I Couldn't Be More Afraid

When we walked into his apartment, he offered me something to eat or drink; I think he missed the three shots I took while waiting for him to close out his tab. I could handle my liquor pretty well, I just needed to relax and stop thinking so much. No matter what though, I was keeping my word and I wasn’t going to let him lay a hand on me. We both had to know that our games were only a way to hide how we felt about each other; I knew that I liked him, but that scared the shit out of me.

Marc went into the kitchen to get glasses of water for us and told me to have a seat on the couch. His couch was incredible comfortable; it was a sectional that extended across his living room; I sat down towards the middle, giving him plenty of options as to wear to sit. He came in and handed me my water and then sat down on the end where he could put his feet up across the couch. There were a couple of sections of couch between us and I was comfortable with the distance, knowing if I moved closer, I wouldn’t be able to resist. I was tipsy enough to lose control, but sober enough to keep it from getting that far.

“So why am I here?” I asked.

“Because you want to be.”

“Marc…”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Tell me the truth about why you ignored me all night then asked me back here.”

“I brought you a drink.”

“And then you walked away.”

“Why’d you bring that guy to the game?”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“I thought not everything was about me.”

“The last train home leaves in 45 minutes, give me a good reason why I shouldn’t leave right now to catch it,” I said, standing up.

Marc stood up and walked over to me, he didn’t say a word, just put his hand behind my neck and pulled my face closer to his. Without a break in movement, his lips met mine; our mouths opened slowly and our tongues met then he closed his mouth again, sucking on my bottom lip. He repeated this a few times before finally allowing his tongue to completely explore my mouth. Just like the last time this happened, my knees went weak and I wrapped my arms around his neck to hold my balance. My mind went foggy and I had almost forgotten the conversation that happened just a few minutes ago. When I came to my senses, I pulled away from Marc and started to walk towards the door. He was not going to have this kind of control over me.

“Where are you going?” he asked, sounding frustrated.

“I have to catch a train.”

“Layla, stop running.”

“You’re telling me to stop running?” I said turning around and walking back towards him, my voice raising, “I’m not the one who just stopped talking to you out of the blue.”

“I…I can explain, please, come back and sit.”

“Are you going to kiss me again?”

“Only if you want me to,” he responded with a smirk.

“I don’t.”

I could see a mix of pain and disappointment in his eyes after my cold response. I walked back over to the couch and sat down, making sure to keep space between us. Sometime during the course of that night, the game ended, and real emotion got involved. I could continue to push him away, I could continue to mess with his head, but then I would have to deal with him doing the same. My response wasn’t a lie; I really didn’t want him to kiss me again, but that was because I was afraid of how it made me feel. We sat there in silence for a few minutes, glancing over at each other, waiting for someone to speak first.

“Why are you denying that you want me to kiss you again,” he stated, as if trying to re-boost his ego.

“Why do you think?”

“Well, it’s not because you didn’t enjoy it. I think you’re afraid of me.”

“Why would I be afraid of you?”

“Because you like me.”

“You knew that.”

“Then why fight this?”

“How do I know that you’re in it? It’s been a game since the day we met, why change that?”

“Do you want to know why I stopped talking to you? Really?”

“Yes.”

“The guys were giving me a hard time. They were making fun of me for smiling when I took out my phone to text you. I was the butt of all the jokes…Avery even put Clapton on during one of our bus trips.”

“So you’re ashamed,” I responded without even thinking.

“I didn’t say that, why are you twisting my words?”

“Then tell me what you mean, Marc. Why did you stop talking to me all together because you were getting teased?”

“Not talking to you didn’t mean that I wasn’t thinking about you. I still made sure you got tickets to the game tonight because I wanted to see you. I even convinced Dubi to make sure Leah was distracted so that I could spend time with you…then when I saw you with Jake, I was hurt…I thought you brought a date. You can be as upset as you want to be about my games, but you’re not Little Miss Innocent.”

“I never said I was…but what is this, Marc? We went on two dates, we have no reason to not see other people; we barely even know each other.”

“So you want to bring in other people?” he said once again flashing that smirk that I had gotten so used to seeing. I responded by grabbing a throw pillow of the couch and chucking it at him. We were both smiling and laughing again, the tension was gone, but my fears weren’t. He never denied that there were other girls on the road. I might have only known him for a few weeks, but I already could tell that Marc was a flirt and made sure he got whatever girl he wanted. There was no reason for me to believe he didn’t have a different line for every city he had visited. He threw the pillow back at me and it was on; I had most of the ammunition on my side. It was fun and for a few minutes, I had forgotten all about the conversation we had been having.

Marc grabbed one of the pillows that I was holding and since he was significantly stronger than I was, he ended up pulling me along with the pillow. He had been sitting on the end of the couch, leaning against the back, with his legs up on the rest of the couch; when he pulled me, I flew across the couch landing with my head on the end of the couch and my body resting in his lap. We both paused for a few seconds until Marc put one arm behind my neck resting on my shoulder and the other spread across my stomach. I felt more comfortable than I wanted to admit and found myself not moving a muscle.

The TV remote was sitting next to the couch and Marc used the arm resting on me to hit the power button. We both said “I love this movie,” as we noticed Little Big League was on. Who would have guessed that we would bond over a movie about a twelve year old who was the owner and general manager of a major league baseball team. I had no idea what time it was, but I knew that I was starting to doze. A smart person would have stood up and walked away…I ended up falling asleep. The next thing I knew, the sun was shining full strength through the windows and I was waking up in Marc’s arms.

