Without You

Once Cameron rises and has breakfast, more introductions are made, before the group of four head off to the Prudential Centre, after much pleading from Cameron, having fallen in love with the set of skates and hockey gear that his father had set in his bedroom.
Cadey laughs and giggles, recording the special moment with a camcorder of Zach’s as he helps Cameron out on to the ice for the very first time. Much like a baby giraffes first attempt at standing, Cameron’s legs wobble unsteadily, but Zach has him covered, standing right behind him and supporting him.
Travis joins Cadey at the players’ bench, shouting a few words of encouragement to Cam.
Though she had been worried this morning when she’d first seen Travis appear in Zach’s apartment, she had warmed to him, and so had Cameron, after of course first wanting to know who is was.
“I’m Travis, your dad’s best friend,” Travis had replied. “I guess I can be your Uncle Travis.”
To which Cam had answered with a thoughtful, “No thanks. I already have two of those, Uncle Noah and Uncle Jordan. Mum’s brother and Dad’s brother. But maybe you can be Aunt Travis. I don’t have one of those.”
Travis now catches glimpses of Cadey’s face, her eyes sparkling with pride as she watches her son and his father slowly make progress across the ice.
“It’s awesome isn’t it?” he asks.
“Pardon?”
“Seeing him help Cameron skate. Zach’s told me a lot about Cam, it’s nice to finally be able to meet him and see them hang out together. He misses Cam crazily when he’s here. He has this little photo in his wallet that he likes to stare at. Same one’s in his locker too,” Travis confesses.
“Yes,” Cadey agrees, “It’s beautiful to see them together like this. It means the whole world to Cam.”
“To Zach too, I’m sure,” Travis reminds her. “So Cadey, tell me about yourself.”
Cadey lets her eyes dart to him. “Ah, what do you want to know?”
“Anything.”
“Okay, um…I live in Minnesota. I work as a Travel Agent-”
“And you like long walks on the beach and hot bubble baths,” Travis interjects cheekily. “I’m not trying to date you Cadey. Tell me real things, like why you and Zach aren’t together.”
“Well, that’s a pretty loaded question, with a pretty complicated answer.”
“We’ve got time,” he replies, nodding to where Zach and Cam are on the ice, Cam flat on his butt and Zach helping him up, the two of them smiling and laughing.
It poses a little bit of awkwardness, but Cadey guesses that after years of hearing Zach talk of Cam, Travis is entitled to a few questions. And he is quite polite, not invasive, so she decides to grant him an answer.
“Zach and I didn’t really anticipate Cameron’s arrival,” she begins slowly, “We didn’t expect him if you know what I mean.”
“Please don’t tell me it was something like that show ‘I didn’t know I was pregnant’,” Travis laughs, “Because I’ve seen an episode of that show and it is just crazy.”
“No,” Cadey smiles, “It wasn’t anything like that. I mean that when we found out I was pregnant; it came as a surprise to us both. We didn’t know what we wanted to do or how things were going to work, but we had to tell our parents and then from there, things just happened really, really fast. Next thing I knew, Zach was playing in the NHL and I was a mom.”
Her chest cracks at little as her lie sinks it.
Yes, things had gone fast, but she remembers clearly, all too clearly, the day that Zach came over to her house to tell her he had to leave.
“I’m sorry Cade,” he had repeated over and over again into her hair as he hugged her tightly. “I’m so sorry.”
He had made a promise that day, to be forever in Cameron’s life and help with anything she could ever need.
She had been able to see the guilt in his eyes, the twisted sorrow and pressure.
She’d wanted to break down in his arms and beg him not to go, or to take her with him. She’d wanted to grip on to his leg like a little child and never let go.
But she had known she couldn’t.
Not when he had worked so hard, trained so furiously and practiced so dedicatedly to get to where he was headed. She couldn’t have asked him to stay, and with a baby on the way, she couldn’t ask him to take her either.
So she had sucked in a tight breath, gathered strength, and told Zach it was okay. That he would always have a place in her life, and in Cameron’s. That she would never deny her child its father, or vice versa.
Then, a few weeks later when she found she was carrying a boy, she dreamed of him having the same beautiful face as Zach, if only to cure her ache, and bide her time as her heavy weight of missing him threatened to swallow her whole.
