Chapter 41

Hello Lovely Readers! I don't even know where to begin in explaining why I've been putting my writing on the back burner lately. So I'm going to skip that whole story and just thank you guys for still reading this blog in the first place :) 

 Hope you guys like this one, I know people have been wondering why Sid's been acting like he has 4 heads but he's a boy. I just want this chapter to explain more about what he's thinking so hopefully I achieved that and it made sense.



Sid's POV:

I wasn't a runner by nature. Actually, I hated it. The fact that I could skate didn't mean that I could run. Other people were graceful about it and usually I just felt awkward.

Still, it was the one thing that actually cleared my mind and this morning I needed that.

Breathing heavily, I felt my body slip back into the familiar rhythm of jogging. One by one, all of my muscles wound and unwound as they got used to being woken up. Around 7, I had slipped out of bed knowing that if I laid there any longer, I would have woken Emma up with all of my nervous energy.

I couldn't sleep in and just relax when I still felt disturbed from the way that her Mom had acted the night before and it bothered me that she still had wanted me to go after all that she had been through. Granted, we didn't have the best relationship track record lately but it wasn't healthy for her to stay home in her empty house either.

I knew what it was like to bottle emotions up and never let them out- it wasn't healthy for me and it wasn't healthy for her either.

I took a turn around a nearby cul-du-sac and slowed my pace as I made my way back towards the house. It was weird but the more conflict between Emma and I actually made me think with more clarity sometimes. The very real possibility of us breaking up for real had forced me to take a step back from my life and realize what I was doing to probably the best thing that had happened to me in a long time.

Ironically, my Mom had called me the other day to catch up and I had told her what was going between the two of us. Once I explained that we had fought and that I had been the one to walk away first- needless to say, it hadn't been pretty. Usually she was the calm one keeping a hold on my Dad's emotions but this time it was her voice I was holding away from my ear at an arm's length while she yelled at me.

One thing I had figured out through all of this was that it was time for me to make serious changes in my life. As my Mom had not so sensitively put it, if I didn't want to end up with just a career and some trophies to keep me warm at night, it was my responsibility to make some concessions in order to do that.

I slowed my pace as I neared the house and let myself in the front door using the key that Emma stashed in a hanging flower basket that she kept hanging on her porch. Her small, doll-like house never failed to make me feel clumsy and I was careful to leave my shoes by the front door and strip out of my sweaty socks before climbing upstairs to see if she was awake or not.

I had only been gone half an hour and it looked like she hadn't moved at all from the last time that I saw her. She let out a soft snore and wrinkled her nose like she was dreaming about something unpleasant before rolling onto her back with her arms spread out across the bed. I liked watching her looking less than perfect in her sleep because she was always so put together in every other moment. Best of all, I loved that she wasn't the kind of girl who curled up perfectly while she slept and never moved around. She hogged the covers and never stayed on her side of the bed.

All of these characteristics should have bothered me but instead I was standing in her room, watching her sleep and grinning like I had suddenly found buried treasure on a beach with a faulty metal detector.

As much as I would have liked to have crawled back into bed with her, I knew that I wouldn't be able to keep my body in check if I did and we still weren't back to the point where I could do that with her. She also wouldn't appreciate it if I got my sweat all over her clean sheets.

I showered quickly and thought about how I wanted to approach Emma this morning. I worried that she wouldn't even want to talk this morning when suddenly I was so ready to actually get our shit together and start making plans. Real plans this time. No more taking it slow bullshit.

The door in the bathroom opened slowly and I quickly rinsed shampoo out of my eyes and blinked before I saw Emma peel her t-shirt up and over her head.

I couldn't help but suck in my breath as she stepped into the shower with me and ducked under the spray of the hot water. Her eyes avoided mine as she sighed and stepped close enough to wrap her arms around my waist and lay her head in the notch beneath my head.

"I'm sorry" she mumbled, barely loud enough for me to hear her over the drum of water.

"What? There's nothing you have to be sorry about" I said, using all of my willpower to draw her away. With all of the craziness lately, it had been a little too long since I had been near a naked, female body- Emma's very wet, female body.

"Um, hello? You were there for the crazy last night, right?" she said settling against me once again. "I hate that you saw that."

"Yeah, well I hate that you feel that way. I'm not sorry that I was there for you last night." I stroked her back not really knowing what else I should say. I still couldn't believe that she was even in the shower with me.

She smiled and said nothing, reaching around me for the shampoo to start washing her hair instead. We continued to shower in silence and I wondered what this impromptu shower meant for us. I got why she hadn't wanted to talk last night but did she want to now? Was this some kind of female message that I wasn't in tune with?

