Part 16 (1/2)

”It's just hard,” I relented. She might have been the only person that could understand. Even if she didn't, it'd feel good to 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 d.a.m.n it if I don't want a few petals ripped off. Yeah, what happened to me was really s.h.i.+tty, but guess what?” My voice got a little louder, and I may have even slammed my water gla.s.s down. ”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?”

”Well for starters...” Callie took a slow drink from her flask and then set her 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 smiled, trying to be honest. ”It's not going to happen.”

Way to burst my bubble.

”But he was with you,” I pointed out, grasping for anything as a reason.

”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 that 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 put it like that, I felt like an a.s.s.

”Just give him time. I don't know Evan that well, okay? But I know he doesn't do anything without putting his heart and head into it first.”

”Callie...” It took me a while, but this had been on my mind for a while, and I knew eventually I would ask. ”This might sound weird, but what was it like to sleep with Evan?”

Callie squinted, mid bite. ”You're right, that's weird.”

I knew it.

”It'll be different with you, so I can't really say.”

”Why?”

”He likes you. We never had that. I'm sure he liked what we were doing, but that's all it was, motions. There was never anything there besides friends.h.i.+p, not love.”

Ignoring her love comment, thoughts rolled through me, and I asked, ”Was he rough?”

”Only when I wanted him to be.”

”d.a.m.n it, Callie!” I grew frustrated with her vagueness. ”I need details!”

”My G.o.d, you're such a girl right now. Fine...” she leaned forward, ”...but don't get all weird on me.” I nodded eagerly so she'd continue. ”The first time I f.u.c.ked him, it was not 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 winked and gave a sigh. ”Defens.e.m.e.n are some of the best in bed I've come across.”

”Oh.”

”See, you didn't want details, did you?”

”No.” I waved my hands around. Surprisingly, I didn't feel jealous like I thought I would. Instead, I felt like I was getting some kind of behind the scenes look at Evan. ”So was he good?”

Her gaze glistened with amus.e.m.e.nt. ”Made me come three times in a matter of fifteen minutes...I'd say he has some skills.”

”Do the guys know that you sleep with more than one at a time?” I asked, wanting to know. It was another question I had been dying to ask her. I'd never met a girl like Callie before or the way she regarded her s.e.xual encounters like they were no big deal.

”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 s.l.u.tty. They don't. Just because I sleep with them doesn't make me a s.l.u.t. 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 cool, but I haven't found that yet. So I have fun until the day I find love.”

I thought for a moment, picking through my salad, her words sinking in. ”That makes sense.”

And then she added. ”I thought I was in love with Evan...”

I dropped my fork.

Callie laughed. ”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 tried to think of someone I might have known to compare herself to, ”...Leo, suggestively open about everything. Mase has this quiet confidence about him that you feel. It's really what attracts you to him, the mysterious quiet that you want to know. Then you understand who he is, and you fall for him.”

”So what made you realize Evan wasn't for you?”

”It's wasn't so much that I realized anything...it was just kind of out there in the open. I talked to him about it, and he told me that the feelings weren't there for him, and he didn't want to lead me on. Then, after a while, I realized that what I felt was just it being different from what I had with other guys. Evan was gentle and understanding, even if what we were doing was just s.e.x, he made me feel special. Like my time with him was all that mattered.”

That I understood because that was exactly how I felt about Evan and what drew me to him, like she said. What if his feelings were like the ones he had for Callie?

We were cool for a while, but then what happened if I got too close? Would he say I was just a friend?

Callie sensed the questions swimming through my head. ”Hey, stop that. I'm not sure if he's said it or not, and frankly, it's none of my business, but he loves you. I've never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you.”

Later that night, I glanced down at my phone, noticing it was almost time for Evan to be getting back to town. The thought sent my tummy flipping.

I hadn't seen him since last Tuesday. When he got home he asked, ”Did you have fun with Callie?” He looked over the empty bottle of Jack Daniels next to his couch with his eyebrows raised.

”Callie is great. I really enjoyed her company.” Evan gave me a nod with a soft smile. ”She's a good friend.”

He cleared his throat gently. ”And what about me?”

s.h.i.+t. Now what do I say? ”I thought you were more than a friend.”

There was no questioning the look in his eyes, and I wasn't about to. Soon we were wrapped around each other on that all too comfy couch again.

I wanted to ask him a few more questions but never got around to it. He fell asleep before I had the chance.

Game 79 Dallas Stars.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010.

I had dinner with Evan's mom and sister that night. They came over with take-out from Girl and the Goat, and we watched the Hawks play Dallas.

That was when his mom informed me that I was good for Evan. It seemed everyone was wanting to convince me these days. It must have been all over my face. Good for him in the sense that she didn't worry about him when he was with me. She often worried that her boy would get caught up in the lifestyle of being a professional athlete and become different. I had to remind her that would never be Evan. I could never see that happening to him.

”What the deal with you two?” Caitlin finally asked, someone had to ask it. The entire situation was strange. He saved me from dying and hadn't left my side. I was young, he knew that, but the fact that I had no one else made it seem, well, like some kind of rich pro saving the troubled girl. It was far from that, though. If you looked close enough when we were together, you saw it-felt it even. We had something neither of us could walk away from. But still, we weren't dating officially.

”I'm not sure. I like him a lot.”

Caitlin laughed, as did Judy. They weren't buying my ”I like him a lot” cop out.

”Ami, I may be his mother, but I'm not blind. 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 hesitated a moment, the anxiety of admitting it out loud was 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 come here and...” I had to stop and swallow, my mouth felt 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 Masen showed up at the hospital when I woke up, and it was him. He's the one that told me to fight. Begged me to hold on.”

”What do you remember about that night?” Caitlin asked.

Judy nudged her. ”Caitlin!”

”It's okay. I don't mind.” And so I told them my story. ”I was dancing at Ballet Chicago and met Blake Keldrick, my instructor. 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? I remember him kissing me, and then I slapped him and left the restaurant. That's where my memory of the night ends.” I looked at Judy and Caitlin, who had both grabbed each one of my hands. ”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.”