Seeing Stars
10: For You
"If it came down to it, could I take the bullet, I would, yes I would for you..."
Cassidy never imagined taking a midterm could be so satisfying. Not the actual process of taking the test, and having to have mastered the content; but the fact that in a lecture hall of upwards a hundred students, none of them were aware that the sweatshirt she was wearing belonged to Jamie Benn. Sure, some of the her peers commented on the fact that she was wearing a ‘Kelowna Rockets’ sweatshirt, and asked if she regularly kept up with the goings on of the Western Hockey League team.
So she had to lie a little bit to keep the secret, telling people that she had grown up a fan of the team, even though she had grown up over two thousand miles away. After her semi-lengthy explanation, most just left her alone. But even that wasn’t the best part of wearing Jamie’s jacket. It was the simple fact that it smelled like him. That even though it had been washed and stored away in a dresser drawer, the scent that made Jamie himself, lingered on the fabric. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to trigger small memories of him. And the fact that nobody else knew that the smell was his, made it that much sweeter. It was a well-kept secret between just the two of them.
When evening time rolled around, Cassidy was on her way to the arena by herself. Although she had invited Kennedy to come along, she had a date with a law student and felt that was a more pressing engagement over a hockey game. Wearing another pair of tight black pants, and a flowy blouse, Cassidy retrieved her ticket and entered the arena with her purse toted over one shoulder and Jamie’s sweatshirt hung over her arms.
Twenty minutes later, she had the jacket on. With a limited amount of people around her, the chill of the air attacked her much faster than it did before. The ticket Jamie had left for her was in the second row, just beside the Dallas bench. It was easy to spot him as he ran out of the tunnel to begin warm ups, his hair slicked back as he skated around effortlessly without his helmet on.
Immediately, Jamie’s head swiveled around looking to find Cassidy in the crowd as people had gathered around the glass to see their home team do last minute preparations for the game. Instead of standing up like the rest of the fans, Cassidy stayed in her seat, smiling as she and Jamie made eye contact. A wide smile spread across his face and he skated in a circle, passing a puck over to his brother.
After a minute of getting his bearings on the ice, Jamie stopped in front of the glass Cassidy was behind. He crouched down to the ice and began stretching out, bouncing up and down on the ice to stretch his groin. Cassidy blushed and had to look away for a moment, realizing that he was doing it just to provoke her; and it was working.
He stood back up just a few moments later, an enormous grin as his face, most likely at the fact that Cassidy’s cheeks were bright red. She tried to ignore the fact that he seemed set on teasing her, and when he had turned around to shoot a few pucks on net, she slipped his ‘Kelowna Rockets’ sweatshirt over her head. By the time his flicked his head to make eye contact with her again, he licked his lips quickly at the sight of her in his jacket. She was the one to giggle now, knowing she had the same effect that Jamie had on her.
Cassidy was on her feet, the sleeves of the jacket pulled over her hands as she covered her mouth. She was nearly on the verge of tears, and while the people around her were standing too, they weren’t as concerned as she was. Jamie was down on the ice, on his hands and knees. His teammates huddled around him, making room for the trainer who ran out to the ice with a towel in his hands.
When Jamie was finally upright again, the towel was thrust against his face and he was escorted off the ice and down the tunnel. The game picked back up as if nothing had occurred, and Cassidy sat down, unable to really pay attention to the game. She didn’t quite know what had happened to him; the only thing she knew for a fact was that by the start of the third period, Jamie was back on the ice, ready to end this game and earn two more points for his team.
When it was all said and done, the game hadn’t been as easy as expected, but Dallas still came out with a win. And to top it off, Jamie had been named the ‘Second Star of the Game’ for his goal and assist. Because of the win, she wasn’t sure if the team was planning on going out tonight. That was probably one of the worst things about hanging around an NHL team; they were pretty unpredictable with plans, and their social gatherings were determined by whether or not they won a game.
