Chapter 14

This is kinda short but I hope kinda hot

When he put his key in the lock, Sidney had a moment’s hesitation. He’d had the key made when he’d updated the locks on her doors from the old, easy to pick, easy to kick in for that matter, to newer deadbolts and sliding bars. Keeping a copy for himself bordered on stalker behavior but he was hoping she would see it more as a protective romantic gesture. Either way, he thought as he stepped into the still darkness of the witching hour, it was too late to go back now.

Edmonton had been a huge waste of time. The crowds hadn’t been nearly what the guys had been lead to believe would show up. Certainly it was nice to be celebrated and it was always good to see some of the guys he would normally only see out on the ice in opposition jerseys but the entire time he’d been itching to get on a plane and get back to her.

As he vaulted the stairs two at a time, Sidney tugged his shirt over his head and hummed to himself. He felt better now, in the middle of the night, than he had in days. He didn’t normally mind doing the kinds of events he’d been involved in over the last few days but this time it had been harder than usual and he’d had to ignore his mother’s phone calls. They were wondering where he was and when he was coming home and if he would be there for dinner.

It wasn’t like him to intentionally ignore them, but even if he’d told them that he was on the red eye, his mother would have expected him for breakfast and there was only one place he wanted to wake up and that was with Tabby in his arms.

As he pushed open the bedroom door, he found Tabby laying in a silvery pool of moonlight, sprawled across the middle of the Queen sized bed, the covers thrown aside. The night was sticky hot and he wasn’t surprised to find her smooth skin bare to his eyes.

He unbuckled his belt and let his shorts slide to the floor, kicked off his shoes and slid onto the bed behind and beside her, sweeping her long, dark hair aside so he could press his lips to the nape of her neck. She sighed in her sleep and snuggled back against him. Emboldened, Sid kissed his way down her back, only stopping when she began to squirm as his lips found the small of her back.

“I missed you,” he whispered, drawing her cool body against his, his lips brushing the shell of her ear before he dropped another kiss onto the round of her shoulder. Her reply was a contented sounding hum and the press of her body back against his and his body began to come alive accordingly. He pressed himself to the small of her back and slid his hand around to cup her breast. He felt her nipple hardening in his palm and felt his heart beat double. Her back arched and she let out a strangled cry as he bit down, his teeth digging into the silvery white flesh of her neck. She whimpered and reached back, her fingers digging into his hair, into his scalp.

She tasted of lavender soap and moonbeams, her skin warmed where he touched it, where it pressed against his. With one of her hands, she led his down, over her stomach and down, down into the valley between her legs. She tried to let go of his hand then, but he kept her fingers in his, guiding her hand to that pearl between her legs that made her draw a ragged breath between her teeth and sent a shudder throughout her entire body, leaving her covered in goose flesh.

Rolling her onto her back, Sidney continued to guide her hand with his own, while his lips surrounded the hard, pink bud of her nipple, drawing it into her mouth until her back arched and she began to whimper. Pressing her hand over the hard nub of her clit, as if to imply that she should continue what she was doing, Sidney slid his hand further down, slipping one finger and then two inside of her hot, wet entrance.

She moaned and pressed against his hand and Sidney looked up to watch her expression transform. He watched her bite down on her bottom lip as he swirled his tongue around her nipple and, at the same time, gently but firmly pressed his fingers inside of her as far as they would go until she raised her hips up off of the bed.

She cried out, her head thrashing from side to side as the orgasm rolled over her. As her body began to relax, Sid lay beside her, watching her intently, his mind buzzing, full of emotions he was trying to rein in. When she opened her dark eyes and turned to smile at him he lost his tenuous hold.

“I love you.”

____________________________________________________________


It was the second best way she could think of to wake up.

Tabby stretched like a contented cat as the orgasm ebbed, leaving her boneless, relaxed and content, ready for the next round. Turning to face the intruder, she opened her eyes and smiled into the hazel ones that were looking down into hers’.

“I love you.”

They were three simple words but as he said them, his hand reaching out to tenderly press her hair back from her sweat slicked cheek, Tabby felt her pulse begin to beat so hard that it almost hurt as her blood roared through her veins. He was staring at her, boyish and expectant, waiting for her to say it back, and all she could think to do was pull his lips down over hers’ so that she couldn’t.

