Delayed Penalty by Shey Stahl

12. The Blue Line

The line separating the attacking/defending zones from the neutral zone.

Ami

While Evan’s at practice, Callie comes over to hang out with me. Which I welcome because again, being alone isn’t my thing lately.

“Where’d the kitten come from?” Callie asks, staring at Ice as if he’s going to attack her.

“Leo dropped it off. Told Evan he needed loyal pussy.”

Callie tsks her tongue. “What a dick. Leo has no class.”

“He’s funny though.”

“Until he’s not. He can be a fucking asshole.”

“I suppose.” I stare blankly at the windows overlooking the city shrouded in heavy clouds, remembering Evan’s words before he left. Think of what I like. What I want, he won’t let me have.

Callie notices right away I’m chewing on my thoughts. “Is there something you want to talk about?” she asks, staring at me.

I smile, curling into a pillow on Evan’s couch. “Am I that transparent?”

“Are you doing all right?”

“It’s just hard.” I sigh, not sure how to put this. She might be the only person who can understand. Even if she doesn’t, at least I can get it off my chest. “Evan is... well, he’s probably the best guy I’ve ever met, but he acts like I’m some kind of delicate flower he’s going to rip the petals off, and damn it if I don’t want a few petals ripped off. By him. And I know that’s strange to want, given my situation.” I shrug one shoulder, my throat tightening with nerves. “Maybe I want the aggressive hockey player and the occasional pulling of hair. But he won’t do anything aside from kiss me. What’s wrong with me? He keeps saying my age is an issue for him too.”

“Well, for starters...” Callie pauses, taking a drink from her flask and then sets it down. “Your hair isn’t long enough to be pulled. So that’s out of the question for a few months. And then we have the whole aggressive Evan thing.” She grins, trying to be honest. “It’s not going to happen.”

Aggressive Evan thing? What does she mean by that?

“He cares about you. Be glad he’s treating you with respect. He’ll come around, but you didn’t see what he saw. Yeah, it happened to you, but Evan found you. He was there when they were trying to revive you and praying you survived it. Then by some weird twist of fate, he fell for the girl he saved, and now you’re asking him to get physical when he saw the aftermath of you being raped... and you were a virgin.”

Well, now that she puts it like that, I feel like an ass. “How’d you know I was….”

“You’re young, innocent, small town…. I’m assuming. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

I don’t, because there’s nothing to correct. Nervously, I run my hand through the back of my hair, ruffling the curls starting to loop at the ends.

Callie catches my gaze, dipping her head forward. “Does he know you were a virgin?”

I bite my lip. “I don’t know. He’s never asked.”

“He probably doesn’t know then. Just give him time. I haven’t known Evan long, but I do know he doesn’t do anything without putting his heart and head into it first.”

“Callie...” It takes me a while, but this has been on my mind for some time. “This might sound weird, but you and him… you had sex, didn’t you?”

Callie’s eyes widen and she darts her eyes around the condo. “You’re right, that sounds weird.”

“You have, haven’t you?”

She nods but doesn’t give me anything else.

My throat threatens to tighten up completely with my next question, desperate for any intimate details on him. “What was it like?”

Callie balks at me. “Why would you want to know that?”

Damn it. Why’d I ask that? I’m so embarrassed.

“Okay, I’m sorry. You’re not weird.” Sighing, she softens her expression. “It’ll be different with you, so I can’t really say.”

“Why?”

“He likes you. We never had that. I’m sure he enjoyed himself, but that’s all it was. Motions. Sex. There was never anything there besides friendship, not love.”

Ignoring her love comment, thoughts spin inside my head. “Was he rough?”

She snorts. “Only when I wanted him to be.”

“Damn it, Callie!” I get frustrated with her vagueness. “I’m looking for details and you’re making it really hard!”

“My God, you’re such a girl right now. Fine... but if you get mad and unfriend my ass over this, imma be pissed.”

“I won’t unfriend you,” I assure her, smiling.

Sighing, her cheeks turn the slightest shade of pink, as if she’s uncomfortable with what’s happening. “The first time I fucked him, it wasn’t long after the first game of the season and they’d won. Everyone was at the bar. I was messing around with Jake Sedin at that time, but things were kind of going south, so I was flirty. It wasn’t like Jake and I were dating, so it wasn’t a big thing. Evan was there, fresh off a win, smiling, flirty, and nice. He bought me a drink, I bought him one... next thing I knew he was in my bed showing me all about a D-man’s strength.” She winks and then sighs. “Defensemen are some of the best in bed I’ve come across.”

My turn for my cheeks to turn a bright shade of red. “Oh.”

Callie frowns. “See, damn it. You didn’t want details, did you?”

“No.” I wave my hands around. Surprisingly, I’m not jealous like I thought I would be. Instead, I enjoy getting some kind of behind-the-scenes look at Evan. “So was he good?”

Her gaze glistens with amusement. “Made me come three times in a matter of fifteen minutes... I’d say he has some skills.”

Holy shit. I’ve never…. Okay, I have to take a deep breath at that point. A very shaky awkward deep breath. Three times in fifteen minutes.

God. Can you imagine?I am, believe me.

“Do the guys know that you sleep with more than one at a time?” I ask, wondering if they know she’s not exclusive. It was another question I’ve been dying to ask her. I’ve never met a girl like Callie before or the way she regards her sexual encounters like they’re no big deal. Maybe that shows my lack of experience. I don’t know.

