Hold on Tight

He had panicked. She knew the look in his eyes right before his lips landed on hers. Recognized the wild look from her own experience with the emotion. It was the same one she had as she looked at her reflection in the airplane bathroom mirror during her first flight to Dallas. The one she probably had the first time she laid eyes on him again in 5 years.

She had always felt nervous when he kissed her. Something about the way the butterflies fluttered in her stomach, different than they ever had before. An indication that this kiss was the one she hoped to experience for a lifetime.

This time, this first kiss after everything they’ve been through, it didn’t hold that same nervousness. There was still a flutter – a stampede, really – but there was something else. Something she had never experienced with him before.

There was a relief.

It was like coming home.

He slowly pulled back from her, his body tightly pressed against hers, his hands framing her face as if he didn’t want to give her any chance to walk away again. She felt the tension in his spine, how his stomach was clenched like he was waiting for something that would tear him down.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered; his lips still so close to hers that she felt them move with the words.

She didn’t want him to apologize. He didn’t need to apologize. Because the kiss solidified something for her. She couldn’t let him go again. Not if he was finally wanting to give her everything she had wanted the first time around. She had practically begged him to love her, so how was she expected to turn away when he was trying to do so? How could she ignore the butterflies and the breathlessness and the way her body and heart reacted to even the most casual of touches?

She didn’t want to live in fear, or pain, or anger anymore. She wanted to let go and dive headfirst into him, even with the possibility that he could destroy her again. And she didn’t know how to feel about that. It was the ultimate battle - that of the head and heart.

Haley learned her forehead against his, taking a deep breath in as if to prepare herself for what she was about to do. This was going to change everything.

“Do you want to come inside for some coffee?”

---

He wasn’t stupid. He knew what coffee meant after a date. It was never an invitation to actually drink out of mugs and force small talk. But that’s what he wanted. For the first time in his life, he didn’t want to have sex. Not when the girl was as important as Haley and one wrong move meant losing her forever.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t stupid enough to accept the offer inside her apartment, however.

Her Dallas apartment was entirely different from her place in Boston. Before, she had been a college student, her school books had been everywhere and post-it notes had littered pretty much every inch of table space. It was something he had loved about her - the chaos of her place that showcased how seriously she took her studies. And he never realized how much he missed those nights in her cluttered apartment until he walked into the post-it free space she now called home. He felt like something was missing and he couldn’t understand why his heart ached at the sight of the bare coffee table.

He felt her eyes on him and looked up to meet her gaze. “No post-its?”

She laughed, and he could have sworn his heart skipped a beat. “Don’t worry, you’ll actually be able to put your feet up on the coffee table without ruining the structure of an essay. I have an office for my post-its now.”

Tyler chuckled as he remembered the source of one of their most consistent fights. As much as he missed the post-its now, he had hated them back then. He wasn’t allowed to touch any space covered with colorful pieces of paper in case he ruined an important part of her thought process. In one instance, he had spilled milk over a thesis statement and it resulted in her almost breaking up with him.

He couldn’t understand back then why it was so important. College had never been on his radar - he was a hockey player, and no matter what he had to do, he would always be a hockey player. But she had loved it, and he didn’t want to fight with her - didn’t care enough to fight with her - so he ignored it.

That was one of those mistakes he had to fix.

“I don’t want to have sex with you.” He blurted out, his mind so stuck on his past mistakes that he didn’t realize how it sounded until he saw that look of hurt in her eyes. She pulled back from him, not physically since she was on the other side of the room, but he could feel her emotionally withdraw in preparation for heartache he seemed to deliver so frequently.

He panicked. “Wait, wait. No. That’s not - I mean I do - Of course I want to have sex with you.” He stopped and ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “I mean not tonight. I don’t want to have sex with you tonight. I want to - I want to wait?”

Her eyebrows scrunched adorably and he was momentarily distracted. How was he supposed to convince her that he wanted to wait if he couldn’t even convince himself? Because every move she made had him wanting to drag her to the bedroom.

