The Right Thing

Sid was waiting for me when I got back, the place was unlocked for me and I let myself in. I locked the door behind me as I entered the apartment and kicked off my shoes. I dropped my purse on a table near the door, Sidney’s keys and wallet sat there as well. I took in the emptiness again and with a deep breath, went to find him. I hadn’t gotten the grand tour, but I managed to find my way to him, following the sound of the television coming from the living room.

He was sprawled on the sofa, taking up more space than seemed necessary. He certainly didn’t seem to be on pins and needles over my return and that was just fine with me. It had been a long afternoon with Sebastian, going over the details of how I’d met the mysterious Patrick and just what it was about him that had me so enamored. It had been a challenge to put it all into words and to do so with a certain amount of care. I was a little tired from it all.

I never told Sebastian I was in love with the new man in my life. I was, completely and totally. It was irrevocable. But I hadn’t told Sebastian as much. It just didn’t seem like the right time to share it. Besides, if he knew just how serious we were about each other, beyond the fact that I was visiting, my best friend would expect more detail and direct access. I wasn’t ready to share that yet. I wanted to keep Sid to myself for as long as I could because once we started sharing it, our relationship was bound to be outside of our control in at least a few ways.

I stood near the doorway, watching Sidney lounge in a pair of track pants and a t-shirt. He hadn’t changed since I’d first arrived, clearly comfortable in what he was wearing. His hair had dried completely, having still been damp from his post-practice shower when I’d left for lunch. The soft brown curls were a mess without his customary gel, laying in every direction and softening the sharp planes of his face. He looked younger, less the rugged man and more the carefree boy. It was a nice change, seeing him in such a different light.

I had never considered how rare it was to see him still. The only times I’d experienced it were on those few rainy days in the summer, some of the only rain that the Maritimes had to suffer through over the summer months. Still, he was a man who kept busy, always on the go, always with something that needed his attention. He liked to relax, he appreciated peace and quiet to clear his head, but rarely took the time to do it.

Things had changed a bit as the lockout took over, but not so much that he had enough time to be lazy or really relax all that often. His training was still in high-gear made clear by the physique that was still developing and changing through his hard work. He was running some of the workouts with his teammates. He was always the first one on the ice and the last one to leave. It was just a part of him; it was who he was. He was just as intense off the ice; it was constant.

I couldn’t deny that I enjoyed seeing him still, resting and seemingly without worry. There was no real expression on his face, no look of deep thought or concern like I’d feared would take over as his chances of playing were slowly pulled away from him. He looked comfortable in existing in that moment, just being. His eyes were focused on the television, ESPN going through the highlights over the week so far. He hadn’t heard me come in and he jumped a little when I said his name to capture his attention.

I sent him a soft smile. “Sorry, babe.”

He smiled in return. I was forgiven, that much was apparent. He pulled himself into a seated position and patted the cushion next to him. It was a welcome invitation, and I was more than tempted to take him up on the offer. But I had a box of leftovers that needed refrigeration. I pointed to the box in my hand and he laughed.

“I’ll show you where to put it.”

He stood and led me into the large kitchen. I doubted he had much time to cook during the season, but it would likely be getting some use during the work stoppage. He told me that on his better days, when the headaches weren’t too bad and the dizziness didn’t hold him back, he would work on his skills in the kitchen. He’d really only perfected breakfast and I knew why. His mornings were generally better for him during his concussion and the time that followed. It was later in the day that the symptoms would creep up and send him on a quest for a dark room, a place that was quiet and safe.

I looked around at the appliances, all of them top of the line. It was something out of a magazine, a dream kitchen that they showed on HGTV to make the general populace green with envy. I certainly wouldn’t mind cooking in a kitchen as expansive and well-stocked as his. I knew that I would have plenty of chances. Something told me the kitchen he was having put together in the new house would be just as top-of-the-line.

He took the box from me and peeked inside.