“Yeah, most of them know. Evan knows, Leo, Remy, Tyler, most all the guys on the team do. I had a boyfriend once, and when he found out that I had slept with most of the starting four lines on the Chicago Blackhawks, well, he made me feel slutty. They don’t.” Callie shrugs. “Just because I sleep with them doesn’t make me a slut. If they fuck a different girl every night, they’re considered cool. People put too much weight into being with just one person. I’m not saying that being with just one is bad because to be in love, that’s amazing, but I haven’t found that yet. So I have fun until the day I find love.”

I let her words sink in, enjoying the peek into her theory on sexual relationships. “That makes sense.”

And then she adds, “I thought I was in love with Evan....”

My jaw drops. Literally.

Callie snorts. “Oh, don’t be so surprised. I’m sure you can understand his appeal. He’s got the looks and the heart. Evan’s a good deal, and that’s hard to find these days. But then we got to know each other, and it wasn’t that we didn’t like each other... it was just that we were both very different from one another. I’m a lot like—” She pauses, I assume trying to think of someone I might have known to compare herself to. “Leo. Suggestively open about everything. Mase, he has that quiet confidence about him that attracts you. Draws you in with his mystery.”

Believe me, I know exactly what she’s talking about, it’s just surprising to hear it coming from Callie. “So what made you realize Evan wasn’t for you?”

“Uh, well, I told him how I was feeling and after laughing in my face, he kindly told me the feelings weren’t there for him, and he didn’t want to lead me on. So we stopped hanging out and I realized what I had been feeling wasn’t love. It was just different from what I had with other guys. Evan was gentle and understanding, even if what we were doing was just sex, he made me feel special. Like my time with him was all that mattered.”

That I understand because it’s exactly how I feel about Evan and what draws me to him. But then I think, what if his feelings are like the ones he had for Callie? Will he say I’m just a friend? Will he say he can’t return my feelings?

Callie picks up on the questions swimming through my head. “Hey, stop that.” Reaching forward, she touches my knee. “I’m not sure if he’s said it or not, and frankly, it’s none of my business, but he’s into you. I’ve never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you.”

I force a smile, not knowing if it’s the truth.

 

After a physical therapy appointment, and while Evan’s at a team meeting and has press obligations, I have lunch with Evan’s mom and sister when they get into town for the game tomorrow night. They come over with takeout from Girl and the Goat.

“What the deal with you and Evan? Are you dating?” Catelyn finally asks, as if she’d been dying to ask it the second she came through the door.

I guess to an outsider, okay, even to me sometimes this is weird. Like some kind of Pretty Woman situation from that movie my aunt used to make me watch all the time. Only I’m not a hooker and Evan’s not a businessman. He saved me from dying four months ago and hasn’t left my side. It’s far from that, though. If you look close enough when we’re together, you see it—feel it even. We have something neither of us can walk away from. But still, we aren’t dating, officially.

“I’m not sure. I like him a lot,” I admit.

Catelyn laughs, as does Judy. They aren’t buying my “I like him a lot” cop out.

“Ami, I may be his mother, but I’m not blind,” Judy tells me, closing the lid to her take out box. “I’ve seen the way you look at him and the way he looks at you. It’s more than just friends.”

“I just…” I hesitate a moment, the anxiety of admitting it out loud terrifying. “I have this connection to him I can’t explain, and I’m not sure I can do it justice with words. I lost my family. I lost everything I loved last summer, and then I came here and....” I have to stop and swallow, my mouth impossibly dry, admitting this to his family. “But I heard a voice when I was out of it. I thought it was my brother telling me not to give up. Then Evan showed up at the hospital when I woke up, and it was him. He’s the one who told me to fight. Begged me to hold on.”

Judy smiles softly. “That sounds like my boy.”

“What do you remember about that night?” Catelyn asks.

Judy nudges her with an elbow to her ribs. “Catelyn!”

“Ow, Mom!”

“Well, don’t bring that up.”

I wave her off. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.” And so I tell them my story. “I was working at Ballet Chicago and met Blake Keldrick, an instructor there. He let me stay with him and his wife, Sena. It’d been about three weeks since I had moved to Chicago, and Blake asked if I wanted to go to dinner with him. So I did. I didn’t think anything of it. When his wife didn’t come, I still didn’t think anything of it. I was seventeen. What would a thirty-two-year-old man want to do with a seventeen-year-old?” Drawing in a deep breath, I hesitate to mention this next part. I haven’t even told Evan. I told Detective Paulsen but haven’t had the nerve to tell Evan. “I remember him kissing me, and then I slapped him and left the restaurant. That’s where my memory of the night ends.” I glance up at Judy and Catelyn, who have both grabbed each one of my hands. Now I see why I’ve kept this information from Evan. I want to move on, and as the anxiety works through me, I realize why I am. I don’t like their reaction. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me. “There are a few images that come to mind, but nothing of substance aside from something that was said to me by whoever it was. I can picture his face sometimes. He had dark eyes. Like black… but it could have been the darkness of the alley.”

“What do you remember him saying to you?” Catelyn asks, her eyes wide and glossy.

I struggle through the words, my voice shaking. “You want it, don’t you? I bet you like it rough.”

I hate repeating the words.

Judy gasps. “Are you’re sure it wasn’t Blake?”

I shrug, my spine curving, unable to hold my shoulders up with the weight of my anxiety pressing down on me. “I don’t know that it wasn’t him, but I know he was questioned from what Evan and the detective told me. His DNA didn’t match the blood and...” I wasn’t sure how graphic to be with Catelyn, though she’s only two years younger than me. “…fluids he left,” I whisper.

It’s a relief telling Catelyn and Judy about what happened. It’s like I’ve finally crossed a line. As if by me talking to people, like Evan and his family, I can be open and deal with it. I don’t need to keep this to myself and deal with it alone.