Chapter 12

“Taa daaaa! Les boys sant dans la maison!”

Tabby looked up to find what she was fairly sure was either a barrel full of monkeys or one of those buckets of little green army men surging through the door of the store and felt for the panic button Patrick had had installed under the counter. One push called his cell phone. Two called the cops.

“Grasshoppers!” A tall, blonde Mennonite looking young man grabbed one of the tubes of live insects off the shelf and was holding it threateningly over the head of a darker, sleeker looking young man, as if, at any moment or at the slightest provocation, he’d empty it either into the longish hair of his friend, or, more probably, down his shirt. Tabby had had to admonish a few young men about this, but then young had meant seven, maybe eight.

“Si tu la faites, mon ami, je vais tu faire manger un ver,” the darker one with the longish hair raised a single eyebrow and the group fell into silence, and not a good silence. It was the kind of silence that was threatening. They were all, obviously waiting for someone to make a move, and Tabby was almost sure whatever move that turned out to be, it might turn out fatal for the store.

“Ummm, can I help you with those or some other kind of bait?” she asked, almost hopefully, hating that her voice had that tenor of a woman afraid. Some of her customers could be gruff, and there was a couple of old farts who could be downright rude, but she’d never really had that fear of being held at gunpoint and robbed. Not for the maybe hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars a day the store might take in. But this is the way it started, she thought as she watched the tall blonde give the tube of live bait a little wiggle to start the live insects scratching and hopping around inside. “Gentlemen?” she tried again, her voice wavering. She was almost ready to push the buzzer when a face she thought she recognized appeared around the corner of the aisle.

“Vous regardez de plus en plus belle alors je me souviens.” Tabby’s hand flew to her heart as she recognized Patrick’s scruffy friend.

“You’re...oh wait...don’t tell me,” Tabby screwed her eyes shut tight and tried to remember anything other than how embarrassing that night had been. “You’re Max!” she smiled at last pointing at him and he, grinning from ear to ear, bowed low over his arm with a flourish that was a little too cheesy, but it also stopped the crazies from setting the grasshoppers loose all over the store, so she decided to forgive him.

“I am, and where is our esteemed team...colleague?” he asked, walking forward to take one of her hands in his and, leaning over, he brushed his lips across the back of her knuckles.

“He’s in the house,” she muttered, feeling herself flush with embarrassment as she looked up to find eight sets of eyes on her. “I think in the kitchen.”

“S...Patrick’s in the kitchen?” the tall blonde one made a face and Max turned around and waved his finger at him.

“Ours is not to question the living arrangements de notre ami, we are just here to support,” he added with a grin and wink as he moved to head through the door behind her. Tabby thought about stopping him, even long enough to call out a warning but then put her hands back on the counter. He’d mentioned a ‘friend’ might be stopping by for dinner, not that he was expecting a visit from the Wicked Witch of the West’s flying monkey brigade, it would serve him right if they found him with his shorts around his ankles reading the paper on the toilet. And, she thought grudgingly, he could pay to order dinner in if they were all staying. She wasn’t going to stand on her feet all day and then cook dinner for six too.

“Are you going to pay for that before you make him eat them?” she asked as the tall blonde went by, still holding the tube of live grasshoppers over the head of the slighter, dark haired Frenchman. It didn’t seem to be bothering him but Tabby liked the idea of the jumping insects let loose in her home even less than in the store.

“Put on cappie’s tab. I’m sure he’ll find some way of paying you for it,” the big blonde galoot grinned maliciously before pulling the back of his friend’s shirt open and giving the tube another menacing shake.

“Mon ami, je tu jure que je tu blesser de facon inimaginable,” the slighter, shorter, darker young man didn’t so much as flinch and something about that made Tabby feel just a smidgeon better about the chances of waking up without bugs in her bed.

___________________________________________________________


“What the fuck? Who’s this bob the fucking builder guy?”

Sidney felt the kick to his ankle and winced. Not because it hurt, which it didn’t, but because he knew what he was in for. He slid from beneath the sink, wrench in hand, wiping his free hand down the front of an old, faded, and now torn t-shirt leaving streaks of grease behind.

“There’s this thing, called the yellow pages...you could hire some guy with butt cleavage to do this. You do know that, right?” Sticking his tongue, Sid made a sarcastic face at Jordy as he scrambled to his feet.

