Nirvana

You played your game used me like a pawn, checkmate you're done

'Outside.'

'Hurry up.'

Harley rolled her eyes as James texted her impatiently. She yanked a pair of heels on, glanced at her outfit of blue jeans and a thin, off the shoulder sweater. He told her to dress comfortable. Whatever the hell that meant. She fixed her hair once more before she locked up behind her. She found him leaning against the hood of his car, which she grimaced at for a second before she made her way over to him.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her, pulling back to tell her, "You look beautiful. Now get in."

"So romantic." Harley joked, making him laugh. He opened the door for her, and closed it after before running around to the other side. Once he was seated and pulling away from the curb Harley told him, "You know this better be one hell of a date if you plan to make up for me having to ride in this… thing."

James turned and feigned hurt, patting the dashboard before saying, "And here I thought pretty girls liked shiny toys."

"Oh we do. But any girl with half a brain would rather ride in a shiny Charger, but I mean I guess for the time being a Ferrari is okay." Harley told him with a grin, glancing around the car for good measure. It really wasn't that bad, but in her opinion it's what's under the hood that matters.

"I think I'm gonna have to monitor your Fast and Furious viewing time." James said, making her roll her eyes.

"Puh-lease. First car I ever drove was a 1977 Chevelle. I will never own anything foreign. It goes against my policies." Harley told him as he stopped at a red light.

James turned to face her and raised an eyebrow, he couldn't help but ask, "So you're saying even if I let you, you'd never want to get behind the wheel of this baby?"

"Well I mean…I wouldn't object but you wouldn't catch me behind the wheel of one of these on my own." Harley stated, making him laugh as he took off when the light when green. She flew back into her seat and muttered, "Show off."

James laughed and pulled into a parking space in front of a steakhouse and said, "Well if there's one thing I for sure know about you it's that you love steak almost as much as you love your shitty American muscle cars."

"Hate is a choice." Harley stated as she got out of his car and pretended to wipe the feeling of Italian leather off herself. James rolled his eyes in response.

"Alright, alright, next time you can drive." James told her, laughing as she looked up and smiled.

She practically skipped toward him, linked their arms together and said, "You might just get lucky tonight."

James shook his head gently in amusement as they made their way inside the restaurant. Harley instantly felt under dressed. Dress comfy, my ass. To her, her in jeans and a sweater and him in almost the same attire she was glad they would at least stick out together.

They were lead to a booth in the back and once seated Harley asked curiously, "What's with the dress code here Neal?"

He let out a chuckle at the use of his last name before he said, "Well the real date comes after dinner."

Harley stared at him, eyebrow raised. When it was clear he wasn't going to explain she asked, "What the hell does that even mean?"

"You'll see." James told her before looking down at his menu.

Harley glared at him from across the table and told him, "I hate surprises."

"You're impatient." He told her with a smirk.

"I know. Deal with it." She told him, picking up her own menu to flip through.

"And I like surprises. Deal with it." James told her, making her sigh dramatically.

- - -

When they finished dinner James directed Harley back to his car, and they drove nearly forty five minutes before he pulled into a vacant lot that looked like it was nothing more than a field in the middle of nowhere. Harley turned to James with hesitation and he couldn't help but smile at her.

He got out, and she followed while telling him, "If this is the part where you kill me I'd just like to let you know that Shea knows I'm with you tonight."

James laughed loudly and took her hand, pulling her away from the vehicle. He left his headlights on so it wasn't completely dark, and he stopped them a few feet away from the front of the vehicle before telling her, "Wait here."

He disappeared around the back of his car, she heard him moving around, before he was back in front of with a telescope. This peeked her attention, so she raised her eyebrow and watched as he set up the stand before he stepped back and watched her. Jokingly she asked, "So…you're not gonna kill me?"

He let out a chuckle and shook his head, "I remember once when you didn't even think I was listening you mentioned that you love stars. So originally I was going to take you to a planetarium but it was too short of notice. So with some digging on mine and admittedly Shea's part we found the perfect spot to star gaze."

"Hence the telescope." Harley said, looking back and forth between the telescope and the sky.

James smiled at her and repeated, "Hence the telescope."

