Carry You Home

I spend the night on the couch. A form of punishment, I guess. Trading in the spacious comforts of my double king bed and the luxury of cool, crisp Egyptian cotton against my skin for the cramped quarters of a leather sectional. I've spent the vast majority of the night attempting to get comfortable; my sweaty, bare flesh sticking to the fabric and my shoulders and my back aching no matter which position I attempted to sleep in. My incessant tossing and turning and apparent bout of insomnia a byproduct of the guilt, regret and uncertainty involving both my marriage and my career. While I'm adamant that I've made the right decision by signing with Philly, I should have known better than to make such a crucial, life altering decision without talking to Sloan about it. Not necessarily seeking her permission, but at least giving her heads up before signing on the dotted line. We've always prided ourselves on being able to keep the lines of communication open in our marriage; we share our even our deepest and darkest secrets and always seek each other out when in need of solace or advice.

But the Flyers had came at me so hard and so fast that I'd barely had time to catch my breath, let alone call home and consult her on the prospect of playing for the 'enemy'. It had been an avalanche of events; phone calls from some of the players and offer sheets being tossed in my face and financial figures beyond even my wildest dreams being dangled over my head. Like one of those sought after golden rings on an old fashioned carousel; always in the hunt yet never quite able to grab a hold of it. Never in a million years did I ever think that a guy like me would get this kind of cash. Or this kind of commitment. And all of sudden it was all there right in front of me. Five years. Nine million dollars. And before I could even think of the promises I'd made to Sloan, I was signing my life...our lives...away.

Now I'm regretting it. Wishing that I could go back to July 1st and handle the situation all over again. I should have told them that if they wanted me that bad...if they were that interested and willing to offer so much...they could wait a half an hour so that I could talk things over with my family. Maybe in a way I've still immature in that way. Sometimes still caught up in the bachelor way of thinking that there's no one to worry about but myself. Or maybe it's because I've always had a misplaced sense of security with Sloan; she loves me and has stuck by me this long (even through four years of being friends with benefits and with me cheating on her) and there's no way that she'd ever leave me. She's showing me just who is in fucking charge now. Using all that lingering bitterness and hurt over that one night with the stripper and mixing it with her anger and disappointment over my Philly decision and making me rue the day I ever crossed her. I wish she would just understand that it wasn't an easy decision to make. Hell, I wish there was a way to make all of the fans understand it as well. I'm not leaving Pittsburgh because I want to. I love the city and I'd thought for sure I'd start and end my career here. But when it had become painfully clear that I wasn't going to be given a second offer sheet and that I wasn't included in the club's long term plans, it was time to move on. Regretfully. I didn't sign with Philly out of malice. I didn't purposefully go out to deceive or hurt or anyone. I just did what I thought was best for my career and for my family.

I'll miss it here. I'll miss the camaraderie in the dressing room; ganging up on Sid about his big lips and his huge ass, teasing Geno about his broken English and riding Tanger's butt about how popular his 'sex hair' is with the ladies. I'll miss the signs at the games; girls asking for kisses and prom dates (some even offering up marriage proposals) and little kids with 'Score one for me Superstar' written in gold glitter. Their tiny eyes dancing and sparkling and their entire faces lighten up when you tap glass in acknowledgement or you toss a puck to them. And I'll definitely miss the loyalty of the fans and electricity that oozed out of every crack and crevice of the CEC. There's a lot of memories here in Pittsburgh. Every thing from being drafted to my time on the farm to my call up to to NHL and the Stanley Cup win. I'll never forgot hoisting that 'shhhh' moment or the parading through the streets of Pittsburgh showing of Lord Stanley's mug. Or those stupid car commercials I made or all the amazing people I met through charity work. And I'll never, ever take for granted that I got to play hockey with Sidney Crosby. The best player on earth. Someone who I admire greatly and who I call my friend. A brother.