“Did you eat any of your lunch?”

“We always order too much. I don’t think I’ve ever left a lunch with Sebastian and not needed to bring at least half of it home with me.”

“You might have to share.” It sounded like a warning.

“I’m okay with that.”

He put the box in the refrigerator and moved to lean against the counter next to me.

“This is a nice kitchen,” I murmured.

“Thank you, but it’s not actually mine.”

I chuckled.

“Do I get to see the rest of the place?”

“Only the rooms that aren’t off limits,” he deadpanned. I turned to see the smirk on his face as he broke into a laugh. “None of the rooms are off limits, Wyn. What is temporarily mine is yours and all that.”

“So, the grand tour?”

“Follow me.”

And so it went. Sidney led me from room to room with his hands shoved in his pockets. It was clear to me that he was a bit uncomfortable with the whole idea of giving me a tour of the place. I could see it in his eyes and in the posture he kept. With each progressive room and hallway the man felt like he was showing off, something that he didn’t pride himself on doing.

We stopped the tour on the balcony that overlooked the grounds behind the complex. There was a pool and a couple of tennis courts. It was expansive for being located in the middle of a busy city. The grass was manicured perfectly, the trees mature and well kept. It was something that the residents paid for with their deep pockets, not a place where the average Pittsburgh resident would live. It felt exclusive and it clearly wasn’t a place I would ever have taken a tour of if I was in search of a place to rent.

He told me things about the house he was building, details that he prided himself on. He told me about the grounds and the fact that there was room for a pool and maybe even tennis courts so he wouldn’t have to leave the property to go play at the club. He told me little things that he was considering, and as much as it made him happy to talk about the plans, it was clear that he felt a bit selfish for it.

He was a supremely giving human being. It was one of the things I loved most about him. He had more than he could ever need, and he knew it. He signed his contract over the summer for much less than he could have gotten, but he wanted his contract to keep the team in mind as well; he wanted to do what was best for everyone and for the Penguins in the long run. He gave quietly, donating to any variety of causes that no one would ever know about on top of the ones that people were aware of. He made sure his parents were secure financially and assured that his younger sister got the best private education she could and he would do the same when it came time for her to attend college and he would never expect her to thank him for it or even acknowledge it. He did all of those things without a thought of himself and when asked to think about himself, it made him uncomfortable.

I sidled up next to him and wrapped my arms around his torso, his arm draped gently over my shoulder as we both gazed out towards the rest of the city, the rivers flowing somewhere in the distance, beyond our line of sight.

“It sounds like a beautiful house,” I murmured.

“You think so?”

“It could use some personal touches, and it might need some cozying up, but it sounds really amazing.”

“You don’t think it’s too much?” he mused.

“I’m not going to lie to you. For a single guy, it’s way too much. But it’s not like you’d put all of that work and thought into a place and sell it in a year. Someday you’ll have a family there and a dog that can actually live with you, maybe a couple of them. You’ll grow into it and then it will be absolutely perfect.”

His voice was soft as he pulled me closer, “That’s the plan.”

He led me back into the apartment where we both collapsed on the sofa, ESPN still playing in the background. I didn’t pay much attention, though I knew that he was wrapped up in what was being reported on the screen. I was far more aware of his body close to mine, his fingers stroking my hair without thought. He had my attention and he wasn’t even trying.

It felt comfortable and familiar, like it was the most natural thing in the world. I knew that eventually we would both have to move. We’d need to eat or use the bathroom. But I didn’t want that moment to come. I just wanted to stay there and remain curled up against him forever.

“What do you want to do while you’re here?” he asked.

I sighed. I didn’t want to admit that I hadn’t thought about it, but it was true. I hadn’t even let the thought cross my mind. All I’d cared about was being with him and spending time in his presence. I hadn’t even given thought to what I would do with myself while he was busy at practices or in Toronto or New York for meetings when they came up.

