Start Me Up

Tessa stood outside Shea and Amelia's bedroom door, Amelia's dress pants that she had borrowed the other day were in one hand, freshly washed. She knocked several times loudly, and when she didn't get an answer she turned the knob and slowly pushed the door open. The lights were all on, and Shea was nowhere to be found so Tessa headed into the closet to hang the dress pants back up where she had watched Amelia pull them from.

She hung them up and stepped back out of the closet, immediately hitting a solid body. The first thing she saw, after Shea reached out to steady her and keep her from falling backward, was a bare chest and then when she stepped backward she realized he was completely naked. Shea must have realized it too because he was quick to reach over and grab a pillow from the bed to hold in front of himself, his cheeks about as red as Tessa's.

"I'm sorry, I knocked and no one answered so I thought maybe you were gone." She told him quickly.

"I was in the shower." He told her as if she hadn't been able to figure that out based on how hot his skin was, and the fact that his wet hair was dripping water down his skin.

"I was just putting Amelia's pants back..." Tessa explained before she skirted around him quickly as she said, "I'm just gonna go..."

She slipped back into the guest room down the hall and sat down on the end of the bed with a groan. Did life hate her?

As if things weren't weird enough between she and Shea right now; now she could add 'I've seen you naked' to her list of reasons why their relationship had gotten so damn awkward as of recently. It could go right after 'You almost kissed me, and I almost wanted you to' and directly before 'You're getting weird about me being friends with your friends.'

Tessa glanced down at her watch, she was supposed to be heading over to Pekka's in ten minutes. She wondered if Shea had left the bedroom yet, or better yet the house. The last thing she wanted was another run in, clothed or not with him while she was on her way out. So she got up from the bed and walked to the door, pressing her ear against the wood, she couldn't hear anything so she pulled the door open just a little to look out into the hallway. The bedroom door down the hall was still closed, just as she had left it so she shoved her feet into runners and left the house.

As she got into Amelia's car in the driveway Tessa decided she really needed her own vehicle but she pushed the thought out of her head as she backed out of the driveway and made her way over to Pekka's. He didn't live too far, she could have walked if she had wanted to but she had a mountain of stuff in the backseat that she had to bring with her; paperwork, sheets upon sheets of design ideas, and six cans of paint.

Pekka was sitting on the steps leading up to the front door when she pulled up and so he got up and met her at the car, tucking the folder and book stuffed full of papers under one arm before he grabbed four of the cans of paint. Tessa rolled her eyes and grabbed the last two paint cans and followed him into the house.

Pekka watched her in amusement as she got to work immediately, prying open three paint cans and grabbing three different brushes from the box of them she had left there the day before. The day before, where they had spent all day picking out paint swatches and going over layouts and designs, they had shared a glass of wine and even dinner and real conversation. Now it was like there had been a complete 180; Tessa hadn't even said hello to him.

So finally, once she was done putting three swatches of paint on the living room wall Pekka said, "Uhm... hello."

Tessa turned over her shoulder, her cheeks flushed and she said, "Sorry. Hi."

He smiled and asked her, "Everything okay?"

"Mhmm." She told him, turning back around to look at the paint on the wall. It was various shades of blue; dark, nearly navy, a pale pastel and something right in the middle. She asked him, "Which do you like best?"

Pekka looked over at the paint on the wall and surprised her by telling her, "The darkest."

"Good I was hoping you would pick that one." Tessa told him honestly, and when she caught his brow raise she explained, "I thought we could paint the living room cream, and do this wall as like an accent wall with the dark blue. Maybe we could add some cream accents, like long rectangles with moulding to make it a real accent wall."

Pekka shrugged his shoulders and, instead of talking about the house, he asked her, "What's the deal here Tessa?"

"What do you mean? I know, it's a little different, especially when you can't really picture it but trust me it will look good. The navy wall with the moulding paired with some cream and blue furniture, or if you're feeling really adventurous we could go with red or yellow furniture for a bit of color." It was clear to him that she was intent on ignoring him. So Pekka went along with it, he let her guide him into the dining room where she talked about light grey paint and carrying the blue from the living room in for curtains as well as a big table with some kind of attention grabbing light above it. She was speaking a whole different language but she seemed like such a different person, she was clearly in her element here and whatever it was that she had been acting weird about when she got there was obviously forgotten momentarily.