The guys...my boys...those are who I'll miss the most. All the battles we've fought together, our 'whatever it takes we walk together' motto. I'll always remember the shenanigans we got into on road trips, the batshit insanity that was the February 11th game against the New York Islanders, how we had to pile into cabs to make an open practice at Central Park the next day because our team bus got into an accident. So many things...the 24/7 HBO special, my infamous 'I want your two little helpers for Christmas moment', the winter classic against the Capitals and the unfortunate and scary hit that had essentially knocked Sid out for the rest of the year. We'd banded together like we never had before after that. When Geno went down, we could have easily crumbled but we all kept the ship afloat. A motley crew of third and fourth liners and call ups from Wilkes-Barre. We'd kept the ship afloat and had stayed near the top of the standings and made it into the playoffs when everyone else had all but counted us out. And even though we'd been kicked out first round, I'd never been more proud of my boys. Or of myself.

Of course, there'll be moments...new memories made...with the Flyers. There'll be that camaraderie but with an entirely new group of faces. There'll still be road trips friendships made and pranks played and we'll all come together as a united front. But it won't be the same. There won't be those familiar fans constantly waiting in the parking lot after games and practices to chat and get pictures and autographs. The ones you know by name and who long ago memorized what you take in your coffee and what kind of donut or muffin you like or what you prefer on your bagel. There won't be those same charity events for UPMC or those dinners at Mario's or those people in the neighbourhood that knock on our front door at all hours of the day, trying to get even just a shred of attention.

And most of all, there won't be those moments before the game that I shared with Flower. The ones that had become so popular with the fans. I think I'll miss him the most. That goddamn, ever present toothy smile of his and the way he wears a ball cap with his suits. He's one in a million that kid. Irreplaceable. And while we're friends off the ice as well, I can't help but wonder how distance and the fact I'm playing for the rivals will affect things.

I've been trying not to think about it too much. I've never been good at saying goodbye. I keep reminding myself that this isn't permanent. It's not like I'm dropping off the face of the earth or anything. My friends are still going to be my friends, my charitable foundation is going to remain in Pittsburgh, I'm going to be making regular trips into the city to see my wife and my little boy. I'll be able to keep up with certain connections. But it doesn't make it any easier. It doesn't mean that my heart won't be breaking when I pull out of the driveway for the last time with my remaining belongings piled into the back of my SUV.

Pittsburgh will always be in my heart. Regardless of what people think.

******

“Max?” Sloan's voice cuts through the haze of exhaustion and sheer, nearly inconsolable sadness that have descended upon me. I'm unsure of the exact time.

The last peek I'd taken at the clock on the DVD player in the wall unit against the room it had been quarter after three. God knows how many minutes...or hours...have passed since then. At first I wonder if I'm dreaming. If I'd actually managed to finally fall asleep and she's not really speaking to me at all. I mean, that's been a common occurrence in my life for almost two months now. She either ignores me completely or we don't manage to say five words to one another without getting into a massive fight. I miss her. I miss us. And I don't know how to go about fixing things. Because no matter how hard I try...no matter how persistent I am in trying to reach out to her...she just backs away. Looks at me with the utmost disappointment and hurt written all over her face. I had promised a long time ago to take care of her. Vowed to never do anything to hurt her. And knowing that I let her down in that respect hurts more than anything else ever possibly could.

Unfortunately, we're both phenomenally stubborn people. And the more she continues to push me away and close herself off, the more I push to get closer to her.

“Max...” her voice beckons to me once again. More persistent, this time accompanied by a vigorous shaking of the forearm I have draped over my eyes. I can feel her soft, nimble fingers pressing into my skin and the brush of the t-shirt she'd worn to bed brushing against me. I can smell her; a sweet, intoxicating citrus scent belonging to her shampoo. “Max...Maxime...”

I snap fully awake when she uses my full name. Lifting my forearm from my eyes and peering up at her as she stands next to the couch. She's so beautiful; brilliant red hair -appearing nearly coal black in the dark- tumbling over her shoulders and down her back, her willowy body and her sullen, tired face bathed in an ethereal light cast by the moon's rays as they stream through the living room windows.

“What's wrong?” I scramble into a sitting position, propping myself onto an elbow as I wipe sleep from my eyes with my free hand. “Are you okay? Is there something wrong with the baby?”

“No,” she shakes her head slowly. “No...he's fine. I just checked on him. He's talking in his sleep. Sounds like he's having a conversation with someone.”

