Je t'aime, tu sais?

Emily groaned.
Flashes of her night danced on the inner walls of her eyelids. The song Latch played on repeat as she remembered how Greg's belt rubbed against her lower back, the tops of his knees pressed alongside hers.
Presently, his lean arm was draped over her side, between the round of her hip and the rise of her ribs.
They never slept in his bed, just on top of it with a throw blanket draped over their naked bodies, which was fine with her, because when she said yes to his stupid "I swear it won't be a date" thing, she had never intended on sleeping over.
She slipped out from underneath him as he mumbled something, bringing a pillow to his side and tucking it under the great expanse of his white chest with a sleepy huff.
I feel we're close enough...
Sam Smith and Disclosure continued to pulse through her brain, wary with heavy thoughts so early in the morning. Did Greg win this "I swear it won't be a date" thing and actually take her on a date?
She wouldn't let him; not if she could help it
There would be no breakfast.
I wanna lock in your love...
She pulled her black leather strapless dress over her head, tugging it over the confines of her dancer's body and positioning it over her small breasts with her hands. She glanced toward the luminescent clock on his bedside table, where lime green numbers revealed to her that it was 3:37 in the morning.
For a moment she thought of Patrice and Jamie, and wondered how they were doing.
I think we're close enough...
She thought back to their tame first drinks in the loud club. He had ordered an Old Fashion, she a gin and tonic. He promised her he wanted to take her out but they didn't have to go to dinner or anything official. Just dancing. He wanted to dance with her, and when had she ever been one to turn down dancing?
Can I lock in your love, baby?
She remembered their shots that followed. How she had taken hold of him under his chin and tipped his head back, pouring the alcohol down his throat and in response, he had immediately wrapped his powerful arm around her neck and done the same as she had, lifting her chin for him in a shriek of laughter.
Gregory was always reacting, never acting.
Now I've got you in my space...
She remembered how she had led him into the middle of the club and how they had danced face to face, and how his lower jaw jutted out as he looked down along his lean face to watch their hips meet in beat after beat after beat.
She had to give it to him.
He was good.
I won't let go of you...
She remembered how she had pushed him off of her, knowing he would reach back for her and latch on, but she was too quick to spin, and by the time he could paw for her, he was pressed up against her ass, lifted high in anticipation.
So he had tried to set the mood, but she controlled the tone.
Got you shackled in my embrace...
She tried to assert her dominance again when they stumbled drunk into his apartment in the North End, peeling each other's clothes off, gasping as hands disappeared up hems of shirts and dresses, and moaning as fingers groped between legs and teeth slid along jugulars.
He had had her pinned up against a bedpost in his room and as he lifted his body away from hers to fuck with his belt. She had spun again, pressing her ass into his lap expectantly.
His breath had caught in his throat as his belt clanked on the floor and his hands gripped her waist. "What, Campbell? Think you can dance with me like that all night and not fuck me like this?" She had teased.
He didn't wait for more encouragement and hiked up her dress until they both got what they had wanted.
I'm latching on to you...
But Emily wouldn't give in.
She wasn't someone's to be had.
She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of breakfast.
She donned her jacket and made her way out of the apartment by 3:42 am, leaving Greg alone.

Instead of pulling her own key out of her bag less than seven minutes later, she pulled her neighbors'.
She gently eased their front door open, shutting it behind her with a click and turning the lock again.
She felt at ease.
She slipped her heels off of her sore feet and made her way down the hall to her left.

He heard the familiar sound of his down comforter rustling before he felt the weight shift in his tempurpedic bed.
"Dougie?" He heard her whisper.
"Em?" He mumbled, blinking his eyes open in the blackness of his bedroom. His body jumped as he felt her hand find his waist.
"Hi," she whispered.
"Hi," he groaned, rolling from his back onto his side, rubbing his cheek into the cool pillow groggily.
"Can I come over?" She asked, nestling into his bed, facing him. His comforters buried her into the white expanse of his king-sized bed. Against the light of his bedding she was dark. He could hardly make out her eyes.