There were two voicemails left on her phone when Tessa got into the car in Pekka's driveway after they had painted the living and dining rooms together. Tessa had told Pekka that if they did as much as they could themselves it would save him some money and while money wasn't really an issue for him he had agreed. Tessa was glad that he had, she preferred doing as much of the work as she could on her own; crews were expensive, messy and she was a control freak.

The first message waiting was from her mother.

"Hi honey, just checking in to see how you're doing. Amelia told me that you're working on a house down there, for one of Shea's teammates and I think that's great. Oh, I ran into Katherine, Jacob's mother earlier this week she says to tell you hi. Anyway, give me a call back when you can."

Tessa rolled her eyes as she hit the delete button on the screen. Did her mother really have to add in Jacob's name there? As if Tessa would forget that Katherine was his mother?

The next message that played surprised her. It was from Shea.

"Hey, sorry about this morning. You ran off so quick I couldn't really apologize. Listen... I uh... what do you think about cooking dinner with me tonight? You know, like we used to do in the summers? I just, kind of miss that. I'm sorry, I know you're busy with Peks house and what not so just text me and let me know if you feel like it, if not it's fine too. See you later."

Tessa couldn't help herself from smiling. He was such a dork. She sent him a text saying that she was good for dinner and on her way home now, and then she put her phone in the cup holder and backed out of the driveway.

When she got home Shea wasn't there, so Tessa went straight into her room to change out of her paint splattered clothes and into an outfit a little more comfortable. She was heading into the kitchen when the front door opened and Shea walked in with two grocery bags.

They both paused, staring at each other, before Shea slipped out of his shoes and he approached her and with a small chuckle he asked, "It shouldn't be this weird right?"

Normally? No. With us, and the way things are? Yes.

She shook her head, chuckling at them both as well before she said, "No, it shouldn't be."

"I'm sorry about earlier." Shea told her, and Tessa's brow raised so his cheeks flushed and he tried to explain, "You know... about what happened in the bedroom... when I ran into you..."

Tessa let out a small giggle and told him, "It's your bedroom and I ran into you. You don't have to apologize."

He nodded his head slowly and held up his two grocery bags with a smile and he asked her, "How do you feel about Chateaubriand?"

"I think I'll start peeling potatoes." Tessa said with a smile and a nod of her head.

She disappeared into the pantry, coming back with a handful of small potatoes to peel, and while she stood a foot away from Shea, who was getting the steak ready to cook she peeled the potatoes, cutting them into cubes before she rinsed them and put them in a pot on the stove to boil. Shea set the steak on the end of the counter as he went out to the deck to start the barbecue.

When he came back in he grabbed a second knife and started helping Tessa with the vegetables, and that was when he asked her, "How come you've been here over a month and we've cooked dinner together twice?"

When Tessa would visit Shea and Amelia during the summers, and even during the season a few times, or Shea could come hang out in St. Louis for a while during the offseason it was a regular occurrence for them to lock themselves in the kitchen and make everyone dinner on a near nightly basis. It was the time when they would talk about everything they had missed in the time they hadn't seen each other; Amelia and Jacob mostly.

Tessa figured that now, living together and being in each others space all of the time meant they had less to catch up on by the end of the day. That and it seemed like lately neither one of them could be alone with the other in fear of something happening, and she wondered, briefly, if Shea felt that way as well. He had to, there was no way he hadn't noticed the way things had changed. There was no way he hadn't noticed how different he looked at her, Tessa had seen it a time or two, the way even the simplest thing like their fingers touching when they handed things to each other made them both jump, let alone something as full on as a hug. She thought he would have the be the stupidest person in the world to not have noticed the way things were between them.

Still, she shrugged her shoulders in response to his question and offered up a lie for a response, "We're busy. You with your season and me with the house."

Shea glanced at her sideways and asked, "How's that going by the way?"

