You Should've Come With A Warning

CH. 16

I hadn’t seen Jordan in days; Sid did everything in his power to keep us apart. Sid and Jordan weren’t speaking to each other and I hadn’t spoken to Jordan since the night in the kitchen. If this was the way things had to be in order for us to move on, than I was going to try and settle into it. My life had gone from serene to chaotic, slowly, over the course of a few months. When I moved here I didn’t know anyone. I became best friends with the star players of the Penguins, fell in love with one, and had to settle for another.

I had just gotten out of the shower when Sid called.

“Hey babe, what’s up?”

“Just got out of the shower, what’s going on?”

“Nice. I wouldn’t mind getting your wet, naked body all to myself…”

“Very funny,” I commented.

“I wasn’t exactly kidding,” he flirted back. “I actually called to see if you wanted to go out for dinner tonight.”

“Sure. Where were you thinking?”

“Not sure yet. I’ll surprise you.”

“Sounds great, what time?”

“Uh,” he paused to make up his mind. “Let’s plan on seven. I’ll pick you up.” They obviously had the night off.

“Okay, that’s fine. See ya later,” I was quick to hang up so I could continue getting ready.

I didn’t know what Sid had up his sleeve but I knew whatever it was, it was orchestrated so that Jordan wouldn’t be anywhere in the picture. When Sid showed up to get me for dinner he immediately greeted me with a kiss. “Maybe we can come back here for dessert later,” he seductively whispered into my ear.

I partially smiled at him and pushed him through the doorframe. “Let’s just focus on dinner for now,” I said with my hand still on his chest.

We didn’t go anywhere too fancy. I was pretty sure the only reason he wanted to go out was because he wanted to keep me all to himself, like he had been doing. We went to a pub, but a nice one. It had a separate section for dinner and really awesome food.

“I know I probably don’t want to ask you what I’m about to ask you, but what really went on between you and Staal?” he asked as soon as the waiter took our orders.

I stiffened and felt my stomach get butterflies. “Sid does it really matter?”

“Maybe not, maybe it shouldn’t, but obviously whatever happened profoundly impacted both of you,” his voice had a hint of nervousness.

I sighed. I wished he’d just drop it. I was about to try and answer him when he spoke again. “Do you miss him?” his words lingered in my ears.

That was the one thing I didn’t want to answer. “Sid,” I took a deep breath. “Did you bring me out to dinner to talk about me and Jordan? Is this how you want our night to go?”

He looked down and let out a breath. “No, no it’s not,” he looked back up at me. “But I just need to know if you still have feelings for him.”

“I think you already know the answer to that question,” I answered quietly.

“…Did you sleep with him?” I wasn’t expecting him to ask me that. I found it rather irritating that they both had the nerve to ask me that about the other.

“Come on-“ I pleaded with his ridiculousness.

“Just answer the question, please,” he cut me off.

I closed my eyes and slowly nodded my head. “I did,” I whispered. “Does that make you feel any better now?” I spat out. He didn’t say anything.

That was the last we would speak of it. It hurt him to hear it, angered was more like it. He would’ve pressed the issue but the arrival of our food interrupted his thoughts. We went through the rest of our meal in an awkward silence. He was pissed and I couldn’t understand why he’d ask me questions he didn’t want to hear the answers to. We didn’t stay for drinks or sit and chat, we left as soon as Sid paid the bill. I didn’t know what to say to him, we could have had a relatively normal night if he had suppressed his curiosity.

I opened my door and walked into my apartment. I wasn’t sure if Sid would follow me or not, but after hesitating for a few moments, he did. I was in the process of taking off my coat and gloves when I felt him aggressively spin me around and before I could react his lips were hungrily pressed to mine.

I pulled back, “What are you doing?”

He tried to reel me back in but I kept pulling away. “Please…” he whispered softly. He kissed me again and grabbed me closer to him. He threw my coat, which was already half off, on the ground and started dragging our bodies away from the table. He pressed me against the wall and started pulling at my clothes, running his hands up my legs under my skirt, trying to rip open the shirt I had on with it. He had me pressed tightly against the wall, which made it easier for him to get my legs to wrap around him. My skirt was hiked up, his hands were roaming from my thighs to my breasts, and I was very uncomfortable with how quickly he was moving.

