Sweet Disposition

Claire had only just dropped her bag onto her bed when a loud knock resounded through her apartment. She ran a hand through her hair with a sigh as she slowly trudged her way to the door. Checking the peephole out of habit, she saw her boyfriend standing on the other side, hands stuffed into his pockets, rocking back on his heels. She let out another sigh before opening the door.

He looked to be just about as tired as she felt; his copper curls a tousled mess. He was still dressed in the suit he had worn for the flight back, confirming her suspicions that he had driven here straight from the airport.

“Hey, she murmured, moving aside to let him in. Mumbling a greeting in response, he walked inside refraining from the impulse to kiss her on the cheek as he always did, unsure of where he stood with her at the moment. Her standoffish behaviour had thrown him off a bit, even after his conversation with Danny.

The obvious uncertainty that exuded from him unleashed a pang of guilt within her. She felt horribly for borderline ignoring him since he had left her hotel room the night before, the overwhelming need to explain herself consuming her, “Look, Claude, I’m so sorry about everything. I just-“

He shook his head, a small crooked smile gracing his lips, “You were afraid that they were gonna catch us right?” She sighed, nodding in reluctant agreement. He tentatively took a step towards her, afraid he’d scare her off, “Claire, no one has said anything suggesting that they know. They haven’t hinted at sensing anything between us and even if they have, no one’s made any effort to call us out on it. Chéri, I hate seeing you worry so much about this.”

She dropped her gaze, her hands fidgeting in front of her. Claude drew closer, taking her hands in his to help calm her and quell her nervous habit that so clearly broadcasted her uneasiness. She was anxious, worried about the possibility their relationship suddenly going public before they were ready, more importantly before she was ready.

“I’m just…” she murmured, breaking her silence, her eyes locking onto their hands, almost afraid to look up into the warm, green eyes of the young man before her, “What if the organization finds out because we were so careless? I could lose my job over this Claude. We could get into so much trouble for this and I- I’ve worked too hard to lose it now, I have too much invested into it.”

He placed his hand tenderly on her cheek, wordlessly pleading for her to look at him, “Ma belle, if they did find out, then we will fight for this, for us. I care too much about you for this to end because we were afraid of the consequences. They’ve got nothing on us to say this can’t work. We’ve been together for four and a half months, it hasn’t hurt my game, if anything I’ve been getting better.”

She leaned into his touch, her eyes slowly drifting up to meet his. “The team loves you, Jim loves you, hell, even Coach loves you. You think that they’ll let you go without a fight? You’re amazing at your job and the club would be crazy to think that they could fire you,” he cooed, planting a soft kiss on her lips. She found herself wanting to believe everything he was saying to her, but some little inkling of a doubt lingered in her mind, eating away at the confidence that he was slowly beginning to rebuild with his soothing words.

“We need to talk to them soon,” he murmured, his fingers ghosting the curve of her neck. “Claude-“ he placed a finger to her lips, cutting her off as she began to protest. “I hate having to hide how I feel about you from my teammates. They’re my friends and I don’t like lying to them, especially about us. I don’t like that I have to sneak around to see you when we have off days. It would be easier on both of us if we just told the organization about us.” He looked pleadingly into her eyes, his thumb stroking her cheek soothingly. He could see her resolve beginning to crumble.

“I promise we don’t have to make this public just yet. But we need to talk to them soon, or it could get a whole lot worse for both them and us. At least if we tell them, they could give us media protection if the time comes that we need it.” She was quiet for a moment, mulling over his words in her head. Almost reluctantly she nodded, accepting his proposition. “Okay,” she conceded, “We’ll talk to them.”

He could feel the warmth of victory flood itself through his veins like wildfire. “Good,” he smiled, pulling her into his arms and kissing the crown of her head before nuzzling into her hair. She clung tightly to him, unable to hide her fear of addressing their employers about their illicit relationship from her boyfriend.

He could feel her body tense against his as they stood there in her living room. Neither spoke, just savouring the feeling of being able to hold each other without the seemingly perpetual fear of being caught. Claude rubbed her back soothingly, slowly getting her body to relax and release the tension that had settled in. She let out a contented sigh, feeling her body gladly melt into his.

Suddenly it was like something within him clicked, almost as if it was triggered by her quiet sounds of appreciation, his strokes became more daring, drifting lower and lower until he brazenly cupped her ass, giving it a good squeeze. He couldn’t help but smirk when she responded by pushing herself firmly into him.