The last time she had come to him late in the night she had been worried about one of her ballet classes the next morning. He didn't particularly mind her sneaking in at night, though. In fact, he kind of liked it. It let him be the kind of big brother he'd always wanted to be. He and Freddie were closer in age for it to really play a difference between them, and ever since he moved to Boston he's always been under Adam's wing, which he appreciated, but always felt in debt to. If he could help someone else, instead of being the guy that was always helped, he didn't so much mind it.
"You already are, Em," he responded, his voice almost--but not quite--a whine. He was sleepy.
"Can I stay over?" She whispered, tucking one hand under her cheek and tracing the inner forearm of the arm he slept on with her other.
"Of course," he mumbled, reaching out for her. She gladly obliged and rolled so she was the little spoon, an intimate position they had assumed once before, and one that Dougie had never considered pushing further.
He sighed, content to fall back asleep, his breath moving her hair beneath his chin.
"Thanks..." she whispered, wrapping her hand around his folded arm, tucked into her chest.
"Of course," he whispered back, hugging her thumb with his fingers. "You okay?"
"Yeah," she disclosed, smiling. "Yeah. I'm good."

Patrice had slept all day and all night, and at seven thirty this morning, Jamie had grown restless.
She screwed the top of the container onto the jar of Vaseline and collected the q-tip she had held between her teeth and made her way into his bathroom. Letting the stick fall into the garbage pail, she lifted herself onto her toes to place the Vaseline back in the cabinet behind his mirror.
"Temperature, stitches," she whispered to herself, checking off items in her mental to-do list. She had taken his temperature and peeled off an extra cotton blanket to help cool him and had moisturized the stitches across the bridge of his nose and the few on his cheek, thus fulfilling her morning routine.
Sylvie and Gerard were asleep across the hall, and Jamie no longer had it in herself to pretend she could sleep for more than an hour or so at a time.
They had bought an air mattress and set it up at the foot of Patrice's bed for whoever wanted to spend the night with him. Apart from the very first night, in which Guill took the duties, Sylvie and Gerard had let Jamie do the honors. Guill, who was still in Boston but needed to work, stayed at the hotel down the road in order to partake in long conference calls without disturbing Patrice.
"Mmh," Jamie breathed onto his strong clavicle, giving him a warm kiss. "I love you," she reminded him, her voice just above a whisper. She kneeled next to his bed, her elbows propped up on his mattress. She finagled one hand under his comforter to find his hot belly and trace the pale skin she knew existed there but hadn't seen in almost a week.
His stomach grumbled unhappily, sitting heavy with drugs and little sustenance.
For the mere thirty minutes he had been awake yesterday, Jamie had already gone, food shopping with Sid, and Sylvie had tried to get some soup in him. The mere idea of having to be fed instead of feeding himself had pushed Patrice into despair, and Sylvie was brought to tears recounting to Jamie how she had to hold him until he cried himself back to sleep, hopeless.
She gently traced his jawline with her finger, the only part of his face she needn't worry about touching besides his lips. His whole forehead was off limits as it was the cite of impact, and his nose and cheeks were inflamed from the slice of his helmet's Oakley visor. His eyes were still purple with bruising.
"My prince," Jamie cooed, forcing herself to smile as she pushed herself to stand, gently kissing his bottom lip, which seemed to pout far too often.
She made her way through the silent hallway to find Gerard sitting on the couch in the morning sun, coddling a cup of coffee. What little hair he had stood in different directions with morning glory, but the father had done his best to not leave the confines of the guest room in his pajamas. He sat on the white couch in a pair of jeans and a Bruins hoodie.
"Morning Gerard," Jamie said softly, making herself at home in the kitchen behind him. The one good part about having Patrice's family here was speaking French all the time. Her and Patrice slipped in and out of it, much like her and Emily, but other than that, her French tongue was put to rest. She enjoyed having it around in a stressful time. She felt she was much more articulate with it.
"Oh! Morning child!" He said back, spinning on the couch so he could face her.
"I took his temperature. He was a little hot so I took that blue cotton blanket off. His stitches are moisturized and I put some Carmex on his lips. He needs to drink water. He's all chapped up," she said, not really able to look at his father and busying herself with unloading the dishwasher. She took a steadying breath and bit her lip.