“Sid,” I panted. He was still trying to rip off my shirt. “Wait…” I whispered, short on breath. He growled into my ear and didn’t stop though I tried to push him away a little. “Sid!”

“What?” he pulled away in frustration.

“Just…stop. Wait. I’m not ready.” He ignored my words, held me up and carried me into the bedroom. I clung to him in fear and guilt. I didn’t want this to continue and I couldn’t get Jordan’s face out of my mind. Sid threw me down on the bed and crawled between my legs. I didn’t move, I didn’t know what to say. I wanted him to stop and I was surprised he wasn’t listening to me. He pressed his lips to mine and ran kisses along my neck and back to my ear as his hands traveled my body. “Please,” he whispered. “Just… make love to me like I was him.”

My body went numb. I pushed him off of me so that we were lying side by side. “I’m sorry that’s bothering you, but I can’t force myself to be ready for something I’m just not yet. I don’t know what to tell you if that isn’t good enough for you.”

His breathing was so rapid I could see the rising and falling of his chest. “Are you ever going to be at that point?”

I looked at him in confusion. “Is that all that matters to you?”

“No, but I want to be that close to you.” The softness of his voice didn’t hide his frustration.

“You can’t just want this to top Jordan…” That’s how I felt his intentions were, that they had been that way from the beginning.

“It’s not just to top him. Look, I don’t know the entire story of you two, but we’re together now, and you slept with him… Are you ever going to look at me the way you look at him?”

“Sid,” I sighed. “I don’t know what to say. I think it’s best if you went home now. This conversation isn’t helping either one of us.” I looked away and up at the ceiling. I knew I couldn’t sleep with Sid; I was in love with Jordan. If I did, it would be almost worse than what Jordan did because I would be doing it out of spite, and I just couldn’t.

I got up and walked him to the door and kissed him lightly but unemotionally on the lips. He shook his head and left, but the thing was that I didn’t feel anything. I had the opportunity to take the next step in my relationship with Sid, and I couldn’t do it because I was hands down in love with Jordan, and that’s how I’d always feel.

The boys had a home game the following night and I had obligations to be there. They hadn’t been home for a few days and because of my relationship status with Sid, and especially what had happened the previous night, I had to be there. It was the first time I would see Jordan after everything had happened. As I walked down the steps to my seat I noticed that Jared was in the seat next to me. I hadn’t seen him in a long time. I couldn’t even remember how long…it was possible I hadn’t seen him since the night I realized I was in love with Jordan, before we started dating, before everything happened.

“Howdy stranger,” Jared hugged me tightly.

“Gosh Jare, how have you been?” I squealed. “I haven’t seen you in forever! How’s school?”

“Eh, sucks. Same old crap,” he laughed.

“How’s hockey going?”

“Eh, same old crap,” he laughed the same way.

“That good huh?” I joked back.

“Nah, I’m kidding. Everything is going good, hockey is keeping me busy.”

“Yeah I can imagine between that and school you probably don’t have much free time on your hands anymore.”

“It is what it is, I finally got some free time to come down and catch a game. You look great, how have you been? How’s Crosby?” he asked bitterly.

I wanted to tell him how miserable I’d been but I opted for optimism. “Everything’s great,” I lied.

He just looked at me as a sly smile slide across his face. “Yeah, I can tell. You still pissed at my brother, huh?”

My eyes popped open and I was speechless. I wasn’t sure he knew about us, and I guess on some level I wasn’t expecting him to know much- if anything at all.

“It’s okay, I didn’t think you’d expect me to ask you any questions,” he smiled. “Jordan finally broke down and told me everything. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t know he’s been in love with you from the beginning, and it’s not like I couldn’t tell you loved him. You two stubborn asses are going to be the death of me.”

I swallowed and tried to find the right words. “You knew?” was all I could stammer out.

“Hell yeah I knew. It’s so obvious you two belong together, I can’t see how you can’t see that.”

“It’s not all me Jare, he messed everything up. We were so happy, everything was…” I paused to let out a sigh as I reminisced in my mind. “perfect.”

