The sitter

I woke up to light streaming through Patrick's floor to ceiling window. I was curled up to him, sheets and legs tangled. Patrick was awake, I could tell by the regular, steady movements of his chest, which I was using as a pillow. I felt warm, like I was laying out on a beach. I felt just as relaxed, too. Patrick didn't say anything, and neither did I. I was completely satisfied by the silence. Soon, I was asleep again.

Later, when I woke up for good, Patrick was awake again. But this time, his hands were running over my back, and up to my shoulder. I shuddered lightly, causing him to stop.

"Mhm." I grunted into his chest. "Feels good."

"You were saying that a lot last night, too." Patrick whispered back. I blushed.

"I made coffee, while you were asleep." Patrick began, breaking the silence with his low, gravely morning man voice. "But it's cold now, I bet."

"What time is it even?" I honestly didn't know. I remember being out in his kitchen last night, after our first round (we went at it on his table) (Until it cracked), and the digital clock on his microwave said 2:57. And i'm positive that we were up for quite a while after that.

"Noon." Patrick said, weaving his fingers through my hair.

I moaned in appreciation. "Let's stay here all day."

He made a competent noise back, so we stayed there in his bed, hands wandering, but never too far, and not talking. At least not until Patrick said, "Tell me something."

"Hm?" I asked, dragging my eyes away from his chest to look at his face.

"About you. Tell me something about you. Something… secretive. Just something not a lot of people know."

I laughed at his odd request. "Well, i'm an open book, I think." I began, but Patrick gave me an upset, "are you fucking kidding me" look, so dug a little deeper in my head. "I broke my thumb. In seventh grade. Doing the worm. Don't laugh at me! It was a legit break! I had a cast for five months!"

"I pushed a bookcase on my sister." Patrick said, after he stopped laughing. No doubt my eyes went wide, thinking of young Pat, with even curlier hair and dimples framing a smile with less teeth. "I think it was over a video game, or something stupid. But I just wanted to beat her so bad, and she won, and I pushed a fucking bookcase on her. She was fine, but I got grounded until, like, last year."

"My brother played college football, i'm pretty sure if I tried to do that to him, the bookshelf would break and he would be fine."

"Tell me about him, your brother." Patrick said, surprising me. He didn't originally strike me as the family guy. But then again, he had a pillow pet (In his closet, he never used it, or so claimed), so I couldn't be surprised by anything.

"Well, his name is Michael, he's an engineer, he works with my dad sometimes, actually. He's married-"

"Yeah, I saw that." Patrick interrupted, then blushed.

"What? What do you mean you saw it?" I asked, confused. Mike got married way way way before I knew Patrick.

"On your twitter, I saw it. In the least creepy way possible, I swear!"

That's when it dawned on me, that he actually had taken the time to look through my photos on twitter, and comprehend all of my tweets. It's not like I was an avid twitterer, but I still occasionally posted something or retweeted, in spanish or english. And I tweeted pictures. Shit. Pictures of me on cruises in bikinis, or pictures of me going out in Mexico city with friends, in not innocent dresses. Pictures that were very public. It's not like they were awful, but it was a weird feeling. I definitely was going private after this conversation.

"Are you mad?" Patrick asked quietly, pulling my from my thoughts.

I giggled. "Of course not. It't just, weird, ya know?"

"Yeah, good. Because if you were, this would be very awkward." He replied, pulling me into his arms so I rolled on top of him. My eyes widened when I saw his left shoulder.

"What?" He asked, looking at my reaction.

"You have, a, um," I racked my brain, thinking for the right word. "Blemish." I finally said, looking at the large hickey. The worried look in his eyes went away, and he broke into a smile.

"And you don't? Mel, take a look at yourself. You look like you got in a fight. In a very hot way."
I took his advice and rolled off of him, looking down. He was right. I had purple bruises across my chest, one by my navel and three on my thighs, along with what appeared to be handprints. My had went to my neck, but I drew it away when I felt tenderness in mouth like shapes.

"You animal!" I said, scandalously.

"Me?" Patrick asked, raising his eyebrows. "Are you kidding?" He said, turning around so I could see his back. Or what was left of it. There were scratch marks starting at the top of his shoulders, and that went down all the way to his lower back. I blushed and hid my face.

"Come 'ere, tiger." He said, pulling me in again.

****

Eventually, we got up. And eventually we had breakfast. And eventually, we had mind blowing morning shower sex. But after all of that was over, I actually had to go. And me saying that I had to go because my sitter was calling me about two times a second was not an excuse. Patrick laughed and walked me down to my parking garage stall, and kissed me so hard that I wanted to take him in my car, right next to the staring grandpa.

But I had to go, and I'm sure he wanted to do something, so I hopped in my car and watched Patrick walk inside, but now without looking back and waving. I staying sitting in my seat, smiling like an idiot. And was, of course, interrupted by Carl.

Carl was my assistant. He majored in business management and could write patents, but never did anything, or so it seemed. Carl was literally the glue of the company, or at least me. Early morning meetings would have coffee because of him, flowers on my desk every week, perfectly placed sass, equal or more intense hatred towards Meghan, and many other things. He was also flamboyantly gay, absolutely flaming, with out any shame or embarrassment.

I drove to his house, and rang the doorbell without thinking of what I was wearing. Carl obviously noticed when he opened the door, because the first thing he said was, "What in the fucking hell happened to you?"

I looked down, flushed. I was wearing a pair of yoga pants, with uggs, and one of Patrick's hoodies that he insisted I took, because it was morning so it was cold. I didn't object much because it was actually cold, it smelled like him, and the hood covered the hickeys. My face and hair were a different matter. I didn't have time to brush my hair after 'showering', so it dried in a weird poof. My hair was naturally straight, but after having Patrick's hands in it while making out, it dried with extra volume in the roots. And no makeup, unless you count what was smudged into my eyelashes. Plus very red, kissed lips. Overall, great appearance.

