Playing the Game of Love

October 6th, 2010
Wednesday
Brenton Boston Luxury Apartments, Beacon St., Boston, MA
12:10 P.M.

Raina woke up the next morning feeling extremely hung over. She had a huge headache and a stomach ache to match. She groaned as someone opened up her shades, letting the sunlight pour in. She saw Jasmiina walk over to her bedside.

“I brought you an aspirin, and some water, and-” before Jasmiina could finish her sentence Raina felt her stomach turn. She jumped up off the bed, making her head splitting headache intensify and ran for the toilet. She just made it as she threw up. Jasmiina pulled back her hair as more came up. When she was done she sat miserably down next to the toilet.

“What the hell happened?” She then remembered Michael. “Please don’t tell me I slept with him!!”

“Who?”

“That Michael guy,”

“No, but I think there’s something you should know,”

“What? What did I do?” Jasmiina explained everything that had gone on the night before.

“Oh shit I screwed up bad,”

“But you told Brittany off,”

“What happened after I fell asleep?”

“I went back downstairs and by then it was around 2:00. Vlad and Tuukka had calmed down Milan, and I think Blake said Michael left the party. Milan and Brittany were fighting about something and then they left.” When Raina heard that they’d been fighting she completely ignored the throbbing pain in her head and said

“What were they fighting about?”

“I’m not exactly sure but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with you kissing him on the cheek and telling her to back off. He called earlier to say that Brittany had last minute plans and she couldn’t go shopping. Your dad also scheduled a practice for 2:00.” Raina ran her hands over her face and said

“I’ve really, really screwed up bad, what’s he going to think of me?”

“You should probably call him.” Raina glanced at the clock and saw it was already 11:00,”

“What do I say?”

“That you’re sorry and you were totally out of control and you didn’t mean anything you said because you were drunk out of your fucking mind.” Raina took the aspirin Jasmiina had brought her and then attempted to call Milan. It seemed like the phone had rang a million times before he picked up.

“Hey,” she said

“Hey,” he said back.

“About last night,” said Raina “I’m sorry I was just really out of control and drunk, and whatever I said I didn’t-”

“I know, I forgive you, you just scared me,”

“What?”

“You scared me because what if I hadn’t been sitting in that hot tub. What he would have done to you,”

“Sorry,” she said again. “Are you badly hurt?”

“From what?”

“The fight,” when he started laughing she felt some relief flood into her chest.

“God no, that was just a small scuffle compared to some of the fights I’ve been in, I think I banged up that kid pretty bad though.”

“So I’ll see you at practice?”

“Yup, like always,” she smiled and said

“Alright then bye,”

“Bye,” and she hung up.

“That went well,” said Jasmiina, who was sitting in her computer desk chair.

“Ya, I thought he would be pissed at me,”

“How come you didn’t ask him about the fight between him and Brittany?” Raina shrugged and said

“The girlfriend subject seems like a bad thing to talk about right now,”

Raina spent the next few hours resting off the hangover.” By 2:00 both girls were ready. Raina could still feel the headache but it was fading away, and wasn’t nearly as bad as before. Jasmiina drove Raina’s car for her so after the practice she could go home with Tuukka and Raina could drive herself home.

They reached the rink and walked down into the locker room. Most of the team was already there. They watched her silently as she walked in with Jasmiina, knowing full well of what had happened the night previous. Tuukka and Vlad sat in a corner getting their things on.

“How are you today?” said Tuukka looking up at her.

“Not the best I’ve ever been,” said Raina. Nobody else talked as she sat down on the bench, leaning over and setting her forehead against her knees pulling the hood of the large gray hoodie she was wearing over her head.

She got up and decided she was going to go sit in the small room behind the bleachers. She walked into the hallway and suddenly felt someone grab her shoulder and pull her backwards into the empty unused locker room. She felt the person who had grabbed her pull her into a tight hug. It took her a few seconds to realize it was Milan. She hugged back, wrapping her arms around his waist. He tucked his face into her neck and whispered into her ear.

“Don’t ever scare me like that again please; I need you to promise me that. Don’t go out alone ever and drink like that or let a man take advantage of you.” She looked up at him and saw his worried face looking down at her. She buried her face into his enormous chest.

“I promise,” they stayed in the position they were in for awhile before she heard Milan whisper

“I don’t know what I would do if you weren’t around Raina,” She felt him kiss the top of her head. She unwrapped her arms from his waist and set them around his neck so she was looking directly up at him. They stared down at each other, she felt her breath quicken as he moved his face closer to hers. She wanted all of him right then. She wanted him to pin her up onto the wall and feel his bare solid body press up against her. They were so close she could see the small stubble on his chin. He spoke softly and said

“I have to finish getting dressed, I’ll see you during practice,” and then they broke apart. The air seemed strangely cold and they watched each other until Raina had backed out of the room and shut the door. She still felt like she was in a trance when she walked up the stairs to the rink and was met by Jasmiina.