She parted her lips and reached for his tongue with hers and he answered in kind, kissing her hungrily, demandingly, and guilt pricked at her conscience. She was using his obvious state of arousal against him, knowing he’d have to give in to his ‘little head’ if she curved her leg around his just so, if she reached between them and lead his thick, hard cock towards her entrance. She had, however, no delusions that he’d forget that he’d said the words, or that he was still waiting for her to say them.

Or maybe not, she thought desperately. Maybe it was just one of those things you say in the heat of passion and it didn’t really mean anything. Maybe he’d just said it because he thought she wanted to hear it and he was actually relieved that she hadn’t said it back. ‘Yeah right,’ she told herself, biting down on the inside of her cheek as he made a hard thrust that sent her skidding back across the sheets. ‘You saw his face. It’s probably the first time he’s ever said those damn words,’ she thought, guilt gripping at her insides as he drew back to look down at her.

“I missed you too,” she replied, her tongue sweeping out over his ear as his body moved over hers’, thrusting inside of hers’ as deep as he could go. She could pretend that’s what she heard, play dumb, or even use the ‘just woke up’ card if he pressed it. But she couldn’t say it.

Or could she? After all, wasn’t that the reason she was sharing this house with him, that she wasn’t even a little bit surprised that he was here, waking her up in the middle of the night, that she didn’t even question how he got in? ‘Because you trust him you dimwit,’ she grumbled to herself as pulled back again, this time reaching to cradle her face in his hands, that look, that damned hopeful look back on his face, his gaze earnestly searching hers’.

‘Damn it!’ she silently cursed as she looked up into that serious gaze, those boyishly handsome features that had made her weak at the knees from the very first moment. There was something so ludicrously honest about him but at the same time she couldn’t ignore that voice at the back of her head that kept telling her that he was holding out on her, that there was something he wasn’t telling her and how could she give him her heart when she hardly even knew him and yet….

And yet hadn’t she already given it to him, if not in words at least in deed? As her lips and teeth travelled up the underside of his chin, as her teeth dug into the meaty flesh of his bottom lip and she heard him groan, she felt him take it, her heart scratching and digging its way out of her chest, for him.

“I love you,” she whispered against his mouth, his breath warm and tasting faintly of whiskey as it mingled with hers’. His gaze softened, his gold flecked eyes filling with silvery tears and then he roughly captured her mouth and kissed her, hard. She tasted the coppery tang of blood and didn’t care. She kissed him back just as hard, teeth clashing, tongues snaking out to flick against one another as their bodies battled, slamming into each other mercilessly, fingers digging in hard enough to leave marks if not bruises, hip bones meeting, flesh raked and stinging.

Tabby reached back and grabbed hold of the brass headboard, using it as leverage, lifting her hips to meet him thrust for thrust, knowing she was close, so close. All the tenderness had leaked out of his gaze and had been replaced with a fire and a focus that would have been intimidating had she not felt the same determined, almost feral expression forcing her to bare her teeth at him and her eyes to flash what felt like a dare; ‘I dare you to break me’ or ‘I dare you to make me scream’.

Whether he read the look in her eyes or had become so attuned to her body language that he just knew, but with a growl that emanated from deep in his chest, Patrick dug his thick fingers into her waist, pulling her into him, over him, until he was completely sheathed deep within her and then he withdrew, slowly, until only the tip of his cock remained. She stared down the length of him, her juices making his dick glisten in the moonlight, and then he rammed it inside of her with one, quick hard thrust that left her with her mouth open in a silent ‘o’ and her eyes rolled back in her head as her climax took hold. It felt like she’d been plugged into an electrical socket, like she was riding a wave of current, her body bucking and shuddering as though she were being electrocuted. She barely acknowledged his own roar as her body clamped down around his like a vice, as if her pussy was a mouth with teeth threatening to rip his dick off and keep it inside of her, forever. All she could hear was the singing of her own blood in her ears and her voice, screaming his name.

_______________________________________________________


Their bodies bathed in sweat, Sidney gathered her into his arms and curled protectively around her as they both shook in the aftermath of what he was fairly certain was the strongest, most earth shattering orgasm either of them had ever experienced. Tabby was crying softly, her face buried in his chest and Sid was surprised to find tears in his own eyes. He’d never, ever, in his life felt like this and it was unnerving and mind-blowing all at the same time. His heart was racing and it wasn’t just from exertion. It was from admitting his feelings and seeing the look in her eyes when she’d repeated those words back to him….