He moved aside, motioned to it, and watched as she looked through it, moving it around before she pulled back and told him, "It's incredible."

He leaned forward, looking through it to where she left it, and he smiled. He turned to her and said, "So I know it's no Sudekum-"

Harley cut him off by pressing her lips against his, wrapping her arms around his neck. James smiled against her lips ans leaned down just enough to pick her up off the ground. Finally when they parted and he put her back on the ground she told him, "This is so much better. This is incredible James."

He smiled to himself and watched as she went excitedly back to the telescope. After looking in it for a few more seconds she turned back to him with a smile and James told her, "I try."

"You have unleashed the inner nerd in me now. You're gonna have to deal with it." Harley told him, going back to the telescope. James was more than happy to stand back and let her do her thing. He had put a lot into this and it was for her and only her. After several minutes she turned to him and smiled again, "I'll say this, you're definitely good at date planning."

"It's only gonna get better from here." James told her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders from behind.

Harley placed her hands on his forearms, leaned back into him, before she told him, "I'd love to see how you top this."

- - -
Harley raised an eyebrow as James joined her on the couch, nearly knocking over their growing number of beer cans on the coffee table as he put his feet up. In his lap was a book that Harley knew was a photo album, she didn't expect James to be the kind of guy that had a photo album. Mostly because she didn't even have one. He put his hands down on the front and turned to face her with a serious expression, and she tried her hardest not to crack up when he told her, “This is incredibly serious. There's no going back from seeing young James Neal.”

“Young huh? How old?” She asked, her curiosity peaked by this.

“I figured since I saw your teenage to mid twenties in pictures you could see mine. Although I will say, my mom gave me this a few years ago and I actually haven't opened it since, so I don't even know what's in here.” Harley nodded, putting her head on his shoulder as she leaned forward, and James smiled, before he opened it and flushed immediately upon seeing himself as a toddler in the bath tub. He quickly grabbed a handful of the pages and flipped them, saying, “We can just skip past all that to high school.”

She burst into laughter at a picture of him with pink hair, tucking that one away in her brain to bring out later to mercilessly poke fun at him with. He showed her a few pictures from his junior days, even an old high school girlfriend, and then he got to the good stuff. His years in Pittsburgh. He always assumed after he got traded he would put that part of his life away, that he wouldn't need to share it with someone out of obligation, but for the first time he didn't feel like he had to share, he wanted to. There were newspaper clippings, photos from his games, various NHL season headshots, a few of him and his teammates. He explained who Paul was, Harper having heard him mention him once or twice, as well as Geno, and then he turned the page and there was a picture of him and a blonde, his arm around her shoulder, she was looking at the camera smiling, and he was watching her.

Harley knew instantly, but didn't say anything, she waited for James. James, who seemed to take an eternity to form sentences. Serves him right for not going through this sooner, that picture was close to two years old. He cleared his throat awkwardly, and then turned to Harley and told her, “Sarah.”

She nodded and looked up at him and said, “She's pretty.”

“Yeah...” Was all that came out of his mouth, and he watched as Harper looked down at the photo again before he started in on something he probably should have elaborated on the first time Sarah had come up, “I met her my second season in Pittsburgh, we started dating about a year after, and we dated for a year and a half. I bought a ring and a week later she told me that she needed space.”

Harley looked up at him, her eyes soft, and she ran her hand over his shoulder before she said, “I'm sorry.”

He shook his head, “Nah better I knew then, could have been worse. I could have asked and she could have said no. Saved me a lot of embarrassment actually.”

“Yeah but you still bought a ring.” Harley said, not really knowing what else to say to that.

“Yeah, and it actually ended up in the Boston harbour.” James said with a shrug, and when Harley stared at him, confused he couldn't help but smile. The story now brought him laughter, but he could remember when it didn't. His teammates teased him about that day for months. James explained, “I was still carrying it around for weeks after she left and one night when we were on a road trip in Boston, Pauly convinced me to get rid of it so I took it out of my pocket and threw it in. He meant like pawn it off or something but I hadn't really thought of that.”

Harley let out a laugh and then covered her mouth and apologized, “I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh.”

James chuckled at her reaction and told her, “It's fine. I mean back then it wasn't but now it's a pretty funny story.”

