Deep End

The next morning Skylar lies in bed, caught between awake and asleep, buried deep under the covers, blissfully warm and comfortable. Until something large and solid rolls right over top of her and squeezes her into the mattress. She groans and the thing rolls over her again.

“Ger’ off.” She moans from under her pillow shield. The thing rolls over her once more, then sticks his head under the pillow and kisses her nose.

“Good morning.” Kris whispers.

“Getting steam rolled is not my idea of a good morning.” She finally opens her eyes and peers over at him.

“You sleep like a log.” He tells her, which earns him a good-natured smack, “I had to wake you up somehow.”

“No you didn’t.” She moans, smashing the pillow down over their heads. “You could have left me sleeping.” It’s then that she notices he’s wearing a collared polo shirt. Her eyes drift down to see that he’s wearing pressed trousers.

“Flower is taking us golfing.” He answers her silent question, “Then we’re going out to lunch, it’s a team thing. I didn’t want to just leave a note.”

“I suppose that’s considerate.” She grumbles, emerging from underneath the pillow and squinting in the light.

“I also ordered you brunch.” He says with a shit-eating grin, sliding a tray of food onto the bed beside her, “Does that get me more brownie points?”

“Do I get brownies for brunch? That might earn you some.” She quips.

“Chocolate chip waffles close enough?”

“Mm, you’re good Mr. Letang, you’re very good.”

“I’m also late.” He says and leans over for a lingering goodbye kiss before rushing out the door.

As Skylar flips on the TV to Good Morning America and tucks into her chocolate chip waffles, she thinks about what it’s like to kiss Kris and send him off like a wife sending her husband off to work. Not a bad moment, she thinks.

---

Later, when she finally showers and ventures out of the room in search of lunch, she crosses the lobby towards the hotel restaurant and comes across Adam, alone and wheeling his suitcase.

“Hey.” She says, eyebrows lowered in confusion.

“Hi.” He says rather shortly.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m going home.” His tone is snappish, “And I think my cab is waiting, so I should go.”

“Uh, yeah, sure. Sorry to keep you.” She stutters awkwardly as he stalks away. Skylar wanders into the restaurant, wide-eyed and confused, and spots Vero and a few of the other girls waving her over to their table. Bridget is standing at the hostess stand paying her bill.

“Are you okay? I just saw Adam and-”

“I’m fine and it’s none of your business.” Bridget snaps before Skylar can finish. Raising both hands in surrender, Skylar doesn’t say another word and wanders over to take Bridget’s now empty seat at the table. An awkward silence surrounds the table as all the girls watch Bridget awkwardly out of the corner of their eye. As soon as they deem her far enough out of ear shot they all start talking at once.

“Oh my god!”

“That was insane!”

“I can’t believe that just happened!”

“Does Kris know?” This last question catches Skylar’s attention and she turns to Vero, who is watching her carefully.

“What?” she asks dumbly.

“Bridget sent Adam home because he accused her of still having feelings for Kris.” Vero confides quietly, “She didn’t deny it.” Skylar feels like the whole table is watching her as she awkwardly picks at the corner of a cloth napkin.

“I don’t think he knows.” She answers, “I mean it just happened right? And he’s out golfing with the guys. And even if he knows, it doesn’t matter. Bridget and Kris are over.” She says it with more confidence than she feels and when the waiter comes over to take their orders, she’s suddenly not very hungry anymore.

---

He walks into the room later that day, glad to finally be free of everyone but the one person he has wanted to see since he left the room this morning. He kicks off his shoes with a groan of pleasure and slips off his slacks, hanging them over the back of a chair.

He looks over and she’s lying faced away from him, right up against the far side of the king sized bed. He flops onto the near side of the bed and it feels like she’s an ocean away.

“Hey.” He rolls to face her back and smiles, waiting for her to roll to face him and respond with some witty quip and a toothy grin. She mumbles something nondescript under her breath and curls further into herself.

“You okay?” he hasn’t known her long, in the grand scheme of things he hardly knows her at all, but he does know that this silence is unusual, something is not right. She mumbles something again and tries to sink herself further into her pillows.

“Hey,” he says again, swimming across the bed. He wraps his left shin around both her legs, puts an arm around her ribs and uses his body to slide her back into the middle of the bed and right up against him. She makes a sound of protest and reaches for her pillow, but he rolls her onto her back before she can get a grip. She looks away from him as he rolls his body on top of hers, careful not to squish her as he fits the length of his body against hers, matching them up piece by piece, except that her feet end at his ankles.

“Hey,” he repeats a third time, nudging her cheek with his nose to turn her face back to his, “Are you okay?” She finally looks up at him, but he notices she doesn’t exactly meet his eyes, instead looking just slightly to the left.

“Question game.” She whispers into the space between them where their breath mingles.

“Okay.” He agrees in confusion.

“Chinese or Thai?”

“Chinese.”

“Chicken or beef?”

“Chicken.”

“Comedy or drama?”

“Comedy.”

“Golf or tennis?”

“Golf.”

“Did you ever really care about me?”

“Of course!” The words are out of his mouth before he even has a chance to register surprise. Then, before he can question her ludicrous idea, she is pressing every part of herself up into the mould of his body, melding her lips with his. He has to pull away before he gets lost in her because he needs answers.

“Why-“ he pants, “-would you ask that?” He knows it’s only been a few days, but surely he has done enough to show her his intentions. She falls away from him, curling in on herself and her body sinks into the mattress like a stone.

