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And Heaven Too

Chapter Eighteen

Dell knows something is wrong as soon as she gets the door to her apartment open. There’s a soft noise coming from the living room and there are lights on. She stops and tries to crane her head to get a glimpse, see what she can. No one is visible. She should back away, close the door again, call the cops. Get OUT! Her brain is screaming at her but she listens to the sounds coming from inside instead.

The noise, that soft scuffling, is the sounds of the NHL13 opening video. She thinks maybe Andrew brought her shit back, returned what he’d taken, but when she closes the door and ventures farther into her apartment, she busts out into a grin.

There are flowers everywhere in her kitchen, gaining density into three vases around a brand new, shiny toaster. She throws her keys down on the counter and brushes her hand over the appliance. It’s exactly the same as the one Andrew took, except new.

Mike.

Has to be. She’s about to go back to the hall when an envelope with Andrew’s hand writing on it stops her in her tracks again.

She picks it up with trembling fingers, noting the weight of the thing, before she opens it. She can’t help the gasp that escapes because she’s staring down at hundred dollar bills. Lots of them. She almost loses her grip when she pulls them out but she manages to count them all the same. There’s almost four grand here.

No note. Just a shit ton of money. Her head is spinning because there’s no way Andrew could have afforded this. He didn’t even owe her this much, not for just a month. But, this covered his rent until their lease expires in June. She puts the money down and backs away. How- no way. There’s no way.

The video on her TV starts over again and she’s jolted back to the present. In this strange Twilight Zone she hangs her coat up and crosses into the living room. The solid form of Mike is stretched out across her couch, eyes closed and Xbox controller dangling from one hand. She smiles down at his form.

Her eyes glance at the TV and her heart stops because he’s brought an Xbox for her, too. But not just any Xbox.

Oh no, this- Dell takes an unsteady step towards her entertainment system. It’s one of the new cases, the fancy ones, and it is completely decked out in Caps colors. The rich red case is covered in decals and numbers and when she looks back to the controller in Mike’s hand, she notes that it’s also blood red.

Jesus fuck. This guy.

She places the controller on her coffee table. Mike stirs as she slides down onto the couch with him, wrapping one arm around his middle and burying her face in his chest. She doesn’t want to cry but this is one of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for her. She knows Mike must have gotten the money, had replaced her stuff. She doesn’t want to know how. She just-

He stirs, mumbling against the hair she’s probably shoving in his face. He doesn’t jerk away this time, like he usually does. Instead he lets out a pleased moan and pulls her in tight. Dell is almost suffocating in his grasp but she holds on, taking deep breaths and loving the feel of his hands skimming up her back, into her hair. One hand dips down to her ass and he adjusts her position, bringing their hips flush.

It’s Dell’s turn to moan. It’s been a long week. A long, lonely, unsure week and Mike is already half hard against her. He maneuvers her, turning her beneath him and his lips are at her throat. His beard, she can’t even justify it as scruff anymore, rubs against the sensitive skin there. He pushes his hips into her thigh, groaning at the contact. Fuck. She can never fully wrap her head around anything when he’s everywhere like this. He pushes again, slipping a leg between her thighs and she arches beneath him. The rough fabric of his jeans terrorizes her nerve endings. “Mike. Fuck.”

He chuckles at that and lifts his head to look down at her. She’s struck senseless by the desire she sees but also the affection. He’s never had a problem making her feel wanted. This look makes her feel protected, safe in the circle that is him.

Some small part of her brain that she’s never really been able to silence screams Mike Fucking Green back at her and she grins before pulling him down by his neck and kissing him. They are unhurried with their lips even as Mike continues his rhythmic pushing against her center. She gasps as he slides rather than pushes and stars burst behind her eyes. She’s going to come, just like this. Clothes on. On her couch.

Shi hand slips beneath the hem of her shirt, tracing her waist. His hands are so huge, she feels each fingertip and the heavy weight of his palm. He deepens the next kiss and she groans.

“Mike. Bedroom.” She can’t think very clearly but she knows she wants more room than this. He’s laughing when he pulls away and stands. He holds a hand out for her but she takes a good look. His sleep-rumpled hair is falling into his face, his shirt twisting on his shoulders. Her eyes track each crease and wrinkle and finally land on the hard bulge at the front of his pants. She licks her lips; he hauls her to her feet and pushes their mouths together. “Come on, darling.” She loves it when he uses the word darling. It sounds wonderful. She loves-

Mike picks her up and carries her, over his shoulder, all the way back to her room. She squeals in mock protest for only a moment before staring down at the fantastic ass showcased in his jeans. Something about athlete bodies flies through her head before she’s tossed unceremoniously on to the bed.