“Gets that from his mom,” I say, and press the palm of my heel into one eye and then the other. “What's wrong? Are you alright? You feeling sick?” She's been suffering from some kind of strange ailment for the past few weeks. Constant nausea and fatigue. A couple of dizzy spells. Even though we've been faithfully using birth control because of our firm decision to wait until Max Junior turned two to try and have another kid the doctor had given her a pregnancy test just to be on the safe side. Despite the fact that three EPT's had come back negative, I'd been hopeful. A baby would have gotten us back on the right track. We would have really had to buckle down and work shit out.

But it wasn't mean to be.

“I couldn't sleep,” she admits in a tiny, quivering voice, and it's only now that I realize she's crying. That I see the way her lower lip and her chin is wobbling and the silvery, slick rivers that trickle down her smooth, pale cheeks. Sloan doesn't show a lot of emotion. I can count the number of times on one hand I've seen her cry in the past six years. And while I'm always on her about opening up more and letting down her guard and assuring her that it's okay to have her weak, vulnerable moments -I'm her husband, if there's anyone in this world she should feel that comfortable and secure around, its me- there's part of me that dreads when she gets into these rare moods. Mainly because I never known what to do for her. I'm never entirely sure how to help. And knowing that I'm the one whose brought this on...

“Baby...” I begin, and reach out for her.

She doesn't give me a chance to finish. Instead she climbs on top of me with one knee on either side of my torso, her ass pressed against my crotch and stares down at me for a few long and extremely awkward seconds. It's the closest we've been physically in a hell of a long time and it feels so fucking good. My cock nestle between the crack of her ass cheeks and my hands resting on her silky thighs. And I can't lie; a million and one perverted thoughts are stampeding through my brain. I've missed her both emotionally and physically. We haven't been intimate -whether it be wild and crazy, rough and tumble sex, a quickie in the morning before the baby gets up or something more loving and attentive- since the night before I'd made my decision. And for someone like me...with my voracious sexual appetite and the fact I'm married to an insanely hot and phenomenally sexy woman...it feels like a lifetime. And fuck, if we're not going to talk, the least we could do is have sex, right? Angry sex? Maybe that's what we need. Maybe if we just fuck each other senseless, there won't be a need to actually have it out verbally. It wouldn't be the first time where we solved our issues that way.

Suddenly, what could possibly turn into a lustful moment fuelled by all the hurt and the anger that has surrounded us for nearly two moments, takes a drastic turn when Sloan lets out a choked sob and buries her face in the crook of my neck. I had been waiting for this moment to be honest. Even if it did come at the most inopportune time. Sure, we've been fighting like cats and dogs and she's been avoiding me like the plague, but she's kept her actual emotions bottled up inside for a hell of a long time. They've been eating at her and fermenting for a year now. Ever since she handled the news of my night of the stripper with a seemingly cold indifference. She'd never freaked out. She'd never thrown a temper tantrum, never kicked me out of the house, never even shed a tear, but she had certainly made her disappointment and disgust evident in other ways. Now everything is just coming out. The fact I fucked another woman, the decision I'd made behind her back, all of the cruel things that we've said to each other in the past. All erupting out of her with the force of a tsunami.

I let her cry; wrapping an arm tightly around her waist and tenderly stroking her hair with my free hand. To be honest, I have no idea what to say. I don't know if I even have the words to make things right between us. 'I'm sorry' just doesn't seem to cut it. Apologies only carry so much weight and I think we're way past beyond trying to verbally repair the damage. Instead I just let her sob into the side of my neck; her fingernails digging into my shoulders and her tears soaking her skin and her body shuddering violently. I simply hold her as tight as I can without hurting her. My face buried in her hair and my lips pressed against her ear; eyes screwed shut yet doing little to hold back the tears the roll down my own cheeks. I cry for myself. For the way my heart aches over leaving Pittsburgh and for the extreme self loathing I feel because of how I'd betrayed her. Both a year ago and with my decision to go to Philly. I cry for my fans. For disappointing them and for portraying myself as a traitor in their eyes. And most of all, I cry for Sloan. For the damage I've done to her and the fear that she'll never be the same again.

That we'll never be the same again.

******

Eventually her sobbing recedes into a pitiful yet equally as heart wrenching whimpering.; her body ceasing its violent trembling and her fingers finally releasing their near painful grip on my shoulders. I thought that I'd feel better if she just let loose like this. That having to witness her break down would be my penance for hurting her as bad as I did. Instead I just feel worse. Like the biggest asshole on the face of the earth. Totally undeserving of her. Of anything good in my life. And suddenly I'm the one that needs to be consoled. My flow of tears and waves of guilt and regret powerful and relentless.