I looked up at Marc and he was still sound asleep; his arms were dead weight and I didn’t want to move them and wake him, so I continued to sit there replaying the night before. We were arguing over nothing but the stupid game that we had been playing, then somehow I ended up in his arms and neither of us wanted to move. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get over the fear that I was just going to be another girl. When the guys found out that I slept over, and I knew that they would, they would automatically assume something happened. Well something did happen, I realized I was in over my head.

“Huh, where am I?” Marc lazily said as he woke up. He looked at me and smiled, realizing that he had fallen asleep on the couch with me. He moved his arm so that I could get up and I grabbed my bag, pulling out my cell phone. There were no messages, but I looked at the time and it was only eight in the morning, none of my friends were awake yet.

“I have practice at 10,” he told me.

“You should get ready to go.”

“You’re welcome to stay here until I get back.”

“I can’t, I have to work tonight, so I need to go home and get some more sleep. Leah will kill me if I’m tired because it’s going to be busy.”

“Are you going to be flirting with every guy there?” he asked.

“It’s likely,” I responded, grabbing my bag and getting ready to head to Penn Station.

“Maybe I’ll stop by tonight.”

“Don’t you have a game?”

“You work well after my game ends.”

“Yeah, but it’s going to be really busy tonight. You guys have a game, the Devs have a home game, and the Isles are in Vancouver, so their game is going to be on late. We’re going to be crazy all night.”

“Do the Isles actually have fans?” he laughed. I told him that the Isles fans were actually amongst our craziest and a big part of the reason, Leah and I never showed our true fandoms at work. Truthfully, being around them could hurt our tips from the Islander fans. I also didn’t want him there because I needed time to talk to Leah about everything that had happened in the past twelve hours. She would want to hear about the hockey game, the bar, the kiss, and how I ended up sleeping in his arms on his couch.

Marc convinced me to stay while he got ready for his morning skate since we were going to the same place anyway. I looked at the train schedule and saw that there would be one just after 10, so I would be home and in my bed by 11:30. That gave me three hours to sleep so that I could wake up, shower, and be at work by 4. He parked his car in the underground tunnel and met me by the passenger door. I got out of the car and he just stood next to me, looking at me.

“I guess I’ll talk to you later,” I said.

“Yeah,” he responded stepping close to me and taking both of my hands in his. I looked up at him and his eyes didn’t come off of mine. He leaned in and let his lips gently brush against mine, “I’ll talk to you later,” he said, letting go of my hands and walking away. It took me a few seconds to regain my composure, but when I did, I walked back to the train station.

---

I walked into work, dressed in a lacy tank top that I got from Victoria’s Secret and my favorite pair of jeans. My hair was left down and wavy and I was very happy with how my makeup came out. I wasn’t sure if I was dressing to make tips or to impress Marc if he showed up; there were going to be some girls at the bar that night and I couldn’t handle it if someone else had his attention.

“Wow, looking smoking,” Leah greeted me “what’s the occasion? Did you finally seal the deal with Marc last night?”

“Not even close,” I laughed.

“Spill the deets while it’s dead in here, I’ve been dying all day and you weren’t answering your phone.”

“That’s because I was sleeping and turned it off.”

“And why didn’t you sleep last night, my friend?”

“I did…for a few hours…on Marc’s couch…with him,” I said, pausing between each part. Leah stared at me until I told her everything that happened. She laughed because she felt like my life was turning into a soap opera with all of the games Marc and I had been playing. She also didn’t think that Kayla and Pam would have made such an effort to get to know me unless they knew something that I didn’t. I left the kiss out the first time I told the story, but Leah could tell that there was something more, so she kept asking what I was leaving out.

I didn’t get a chance to tell her about the kiss because the crowds were piling in. We didn’t really have a free moment to talk to each other, especially one where there weren’t people listening to anything we said. Any time we would walk past each other or be grabbing for the same bottles, she would ask me again what happened, but I would walk away without responding. After a while, she dropped it and just focused on the customers. There was almost an hour between the ending of the first games and the start of the Islanders game; fans of all three teams were demanding more alcohol and more attention from us. I was exhausted and relieved to have a few seconds to breathe while the Islanders fans focused on their team actually having a lead at the end of the first period.

“Okay, we have a few minutes…spill…now.”

“He kissed me.”

“That’s it? Come on, Lay, you’ve made out with how many guys since you’ve been working here?”

“Way to make me sound like a slut, Lee.”

“I’m sorry, but to you, kissing has never been a big deal.”

“I don’t know…it’s was more than just a kiss. We were arguing and I was about to leave and I told him to give me a reason not to and he just kissed me. He made it slow and it wasn’t one of those ‘tongues wrestling for power’ kisses, it was more of…I don’t know…I can’t describe it. I went weak in the knees, literally, I almost couldn’t stand.”

“Wow, you’ve got it bad,” she said.

“Yeah, for a guy who can have any girl he wants and probably does.”

“Well, I’m sure he doesn’t show up in small bars for every girl.”

I turned around and saw Marc and Dubi walking in; they were both dressed in jeans and t-shirts and wearing hats without hockey logos on them. I laughed to myself thinking that they were trying to be incognito around a bunch of diehard hockey fans. Leah walked away, leaving me at the bar exactly where the two of them were walking.

“Hey Layla,” Dubi greeted me, reaching over the bar to give me a kiss on the cheek.

“Hey Dubes.”

“Layla,” Marc said, very formally.

“Hi Marc,” I responded, “What can I get you guys?”

“Bud Lite for both of us,” Dubi said as Marc told him that he would be right back. I grabbed the beers and put them on the counter in front of Dubi.

“What’s up with him?”

“I don’t know…guy hasn’t gotten laid in over a month and he turns into a bit of a bear.”