Everything I've Ever Wanted

"Turn your face that way." I murmured to Tony, releasing my camera from in front of my face as he sighed exasperatedly. He tilted his face towards the bustling city just like I wanted him to, but he was too slouched down now for my taste. "Baby, sit up more." I instructed giving him a look so that he would do as he was told.

"You know, the only reason I'm doing this is so I get laid tonight." He told me seriously, his lips curving into a smug smirk as I snapped the picture. I grinned down at the screen that showed me the shot, satisfied with how good it looked. It was already my favorite of the day and we had only been at this for an hour, short compared to the other times I had made him participate in a photo shoot.

"I am quiet aware of that." I giggled as I stood up from my crouch and walked to him, wrapping my arm around his shoulder and pulling his neck down to mine. I placed my puckered lips against his as he sighed contently.

"Does this mean I get lucky?"

"I don't know." I murmured, pretending to think, biting my lip and making an absolute show of it. "I mean, I might be too tired or maybe I'll call up my other boyfriend. He hasn't seen any action in awhile." I smirked at the sour look that crossed over Tony's face, lips pursed in annoyance.

"That's not funny. And I thought you threw your vibrator away?" Tony questioned as I wound up and smacked him.

"There are children around." I scolded as my face tinted red.

"I'd be concerned if they knew what I was talking about." I gave him a disapproving look before climbing into his lap. I curled into his chest, my lips pressing against the under part of his chin lovingly as the wind blew my brown strands. "Baby, what are you doing after we graduate?" He whispered to me, speaking of the big day that was now two weeks from today.

"I want to be a photographer, so I'm going to look for a job." I told him, shrugging my slender shoulders. "My mom's best friend has her own company that's very successful and its kind of my dream job." I breathed out, closing my eyes and picturing working at the studio I always trailed along with my mom to. Plus, every single picture we ever had for a holiday or a special event, Tammi did.

"Does she know you want to work for her?" Tony asked me. I shrugged, not really knowing how to answer.

"She knows I have all my own equipment and that my major works well for her line of work. I've known her my whole life, but I don't think she's hiring yet. She has six other photographers which is a high number for a company of her size." I sighed, biting my lip.

"What if that doesn't work out?" He persisted, "would you go to a different company, or like, a different state?"

"Probably not. I think right after college I'll be looking for any good job that has decent pay." I chuckled softly. "Why? What are you going to do?"

"I don't know yet. Haven't decided." He shifted beneath me, adjusting me in his lap.

"Oh. Well have you thought of anything?"

"Um, a couple options, but not too in depth yet. I'll focus more this summer." He pushed me up into a standing position. "Why don't we go down to the river and you can harass me some more?" He suggested, tugging on my hand as he quickly switched gears, not going unnoticed by me. "Then maybe we can get something to eat."

"Okay. I've been having too much fun to stop torturing you now." I giggled, letting our previous conversation drop with the couple leaves that fell from the trees. I allowed Tony to lead me onto the sidewalk, making sure my camera was once again packed safely in it's bag for the short walk.

"Oh me too!" Tony cheered as I hoped onto his back.

"You love it." I insisted my chin propped on his shoulder as we headed through St. Paul to the riverside.

"No, but I love you."
***

Q: Your NHL rights belong to San Jose. Do you want to play professional hockey, or follow your dad into coaching, or is there something else you'd like to do?

Tony Lucia: I think my heart right now is to continue to play the sport I love. I think there will be an opportunity, once this season is finished, to continue my hockey career.

I set down the paper, my eyes trailing along the first line of the last question. Tony was sitting across the table from me, ignoring my obvious look. I sighed, trying to catch his attention enough to take his green eyes off of his finance book. But he knew that if he did, a serious conversation would erupt. I cleared my throat next, squinting my eyes as Tony finally began to shift nervously. His eyes slowly trailed to meet mine and I thrust the newspaper towards him.

"I don't need to read that. I already know what it says." Tony murmured to me, his eyes soft as he looked up at me, his fingers absently running through his hair. I tried not to let that little movement send me over the edge.

"Tony, San Jose?" I asked him, leaning back in my chair, the wood legs scrapping against the tile of the kitchen floor. Tony just shrugged though, standing up to grab a glass of water. I watched him tilt the glass back and his head, lips pursed on the rim as they sucked the liquid into his mouth. He poured the rest of it into the sink before placing his hands on either side of the sink, palms down and pressing into the counter.

