Be With Someone...

Kris did everything he could to keep himself busy until Janine arrived. He wasn’t sure how quickly she would come, but he hoped it was soon. Though he would never admit it out loud, but Janine managed to turn him into a practically giddy teenager.

After changing into clean clothes, Kris busied himself in the kitchen and den, making the two rooms as presentable as possible. He hadn’t spent much time around his apartment lately, though, so there wasn’t much to do. If he wasn’t at the rink, he was traveling with the team. And if he wasn’t doing either of those things, he was at Janine’s, watching movies.

The doorbell rung not a moment too soon, as Kris was actually contemplating getting out the vacuum. Willing himself not to sprint for the door, he ran a hand through his shaggy hair, and oh-so-slowly opened the door.

*****

It was as if he was trying to kill her, opening the door so smoothly and calm. Janine all but bounded up the stone steps to Kris’s riverside condo. If it had been anyone else’s home, Janine would have stopped a minute to take in the view, but her date was waiting.

‘No!’ she cursed to herself. ‘Not a date! Just…movies. Like always.’

“Hey,” he smiled, seeing her. “Come on in.”

Janine stepped inside, just as a crack of thunder and lightning lit up the sky. “Just in time,” she sighed as rain began to pour down from the heavens.

“What is it with us and weather?” Kris laughed. “First the snow storm and now a torrential downpour.”

“Mother Nature most not be our biggest fans,” Janine smiled, kicking off her shoes in the entryway, despite his assurances that she could keep them on. “I have Episodes 2-6 in my bag.”

“Why not 1?” he asked, leading her into the kitchen where she plopped onto a bar stool.

“The Phantom Menace sucks,” she shrugged. “It’s widely agreed that it’s the worst in the franchise.”

“I’m not the biggest fan of a New Hope,” Kris said with his head in the fridge, which gave Janine a nice view of his jean-clad butt.

“That’s not my favorite,” Janine conceded, taking a sip from the beer he handed to her after emerging from the fridge. “But it’s still better than the first.”

“You want to start watching now?” he asked, looking at the clock. They had a good five hours before they were due to be back at the arena, enough time for movies, dinner, and changing.

“Sure, let’s do it,” Janine pulled her gray hoodie over her head to reveal a band t-shirt underneath.

“Oh, non,” Kris shook his head, making his hair flop about. “You can’t wear that in this house.”

Janine laughed and glanced down at her white shirt. On it was the Guns’n’Roses logo, emblazoned across her chest and torso.

“I forgot about your affection for Metallica. You’re gonna have to let it slide for now though,” she pointed outside. “I’m not leaving until all that lightens up.”

Soon enough, the two sat themselves on Kris’s plush leather couch in their usual positions. Kris leans diagonally, his back in the corner between the arm of the couch and its back and legs up, and Janine sat with her own legs propped over Kris’s.

As the opening credits rolled, Janine heard her phone go off, ringing for a few minutes, before beeping with a voicemail.

“You want to get that?” Kris asked, reaching for the remote to pause it.

“No,” Janine shook her head. “If it’s important, they’ll call back.”

She didn’t want her time with Kris interrupted with something stupid. And knowing the people she worked with on a daily basis- hockey players- it probably was.

*****

Halfway through Anakin’s transformation to the Dark Side, Janine’s stomach let out an audible rumble.

“Hungry?” Kris laughed as Janine clamped her hands over her stomach. “What are you in the mood for?”

“We can order something,” she offered. “You don’t have to wait on me.”

“You cook for me all the time,” Kris pointed out. “I should return the favor.”

“You cook?” Janine’s eyes widened. “Damn. Perfect hair, a hockey player, and you cook.”

“What can I say?” Kris put on a smirk that would have put both Staalsy and Talbo to shame. “I’m the complete package. Come on, I’ll whip up something good.”

*****

“I want to help,” Janine pouted from her bar stool.

“You never let me step foot in your kitchen, let alone actually work in it,” Kris said, his back to her. “So it’s only fair.”

He poured some flour out onto the marble countertops and took out some premade pizza dough. Kneading it a few times, he couldn’t help but laugh at the look on her face. It was a mix of annoyance and surprise. Everyone now and again, she would throw in a noise of displeasure.

“If I let you help,” Kris sighed. “Will you stop making that noise?”

For his answer, he had Janine push him out of the way and she began to work the dough with her own hands, shooing him away.

Just to get a rise out of her, he flicked some flour at her hair, coating the tips in the white substance.

Pausing, Janine set the dough down before slowly turning. “Did you just do what I think you did?”

“I don’t know,” he smiled. “Did I do this?” Now, he took a bigger cluster of flour and blew it at her, letting the cloud of white hit her face.

“Oh, it’s own,” she snorted with laughter.

In minutes, flour coated every countertop and covered the cabinets of Kris’s fancy-albeit small- kitchen. They chased each other about, slipping and sliding on the wood floors and swiping their hands across the marble to gather more flour, the dough forgotten in a clump.

And in typical Janine fashion, just before delivering a fatal blow to Kris’s hair, she slid into the fridge, landing in a pile on his floor.

“Do I win?” he panted. They’d been running for nearly 10 minutes straight. He peered down at her, smiling.

She crossed her arms over her chest, ignoring the pain in her tailbone. “I guess.”

“Good,” he dusted off his hands and pulled her up, only to come within inches of her face.

Instead of pulling away as they both should have, they stood that way, staring.

In both their minds, a few forgotten moments of an almost forgotten party were remembered.

New Year’s Eve.

An almost kiss.

And a resolution they had both made.

New love.

Kris had been burned in the past. He’d been lied to and cheated on. He’d been dumped and left to pick up the pieces, just like Janine.

“The dough,” Janine murmured. “Needs rolling.”

“Right,” Kris nodded. “But it can wait.”

“Wha-,” she was cut off mid-sentence by Kris’s lips crashing to hers and two large hands encompassing her cheeks.

And for a few short moments, she forgot completely about her job and about the voicemail waiting in her purse from a certain ex, saying he was back in town.