"The team doctors are coming over to talk with us all as soon as he's up for more than thirty minutes or so. Should be sometime today or tomorrow," he told her. He took a noisey sip of coffee. "When he feels like he can be awake for longer, we're supposed to encourage him to get out of bed."
"Really?"
"Yeah, I couldn't believe it either. Only to come out to the living room. Get him exposed to some stimuli. No TV, no music. We can shut the blinds if need be but he needs to see some light... He'll be extremely tired and wobbly. We'll need Guill, maybe even Mr. Crosby," Gerard said, chuckling to himself, as he if couldn't believe Sid was right around the corner, just in case.
"I'll text Sid," Jamie said, straightening up behind the counter and shutting the dishwasher. "He was very much asleep this morning, while I was fussing over him," she told his father, busying herself with whipping the kitchen counter down. Gerard had already gotten into the coffee cake her and Sid had bought yesterday, she saw.
He lifted himself from the couch and made his way over to her.
He placed his hand gently over hers, his fingers touching the damp rag held beneath hers.
"Why don't you get out for a bit, my dear?" He suggested. "Maybe go to class or take a walk?"
Jamie knew he mean the suggestion to be out of her best interest. He was by no means trying to get rid of her.
"But... it's just, the last time I left, he woke up," she said, shrugging, defeatedly. She did want to go home, have herself a good cry, spend some time with her sister and take a warm shower. But, she didn't want to be without Patrice, not any longer.
"Keep your phone on," Gerard smiled. "Go get a cup of coffee, take a real nap."

Jamie pulled her winter jacket together under her chin, too tired to zip it up from the bottom by her knees. It was too cold to snow in Boston's mid-March as her hand shook in her fingerless gloves, holding her cellphone to her ear.
"Hi!" Em called through the receiver, laughing.
"Hi, where are you?"
"I'm actually at Ruggerio's with Dougie--come!"
"Ruggerio's?"
"Off of Fulton. We're ordering now, what do you want?"
"Pancakes. Chocolate chip," she announced, realizing she hadn't eaten properly since the accident. By the time she had prepared dinner every night for the Bergeron-Cleary's she found she didn't even have an appetite and always opted to take a nap.
"Pancakes? Hell yes, ma'am!" Emily giggled. "Oh, you have to come, Dougie has something important to ask you," she laughed as Jamie heard the phone rub against her cheek and Dougie in the background going "Noooo! No I don't! Don't listen, Jamie!"
"You two are trouble," Jamie laughed, re-gripping her coat in front of her. "I'll be there in five."

Jamie was hit with a wave of warmth and delicious breakfast scents as she pushed through the swinging door and into the Bostonian dinner.
"Hey!" Dougie and Emily cheered from their corner booth in the back, along a line of windows that overlooked an alley. Immediately, Jamie felt her face warm with a smile.
She slid in the booth next to her sister and Dougie leaned forward.
"How is he?" He asked, folding his massive arms before him, his elbows heaped on the table. For a 20-year old, he was truly enormous, Jamie thought. Patrice didn't beef up like he did...
"He's, uh... he's alright. Okay I guess, still sleeping most of the day," Jamie answered, shaking her head out of her day dream of what Patrice might look like sitting across from her in a Bruins hoodie, his eyes darkened with concern for a man that wasn't in his current predicament. She sighed, shrugging as she pulled off her Northface jacket.
"He'll be okay," Dougie said, sure of himself. He nodded.
"Yeah," Jamie said, giving a faint laugh. "Yeah, he will."
"Here James," Emily said, sliding her coffee over to her sister. "You look like shit, babe. You're bags are massive." She said, pointing to Jamie's eyes.
"You should see Patrice's," she sighed.
"Is his face bashed up?" Dougie asked, weakly.
"Yeah, he went head first so the visor broke his nose and slashed the bridge of it and his cheek. His eyes are black, too," she said, swallowing.
"Here James, come on," Em said, nudging her coffee to her sister and scooting closer to her on the booth. Her slender hand cupped Jamie's knee.
