All I'll Ever Need

As Matty fell over on the couch laughing, Suzie’s mouth fell open, but she immediately hid it behind her hand as Matty’s feverish laughter only grew wilder.

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, seriously? I’m freaking out! What if he blabs to the whole damn planet? Sid’s gonna kill me!”

Matty’s laughter died immediately as he sat up and looked me right in the eye. “Right. Sidney, the man who can’t be mad at you no matter what you fucking do to him, is gonna kill you for telling some guy that he was more of a man than said stranger would ever be . . . after declaring him to be your boyfriend . . . I don’t buy that.”

Suzie scoffed. “Never talked to the guy, but I’m with Matty.”

I made a face. “Fine. He’s not gonna kill me, but how the fuck am I gonna tell him? He’s gotta know.”

Suzie smiled. “Try this. ‘Hey, Sid. Some man was bad mouthing you, so I kinda told him we were dating and fucking really good. All in your honor, of course.’”

While she and Matty both began to laugh hysterically, I just glared at the two. “You’re hilarious. I’m gonna go to bed now. As much as I dread having to have this conversation with him, overall, it’s gonna be damn worth it.”

Both of them immediately stopped laughing as they looked to me with different variations of the same smile—an utterly happy one.

“I’m glad to see you’re finally doing the right thing,” Matty said, but I didn’t say anything back. I was already on my way to Sid’s room, and there wasn’t much to say.

Yes, I was finally doing the right thing, for both Sidney and myself.

I slept like a baby, or at least I imagined I did. Snuggled up with his pillow, I fell asleep almost instantly, but it was short lived.

The sound of yelling from the kitchen got me to my feet almost instantly. Matty didn’t like alarming me, but if something freaked him out, he had tendencies to be loud about it.

It was hard to run across the wood floors in my fuzzy socks, but I was running as fast as I could down the stairs without falling and breaking something. That was just what I needed, a broken limb on top of everything else going on.

Or a broken face . . . that would be equally bad.

Matty was leaned back against the kitchen counter, his crutches on the ground as he held tightly to a baseball bat and stared at someone out the window. “Go the fuck away!”

I had never been more afraid as I was right then. Scott . . . he had found me, after I thought I hid pretty nicely.

In all actuality, hiding at Sidney Crosby’s wasn’t exactly low key.

I put a hand on Matty’s shoulder. “Calm down, Matty. He can’t get in.”

“The fuck he can’t!” Matty exclaimed. “I think he has a gun, Mika! Just because there’s a damn alarm doesn’t mean he isn’t gonna try and get in to get Suzie!”

The fact that it was Chuck shouldn’t have made me feel any better, but it did. Knowing that Scott hadn’t found me yet, that Chuck had actually used his brain for once and realized if I wasn’t at home, I was probably at Sidney’s . . . it was relieving.

Until I realized he was just as dangerous as Scott, if not more so.

I yanked the bat out of Matty’s hands and ripped open the curtains on the front window. “Look, you fucking asshole. She’s not coming with you, and I am within my rights to use lethal force if I have to. Do not come inside this house, or I’ll hurt you.”

“You couldn’t hurt a fly, stupid,” he scoffed. “Just give Suzie to me, and I’ll leave.”

“Why in the hell would I give her to you?” I asked. “She’s done with you, okay? You’re not gonna hurt her anymore, not while I’m still alive and breathing!”

“She is mine,” he growled, and before I knew it, he strode across the front porch to stand directly in front of the window I was at.

“She doesn’t belong to anyone,” I snapped. “She’s her own woman, and if she wanted to be stupid and crawl back to you, I’d let her, but she doesn’t want you!”

Seeing headlights pull into the driveway of a car I couldn’t make out was a bit terrifying. Chuck didn’t even turn, however, and continued to yell at me.

“If you’re giving her so much free will, why isn’t she out here now?”

“The fuck if I know,” I said. “Probably because she’s scared you’ll hurt her! I’m not gonna tell you again, Chuck. Go the fuck away!”

The way he began laughing after that made my heart fall in my chest while his dark eyes got all the more smug. “How are you gonna make me? This isn’t your house.”

Someone else joined him on the porch, and I swear to you, seeing Sidney had never felt so wonderful before in all of my life. Chuck didn’t understand why I smiled, but he also didn’t turn to see.

“No,” Sidney agreed, and my heart began racing in my chest. “But it is mine, and you see this tall Russian standing behind me? From the way I see it, there are two of us, two of you. I’d be willing to bet my two can easily take your two, so if I were you, I would get the fuck off this property before my friend and I make you get off this property.”