All I’d considered was the fact that I got to spend time with him and that I wouldn’t have to sleep alone at night. At least not every night.

“I have no idea.”

“None at all?”

I shook my head in response. He pulled me closer to his side and flipped through channels for a short time.

“We’ll figure it out,” he mused after a while. “It’s a great city, there’s always something to do.”

“You don’t have to entertain me.”

“And you don’t have to spend all your time cooped up here. I’ve got a key for you. That way you don’t feel like your activities are dictated by what I’m doing.”

“A key?” I asked quietly.

“You aren’t really a guest here,” he replied.

“This certainly isn’t my apartment,” I chided.

“Mine either.” He chuckled. “I just want you to feel at home here.”

“I already do.”

He leaned towards me, kissing me quickly and turning his eyes back to the television. “You have no idea how happy that makes me.”

We ordered in for dinner, neither of us in the mood to cook while we were still acclimating to being with each other once again. It was going to be a longer stretch than the last time, an extended visit with no clear end. We’d have more time to settle into a schedule than we’d had during my short trip to Nova Scotia over the summer. I would return to Boston, I just didn’t know when. We didn’t talk about it, and we certainly weren’t going to talk about it on the day I arrived.

We spread out a selection of Chinese food on the coffee table and shared it all; eating directly out of boxes and working through a six pack as Sid found a movie that we both agreed might be worth a watch. It wasn’t the greatest film, it certainly wasn’t cinematic gold, but it kept us occupied for a while as we ate our dinner.

We sat up talking late that night, later than we intended. We avoided certain subjects. The last thing Sid wanted to talk about was the lockout, even his grandmothers asked about it whenever he spoke to them, so it wasn’t something that we discussed; it was clearly something that he needed a distraction from. That had been obvious to me since he’d called on the day the lockout began. He wanted to be involved, but he didn’t want a labor dispute to be the only thing of importance when he wanted more than anything to be playing hockey and not worrying about the rest.

He knew that in the way he didn’t want to talk about not playing hockey I didn’t want to talk about my family. It was a sore subject; one that he knew had been bothering me, just one of the issues that I’d been working hard at distracting myself from over the course of the summer and fall.

My grandparents in Boston had been in touch over the summer, claiming that they wanted to see me and I thought perhaps get to know me better, if at all. I hadn’t wanted to speak to my father about it. I’d really only told Sidney and that had taken some goading on his part. He knew that it bothered me, the fact that they’d avoided contact for much of my life, that I’d been in Boston for 6 years and they still hadn’t sought to contact me until I was in my mid-twenties. It felt forced and I wasn’t sure what my mother would want me to do. It was all confusing and painful and Sidney hadn’t pitied me, he’d simply told me that I’d figure it out, that I’d decide what I needed to do. I knew that until I made that choice, Sid would gladly listen to me whenever I needed him to.

Instead we talked about the fact that I’d never driven through the Fort Pitt Tunnel and seen the city open up in the way that people raved about. We talked about Pittsburgh, the reasons that he loved the city and the places that he wanted to make sure I experienced, even if it was during an outing with Sebastian or on my own.

“How did you explain things to Sebastian?” he asked.

We hadn’t discussed my outing with my best friend beyond how much food had been left over from the whole extravaganza.

“I told him about this great guy that I met at a coffee place in Boston.”

“What did you tell him about this guy?”

I curled back into Sidney’s side. I’d long since changed back into my sweats, comfortable and relaxed as dinner settled and the television played quietly in the background.

“Well, I told him that he was a sweet guy who travelled a lot for work.”

Sid chuckled. “What did you tell him the guy does for a living?”

I wrinkled my nose. “I may have said he was in finance.”

“Finance?” he asked, his face contorting making it obvious that he was quite amused.

I bit down on my lower lip. “I didn’t know what else to say.”

“You could have gone with something cool like FBI agent or airline pilot. I could have been exciting and daring, I could have saved people from burning buildings or put out forest fires, and you went with finance?”

