two

“That was fast.”

The voice came from behind him in the lobby.  It was just after two in the morning and Fiona was getting home from work.  Jon was getting home from working it out with a reasonable facsimile of the girl smiling back at him.

“Didn’t want her to see those dirty sheets, eh?”

In the dramatic lobby lighting, Jon thought Fiona looked like a classic film star.  Her milky skin was out of fashion, only a few women like Dita Von Teese went for the no-sun look.  But it worked for Fiona, and she looked healthy from the rosy flush always in her cheeks.  That inky dark hair shone when she moved.  Her lips were red like she’d been biting them.  Or kissing someone.

“Wanna come up?” Jon asked.  She always was a night owl.

“I’m bushed, but thanks.”  

Suddenly Jon wanted to be close to her.  He wanted to cleanse himself of the girl he’d just been with, whose name he hadn’t even tried to learn.  With Fiona he could have conversations that would be remembered tomorrow, laugh at jokes they would bring up again.  He could do things that mattered and those things made him real.

“Come on.”

“Patrick offered me a jacuzzi bath,” she challenged him.

“I’ll give you a foot massage.”

Fiona winced.  “I know exactly where those hands have been.”

Ten minutes later, she let herself into his condo.  She’d stopped at her place to change into pajamas.  Jon wandered out of his room shirtless with a towel wrapped around his waist, one huge arm pushing a hand through his wet hair.  Fiona watched him the way he’d watched her prance about in her underwear that morning.

They curled up on opposite ends of the couch, their legs toward the middle.  Jon grabbed Fiona’s ankles and yanked her over, feet in his lap, and delivered the promised massage.  Somewhere around the second skit of Saturday Night Live on DVR, she fell asleep.
____

Fiona woke in the morning to a strange room.  She sat up and saw windows - shaded, but lots of them.  Then someone snored.

Oh my God.

Her reflex was to jump out of Jon’s bed, knowing it had been a high-traffic area.  This room could have speed cameras, she thought, and give out tickets.  But her visit yesterday morning to chase off that girl had been on white sheets.  The ones currently twisted around her were beige with white stripes.

“I changed them,” Jon mumbled, rolling toward her.  He was shirtless - she hoped he had something else on beneath the blankets.  With Jon you could never assume.  Fiona lay back and snuggled beneath the down comforter.  Jon slid in close to spoon her from the back.

“You’re a good sleeper,” he said in a small voice.  “Don’t wake up when I touch you.”

“Because you don’t touch the good parts.  I wake up punching then.”

He moved a hand up under her shirt, keeping it to the side well below her breast.  It was still flat and hot against her bare skin, heavy lifting as she inhaled.  It felt... nice.

“Stop snoring,” Fiona said, then closed her eyes to sleep.

When next she woke, Fiona was tangled in various parts of Jonathan’s mostly naked body.  She was on her back, Jon on his side and pressed against hers with one leg over the top and an arm wrapped around.  His face was pressed against her neck, his breath fluttered warmly across her collarbone.  One of her hands was unfortunately - or fortunately - caught between her hip and his lap.  She tried not to move it.

Well he is wearing underwear.

Jon was one of those boys who bled heat.  He could be plugged into the wall and keep the whole place toasty.  In sleep it was even more, trapped under thick layers and sharing skin.  Fiona reveled in it like she was soaking up the sun on some tropical vacation.  Jon stirred a little at her side, one hand wandering up to cup her breast through her shirt.

He laughed first.  “Slut.”

“You’re the one with no clothes on.”

“We could fix that.”

But she just said, “Don’t move” and Jon obliged.  They stayed still and warm, taking turns drifting in and out of sleep until the sun was so high the curtains were losing their battle.  Finally it was nearing ten o’clock.

“I’ll give you a ride to the rink.  You can get a sweater from Viktor.”
___

“Why is it,” Patrick put down the stick blade he was working on, “you always show up here in the morning with Tazer?”

“He’s my neighbor,” Fiona walked a slow circle around him, admiring the head-to-toe spandex Under Armor.

“Yes but what does he do with the boys in your bed before he brings you here?”

She smiled.  “They usually see him and run.”

Pat picked up the heat gun to resume work.  “One of these mornings it’s going to be me he finds.”

“And then he’ll run instead.  Very poetic.”

She had a certain amount of license to go where she wanted.  Being with the captain had it’s privileges.  All the guys knew that Fiona and Jon were not together - and never had been - so they had full liberty to make fun.  

“Tazer, it was nice of you to pick up Fiona at my place this morning,” Brent shouted across the locker room, “but you could have given me a ride too.”

He didn’t even look up.  “She gets ready faster.  Less time doing her hair.”

She let herself into the room, wincing at the smell of sweat-soaked everything.  Victor wore a dark gray t-shirt and his hockey shorts; he smiled when he saw her.

Hmmmmm... dirty thoughts.

But Fiona didn’t try to stop.  Instead she gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek, then took the proffered jersey and dropped it over her head.  It was big but manageable.  She hung around a while before heading for the El to take her home.

“Luck o’ the Irish, boys!” she called.

As the door swung shut behind her, Sharp looked at Stalberg.  “You and Fiona?” he asked.

“No!” said Jon, Viktor and Patrick at the same time.
____

Jon knew he had a problem with possession.  He didn’t care if one of the Hawks got with a girl he’d nailed - he was pretty confident that she’d enjoyed him the most, or at least that’s the story she’d tell.  He just didn’t like people touching things that were his: his gear, his phone.  So the guys of course did - Sharp stole Jon’s bags from hotel rooms, Pat swiped his keys at least once a week.  It was common knowledge that Jon’s things were Jon’s things until he said otherwise.

