Chapter 23
NICO
“So this is it, huh?”
“Yep.” Jo closes the door behind us, and I turn in a circle, taking in the darkroom.
“It’s smaller than I imagined.”
She sets her bags down in the corner then flips a switch that powers on a fan in the ceiling, and I gesture to where the sound is coming from with a questioning eyebrow.
“To filter out the chemicals.”
“This where you kill me now?” I tease, removing my coat, and she tosses me a look that says if she wanted to kill me, she would’ve done it by now.
I bend to kiss her neck, and she elbows me out of the way. “Don’t touch anything. You don’t want to get any of this on your skin.”
I hold up my hands in innocence, but as soon as she hits the lights, plunging the room into darkness, save for a dim red glow, I curl my hands around her waist. She whines my name, using her butt to nudge me back. As if that would make me want to stop touching her.
Since we don’t have a game until tomorrow, I’d headed right to Jo’s place after practice this morning.
Nearly all of my free hours have been spent with her, mostly relaxing at either of our apartments, but we had Thanksgiving with Alma and even caught a movie the other night.
It was some indie film that was almost three hours long.
I could barely keep my eyes open, but Jo loved it, so I did too.
Not that I ever thought it was going to be difficult being in this fake relationship with her, but nothing about it feels fake anymore. It hasn’t for a long time.
Ever since my parents split, I’d always been looking for attention, in a lot of terrible ways and bad places.
But after moving to Canada and finding a home with the Sheffields, I knew I wanted that for myself.
I wanted more of that pure kind of love and support, but I got lost in my pursuit, confusing sex for real emotion.
I’ve been mindlessly searching all these years for someone in my corner, someone who doesn’t care about who I am or what’s in my bank account or even what my face looks like.
Jo doesn’t care about any of that.
In fact, I think most of the time she’s embarrassed by my status. She certainly does not seek out the spotlight and has all but run away the two times fans have stopped me for pictures and autographs while we’ve been together.
All she seems to want is me to give her sunflowers, which are becoming more difficult to find now that it’s December, play with her hair, which is my latest obsession, and run defense against her family.
Although, ever since Granny’s party, they’ve pretty much left her alone, so I have the easiest job in the world.
“What can I do?” I ask, my eyes adjusting to the darkness as Jo puts on gloves to pour liquids into three different trays.
“Sit there and look pretty.”
I smack her ass. “You know I like it when you get an attitude.”
She sticks out her tongue at me, and I exhale a noisy breath. “Careful, Jojo. You’re wearing my sweatpants. It’ll only take a good yank to have them off.”
She finishes pouring and faces me with her hand on her hip. “Is that a threat?”
“I have excellent eyesight in the dark.”
She huffs a laugh. “According to you, is there anything you’re not good at?”
“Nope.”
“What about knitting?”
“Greatness takes time, Josephine.”
She snickers and pivots away from me, reaching onto a shelf that I think has her name on a small glow-in-the-dark tag. “What’s that?”
“The negatives. I came to develop them the other day.”
“So you rent this place out?”
She works with the negatives, studying them closely, putting them into a microscope-like machine as she explains the building is an art co-op.
It holds all kinds of visual artists, writers, filmmakers, and even one dancer who teaches adults in a room down the hall.
They all share the space and rooms for their needs.
According to Jo, this is where she’s met her “weird art nerd” friends.
She eventually quiets, concentrating, so I stop asking her questions, happy to watch her work. In her element, I don’t think she even remembers I’m here because she startles a little when I ask, “What’s that for?”
“Developer. It brings out the image.” She lifts the paper, tilting it so I can see the faint shadows appearing. It’s magic, watching the image emerge from nothing.
I lean in, trying to make it out, but she playfully pushes me away. “Not yet. You’ll see when it’s done.”
I can’t help but steal a kiss, my hands finding her hips, but she tilts her head out of the way. When I whine, she eyes me. “I know what you’re doing.”
“What?”
“You’re trying to seduce me.”
“I’m always trying to seduce you.”
“Yeah, but you can’t here. If these chemicals spill, neither one of us will be happy.”