“I hadn’t thought about it and when we started talking it was all that came to mind. It made it make sense that your dad was concerned about my motives.”

“You told him about my dad?”

“I told him that I met Patrick’s father in an unorthodox and disquieting manner and that Patrick’s father was unsure of my intentions in seeing his son.”

“How much detail do you give to Sebastian when you tell stories?”

I laughed at his discomfort. I knew what he was getting at and a part of me wanted to lead him on or torture him a bit. But it wasn’t something that I was skilled at. Sidney and I were both terrible liars, prone to laughing when we tried to be dishonest.

“I don’t share anything too intimate. It was dinner at a Mexican restaurant, not an afternoon in the locker room. I’ve told him nothing graphic and nothing below the waist.”

“Your waist or mine?”

I sent a gently slap across his chest, but he simply laughed lightly and settled back in. He was unaffected by the contact, content to have gotten a reaction out of me.

“What does Sebastian think of this Patrick character? Aside from the fact that he must be boring because he works in finance…”

“That matters to you?”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t care what people think about you.”

“I care what the people you love think about me.”

He meant it. I could honestly say that I felt the same way. Meeting his family had been such a stressful thing for me because I was terrified that they wouldn’t like me. He’d mentioned that the Lemieux family wanted to meet me. The idea of it was more terrifying than meeting his family. The thought made me more than a little bit nauseous, as did the idea of meeting the teammates who relied on him. It only made sense that Sidney would feel the same way; concerned about how the people in my life would feel about him.

I smiled as I looked up to catch his eyes with mine. “I think that when he meets you, he’ll be able to pass judgment. Right now, all that matters to him is that I’m happy. If you, or Patrick, are capable of making me happy then Sebastian is more than likely to approve.”

“What about your dad?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because if the season hasn’t started by then, I’ll be meeting him soon and it’s kind of a scary thing for me.”

“Have you never met the father of one of your girlfriends?”

“Once, but that was back in Rimouski. I was a teenager and I barely remember it. Hell, I only understood about half of the conversation. I was never fluent in French, just conversational. I remember being a bit intimidated, but it was different.”

“Why was it different?”

He looked back down at me, the soft brown of his eyes catching me off-guard for a moment. I took a deep breath, winding my hand into the soft fabric of his t-shirt. Sometimes it felt like I would fall into those eyes and drown if I wasn’t careful. I was holding on for dear life; clinging to a buoy in the middle of a storm.

“I was a kid, hockey was literally the only thing in my life that really mattered, and I didn’t have time for much else. She was just a girl that I dated for a few months. She wasn’t a huge part of my life.”

“And I am?”

“That can’t be an actual question.” He looked dumbfounded.

I shrugged.

“Of course you are. I wouldn’t have needed to see you if that weren’t the case. There’s never been another person in my life that would have gotten that phone call.”

That had been an interesting phone call for me. It was one that I wasn’t sure how to digest. I’d given it plenty of thought in the time since, and it was still a little hard to put my finger on why I’d been on the airline website while we were still speaking that night. But I had. I’d booked a flight and left Boston behind without a second thought. And I’d done it for no other reason aside from the fact that he asked me to.

If I was the only one to get that call from him as the lockout played out, I hoped that it would be that way for a long time.

“Hey.”

His voice was soft, he sounded a bit downtrodden. I’d expected it. I’d heard the announcement earlier in the day and had decided to let him call me rather than calling him. I knew he was bound to be unhappy with the course of things. He’d waited so long to be able to play a full season and after the way the talks had gone before the lockout, it wasn’t going to happen.

“Hi,” I replied.

“Did you hear?”

“I did.”

There was a pregnant pause as I tried to think of what to say. I didn’t want to ask if he was okay, I knew that he wasn’t. He was probably both upset and angry over it. He wanted more than anything to play the game he loved, and an inability to come up with a new CBA in the allotted time frame was dictating whether or not he would be able to do just that. His game was being taken away from him when he was in the best shape of his life.