After most of the crowd had cleared out of the arena, Cassidy walked out, shrugging her shoulders as the cold Dallas night air hit her. Thankfully this time she had a jacket. Within only a few minutes, she was walking to Jordie, who at the same time, was walking towards her.
“He’s getting checked out by the trainer. He said to meet him back at the house,”
“Is he alright, Jordie?”
“He’s fine. You’ll see him at the house, don’t worry.”
The front door was unlocked when Cassidy got to Jamie’s house. In fact, just the simple act of her knocking on the thick wood, made it creak open. She looked at it cautiously, walking into the house, glancing around at anything that seemed unordinary.
She called out for Jamie, pausing to hear a response, and when she heard a faint one, she made her way up the staircase and down the hallway, to see that Jamie’s bedroom door was open. Cassidy closed the door behind her and looked at the bed, seeing Jamie lying down on his side, his back facing the door.
Cassidy walked to the bed and set her hands down on his shoulder and bent down to kiss his temple softly, “how’re you doing?”
Jamie groaned and rolled onto his back, exposing the damage done to him. His left eye was swollen and beneath it, a line of stitches sewed a cut together. “I’m alright. I took a puck to the face,”
“You know it is recommended that hockey players wear visors…” she smirked and pushed his long hair away from his eyes.
“But then I wouldn’t have this badass scar to use as an icebreaker,”
Cassidy paused and pursed her lips, “while having a conversation starter is important, I’d rather you not be blind.”
He brought his hand up to his eye, gently pressing his fingers over the stitches. By now his eye was almost completely swollen shut.
“Can I get you anything?”
Jamie shook his head and sat up in bed, swinging his legs over the side to stand up. He stretched out his back, smiling as it cracked in several places. Cassidy cringed at the noise and looked up at him as he set his hand on her lower back, leading her out of his bedroom and down the stairs. Once they entered the kitchen, he left her side and moved over to the pantry, pulling out a tin box that contained tea bags.
“No, no, no,” Cassidy ran to his side and tugged on his arm until he backed away and looked down at her. “Sit down, I’ll get it for you.”
“Babe, I’ve got a busted eye, not the incapability to make tea.”
She blushed at his nickname for her, and secretly hoped this meant they were on their way to embarking on an actual relationship. “Jamie Benn, you sit your ass in that chair,” she pointed to the stool behind the marble counter, “or so help me God…”
He held up his hands innocently and walked to the stool. Silently, he watched as Cassidy moved around the kitchen, turning on the stove to begin boiling the water in the kettle. When she got that going, she began opening several cabinets, looking for the mugs.
A high-pitched noise caught Cassidy’s attention. She turned around to see that Jamie had whistled and was now pointing to a cabinet on the other side of the kitchen. She walked to it, smiling as several mugs were lined up behind the wooden door. Pulling two out, she walked back to the stove, putting a tea bag in each.
“Cassidy,”
“Hmm?” She questioned as the kettle began to whistle. She turned off the fire and poured water into each of the mugs, allowing the tea to steep as she carried them to the counter, handing one to Jamie.
“What’s your mom like?” Jamie held onto the end of his teabag, bobbing it into and out of the water.
Cassidy’s head shot up, the air leaving her lungs all at once, leaving her feeling slightly lightheaded. Jamie flicked his eyes up to hers, sensing her discomfort.
“It’s just that you’ve told me about your dad and you always talk to him on the phone…”
She was still silent, eyes blankly staring at Jamie as though he had been speaking a language other than English.
“You know what, forget about it. We can talk about it some other time…”
The end of his sentence trailed off and he brought his mug up to his lips, taking a long, slow sip. Meanwhile, Cassidy looked down at the counter, thinking of how she should expand on this topic. She’d never told anyone about her mother, and how she had gone on an extended vacation as Cassidy liked to call it.
“My mom’s very beautiful, very…motherly. She taught me to have a sort of compassion to everyone who crossed my path, to help them along in their journey. Taught me that up until the day her journey ended.” She glanced up at Jamie, seeing as his eyes were glued to her, listening as carefully as he could. “She had leukemia, and by the time we found a bone marrow match, it was too late.”
