Lovesick Melody

1/1

Your lovesick melody
is gonna get the best of me tonight
But you won't get to me if I don't sing

It creeps in like a spider
Can't be killed, although I try and try to
Well, don't you see I'm falling?
Don't wanna love you, but I do


~*~*~


Justin Faulk entered the bar and froze on the spot.

She was there.

She was in Raleigh. She was in his favorite bar.

She was there.

Five foot three in her bare feet. He had seen her in her bare feet. Right now she was in a pair of heeled boots, five or six inches in height, never less. In the heels she was closer to five foot nine to his six foot frame, nearly eye level. He liked her better barefoot, when she was level with his chest, and her head could rest just so against him when he wrapped her up in his arms.

Except, that had been intimate and while they had been intimate, they weren’t intimately together.

Was that even a word? Intimately? He shook his head to clear the thoughts and began to move again when his teammate nudged him forward.

It had been 2011 when they met. He had just won a national championship with the University of Minnesota Duluth and signed his first pro contract with the Carolina Hurricanes. They sent him to Charlotte to play for their AHL team in the playoffs. The first two rounds had been tough battles against even tougher teams, both series won four games to two. They had four days off between the end of round two and the start of round three and had gone to a popular local restaurant for dinner and to blow off a little steam. She had been there with some friends. Justin had noticed her immediately. It had been hard not to.

They were sitting at the bar and she laughed at something someone in her group had said, her head thrown back, the laughter spilling from her freely. He watched as she pushed her rich mahogany colored hair behind her ear, the short strands just above her shoulders.

Justin could never quite be sure how it happened but somehow his feet took on a mind of their home and he has pushed back from the table and crossed the room until he reached her side.

“Hi,” he said, tapping her shoulder.

She turned and his heart stopped at her dazzling smile and her the rich forest green color of her eyes. “Hello,” she answered. Justin pushed a hand through his own floppy brown locks and smiled stupidly. She waved towards the empty seat beside her. “You should sit; your friends are dying to see if I dismiss you but I think I’d rather give them a show.”

Justin fell into the bar chair with a plop and blushed furiously. “I’m Justin.”

“Justin,” she repeated with that smile. “It’s nice to meet you. How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“Oh! You’re still a baby!” she cooed before giggling.

“I’m not a baby. I happen to be a national champion,” he boasted.

“Oh really? Well tell me all about it then.”

“I, uh...I play...well, I played hockey at the University of Minnesota...in Duluth. We won the national championship this season.”

“That’s a long way from here,” she mused.

“That’s where I’m from.”

“Oh? And what brings you to North Carolina then?”

“Hockey.”

“I see.” She smiled again and let her fingers graze his exposed lower arm where he had rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt. “How are you liking the Queen City?” she asked.

“It’s nice,” he answered. “The weather is great. It snowed at home last week but it’s been seventy here for two weeks. It’s great to wear shorts in April and May.”

She nodded. “The weather is probably one of the best things about living here.”

“You haven’t told me your name yet,” Justin pointed out.

“I have not,” she agreed, leaning closer to him. Her hand rested on his bicep and squeezed. “My name is Alexia but all my friends call me Lex.”

Game two in the third round series had been a shutout loss and she had been at the restaurant again. He had made a beeline for her as soon as he saw her when they walked in. He had been angry about the loss; they all were. It was embarrassing to get shutout at home. Lex had asked him if he wanted to get out of there and thirty minutes later, they were in his hotel room having hot, angry, rough sex that took the edge off the loss in a way that Justin hadn’t even known he’d been looking for.

The next two games were on the road and also losses, swept out of the third round. He texted Lex when they landed and she met him at his hotel for another round of the same down and dirty sex from five days earlier.

Three days later, Justin left town for the summer, back to Minnesota.

He started the following season in Charlotte and had called Lex as soon as he got to town. There wasn’t a lot of talking although there had been a lot of sex. She was born and raised in Charlotte, attending college, working on a PR and marketing degree. He only played twelve games in Charlotte before getting called up to Raleigh. He talked to Lex frequently the first couple of weeks and then he got swept up into being a rookie in the NHL and the contact became less and less. Before he knew it, it was summer and he was home in Minnesota.

And then the lockout happened. Back in Charlotte for an undetermined amount of time, he called Lex and they met out for dinner. He went home alone and talked to her when he could. The night of their first home loss, Justin was already stewing when he walked into the restaurant. Twenty minutes later, he spied Lex across the restaurant seated at a table, obviously on a date. It only made him stew harder. When he saw her stand and move towards the bathrooms, he excused himself from his group and followed her.

He never know angry bathroom sex could be so good until that night.

That was the way it went during the first half of the season. Lex talked him off the ledge when they lost on the road, and at home, he called her, she came over, and there was sex. Lots of sex.