They’ve never fucked in her bed and she feels a shiver go through her because this is more intimate for her than anything they’ve done before. This is her sanctuary, her home. And he’s here, filling up every space and righting the wrongs that she’s never really allowed anyone to touch before. Her heart swells, thinking about the toaster and the Xbox and the money he’s retrieved for her. Just for her.

The location might be new but the moves are not and it’s only a moment before Mike’s got them both undressed and is pushing his way gently inside her. She throws her head back, enjoying every inch, feeling him fill her so completely. She loves this moment more than anything. The first entry, the first thrust. She angles her hips up, waiting for him to move but he doesn’t.

He’s still, just waiting inside her and when Dell looks at him to ask why, her breath catches. That same soft expression is in his eyes, overlaid now by intensity. “Dell. You are amazing.” His words are reverent. She shudders, clenching around him. He shudders in return.

“And you’re impossible. Unbelievable. I can’t-“

Mike pulls out slowly and pushes back in just as carefully. Dell lets out a sob at the sensation: he hitches one leg over his hip and she wants to scream with the pressure. She locks eyes with him as he sets a steady pace and Dell feels like the world is shifting. She feels like the world is readjusting itself, the key fitting into the tumbler of her life. Mike fits her. He fits her nooks and crannies.

She beats him to the punch line, but not by much, her eyes still held in his gaze and her mouth open in a breathless sigh. Mike dips his head, kissing her deeply through her orgasm, before he empties inside her. She can feel him, hot and wet. They are so impossibly close and tears spring to her eyes. She can’t stop them. She blinks and the mess spills all over her cheeks.

Mike is alarmed when he pulls back and sees, but she shakes her head at his concern and even laughs. “I- oh, fuck it. That was . . . I can’t even-“ She flails with her words, a rare of a thing as anything she’s done in her life.

He laughs with her, brushing her cheek with a soft kiss. “I might know how you feel.” And that’s about as close as they’ve ever gotten to actually admitting that this might be more than hanging out and fucking and dating casually. Dell thinks that nothing has really been casual with Mike Green. Absolutely nothing.

“Thank you for the gifts.” Thanks for fixing things even if I’m a stubborn jerk sometimes, she thinks. Thanks for being here for me. Thanks for not giving up; thanks for understanding. Mike slowly pulls out of her and shifts down beside her. He wraps her up tight, kissing at her hairline for a moment.

“No problem.” She sighs and buries herself deeper into his body.

They must have both fallen asleep because the sun is setting when she opens her eyes again and Mike is snoring softly next to her. The clock on her bedside reads just after six. Only a cat nap, then. Dell sort of just wants to go back to sleep but she knows there’s that party tonight and Mike had wanted her to go. She’s serious about making time for him and she’s not working tomorrow. She wiggles a bit and pulls herself free from his grasp. He doesn’t wake, instead rolling over into where she’d just been, burying his face in one of her pillows.

He looks dangerous in the dim light of her room, even sleeping. With his dark hair and his beard and those tattoos . . . her parents are going to think she’s started dating a biker. That thought makes her giggle and it rouses Mike. She’s guilty for a moment until he rolls to his back. He holds out his arms for her. “Too early to get up. Look, it’s still dark outside.”

Dell sits on the edge of the bed and brushes the hair away from his eyes. “That’s because it’s still night. It’s like seven. We need to get ready if we’re going to make that party.”

She sees his eyes flicker to the clock and then back to her still naked form. He also appears to be having a hard time building up the motivation to leave the apartment. But, he pushes himself to a sitting position, kissing her shoulder softly before wrapping both arms around her. “Logical, as always.”

Dell is nervous when he pulls up to Ovechkin’s gigantic mansion. They’re not the first ones there, if the line of cars is any evidence, and they run into Carlson while approaching the front door. Mike’s fellow defenseman high fives Mike then gives her a hug. She’s met him a few times and he’s easy-going enough. Dell is more worried about everyone else because she’s about to meet the entire team. Her few interactions with Mike’s teammates so far have been limited and well-oiled with copious amounts of alcohol.

Dell has already promised herself that she’s not getting drunk tonight so it feels a bit like walking into the lion’s den when Mike holds the door open for her. The living room is packed with bodies. There’s some strange dance music on the speakers that Dell instantly recognizes as Russian and then suddenly, Ovechkin is standing in front of her.

She’s always been on the Ovechkin side of the debate between him and Crosby. She’s drafted him in every fantasy hockey league since she started playing. She’s pretty sure when she saw him and Federov play on the same line during the cup run in 2009 she’d lost her voice multiple times from screaming at the TV.

His wide grin is a bit disarming when he shouts out Mike’s name and sweeps him into a hug that leaves them both reeling. It’s even more disarming when he does the same to her. “You are Dell.” There’s no question there and she’s about to reply, introduce herself, all that polite stuff that she’s groomed herself to do over her years in the profession.