“Mon Dieu, mon ami, I’ve never had you down as a fashion model, no matter how many Si covers you’ve been on, mais bon Dieu, tu es un hot mess,” Max drawled, shaking his head in disgust.

“Wait.... Are you living here?” Kris asks and Sid’s head swiveled towards him and before he realized that all of his friends were looking at him as if he’d grown two heads, one of which they clearly didn’t recognize.

“You sly fucking dog!” Jordy grinned and slapped Sid on the shoulder, hard enough to make him wince. “You are fucking living in sin and no one fucking knows it. Nice!” Sid opened his mouth to say something along the lines of that wasn’t quite true, but as soon as he thought it, he knew that in fact it was very true.

“Does Troy know?” The room fell into a charged silence and the grins disappeared as everyone first looked to the quiet goalie and then back to Sid, who cringed as he silently shook his head.

“You’re like five miles up the road and daddy doesn’t know?” Kris smirked and then the silence was broken as all of his friends began to snigger like schoolgirls. “Where does he think you are?”

“A couple weeks ago...with you and Max in Atlantic City...now...I don’t know, maybe visiting you...I don’t know,” Sid answered truthfully, which earned him a round of loud wolf whistles.

“Right under the old man’s nose, merde,” Max held his hand up for a high five, but Sid didn’t feel much like celebrating. It hadn’t been his intent to mislead or deceive anyone, he just hadn’t thought about much aside from how free he felt with her. Time had simply slipped by.

But now he felt guilty. While it was true that he probably saw his parents more during the season than most of his teammates did, only because his endorsements meant that he could afford to pay for both of their retirements, but the summer was usually the time that he would spend more than just a dinner’s worth of time with them.

“Have you been here...the whole time? Since you left Atlantic City?” Kris asked more seriously, but his elfin grin hadn’t quite disappeared. Sid had known that they were all going to enjoy seeing him living outside of the normally very small, very dull box that he lived in most of the time, but they seemed to be enjoying it just a little too much. They were making what he had with Tabby feel...dirty and even if she was determined to keep things casual, Sidney knew he was just as determined that what they had was...special.

He was just wishing he could come up with speedy, sarcasm laden come backs like Max and Jordy always seemed to be able to do, although he was fairly certain that had more to do with having male rather than female siblings, when Tabby appeared in the archway to the kitchen. She leaned there, looking amazing in just a pair of black leggings and one of those tops that tied just under her breasts, her long, dark hair in pig tails watching him over the shoulders of his teammates, with one of those half smiles of hers’ and suddenly it didn’t matter if they didn’t get it.

“Hey...try and keep it down in here will ya?” she grinned, sauntering past all of his friends without giving them a second glance, before she wrapped her arms around his neck and planted her lips over his in a long, soft kiss. “Maybe you boys can help get that drain fixed before you get all...stupid drunk, huh?” she added, running the pad of her thumb along his bottom lip, which meant he was wearing her cherry lip gloss, which he actually liked, a lot.

“Yeah, I’ll help,” Jordy grinned at her like she was naked and somehow Sid didn’t even care. “I’ll call a plumber,” he added, heading for the phone that hung on the wall and then stood there, staring blankly at the old, dial phone.

“I’ll leave you to your...friends,” she whispered to him, her lips brushing his cheeks, which, for some reason immediately felt hot. “Just try not to wreck anymore of my house, hmm?” she added, with a playful grin before she turned and sauntered back the way she came, and Sidney realized, he wasn’t the only one mesmerized by the sight of her shapely ass in those tight, black tights.

“Well, mon capitaine, I don’t fucking blame you for hiding out here,” Kris said quietly, tilting his head to one side so that his hair long, dark fell into his eyes as he stared after Tabby’s retreating form.

“You mean playing hide the sausage here,” Jordy called from where he was now trying to figure out the old fashioned metal address book with its’ dial and metal pointer.

“Gronk, why don’t you just get over here and hand me that vice grip so I can get this finished and then we can all go out on the lake?” he suggested and got a grudging sound of acceptance from the big blonde forward who nearly had his face taken off when the book suddenly snapped open.

“Just tell me one thing,” Jordy grumbled giving the old metal book a dirty look before turning to head towards the sink that Sidney was sliding back beneath, “why are you here? I mean, she does know you have a big fucking new house that doesn’t need work right?” Sidney looked up at his friend and then let himself slide beneath the sink so that his self-conscious expression wouldn’t be seen.