And maybe it wasn’t just angry sex. She stayed the night. She cooked breakfast in the morning; sometimes he did. They cuddled post coital and they fell asleep wrapped up in a tangle of limbs, her head resting on his chest, listening to his heartbeat until she fell asleep, Justin listening to her breathe and stroking her hair until he fell asleep. They didn’t discuss this, the things that made their being friends with benefits more than just friends with benefits. The things that had them slipping down a path that neither of them wanted to talk about.

And then the lockout ended. It was January sixth and the Checkers were playing in Raleigh, a home game on their parent club’s home ice. It was Justin’s last game as a Checker. In the days that followed, he rode the team bus back to Charlotte, packed his things in his truck and drove back to Raleigh to get ready for the NHL season. He never had a chance to see Lex in person to tell her goodbye, only a text message that she never answered.

Here they were now, March, out to celebrate Justin’s twenty first birthday. And there was Lex, his Lex, sitting with Riley Nash, Jiri Tusty, Jiri’s friend Janie, and Jeff Skinner. Riley had her chair pulled close to his and his arm draped across the back of her chair as he leaned in to talk to her. She didn’t notice as they approached but she looked up, their eyes meeting when Justin cleared his throat.

“What are you doing here?” Justin asked as he stared at her.

“I live here,” Lex answered him.

“You live in Raleigh?”

“Yes. I took a job at State last month.”

“Oh.”

“So you two are friends?” Riley asked, breaking the spell between Justin and Lex.

“We know each other,” Lex said cooly.

Justin’s mind rioted. Knew each other? Yeah, they knew each other if you were talking buck ass naked know each other. But didn’t that also make them friends? Hadn’t they talked about what they wanted out of life more than once laying in bed? It wasn’t just pillow talk, was it?

“We met in Charlotte two years ago,” Justin added.

Riley smirked up at Justin as he whispered in Lex’s ear and then pulled her to her feet and steered her towards the dance floor with him, talking lowly in her ear as they went. Justin watched them and then sank into the chair Riley had vacated.

“Who si that?” Janie asked, leaning forward to talk to Justin.

“That’s Lex,” Justin stated simply.

“Yes, I got her name already but who is she, to you?”

“She’s...” he faltered, not sure how to answer Janie. “we’re friends, I think.”

“You think?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. Jiri leaned back in his chair and studied his friend.

“You need a beer,” Jiri announced. “Possibly something stronger but let’s go with beer tonight.” Justin nodded and Jiri signaled a waitress and ordered two draft beers.

“Tell me,” Janie demanded once the beers were set on the table. “Tell me who she is to you, Justin Faulk. And don’t you care leave out anything. I’ll know if you do.”

So he laid it all out as Janie listened intently and Jiri and Jeff just listened in amazement.

“Dude, I totally should’ve played in Charlotte during the lockout,” Jeff joked as Justin finished in a rush about the last time he saw Lex and the way he had left Charlotte to return to Raleigh in January. Justin frowned and Janie punched his arm lightly.

“Shut it, Skinner,” she warned. “We are talking about Justin, not you and your lack of game.”

“I have game,” Jeff retorted.

Janie snorted back a laugh. “Not with girls. At least Justin has that hair.”

“If all it took was great hair, you’d be with Voracek and not this guy,” Justin teased, tilting his head in Jiri’s direction. They all knew the story. Janie and her three NHL friends that had grown up together in Kladno: Jiri in Carolina, Ondrej in Winnipeg, and Jakub in Philadelphia, her best friend. It was happenstance that Jiri would be traded four years earlier to the team in the same state, the same city, where Janie went to college. They had always been friends but all the guys knew Jiri felt differently about Janie than he had in the past since coming back from the lockout. He just hadn’t said it in so many words to her but if the frequency in which they saw Janie now compared to the last few years was any indication, Justin would venture a guess that she felt the same. There was an ongoing pool in the locker room as to which one would finally make it official and when. Justin was in with Janie on a date that fell the following week.

“I happen to think this guy has great hair,” Janie said. “And I’m not with him.”

“Yes you are,” Jiri said without hesitation. “We’re together.”

“We’re here together, yes,” she agreed hesitatingly.

“No, we’re together together.”

“Jiri...”

“Janah...it’s been almost three months. We’re together. You’re my girlfriend. Deal with it.”

She smiled slowly before leaning in to kiss his cheek. “That is the exact romantic moment I pictured when you finally got around to asking me if I wanted to be your girlfriend you know,” she teased him. m.

Jiri’s cheeks pinked before pulling Janie back for a real kiss. Justin felt the electricity between them and looked away. Unfortunately, that meant looking at Lex and Riley who had made their way to the bar. He looked away again and Jeff met his eye.

"Cam will be excited to know he won," Justin said lamely.

“Probably you should tell Lex how you feel,” Jeff replied.

Justin scowled. “I don’t feel anything.”

“That is a lie. You look at her like she’s a song you can’t get out of your head, that you don’t want to get out of your head, that you want to sing along to at the top of your lungs wit the top down in your car.”