Ovechkin is having none of it as he loops an arm around her shoulders and steers her into the house, shouting her name now, calling people over. She sends a look for help back at Mike but he’s laughing at her. She meets approximately forty people in a dozen minutes and Ovechkin, who makes a sour face when she calls him that and then insists she must call him Alex, has her in the kitchen with a drink in her hand before her head really stops spinning. She’s completely out of her element here.

Anthropologists know how to party. Don’t get her wrong. But they tend to be cordial and well-mannered and quiet. Hockey players have drastically different ideas. She thinks Carlson has been roped into beer pong on the far end of the room.

Alex disappears from her side for a second and Mike uses his absence as a good reason to materialize. She squirms a little in his arms and pinches his side. “You abandoned me.”

He gives her a sloppy, excited kiss. “It’s best to let Ovie do as he will, initially. He pouts if you don’t.” He tastes like alcohol, already. She kisses him again. “I do have to warn you though-“ Mike doesn’t get to finish his sentence though. A five foot four ball of energy comes barreling into the room, right into the two of them.

Dell is struck dumb as she hears her name, screeched in her sister’s voice, just seconds before she’s on the floor, Ruth on top of her. “Ruth!? What the fuck!?” Ruth rolls around a little, giggling madly. She’s drunk. And she’s here. On Alex Ovechkin’s kitchen floor, babbling about Nicklas Backstrom and party and SURPRISE!

Today is one for the record books. “Come on, up.” Nicky’s commanding voice drags Ruth away and his hands pick her up bodily, extracting groans and laughter alike from Ruth. Dell stands and straightens herself out. Her drink is splattered on the wall. She might have some in her hair too. Ruth hugs her proper this time and Dell has to restrain herself from having a mental explosion.

Really, though. How could she possibly be surprised? Ruth has spent the last twenty seven years being everywhere she’s not supposed to be in Dell’s life. “When did you get here?” Dell doesn’t bother asking how or why. The shit eating grin on Nicky’s face is evidence enough of that.

“Couple of days ago.” Something grabs Ruth’s attention just as Dell is about to question her even more and she’s out the door like a flash. Nicky rolls his eyes and follows. Dell stares at the door for a long time, her brain processing everything, before she turns on Mike. He looks sheepish and guilty as fuck.

“You knew?” He nods. Of course he knew. He’s closer to Nicky than she is to Ruth. “Mother of God.” Dell hangs her head because really, what else? What else is there to do?

The party is full of less falling over from that point on. Dell gets roped into more NHL13 discussion with Carlson, she should call him Carly or Johnnie he says, and several other players. Joel Ward is fun and ridiculously nice; thoroughly Canadian she thinks. Despite an awkward pause when she finds out he’s got a degree in Sociology, he makes a point of asking for her Live account info so she ends up sharing it with him and at least a half dozen others. She doubts that they’ll have time to do much of anything except for train in the coming days but it makes her grin anyway.

Ashley Beagle talks to her for a long time. They’re close to the same age so Dell feels like they’ve got some good similarities. However, housewife that Ashley is, she doesn’t really understand why and how Dell works the way she does.

It becomes glaringly obvious when Dell first realizes Ashley is wearing some fancy label clothes. She looks fantastic and her whole outfit might have cost more than Dell makes in a month. Dell compliments her and Ashley’s eyes sweep over Dell. There’s some minor judgment there, despite Ashley attempting to be very polite.

Dell also tries to explain the work that she’s doing in Maine, her research, and she can tell that Ashley just isn’t into it. Dell cuts her summary of early 19th century sites in favor of smiling at the other woman. She glances around the party then and asks, “What’s the season like? With the guys?”

Dell listens as Ashley describes the long stretches of loneliness, mood swings depending on how the team performs, possible injuries, black eyes, and bruises. When Ashley talks about road trips her eyes skip across her husband and a frown appears on her face. Dell frowns along with her, wondering what Ashley isn’t telling her. She mentions something about how they’ve just been married and now her new husband is about to disappear.

Dell realizes that the wives have had an extra four months of husbands; four months of guys under foot but also helping hands. She wonders if they’ve had more time alone or less during the lockout. Dell remembers the days when she’d only been happy when Josh hadn’t been underfoot. She knew, then, that her marriage was on the way out.

She wants to promise herself that she’d never get sick of Mike being around but she can’t. She doesn’t think she’ll ever promise herself anything when it comes to other people again.

Dell spends close to another half hour talking to Ashley. She’s really nice and funny and Dell can see flashes of herself, freshly married, in the other woman’s smiling face. After a while though, Dell is just too boring for Ashley and she makes her excuses. Dell just watches her go, settled on the counter and watching from a pretty good vantage point.