Taking the hand that wasn’t groping her bottom, he gently lifted her chin and crashed his lips onto hers. Within seconds the two were stumbling into her room, clothes flying every which way. They practically fell onto her bed, soon fumbling with the condom that she had somehow managed to procure from her bedside table without so much as breaking their lips apart. His hands roamed everywhere, leaving no inch of her unexplored.

He couldn’t get enough of her, thirsting for her touch, craving for the feel of her soft skin against his. It wasn’t long before he had her moaning out her name and clawing unmercifully at his back, convulsing in pleasure beneath him as he thrust into her.

He came with a groan, collapsing beside her, spent and exhausted from the early flight and lack of sleep and exertion from two nights of rather mind-blowing sex with his beautiful girlfriend. After he disposed of the used condom, she curled into his side, her head resting on his chest. He absentmindedly toyed with a chocolate brown curl, twirling and coiling it around his fingers.

“Qu'est-ce qui te tracasse?” (What’s bothering you?) she asked quietly, her finger tracing random shapes and patterns on his bare chest. “Rien,” (Nothing.) he replied, kissing the top of her head. She frowned, lifting her gaze to his face, “Menteur.” (Liar.) He chuckled, tugging lightly at the tendril of hair in his grip, allowing it to bounce back into place, “Really babe, it’s nothing.” She scoffed, rolling herself over so that she was now lying on top of him, her arms folding beneath her chin on his chest, “I highly doubt that Roo. Ce qui est sur votre esprit?” (What's on your mind?)

He lay silent for a little while, propping an arm behind his head as he looked at her. She waited patiently for his answer, watching him just as intensely, studying his handsome features. His hair had gotten a little longer and he was now sporting the ginger scruff along his jaw and around his mouth, which she to be honest liked, a lot.

“I’m just… I want to know…” She looked at him expectantly, urging him to continue with a small encouraging smile on her slightly kiss-swollen lips. He sighed, taking a deep breath, “If and when we get the okay to continue what we have from the organization, are you going to let us do this in public?” She frowned slightly, not quite understanding what he meant, “Let us do what in public?”

“Act like a boyfriend and girlfriend should,” he didn’t mean for it to come out as harsh but he was genuinely curious. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep their relationship a secret from his friends and loved ones. Hell, he hadn’t even told his parents and his sister about it and it killed him not to be able to share such an amazing thing with them.

She frowned slightly at his question, catching her off guard with his bluntness, but the look of innocent curiosity plastered on his face drowned out any sense of irritation at his phrasing, “I will Claude, you know I will…” He sighed, “There’s a ‘but’ in this isn’t there?” She bit her lip, averting her eyes, “But, I’d want to hold off on announcing this to the public straight away. I want to wait until we’re both ready to deal with it. I have no problem with our family and the whole team knowing.”

He nodded, running his hand gently through her tousled mass of curls. She could see a small flicker of relief in his eyes. Although he wasn’t entirely happy with her answer, he knew she was right. She wasn’t rejecting him and refusing the implied question. She was worried about their relationship becoming exploited by the media and understandably so. That was the last thing he wanted, especially for her but he at least wanted to be able to walk around outside the confines of their apartments and actually show the world that they were together.

So shoot him if he wanted to exercise his primitive male right to show off his gorgeous girlfriend, to show that she was off limits, that she was in fact taken. That she was his.

He hated the way other men looked at her, like she was a piece of meat. Like she was every other hot, potential conquest. But Claire wasn’t like the other girls, she was smart and independent. She could take care of her self, although he loved spoiling her and standing up for her when he could. He loved her fiery and sweet personality, how she cared so fiercely for her friends and loved ones but when the time called for it (which with the men she worked with was indeed very often), she could whip out snarky comments with the best of them. She was the kind of girl you wanted to bring back home to meet the parents.

He had every intention of making this work and keeping her around. Lifting his head to meet her lips, he kissed her tenderly. Oh yes, he planned on fighting for the beautiful girl in his embrace, and he fully intended on winning.



Claire seemed particularly jumpy at work the next day, flinching nearly every time Jim addressed her. Despite her attempts of playing it off and brushing it aside, her behaviour did not go unnoticed. “You alright kid?” asked Jim, his brow furrowing in concern. “Yeah, I’m fine, why?” He frowned at her voice’s sudden rise in pitch, eyeing her carefully, “You sure? You seem a bit on edge today?”

“No, yea, I’m fine, really. Totally fine.” She wanted to slap herself across the face for sounding so overly eager in her attempt to reassure him that she was indeed fine and that there was no cause for alarm. He reluctantly let it go, not saying a word about it for the rest of the day. The two worked with some of the injured guys in the weight room to pass the time until the end of practice.