"No, no, I'm okay, I'm okay," she said quickly, her palms going to her cheeks to see if she was crying. She couldn't tell anymore. She was too tired.
"But have some coffee, while you wait for your pancakes," Emily encouraged. Jamie took the moment to look around. Her and Dougie had already had breakfast, she just realized.
"I'm actually okay for now, but thanks Em. I think I want to try and take a nap at home after this if he's still asleep..." she said, opting instead for Emily's water.
"Your pancakes are on their wa-ay," Dougie sang, pushing off from the table and leaning back in the booth, his arms hooked behind his head, stretching after he demolished whatever he had ordered. Jamie smiled at the empty plate, noticing not even egg yolk or a piece of toast crust remaining.
"But back to Dougie's question," Emily began, outstretching her hand as if to offer Dougie the limelight.
"Oh my god, Emily. No." Dougie groaned, unfolding his hands from behind his head and looking at her with pleading eyes.
"Douglas would like to know if we're black," Emily asked on her friend's behalf, clearly intent on embarrassing him, looking at Jamie with eyes full of humor. Dougie folded his arms and looked anywhere else in the diner but them, his cheeks demonstrating a painful display of rosacea in blush.
Jamie laughed, bringing her cup up to her lips to draw a mouthful of water from her straw and rolling her eyes. It was actually a question her and her sister got a lot. They got their impressive tan hue from their mother, who was darker toned due to her Portuguese heritage, so their complexion was quite out of place in French Canada. In a melting pot like Boston, though, they were less than extraordinary, with their kinky curly hair with all shades of brown and a few red and golden strands. But, in all fairness to Dougie, most couldn't pin-point their ethnicity.
"Don't worry Dougie. You're not the first and you sure as hell won't be the last to ask that question," Jamie laughed as a waitress delivered her chocolate chip pancakes. "Oh my god..." she groaned, her eyes widening and her mouth tightened painfully watering more than it had in three whole days.
Emily yelped from beside her as Dougie roughed her under the table with his foot. She kicked him back, full of spunk.
"Will you two... just, cut the crap..." Jamie tried, stuffing the first bite of pancake in her mouth and groaning again. "Ohmigo-od," she moaned, slipping her fork back into her mouth to suck the melted chocolate off of the metal spoon.
There was a dull thud and the three of them jumped, looking to the source of noise beside them.
"Ferry!" Dougie sang, throwing his arms in the air like the little boy he was. Jamie began to notice this seemed to be his proper greeting of those amicable to him. Andrew Ference stood, pressing himself into the window coated in layers of sweat shirts and winter-water proof jackets. His helmet made the jarring knocking noise.
"Hey!" He called through the glass from the outside, his breath immediately condensing in the frigid air and fogging the window.
"Come on in!" Dougie said, motioning to the front door. Ferry gave him a thumbs up and disappeared around the corner, dragging his bike along behind him.
"This man is insane. Does he realize it's, like, negative zero degrees outside right now?" Emily asked, outraged.
" 'Negative zero', Em? Really?" Dougie asked, teasing her, giving her a very studious look. "Do tell me more about this temperature greater than Absolute Zero."
"Oh, you're such a dick!" Emily cried, throwing her balled up napkin at him as he chuckled.
"Way to go with the 'absolute zero' reference, Dougie," Jamie praised him, raising her fork and the bite of pancake stuck to it to him in his honor. She wasn't going to bother reminding him that a temperature 'greater' than absolute zero would still be in the positives though, and that 'lesser' might've been a better adjective. It was good that someone was keeping her sister in check, after all.
He took a modest bow and said "thank you, thank you. I did get a 98% in Earth science."
"Shut up, you!" Emily laughed, kicking him under the table again. "You're such a dork!"
"Am not!" He taunted.
"Are too!"
"Am not!"
"Are too-o!"
"Wow, deja vu to breakfast with my children," Andy laughed, approaching the table with his helmet nestled between his him and his arm.
"Tell me about it," Jamie laughed, rolling her eyes. Andy nodded for Dougie to shimmy down the booth to make room for him. Jamie pushed her plate of pancakes into the center of the table and Andy grabbed Dougie's fork with great enthusiasm.