Sidney had never imagined wanting anything the way he’d wanted the Stanley Cup or the way he’d been almost paralyzed by how much he had wanted the Olympic Gold Medal but in this moment, as he brushed his lips over her forehead, tasting the salt of her sweat on his lips, he knew he wanted her in the same way. He wanted to hold her and never let her go and it shook him to his core to know that he’d given her his heart so easily.

“Tabby cat,” he whispered into her hair, and she purred in response, before nipping at him, biting down gently on his nipple and turning her eyes playfully up to meet his gaze. “You…,” his voice failed him as he cupped her cheek in his hand. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispered, his voice cracking as his chest tightened, his heart constricting around an unfamiliar ball of emotion.

“I bet you say that to all the girls you get in bed with,” she giggled, walking her fingers up his chest, digging in with her fingernails just enough to leave half moon indentations in his skin. He shook his head and started to deny it but the peal of Tabby’s laughter made him pause. She grinned up at him and he couldn’t resist kissing her, long and deep, drinking from her mouth.

“I should have asked you to come with me,” he whispered against her mouth before brushing his lips over the tip of her nose and then onto her eyelids.

“On a business trip? Borrrrinnng,” she mumbled, yawning and rolling over onto her stomach and putting her cheek down on her forearms. “I’m glad you came back though,” she added with a grin.

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” he asked, rolling onto his side and reaching out to run his fingers down her back, tracing the wave of her spine from her shoulders to where it dipped at the small of her back, before he let the flat of his hand run down to cup the swell of her ass.

“I don’t know, I guess it was a possibility,” she replied, hiding another yawn behind her hand.

“No,” he shook his head, sliding closer to her and pressing his lips down onto her bare shoulder, “it wasn’t.” She gave him a playful smile and Sidney felt his body reacting again to that glint in her eye. He slid his hand lower, sliding it down between her thighs where it was wet and warm. She closed her eyes and sighed and settled her thighs farther apart. Kissing his way across her shoulders, Sidney crawled over her, until he was straddling her thighs. With his hands on her hips, he began to nudge at her opening.

She giggled and muttered something sleepily like ‘again?’ but pulled her knees up beneath her and let him settle himself between her thighs. He slid in easily, her pussy wet and relaxed and yet it still took his breath away as he felt her muscles welcoming him in, pulling him deeper. Wrapping his hands around her waist, he began to rock into her, pulling her hips, the cushion of her ass towards him.

He wasn’t going to last and he knew it. He was tired and his head was reeling with all the strange new emotions swimming around in his brain. Reaching forward, he captured one of her breasts in his hand, felt it swing, the soft, smooth skin filling his hand. He squeezed her nipple, stroking it to a hard point, rolling the nub between his fingers until she moaned and he felt her tighten around his shaft.

Dragging a ragged breath through his teeth, he slid his hand back along her ribcage until he found the soft bare mound of her pussy and slid his fingers down, into the warm, moist valley, until he found her clit. He slid his fingers over it and heard her answering gasp, a sound that made him wish he could last longer, tease her, bring her before he climaxed but he could already feel that weight in his balls, could hear the buzzing in his ears that told him there was very little chance of that.

She pressed back against him and whimpered, and Sidney knew that she didn’t want slow, didn’t want gentle, and with a tired smile, he raised his free hand and brought it down on the lily white skin of her ass with a resounding ‘smack’. Her high pitched cry and the ensuing squeeze of her muscles around his dick was just too much. He felt the blackness coming, the little death, and pumped into her as hard and fast as he could, using his thumb and forefinger on her clit in hard, swift little circles that matched his rhythm and hear her begin to pant. At the very least he wanted her to cum with him, wanted to feel those rhythmic little squeezes around his cock, milking him dry.

“Are you close?” he asked, his voice hoarse, having to force it past the wolf like howl waiting to erupt from his throat.