“I’m not touching them,” I say against the skin of her neck. She has her hair up in a messy bun on the top of her head, so I take advantage of the rare opportunity.
“But you’re distracting me.”
I lightly bite her neck. “You are distracting me.”
“Nico.”
“Josephine.”
“You’re in my sweats.” I tug on the waistband
“Because you told me to put them on. Said you didn’t care if I ruined them in here.”
“Yeah.” I run my hands up toward her breasts. “Let me ruin them.”
“Oh my god! I’m going to kick you out,” she scolds, though she can’t hide the trace of laughter in her voice.
I skim my thumbs over her nipples. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would. You’re basically trying to fuck me in the middle of a science experiment, so, yes, I will kick you out if you mess this up.”
I burst out laughing. Jo, dropping an f-bomb? I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it out of her mouth before, so I know she means business. I sit back in my seat like a good little boy, and she moves the paper to the next tray.
“Stop bath,” she says. “It halts the developing process.”
After a few seconds, she moves it to the last basin.
I jut my chin toward it. “And that is?”
“Fixer. It makes the image permanent.” She glances at me, a flirtatious smile playing on her lips. “Want to do the next one?”
“Can I?”
She hangs up the print on the line to dry then enlarges the photo on a new paper before handing it over, standing right next to me, telling me what to do. Her soft curves rub against my arm when I move it, and I think she’s punishing me.
But we go back and forth like this, developing more of her film, clipping them to the line on the other side of the room. I don’t know how much time has passed; I don’t care all that much, but eventually, Jo takes in our work and nods. “I think that’s it.”
I join her, snaking my arm around her shoulders to tug her back against me, both of us admiring her photography. I’m not sure if I was so focused on Jo that I didn’t really care about what was on the prints, but for the first time, I really take them all in.
Two dozen or so black-and-white photographs of me.
Or of things that represent me.
There is one of my face, taking up almost the whole frame, a crooked smile slanting my mouth.
Then there is one of Gus, nestled on the back of my couch, right against my shoulder and neck.
My haphazard sneakers next to a pair of shorts and underwear on the floor, almost as if they’d been removed in a hurry.
A dog-eared paperback, though the point of view is only so the audience can see the pages, with hockey gear out of focus in the background.
There’s one of my hand tugging on the neck of my T-shirt, my lower jaw and Adam’s apple prominently centered.
Half of my face reflected in the mirror in the hall.
My empty living room, overexposed by the sunlight coming in through the window.
Sunflowers covering almost every inch of her apartment.
The scar on my forearm from a skate blade in middle school when I collided with another kid and got tangled up is mostly invisible, but it’s in stark relief in the photo.
My sleeping face hidden by my bicep, my arm wrapped around the pillow on her bed.
My lower torso, an inch of skin revealed, as if I’d been adjusting my shirt, and the upper part of my leg, including the shorts she calls slutty because they reveal my thigh tattoo, which she captured. But it’s all off-center, so it’s revealing and yet soft…?
Is that how she views me?
Bright sunshine and sex? Masculine yet tender?
I swallow the sudden lump in my throat, my nose clogging, pressure building behind my eyes, and I blink a few times, forcing them to stop watering.
“What do you think?” she asks in a quiet voice, and it’s a while before I can meet her gaze, afraid I’ll give it all away.
Afraid that I’ll let it slip exactly how much I love her.
I’m not sure when it happened, but I know I love her.
I know it in my bones.
I don’t even have to think about it. It’s muscle memory, so deeply embedded, I don’t even remember what it was like not loving her.
She has very simply become a part of me.
And I’m so overwhelmed by the realization, I can’t do anything except take her face in my hands and kiss her.
“Nico,” she protests, laughing. “I need to—”
“Shh.” I silence her with a kiss.
She melts into me, her hands gripping my shirt, even as she says, “I need to clean up and—”
“After.”
I walk her backward until she’s pressed against the door, and I can finally kiss her like I want to.
I trail my mouth down her neck and throat as I let my hands explore any and every part of her, pushing at her clothes.
I did tell her to wear my team sweats today.
I like the idea of her wearing my clothes.
They’re a bit big on her, but the inner knot of the strings comes apart easily enough, and with one tug, they drop down to her ankles.