Jamie reached out for her hand, hooking his fingers with hers, chewing on his lower lip anxiously, “Cassidy, I’m sor…”
“I was only twelve, so…” She took a sip of her tea and cleared her throat as a way to gain her composure, “that’s why I don’t let people call me Cass. After she died, I didn’t think anyone deserved to call me that other than my dad. There was no one I cared about enough to let them call me that.”
“And what do you think now?”
Cassidy tilted her head to the side, pursing her lips in thought. “I think I could make an exception for you,”
Jamie leaned up from his chair and kissed Cassidy’s lips quickly, “Is that so?”
She walked around the counter and stepped up into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck, setting her forehead against his, rubbing his shoulders soothingly. “Plus I just really like the way it sounds when you say it,”
He brought one hand to the back of her head, leading her to his lips, smiling as the kissed slowly. Soft groans left Cassidy’s lips and she turned in Jamie’s lap, straddling his waist to more easily snake her fingers through his soft hair. She licked her lips as she pulled away, just as Jamie began to yawn, wincing slightly as the pain overwhelmed the left side of his face.
“Alright captain, let’s get you to bed,” she hopped off of his lap and took his hand delicately.
Cassidy tapped her foot teasingly as if she were impatient until Jamie finally stood up from the chair and followed as she tugged on his hand, leading him back up the stairs and into his bedroom.
She eased him down onto his bed, gently pushing him back until he lay down against the pillow. After watching him get comfortable, she sat down on the edge of the bed, setting one hand over Jamie’s chest. She stroked at his chest soothingly, curling her fingers against his tight muscles.
“Lay down with me,” he pleaded, both of his eyes now closed.
Cassidy bent over, nuzzling the side of her face against his and kissed his temple gently, “I have a midterm in the morning, but I’ll call you afterwards.” She kissed his head once more before she stood up and walked out, closing his bedroom door behind her.
Cassidy never imagined taking a midterm could be so satisfying. Not the actual process of taking the test, and having to have mastered the content; but the fact that in a lecture hall of upwards a hundred students, none of them were aware that the sweatshirt she was wearing belonged to Jamie Benn. Sure, some of the her peers commented on the fact that she was wearing a ‘Kelowna Rockets’ sweatshirt, and asked if she regularly kept up with the goings on of the Western Hockey League team.
So she had to lie a little bit to keep the secret, telling people that she had grown up a fan of the team, even though she had grown up over two thousand miles away. After her semi-lengthy explanation, most just left her alone. But even that wasn’t the best part of wearing Jamie’s jacket. It was the simple fact that it smelled like him. That even though it had been washed and stored away in a dresser drawer, the scent that made Jamie himself, lingered on the fabric. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to trigger small memories of him. And the fact that nobody else knew that the smell was his, made it that much sweeter. It was a well-kept secret between just the two of them.
When evening time rolled around, Cassidy was on her way to the arena by herself. Although she had invited Kennedy to come along, she had a date with a law student and felt that was a more pressing engagement over a hockey game. Wearing another pair of tight black pants, and a flowy blouse, Cassidy retrieved her ticket and entered the arena with her purse toted over one shoulder and Jamie’s sweatshirt hung over her arms.
Twenty minutes later, she had the jacket on. With a limited amount of people around her, the chill of the air attacked her much faster than it did before. The ticket Jamie had left for her was in the second row, just beside the Dallas bench. It was easy to spot him as he ran out of the tunnel to begin warm ups, his hair slicked back as he skated around effortlessly without his helmet on.
Immediately, Jamie’s head swiveled around looking to find Cassidy in the crowd as people had gathered around the glass to see their home team do last minute preparations for the game. Instead of standing up like the rest of the fans, Cassidy stayed in her seat, smiling as she and Jamie made eye contact. A wide smile spread across his face and he skated in a circle, passing a puck over to his brother.
