2nd Intermissions

I sat there in bed another night, rejecting an invitation from Niemi and Kopecky to go bowling.
Laughing at the way they asked me on the bus, approaching me with twizzlers. I bounced on my back on the bed, pulling my phone out of my jeans pocket when I heard it ring. Opening it and putting it to my ear I asked, "Adam?"
"Hello there, beautiful."
"Hah!" I laughed, running my hand through my hair. "You wouldn't be saying that if you saw me."
"If saw you, I would smother you with kisses."
"That sounds way to romantic, are you okay?" I chuckled and heard him do the same.
"The only thing there is to watch at home is lifetime."
"No. way. Don't tell Sharp, he will never let you live it down."
"I don't plan on telling Sharpie old boy. If he finds out, I know who told him, because I would only tell you." He said seriously.

I loved the nights where we would talk on the phone until it got to late and he needed rest to heal properly. I made due with coffee the next morning, and the team soon realized without it, I was a grouch.
"Hey did you met the new kid, yet?" Adam inquired.
"Jelly? Yeah." Niklas Hjalmarsson had arrived two days prior, joining us in L.A.
"I've seen how he plays- I've been watching the games all the time."
"Shouldn't you be sleeping?"
"Sleep is for quitters. I'm just counting down the days until all of you are back in Chicago, so I can complain about my knee to you." He laughed, and I heard him shift in his bed.
I giggled and said, "Only five more days."
"Give or take a couple hours." He sighed.
"Wow, you must really like me or something."
"You just now realized that? I'm home alone, injured, and my woman is prancing across the country with an organization of men. My life can suck."
"Yes, but who will I be coming home to?"
Adam laughed a breathy laugh and replied, "Me, I believe."
"And who will I let complain about his knee? Nonstop?"
"I will not complain about it nonstop."
"Yes you will- unless I take your mind off of it."
"And how will you do that?" I heard his breath get more ragged and his voice deepen.
"Well, we could always go into the bedroom, and shut off the lights, and you'd lay down on the bed and I would..." I let my voice trail off, trying not to laugh.
"What would you do, Samantha?" His voice was husky and it made it difficult to do what I was about to.
"Feed you cookies. Love you Adam! Good night! Dream of me!" And with that: I hung up quickly, before he could reply.

Giggling, I rolled over and quickly fell asleep.

We lost against the Kings and it killed Adam. Two more days to go until I was back in Chicago and we played the New York Rangers.
I gritted my teeth as I sat in the examination room. The coach of the Rangers decided that he would let his team doctor take the night off without a replacement, and he scrambled to find a temp when Coach Q allowed him to borrow my services.
Normally I would have no problem with this, it sometimes happens between teams- but I knew who needed to be patched up.
Oh yes, Sean Avery got into a fight he expected to win, and Ben Eager popped him in the face- not once, not twice, but four times, leaving a tear in the skin stretched across his cheekbone.

I stood facing him, he sat on the examination bench, perfectly comfortable with his cheek bleeding down his face onto his neck and eventually onto his jersey while he leered at me.
I scoffed and grabbed my supplies. I needed this to be done as quickly as possible. I prayed he didn't have to have stitches: not out of the kindness of my heart, but instead to assure that I would be out of the Rangers locker room in two minutes.
I approached him and he said to me, "I'm glad Doc Lallor decided to take tonight off."
Saying nothing, I dabbed the peroxide on the gauze, then raised it to his cheek, cleaning it off quickly. Ignoring his hiss of pain, I would normally blow on the wound for my boys, but I told myself he deserved the pain.
Avery was the one who delivered the blow that injured Adam's ACL. Damned if I would make him more comfortable.
I angled the desk lamp to shine directly in Avery's face. Taking a better look at the cut, I sighed when I realized I would have to stitch it.
"Hold this to your face." I instructed him curtly, pressing the gauze to his cheek. When he reached up to take it, he brushed my hand a second to long.
I walked over to the cabinet that housed their supplies, getting increasingly irritated when he openly acted like a flirtatious man whore and making me uncomfortable.
My anger reached its peak when I couldn't find the needle and thread.
I slammed my hand into the wall next to the cabinet and Avery said, "Something bothering you, babe?"
Turning my head towards him, I said, "Nothing is bothering me, Avery. Just shut the fuck up and keep the gauze on your face."
I soon realized it was a mistake when something lit up behind his eyes. I viewed him with nothing but disgust as I went back to my quest for thread and a needle.
Finally finding it, I turned around to walk back over to him when I saw him going through my phone I left on the table.
"If you want to be stitched up correctly, I advise you to put my phone back where you found it." I treated him like a child as I sterilized the thread and pulled out a new needle. He looked at me and slowly put the phone on the table.
Threading the needle, I saw him out of the corner of my eye, watching me closely.
I leaned over his legs, wielding my newly threaded needle. Sewing up his cut with as many stitches as allowed, I cut the string with vigor and tied it.
"Ask your team doctor for more instructions." I said, grabbing my phone and purse and quickly leaving the locker room.

I arrived back in the visitors locker room to the smiling face of Eager sitting in my chair.
A black eye was blossoming on his left eye.
"Oh Eags." I laughed, feeling a load leave my chest when I saw the familiar friendly faces of my team.
"How was the scum-bag?" He asked when I went to grab him an ice pack and a packet of motrin for the internal swelling.
I replied with, "Like he would be. Flirtatious once he saw I was a female and rude."
"I'll kick his ass again anytime, doc. First he hurt Bur, now he flirted with our doctor? That guy has a death wish."
I pointed at him as he left and I said, "I don't want to see anyone fight with him. He's a waste of time."
Eager nodded and left, and I don't believe a word got through to him.
Sighing, I sat down on the chair that Ben just occupied.

On our way back to Chicago, I told Adam what had happened, after he called me that night asking why all the guys suddenly want to kill Avery.
"I knew they loved me, but there has to be another reason." He had said.

Our plane landed and I jumped in the car I had left in the parking lot for two weeks, glad to be in something familiar and utterly mine. Instead of driving home, I drove straight to Adam's apartment, falling in love with the Chicago streets once again.
I took the stairs two at a time to his door and I knocked my knuckles on the scarred wood twice.
Hearing him on the other side ask, "Who is that?" I practically yelled, "Me!"
The door swung open and I closed it behind me as I exited the hallway and entered Adam's apartment. Seeing him on a crutch and the large black plastic brace wrapped around his knee made me hug him, burying my face in his neck. The familiar smell and feel of Adam lulled me until I felt him laugh and say, "Sam? Let's go to the couch or something, I hate using crutches."
I released him and nodded, walking with him slowly to the front room, where he plopped down on one of his leather couches.
I quickly followed, letting him lay down and put his head in my lap.
Running my hands through his hair, I saw his eyes closing and I began tracing his face with my fingers.
"You haven't shaved, have you?"
He laughed and replied, "Not since you left. Should I?"
I shook my head, my hair coming out from behind my ears.
"Adam." I said, tracing my fingers across his stubble, back to his hair.
"Samantha."
"I missed you."
"I missed you too." And with those four words, he fell asleep in my lap, fingers laced together on his stomach, leg propped up on the arm of the couch.
I remained awake for a half hour more- playing with his hair and stroking his face, until I too, fell asleep with the sun still shining though his windows.