Login with:

Facebook

Twitter

Tumblr

Google

Yahoo

Aol.

Mibba

Your info will not be visible on the site. After logging in for the first time you'll be able to choose your display name.

Fates Colliding, Love Undying

Ten

“Aunt Taylor! Watch me!”

“I’m watching!” I called out to Kyran, my niece, who was waiting for my complete attention before she would go down the hill on her new sled. Her curly blonde hair was sticking out of the bottom of her hat, and her cheeks had the brilliant flush that only an afternoon of sledding could bring. Avalyn, her younger sister, was in much the same state. The two of them were having a blast. Apparently their parents hadn’t gotten around to taking them sledding this year, but I was more than happy to.

“Is Kris watching?” she asked, looking over at me expectantly. She’d developed quite a crush on him, much to his embarrassment. I thought it was freaking adorable personally.

“I’m watching, jolie!” he called out to her, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and laughing. He’d taken to calling her jolie in the few days that we’d been here. At first I had to admit, I was a tad bit jealous. He’d been calling me jolie recently. Then I saw how Kyran grinned when he told her that jolie meant pretty, and that all faded away.

I was still pretty surprised that he came to Indiana with me. I thought he had just been bluffing. Surely he had better ways to spend his Olympic break than in butt-fuck nowhere. I’d asked him about it, but all he told me is that there was nowhere he’d rather be.

Kyran’s squealed with joy all the way down the hill, Avalyn following soon after. It was too precious to see them playing in the snow. I missed being around my nieces, I often found myself wishing I could take them back to Pittsburgh with me, but that would never happen. My brother would never let me take them. I smiled at the two girls as they began to lug their sleds back up the hill, leaning my head on Kris’s shoulder. We’d been here for two days, and it had been quite an interesting two days.

My mom nearly shit her pants when she realized that someone had come with me, and was a tad bit speechless when she found out it was Kris. She’d been expecting me to spend this whole trip wallowing in self pity about the wedding. I kind of had too really, but that was before I realized Kris was coming with me. Not only did I have someone there who knew exactly what was going on, but he kept me distracted, and reminded me that things would get better, and easier as it went on. Surprisingly, he’s been right so far. Things were getting a bit easier to take, slowly. Sure, it still hurt, and I still had to take everything with a grain of salt, but I didn’t feel like my world was ending anymore. Becoming more bleak and gray, yes, but not ending.

“You’re really good with them, you know.”

“You think?” I asked Kris, looking up at him with a small smile. He nodded and tightened his arm around my shoulders.

“You smile a lot more, and you seem ‘appy. I ‘aven’t seen you this ‘appy in a while.”

“It’s just nice to get away from everything really,” I shrugged. “There’s so much stress back in Pittsburgh. I guess I just needed to step back and reexamine everything. I need to get my life back on track and stop dwelling on things.”

“’Ow am I doing in this reexamination?” he questioned, stumbling a bit over reexamination. I giggled, finding his trouble with some more difficult words adorable. He narrowed his eyes at me and tweaked my nose. “Stop making fun of me and answer the question.”

“Aunt Taylor! It’s your turn!” Avalyn said loudly, making me jump as she shoved her sled at me with a big grin on her face.

“You go ahead honey, it’s your sled,” I told her gently, turning it around so it would be ready to go down the hill for her. She shook her head at me.

“Nope! You go! You can race!”

“You want me to race Kyran?” I laughed, looking over at my niece. She was much smaller than me, it wouldn’t even be a fair race.

“No, you’re going to race Kris,” Kyran answered, making me laugh even harder.

That wasn’t going to be a fair race either!

“Oh no. I bought the sleds for you girls,” Kris said quickly, but Kyran just laughed at him.

“Chicken!”

Kris’s face was priceless. He looked so confused at first, then a bit miffed. He’d just been called a chicken by a third grader. And I was laughing too hard to even say anything to him, even when he shot me a glare.

“Fine, I’ll race ‘er,” he conceded, ruffling Kyran’s hat a bit. “And I’m not a chicken.”

“You’re a chicken,” Avi chuckled, poking him in the leg as he lowered himself carefully onto Kyran’s sled. I did the same, trying to position myself on the sled so I wouldn’t fall, even if it was pretty inevitable. Kyran and Avalyn seemed to be having a ball with this and began arguing over who would win the race while we got situated.

“Okay,” Kyran huffed finally. “On your mark! Get set…”

“GO!” I yelled before she had the chance to, knowing that if I didn’t get a head start, Kris was going to kick my ass. Damn man and all his muscles. It took him a moment to react, but once he did, he was heading toward me fast.

“Tricheur!” he called out from behind me while the two of us laughed. I felt like a kid again. I hadn’t gone sledding in so long, I’d forgotten how much I loved it. My eyes widened when I felt his sled bump mine, causing me to sway a bit.

“Watch it Letang!” I growled, “You’re going to make us-“

Wreck.

With another nudge, my sled tipped over to the side, dumping me off and running right into his, making him fly right off of it. The two of us went tumbling down the hill, getting snow in places snow should never be, laughing the whole way.

“You’re such an ass,” I huffed when we finally reached the bottom of the hill. We’d landed in a heap and were having slight issues untangling, but I don’t think either one of us really minded.

“You’re the one that cheated,” he reminded me, lifting me up out of a bush that I had fallen into.

“So you make me wreck?” I asked in disbelief. He just grinned at me, knowing that I couldn’t really get mad at him for it.

“Maybe.”