All such a long time ago, that it’s crazy to see where they are now.
“It works though you know,” she defends to Travis, her stomach tightening, “how it’s all turned out. He gets a relationship with Cam and Cam gets one with him. That’s what matters to me.”
At that moment, Zach and Cam skate up to the boards, Cam gripping Zach’s hands tightly. “Mommy, I’m skating!”
“I know Cammy, I’ve been watching. You’re doing a great job!”
Cameron beams, as proud of himself as the three adults are of him. “Are you going to come out on the ice Aunt Travis?”
Softened by his hilarious new nickname, Travis laces up and gets out there with them.
Cadey watches a while longer, her mind drifting. Given her first moment alone today, besides when she got changed before thy left, there is a lot to process. Namely -everything that happened between her and Zach last night and this morning.
Her thoughts turn to what Tara would say if she knew, how disappointed her brother would be, and how heartbroken Jackson would feel.
Without thinking, she snuggles her nose into the collar of the sweatshirt she’s wearing, the same one that Zach had been before Travis arrived. She had put it on over her bra and singlet, wanting to keep the warmth of Zach on her skin, and the smell of him too.
Standing, she grabs her bag and shuts down the video camera, sticking it inside. She beckons Zach over, and he skates up, politely electing to not shower her with ice.
“Hey, do you want to come out?”
She shakes her head. “No, actually, I’m not feeling too great. I might just head back to your apartment.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine, I just to lie down for a little bit.”
Zach’s eyes watch her carefully. “Do you want me to come with you?”
“No, no you stay. Cam is loving this. I’ll be okay.”

An hour later, Zach creeps into his bedroom, finding Cadey tucked up under the beds blankets.
“Hey,” she smiles, “Where’s Cam?”
“Aunt Travis has taken him for some ice cream. I’m not sure that’s the best idea since he’s already bouncing off the wall with excitement about being able to skate, but Travis was pretty insistent so I caved. Besides, I really wanted to check up on you.”
Feeling a little nostalgic, Cadey makes a request. “Zach, do you….would you want to lie with me for a bit?”
A small smile forms on his lips. With Cam happy and in Travis’s care, he can think of nothing more he’d rather do.
“Sure.” He slips off his jeans and t-shirt, crawling in to bed beside her.
As she wriggles in the sheets in boy shorts and a camisole, she makes the baby dinosaur noise again, and Zach brings his arms around her, her chest against his.
It’s quiet as they lay like that; Cadey’s breathing soon slipping into rhythm with Zach’s, her churning stomach comforted by his heavy presence and his heartbeat, as if she is a new born baby.
Questions sit on both of their tongues, still unclear as to how things between them are defined now after last nights ‘reunion’. It meant a great deal to both of them. It has been such a long time since they’ve been together like that, but that was always how they had found such closeness.
After the first couple of times they had first had sex during ‘their summer’ they had gone a little crazy with it.
With Cadey’s head tucked on his chest, Zach strums his fingers up and down her back soothingly and kisses her hair, remembering one night in particular.
It had been a cool night, and was a late hour when Cadey had rung him, after receiving his voice mail. She had been stuck in a family dinner, with her brother back from New York for a few weeks again, and her grandparents in town to catch up.
Zach had been busy with workouts for a large majority of the two days previous, and they had had to take whatever time they could get, which was agonisingly spent at an afternoon backyard get-together, giving them no privacy. So Cadey had called when they had returned home, asking him to come over.
“Cade, it’s so late. I know your parents are respectful of our ages but your Grandparents are staying with you and your brother’s there. I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he’d replied through his phone’s speaker, “They are going to know what’s going to happen.”
“I’ve missed you Zach, it’s driving me crazy. Come over, I’ll sneak you through the back door of the house and you can stay the night and sneak back out tomorrow morning. No one will even know.”
Zach had known it was dangerous if they were to get caught, as Noah had by that time made his opinion on Zach and Cadey’s romance apparent. But he had missed her too, finding it as hard as she had to keep their hands above the table and to themselves during the afternoon BBQ. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”
The minute they had gotten up into her room, after successfully sneaking upstairs, Zach had her up against the wall, showing how much he had missed her with his passionate kisses. By the time they fumbled to the bed, there was a trail of clothing, shorts and t-shirts, lining a path from the door.