Jim excused himself, having Claire take over for him as he ran to grab something from his office. She was in the middle of correcting Andreas Nodl’s body alignment in the new exercise he had been given so as not to hurt himself when Jim returned calling her over. Telling the winger to relax and get some water she walked over to her boss, “What’s up Jim?”

“Paul wants to see you in his office. Said he needed to meet with you about something.” She frowned, thanking him before excusing herself. “Claire,” he called out before she got too far. She turned quickly on her heel to face him, “Whatever he needs to meet with you about, you know we all have your back, right?” She gave him a weak smile and a small nod before turning back around and resuming her trek to Paul Holmgren’s office.



She was seated in the small waiting area outside of the General Manager’s office. The secretary informed her that he was still in a meeting but he should be with her shortly. Her foot bounced nervously as she sat rigidly in her chair, shooting anxious glances at the wooden office door.

She had a feeling that Claude had already spoken to the GM about their relationship. They had discussed it as their plan of action, figuring that it would be better if he went first, considering he had the more stable position of the two regarding their jobs.

As she sat there, she couldn’t stop the growing feeling of dread that maybe, just maybe, someone had seen them in Toronto and told the organization. The longer she sat there, the more worried she became as the angsty thoughts kept multiplying in her mind, erupting into a cacophony of ‘what ifs’ buzzing around in her head.

She jumped at the sound of the secretary’s voice calling to her and telling her that Mr. Holmgren was ready to see her. She nodded, slowly rising out of her seat and making her way towards the door. It opened as she reached for the handle, revealing her boyfriend with an unreadable expression plastered on his face. Exchanging glances, the two passed through the doorway, wordlessly acknowledging each other. Their hands brushed as they passed, Claude subtly giving her hand a small, reassuring squeeze before closing the door behind him, leaving her alone with the general manager.

“Afternoon Claire,” greeted Paul with a small smile. “Afternoon Mr. Holmgren,” she replied, managing to push as much of the fear and trepidation aside as possible, substituting it with the calm confident business façade that she had developed. He gestured for her to take one of the empty seats in front of the desk. She obliged with a small nod and a soft, “Thank you.”

"So, Ms. Dubois, I think it’s safe to say that you know why you’re here?” he asked, almost immediately adopting his professional demeanour. She nodded, “Yes, sir. I believe we’re meeting regarding the relationship between Claude Giroux and myself.” He nodded, taking a mental note, that she didn’t shy away from the touchy subject, facing it head on as opposed to beating around the bush, “How long has this been going on between the two of you?” She replied quickly with no hesitation, “Four and a half months.” Paul eyed her for a moment before speaking, “That’s a long time to keep this from the organization don’t you think?”

Her expression remained calm and seemingly unphased, “We wanted to make sure that it would work out, that we could actually do this before bringing it to the organization’s attention.”

“You are aware that there is an implied anti-fraternization policy here, Ms. Dubois?” She nodded, “Yes sir, I am fully aware, but if I may say something in my defense?” He moved his hand, signaling for her to continue.

“When I took this job, I had no intentions of looking for or starting a relationship with any of the players or staff on this team. I swore to myself that I would work hard and give it my all here and I still uphold my promise. I was and still am grateful to this organization for the incredible job opportunity that it has given me. Claude is my closest friend here besides Danny Briere and to be completely honest our ending up in a relationship was pretty much inevitable.”

“When Claude asked me to give us a try, I reluctantly agreed under the conditions that this relationship would not affect his game under any circumstances and that we kept it professional in the workplace, no PDA, nothing. Our jobs come first. I made him promise that if we broke either of these conditions we would end it and go back to friendship and colleagues, nothing more, nothing less.

“I’m not saying that it’s been easy and I’m not saying that we’ve miraculously managed to avoid fights and arguments because we haven’t. We’ve had our fair share of them but as far as I can tell, none of them have affected him on the ice.”

Paul nodded in acknowledgement of her claim, allowing her to continue. “I understand if you feel that it’s necessary to fire me for this and I understand that I broke an implied policy. From a professional standpoint, I truly am terribly sorry for doing what I’ve done, but from a personal standpoint… I’m honestly not sorry at all. I’ve given this job my all and I’ve worked hard to prove that I’m fully capable of functioning and working in this environment. However, if this is the end, I wanted to thank you for giving me the opportunity to have worked with this amazing organization and I m sorry that I proved to be a disappointment.”

She could feel the tremor of adrenaline pulsing through her veins in her hands as she folded them in her lap, her eyes traveling between Paul and his desk. The look on his face was indecipherable, triggering the worries that she had pushed aside to come back with a vengeance as he continued to volley her with questions.