“Yessss,” she hissed, and Sidney raised his free hand again, bringing it down hard on her ass, hard enough to make her yelp but it also made her back arch, her pussy constrict and those little ripples, those little spasms erupt around his cock that told him he could let go. His own back arched and his eyes squeezed shut and he let out a cry that was entirely primal, a wave of pleasure erupting from his balls that went all the way up to the tip of his head.

As soon as the ringing stopped in his ears and he could breathe again, Sidney collapsed onto the bed and once again, Tabby curled into him, backing her ass into his middle. He wrapped his arms around her and felt their heart beats begin to slow together until they were both breathing in that shallow, slow way that says sleep isn’t far off. Leaning in to brush her cheek with his lips, he whispered those words to her again and watched as her full mouth curled up into a contented smile.

“I love you too, Patrick,” she whispered, reaching back to grab at his hand, lacing her fingers in his and pulling his arm around her like a blanket.

Sidney stared into the dark and felt all of the wonderful, crazy, new emotions he’d been feeling ebb away as a lead weight of guilt built in the pit of his stomach. He’d told her he loved her, and he meant every single solitary word, and he’d lied through his teeth at the same time.
He would tell her tomorrow, he promised himself. He’d explain everything and apologize and it would all be okay, he hoped.

Chapter 13

She hadn’t even said goodbye and she’d refused to take him to the airport both actions that gave Sidney hope that maybe, just maybe, Tabby was beginning to come around to the idea that what they had was more than just a summer fling. Oh, he’d waited, sitting outside in his SUV, letting the engine idle as he stared at the door of the little bait shop in front of the house, but she'd never come out. She’d known he was there and she’d known he was leaving and she’d made damn sure that he hadn’t had more than a half hours sleep the night before, getting her fill before he left Sid supposed, but she didn’t come out. She didn’t even wave.

Now, as he sat in the back of an air conditioned stretch limo plodding down the Vegas strip, he found himself having a conversation with her in his head. He wanted to talk about the amazing buildings and all of the people walking down the sidewalks with bottles of beer or giant margarita glasses in their hands. He wanted to ask her if she wanted to see that show at Treasure Island. He wanted to tell her about the heat and all of the people and he found himself smiling and shaking his head at himself.

He had it bad.

He was beginning to regret not opening up to her, not asking her to come with him as the limo pulled up in front of the Palms hotel, but as the door opened and Sidney found himself staring straight into the lens of at least six TV cameras, those regrets quickly disappeared.

“If I’d known this was going to happen I’d have dressed a little better for arriving,” he muttered to the bell hop who was loading his single case and suit bag onto one of those brass trolleys.

“This is a town that knows how to do red carpet,” the young man smiled as Sid dropped an American twenty into his hand. He was about to ask him to do his damndest to get him by all of the welcoming crew but then there was a TV crew he recognized from home and he put on his best smile and felt glad that Tabby wasn’t beside him, wondering what in the hell was going on. This wasn’t easy for someone who’d grown up in front of the camera like he had. He didn’t really want to put anyone else through it. Not unless he knew it was going to be for keeps.
_______________________________________________________________


“The eastern marine air must be suiting you,” the woman on the other end of the line teased as Tabby sat across a high winged back chair, her legs swinging over the arm, her other hand trailing along the edge of her notebook, which was open on the floor in front of her. “It looks like you’re doing some of your best work. Maybe you’ll listen to me this time when I tell you that you should move out this direction.”

“Maybe,” Tabby smiled. Yeah, maybe, if things became a little more solid, a little more stable with Patrick when he came back, if he came back, she thought to herself, but kept that to herself. “So you’re happy with all three pieces Shannon?”

“Mmm, yeah, great stuff. The authors are thrilled too,” the art director at Harlequin chirped happily and Tabby felt a grin beginning to grow on her face. If she took all three pieces, there would be a big cheque coming her way in the mail. “I gotta say, whoever he is, your muse is something else. He has a real…quality,” Shannon continued and Tabby bit down on her bottom lip to stop herself from laughing. Oh, he had a quality alright. Unbelievable stamina in the sack, a smile that made butter melt and a tender touch that made her knees weak. “I keep thinking though,” Shannon continued on what sounded like a more serious note, “that I’ve seen him somewhere before. You know? Like he’s been in something or on something I’ve seen…,” her voice trailed away and Tabby straightened in the chair, putting her feet flat on the floor. She knew what her art editor was asking; am I going to have to pay some actor or model for his permission to be on the cover of our stories?