“What’s the matter with you?” she said staring at her questioningly. She told her about what had just happened and Jasmiina grinned and said

“And you will be even happier when you hear that Brittany isn’t at practice today.”

“Good, I bet she’s sitting at home pouting about last night.” Raina got her skates on and went out onto the ice as the players were coming out. It was a low-key practice today. Tomorrow they would have another practice, and then it was off to Czech Republic the next day. Raina skated up to Vlad and jumped on him from behind. He turned around in surprise to see her.

“Hey vampire, happy to be returning to your homeland?”

“Ray, if I were a vampire I’d be going to Transylvania not Czech.” He said smugly.

“Stop trying to be a smart ass,” she said. “Are you going to see your parents while you’re there?”

Ya, they’re coming to see me play actually, and then taking me out after to eat”

“Awww Vladdy you’re a little mama’s boy!!” he blushed, “Where you going to eat? Chuck E Cheese? This time are you gonna order the big kids meal?” Milan skated up next to them, having overheard their conversation.

“Are you going to play in the tunnels with all the kiddies?”

“Shut up you guys,” he said smiling at them. Before they could reply Vlad was called over by one of the coaches to talk.

“Am I ever going to meet your parents?” she said turning to Milan and crossing her arms over her chest. He smiled at her.

“They’re coming to watch me play in the game on October 16th, you’ll see them then,” things seemed back to normal for them, except for the fact that Raina’s desire for Milan had intensified ten fold. She sighed and figured she’d ask the question she’d been itching to say.

“So where’s Brittany?

“She flew home to Vancouver, her parents called to tell her last night that her aunt died of a heart attack and the wake and funeral was today. She’ll be gone all of today and tomorrow morning.”

“Sorry to hear,”

“I actually meant to ask you if you wanted to come over at around midnight like we used to do and have a horror movie night.”

“I’d love to, should I bring any movies over?”

“Yup, I have a couple at my place but we’ll choose on which ones to watch when you come over.” She nodded. Milan skated off to join some of the players from the team to do suicides.

“Hey Looch, let me in!!” She banged on Milan’s apartment door with her elbow. She couldn’t use her hands because they were full with a large stack of horror movies. She felt the DVDs slipping.

“Dammit Lucic let me in you bastard!!” Suddenly the door swung open. Milan was standing there in nothing but pajama pants giving Raina a good view of his muscled chest.

“Sorry I fell asleep, how long have you been standing here?” Raina felt the DVDs slipping again and without answering, ran past him in attempt to get them onto the kitchen table before they fell. She was too late and the whole pile went toppling out of her arms. He bent down to help her pick them up.

“How many did you bring?”

“About 20, you know how much I love horror movies, I could never decide on just one.” Once they had picked up all the DVDs Milan said

“I haven’t got many; I think I only have a couple of the Friday the 13ths, and Halloween.”

“This isn’t even half of my collection,” she said spreading them out on the table so they could see all the different ones to choose from.

“How about House of 1000 Corpses?”

“Nah, I’m not in the mood for childish horror, let’s watching something serious.”

“How about Saw?”

“Yes let’s watch that one,”

“I’ve only seen the first two,” Raina gaped at him.

“What?”

“You’ve never seen the third?”

“No,”

“HOW COULD YOU NOT?! IT’S THE GORIEST IN THE WHOLE SERIES!!” Before he could answer she grabbed him by the hand and tried to drag him into the living room. “You’re going to watch this movie,” she sat him down on the couch, then went over to the DVD player to put the disk in.

Milan’s living room was very wide open. The whole wall that was facing towards the city was made of glass floor to ceiling length windows. The TV had to be somewhere around 80 to 100 inches across. On the left side wall he had several bookcases and shelves that held movies, music, and family pictures. The back wall had the large dark brown cushioned couch he owned. It matched the rugged floors which were a light brown color. On the right wall were more bookcases and shelves and the door that led out into the kitchen.

Once the DVD was in, Raina dashed back over onto the couch, sitting down next to Milan who was pressing play on the clicker. She yet again took notice that he wasn't wearing a shirt. Her bare arm brushed against his and she could feel the powerful muscles in his arm, she wanted him to wrap himself around her like he had done before back in the locker room, except this time he’d be bare-chested which would give her a better feeling of how muscled he really was. God I’m going crazy, she thought. Raina had worn pajamas herself which included green plaid shorts, and a white tank top.