“This sucks.”

I almost laughed. It was one of those moments where Sidney said something I hadn’t been expecting in the slightest. I’d expected some sort of argument against the things that were happening, some long-winded and aggressive play to get it all out of his system. I thought that he’d start on about the ridiculous nature of the talks and the way the union was being treated. I thought that he’d get started and not stop for a while, not giving me time or space to get a word in. But all I got was the frustrated utterance of a man who was being denied something that he loved. Every other word was an expletive and he strung them together in a way that I’d never heard. He didn’t sound like the well-spoken man I knew, rather like an upset boy without a bit of patience left.

I let him get it out and waited to make sure he was finished before I took my chance to slip into the conversation.

“I can’t imagine.”

I heard him sigh. His tone softened. “How would you feel if someone told you that you couldn’t do your work for a while, no timeline, just until they decided that you could? How would you react if they took away your access to the coffee house where you do so much of your work and told you that you could do what you enjoyed but only on your own time and no one would pay you for it, no one would call you asking for your to do any designs for them? What would that be like for you, to have the skills and the tools but to have your outlet, your audience, and clients taken away from you? Because that has been the last year and a half of my life. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”

“Hell. It would be absolute hell. And I would have already broken a few things, so I think you’re handling it better than I would.”

He took a deep breath. “Then you can kind of imagine.” He paused. “How do you know I haven’t broken anything?”

I heard the smile creep back into his voice. I was glad that his sense of humor was intact, even if he was upset about the state of things.

“You’re too calm for that. You leave all that frustration out on the ice.”

“When that’s a possibility,” he muttered. “Wyn?”

“Yeah, Sid,” I said softly.

“Will you come out here? No pressure, it would just be nice to see you.”

There was a pleading in his voice, a sadness that made my heart feel heavy. I knew that he got lonely. Mario and his family were there for him, his teammates who were in town were certainly there for him, but he struggled in relying on people. It led him to spending more time alone than he really needed. It wasn’t good for him. I would know, I had a tendency to do the same thing.

I’d already propped my laptop on my knees as I searched for the quickest and soonest flights to Pittsburgh. He didn’t even have to ask, I would have gone to see him anyway. But his words were enough to send me into immediate action. I was willing to do more for him than I’d ever imagined.

“When?” I asked, balancing my attention between my computer and phone, trying to do too many things at once.

“Whenever you can. No timeline, but if you could just be here for a while, I think this would be a whole lot easier to deal with.”

I was already comparing two flights when he uttered those words. My mind was made up, I was going to Pittsburgh. I couldn’t stand to hear him sound so low. I could only imagine what it had been like when he was out injured, when his game was so far out of his reach. At least this time around he knew that he was capable of playing his game, in great shape and ready to do his job as soon as someone let him.

“I think I could swing a trip.”

“Really?” his voice rose with hope.

“Yeah. I could use a little vacation, get away for a while.”

Neither of us put numbers on it. I had no intention of booking a return trip; that would come when the time was right.

“If you’re sure…” he tapered off.

“I am. I want to see you too. I’ll call you when I figure out my travel plans. But I’ll see you soon.”

“Have I told you that I love you recently?”

I smiled. “Not today.”

“Well, I do.”

“I love you too, Sidney.”

He would go on to argue with me about my plans for the trip. He didn’t want me to waste my money because he had more of it to waste. He insisted that the trip was his idea and it was only fair if he paid for my ticket. I refused on every level. I was perfectly capable of doing things for myself. He knew it, and he knew damn well that I was more stubborn than he wanted to mess with. I would win, I would pay my own way, and he would have no room to complain about it. Though I knew that he wanted to.

It was such an odd exchange between us, but it had been welcome. In a way, it had been nice to hear him vulnerable. I was more than happy to be important enough for him to call me when he needed someone. Even if the first ten minutes of the call consisted of Sidney spouting off angrily, it was still a side of him that I hadn’t experienced.