After a few seconds of silence Harley finally admitted, “I haven't been entirely honest with you.”

James watched her, eyebrow raised, he was convinced this was it. Whatever it was that they were was over, and it was probably because of something he did. He could barely even get the words out when he asked, “With what?”

Harley fiddled with the cuff of her sweater before she told him, “Rich and I were serious. Really serious.”

“You don't have to tell me this.” James told her, making her shake her head.

“I do, because I should have told you a long time ago.” Harley told him, and when he motioned for her to continue she finally answered any and every question he had, “When Rich and I started dating I never thought it would get as serious as it did, it was like one day we were going on a few dates and the next he was talking about going on vacations and meeting his family and at first I didn’t really think anything of it. I thought maybe I finally found a guy that wasn’t afraid of admitting how he felt, I was probably the happiest with Rich that I had been in years, and then suddenly things weren’t good and happy. Things got weird, eventually Rich stopped mentioning events and team stuff, which honestly didn’t bother me because I never liked those things to begin with but then I’d find out from Emma or Kelly about something he hadn’t mentioned and it felt like he just didn’t want me around. He checked out of the emotional side of the relationship way before I did, and after a while the whole relationship basically felt like a big show. It was like he was trying to prove to everyone that he could have a relationship and that he could make someone happy even if he wasn’t happy. And then finally he had Shea tell me he was seeing other people, and by that he meant three other girls all in Nashville.”

James watched her carefully, he didn’t know how to react to that. 6 months ago he’d been pulling things like that in Pittsburgh, he was just as guilty as Rich was and he didn’t know how he felt about that. He definitely didn’t exactly like who he had been right now, but he knew this wasn’t about him. He reached out, gave her hand a squeeze and said, “He screwed things up you know, not you.”

Harley nodded slowly and told him, “I know. It just felt like I had the rug ripped out from under me, and honestly I never felt like I got my footing again until recently, and then you had to come here and yank it out from under me again.”

James smiled and joked, “I have that effect on women.”

Harley rolled her eyes but eventually she laughed loudly as James put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her into his side. He could get used to this whole girlfriend thing again, it had been so long that he forgot how good it felt to have someone in his corner, someone to talk to about the things he couldn’t say to his teammates or his family, someone to come home to after a hard game or road trip. People may have thought James was a player, and he had to admit he was, but there was a part of him that thought there was nothing better than coming home to a beautiful girl night after night.

“How are you even still friends with him?” James asked her curiously after he thought of it for a few seconds. He had heard stories from some of the guys in Pittsburgh of what happened when guys got a little too emotionally involved with someone, it never ended well for the guy. Yet from all he had heard from his teammates, Harley had taken it relatively well.

She shrugged and picked at her sweater again as she explained, “We weren’t at first. The first two months or so I wanted nothing to do with him, and I think he knew it because he stopped coming around. But eventually when you’re friends with half the team you realize you have to get over it. We just kind of fell back into the friendship that started everything. I think that's part of the reason he suddenly felt like he still had feelings for me again.”

Suddenly James understood every warning he had gotten from Shea about her. He knew Harley was like Shea's sister, and if anyone had done that to James' sister he wasn't sure he'd even give someone the green light again after. He was glad he no longer had to wonder in silence, he knew the whole story now. He watched as Harley leaned forward to grab her beer from the coffee table and took a drink, before he told her, “I get it. Why you were so gun shy about this, and us. It makes sense now.”

“I should have just been honest, but I wasn't even being honest with myself. It was almost like if I kept pretending it wasn't that bad that it might be true one day.” Harley told him, smiling when he pulled her into his side and ran his hands through her hair.

He kissed the top of her head and told her, “It might be a bit soon for this, but I don't plan on ruining this. So when I do something stupid, which is inevitable, just tell me so I can fix it and never do it again okay?”

“Okay.”
♠ ♠ ♠
So you finally know the Harley and Rich story :)

This will be the last bit of 'drama' for now, but fear not there will be more in their future.

We're about halfway done this now, and I haven't decided if there's gonna be a sequel or not so let me know if you want one.

Leave a comment and let me know you're still reading and what you think :)