"Yep." He stated rather dryly, his tone a little too nasty for the sun that shone on him through the window. His eyes sparkled in the sunlight as they looked back at me when he turned. I nodded, looking down at the table and gently folding the paper back up, wishing he would have stopped me when I grabbed it from the chair beside him. I stood up after the paper was neatly folded, walking from the room and running to grab my purse off the couch in the living room. I slipped it over my shoulder, padding down the stairs as footsteps sounded behind me before arms grabbed me, pulling me down onto the stairs.

"Why do you always call me out when I'm being a dick?" Tony asked into my neck.

"Because then no one else will. Plus, you can't get away with being nasty to me. I'm your girlfriend and you treat me with the same respect you give your momma." I told him sternly, pointing my finger at his chest. "And that includes your actions and your tone."

"Yes ma'am." Tony murmured softly into my ear, his lips brushing delicately against the skin as I closed my eyes and leaned back into his chest.

"Is it bad that I already don't want you to go?" I whispered to him, lacing both of our hands together, keeping my eyes squeezed shut. It was like, if I couldn't see it, it wasn't there. If I kept my eyes shut the possibility, no the probability, of him leaving disappeared. "I just want you here forever,"

"I'll always be here." He stressed, meaning with me. "I'll be here," he tapped my head, "I'll be here," he motioned to the walls of the hockey house that he seemed to now be a part of. "And I will always be here." He murmured, unlacing one of our hands to set his hand over my heart. I nodded, letting my eyes flutter open.

"Have you talked to the San Jose organization?" I asked him, turning sideways on the stairs as Tony's arms fell from around me.

"A little bit. Things will pick up more in the summer through, but they want me to play for them." I shook my head up and down, staring straight ahead at the white wall.

"So that's what was with the job talk last week." I whispered to him, shaking my head from side to side as the pieces fell into place as if I snapped my fingers.

"Yeah, I just wanted to get a feel of where you stood on your future." He sighed deeply, laying his forehead against my shoulder as we fell quiet.

"Is San Jose a deal breaker?" Tony whispered to me, sliding down one stair and setting my legs in his lap. I crossed them at the ankles and pressed my back against the wall and looked at Tony with tired eyes.

"I don't know. I've never thought about it." I shrugged my shoulders and squirmed as his hands ran up my thigh and slid under the fabric of my mesh Minnesota hockey shorts. I narrowed my eyes at him as he slid his fingers up, trying to slip under the fabric of my panties. I grabbed his hand, leaning forward to stop his advances and pulling his hand out of my shorts. "Be a good boy Tony. My legs are awfully close to your dick." I gave him a smile filled with enough sugar to give me a cavity, and watched as he moved my feet so that my knees were hanging off of one of his legs, my feet suspended in the air.

"Will you do me a favor and start thinking about it?" He asked me, his hands running over my calves, fingers digging into the defined muscles.

"Why? I thought it could wait until the summer."

"I have to sign before the draft or I lose my opportunity."

"Tony, it shouldn't matter what I want. Go sign if that's what you want to do." I told him, shaking my head at the scrunched up look on his face, the one he did when he didn't like something I was suggestion. "This isn't about me. It's about you and what you have always wanted to do."

"But I want to know you would be okay with it." He stressed to me, shaking his head as his eyes closed. His lips were set in a thin line as we both fell quiet again, the sound of the cars passing by outside the only sound.

"Tony, I want you to sign." I told him, not even thinking twice. "If this were the other way around, if I had a job offer in another state, you would tell me to go, and I'm going to do the same thing for you. If they want you to sign, and you want to sign, you better trace your pretty signature on the documents they have for you."

"Are you sure?" He asked me, eyes squinted as he searched my face for any hesitation.

"Yes." I told him even though I was anything but sure that I wanted him to leave.
***

"Be honest, does this make me look fat?" I asked Kara as I spun around looking into the full length mirror on my door. I wrinkled my nose at the purple dress that was gathered around the bust and then hung down from the start of my ribs. It was something that had looked flattering in the dressing room but now that I looked at it, I hated it.

"No it looks amazing." She sighed to me from the doorway, watching as I continued to wrinkle my nose in distaste. It was just not fitting on me right. I moved to my closet just as Kara stepped into the room, grabbing my wrist. "No. You are keeping that on because despite what you think, you look gorgeous, Mol."

"I look pregnant." The two of us bit back laughter at that remark both of us finding it comical because if the pregnancy scare a couple months back had been for real, I would now be around six months pregnant. I shuddered at the thought, glad I had dodged that bullet.

"You look fine." Kara insisted once again, straightening out her black dress and smoothing a portion of her hair.

"Seriously?" I sighed, stepping towards my right to once again be in line with the mirror.

"Try taking your hair down." She suggested as our door bell rang. She skipped from the room as I grabbed my clip, releasing its grip on my hair and allowing the strands to cascade down my back. I flipped some of it in front of my shoulders, biting my lip as I looked over my reflection trying to see if from a different perspective.