After a minute of getting his bearings on the ice, Jamie stopped in front of the glass Cassidy was behind. He crouched down to the ice and began stretching out, bouncing up and down on the ice to stretch his groin. Cassidy blushed and had to look away for a moment, realizing that he was doing it just to provoke her; and it was working.
He stood back up just a few moments later, an enormous grin as his face, most likely at the fact that Cassidy’s cheeks were bright red. She tried to ignore the fact that he seemed set on teasing her, and when he had turned around to shoot a few pucks on net, she slipped his ‘Kelowna Rockets’ sweatshirt over her head. By the time his flicked his head to make eye contact with her again, he licked his lips quickly at the sight of her in his jacket. She was the one to giggle now, knowing she had the same effect that Jamie had on her.
Cassidy was on her feet, the sleeves of the jacket pulled over her hands as she covered her mouth. She was nearly on the verge of tears, and while the people around her were standing too, they weren’t as concerned as she was. Jamie was down on the ice, on his hands and knees. His teammates huddled around him, making room for the trainer who ran out to the ice with a towel in his hands.
When Jamie was finally upright again, the towel was thrust against his face and he was escorted off the ice and down the tunnel. The game picked back up as if nothing had occurred, and Cassidy sat down, unable to really pay attention to the game. She didn’t quite know what had happened to him; the only thing she knew for a fact was that by the start of the third period, Jamie was back on the ice, ready to end this game and earn two more points for his team.
When it was all said and done, the game hadn’t been as easy as expected, but Dallas still came out with a win. And to top it off, Jamie had been named the ‘Second Star of the Game’ for his goal and assist. Because of the win, she wasn’t sure if the team was planning on going out tonight. That was probably one of the worst things about hanging around an NHL team; they were pretty unpredictable with plans, and their social gatherings were determined by whether or not they won a game.
After most of the crowd had cleared out of the arena, Cassidy walked out, shrugging her shoulders as the cold Dallas night air hit her. Thankfully this time she had a jacket. Within only a few minutes, she was walking to Jordie, who at the same time, was walking towards her.
“He’s getting checked out by the trainer. He said to meet him back at the house,”
“Is he alright, Jordie?”
“He’s fine. You’ll see him at the house, don’t worry.”
The front door was unlocked when Cassidy got to Jamie’s house. In fact, just the simple act of her knocking on the thick wood, made it creak open. She looked at it cautiously, walking into the house, glancing around at anything that seemed unordinary.
She called out for Jamie, pausing to hear a response, and when she heard a faint one, she made her way up the staircase and down the hallway, to see that Jamie’s bedroom door was open. Cassidy closed the door behind her and looked at the bed, seeing Jamie lying down on his side, his back facing the door.
Cassidy walked to the bed and set her hands down on his shoulder and bent down to kiss his temple softly, “how’re you doing?”
Jamie groaned and rolled onto his back, exposing the damage done to him. His left eye was swollen and beneath it, a line of stitches sewed a cut together. “I’m alright. I took a puck to the face,”
“You know it is recommended that hockey players wear visors…” she smirked and pushed his long hair away from his eyes.
“But then I wouldn’t have this badass scar to use as an icebreaker,”
Cassidy paused and pursed her lips, “while having a conversation starter is important, I’d rather you not be blind.”
He brought his hand up to his eye, gently pressing his fingers over the stitches. By now his eye was almost completely swollen shut.
“Can I get you anything?”
Jamie shook his head and sat up in bed, swinging his legs over the side to stand up. He stretched out his back, smiling as it cracked in several places. Cassidy cringed at the noise and looked up at him as he set his hand on her lower back, leading her out of his bedroom and down the stairs. Once they entered the kitchen, he left her side and moved over to the pantry, pulling out a tin box that contained tea bags.
“No, no, no,” Cassidy ran to his side and tugged on his arm until he backed away and looked down at her. “Sit down, I’ll get it for you.”
“Babe, I’ve got a busted eye, not the incapability to make tea.”