It was even worse with things he couldn’t have, things he thought he deserved.  The night they were eliminated by Vancouver in the 2011 playoffs had been among the worst of his life.  The Cup was his.  It wasn’t entitlement - he had earned that.  

The same tightness spread through Jon’s chest when he saw Fiona in Viktor’s jersey.  It made his vision narrow, a jealous green crept around the edges until she was all he could see - and she wasn’t even looking at him.

Not that she’s mine, he told himself to be clear, but she was in my bed last night.  And the night before.  The irony was not lost on Jon - the only girl he felt possessive about was the only one he hadn’t fucked.  The girl he was most likely to lose to a teammate.

She doesn’t want Viktor either.

Still, did she have to look so happy about wearing his jersey?  Did her lips need to linger so long on Stalberg’s scruffy cheek?  And fighting her way to the front row, standing at the glass for warm-ups, cheering and smiling?  

Jon didn’t like that at all.

The frustration couldn’t be defined, but it roiled in his gut like anger.  As Jon always did, he turned that to the ice and redefined the phrase ‘power forward.’  He threw more hits in one game than he had in a week.  Scored a goal too, by bulldozing through traffic at the net and forcing it under the goalie’s pad.  He was roaring before it was across the line.  It only fired him up more.

“Tazer!  Reign it in.  You’re gonna get that pretty face of yours punched tonight!” Coach Q hollered.  Jon had already taken a pretty flagrant slashing penalty and was lucky to get only a minor for it.  He hid in the bathroom during second intermission and tried to get his head on straight.

The quiet didn’t help.  In there he had to admit to himself that Fiona was something special.  She was more than his friend, though bonus points aplenty were awarded for the relationship they already had.  Fiona was a prize only to be won, not taken; only to be awarded for good behavior.  And Jon’s behavior was getting worse.  He thought of her as a peach - one he knew would be juicy and sweet - growing more and more ripe at the top of the highest tree.  He’d only been plucking easy fruit from the bottom branches.

There wasn’t time to jerk off.  Jon adjusted his jockstrap as best he could over half a hard-on and went back to the room.

Viktor was sitting, eyes mostly closed and head back, chewing on a protein bar.  The ghost of a smile crossed his face.  “She looks good dressed in my jersey, no?”

Jon kept walking.  “Only if you’ve never seen her undressed.”
____

Fiona sat down next to a very pregnant Abby Sharp, feeling slightly guilty for drinking a beer while Abby held an unopened bottle of water.

“I have to pee every ten minutes as it is,” she explained, tipping the water to demonstrate it was still closed, “and even a few stairs is a lot with this thing around my waist.”

Of course little blond Abby was the most beautiful pregnant woman Fiona had ever seen.  They were higher in the stands that usual, just two rows from the top of the bottom section and on the aisle.  Fiona took her seat, tucking Viktor’s oversized jersey in around her.

“Stalberg? Hmm,” Abby said.  “I see you’re playing hard to get.”

“Ha ha, very funny.  The only thing I’d get from Jon is an STD.”

“Aw, he’s not so bad.  Shows off a little too much but I think he’s just lonely.”

Fiona slugged back her beer, suddenly not feeling bad at all anymore.  “If he’s lonely, he should talk to one of these girls he brings home.”

“He does.”  Abby waited for her young friend to catch on.  “It’s just not the same girl he sleeps with.”

Fiona looked at the ice: a clean sheet every time, just add hot water.  A lot like the way Jon ran his life.  So what if he was lonely?  He had girls to fuck.  And he had a girl to talk to, someone to call and visit and spend time with.  He took advantage of both opportunities regularly.  So what if they weren’t rolled into the same package?

“He doesn’t give those girls a chance,” she argued.

Abby shrugged.  “I’m just saying, if you make this a game then he will beat you, Fi.  Jon doesn’t lose.”

“Well I’m not all that shiny, and we know how Jon likes his trophies.”

Abby let it drop and Fiona was grateful.  They could banter for hours, but for some reason the sound of Jonathan’s name had an edge tonight.  It dragged like a burr down her throat she couldn’t seem to swallow.  When the teams took the ice she was glad of the deafening distraction.

Within the first five minutes she knew the Hawks would win.  They didn’t score right away, but their blood was up.  Jon threw a few hits, then a few more.  He stood a man up at center ice, smeared another along the end boards and came out with the puck.  It was one of those nights where he punched a whole in the defense and the entire team poured through.  Fiona cheered him like she always did, but felt Abby glance her way every time.  Even in the freezing Madhouse Viktor’s jersey was a little too warm.

The Hawks got a goal, then on a fluke the Hurricanes got it right back.  It was an ugly, out-of-position play by Seabrook that left Crawford with his pants down.  Eric Staal nailed it home and even from halfway across the building Fiona heard him roar.  The Canes felt the ice tipping toward Chicago and seized the opportunity to level things out.  On the next play, Chad LaRose crushed Kane against the glass and stripped the puck away, charging toward the net.  Only two minutes in the period.  Fiona saw it before it happened - Jon was too far away but had to try.  He swung mightily and his stick chopped LaRose’s ankles right out from underneath.

“Two minutes, slashing!”

Jon slammed the box door so hard the boards shook.

“Woah,” Fiona didn’t mean to say out loud.  Sometimes Jon got mad on the ice.  His face turned purple and he blasted obscenities that would make a trucker gasp.  Tonight he didn’t say a word, just threw every ounce of his strength into punishing the penalty box gate.

“Somebody’s angry,” Abby said and left it hanging.  The power play unit battled through and only the buzzer freed Jon from his time served.  He skated, head down, right to the locker room.

The pace never let up.  At the end, the Hawks won 5-3 on sheer muscle.  The crowd was as fired up as the players, but Fiona felt exhausted by their efforts.  She didn’t see them having anything left for the bar afterward.

Of course, she was wrong.
____