“My brother is an idiot sometimes. I know how he is. He doesn’t always do the right things, he screws up, and he hurts the people that care about him, but being his brother, I’ve also seen him go through different things and I can give you my word that I’ve never seen him feel about anyone the way he feels about you.”

“Jare, you know I love you, but I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Could we just…not?”

“As you wish my dear.” As he said that I smiled at him in relief and felt a little bit of pressure lift off my shoulders.

I could tell throughout the entire game that Sid was annoyed. He was transparent; it wasn’t as if he could disguise how he felt. Jordan tried not to look at me but he wasn’t doing such a great job. The reason I knew this was because neither was I. The more I sat in my seat, next to the brother of the man I was in love with, and watched him play alongside with the man I was currently dating, I realized how ridiculous this situation was. I couldn’t go through the rest of my life not being with Jordan, I couldn’t pretend I was happy. He had messed up big time, but I was beginning to realize that he had been dealing with the consequences of what he did.

The Pens were up by two mid-way through the third period, but I had been so busy thinking that I had barely been paying any attention. Until I saw Jordan get hit so hard that he flew off his feet and into the boards, head first. His body fell to the ice limply and he wasn’t moving. My heart sunk into my stomach, I knew he was hurt really bad. It wasn’t like last time when he just had some cuts and bruises. The crowd stood to its feet screaming, Kris went after the culprit and I turned to Jared with tears welling in my eyes. “Oh my God, I’ve got to see him,” I said frantically, my hands shaking.

“You can’t Ann. Crosby will have a coronary if you run to Jordan.”

“I don’t care. I love him and if he’s not okay I’ll die, I’ll just die,” before he could answer I turned and ran up the stairs to make my way down to the locker room. When I got to the top of the steps I stopped for a brief second and turned to the ice to see they were getting a stretcher for Jordan. My eyes fluttered over to Sid who was staring at me. He knew exactly what I was doing, and as hurt as he was, he understood. I turned and continued running frantically through the halls to get to Jordan.

By this point security knew who I was, everyone knew who I was and I didn’t have a problem getting in anywhere. They let me in immediately and I ran until I saw the doctors catering to Jordan. He looked weak and disoriented, I wasn’t sure if he was conscious but it wasn’t going to prevent me from being with him. I slowly walked over to where he was lying and hesitantly leaned over him. I placed my hand on his face softly and ran it down. “Is he okay?”

“He has a concussion,” one of the team doc’s answered. “He got hit pretty damn hard. His vitals seem okay, he just needs to wake up. It doesn’t look like he’ll need to stay in the hospital but we are going to run some tests. He’s definitely not going to be playing for a few days though.” His eyes were starting to flutter open. “Ah, there we go. C’mon Staal.”

“Jord, Jord can you hear me?” I asked him quietly. He winced and blinked rapidly as he looked at me. I continued trailing my hand lightly from his forehead down his cheek. I brushed his hair back and kissed his forehead, “You gave me quite a scare out there. Are you feeling okay?”

“Anna? What are you doing down here?” his voice was raspy and confused.

“I was worried about you…Jord, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything.” I felt tears lightly trail down my cheeks.

“I love you Anna. I always have.” He whispered.

“I know you do. I know. I love you too. Just rest though, I need you to be okay,” I smiled at him through my tears and stroked his face.

His hand weakly searched for mine, he brought it to his lips and very lightly kissed it. “I’m going to be fine. Don’t worry about me. Just go home and relax.”

“Are you sure? I’ll stay if you want me to.”

“No,” he was slowly regaining his strength. “I want you home, safe. I’m going to be here a little while-“

I interrupted him and rapidly spit out, “I’ll stay with you-“ but he cut me off. “No, it’s okay. Trust me.” I nodded and kissed him on the forehead, “I love you,” I whispered into his ear and a smile of pure contention spread across his face.

I went home like he requested and waited. I put on pj’s and tried to sleep but I couldn’t. I was worried about him and afraid something had gone wrong and he wouldn’t be able to let me know. It took a little while, like he said it would, but I soon heard the light tapping on my door. I got up and ran to the door, opening it and lunging in his arms as soon as I saw him. “Are you okay?”

