Je t'aime, tu sais?

The man looked startled as he leapt of the couch with a small yelp.
"Oh my god, I'm sorry!" Jamie cried, crashing the palm of her hand to her forehead and cursing under her breath in French. She blocked the doorway with her mother, both wrapped in thick coats and scarves, praying for March to soon bring Spring.
"Patrice totally told me you were staying with him; I'm so sorry for not knocking!"
Jamie quickly shrugged her tote off of her shoulder and closed the space between herself and her mother and a man in her boyfriend's apartment she could only presume was Sidney Crosby.
Sid's hand unclenched the grey material of his Reebok shirt he had grasped in fear as Jamie had barged through the front door of the apartment and his face widened in a smile and his cheeks tinted in a light blush.
"No, please, Bergy said you might be stopping by; I just didn't know when," he laughed, bashfully. He eagerly took hold of Jamie's hand and shook it.
"Jamie Delacour," she smiled.
"Sidney Crosby," he returned.
"This is my mother, Ana," Jamie motioned over her shoulder as Mrs. Delacour made her way into Patrice's apartment.
"Hi, pleasure, really," Sid smiled, taking her hand in both of his, genuinely. "I met your other daughter last night," he said. "Your sister Emily," he nodded to Jamie. "She's delightful."
"OUR Emily?" Mrs. Delacour joked, pressing a hand to her chest and giving a look of mock shock.
"Yeah," Jamie giggled. "You must've met her on a good day," she winked.
Sid laughed, nervously, most likely unsure of what to say. Emily had been... in the nicest of terms: standoffish.
"Oh, uhm, Patrice is sleeping," Sid said, raising a hand to awkwardly scratch the back of his neck. He stood before them barefoot in jeans and a t-shirt. Rather modest for the face of the NHL, Jamie thought to herself.
She liked it.
"Oh no," Jamie moaned, looking at her mother woefully. She quickly reminded herself to check her emotional baggage, but, it had been hard being without him for just a full day, and Ana knew.
Her mother had flown in yesterday morning and Jamie had kissed Patrice goodbye on her way to the airport. While Jamie went to pick her up, Patrice changed her bedsheets, tidied up her room (making sure to stuff all of his personal things in the bottom drawer, out of sight, and made his way to practice. He spent the day away from her and her family, giving them time to talk between the two of them and meet up with Emily after ballet practice. They went out to a lovely dinner where he was sure to call ahead and order them a bottle of wine, and spent the night in with Sid; they cooked a rack of lamb and steamed a head of broccoli each. Today, Patrice and the Delacours had discussed going to the game and going out to dinner afterwards, all of them.
"But he told me to tell you to wake him if you came by, really," Sid said quickly, bringing her back to reality and giving her a reassuring nod.
Jamie wondered if Patrice had told him about her woes.
"Go ahead," Mrs. Delacour said, gently bumping Jamie's elbow. She knew of the deep, deep stress her illness was causing her daughter. She was ever-thankful that God had given her someone strong to lean on when the unthinkable day came where she wouldn't be able to lean on her... "Sidney can make me a nice cup of coffee," she smiled.
"I would love to," Sid said without skipping a beat. He motioned to the kitchen and Mrs. Delacour followed, removing her jacket and taking a seat at the breakfast bar.
Jamie eagerly shrugged out of her black down jacket, draping it over Patrice's white couch along with her purse. She noticed a pair of black athletic socks neatly piled at the foot of the couch.