“Not exactly,” he mumbled, his reply meeting dead silence.

“So she doesn’t know who you are or that you have a fuck load of dough either?” Closing his eyes and sighing, Sid slipped back out from beneath the sink and looked at all the expectant faces of his friends.

“No, okay? No, she doesn’t know who I am or anything about me, and...and just for now I’d like it to stay that way...if you bunch of tools can keep your pie holes shut,” he added, sliding back under the sink when they all started to laugh again. This was going to be a long, long weekend.

_______________________________________________________

“They’re a bit...much, aren’t they?” Patrick asked as he wrapped his arms around her waist, his breath warm on her cheek. Tabby reached up to ruffle his hair, her hand sliding down until her fingers curled around the back of his thick neck, holding him there. Not that he seemed to want to be anywhere else, even when his friends were splashing each other and playing tag in the shallows, as if they were a bunch of ten year olds. It looked like fun, and yet, he was there, with her, on the dock, a mere bystander.

“They’re fine,” she told him truthfully. “It’s a nice...change,” she admitted, her mind casting back to the tiny, half empty apartments her friends lived in back home and the grotty, dark rehearsal halls they practiced in. Musicians hardly ‘lived’ during daylight hours. They were mostly a laid back bunch, at least until the sun went down and the alcohol came out.

She felt him go still behind her and Tabby craned her neck to try and read his expression. He was unusually quiet. Not that he was particularly talkative normally, but even so, he seemed almost wary...worried.

“I thought you invited them?” she began, “and now it’s like you can’t wait for them to leave.”

“It’s not that,” he admitted, shrugging before he turned her around to face him, his hand reaching up to brush her bangs back as his hazel gaze searched hers’ in a way that made her feel like blushing it was so intimate. “There’s so many things...things I don’t know about you, things I want to know,” he continued, his gaze so intense that Tabby found herself needing to look away. “Like what you were thinking just then.”

“You don’t need to know anything,” she told him quietly, feeling his tension ramp up even as she said it. She felt confused. He was so intense sometimes, like now, like he couldn’t get enough of her, but then, there were other times when it seemed like he was a hundred miles away and she couldn’t get through to him at all, like he was keeping her at arms’ length. She’d told herself, over and over again, that that was fine, because this wasn’t going anywhere, it was just a summer fling, but at other times it ate at her confidence. “Isn’t everything fine just the way it is?” she asked, glancing up at him. He opened his mouth, but never got a chance to say anything as a bucket of cold lake water was upended over his head.

“Tabernak! Get a room!” Patrick growled and took off running after his friend, who dived off the end of the pier with Patrick close on his heels. Tabby watched them, a smile on her face. Sometimes he could act like someone twice his age, and sometimes she liked that he was an ‘old soul’, and yet, she liked seeing this side of him, the playful, young side. Sometimes she forgot she was young too. She’d almost always been accused of acting far older than her won age would suggest. Sometimes she even forgot that she was actually a few months younger than he was.

“Mr. Crosby?”

Tabby turned at the sound of an unexpected voice behind her, nearly jumping out of her skin. It was only the delivery driver with the food, three large bags of it, but her mind had been elsewhere.

“I think you’re looking for Mr. Parker,” she began to correct the small Chinese man who stared at her blankly and shook his head.

“No, no Mr. Crosby,” he insisted, gesturing with one of the bags towards the boys who were emerging from the lake, dripping onto the dock. Tabby turned, her brow furrowing, but Max was already brushing past her, grabbing his jeans along the way and digging into the pockets for his wallet.

“That’s me,” he smiled brightly at the driver who shook his head and continued to gesture with his full hands towards Patrick who was standing at the end of the dock, half turned away, half hidden behind his bigger, taller blonde friend.

“No, no. Mr. Sidney,” the driver insisted again, making like he was going to push past Max who was now holding out a wad of bills towards him.

“Yep that’s me,” Max insisted again, reaching towards one of the bags with his free hand and thrusting the cash at the driver at the same time.

“Mmm, MSG, I’ll be asleep by nine,” Jordan, Patrick’s tall blonde friend grabbed at the other bags but the driver stepped back from both of them and shook his head, narrowing his eyes and thrusting out his bottom lip.