“You sound like a hallmark card.”

Jeff shrugged. “I watched some lifetime movies during the lockout. Also, Riley met her when we walked in. She didn’t come with him or anything. I don’t think she wants to leave with him either. Not when she keeps looking at you.”

Justin’s head whipped in Lex’s direction and their eyes met across the bar. “Fuck it,” he muttered, shoving back from the table and stalking across towards Riley and Lex. Riley saw his approach and tightened his hold around her waist.

“Can I talk to you?” Justin asked Lex. She nodded and stepped away from Riley. Victory flashed in Justin’s eyes and he smiled smugly at Riley before turning Lex and leading her towards a booth in a corner he had just spotted open.

“Happy birthday,” Lex said as she slid into the seat. Justin followed in right behind her, scooting in close and invading all of her space. She should push him away but she didn’t and she let him slide his arm around her shoulder and curl her under his arm, just the way he liked to hold her.

“Thanks.”

“Can I buy you a drink?” she asked with a teasing smile. She was three years older than him, legal to drink when they had first met. She loved teasing him about being older.

“How about I buy the drink this time?”

“I suppose that would be nice.” He caught the eye of a passing waitress and she stopped to take their drink order. Justin got a beer for himself and Lex asked for vodka and cranberry.

“So....you’re working in Raleigh?”

“And living,” Lex nodded.

“Riley?”

Lex shrugged. “Met him when he walked up to me at the bar tonight. He did not mention he was a hockey player though. I might’ve run the other way if he had.”

“Because of me?”

“Because of you,” she agreed quietly. The waitress set their drinks in front of them and Justin passed her his credit card.

“I'm really sorry about what happened, back in January. Lex, I really like you.”

“Please don’t,” Lex begged.

“I have to. I should have said so when I came back in September. I’ve always liked you, even when we were just having sex because we lost. You were more than just sex. I like talking to you, and I like the way you make me feel.”

Lex drew in a sharp breath and slowly exhaled. “How I make you feel? Justin, we were having casual sex. That’s it.”

“That’s not it and you know it. If we were having casual sex you wouldn’t have stayed the night every time and we definitely wouldn’t have cuddled after sex. I wouldn’t know that you are secretly scared of the dark or that you like your toast practically burnt with butter and peanut butter because we wouldn’t have had breakfast together every morning. We never would have picked up every time right where we left off the time before. It was more than casual, admit it.”

Lex refused to meet his stare, fiddling with the little black straw in her drink as the waitress walked back and handed Justin his credit card. He thanked her politely, stuffing it back into his wallet and then his pocket before turning his attention back to Lex. Justin reached for her, tipping her face up to his and kissed her. For the first time, he really kissed her, pouring everything he felt in his heart into the kiss. “I can’t stop thinking about you,” he declared when he pulled back from her. “I’ve never stopped thinking about you. No one else is you, Lex. You’re the beat in my heart, the song in my head. You have no idea what you do to me.”

Her lips curled into a sexy smirk and she leaned into him, her hand curling around his tie and tugging his face close to hers. “I know exactly what I do to you. Why do you think I kept letting you come back for more?” Justin groaned and he felt all the blood rush below the belt and she let out a breathy sigh. “You weren’t supposed to work your way in, you know. You were just a baby.”

“I’m not a baby; I’m a champion,” he reminded her.

Lex rolled her eyes. “That was two years ago. You need a new line. But at least you are legal now.”

“Wanna go do something illegal?”

“Like what?” He leaned in and whispered close to her ear. “You’re terrible,” Lex laughed as Justin pulled her from the booth with him.

“Terribly in love with you,” he answered, pulling her into his arms and kissing her for everyone to see. “And I’m sorry it took me so long to say so because I’ve known it for awhile.”

“I have a birthday present for you,” Lex said as he slipped her hand into his and grasped tightly. Justin smiled as he walked towards the door.

“Yeah? You didn’t even know I’d be here.”

She grinned as he held the door open, letting her pass through first. “I maybe did a little internet research and discovered that you and your teammates like to frequent this bar. I was hoping you’d show up tonight. I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to accidently cross your path since I got here. So when I said I might've run because of you, I lied. I was scared to hear how you felt, scared it wasn’t the same as me.”

“Really?”

“Really. You’re like a bug, creeping into my heart, not going away. I kind of like it. I didn’t want to but I do like the feeling.”

“Would you say it’s like a song you can’t get out of your head, one that you want to sing along to, in spite of yourself?”

“Yes, exactly that.”

“Good. That’s how I feel too. And I’m not going anywhere this time. You’re the melody I want to hear over and over again.”

They reached his car and Justin held the door open for her. Lex paused and wrapped her arms around Justin’s neck, and rocked into him for what they would both later call the most earth shattering kiss of their lives. When she pulled back, her eyes sparkled as they met his. “I think it’s time we start to sing along.”

FIN