Chapter 13
NIKKI
“My sister’s going to come by a bit later.”
I squint at Marek. “Why?”
“To say hi. She hasn’t met you yet.”
I chew the inside of my lip. “Is she going to ask for autographs and selfies?”
“No. Well… you never know what Mabel’s going to do.”
Great. I don’t have it in me to be so rude as to tell him I don’t want to meet her. But I don’t want to meet her. I don’t want to meet anyone right now.
This is my second day at Marek’s place. Today being game day, he’s been in and out.
I spent most of my day lying in bed watching TV.
I watched the ladies on The View argue with each other.
I stayed in my pajamas all day, even though I had a shower this morning.
Showers feel really good. I might have another one.
I think briefly about what my routine used to be like. Right now, I’d be at the piano composing, or singing, or listening to music. Music filled my life. Sadness makes my chest feel tight. Something else to grieve for, I guess.
I thought I felt hungry at one point so I went to snoop in Marek’s kitchen, but nothing appealed to me. I ended up having a smoothie since I thought I should eat something.
The place feels empty when he’s gone. And I feel alone.
Which is what I wanted. What I still want.
There’s just something about Marek’s presence that’s comforting.
Thinking about him leaving at 3:30 and not getting home until eleven or midnight made me feel anxious.
Maybe it’ll be okay that his sister stops by.
“Okay. Well. Good luck in your game.”
“Thanks.” He studies me.
I sense his concern, so before he can ask for the hundredth time, I say, “I’m fine.”
His lips twitch. “I know.”
I roll my eyes, but my own lips are being tugged by a smile.
I go back to bed and click through the channels until I find the one the hockey game is on.
I’ve never watched Marek play hockey, other than at the All Star game last year.
I used to love watching hockey, but the last few years that’s been one of the things that’s fallen off my plate with everything else going on.
Grayson calls. We talked the day after I got home, and now today.
I don’t mind talking to him because he’s the only one who isn’t crashing out about what happened.
He was upset, yeah, and relieved I’m home and okay, but he’s always chill.
So I tell him where I am, but ask him not to tell Mom and Dad while I hide out for a while.
They call every day but they can think I’m at my place.
I doze off for a while, wake up, have another shower, and once again contemplate eating. Seems like a lot of work. The game’s going to start soon, so I move my lazy butt from bed to couch in case Marek’s sister shows up.
And she does. A quick knock on the door announces her arrival. I traipse across the hardwood floor in my socks to peer through the door viewer, briefly contemplating hiding in my room and not answering. I guess that’s her? I open the door to let her in.
She beams a big smile at me as she sails in with arms full of stuff. “Hiiiii! I’m Mabel Smits, Marek’s sister.”
“I could tell from the resemblance.” Their hair’s almost the same color of chestnut brown, but Mabel has gold highlights in hers. They have the same eyes—not a flat brown but a sparkly brown like a chocolate diamond, or smoky quartz. “You’re much prettier, though.”
She laughs. “Thanks.” She continues over to the island to deposit her goods. “Has the game started?” She glances at the TV.
“Not yet.”
“Okay, good. I brought popcorn and beer. My favorite things to eat while watching hockey. Also some grapes. And Cheez-Its.”
Wow. “I’m not really a beer drinker.”
“Oh.” Her face falls. “I’m sorry.” She smacks her forehead. “That was selfish of me, to assume everyone likes beer because I do.”
Yeah, kind of. Whatever. “I’ll just have some water.”
Chatting the whole time, she finds a bowl and dumps the contents of an enormous bag of popcorn into it, then stashes the beer in the fridge, minus the one she’s going to drink.
“Let’s just get this out of the way. I’m a huge fan of yours!
” Then she takes a deep breath. “But I’m not going to go all fan girl and make you sign my shirt.
I know what you’re going through right now.
But I do love your music! So do my friends.
They would freak out if they knew this was happening.
” She stops, composes herself, and says, “But that’s enough about that.
Come on, let’s sit.” She sets the bowl of popcorn in the middle of the couch, so I sit on the other side of it from her.
She reaches over to pick up the remote to turn up the volume of the TV just as the puck is dropped at center ice.
Wow. That’s loud. I guess it’s hard to hear over popcorn crunching.
I take a couple of pieces of popcorn and chew them. Yeah, the TV is still loud.
And it only gets louder as the Storm score a couple of goals and the crowd screams. They also scream when the Storm clear the puck from their zone while killing a penalty, and when the goalie (I think his name is Archibald) makes a save.
It’s a lot of noise, and with Mabel chattering next to me, my head starts to hurt. My chest feels tight.
