Bienvenido A Miami

A week after his last kiss with Liv, Mike was a healthy scratch for the seventh consecutive game. He was just on that edge of irritation that would bleed into anger when he was in again. It wasn’t a situation where he was suddenly a magical superstar, he was still centering the fourth line, but it was something. He was back on the ice with not a whole lot of time to be thinking ‘what if’s’ about a girl he might never see again.

A girl that hadn’t texted him back yet. His pride wouldn’t allow him to actually text her again. No matter how much he wanted to, he wasn’t sure where they’d left things. They’d promised no future beyond what they’d had. But Mike wanted. He could see Liv here, with him, in DC. Maybe not in the bare apartment he shared with Willy but he wanted to take her to see the sights. He wanted to kiss her on the Mall. He wanted her to watch him play.

He wanted so much and yet the only connection he had with her now remained silent. Willy called him out more than once for staring at his phone longingly. It would have been so easy too to suck it up for the sake of something amazing. Just a few buttons and he could hear her voice.

And fuck, but he missed her voice. He missed every part of her every day. And the longer it got, the more it felt like what he had in Florida would never come back to him.

As February gave up its bluster to March it seemed like Mike had gotten caught in a loop as the Caps found themselves down in Florida once more. It was a quick two game flyover before they headed out West but the four days they were set for in the sun was enough to bring all the memories from his last time flooding back.

The team was even staying within spitting distance of their original hotel. Willy punched his arm, hard, when he kept trying to convince himself that Liv would appear at any moment.

“Dude, Latts. What the fuck has gotten to you? I’d have figured you’d be glad to get back here. Maybe relive old memories.” Mike shoved Willy out of his bus seat. The team laughed. Mike tried to not be so distracted.

The team was coming off their afternoon skate when a rink attendant approached Mike with an apologetic look. “Mr. Latta?” Mike stopped in the hall. The few guys that were following him off the ice pushed past him.

He caught himself on the brick before he could fall over onto the poor man trying to talk to him. “Yeah. That’s me.”

“You have a visitor. I’ve been asked to bring you to the family room when you’re done dressing.”

Mike cocked his eyebrow and tilted his head but a spark of hope lit up within his chest that maybe . . . just maybe it was Liv. He asked the guy to give him 10 and hurried back to change. He was back in eight minutes, begging off the rest of the team for the ride back to the hotel. The walk to the family room was short.

When he pushed open the door his heart stuttered. The tall, dark haired woman with her back to him really looked a lot like Liv. But, she laughed as she turned to the door, joking with another woman, and Mike realized it was Sophie.

He approached Liv’s sister with a smile that he hoped wouldn't show his total and utter disappointment at not seeing Liv. “Hey, Mrs. Hayes. Good to see you.”

She held out her cheek for a kiss, as though they were old friends, before she swatted him hard on the arm. “And where in the world have you been, young man? Liv said she hasn’t heard from you in weeks.”

He blushed furiously. “Well, I-“

“I don’t want your excuses. I want your promise that you’ll text her, right now.” Sophie stared him down. Mike slowly withdrew his cell phone and typed in a quick message hello to Liv. He held up the screen as proof. “Good. Now ask her out for dinner after the game.”

He sputtered while Sophie smiled. Because, asking her out to dinner after the game would imply that she was available, in Florida, after the game. His cell chirped. A text from Liv came in that said, simply, ‘Score one for me’.

“She’s here?” Sophie nodded.

He typed out an invitation to get food after the game, which she sent a smiley face in response to. It felt weird to Mike, to suddenly see her name pop up on his phone as if they hadn’t had radio silence between them since they’d kissed good bye. Mike was overjoyed. His smile hurt his face. He tucked his phone back in his pocket and swept Sophie up into a hug. He thanked her at least a dozen times until she finally protested enough to end up back on her own feet.

There was a distinct spring in his step when he walked into the hotel lobby. The rest of the team was just sitting down to their pre-game meal in the banquet when he caught up to him. Willy and Kuzy both gave him shit for the blissed out expression on his face, asking who he’d found for a quickie at the stadium. He didn’t deign to respond.

The game that night was magnificent. Even on the fourth line, he made an impact with a couple of hits and got his seventh assist for the year for Greenie’s game winning goal. He was riding high when he changed, expecting a message to come at any time that Liv was waiting for him somewhere. When the time wore on and he’d changed entirely without a word from her, he texted. Ten minutes later the team was loading up on the bus to go back to the hotel. Thankfully they were in the city for the night, flying out in the morning.