She did everything she could to prevent herself from running into his room, but could only slow herself to a quick jog, made faster by sliding her sock clad feet across the dark, hardwood floors.
She gently shut his bedroom door behind her, giving herself a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room, and her head a minute to stop spinning as she smelt his thick musk.
The blinds were drawn and for a second, Jamie wondered if he was even in the room it was so quiet.
She heard the sheets rustle and saw his foot twitch, hanging off the corner of the bed, poking out from underneath the deep navy comforter.
She bit her lip, tears brimming her darkly colored eyes.
Finally, she thought.
She only needed two minutes with this man and she know she'd feel better.
She crept over to the side of the bed and could finally hear his steady breathing.
"Patrice," she whispered, leaning down onto the bed, her knee bent. Her hand found the back of his head, and as her eyes adjusted she could see he was sleeping turned onto his stomach, the back of his broad, bare shoulders facing her.
"Mon amour," she purred, her lips curving into a smile.
He sighed, asleep.
She sat on her heel and let her one hand stay cradling his head while the other slipped down his shoulder blades and mid back.
"Oh Patrice," she whispered, bending forward still and gently rubbing her nose into his cheek, his skin hot with an almost-sweat of deep sleep. She could feel his mouth was slightly open, even though he was a nose breather.
She kissed his ear as her fingers traced his face and he began to emerge from dreams with a few quiet noises from the back of his throat and the stretching of his legs.
"Jamie?" he breathed as her fingers traced his lips, her arms hugging his head and her lips pressed into his temple. She felt his turn into a smile below her finger tips. "Baby," he whispered, turning to lay on his back, freeing his hands from their twisted knots in his soft blue sheets.
"You're here," he croaked, his hands finding her face in the dark as hers stroked his strong arms and eventually found his chest.
"You're here," she whispered, smiling more than she had in two days. A tear trickled down her cheek, spreading across his thumb.
"Don't cry," he breathed. "I'll always be here." He bent his elbows, lowering her to his face to give her a big, lazy kiss as she pressed herself to his hot, sleepy chest.
They pulled apart for a heartbeat, Jamie eager to sniff back a few tears, but before she could he groaned, cocking his head to the side slightly and bringing her back down to his lips, spread for hers.
She let out a whimper and melted into him as he wrapped his arms around her back and held her close, their tongues as intimate and romantic as their bodies. Their kiss was enormous and passionate yet soft and lazy in his post-nap haze. His arms traveled around her back, one fastening itself around her waist, the other finding it's fingers knotted in her hair. As their kiss deepened, her hands cradled his cheeks and she smoothed her thumb over his smooth skin just above his five o'clock shadow.
With a deep breath they slowed and he looked up at her with a smirk, smug with getting to wake up to his beautiful girl.
"No mon amor, don't cry cherie," he whispered, still smiling as he raised his hand to cup her cheek and thumb away a tear.
Unable to give him what he wanted, she wrapped her arms around his neck and cried into his shoulder, more so out of exhaustion and happiness than sadness. Her mother still had to have more tests; nothing was set in stone. She hadn't failed her thesis. Yet.
But she had him.
And he wasn't going anywhere.
He gently cooed to her as his hands snaked up the back of her shirt and he warmed her skin with his own. He kissed the side of her face and her hair, and even though she was crying he couldn't help but smile.
She really did love him.
And she wasn't afraid of it, anymore.

He managed to get a laugh out of her as she looked up at him, her chin on his chest, his hand smoothing back her hair.
"Yeah, he said she wasn't very nice," he chuckled, telling Jamie what Sid had told her about his interactions--or lack thereof--with Emily last night over their dinner.
"She's so terrible like that!" Jamie sighed, laughing. "She's just so... abrasive sometimes. She has to understand that not all men are out to get her. Or even, less self-centeredly, not all men are trying to get in her pants!"
"Sid's a pretty respectable guy, too," Patrice reasoned aloud with her. "And no one here likes him; he was probably just trying not to be a loner. I feel kinda bad he doesn't have many friends here..." Patrice trailed off as Jamie drew circles on his sculpted chest.
"Well, it seems as if he's in the right place, with the right doctors..." Jamie tried.
"True, true," Patrice nodded, looking up to his ceiling in thought. They lay together in the dark. Soon after their kiss they could hear Mrs. Delacour and Sid laughing from the kitchen, and Patrice said he should probably start waking up and looking presentable.
"He should come to dinner with us after the game," Jamie suggested, looking up at him to gage his reaction.
"Yeah?" Patrice asked, a hint of a smile in his voice.
"Why not?" Jamie shrugged.
"I'm sure he'd love it," he nodded, bending forward to peck her lips if he could just stop smiling long enough to do so.

With one more kiss, he released her cheeks and she slipped off of him, pulling the comforter with her with a devilish grin, exposing his nearly naked self.
He had napped in his trusty boxer briefs and was quick to roll out of bed and grab a pair of black corduroys off of his floor, pulling them up his long, lean legs.
He bent his knees and then leaned to balance on one foot, shaking his lifted leg before zipping and buttoning the pants. He bent down in the dark to find a shirt.
"What was that?" Jamie asked, giggling.
"What was what?" He asked, kneeling on the floor.
"That little... dance," she laughed.
"Uh, I dunno what you're talking about," he blushed in the dark, standing and climbing into a white v-neck, his arms high above his head.
"That little... jig," Jamie giggled, thinking of another word for it.
"It was nothing," he laughed, pulling a thick, dark gray cardigan out of his closet and slinging at arm around her, leading her to his bedroom door.
"It was something," she joked, stepping in front of him and poking his chest.
He rolled his eyes, shrugging on his cardigan.
"I had a situation--I have a situation," he said to the ceiling. He let his chin drop to his chest so he could make eye contact with her as she blushed and giggled.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," he laughed, happy she was playing around with him.
"What kind of "situation"?" She asked playfully, her finger tracing up his thigh.
"You know perfectly well what kind of situation, Ms. Delacour," he scolded, laughing as he opened his bedroom door and prodded her through it.