“No, no Mr. Sidney order,” he insisted and stared down the dock towards where the three, dark haired young men were now standing, staring back at him. Tabby looked at the driver and then back at Patrick, knowing he’d put the order in and that they’d been ordering from the same awful Chinese take out restaurant for the last two weeks.

“I’ll take those,” she said quietly, but firmly, stepping in front of Max and taking the money out of his hand. The driver didn’t look happy, but it was her house and he’d been here before so he took the money and grudgingly allowed the boys to take the bags, but he was still staring down the dock at where the two slighter Frenchmen were standing, flanking Patrick who was standing stock, still, his gaze slipping sideways like a dog’s will when it meets a more dominant dog and wants to avoid a fight.

Or, Tabby thought, like he’s got something to hide.
______________________________________________________________


“That was close,” Tanger whispered as they headed up the hill towards the house, behind Jordan and Max who were swinging the bags of food and taking bets on who could eat more Mu Shu pork than the other. For himself, Sid was watching Tabby, who was watching him right back.

“This might be a good time to tell her mon ami, before you get caught again,” Flower suggested and though Sidney knew that his quiet friend was probably right, he shook his head.

“You don’t understand,” he said quietly, keeping his voice low enough so that it was almost a whisper. “This isn’t…she’s not serious about this…about me. So it’s just…if she doesn’t know it’s just better,” he stumbled over his words as he tried to explain, partially because it tasted like a lie as he said the words aloud and partially because it hurt to say it and to think it.

“Je pense que vous êtes tous deux situés à vous,” Flower put his hand on his friend’s arm, stalling Sidney’s forward movement. Sid looked down at his friend’s hand and nodded.

“Peut-etre mais c’est la seule facon que je peux me protéger,” he replied in a voice strangled by barely held in check emotion. Sidney could feel both Flower and Tanger studying his face and he felt his ears begin to burn. “What?” he snarled, glancing at both of them wearing his ‘danger face’. They both knew it well and knew too that it was meant as a warning.

“Tu es en amour,” Tanger breathed, ignoring the cold, hard look of warning Sidney sent his way. “I didn’t even know that was possible for Creature to have feelings,” he added, and though it was clear he was trying to lighten the mood, Sid was having none of it. His feelings were too raw and too personal and he was certainly in no mood to discuss them, even with Tanger and Flower, both of whom had long term loves of their own.

“Let’s just eat,” he muttered as they came abreast of where Tabby was still standing, waiting and watching them silently. Both Flower and Tanger gave him those looks, the ones that said that this discussion wasn’t over but he tried his best to ignore them as he reached for her hand, but she withheld it, crossing her arms across her ample bosom instead.

“What was all that about?” she asked, her voice even, but firm, just like her gaze. Sidney shrugged and glanced up towards the house, into which his friends were disappearing.

“A mix up, I don’t know,” he lied.

“Your friend Max…is he like…someone…important?” she asked and Sidney had to bite down on his bottom lip, hard, not to smile.

“Yeah, in his own head. Why?” he wiped the back of his arm across his mouth, doing his best to wipe the smile of relief from his face.

“Well…that was all kind of weird. I mean…how many times have we ordered from that place now and that guy was going all ninja on Max,” she narrowed her eyes as she stole a glance towards where the boys were making an enormous amount of noise for just putting out food.

“Uh…Max can be kind of…obnoxious. You may have noticed that,” Sidney began, offering his hand again and this time she took it. “He probably pissed them off once. Not everyone gets his humour,” he added to which Tabby nodded, obviously agreeing.

“They’re all kind of obnoxious,” she agreed, falling into step beside him as they headed up to the house. “Well…except for Marc…I like him,” she added with a grin.

“Flower? Yeah, everyone likes him,” Sidney agreed, letting go of her hand and slipping his arm around her waist instead and was rewarded by her laying her head on his shoulder.

She could come around to his way of thinking, he thought to himself as they made their way up the steps to the veranda. He just had to give her a little more time and then he would tell her, he promised himself, when she had to know and not before he was sure about her feelings. Sure that whatever she felt was for himself and not for all that superstar, SI cover boy bullshit.

He had time, he thought as he stopped her, just before they went into the house so that he could kiss her, without all the wolf whistles and smart aleck remarks from his friends and if that meant there was a little less Chow Mein, so be it, he thought as her lips parted beneath his and her body melted in his arms.