“Hey” he says softly, following her into the depths, “come on, talk to me.” He presses a kiss to the hollow of her throat, just below her left earlobe.

“I don’t know.” For perhaps the first time, he hears a hesitation in her voice. She threads her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, a place he has already figured out is a favourite of hers. He has already figured out so many things, but not this side of her. He presses a reassuring kiss to her forehead, waits patiently for her to continue.

“I heard,” she finally says haltingly, “I heard that Bridget sent Adam home.” He feels her tugging nervously at his hair. He reaches back to take her hands in his, spreading her arms up above her head into the pillows, threading his fingers through hers. He would very much like to kiss her into oblivion, but she is a writer. She lives in words and he knows how important they are to her; he wants to explain this in her way.

“Did she? I haven’t been paying attention to much except this.” He says, squeezing her hands and nudging her cheek. “I used to think,” he admits, “about what might happen if Bridget and I started up again.” And here is the thing he needs her to hear, so he takes her face in his hands and sinks into her a little. “I do not think about it anymore.” He says slowly, deliberately, “I have already started with you, I am already gone. This is what I think of now.”

He seals it with a hard, open-mouthed kiss and holds her gaze, watching her eyes as she mulls over his words. He can feel her unfurl beneath him as her confidence returns. He feels incredibly powerful knowing he can do that for her.

“I just...” now that he has returned her confidence, she is intent on finishing her thought, “You were in love with her once and there must have been a reason. If you still feel that, I don’t want your being a nice guy to get in the way of that.” She reaches a hand down to run her fingers along the soft inside of his bent elbow. He closes his eyes against her touch, resting his forehead against hers for a long moment. He leaves his forehead resting there when he opens his eyes to speak next.

“I thought I loved her once.” He wants to make this very clear, “And yes, there is a reason someone will fall in love with her. But I do not think I ever really loved her.”

“Why not?”

“I think perhaps I loved her in the way I knew how then. Now I know there can be more and that is what I want, what I feel.” And to drive home his point another time, he leans down and speaks against her lips. “What I want with you.”

“You don’t even know me.” She laughs nervously and presses her palms into his chest. He rears back in surprise at the change in mood and she rolls out from under him.

“I thought you felt the same.” He says pathetically, kneeling on the bed and looking over to where she has moved to stand by the window.

“Kris,” the tone of her voice tells him that she has to care, at least a little, “Kris, my life is so screwed up.” He sees and hears the tears in her eyes, her throat. Another first. “You don’t want to get mixed up in that. You don’t know me, so you don’t know, but trust me, you want to walk away.” He shifts to sit on the edge of the bed as she swipes at her eyes, trying to rid herself of her tears before they fall.

“I am falling for you.” He says emphatically, “Do you feel the same?”

“You aren’t, you can’t be.” She missed a few tears and they slip down her cheeks. She is wildly careening out of control. “You aren’t.” She repeats in a choked voice, shaking her head wildly.

He crosses the room in two long strides, wiping her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs before the tears reach her chin. “You just asked me if I cared about you, remember? You asked me. Because you do care and you want me to care too.” She won’t meet his eyes.

“Care, not love.” She says stiffly. She hadn’t thought this through; she was just so upset at the notion of losing him to Bridget – when he wasn’t even really hers to lose, she didn’t think – that she had asked the question.

“It’s more than that.” He insists, rubbing his thumbs against her cheeks. She leans in to his touch and her eyes fill again with tears.

“Well, then I’m setting you free. Don’t come back.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” He says firmly, “So you will just have to deal. I don’t care how screwed up you think you are.”

“Do you know why I was in Pittsburgh?” her face hardens, “To testify at my father’s extradition trial. He’s been a wanted felon for four years and they finally caught him, now they’re trying to have him sent back to Canada to stand trial.” She looks into his face, “See? Family of criminals, screwed up.”

“You,” he says firmly, taking her face in his hands, “are not your family. You are not screwed up.”

“He’s being charged with attempted murder.” She stares at him, like she’s daring him to step away, to run.

“You are not your father.” He repeats.

“I’m the one he tried to kill.” His grip on her loosens for just a moment in shock before he jerks her forward into his chest and wraps her up in his arms as tight as he dares. He’s not sure how long they stand there like that, wrapped up in each other, but when he releases her, her face has not softened. She steps back from him and before he can stop her she has pulled her shirt over her head and is standing before him in nothing but a soft cotton bra.

“You don’t want to be with this.” She whispers, gesturing towards several short, jagged scars littering her stomach. He doesn’t want to look because he knows that is exactly what she wants, for him to stare, to be disturbed. He runs his eyes back up to her face, steps forward and places a large, calloused palm over her heart.

“I want to be with this.” He tells her, pressing his palm against her chest. Her chest heaves beneath his hand with her heavy breathing. She swears he can feel her heart beating right through her collarbone. She stares, waiting for him to look away. He doesn’t. Finally, she bites her lip and one corner of her mouth turns upwards in a hint of a smile.

“I want to put my shirt back on.” She whispers and he bends to pick it up, slipping it over her head with gentle hands. His hands rub her upper arms and she takes a deep breath.

“I’m sorry.” She says simply.

“Everyone is allowed to freak out sometimes.” He offers with a smile that she can tell is a little forced, “I just need to know – do you want this too?” She copies his earlier action, taking his face in her hands and leaning in close.

“I want this.” She assures him, her eyes still watery.

“Okay,” he says with a nod, “Okay.”