“I’m glad that I’m the person you called,” I murmured, lulled by his warmth radiating against my side.

“I really mean it, Wyn. There’s no other person whose voice I’d want to hear in that situation. In a lot of situations, actually.”

His tone took on the same weight that he always used to prove a point. I smiled against his chest. I knew that he meant it; he’d told me before that he’d never told a woman that he loved her before me. It was a club that only I belonged to, and I was still unsure of the burden that I carried in that, being the first woman that Sidney Crosby had ever truly loved, or at least the first one that he’d admitted it to. At the same time, I was glad to carry the weight of it, to be a strong enough presence in his life to matter as much as I seemed to.

“I know. If it means anything, you’re the only one that I ever talk to about certain things.”

“Like your family?”

I nodded against him, my hand still wrapped in the fabric of his shirt. His hand was tracing soothing circles on my back as we spoke.

“You never told me what your father will think of me.”

I took a breath, my senses filling with his heady scent.

“I don’t know. I’ve never really had a boyfriend to take home to him before. I’ve certainly never had a boyfriend that my father was likely to recognize and possibly draw conclusions about.”

“What sort of conclusions?”

“He might worry about your dedication to a relationship with his daughter given your status and lifestyle. The distance might bother him a little. He could be a little put off by the fact that you get paid millions to play a game. He may even be bothered by the fact that you’re Canadian.”

“Really?”

“He’s a patriotic guy.”

Sid looked concerned.

“But I think he’ll like you. He has nothing to worry about because I’m a big girl who makes her own decisions. But more than that, he’ll be able to see that I am madly in love with you and that the feeling appears to be mutual. He’ll worry, he’s a father and I’m his only child. But if you just charm him the way you do everyone else, you have nothing to worry about.”

“He sounds more reasonable than my father,” he said with a chuckle.

“He may be. If she were here, my mother would be the one who was harder to deal with. She was always more protective, more concerned about me and where I was going in life. She would have been the one to sit you down and ask too many questions and throw a few threats in your direction. My dad is a little more like your mom; he wants everyone to get along and just enjoy each other. Mom was a peace-keeper too, but she was fiercely protective of the people she loved.”

“Is that why you don’t want to tell him about your grandparents calling you?”

I glanced up at him, feeling a sudden tightness in my chest. I wished for a moment that he hadn’t brought it up, but I knew that talking to him about things always made me feel better. He had the ability to keep me tethered to the ground when a situation had the potential of making things too difficult to tolerate. I could always hold myself together when Sid was there to listen.

He didn’t let me run away from them the way I sometimes wanted to.

“I don’t want him to feel badly. They’ve treated him terribly and they basically wrote my mother off. I know that it would be painful for him if I decided to take a stab at having a relationship with them. But a part of me wants to know them, they raised my mom, they knew her before Dad. They have insight that Dad never will. But another part of me wonders if that matters.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just don’t know that it’s important who she was as a child or when she was in college. That wasn’t the woman that I knew, it wasn’t the woman who did her best in shaping me into the woman that I would become.”

“Do you have questions that they could answer for you?”

“Probably,” I replied with a heavy sigh. “But I don’t know if she’d want me to do that. I don’t know if Mom would want me digging around in the life that she left behind. She was the woman that loved my father, the one that wanted nothing to do with her parents. What if deciding to talk to them would upset her?”

“That’s a call you have to make, but if it has any impact at all on your decision, I don’t think it would hurt her feelings. I don’t think she’d be angry about it. If she raised you to be the woman you are, then she would know that you would want to have answers to things, that you’d be frustrated when there wasn’t enough information to make things make sense.

“You have to do what’s best for you. It can’t be about anything or anyone else.”

“I wish you could just come with me to face them.”

“Name the time and place, but I don’t think you’ll ever really need my help.”