"Where were you at? We have the morning off," Dougie asked, looking at his teammate's athletic attire.
"November Project," he said smiling, more so from the breakfast than the memories of working out in subzero temperatures. "Which you all should consider attending!" He beamed, pointing at everyone around the table, his food shoveled into the side of his cheek like a hamster. He swallowed. "It's this grassroots start-up I'm promoting--"
Jamie's phone came alive on the table and she gasped and answered it at lightning speed.
"He's awake," Guill said quickly through the phone. "You should come home."
Home.

Jamie pushed through Patrice's front door and pulled her long jacket off, throwing it in the general vicinity of where the coat rack was and de-shouldering her tote in a frenzy.
Patrice's family stood somberly around the breakfast bar in the kitchen, dreary and heavy, coffee cups in their hands.
"Where is he?"
"Bathroom," Guill sighed, putting his cup down and running a frustrated hand through his hair. Even his follicles seemed tense and terse.
"What's wrong," she said, much less asked, her eyes still wide, wired from the sudden call and the rush of sugar from her few bites of pancakes. Andy kissed her on the cheek when she granted him the rest of them and ran out of the diner.
"He got one look at himself in the mirror..." Guill started with a heavy heart.
"And?" Jamie persisted, taking a step toward Patrice's bedroom.
"He doesn't want to meet with anyone, refuses to see anyone. Says he looks like shit and needs a shower," he sighed.
"So let's give him one!" Jamie cried.
"He won't let us!"
"He's too damn proud!" His father sighed, leaning forward to place his elbow on the granite surface of the counter and hold his head.
"He get's it from you," his mother huffed, turning from her husband.
Jamie demonstrated her frustration audibly. "When are the guys from the team coming?"
Guill shrugged. "Anytime now," he sighed.
Everyone sighed, it's all they seemed to be doing anymore.
"Can you go talk to him? Knock some sense into him?" Guill said softly, stepping toward her. "We're at our wits end here, Jamie. He won't take help from anyone and he's never awake long enough for any of us to talk him down..."
"Yes!" Jamie cried. "Yes, of course! Just... just..." she said, not knowing what to say but holding up a finger as she side stepped down the hall.
She had no idea what her game plan would be.
She pushed through Patrice's door and as her eyes adjusted to the darkness she saw the light from under his door in the bathroom.
"Mon amour?" She purred, pressing her ear to the door. She buzzed with anticipation, the heavy pancake in her stomach churning, not knowing what to expect.
She heard a sniff.
"Patrice?" She asked, taking a deep breath and turning the knob.
The opened door revealed a disheveled looking Patrice bent forward, seated on the toilet. He had successfully removed his shirt but she could see his tired and emaciated torso plummeting into the thick grey Under Armour sweatpants he still adorned from three days ago. His neck was still wrapped in that thick foam pad to prevent any further bruising of his spine, and his beard was tired and irritating the skin below it.
He sat, his elbows on his knees, his fingers tucked under his chin, holding onto the foam pad, pathetically.
"Mon amour," Jamie cooed, dropping to her knees in the dim, half-lighting of his bathroom. She knelt right before him and tenderly took hold of the side of his thighs, rubbing his legs lovingly.
"Oh baby you're awake," she whispered, beaming, her eyes sparkling with tears.
"Hardly," he barked, his voice low, his head moving, propelled back as his skull sat weighted on his lower jaw, unable to move down to speak because of the foam pad.
"Shh, sh, sh," she breathed, sitting up on her knees and taking the curve of his jaw between her hands. He fought her immediately so she let him win and settled for pushing her hands underneath the bottom of the pad on the tops of his shoulders and massaging his oily skin, gently.
"Oh how I've missed you!" She cooed softly, pressing her nose into his greasy hair on the side of his temple, even though he tried to turn away from her. She hoped her upbeat, loving attitude might work better than his brother's and parents' stressed pleading with him.
"I love you," she whispered in his ear, kissing the hard curve of cartilage. "So much," she promised, now trying to wedge her hands underneath his jawline again.
He let her.