She was surprised he even asked, he had been so adamant lately about not talking about anything that had to do with anything she might have been doing for any of her teammates. She told him, "It's good. Mostly the place just needs a lot of paint and new furniture. I think, honestly, the only room that actually needs any work aside from the wall that needs to come down in the dining room is the master bedroom."

"Oh yeah?" He asked her, he was half paying attention and half watching the way her lips moved when she talked.

Tessa nodded her head, she was too busy watching what she was doing with the knife in her hand to notice Shea's stare as she spoke, "Yeah, it's a mess. There aren't even doors in there. Plus there's this weird like... wall that was put up in front of the walls for the bathroom and closet. The guy doesn't even have bedroom furniture, Shea, I mean when everyone said he needed my help... they weren't kidding."

His grip tightened on his own knife, what had started out as an innocent, polite question about her job had turned into her talking about his teammate's bedroom and as stupid as it sounded it made him inexplicably angry.

That was why as if in some way he could hurt her with the information Shea told her, "We finally settled on the number of guests, and a date."

Tessa paused, Shea watched as her knife hovered over a green pepper before it slowly continued dicing it again and she didn't turn to face him as she asked, "Oh yeah?"

He wondered if maybe Amelia had already told her, but then he realized, how could she have? They discussed it the other night, after he had come home and apologized for acting like the world's biggest asshole and Shea was positive that Amelia and Tessa hadn't even seen each other before Amelia had left for St. Louis again that morning.

Shea nodded and he spoke softly when he told her, "August sixth."

This time it was Tessa who nodded her head to his words. Shea felt bad for even bringing it up. Why had he? Then again, why did he feel bad? Why did he feel the way he had been feeling in general lately? He never had an issue talking to Tessa, but then again, he had never thought about Tessa the way that he had been lately. Not once, in the half decade, they had known each other had Shea ever even wondered what she might look like under all of her clothes and if her lips were soft when she kissed someone or if her voice was as soft and raspy when she was worked up as it was when she talked regularly. Not once had he ever thought that he would have traded places with Jacob in a heartbeat and that he never would walked away like he had.

He really was going crazy.

A hand waved in front of his face and pulled him out of his thoughts and his cheeks flushed as Tessa joked, "I thought I lost you."

He smiled, "Sorry."

She shrugged her shoulders and she asked him, "What do you think about an early dinner tomorrow? I'll cook since you have a game."

I think I could get used to you being around, in more ways than one.

Shea shook his head just the slightest and he said, "Sounds good."

Tessa reached out, placing her hand gently on his wrist as she asked him softly and curiously, "Is everything okay?"

"No." He told her honestly, shaking his head for good measure.

Tessa's brow lifted and she asked him, "What's going on?"

Fuck it.

Shea reached out, placing his hands on her hips and pulling her toward him so quickly he couldn't change his mind even if he had wanted to before he leaned down and pressed his lips against hers. They were every bit as soft as he thought. He felt her tense against him and for just a second he thought he had just made the biggest idiot out of himself, and then Tessa relaxed and she surprised him by kissing him back. His hands slipped just slightly underneath the loose material of her shirt, palms resting on her bare hips and it was an odd contrast; the softness of her skin against the roughness of his own.

His grip on her hips tightened as he pulled her even closer to him, and Tessa's hands grasped at the fabric of his shirt at his back and Shea smirked just the tiniest bit when she let out a noise that could have almost been classified as a moan against his mouth.

When air became a little more prevalent to both of them they slowly pulled apart, and Tessa dropped back down onto the heels of her feet where they stood; still pressed against each other, Shea's hands still on her hips and her hands still gripping the back of his shirt.

Tessa looked up at him, their eyes met, and it was like the reality of what had just happened between them had quite literally slammed into them. Their hands dropped away from each other, and Tessa took a step backward and away from him, they were still staring at each other and neither one could quite believe what had just happened.

Finally, Tessa broke their eye contact as she looked down at her feet and mumbled, "I'm just... I'm not hungry... I'm gonna go."

What the hell did you just do Shea?