"Ugh! Now I just look like a pregnant woman with some serious curls." I exclaimed exasperatedly, turning to the door to go find Kara.

"No you don't. You look beautiful as always and you better not change a thing." Tony stated from his spot causally leaning against the door jam of my room. I sighed, my shoulders rising and falling dramatically as I stared into his sparkling green eyes.

"Babe." I pouted at him, my lips turned down in a deep frown as he shook his head.

"Stop fretting about nothing. Come on." He reached his hand out for me to grab and once I had my gown and heels, we walked down stairs to join Joey and Kara. Due to Joey's dream to play hockey, academically he was just finishing his sophomore year while he technically should be graduating this year.

"Hey hot stuff," Joey winked at me as I rolled my eyes are him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and giving him a squeeze.

"Hey now," Tony warned, eyes squinting playfully. "You're my best friend, but I don't share well." I looked at Tony over my shoulder grinning at him and shaking my head at how adorable he looked with his green eyes lowered slightly.

"I'm not poaching your territory, I got mine right here." Joey gave Tony a huge grin before turning to Kara, dropping a sweet kiss against her lips. "We ready to graduate?" Joey asked, not taking his gaze from his girlfriend's grey eyes.

"I guess." I shrugged, lacing my fingers with Tony and taking a deep breath as we walked out of the house, the heels of our shoes scrapping against the concrete.

"Are your parents coming?" Tony asked me as we walked down the street hand in hand, our enlaced limbs swinging in between our two bodies.

"Of course." I giggled at Tony's stupid question. "You think they'd miss their only child graduating." I shook my head at that, closing my eyes for a moment and picturing my sister, my twin, the girl who should have been with me today to graduate. I sighed inwardly, scoldingly telling myself not to go down that road.

Today was supposed to be full of joy, full of closing a chapter of our lives and moving on with the future. But I was scared of the future. Graduating from college meant that I needed to find a job, and begin the rest of my life. Until this point, I had been relying on my parents and their financial support and guidance. Starting in the fall, my parents told me it was time for me to be on my own. I didn't blame them at all, I understood, but that didn't make me any less nervous. But each time I thought about the fall, I thought about Tony leaving, going to San Jose since he had signed his contract a couple days prior to today. He had been so giddy and so happy, that I couldn't bare to be betty downer. I hugged him, squeezing him tight as I smiled, pushing all the negative thoughts to the back of my mind where they could stay until another time.

And if I wasn't thinking about graduating with Tony, I was thinking about graduating with my sister or, believe it or not, Dakota. Lately, my mind had been wandering to her and whether or not she was actually going to graduate. From what I had heard, after our fall out, she went home for three weeks before coming back to school, extremely far behind and failing big time. Part of me was nervous for if she was going to be there, but the other part of me was curious to see if she had changed, or if she was still the manipulative bitch she had turned into. I bit my lip, chuckling silently when I thought of my freshman year and how Dakota and I had sworn to be together through thick and thin. I guess there was a limit to how thin a relationship could go before it just snapped.

"What are you thinking about?" Tony asked.

"Isn't it obvious? Life. This is one of those defining moments. I need to have my big, long, heart to heart with myself about what I want to do after I have that diploma in my hands." I looked at him as we reached the mall. I handed Tony my purse, unzipping my black gown and throwing it on over my purple dress. I was kind of relieved when I put the gown on since I still felt extremely fat in my dress. I let Tony's fingers zip the black gown before I grabbed my hat from him, placing it on my head and posing cutely with puckered lips.

"Sexy." He grinned down at me, setting his lips on mine before his tongue could swipe along my bottom lip quickly. He pulled away almost instantly since he still had to slip into his graduation attire. I zipped up his gown for him also, placing his hat on his head. I stood on my tippy toes, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and pulling his face down to mine.

"I love you and I am so happy we are together, baby." I murmured against his lips, thinking back at the couple years I held a grudge against him for no reason.

"You're the best thing that has happened to me in college. I just wish I would have found you my freshman year. Maybe it wouldn't have sucked so much." He chuckled softly, running his hand over my curls, careful not to make them lose their shape. I looked up at my boyfriend of almost nine months, smiling up at him as he gazed down at me with love in his eyes. I bit my lip, feeling a tad bit unnerved as he stared blatantly into my eyes. There was something about the look in his eyes that made my whole body tingle in the best way possible. It was the kind of look that made me look forward to the future; the kind of look that almost make me forget about how in a couple months, he would be gone.

After all:
Love makes us close our eyes to the things we don't want to see.