“I swear Shannon,” Tabby began, using her serious business voice and not the light, conversational girl talk voice she’d been using before. “I just met this guy. He’s a marketing exec. I promise, this isn’t going to be a problem,” she insisted and waited, chewing on the end of her thumb as the silence went on and on at the other end of the line.

“Mmmm…I could swear that I know him, you know? But maybe he’s just got that quality, that boy next door thing.” Tabby smiled and leaned back into the chair.

“I know, right? I tried a few sketches of him in the cowboy gear, you know, for those kinds of series but…he looks kind of like a chump in anything more than a ball cap but…put a toque on him and he’s great for one of those out of the cold stories,” she suggested and heard her editor laugh on the other end of the line.

“Well, whatever you’ve found out there in the Maritimes, it’s really working for you Tabitha. Keep up the good work. I’m happy to keep signing these cheques if you keep sending me stuff like this. This is much better than that urban, girl in the city stuff you were doing back in Vancouver,” she added and Tabby allowed herself a happy sigh. She had the urge to tell her editor that she’d never felt this way back in Vancouver, but she was hardly ready to admit that to herself, never mind someone at the other end of a phone line that she’d only met twice in her life. “Speaking of which,” Shannon continued, “did you get that list of titles I sent you? I thought of them as soon as I looked at this last piece,” she added, which made Tabby slide sideways again so she could access her notebook.

She tabbed up to the first jpg she’d sent and smiled to herself. Patrick, as a baseball player, hat sitting jauntily back on his head, bat over his shoulder in those tight leggings, socks up to the knees, grinning his big dimpalicious grin at a dark haired girl with a ball in her hand and a mischievous smile on her face. Tabby sighed as she thought about the game he and his friends had put together in the backyard. She’d never seen a casual game get so heated before, but then she’d got into the shower with him afterwards and he’d taken out the rest of his competitiveness on her. Her legs still went to jelly just at the thought of it.

“Yeah, he’s definitely got that athletic build,” Tabby agreed, “and yeah, I won’t have any trouble working up something for a carpenter,” she added, barely able to stop from laughing. She had plenty of ideas for that, what with all the work he’d done around the house. “And hockey…yeah, I’ll have to do a little research on the jerseys and equipment and that, but I think I can figure something out for that too.” Maybe she’d even ask him to pose for her for that one, Tabby thought to herself as she thought about what his powerful legs would look like on skates and that led her to wondering if there were any ice rinks within fifty miles of the place that they could rent a pair.

“Well, like I said girlfriend, keep up the good work. I’m serious. This stuff is great,” Shannon added.

“As long as I see some money in my account, I’m happy you’re happy,” Tabby laughed.

“Sounds like someone else is pretty happy too,” Shannon went back to her conversational, girlfriend chat sort of tone and Tabby sighed out loud.

“I don’t know. It’s all too new but…yeah, it’s been an eventful summer so far,” she admitted. “Look, I’ll get to at least one of these pieces this week, considering he’s off on some kind of business trip. I’ll send you something by the end of the week,” she added, a picture already forming in her head of a tool belt slung low on his hips, just below his six pack, sweat glowing on his bare chest and some poor woman that looked a lot like her but maybe with some geeky glasses staring up at him with naked desire clear on her face.

“I’ll look forward to that Tabitha. Speak with you soon.”

Tabby heard her editor hanging up and she hit the end button on her cell and was about to toss it aside when it made that chirping sound that told her she had a text. She looked down at the screen and found herself grinning as a picture of Patrick and his big, blonde friend Jordy came up, standing beside one of the giant lions outside the MGM grand, grinning and waving like a couple of schoolgirls. The text beneath it was a simple ‘wish you were here’ but it still made her stomach do a little flip.

She wasn’t happy that he was gone, but she had a feeling she was going to be very happy to have him back.
_____________________________________________________


“Did you see that chick?” Jordy asked as he came, breathless, off of the dance floor. “She was hooottt!” Sidney’s answer was the slightest of shrugs, one shoulder only, as he stared out over the dance floor. “Did you want me to get that girl back?” Jordy asked, peering out over the crowd for the young, blonde starlette who had done her best to try and get herself invited along with them into the limo. Sidney shook his head, again. “Oh c’mon man, she was totally your type,” Jordan argued, taking another glass of champagne from one of the scantily clad waitresses as she went by. He offered one to Sid, who again, merely shook his head.