“I’m going to make some popcorn,” said Milan standing up and walking towards the kitchen. He walked back in just in the opening scene holding a plastic bowl full of popcorn. She was finding it hard to concentrate on the movie. They were sitting so close together and she couldn’t help but notice every little movement he was making, and listening to his every breath. It was then that Raina’s favorite trap scene came on and she directed her entire attention onto the TV.

“This is the best scene in the whole series!!” She said jumping up so she was on her knees. Kerry, the female character in the movie was strapped into a harness that was attached to her ribs. The harness would pull her ribs apart, thus ripping open her stomach if she didn’t reach into the cup of acid placed in front of her and get the key in time to unlock the harness from her body. She ended up finding out that the trap is inescapable and the harness pulls her ribs apart, killing her.

“And that’s how true horror movies do it!!” said Raina pumping a fist in the air. “They use physiological and physical horror to disturb the audience!!” Milan laughed and said

“You seem extremely excited about this,”

“This movie is a work of art; the director is such a genius for coming up with such clever traps.”

“You mean he’s a psychopath, and sick in the head,”

“I need to meet this guy someday,” said Raina sliding back down into her seat.

“You’re so weird sometimes,” In an overexcited fit she leaned in real close to him and said

“But that’s why you love me,” the room went silent, even the particular scene in the movie playing was of low volume. Like before, there faces were growing closer only to be interrupted by a loud scream coming from the movie. Both of them jumped in surprise, backing away from each other.

“That caught me off guard,” said Milan turning back towards the TV.

“Ya,” said Raina, still watching him. For a moment she forgot that he was still going out with Brittany and the horrible realization crashed down on her like it had so many times before. He’s not my boyfriend, he’s not available, and probably won’t ever be if he’s living with Brittany. He’s definitely going to go on and get engaged and then married to her, and I’ll be forced to be one of the bridesmaids. He’ll forget all about me, and they’re going to have a million little hockey player babies who will all look like him and they will become famous and take over the NHL. She had to admit the second half of what she had thought about them having a million babies sounded ridiculous but the first half seemed quite possible.

The rest of the movie was spent in silence except for the Pig Vat scene where Milan was so disgusted he refused to look at the screen. When the ending credits started to roll Raina turned to him with a grin on her face.

“Wasn’t that the most amazing movie you’ve ever seen?!”

“It was beautiful, it brought tears to my eyes it was so good,” said Milan sarcastically.

“I have another movie I want you to see,”

“Does it involve people getting their ribs pulled apart, or collars that make your head explode?”

“Nope, it’s worse than the Saw series. It’s called Taxidermia; it's so grotesquely disturbing that people have ran out of the theater having to throw up while watching it. It was made in Hungary and it’s about an obese speed eater, an embalmer of gigantic cats, and a man who can shoot fire out of his penis.”

“It sounds lovely, but I really don’t feel like watching an hour long movie about morbidly obese people having sex, and some guy who shoots flames from his dick,” He stood up off the couch to go choose a different movie off the kitchen table. She grabbed his pant leg and tried to pull him back.

“No you have to watch it! Come back!”

“Raina let go,” he said shaking his foot as she clutched his pant leg.

“If you watch it I will… I will… What do you want me to do for you?” He thought for second and then said

“Give me a blow job,” she let go of his pant leg and sat up off the floor in shock.

“WHAT?!”

“I’m kidding, just kidding, it was a joke, relax,” he said laughing, putting his hands defensively in front of him.

“Don’t even joke like that I thought you were being serious,”

“Ya ok,” a second later he said “Unless you really want to give me one,” she threw the DVD case at his head.

“Stop being a creep, I have a better idea then me doing something for you. How about if you don’t watch this movie with me, I’ll call every puck bunny I know and tell them to wear pink jerseys with your name on it, short shorts with your name on their asses, bunny ears, and stilettos to the game on October 16th. Oh I’ll also tell them to bring signs that say in bright letters: Lucic are you as good in bed as you are when you fight?”

“Please don’t do that,”

“Then watch the movie with me and you’re free.”

“You don’t even know any puck bunnies,”

“You have no idea how many girls approach me at games trying to be my best friend because they want to have a connection to the Bruins and the players.”

“Fine, I watch it” she smiled up at him and stood up off the floor.

“Good boy, now let’s go, and I suggest you don’t eat anymore of that popcorn during the movie, you might get sick to your stomach.”

It was around 4:00 when the movie finally ended.

“That was gross, how do you enjoy movies like this?” He said shutting the TV off.

“Doesn’t get to me that much,” she shrugged. She was no longer in the hyper mood she had been in before. She’d grown tired and let out a large yawn as Milan was putting the disk back in the DVD case.

“You sound tired,”

“No shit, it’s 4:00 in the morning, aren’t you too?”

“Ya, you can sleep here if you want.”