Carl let me in and immediately handed me Jaxon, who had apparently been crying all night. In the middle of Carl telling me about his mother's upcoming birthday party, my phone buzzed, indicating a text.

"If that's Patrick calling for round two, you better answer it." Carl said.

I laughed. "It'd be, like, round five, or six I think."

He laughed back, and called me a whore, and I looked at the text.

It was a game schedule. Not anything I couldn't find online, but him thinking to send it to me was a lot different than me googling it for myself. The first thing I noticed was that he had away games scheduled for this weekend, going into late next week. At least now I knew that he wouldn't be avoiding me. There was also a caption. "We have a date the 17th".

Just like that, I got stuck a little deeper.

*****

Patrick leaving sucked. Before, I would have never noticed if a sport team went away for a road trip. But now that I was with somebody on the team, it was different. Patrick set up FaceTime on my phone, and he called me once when he first landed in Tampa Bay to play the lightning.
The call was short, because he was ordered to join team bonding outside, which no doubt meant sitting by a pool. They won 4-3, Patrick with an assist, and then immediately left for the Panthers. I of course, fell asleep on the couch after putting Jax to bed and staying up to do work.

My sleep was short lived, broken by a call. Without even looking, I accepted the call.

"Hello?" I asked, in a sleepy voice.

"Oh, hey, were you in bed?" Patrick asked, full volume, very peppy. In a very different time zone.

"What? No, no you didn't. I was doing yoga." I said, sitting up, trying to get some upbeat tones in my voice.

"Mel, it's like three am. Go to bed. And don't do yoga when i'm not there."

I laughed, and stood up. Patrick was right about it being three in the morning, but the work that
I stayed up late doing meant that I didn't have to go into work tomorrow, or today, i guess.

"Well, i'm up now. I saw your assist, it was actually really lame." I say, laughing. Obviously it wasn't lame, in fact, it was very skilled, with my knowledge of hockey.

"Yeah? Next game i'm gunna score a goal. For you." Patrick said, no doubt smiling. I blushed down to my toes.

"Yeah? Is it going to be a lame one or a showtime one?" I said, walking past Jaxon's room quietly.

"Which one? I'll get a hatty." No doubt he would. Now that I was awake, I wanted to be playful.

"Patrick, what's the point? You will never be as good as me."

"HA. You can't even skate, let alone shoot or score!"

"I promise you I could." I could skate, but not shoot or stickhandle like patrick could.

"Yeah? Well when I get back, i'm taking you skating. And then you'll see the truth."

I fell asleep with a smile that hurt my face after we ended our call.

********

Doing things without Patrick was weird. I went to Walmart, and thought about our first trip there. A spanish pop song played in the car? Boom, Patrick desperately trying to understand what I was saying to him. Pass a restaurant we went on a date once? Flashback to the snotty waiter.

Work was also awful. When Patrick was around, I could call him and ask him to come save me. Although he was a professional athlete, there weren’t any current photoshoots or interviews, so he just had practice and workouts, which usually only tallied up to about four hours a day. But he was away in Carolina currently, and as much as I wanted him to drop everything and come with sandwiches, he was away, doing what he loved and did best.

So I was left alone to deal with Meghan (who quit but then came back because the coffee maker spilt on her), lead lost interns around, and go over multiple articles and interviews of various people and things. Ross Williams emailed me, telling me that things looked great in the company from his perspective, and that he was loving the beach (that dirty bastard).

It was a week into April, and that meant that the weather was getting warmer. AKA, girls wearing short shorts and sweaters. For me in the professional life, that meant that the pencil skirts would be making an appearance, along with constant shaving. Williams Publishing had a relaxed dress code, but for corporate meeting or presentations, business attire was only acceptable.

This also meant opened toed shoes, which meant a long overdue mani-pedi appointment. So I called Sarah, a friend from school, and made an appointment for the next day. I watched Patrick’s game on the couch, holding Jaxon in my lap. My hair was up in hot rollers, and I had on pink juicy sweats and a white tank, which showed off my bright blue bra perfectly.

When I heard a knock on the door, I swore quietly. I didn’t order food, so who could be here? Why weren’t they watching the game and supporting their team? When I opened the door, I was very surprised to find a young looking man dressed in a suit, hair perfectly gelled. When I finished with the once over, he flashed a crooked, perfect white smile.

“Hi.” I said, sounding more like a question.

“Hello. This is the William’s residence, right?”

It finally dawned on me that he was probably here for work. “Oh, yeah. It is, but they aren’t here right now, I could tell them you stopped by, if you’d like.”

“When will they be back?” The guy leaned in just a bit closer, and the smell of his cologne filled my senses.

“Not for a while. What is your name again?” I didn’t want to let him in, just in case. But I wanted to know who he was.

“I’m Mike Hoss, head of the New York company.”

“Oh!” I say, brightening up. “I’m Melanie Viper, head of publishing and interpreting here.”

“All that and a with a kid?”

I laughed. I should get a shirt that says something like “The sitter”, or maybe Jaxon a bib that says, “My parents are gone!”. Actually, that sounds weird. “He’s not mine. This is Jaxon Williams. I’m babysitting.”

“Oh, i’m so sorry! I didn’t know Ross had a kid. Well, when you see him, tell him I stopped by?”

I nodded and said “Of course.”

“Oh, and could you let me know when he comes back?” He asked, handing me his card. I nodded and took the card, watching him walk away. Before he made it to the elevator, he turned and yelled, “It was really nice to meet you, Mel.”

********

Notes

SO sorry I haven't updated, I just don't know what's wrong with me:(