Haley stared at him in disbelief. “You’re serious.”

Tyler didn’t know how he felt about her not believing him. Was it so out of character for him to want to wait and get to know her again before they took that next step in their relationship?

The thought about it. Yes. Yes it was, and that made him even more determined to do it.

“I hurt you, Hal. Five years ago, I hurt you so bad that you fled the fucking state. I don’t want to mess this up by fucking you the night of our first date. I want you to forgive me first. Truly forgive me, not just say you do because you are giving me another chance.”

She nodded her head slowly, as if it was taking awhile for his words to process in her mind. “Okay.”

Tyler rubbed his hands together. “Okay?”

---

She smiled at him, unable to believe how different the boy in front of her was from the one she met so long ago. She didn’t know what prompted the change. Maybe it was that he had grown older and wasn’t so caught up in the lifestyle that being a hockey player gave him. Maybe she could believe him when she said that it was him losing her. She didn’t know for sure, but she could see that he was nervous about her reaction. It was another thing she didn’t really understand. Before, when they first started dating, it was always him making the first move towards sex. He had wanted it way before she was ready to give it. He was only the second person she had ever slept with and she had always believed that the act was supposed to be between two people who cared for one another. Obviously that idea had changed a little over the year, though she wished it hadn’t. The amount of one-night stands she has had since him was a little embarrassing, though probably not even near the number he had racked up.

Sex had become something else to her. It was still about the connection to another person - she couldn’t completely shed the idea that having sex with someone else meant nothing, something her and probably every man ever disagreed on. And maybe it was different for girls, because of the power it could hold over them. But she was able to shed the weight of it a couple of nights a month. It was a connection, but it wasn’t everything. It didn’t mean that the other person was someone she had to be serious about. She learned that she didn’t have to love them.

She didn’t know if she wanted him to know that. How she had changed. How she had changed because of him. How would he react if he knew that he prompted more one-night stands than she could count? How she pretty much fell in love with someone else because of the comfort they provided? How sometimes she looked forward to the inhibitions that alcohol took away so that she could take a guy home?

She couldn’t. Not yet. So instead of letting him in, she just smiled and turned towards her Kureig to start the coffee. “Okay, Tyler. As in, thank you. As in, I understand, and though I have questions, I get it.”

He leaned against her kitchen counter, bringing her attention briefly to the way his muscles looked as he crossed his arms over his chest. Maybe this would be harder than she thought.

“What questions do you have?”

She shrugged. “Like where it came from. I invited you in for coffee, not to my bed. Like the fact that you’re Tyler Seguin and I don’t think you’ve ever turned down sex before in your life. Like why you don’t think I forgave you even when I told you I did.”

She heard him sigh behind her, but she resisted the urge to turn around. She would do better with this conversation if she wasn’t looking at him - and she had a feeling he would as well.

He didn’t say anything until she started the second cup of Donut Shop coffee. “I didn’t know what you were expected when you asked me to come in. So I figured I would lay it out there before it got any further. I don’t think you’ve forgiven me yet, because as you said before, you don’t know what you’re going to act in certain situations. I think you want to forgive me - hell, I want you to forgive me - but until there isn’t anything that triggers you, I don’t think we know for sure.” She turned to hand him his mug in time to catch his shrug and sheepish expression. “As for turning down offers of sex, you’ll be surprised at how much of an expert I’ve become.”

Haley raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to know - and more specifically, she didn’t want to tell.

The rest of the night seemed to go by in a blur. They were friendly, never pushing any bounds the might have lead to Haley’s bedroom. They talked and laughed and talked some more. They discussed Tyler’s career, Haley’s grad school experience, how Dallas was treating the both of them. They never broached the topics of past relationships, not yet there. It reminded Haley of their first couple of weeks together, when they were getting to know each other before the pressures of being a NHL girlfriend got to them.

It gave her hope. And that was something she hadn’t had for 5 years.