“K,” she said getting up off the couch and walking back into the dark kitchen. “When’s Brittany going to be back tomorrow?”

“Around 10:00 in the morning if her flight’s not delayed.” Raina smiled to herself thinking about Brittany’s reaction to walking in the door and find out she had been sleeping over there. Raina opened her phone to see a text message from Jasmiina.

How are things going?

Great :) I’m sleeping over here tonight. She replied.

Milan brought her upstairs and walked into his bedroom to get extra pillows for her from his closet. His room looked the same as when she’d last seen it, except for a picture on his nightstand.

“Is this you and Brittany?”

“Ya, it was on a beach in Mexico, we flew down there for a week over the summer.” The picture was of Milan holding Brittany to his side and in the background was the light blue ocean. If he hadn’t been watching her she would of knocked the picture into the trash bin that was next to the nightstand and say ‘Oops it slipped,’ but instead she backed away from it and turned towards the closet. Milan was reaching up onto the top rack in the closet to pull down a couple of pillows. She couldn’t help herself from checking out his arm and back muscles as he reached upward. She found herself wanting to go over and run her hands down his back, along his spine, over his shoulder blades, down his sides, and lower back. But as usual, her desires stayed fantasies in her head.

“I know you like to sleep with a gazillion pillows so take all these.” He handed her four pillows. “You want the guest room across the hall?”

“Sure,” He grabbed some sheets for the bed and they went to the guest room. The bed only had a comforter on it so he pulled it off and handed it to her and began to make the bed by putting the sheets on.

“I can do that you know,”

“No I’ll do it for you.” He said sounding half asleep.

“Milan it’s really not a problem,”

“No I want to do it,”

“Then let me help,” she stood next to him and attempted to help him straighten up the sheets so they were positioned right on the bed. He gave her a playful shove aside, she shoved back giggling. They continued to push each other around until they were wrestling. Not wanting to actually hurt her Milan was careful not to grab, shove, or push her to hard. Raina pushed him backwards onto the newly made bed and pinned him down by straddling him and pushing down on his shoulders.

“What would everyone think if they knew big bad Milan Lucic of the Boston Bruins got beat by a 125 pound girl?”

“You know I let you win,” he laughed, leaning his head back in mock relaxation when in reality he was enjoying the feeling of her straddling his hips. Raina went to push herself off of him and he grabbed her by the arms and flipped her over so he was above her.

“I win,” he smirked. She struggled against his grip.

“Let me up or when you wake up tomorrow morning I'll make sure you're in a different country.” He was driving her crazy, she felt herself getting hot just thinking about all the things she could do to him right now. Milan was also finding it hard to keep control of himself. Raina had her neck exposed and all he wanted to do was feel her soft skin on his lips, and feel the curves of her body with his hands. It didn’t take much for him to totally lose it in a sexual situation.

Both of them jumped when Raina’s phone on the nightstand began to vibrate.

“Who the hell calls me at friggin 4:30 in the morning?” Before she could pick it up Milan, still holding her down, picked it up off the nightstand and answered it without looking to see who was calling.

“Hello? Oh hey Tuukka. Where is Raina? She’s directly beneath me that’s where she is.”

“Cool it with the sexual jokes,” she said ripping the phone from his hand.

“What the hell are you two doing?” Tuukka demanded. Milan whispered

“You should start moaning into the phone and then hang up on him. It’s funny to see Tuukka get overly worried for nothing. If you do I’ll let you show me any horror movie you want know matter how grotesquely disturbing it is.” She thought about it.

“Ok fine,” She heard Tuukka still talking.

“Raina? Raina? RAINA!! ANSWER ME I KNOW YOU’RE THERE!” Trying to contain a laugh she let out a low moan into the phone. Milan felt his entire body heat up at the sound. It wasn’t until she started moaning his name did he have to resist grinding his hips into hers, and biting his lip to stop himself from letting out a groan. God what's wrong with me, I already have a girlfriend, He heard Tuukka go wild.

“RAINA ANNABELLE JULIEN, YOU BETTER NOT BE DOING WHAT I THINK YOU’RE-” She ended the call before he could finish his sentence. By then Milan had broken into a sweat and was breathing heavily. He could feel himself getting hard and hoped Raina wouldn’t notice.

“It’s safe to say he won’t be getting any sleep tonight.” said Raina shutting off her phone to avoid getting any more calls from Tuukka. The room was silent when she turned back to Milan who was still on top of her. The atmosphere in the room seemed explosive as they stared at each other. All that could be heard was their breathing. Raina spoke softly and began to say

“Milan I-” but she as interrupted by someone entering the room.

“What is this?!” Both Milan and Raina looked up to see Brittany standing in the doorway.
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Here's a birds-eye view of Milan's apartment.