Tangled on top of the sheets, Zach was positioned between her legs, and he kissed down to her cleavage, showering her chest with affection before unhooking her bra at the front. When his mouth took her nipple, she released a soft moan.
That was when he had somehow found enough restraint to pull back.
“Cade, we can’t do this. Your grandparents are in the room across the hall and your brother’s room is just next door.”
Cadey’s sultry smile formed on her lips, her green eyes glistening playfully. “Come on Parise,” she’d purred, “I promise I’ll be quiet.”
Zach can still picture the look on her face now, so innocent and yet so seductive. Cadey was always the perfect mix.
He remembers looking at her doubtfully, his lips grinning, “When it comes to us in the bedroom, quiet is not quite your thing Parker.”
That was when she had sat up a little, her lips working down his throat and her hands into his boxer shorts. “That’s testament to you I believe Zachary, besides, there are ways around the noise.”
‘Ways around the noise’ had included her offering different positioning, her face down on the bed, sharing her ecstasy in to her pillow.
“What are you thinking?” Cadey’s soft voice asks now.
Zach clears his throat, finding the truth to be an inappropriate answer. “Um, just about how cool it was to teach Cam to skate this morning, and how cool everything has been so far this weekend actually.”
Her lips press to his chest before she sits up, leaning on his abdomen. In the slighted light, due to the pulled curtains, her eyes glow as they catch his. “Is it wrong that second to seeing you and Cam on the ice, last night is my favourite part of this whole trip so far?”
“No, Cade. That’s not wrong at all. It’s my second favourite part too.”
Her eyes dart thoughtfully, before centring back on him, a dilemma poised on her lips. “I know I said we need to talk about it, and we really should, we will have to, but I really, really don’t want to. I don’t want to think about it, or talk about it or analyse it.”
“Then we don’t have to Cadey,” he promises earnestly, jumping at the chance to avoid that particular conversation. “Let’s just not.”
But Cadey shakes her head, her conscience having caught up to her. “No, we do Zach, we do. For Cam, we do.”
Her tongue runs over her lips and Zach wants to practically pounce on her, but she clearly has something weighing on her mind, something she soon confirms.
“There’s something you should know Zach, something that I need to tell you.”
Feeling the mood shift, he sits up, his back against the head board, Cadey cradled between his legs. “Okay, tell me.”
“You know how there’s that one house in our town in Minnesota that I really hate? Hate to drive past, hate to see, and hate to remember?”
He nods.
“That’s because it was the house that I lived in up until I was six, almost the same age as Cam. I’ve never…I’ve never told anybody this before, but when I was six, my parents were having difficulties in their marriage. They either fought a lot or they completely didn’t speak and it drove both Noah and I crazy.”
As she pauses to draw a much needed breath for strength, Zach grips her hand to show support.
“They saw how much it was effecting us, and they decided that maybe they should try a trial-separation. Dad moved out and for three months he lived in a different house and Noah and I split time between the two. It was the worst time of my whole life. I felt stranded, not knowing whether they were going to divorce or get back together or what was going on.”
Zach can’t believe what she’s saying. From what he’s known of Cadey’s parents, they are the most in love couple he has ever met.
In fact, they are exactly how he wishes he and Cadey could be; still in love, still holding hands and having that look in their eyes when they see each other. For them to have had things get that bad, he can only imagine how that truly hurt Cadey.
“I take it they sorted things out?”
She nods. “Yeah, a girl from down the street babysat us one night and they went out to dinner. They talked abut everything and I don’t really know what happened, but they decided to stay together and we moved into a different house, the one they still live in now. You know what they’re like, they are still so in love, but I will still always remember how horrible that time was. I guess…I guess my point here is that I can’t do that to Cam. I just won’t. I don’t wish that on anybody. If we…..If we do this –us this- then we have to be 100% in, all or nothing, no outs.”
Her bottom lip quivers, and Zach heartbreakingly knows what’s next.
“As much as I sometimes think I’d like that, it wouldn’t work Zach. We know it wouldn’t. Your life is here, and mine is there. Last night…. last night was amazing, but it doesn’t change what our lives are.”