I do too.
I barely have her underwear off before I’m licking at her pussy.
My conscience warns me this isn’t the time or place, but—fuck—I love this woman. The right time and place to worship her is all the time. In every place.
Her fingers curl into my hair as her legs tremble. “Nico, I… I…”
I stare up at her in the red-tinged light, her stomach heaving with her breaths, her nipples pointed and showing from how I have her shirt and bra rucked up carelessly. But I can’t get close enough, fast enough.
“Come fast, Jo. I need you to get there.” I slide two of my fingers inside her. She’s already soaking wet. “Please, Jo. I’m dying.”
“I am dying,” she says between pants. “Dying.”
I smile into her wet flesh then suck on her slit, petting the swollen spot inside her until she convulses, her orgasm causing her to go weak-kneed.
I stand and catch her around the waist in time, hauling her into my arms. She pulls down the waistband of my joggers then wraps her legs around my waist as I blindly pat at my pockets for my wallet.
When I find it, I open it single-handedly, only to find it empty of condoms.
My mind fills with images almost as if to torture me in this moment, of our first time together, of the night of five times after my last series of road games, of the afternoon I fucked her on my dining room table, and this morning when I bent her over the edge of her bed.
It occurs to me now that I used the last condom then. Son of a bitch.
I shove my wallet back into my pocket. “I don’t have a condom.”
She lifts her head from where she’d been sucking on my neck, her eyes glazed. “It’s okay.”
“What?”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s okay?”
She leans back, and I readjust my hold on her, my dick straining between us, literally weeping at the tip when she winds her hand between us to brush her thumb over the slit. “I didn’t tell you. I mean…I wasn’t sure…”
“About what?”
“I started birth control.”
“Since when?”
“Since last month. I went to the doctor after we…” She ducks her head in that sweetly embarrassed way of hers. “After we were together for the first time. I got the pill. I know we use condoms, and I—”
“That’s really smart. I’m glad you did.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.” I kiss her, practically biting at her mouth. “We don’t want kids.”
Then it immediately occurs to me what I just said. “We had that conversation. About being parents. And everything. And—”
She’s the one to bite at my lip this time. “It’s okay, Nico. If we don’t use a condom, I’m okay with it. I know you’ve been tested, and neither one of us is with anyone else, right?”
I stare at her, stunned.
She trusts me.
Me.
The guy with the worst reputation in the league.
I don’t plan on breaking her trust, but the fact that she’s giving it to me so openly and without reservation, it feels like a miracle.
I can never fuck it up.
Because after everything she has been through, I know it would devastate her.
And I would break my own heart before I ever broke hers.
“You sure?” I ask, and she nods.
“I’m sure.”
Then we seal it with a kiss. I pour all of my feelings into it, hoping she can feel my promises to love her and protect her. To keep her heart safe. To make her mine, completely.
I lift her slightly, pressing her back against the door, carefully positioning us so I can angle my cock up, and she can sink back down onto it, all the while holding her up. This is a complicated dance, but one it feels like we’ve done so many times before.
She wraps her arms around my neck, breathing hard against my ear, rocking against me, meeting each of my thrusts. “Fuck, Jo, please.” I let my forehead drop against her shoulder. “It’s so good.”
The tight grip of her is unbelievable. A warm glove. The wet friction.
It is indescribable except that I’ve never felt anything like it before.
Euphoria rushes my veins, and I whimper into her neck, barely hanging on. “I can’t take it anymore.”
“It’s okay. Let go.”
“Come with me.”
She presses away from me enough that I can bend to suck on her throat at the same time I thrust into her. She comes, and I follow immediately after, squeezing my eyes shut to the stinging in them.
I don’t know if she can somehow sense my sudden rush of emotion, but she pets the back of my head, kissing my temple over and over, murmuring how it’s okay.
When I can eventually lift my head, she smiles softly, curving her palms around my cheeks. “You know this isn’t usually how photographs are made. This was a one-off.”
I give in to a chuckle. My surprisingly funny girl.
“I need to clean up,” she tells me, and I set her on her feet. Then she tips her face up to mine, so much attitude when she says, “So do you.”
Fuck, I love her.