She blushed at his nickname for her, and secretly hoped this meant they were on their way to embarking on an actual relationship. “Jamie Benn, you sit your ass in that chair,” she pointed to the stool behind the marble counter, “or so help me God…”
He held up his hands innocently and walked to the stool. Silently, he watched as Cassidy moved around the kitchen, turning on the stove to begin boiling the water in the kettle. When she got that going, she began opening several cabinets, looking for the mugs.
A high-pitched noise caught Cassidy’s attention. She turned around to see that Jamie had whistled and was now pointing to a cabinet on the other side of the kitchen. She walked to it, smiling as several mugs were lined up behind the wooden door. Pulling two out, she walked back to the stove, putting a tea bag in each.
“Cassidy,”
“Hmm?” She questioned as the kettle began to whistle. She turned off the fire and poured water into each of the mugs, allowing the tea to steep as she carried them to the counter, handing one to Jamie.
“What’s your mom like?” Jamie held onto the end of his teabag, bobbing it into and out of the water.
Cassidy’s head shot up, the air leaving her lungs all at once, leaving her feeling slightly lightheaded. Jamie flicked his eyes up to hers, sensing her discomfort.
“It’s just that you’ve told me about your dad and you always talk to him on the phone…”
She was still silent, eyes blankly staring at Jamie as though he had been speaking a language other than English.
“You know what, forget about it. We can talk about it some other time…”
The end of his sentence trailed off and he brought his mug up to his lips, taking a long, slow sip. Meanwhile, Cassidy looked down at the counter, thinking of how she should expand on this topic. She’d never told anyone about her mother, and how she had gone on an extended vacation as Cassidy liked to call it.
“My mom’s very beautiful, very…motherly. She taught me to have a sort of compassion to everyone who crossed my path, to help them along in their journey. Taught me that up until the day her journey ended.” She glanced up at Jamie, seeing as his eyes were glued to her, listening as carefully as he could. “She had leukemia, and by the time we found a bone marrow match, it was too late.”
Jamie reached out for her hand, hooking his fingers with hers, chewing on his lower lip anxiously, “Cassidy, I’m sor…”
“I was only twelve, so…” She took a sip of her tea and cleared her throat as a way to gain her composure, “that’s why I don’t let people call me Cass. After she died, I didn’t think anyone deserved to call me that other than my dad. There was no one I cared about enough to let them call me that.”
“And what do you think now?”
Cassidy tilted her head to the side, pursing her lips in thought. “I think I could make an exception for you,”
Jamie leaned up from his chair and kissed Cassidy’s lips quickly, “Is that so?”
She walked around the counter and stepped up into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck, setting her forehead against his, rubbing his shoulders soothingly. “Plus I just really like the way it sounds when you say it,”
He brought one hand to the back of her head, leading her to his lips, smiling as the kissed slowly. Soft groans left Cassidy’s lips and she turned in Jamie’s lap, straddling his waist to more easily snake her fingers through his soft hair. She licked her lips as she pulled away, just as Jamie began to yawn, wincing slightly as the pain overwhelmed the left side of his face.
“Alright captain, let’s get you to bed,” she hopped off of his lap and took his hand delicately.
Cassidy tapped her foot teasingly as if she were impatient until Jamie finally stood up from the chair and followed as she tugged on his hand, leading him back up the stairs and into his bedroom.
She eased him down onto his bed, gently pushing him back until he lay down against the pillow. After watching him get comfortable, she sat down on the edge of the bed, setting one hand over Jamie’s chest. She stroked at his chest soothingly, curling her fingers against his tight muscles.
“Lay down with me,” he pleaded, both of his eyes now closed.
Cassidy bent over, nuzzling the side of her face against his and kissed his temple gently, “I have a midterm in the morning, but I’ll call you afterwards.” She kissed his head once more before she stood up and walked out, closing his bedroom door behind her.
Notes
This chapter is titled after "For You" by Keith Urban.
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5/2/16