__________________________________________________________

“So, has our cap…has Patrick asked you to Vegas yet?”

Tabby had just cracked open her fortune cookie and was pulling the little tab of paper out to read it. She looked up at Jordan and narrowed her eyes.

“Was he supposed to?” she asked, glancing sidelong at Patrick who was studiously staring at the sweet and sour pork piled on his plate.

“You haven’t even told her that?” Jordan snorted and picked up a deep fried won ton and hurled it at Patrick, who easily dodged it. Tabby stared at the food as it slid to the floor and then narrowed her eyes at the tall blonde.

“What do you mean…even told me what?” she asked, this time only looking at Jordan. First the delivery driver and now this. She felt like there was something she was missing and she was beginning to think some kind of prank was being played, but what she couldn’t decide was, if it was on her or on Patrick.

“That he’s going to Vegas next week,” Kristopher, one of the dark haired Frenchman answered before Jordan could. She glanced at him and then at Patrick and she had the sudden sensation of being unable to breathe.

“You’re leaving…already?” she asked, wondering if the fluttering in her chest was a precursor of a full blown panic attack or if it was just the result of eating too many spring rolls.

“Not leaving…well, yeah, I guess I am but just for a week. I have a couple of…events…business and then I’ll be back,” Patrick promised, but there was something in his eyes, something that she couldn’t read but now Tabby began to feel as if she really was missing a piece of a puzzle.

“Events in Vegas huh?” she pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow. ‘I’ll play along’, she thought, ‘and then we’ll see where this goes’. “Events with strippers and gambling and….”

“I doubt Mr. Clean will be around any of that stuff,” Kristopher snorted, and then began to cough on his Shanghai noodles. While Marc smacked his friend’s back, he shook his head.

“You don’t have to worry about that, believe me. S…Patrick will be on his best behaviour, won’t you mon ami?” Marc raised an eyebrow and Patrick nodded earnestly.

“Oh c’mon, you didn’t even go last year!” Jordy cried, as if he was personally hurt by the idea of Patrick keeping his behaviour on the up and up. “You have to at least come out clubbing,” he added, batting his big blue eyes and sticking out his bottom lip. “And what about Edmonton? We’re totally hooking up with Ric and some of the boys and….”

“Edmonton?” This time Tabby turned and stared directly at Patrick who didn’t look up from his food, but did shrug.

“Gronk…I’ll be getting there from L.A. and….”

“Wait, wait, Los Angeles too?” Tabby asked, incredulous.

“It’s not like it’s fun,” Patrick promised, finally putting his fork down and turning to her, reaching for her hands, which she quickly withdrew. “It’s business. Especially L.A., believe me. It’s boring. It’s not like I’m going shopping on Rodeo Drive,” he explained but the wariness in all of the other sets of eyes watching them made Tabby sure there was something that he wasn’t telling her.

“You’re married, aren’t you?” she asked, holding her arms protectively around herself and staring him down.

The entire table erupted in laughter, to the point that Jordan was pounding the table with his fists and Kristopher was wiping away tears with a napkin. Tabby looked around the table and then back at Patrick, who was smiling but not maliciously. This time, when he reached for her hands, she let him take them.

“No, Tabs, I’m not…sooo not. I’m just about as single as they get,” he promised her, raising her hands to his mouth and brushing the backs of each of her hands with his lips.

“Mon ami…he doesn’t date,” Marc explained quietly, probably because he was the only not currently fighting the urge to puke up his dinner from laughing so hard. Tabby looked at him and then back at Patrick and shook her head.

“I don’t understand…you’re like…you’re practically perfect,” she mumbled, trying to make sense of the jumble of emotions she was feeling which ranged from suspicion to embarrassment.

“No, I’m not…I’m a monster pain in the ass to be with, believe me,” he told her quietly, turning her hands over and pressing a kiss to the centre of each of her palms. “That’s why they’re laughing. No one will put up with me,” he added, his gaze searching hers’ as if he expected further argument but Tabby couldn’t come up with one. I don’t know him, she thought as he finally smiled and turned to scold his friends for making fun of him, and I don’t have the right to be jealous or ask him where he’s going or with whom. It was a sobering thought as she realized that she was going to miss him while he was gone and worse than that, that she didn’t want him to go.