He wrapped his arms around me tightly, “I’m fine. Not great though, so don’t knock me over,” he laughed but then turned more serious. “I’m so sorry Anna. I never meant to hurt you, I wish everyday that I could take it back. I love you so much and the thought of you being with anyone else other than me…” he shook his head in agony, “I can’t handle it. You’re my soulmate.”

I ripped my body away from his, grabbed his hand and pulled him into my apartment, shutting the door behind us. “Jord, I was so scared when I saw you get hurt. I didn’t know what happened to you but I knew I couldn’t live with myself if you weren’t okay.” I stood in front of him and wrapped my arms around his neck.

“What about Crosby?” The thought of him and I together drove Jordan crazy. He was hurt and angered by the situation and I could hear the tone in his voice that indicated just that.

“What about him? I’m sorry for hurting you. I could never love him as anything other than a friend. I tried to get even with you but I knew I could never get over you.”

“So…does this mean we can be together again?”

“One condition,” I said playfully.

“What’s that?” he was intrigued and dying to hear the answer.

“I don’t want to hide it anymore. I don’t want to pretend anymore. I want it to be us, you and me.”

He leaned down and kissed me. “I’ve been waiting for you to give me a second chance. I knew you would, I just didn’t think it’d take all this…but if that’s what it took for both of us to realize we belong together, than I don’t care.” His arms were wrapped tightly around my waist and the tip of his nose was touching mine. “Does this mean you forgive me?”

“It breaks my heart and I’ll never be okay with it, but I believe that you’re sorry and I actually feel like I can really trust you.”

“You can. I’m never going to hurt you again.” He was desperately insistent and I knew he meant it. "You're everything to me. You're my best friend, you've taught me so much about myself and make me want to be the best I possibly can. I wouldn't want to consider living the rest of my life without you."

“Me either.” I nervously laughed. “I mean- it hurt me knowing I was hurting you, and I’m sorry…I’m so sorry. Nothing makes sense without you.” I anxiously explained to him.

“Speaking of which, is he going to show up here tonight?” he asked with trepidation.

“Sid? No…I think he knows. He’s always known,” I was ashamed.

“Well, I can say this much at least. He liked you, obviously, but I think a big part of the reason was because of the competition between the two of us. He can play dumb all he wants, but apparently everyone could tell there was something going on between us. He knew, he had to, he just wanted to see if he could win you over.”

“Are you for real?” that surprised me. I didn’t think Sid was a douche, and I didn’t blame him for anything, but it did sound like something he would do.

“How are you feeling?” I was concerned about him. He still was weak. “You wanna go to bed?”

He smiled and kissed me quickly. “I’d love to, I’ve been waiting to for a while,” and he grabbed me hand and lead me into the bedroom. It was an incredible night and both of us knew it was the beginning of the rest of our lives.

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“Are you sure ready for this?” My dad asked jokingly as he looked at me proudly.

“Yes, I am,” I smiled up at him.

I grabbed my father’s arm and he led me down the aisle. I was in a beautiful white gown and when I looked down the aisle in front of me, I saw Jordan with his mouth wide open in amazement and tears in his eyes. It had been six months since the night Jordan got hurt and we fell back into each other. Sid stood next to Jordan, along with his brothers and Kris, as one of his groomsmen. Everything had cooled over and Sid even admitted that he knew I was always meant to be with Jordan. About two weeks after we had gotten back together I came home to find my apartment completely covered with roses and Jordan on his knee begging for my hand in marriage. I couldn’t say yes fast enough, and now it was finally happening.

“I love you,” Jordan mouthed to me as the pastor spoke to the congregation and Jordan and I stood facing each other, hand in hand. He was happier than I’d ever seen him but I knew how he felt. “I love you too,” I mouthed back. I was having a hard time fighting back tears- we both were- but we didn’t care.

I slide the ring of his finger, promising him that I would always support, love and trust him and when he slipped the band on my finger, tell me I would eternally be his, I felt a peace overcome me. I knew this was how things were supposed to be- we loved each other more than anything- and when we were finally announced as husband and wife we kissed each other to seal the deal, knowing that for the rest of our lives nothing could ever come between us.