. She wasn’t in the locker room and I knew something was up. She was supposed to be here. Granted, she was supposed to be working, but I knew she’d be by me if she were. I went through the intermission uncomfortably because I didn’t know if something bad happened again.

The game was going great but I couldn’t help but question what was going on. Finally, as the second period was coming to an end I spotted Sarah sitting with the rest of the wives and girlfriends and breathed a sigh of relief. I wanted to see her but she didn’t come down to the locker room until well after the game ended. I was wrapping up talking to the media when she came in. I saw some of the guys go over and hug her and the smile that came to her face made me fall in love with her all over again. Something wasn’t right though. She looked very heavy-hearted and when she finally made her way over to me I knew by looking in her eyes that something was wrong.

I grabbed her around her waist, pulled her into me, and brought myself down to kiss her. I could feel her resistance. I knew her better than anyone and something wasn’t right.

“What happened? Where were you?”

“I…” she took a deep breath, “I…” she looked away and pursed her lips together.

“Baby, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

“You can tell me anything, I don’t care where we are.”

“Zach…I don’t-" she sighed, "we…we might have to…break up.”

I felt like someone kicked me in the stomach. I felt my eyes pop open as the shock of her words rang in my ears.

“What the hell are you talking about? Did I do something wrong?”

She let her head fall as she said, “No…”

I put my hand under her chin and dragged her head up to look at me. “I don’t understand Sarah. You want to break up? You want to end everything? I just got you back I don’t-“

“Zach…” she said my name so softly.

“Please explain why you’re saying this.”

“This isn’t the place, “ she said quietly.

“Uh, you just told me we might be breaking up. Here. So you can tell me why. Here.”

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. “My boss…he obviously doesn’t know details about what happened, but” she fumbled with her words. “He wants to transfer me. He wants to send me to Colorado.”

“For how long?” This was something I didn’t expect to hear. I doubt she did either. Her revelation barely sunk into my brain.

“Permanently.”

“Sarah…don’t do this.”

We were standing in a frustrated silence, not angry with each other, just agonized. Some of the guys came over and interrupted our little “happy” moment. Sarah was caught off guard, as was I, and she quickly pulled away.

“Hey, I’m gonna head home. I’ll see you later.” I still wasn’t ready to leave, I couldn’t, and I didn’t want her to go but with the distraction of the other guys I knew she had the opportunity to leave and she was taking it.

“I’m coming over,” I stated.

“I figured you would,” she said meekly as she walked towards the exit.