I narrowed my eyes at him and shoved him hard, intending to send his ass right back into the snow. Unfortunately, he had quick reflexes –who knew a hockey player would?- and grabbed me around the waist to try to steady himself, but instead wound up sending me right down on top of him.

“That didn’t work out as planned at all,” he remarked, the look on his face giving away his sarcasm. His hat had fallen off and his hair was all covered in snow now. He looked so unbelievably sexy sprawled out in the snow with a winter flush and a dopey grin on his face. If I wasn’t worried about getting snow in my vagina, I may have actually tried to take him right there. Actually, that’s a lie. It wasn’t the snow in my vagina that stopped me so much as the fact that my nieces were just on top of the hill.

“Just so you know,” I said quietly, leaning down close to his face and watching as the steam from our breath mingled in the air. I found it strangely erotic and had to remind myself that two little girls were watching us intently. “You’re doing pretty well in the re-examination.”

***

“Taylor! Hurry up, we’re going to be late!”

Dear God, I’d heard that enough growing up, I really didn’t need it right now. I just needed to find my shoes, and I’d be ready to go. Now if only I could remember where I’d put them…

“Shoes are on the bed.”

I glanced up and found Kris leaning against the door frame, watching me scurry around my old bedroom like a chicken with my head cut off. Not that there was really much room for scurrying…

“Thank you,” I sighed, grabbing the pumps off of my bed and slipping them onto my feet. “You look nice,” I remarked, trying to make it sound like a simple observation. In all honesty, I couldn’t quit looking at him. He was wearing a pair of dark jeans and a dark blue button down shirt. It was simple, really, but on Kris it looked amazing. And his hair was, as always, left to messily fall into place. Somehow his hair always looked good. It was almost creepy for a man to have hair that nice.

“Merci,” he replied, handing me my purse as I came to stand next to him. “You look quite- You’re not wearing makeup.”

I blinked at him, surprised by the sudden change in his sentence, then felt myself flush. “Yeah, I really didn’t have the chance to put any on. I helped my mom clean up the kitchen before I got in the shower and that held me up,” I rambled, feeling a bit humiliated. I knew I should have put makeup on. “I’ll just put some on before we leave.”

“No!” he said quickly. I froze where I was and tilted my head. “You- you don’t need it. You look fine without it.”

“Are you just saying this because you don’t want to be late for dinner?” I questioned with a raised eyebrow. He shook his head fervently and blushed.

“No. I’m saying it because…” He licked his lips, “because you look beautiful without it.”

My cheeks had to be scarlet; there was no way around it. I was blushing so much that I could feel my cheeks heat up on the spot. Beautiful. Now there’s a word I haven’t heard in a while. Not in relation to me anyway. I’d get cute a lot, pretty at times, but it had been so long since someone had told me I was beautiful. I almost forgot how great that one compliment can make a person feel.

“Oh,” I breathed out, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. “Well, thank you then.”

“De rien,” he mumbled, sporting a small blush of his own. I slipped my hat and scarf on, and took my coat from him with a grateful smile. “Your dad isn’t going to kill me for being here with you, is he?”

I laughed and shook my head. “As long as you don’t make it sound like we’ve slept together, then no.”

“But we haven’t slept together.” His brows knitted together.

“Then you don’t have anything to worry about, do you?”

The ride to the restaurant that my family had made reservations in was relatively quiet. Kris wasn’t sure what to say to my mom or my stepdad, and I wasn’t really one to speak unless there was something I wanted to say. At the moment, I was too busy admiring the man next to me out of the corner of my eye to come up with anything to say.

I was really impressed that my whole family was getting together. Not like aunts and uncles and stuff, but my mom and stepdad would be there, as would Tarrin and Tanner, along with Tanner’s fiancé and son Trent, and my dad and grandma would be there too. My older brother, Tyler, wouldn’t be coming, but that didn’t surprise me. It was still impressive; I can’t remember the last time all of us got together like this, if it had ever happened. I suppose it was probably because I was only here for a couple of days, and I wouldn’t be here on my birthday. So instead, they were settling for the day before Kris and I had to head back to Pittsburgh, two days before my birthday.

When we pulled up to the restaurant, I waited until my mom and stepdad got out of the car and looked over at Kris.

“Just so you know,” I began, rubbing the back of my neck. “I apologize in advance for anything that my family may say that makes things awkward.”

“Taylor, I’ve met your family before,” Kris chuckled, looking confused. I bit my lip and nodded.

“Yeah… but it was never just you with me. This is going to be a while other ball game,” I warned with an apologetic smile. The oblivious look on his face made me realize that he still didn’t get it, and I sighed. He must not have realized, I get my outspokenness and awkward comments from somewhere. I really didn’t develop them from nowhere.

“Kris!” Tarrin grinned as soon as he saw him get out of the car. Tarrin had always liked Kris. He’d like Tyler and Max too, but Kris was his favorite of the three from the first time the losers had showed up in Indiana. I think it had to do with the love they both shared for Metallica and sports.

“’Ey buddy,” Kris waved, opening my door for me and helping me out of the car.

“Oh my Taylor,” my grandma said loudly as she walked over with my dad. “That is one goodlooking man! Just look at that butt.”

The look of utter shock on Kris’s face made me snicker. I’d warned him, hadn’t I? It’s not my fault he didn’t heed my warning.

“Told you so,” I whispered, smacking him on his ass. “She’s right though, you have a nice ass.”

“Behave,” he hissed, trying to hide his pink face behind his hair.

Notes

Comments

Please update

Gigipens Gigipens
1/17/18