I had never seen Chuck so angry and so scared all at once, but seeing the way he ran with his tail tucked under was absolutely priceless. I shut the curtains back so I could just laugh and laugh while Sidney walked inside and threw his arms around my body, still shaking with laughter.

“Fuck, Mika, who was that?”

The laughter immediately died as I relaxed into his body and sighed. “Chuck, Suzie’s ex. He somehow figured out we’re here, so . . . he showed up here.” My eyebrows pulled together, and I pulled away so I could look up at his gorgeous face. “Speaking of showing up here, why are you here?”

He smirked. “Well, aside from the fact that I live here, we got back early. Instead of calling you and waking you up, Geno brought me home.”

I looked around Sidney and back to the tall adorable Russian standing behind him, and he gave me a sleepy smile with a wave as I did.

I smiled back. “Hi, Geno.”

“Hello, Meeka,” he laughed. “Feisty and beautiful. You are catch.”

My cheeks flushed as Sidney chuckled under his breath, and I had to focus on my toes so I didn’t lose track of my thoughts. “Thanks.”

Sidney looked to Geno. “Thanks for the ride, man. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Geno nodded and let his eyes drift back away from Sidney and over to me. “I truly sorry for loss.”

Hearing Geno tell me this made me uncomfortable, and nervous for tomorrow. I mean, however many people decided to show up for everything tomorrow . . . it was all they would say to me, all day. “I’m sorry for your loss,” or, “He died far too young.”

The reality was, I hadn’t lost anything except a leech, so they were apologizing because my life was suddenly easier.

Of course they didn’t know that, but the fact that I had to smile and thank them all, all day . . . it just made me that more reluctant to go tomorrow.

“Thanks, Geno,” I said for practice, but with him, I actually meant it. To him, it wasn’t just a face to try and look good, apologizing to the girl for losing her father. For him, it was truly because he wanted me to get better.

Little did he know, with what he brought to me, I was already better.

Geno waved to Matty and me, and he left out the front door. Sidney followed him to get his bag from his car, and while they were outside, I looked over to Matty for the first time since I had started yelling at Chuck.

“You gonna be okay?”

He nodded and gave me a small smile. “That bastard’s spooked for now. I just hope to God the next bastard doesn’t come along and try that shit.”

“You and me both,” I sighed.

Sidney walked back through the door and just dropped his bag by the door. Still dressed in his nice clothes the guys always wore before and after the games, I was rather distracted by the sight.

He started loosening his tie with a yawn. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m fucking tired. What time do we have to be up in the morning?”

I rubbed my forehead. “It starts at eleven, so I guess I’m getting up at nine to shower and shit. Maybe sooner. I don’t even know.”

“I’m getting up at eight,” Matty said. “So it’s really just whenever you think.”

“I’ll probably get up when you do, Mika,” Sid said, and my eyes immediately went over to catch his. He had a small smile on his lips.

Even though we were both tired, I could tell there was more burning in his eyes than just joy. He was delighted to see me again, of course—probably as delighted as I was—but he also had other things going on in his mind that kept his mind spinning with new and wonderful things.

I love you, Mika.

As I looked at him, I realized that he wasn’t just my friend. Well, I didn’t really realize it, but for the first time, when I looked at him, I saw someone more than my friend. I saw the man I was in love with, the man I was willing to conquer my fears for . . . to be with him.

I saw my future, and it was a very attractive future.

I quirked my lips to the side as my mind snapped back to the incident in the diner. “So . . . I’ve got a rather hilarious story to tell you. Well, it may not seem so funny right now. Right now, I think you’re gonna be mad at me, but in ten years? We’ll both laugh about it.”

Sidney’s eyes widened while Matty snickered, but he tried to tune him out and focus on me. “Alright. If this is gonna affect my sleep, I should wait until tomorrow.”

“The only way it’s gonna affect your sleep is in your dreams,” Matty laughed.

I felt my cheeks begin burning all over again, but I kept my eyes away from Sid’s chocolate irises. “Um, so . . . last night, at work? I was trying so hard to get home for the game, right? You scored for me. I mean, I didn’t know that at the time, but I wanted to watch. So . . . Trevor and I were waiting on people to clear out. There were only a few stragglers, but this man at the bar kept staring at me.”

Sidney glared back at Matty. “I don’t like where this is going.”