I finished up and stepped out of the small shower while she rinsed more stuff out of her hair. Even though we had a game tonight against the Wild, I had opted to skip the morning skate. I couldn't remember the last time that I skipped one but it was only the Wild, they weren't exactly a big threat to our team right now.

In her bedroom, I pulled on my clothes from last night and watched SportsCenter while I waited for her to finish up in the bathroom so that we could finally talk. She walked out still damp and dressed back in her PJ's while she sloppily rubbed a towel over her hair making it frizz out in different directions.

"Do you want breakfast or something?" she asked twisting her hair up into a knot on her head. I got up automatically and helped her pull up the sheets and covers on the bed and watched as she fluffed the pillows and made her bedroom look like a magazine ad again.

I watched her simple act of domesticity and kept my mouth shut even though it suddenly seemed like a really good idea to get a conversation about our future going.

"I'll just grab some cereal" I replied heading downstairs and leaving her to follow me. She checked the messages on her phone while I ate and ignored the cup of coffee that she had poured for herself. The quiet that had settled over us was now suffocating me and my urge to talk was overpowering.

I did realize now that this was hypocritical of me to suddenly want to change everything and be the one to want to lay down ground rules when I was usually the one having a hard time giving anything. Despite this, I still wanted to step up and really show her that I was ready to make serious changes and more importantly, make all the room in my life that she needed to be comfortable.

"Hey, so can we talk?" I asked watching her eyes dart up from her phone. She put her phone down and eyed me cautiously.

"What do we need to talk about?"

"A lot actually" I said pushing my bowl away from me. "I want to clear the air after everything that's been going on lately."

"Listen, Sid" she started, "if it's about last night, I'd rather not talk about it anymore. At least not now. I just wanted you to understand that I appreciated you being there last night, even though it was really embarrassing."

"It's not about last night exactly" I told her wondering how I was going to phrase what I really wanted to ask her. "I actually just wanted to talk about us."

That got her attention as her eyes snapped back to mine. "Us?"

She waited for me to continue while I tried to get it together. The girl with frizzy, auburn hair and ratty PJ's sitting in front of me was suddenly more intimidating than the biggest defenseman in the NHL.

"I've been thinking about us lately and my career and where I want to be in the next couple years." She nodded and let me continue even though I could feel the apprehension radiating off of her. "I haven't been fair to you and I've only been giving you inches when I actually want to give you more than that. I think by now that you deserve more than that from me if that's what you want."

"Where are you going with this?" she asked.

"I want you to move in with me" I finally said it out loud and felt the relief immediately.

"You want me to move in with you" she repeated with a look on her face that I couldn't figure out.

"Yes?" It came out like a question but she was starting to worry me. I didn't expect her to start jumping up and down but she could act like she was more open to the idea or something.

"So you want me to move into your house" she repeated.

"Wait, I thought I was being clear here" I interrupted before I had to hear her rephrase the sentence again. "I want to make things better between us and I want to show you that I'm ready to let you in. I want you to move into my house and live with me." I didn't think that I could be more clear than that so I waited for her to respond.

"I see" she said crossing her arms across her chest defensively. This conversation definitely wasn't turning out like it was supposed to.

"So I'm just supposed to move in with you now and that will solve all of our problems."

"No, that's not what I meant."

"Yes it is!" she burst out cutting me off. "I care about you, you know that Sidney. Despite that, moving in together doesn't fix any of the issues that we fought about before!"

"I know it doesn't" I told her trying to stay calm and not fight back. I got it, I got why she was throwing all of my mistakes back in my face but I wanted to change that now. If she would let me.

"Then tell me what your line of thought is here" she demanded.

"Look, we don't have to move in together" I told her. "I just want to. I'm ready to step up and pull my weight with you and I thought that you moving in with me would be a step in the right direction in proving that to you. Besides, we practically live together now anyways." At least we usually did- when we weren't fighting.

Emma stayed silent for a minute before sliding out of her chair and dumping her untouched coffee down the drain.

"Thanks" she said for the second time that morning, but not bothering to say what she was thankful for.

"So-"

"Just shut up for a second" she smiled slightly and walked over to where I was still sitting. "I know what you're saying and I say 'thank you' for now. And that's all I'm gonna say."

"Will you come to the game tonight?" I asked resisting the urge to lean forward and kiss those lips like I wanted to. If she came to the game then I would at least know that I had some sort of chance.

"Yeah I'll be there, it's Leukemia awareness night so I'll be there to watch over the donation booths before the start of the game."

"Oh, well okay." It was weird, but I suddenly felt defeated. Which was pretty sad considering I had just technically "lost" to Leukemia patients and survivors.

"Sid" she stopped me before I left the house and drove home to go through the motions of my pre-game ritual. "We'll talk later, okay?"

I nodded and walked out to my car thinking about how I was getting really tired of talking.