The more she watches the team and their guests the more she desperately wishes she’d gone into cultural anthropology. She could write books about their behavior. Their language: some of its coded for hockey and some of it is so fucking Canadian it makes her laugh. She thinks about Mike’s accent. He’s been in DC for almost a decade yet he doesn’t sound even remotely local. This isn’t so surprising considering he spends most of his time around other Canadians. Dell wonders if she can’t do a survey, a short analysis of the breakdown of the way an NHL team bonds.

She brushes that thought aside. That’s what anthropologists call a conflict of interest because she can’t fuck an informant and she’s not giving up on Mike to do some research that’s probably not even beneficial. Speaking of the devil, she feels Mike slide up behind her and wrap his arms around her waist.

“All alone?” He, with that crazy strong accent, sound s delicious in her ear. She can smell his cologne, something ridiculously expensive and masculine that’s specifically designed to make her head spin. He also smells like whiskey, Jack to be specific. She turns her face and gives his cheek a kiss.

“Just people watching. How’s your night? Good party?” She is 100% sober but she likes the way he looks starry-eyed with the drink. She also likes the way his eyes dip down the front of her shirt and darken. He doesn’t give her an answer, gently grabbing her hand and taking her out on the back porch instead. They’re alone, staring out across the property. He’s still curled up around her from behind. She leans back and lays her head on his shoulder. “I think your sister is really drunk.”

She’s two parts humor and one part disappointment at that statement and she laughs even as she rolls her eyes. “I haven’t seen her in ages. Is she naked yet?”

Mike hums a negative against her temple then presses a kiss there. “Playing pool in the basement. I think she broke a light bulb though.” He sighs out against her skin and she sinks back into him further. He’s so solid. Every part of him. “Are you having fun?”

Dell sighs and regards the sky for a moment. It’s chilly tonight but the sky is clear. The light pollution makes stargazing almost impossible but she can just make out a couple of constellations. She used to love to star gaze, back home when you could see for miles and the air was never stifling like it usually is in DC. Her father had once taught her all 88 constellations-

“Dell?”

She shakes her head and focuses. “Yeah. A little awkward, what with you abandoning me twice now, but things are looking up.” He actually nuzzles into her neck at that and she bites back a giggle. “You’re getting very scruffy, darlin. You’re going to have to shave soon.”

He laughs. “Why? It’s winter. And it can get chilly on the ice. Do you want my face to get cold?”

“Of course not. I’m actually quite fond of keeping your face warm.” A graze of teeth against the soft skin of her shoulder is his response and Dell shivers. His hands play with the edge of her shirt, fingertips grazing the skin at her hips. She feels like she’s still keyed up from their first round that evening; he’s not helping her at all here. “Can we go home?”

She doesn’t realize she’s implied a shared domicile until Mike groans and pulls her tighter, whispering, “I like the way that sounds: you and home. I like it a lot.” She should correct him because she’s frankly terrified with the idea of getting involved with another person again that deeply. She’s terrified she’ll be dependent on Mike; that she’ll start expecting him to always be there when she can’t ever guarantee that he will be. She should specify his house, his home. The place where he has a bed which she feels like they’re going to need pretty soon. She won’t, however, even though she should.

She mutters, “Home.” It sounds mostly like a groan to her ears.

With his fingers working slowly inside the waistband of her jeans and his scruff wreaking havoc on the nerve endings of her neck, Mike whispers, “You don’t want to say good bye to Ruth?”

She shakes her head, “Nicky can deal with her,” and wiggles away from him. She’s way too wound up to be in public. Maybe even moments away from christening Ovie’s back porch, which would mortify her for life. Rather than giving in, she holds out her hand, squeezing his when it’s within her grasp. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.” She laughs as she finds out that sometimes teammates dip out on one another. Sometimes they throw their girlfriends over one shoulder and sneak around the sides of each other’s houses to avoid having to say goodbye.

Sometimes they just want to get home.

The End

Notes

Woah. The end. I found the end! Maybe. Thank you, so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed. If you did, great. If you didn't, I'm sorry?

Comments

I loved this story. I spent a whole rainy afternoon getting to know Mike and Dell. You writing is wonderful!!!
Riley Riley
9/9/13
I really like this story!! : So sad its over now :(
alicatt alicatt
2/16/13
It's totally appropriate and not at all weird that I giggled when I imagined Nicky cleaning, right?
deciding deciding
2/3/13
Awww, Mike is a sweetheart! :) Can't wait for more!
alicatt alicatt
1/30/13
NO! Not good.....She just needs to give in and move in with him!
alicatt alicatt
1/22/13