Matty smirked. “Oh, but you will.”

Now, Sidney’s concern shifted into curiosity, and he looked back to me. Without a word, he just waited for me to go on.

So I did, with another scowl sent in Matty’s direction. “Well . . . he asked if he had seen me anywhere, and I told him I was good with faces. We had never met. So then he said I looked anxious to get home, and I told him I wanted to watch the Pens game . . . and he might’ve said he recognized me as your new cover up. And I might’ve gone off on him . . . .”

Sidney’s mouth fell open a little now, but he didn’t look too happy as Matty had promised. Actually, he looked more pissed than anything—like I said. “What the fuck? I am so sorry, Mika. That’s . . . it’s inevitable. Even here at home, there are plenty of assholes who don’t like me. Which is fine. That’s their opinion, but I’m sorry he said that to you.”

“No, you need to ask her to define what she means when she says she went off on him,” Matty said.

I glared back at him. “Will you zip it?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Sidney’s eyebrows rose. “Alright. Shoot. Look, I’m super excited to see your beautiful face again, but I’m exhausted. Can you just tell me what happened?”

I groaned. “Okay, well, first I assured him that you’re not gay, so he responded with some stupid comment he probably found on the Internet, asking me how much you paid me to say that. I kinda told him that you were more of a man than he’d ever be, and I think he took that in a way I didn’t mean.”

Sidney’s face was blood red, but he had this huge and adorable smile on his face that made it almost impossible to finish my story.

I literally had to look down to my feet to go on. “And when he asked if I wanted to put that to the test, I told him I had to go watch my boyfriend beat the ducks . . . and implied I’d rather cut my own foot off rather than go out with him.”

“Okay, so, which part of that was supposed to piss me off?” he asked.

My face snapped back up so I could look at him, and that damned smile was still there, just as bright as before, if not brighter. There was no more red flushing his face, no adorable embarrassment at the mention of us having sex like there had been before.

Now, it was all joy.

“I . . . thought you liked to keep things private.”

“I can promise you that you telling someone I’m your boyfriend is the last thing in the world I would ever get mad about,” he murmured. “Mika, I keep my life private, but that doesn’t mean you have to. If you wanna tell some stupid fuck giving you problems at work that we’re dating, you fucking tell him. I’m not gonna stop you or be upset that you did.”

I could hear those two words ringing in my head over and over as my cheeks flushed and a timid smile spread across my lips. Nothing was set in stone, but it felt more real than it had when I first realized I was gonna be with Sidney.

So . . . in my mind, I kept asking myself . . . were we dating?

Sidney wrapped one arm around my shoulder and yawned again. “I wish I had been there to hear that in person. What did the guy have to say next?”

“He just kinda left,” I admitted.

I could hear Matty laugh as the two of us headed upstairs, mumbling a goodnight as he disappeared back into his room, but my thoughts were on the man with his arm around my shoulder.

With him being back, with things being so unsettled, I wasn’t sure where I was gonna end up sleeping. All of my stuff was in Sidney’s room, so I would have to go in there to get it, but should I just assume he wanted me in there?

I didn’t really know what to do, so I slipped out of his grip and shuffled back into his room. I think he was confused, but he followed me anyways.

He stopped in the doorway and watched as I climbed onto his bed so I could reach the outlet where my phone charger was. I wasn’t sure why he wasn’t saying anything, not asking any questions. He just stood there and watched.

Before I leaned down to get it, I looked back to see what was going through his head, and what I saw was a mixture of things. He was confused, but more than that, he was happy.

“You slept in here?” he finally asked when I ended up just staring at him instead of getting my stuff.

I sheepishly nodded. “It . . . smells like you in here.”

“Well, it is where I sleep whenever I’m in Pittsburgh, so that makes sense,” he said, and he laughed. “You don’t have to get your stuff, you know. I don’t mind having you in here.”

My cheeks burned as excitement and delight shot through me and made everything inside me feel electric. We hadn’t even discussed things yet, but I felt like this was natural. I felt like this was how things were supposed to be with Sidney and me.

This was how a boyfriend was supposed to treat a girlfriend. No, I don’t mean that he should be eager to get her into his bed. With Sidney, it wasn’t about the sex. It was about cuddling, intimately holding each other as we fell asleep.

There was no lust burning in the back of our minds. Sidney didn’t want me in here so he could fuck my brains out.

Sidney wanted me in here so that he could have me next to him while we slept through the night, and I was more than happy to oblige.