“Jesus, you’re like some kind of fucking bump on a log.” The NHL’s youngest new stud, Patrick Kane, had three girls hanging off of him and was liquored to the gills. Sidney spared him the briefest of glances and then went back to watching the floor show. There was a cute girl bumping and grinding on a stripper pole who had been giving him the eye for the past half hour but he was never going to invite her to the table. He was only looking at her because her long, thick dark mane of hair reminded him of Tabby’s and now that the awards were over, she was pretty much the only thing on his mind.

“You have to forgive my quiet little friend here,” Jordan announced, having downed his glass of champagne he was currently reaching for one of the glow in the dark shots that were sitting in the middle of the table. “He thinks he’s in looooove,” he added, grinning dangerously at Sid before downing three shots in succession, one after the other. Jordan liked to drink and Jordan liked to party, and normally his crazy antics and insistent nature would pull Sidney out of his quiet shell. Not tonight. “If you looove her so much why don’t you tell her who you are?” his friend asked, swaying on the spot like a tall tree in the wind, except it wasn’t wind that was going to fell this tree, Sidney knew.

“I’ll tell her when I’m ready,” he replied, giving Jordan a look that his friend, under normal circumstances, would have quickly interpreted as ‘shut the fuck up’. But when Jordan, or any of his siblings, got this far into their cups, that look was more like a red flag to a bull.

“Look, buddy, she obviously doesn’t know who you or any of us are, so if all you’re fucking worried about is your precious freaking anonym…anononym…fucking privacy or whatever, then dude…you’ve totally got that. She doesn’t fucking know who you are. She doesn’t know about your big fucking house or that you’re fucking loaded. She just thinks you fuck like a bunny rabbit.” Jordan spewed liquid out between his lips as he laughed at his own joke. For himself, Sid was just glad that the club was dark and loud, but even so, he glanced around to be sure that the revelers around them weren’t staring at him with that look, the one that said ‘oh my god, Sidney Crosby fucks like a what?’ “Dude you are almost fucking twenty fucking three years old. No one honestly thinks you’ve kept your schmeckel in your pants all this fucking time, shit!”Jordan added with a note of disgust as Sid shrank down in the booth, sure that they were being overheard and that when he logged on to his lap top later he’d find this entire conversation repeated, verbatim on at least a dozen websites.

“Oh god, you’re not one of those guys are you?” Kaner asked, being fed by one of the girls he was with, as if his hands were broken. When Sid merely raised his brows, Patrick rolled his eyes. “Dude, we have all this,” he gestured with his hands around the shoulders of the two girls nearest to him, “and dude, you’re the king of the fucking mountain. You’re the fucking poster boy. You should be getting pussy left, right and fucking centre. If you tell me you’re holding out for one fucking girl…dude I think I’m gonna puke,” he added, laughing at this own joke. He did that a lot, Sid had noticed. Patrick Kane seemed to think everything that came out of his own mouth was fucking hilarious.

Sid didn’t want to be rude to the girls that were hanging all over this year’s Stanley Cup winner, but he was never, ever, going to want a girl who draped herself over him like that. They were obviously competing to be taken back to his hotel room, if he didn’t take them all, Sid realized as one of them shared an olive from her martini, by mouth, with one of the other girls while Patrick watched, his gaze bleary from a mixture of alcohol and raw desire.

He’d seen Max and Geno do just this, more times than he cared to count and both of them seemed happy to put in the minimum required effort to take some girl home and never start any kind of meaningful relationship, despite Oksana’s blood red painted clutches being dug into the big Russian galoot.

He’d never do that either. He knew a lot of the guys had women in other cities. He knew he wasn’t ever going to be one of those guys. If he gave his heart, that was going to be it. Which made the way he was beginning to feel about Tabby scare him, and more than just a little.

“Look, I have to get up early to be at the draft. I’m gonna call it a night,” he explained as he got up to squeeze his way by Jordan who got up to let him by, but was shaking his head.