Sloan straightens herself into a sit and stares down at me for what seems like an eternity. Her hands resting on her thighs, her bottom lip tucked between her teeth and more tenderness and compassion than I actually deserve displayed on her face. Maybe even a little bit of pity.

“I'm sorry,” I manage through the huge gulps of air I'm struggling to draw into my lungs. “I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to....”

She silences me by placing two fingers against my lips and then slides her palms along the sides of my face. Stroking my cheeks with her knuckles as she clears my tears away with the pads of her thumbs. It's more love and tenderness than I'm worthy of. And it only makes the pain in the heart even worse.

“Sloan...” I croak out. “...I love you...I'm sorry...I'm so fucking sorry...I...” my words trail as she places feathery kisses on every inch of my face. Over the scars that inhabit my right eyebrow and on the top of my left cheek. Along the crooked bridge of my noise and each side of my jaw. Finally reaching my mouth and kissing each corner before finally capturing my lips in hers. The kiss is slow and gentle. Simple, in a way. Yet it still manages to take my breath away. And when she plucks my bottom lip between her teeth as she pulls away, I know that there's something else on her agenda. That we've crossed that threshold bordering needing consolation and needing each other. In a purely physical sense.

She sits back down on my already hardening cock and grins down at me devilishly. This is the old Sloan. The one that gets her sexual kicks out of tempting and teasing me until I can't take anymore. The one that just has to look at me a certain way and immediately has me under her spell. It's been this way since she was seventeen years old and so effortlessly seduced me at the golf tournament. When she'd batted those long eyelashes eyes at me and suggestively wiggled her ass against my crotch on a crowded dance floor before wagging her finger at me in a 'come hither' motion and quickly fleeing the room. I hadn't been able to resist her then, and I certainly can't do it now.

“I miss you,” I whisper, as my index fingers trace slow, circular patterns on her knees. “I miss us. I just want things to go back to the way they were. I just want us to be happy again.”

“We will be,” she says. “I don't know how long it's going to take. I don't know how much time or space I'm actually going to need. I can't give you a time frame. But you need to know that this isn't about not loving you. Because I do, you know. Love you. More than I could ever tell you.”

“Then come to Philly with me,” I give her thighs a light squeeze. “I learned my lesson, Sloan. I fucked up. I regret it. I'd take it back if I could. But you being here and me being there? What the hell good is that going to do? What is being that far apart going to do for us?”

“We need space, Max. We need some time to regroup. Find our way back to each other. It isn't just about what you did two months ago. I think you know, in your heart of hearts, that things have been going downhill for a while now.”

“And being apart is going to fix that? It's not going to solve the problem. It's going to make it worse. If we're not around each other to talk about it, how the hell are we supposed to work on things? Because we need to fix this. We need to fix us. And being five hours apart from one another isn't going to solve a damn thing.”

“It's just something that needs to be done,” she remains adamant. “We both need this.”

“You,” I stress. “I need you.”

She shakes her head sadly and glances towards the living room window. The moonlight highlighting the tears sparkling in her eyes. “I love you,” she whispers as she looks down at me once again. “But right now, I need to love myself more. This isn't going to be a quick fix. It isn't going to go away over night. And if you love me the way you say you do, you'd give me some time. It's not going to be forever, Max. It's not like this is permanent.”

“Fucking feels that way to me,” I grumble, and she leans down to press a tender kiss to my lips.

“Right now...I need you in other ways...” she sits up again and gathers the bottom of her t-shirt and hands. “...I need you to make me feel something other than this. Because right now I'm so sad and I'm so hurt and I need you to make me feel something else. Please...” she peels her top up and over her head and tosses it aside. “...please make me feel something else. Even if it is just temporary.”

Curling an arm around her waist, I toss her down onto her side and press her to the back of the couch with my full body weight. My lips finding hers in a passionate, intense kiss and my fingers attacking and quickly undoing the draw string on her satin pyjama bottoms.

“I need you,” she breathes, as I lick and nibble at her collarbone. Arching against me as I slip two fingers inside of her soft, moist folds. “I need you to need me.”

I don't think she'll ever understand just how much I actually do.