God. Earlier the silence in the apartment was asphyxiating me. Now the noise is.
“Is it true that you played hockey?” Mabel asks during the first intermission, shifting to face me on the couch.
“Yes. It was a long time ago.”
“That’s really cool, though.”
“My brother plays hockey. He’s really good. He’s at Harvard.”
“My brother plays hockey, too!” Mabel laughs at her own joke. “Seriously, we have that in common. When you were kids, did you have to put up with a van full of stinky hockey equipment?”
I don’t want to have something in common with her. I want her to be quiet. “All the time.”
She tells me a long-winded story about her boyfriend Ben playing with Marek and how she had a crush on him as a kid, yadda yadda. I remember Marek telling me she’s dating the team captain, Ben Antonov.
In the second period, I try to focus on Marek to distract myself from the noise and Mabel’s gabbing. I don’t think she even notices that I’m not responding to her. My headache gets worse, though, and when I rub my temples, she says, “Are you okay?”
“Oh, yeah! Fine. Just a bit of a headache.”
“Oh. Do you need something? I know Marek has Advil here.” She jumps up. “I lived here for a couple of months after I broke up with my last boyfriend. Asshole,” she mutters under her breath. “I’ll get you some.” She hurries off and returns with a small plastic bottle.
“I don’t like taking stuff,” I say. But I open the bottle and pop one of the pills, washing it down with water.
“Sometimes you just need to,” she says gently. “It’s better than suffering.”
She has no idea what suffering is.
In the third period, I lose track of the game, thinking back to the concert, remembering being on the stage singing my heart out, the love I felt from the crowd, and then the crashing noise and the screams. I close my eyes. Why do I let myself relive this shit? It’s like I want to hurt.
“Yeaaaaaah!” Mabel leaps up and thrusts her arms in the air.
I jump and let out a little scream of fright, then cower in on myself. My heart springs into battle mode with a wild beat.
Mabel rounds and stares at me. “What? Oh my God. Did I scare you?”
Trembling, I can’t even speak.
“Oh, Nikki.” She sits next to me where the popcorn bowl was and takes my hands, squeezing them. “I’m so sorry. I was excited. Marek just scored and we’re in the lead again!”
I stare at her. I don’t care about the game. It’s a game. I care about the heart attack I seem to be having. I pull in a shaky breath and try to nod. I pull my hands from hers and shift away from her, blinking rapidly, fighting the urge to jump up and run. “Fuck,” I breathe.
“What? What is it?” Her eyes dart over my face.
She seems so distressed I almost feel bad about doing this to her. But I’m kind of struggling to breathe, a quaking deep beneath my ribs. “Sorry,” I mutter, bending my head to my knees. “Just…”
Her hand rubs my back. I flinch and shrug it off.
I loved it when Marek touched me soothingly. I don’t want to be touched right now.
“What can I do?” she asks, an agitated note in her voice.
I roll my forehead side to side on my knees.
For a moment the only sound in the room is the hockey game, the play-by-play guy calling what’s happening on the ice.
The roar of the crowd intensifies and then the horn sounds to end the game.
“And the Storm win with a score of four-three tonight,” the announcer says.
“Thanks to a game-winning goal by Marek Smits. We’ll talk to him in just a moment. ”
Marek.
I want him here.
Oh, God.
I’m sweating. But I’m breathing. My heart isn’t exploding in my chest. I swallow thickly and then my water bottle appears in front of my eyes. I take it from Mabel, sit up, and drink deeply.
I let out a long, windy sigh. “Sorry,” I tell her. I swallow again. “This shit keeps happening.”
“I’m so sorry I triggered something.” She pushes her hands through her long wavy hair, her gaze bouncing around the room, eyelashes fluttering. “I’m so sorry.”
“I think I need to go lie down,” I mumble. “I’ll just… go to my room.”
She springs up. “Let me help you.”
I shake my head vehemently. “It’s fine. I’m good.” I stand too, with my water, and make my way to the bedroom, my head still woozy. I sense Mabel wringing her hands behind me, but I can’t deal with her right now. I just need to lie down. Where it’s quiet. And dark.
So I do that.
I vaguely hear Mabel moving around the apartment. Hopefully she’ll just go home. I doze off for a little while, then stumble into the bathroom. Back in my room, I change into a nightie and crawl back under the covers and fall asleep again.
* * *
When I wake up again, I have no idea what time it is. The room is dark, silent… except for the sound of someone softly snoring.
What the fuck?
I try to flop over but there’s a big, warm body in my way. Jesus!
Marek.