“C’mon dude, you’ve got to try some more of the thirty one flavors before you settle for just one,” Kaner called out to him as he left the table behind but Sid didn’t even turn around. He was sure his father would probably have the same argument, but that wouldn’t change his mind either. He had at least another month to decide if he had to put his line back in the water or if he was done fishing, permanently.
___________________________________________________________________


“Mom…Mom, I know I haven’t been to see Uncle Dave, but I told you that there’s still a lot of work to do around the house.” Tabby paced while she answered her mother’s litany of questions.

“If you’re going to get it sold before the end of the summer, in this climate, you need to get it on the market as soon as you can,” her mother scolded her, using that ‘I know best’ tone that had Tabby chewing on her nails.

“I don’t know mom, I haven’t really made up my mind,” she began, trying to think of how she could explain about keeping the place as a summer retreat. That wasn’t something her working class parents would or could ever understand. It would be an extravagance, and she hadn’t quite worked out how she could afford the taxes or the upkeep, but if it turned out that Patrick lived somewhere like Toronto in his real life, and maybe if she decided to follow him there instead of returning to the west coast….

“That’s so like you Tabitha, leave everything until the last minute and then wonder why it doesn’t work out,” she winced as she heard her mother’s frustrated sigh. “There’s more to it than just sticking a for sale sign out front. I’ll call your Uncle, get the place appraised….”

“Mom!” Tabby practically shouted down the other end of the line. “Gramps left the place to me, not you, me. So I think I’ll decide when and if the place goes up for sale.” Taking a deep breath, as she squeezed her eyes shut, Tabby tried to ease the defensiveness and hostility out of her voice. “Just…I promise it will get done…just give me some time to do the renovations. It won’t sell this way.”

“You could be throwing good money after bad Tabitha. I’ll call Uncle Dave, have him come down and look at what you’ve done. You should get another opinion before you get all artsy fartsy on the place. Sometimes I think you forget that not everyone shares your…artistic sensibilities,” her mother grumbled and Tabby felt her hackles rise.

“Mom…the plumbing is ancient, the stairs were practically falling apart…I’m not talking colours, I’m talking basics,” she began but heard another one of her mother’s patented impatient sighs on the other end of the line.

“Tabitha, baby, you’re not Mike Holmes. What do you know about plumbing? And for that matter, have you had the roof or the foundation checked. For all you know the whole place is ready to come down,” Tabby winced again. That was true, she couldn’t deny it. And yet she had begun to love the feel of the old house, even with all its’ leaks, creaks and groans.

“Okay, okay, I’ll call him myself, in the morning, I promise,” Tabby mumbled as she gave in.

“It’s for the best hun, I know you think you’re doing the right thing, but you don’t know anything about this kind of stuff,” her mother told her for the umpteenth time. Tabby gazed out at the reflection of the moon on the lake clenched her teeth. “We just want you to get the best price possible honey. If you’re going to keep going with this art stuff, you’ll need some money to fall back on.” There it was; the dig about her chosen profession. Tabby bit back all of the old arguments that never got her anywhere anyway, like if they’d cared to help with university or if she hadn’t had to work on top of everything. Arguing with her mother, full stop, never got her much of anywhere.

“I said I’d call him,” she replied quietly.

“Besides, you want to come home to your friends don’t you?” her mother continued, like a rabid dog with a bone. “That Damon character called for you today.”

“Did he?” Tabby was surprised to find she felt absolutely nothing at the mention of his name and smiled to herself. “Look mom,” she turned from the window and headed back to the bed and sat down on the edge of it, “I gotta go, it’s late and I have to get up early here so…I’ll talk to you soon okay?”

“Alright hun but just make sure you call your Uncle in the morning. Your Aunt Linda has been expecting to have you over for dinner. You really should make an effort to be more sociable Tabitha,” her mother added, like squeezing lemon juice into an open wound. Tabby rolled her eyes.

“Love you mom. I’ll call in a couple days.”

“Take care of yourself honey.”

It wasn’t that she didn’t think her parents were sincere, Tabby thought as she put the phone back on the charger and lay back on the bed. It was just that they refused to treat her like an adult capable of making adult decisions. And what do you think they would say if they knew you were practically shacked up with a complete stranger? Tabby grinned as she reached over to pull his pillow to her, burying her face in it and inhaling his musky male scent. They’d call the men in the little white coats is what they’d do, she answered herself, and I don’t fucking care.