"I love you and you've got to overcome this, Amour," she told him, her forehead pressed into the side of his face. He reeked of the testosterone that had bubbled up through his pores in his sweat and dried on his poor skin over and over for the past couple days as she deemed him too hot or too cold and adjusted his bedding. His untrimmed beard harassed her chin.
But she didn't care.
"You've got to be better than this. You've got to take care of yourself," she told him, cradling the opposite side of his head as he heavily leaned into her now, accepting her affection.
He exhaled, audibly, in a kind of defeated sigh.
"You've got to take care of yourself, Love," she told him again, kissing below his ear, eager to feel any of his skin between her lips. To love him with her whisper.
"I'm trying," he whispered, weakly but defiantly. Frustratedly.
"You've got to let people help you take care of yourself," she corrected herself, pulling away from him and hoping to make eye contact with him to force him to promise.
Keeping his eyes down, he bit his bottom lip and Jamie's eyes poured their tears. It was a habit he had no doubt picked up from her, whether he knew it or not.
He shook his head, his own stubbornness seeping through his actions.
"Yes Patrice," she said, steadying her hands from their want to shake his shoulders, to physically knock some sense into him. "Patrice you must," she told him, very seriously. "Everyone is here because they love you. They want to see you in uniform again, playing again. Everyone," she emphasized. "You've got to let us help."
She watched him, cautiously. With every exhale she noticed his skin shrink around his pronounced clavicle. He had to be so hungry...
"I love you," she reminded him, stroking under his chin with one of her fingers.
He slowly raised his eyes to hers, and she did her best to not waiver at the deep purple sinking above his cheeks, or the stitches across his nose still glossy from the vaseline she had applied an hour or so ago.
"My mom says you've been... taking care of my stitches..." he whispered, noticing she had been studying his face and looking at her with far away eyes.
"Yes mon amour," Jamie smiled though her tears were wet. "Of course. You've got to keep them moist or they'll scab."
Patrice looked back down at his hands, fiddling with one another suspended between his knees.
He bit his lip and nodded, slowly.
Then he was crying. Jamie watched the tears break free from his chin and plummet to the bathroom mat below.
After a few empty seconds, he stopped nodding.
"Thanks," he breathed, barely audible.
At first, Jamie didn't know what to think. Thanks? But... of course she would take care of him. Was he so insecure to think she wouldn't? After the way he had dealt with her mother's coming out of remission, the failing of her thesis, her general Jamie-ness? Maybe he really is delusional... she thought to herself. But what a dull thing to say to someone that loves you... She just, couldn't get over it.
But then, it dawned on her.
Patrice didn't know what to do or say, either.
So she laughed.
Jamie laughed, and began to openly cry, too.
"I know you hit your head but don't be so dumb!" She teased, smiling as she cried. She gently eased his face to look up at hers.
His face slid into a lopsided smile, his eyes streaming freely now, too.
She had found him again. She had navigated the fog inside his head and pulled him out...
"So thick, Bergeron," she chided, jokingly, and he blushed and showed his teeth in smile. "I'm surprised you're even concussed at all with such a thick skull."
...At least for now.

They embraced for a long time. She gently swayed him back and forth, her sturdy knees pressed into the bathroom tile, serving as their anchor.
He buried his face in her hair and took many deep breaths, or what he passed as deep breaths as Jamie let him cry.
She rubbed his back, slick with oil from three days worth of sleep.
She didn't care.
He still smelt and felt like Patrice to her.
"You can leave me if you want," he told the back of her neck, twisted into the confines of her hug, his stitches caught in her hair. "It's okay," he told her, his actions betraying his words as he shook with a sob.
He latched onto her, even though he told her to go.
"But I don't want to," she told him, not wanting to scold him any further. The main message of their meeting in the bathroom was to let those who loved him take care of him. She could tackle his insecurities later, for she was not insecure about them in the least.
She continued to rock him and hug him until he settled.
"But you can if you want to," he told her again with a shaky breath.
"Okay," she said, rubbing his great back with her entire arm. She smiled. Although he was a broken man in front of her, she knew she would never, ever waiver when it came time to help put him back together again. Ever.
"But I don't want to," she promised him, still smiling.