I can tell just by the shape of him. The smell of him. He always smells good.
What the hell is he doing in my bed?
It is nice, I have to admit. He throws a lot of heat and I feel all cozy and toasty. And he’s not really snoring; more like husky breathing.
But still! The nerve!
I poke his shoulder. “Hey. Wake up.”
He stirs and mumbles.
“Why does this keep happening?” I jab my finger into a muscle again. “I keep waking up with you.”
He rubs his face and blinks a few times at me. “Hey. You okay?”
“Yes. Why?”
He lifts a hand as if to touch my face, then drops it. “You had another bad dream.”
“I… did?” I don’t remember. But then I do… sort of. It’s fuzzy and shadowy, but I do remember a feeling of being buried, struggling desperately to free myself in the dark… terrified. I frown.
“Yeah. You were making a lot of noise, so I came in here. But I don’t think you really woke up. I just got in and hugged you until you calmed down. I guess I fell asleep, too.” He yawns.
Well, shit.
Then Marek stretches and I am instantly aware of his bare, hairy leg rubbing against my bare and hopefully not hairy leg. My nightie has ridden up around my hips.
Every nerve ending in my body sparks.
“You’re okay now?” he asks quietly. “You don’t remember the dream?”
I close my eyes. “Not really. I remember being afraid.” I puff out an exhale. “It wasn’t a very good night.”
“Yeah. Mabel said you weren’t feeling well.”
“I guess that’s one way to put it.” I pause. “She waited for you to get home?”
“Yeah. She was worried about you.”
“You didn’t tell her…” My words trail off.
“She knows about what happened to you. I haven’t told her that you’re…” Now he stops. We’re both dancing around saying outright that I’m a loon.
“She scared the crap out of me and I kind of had a meltdown.”
“Yeah. She told me that.” His thick eyebrows pull together.
“I was spaced out and she startled me.” I look into his eyes, into the warm brown flecked with bronze.
“She didn’t mean to do that,” he murmurs.
“Well, I know it wasn’t intentional.” My voice holds a hint of impatience. Geez, I’m a bitch lately. I sigh. “I’m sorry. I get annoyed with myself when shit like that happens.”
“Have you thought about seeing someone for help?”
My spine stiffens. “I don’t need help. I’m fine.”
“Mmm. Okay. But don’t be too hard on yourself. You’re having a reaction to a traumatic event. It’s normal.”
“It’s not normal for me. And I don’t like it.” I pout, knowing I sound like a child and possibly bolstering his suggestion I should seek help.
“Yeah. I know. You get pissed off and frustrated because you can’t control it.”
I meet his eyes again. “Yes.”
The corners of his mouth kick upward and the connection stretches between us like warm taffy.
And once again I’m hyperaware of all his bare skin, all his muscles, all the heat radiating off him.
I want to snuggle into him and let him hold me again like he did last night, which sadly I do not remember.
The impulse to roll and lift a leg to throw it over his hip is powerful.
Marek turns toward me. Thick, liquid desire gathers between my legs. I actually move an inch closer to him, longing to feel his mouth on mine.
He looks at my mouth. His eyelids lower.
My lips part.
An alarm goes off somewhere in the apartment.
Marek drops his head back to the pillow.
“Fuck.” Then he throws back the covers and surges out of bed.
In the dark, I can make out the shadowy shape of his body as he walks to the door.
He’s wearing black butt-hugging boxer-briefs that become more visible when he pulls the door open.
I roll to my back and stare at the ceiling. I’m kind of turned on. My core is heavy and I’m tingling everywhere.
Well. That’s bothersome.
It’s a good thing that alarm went off. I don’t give in to my impulses anymore and whew, I almost did there.
He reappears in my doorway with his phone in hand, the alarm silenced. “Sorry,” he says. “We have a practice this morning.”
“You just played last night.”
“Yep.”
“You work hard.”
“That’s why I’m in such amazing shape.”
A smile tugs my lips. “Indeed.”
He smiles too and looks up from his phone. “I’ll be home around one.” He hesitates. “Would you like to go out somewhere?”
“Like… where?”
“I don’t know. Anywhere. Nobody knows you’re here. We could go for a walk along the river.”
I consider that. “Maybe. If I have the energy.”
When I met Marek in Vegas, there was an instant pull of attraction between us. He made no secret of the fact that he was interested. I loved it, because I was, too.
But since he showed up at my place on Sunday, he’s given no hint that he still feels that way. Interested. As in, sexually. He’s been clear about wanting to look after me. But not in a hootchy kootchy kind of way.
Until just now.