Tears tumble down her cheeks and Zach wants desperately to tell her she is wrong, but he knows she’s right. This is exactly what both their fathers warned them of –getting sucked in to fantasy and being blind to reality.
But Zach doesn’t want to give up on fantasy just yet. His hands hold her face, squashing out her tears. “Remember that night that you asked to me to come round and snuck me upstairs while everyone else was asleep?”
Cadey’s brows furrow. “What?”
“The night after your family dinner,” he continues on a tangent, “Your grandparents and your brother were staying and you called me to come over. I told you that we shouldn’t do anything in case someone heard, but you promised to be quiet.”
“Zach, what does that have to do with-”
His eyes light up and he cuts in, “You didn’t care Cadey, we could have gotten in trouble but you didn’t care. You just wanted to be with me and that’s all I wanted too. I didn’t care either. That’s all I want now too, I just want to be with you Cade.”
For a moment, time pauses around them everything seems to just come to a stop and fade away into the background.
Then the world presses play, things moving so fast neither one can grab it.
Zach’s lips meet hers, claiming them. His hands wander her body and strip off her camisole, his hand palming over her breast before he replaces it with his mouth, making her moan, just like the night he was referring to.
Cadey’s body is more than compliant; quickly sharing in Zach’s pressing desire. Her body moves, a leg on each side of him, her hands treating themselves to every inch of his body as her lips ravage his.
“Cadey,” he huffs, “Do you want this? Do you want me?”
Her teeth bite down hard on her lip, and for a very short moment he worries, but her self restraint is at nil.
She nods her head, vigorously. “Yes. God, yes.”
Though when head moves to her neck, she pulls back. “But we can’t Zach. I was serious when I said that I won’t do this to Cam.”
“Cade, can you do something for me? Stop worrying about Jackson or your brother or tomorrow or the future. This is you me and me, right here, right now.” His words are careful, helping clear Cadey’s conscience of all else.
By his thinking, ignoring everything else, -yes, she wants nothing more in this word right now than to do this.

Afterwards they are lying on the couch together, Cadey in Zach’s lap, their favourite movie playing out on the large plasma screen TV in the lounge. Only, Zach is more watching Cadey than the screen.
He knows that tomorrow, when they go back to Minnesota, they will be going back to their more separate lives. There will be no more sleeping together or cuddling on the couch.
There will be Zach and Cadey –Cameron’s parents, not Zach and Cadey –the couple.
Actually, when Travis and Cam get back, that’s when it will end. But he doesn’t care. He loves Cadey, he will take whatever it is he can get, even if it’s just a few moments.
Cadey’s eyes twinkle as she laughs, the green in them echoing. She catches Zach looking, and sneaks a small kiss on his cheek.
“Watch the movie, Zach,” she urges, “It’s our favourite, remember?”
He nods. “I remember, but I’m just trying to savour something else right now. I’ve got this on DVD, I can watch it anytime. What I can’t watch anytime is you, like this.”
Her cheeks redden. “Zach. Tomorrow….”
His nose touches against hers, his mouth dangerously close. His breath tickles her face lightly. “I know, but it’s not tomorrow yet. I’ve missed this Cadey. Being here just lying with you, I can’t remember the last time we did this.”
“Funny,” she laughs, “because you seem to have a very clear recollection of the night that I snuck you up to my room.”
His trademark grin flashes proudly, “Well, there are some nights that a man will never forget.”
“One for the highlight reel is it?”
Zach just laughs. He’s learnt now from years of being without her that every night with her was one for the highlight reel. “Something like that.”
With mischievous eyes, Cadey gets up from the couch and tugs Zach along with her. “Since you live here and know them both well, which shower would you say is the biggest one, the one in the guest bathroom or the one in your onsuite?”
Eyeing her suspiciously, Zach tries to contain himself. “Now why would something like that interest you?”
“Well, I figure if we’ve only got today, I may as well treat you to some real-life revisits, rather than just the same highlights. Do you remember that one afternoon when your parents and your brother had gone somewhere and we had just gotten back from the gym, where I was watching you work out?”
On board with her train of thought after she posed the very first question, before she can even finish her words Zach has her picked up, her legs wrapped around his waist as he carries her to his bedroom. “I don’t know which is bigger. Guess we will just have to try both.”