I glanced up at him as his eyes bore into mine.

“You make me brave.”

He smiled and leaned down to place a kiss on my lips. It was the best kind of silence between us, the kind that was filled with the warmth of contact without being overwrought with the desire that had a tendency to take hold when it came to us.

We separated and I stifled a yawn.

“Bedtime,” he said with a quiet smile.

“I’m awake.”

“You’re dead on your feet. We both need some rest before the conversation deteriorates more than it already has.”

He was right about that. We didn’t need to delve into any other deep topics that could possibly put either of us on edge. It was too late for that kind of conversation. We both needed rest, and I knew that with him under the covers with me I would have no trouble getting to sleep. The issue would certainly come when it was time to untangle myself from him and crawl out of bed come morning.

But I would cross that bridge when I came to it.

Sidney turned off the TV, adept with the pile of remotes that I was sure I would never figure out. I disengaged from him, taking my hand away from his shirt, the fabric stretched where I’d been holding on so tightly. He rose to his feet and held his hands out to me, pulling me up off of the sofa and switching off the light as we headed towards the stairs that led up to the master suite.

He let me go ahead of him as he trailed behind me on the steps.

“You’d better not be staring at my ass, Canada,” I threatened with a smile.

“Where else would I be looking right now?” he chirped in return. “Besides, what are you going to do about it?”

I turned to look at him as I reached the top of the stairs. With him still a step down, we were eye to eye. The stairway was dark, a soft glow cast from the nightlight below us in the kitchen and the moonlight streaming through the windows.

“I can think of plenty of things,” I said with a playful grin.

Another yawn stopped me in my tracks and he gave me a sympathetic look. It was sarcasm on his part. He didn’t feel badly for me at all, he was taking a bit of pleasure in my inability to control the impulse that was brought on by my sudden fatigue.

“Looks like that might have to wait for tomorrow.”

I turned away as he chuckled from behind me. I tried like hell not to allow myself to laugh along with him.

I heard him close the bedroom door behind us. It was a habit that we both shared. Even though there was no one else in the place, I always closed doors behind me, and Sidney was the same way. Even if there wasn’t a single person to try to remain cut off from, no real reason to seek added privacy, it only felt right to close the door and seclude myself, I found it interesting that Sidney was the same way. I could only assume that Sidney would take privacy wherever and whenever he could get it.

I kicked off my sweats and climbed into bed in little more than my t-shirt; Sidney’s name and number still on my back. I took my place on my side of the bed, knowing that Sidney would climb in the other side. I watched him in the moonlight, shimmying out of his track pants.

He was facing away from me as he pulled his shirt up over his head. My breath hitched as the muscles in his back rippled like the surface of a lake on a calm day as he raised his arms high. There were so many ridges where I could hook my fingers in the heat of the moment; his muscles like hand-holds on a rock climbing wall.

He slid in next to me, his hair mussed and a smirk on his lips.

“Who got caught staring now?” he chided.

“What are you going to do about it?”

The side of his mouth lifted higher as he slid an arm beneath my back and tangled his legs with mine. He hovered over me slightly, holding his weight away from me, teasing me.

“Nothing tonight.”

He captured my lips with his and lowered himself next to me. One of my legs remained between his as he settled against the pillow to my left. His lips left mine and I longed to feel them again.

“You were going to show me that our relationship is more than moderately exciting,” I murmured.

His chest rumbled with laughter.

“And I will, just not tonight.”

“Why?”

“We need sleep. I don’t want you passing out on me in the middle of something, that’s damaging for a man and his ego.”

“I wouldn’t pass out on you.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“I would never.”

My eyes were drifting closed as he pulled me tight to his side.

“Get some sleep, love. You’ve had a long day. We’ve got all the time in the world for excitement.”

I nodded and let my eyes drift closed. His voice, a soft whisper in the darkness, was the last thing I heard before sleep pulled me under for the night.

“All the time in the world.”