He had to make the choice to go with them, or try to catch a cab back later. He didn’t know what to do. All that happiness he’d been floating around in all day was diminished and he felt like shit. She’d never actually accepted the dinner date, he rationalized. This was her way of letting him down easy or something. He’d been fooling himself, his brain chided.

When he pushed open the door to the hallway, he stopped in his tracks. Because she hadn’t forgotten. She was leaning against the fall wall, a nervous smirk on her face. When he willed his feet to move again, to carry him to her, she straightened. She looked like a wildling with her hair down. Her scarf was uneven. She hadn’t put on a ton of makeup. It clashed so sharply with the image he had of her at her sister’s wedding but Mike had the feeling that this was just one more side of Liv that he hadn’t met yet.

She still looked achingly gorgeous to him.

At his back, the few stragglers noticed his awkward standoff in the hallway. “Latts! You come on the bus?” It was Backie, ever the dad, trying to rein his kids in. Mike glanced back at the Swede and then down at Liv. She looked hopeful. Hopeful but worried.

When she spoke, she sounded shy. She’d never been shy with him before. “Hi.”

He broke into a grin and turned back to Backie. “Nah. I’ll catch a cab and meet up with you guys later.”

The Swede gave him a long look that promised swift retribution if he missed curfew before he left for the bus.

Liv opened her mouth to say something, but Mike didn’t give her the chance. He’d missed her so much. He caught one of her hands and pulled her in. She had no protest when he lowered his lips and gave her a ravishing kiss. He groaned; he was a little awed that she tasted just the same. That she felt the same under his hands and that all of his memories of her weren’t merely trumped up fantasies relived in lonely moments.

It took a long while for him to feel comfortable that she was actually with him to let her have some air. She curled in closer even as he tried to let her breathe. “I fucking hissed you so much.” He pressed his forehead to hers, looking her in the eyes. She giggled.

“I missed you too. Way more than a weekend tryst in Miami should ever make me miss anyone.”

“Why didn’t you text me back?” He couldn’t help the hurt that slipped into the question.

“Why didn’t you text me more than once?” Her own question was a sharp reminder that they were both equally guilty for falling out of touch with one another.

He looked down at her face. “I was scared. I think. That I had imagined how good we were together.”

She nodded slightly and he had the feeling she might have felt the same way. “And now?”

“And now-“he stared off in the distance for a moment, trying to find the right words to say. “And now I think we were better than I could have remembered.”

He made curfew that night, just barely, and with a figure tucked against his side.

She woke him close to sunrise with a hand on his dick and a mouth at her neck. He groaned and maneuvered and slipped inside her like they hadn’t been apart for over a month. Their rhythm was just as syncopated and easy at it had been before.

Afterwards, when her head had finally cleared and he could form real sentences again, she drew a shape over his heart with a fingertip. “What’s next, Mike? I mean- logistically this is a night mare.” She angled her eyes up to his face. He kissed her forehead in response. “I don’t see myself dropping my life and moving to the other side of the country but I don’t want to give you up.”

He nodded thoughtfully for a moment before he grinned and said, “Maybe I’ll ask for a trade to Chicago. Do you think they’d take me?”

She made a face at that and tapped his lightly. “Don’t joke. Your career is important. If someone is going to move, it should be me. I can get a job in insurance anywhere.”

He frowned. “But you just said-“

“I know what I said. I don’t see myself dropping my life, at least not right now. But maybe one day.”

The maybe set his heart in flight, hope filtering though his veins. “Perhaps we could play it by ear?”

She nuzzled up against him, getting comfortable again. “More texting. I promise.”

He whispered, “And calls. Just thinking about how sexy you probably sound coming from my voice gives me a chub.”

She shrieked at his indelicacy, thwaping him in the face with her pillow. “That’s gross. But fair.”

Mike pulled Liv back down, forcing her to cuddle again. She rubbed her cheek against his bare chest as he brushed the hair from her face. “Wherever we go from here I know one thing, at least?”

She was already starting to drift off when she asked, “Hmmm? What’s that?”

He chuckled a little and pressed one last kiss to her temple. “I should probably get more furniture before you visit. I don’t think the ping pong table will take me fucking you on it very well.” She didn’t respond and Mike knew he’d lost her to sleep. That was all right with him, though. He’d just have to surprise her with that option when she did stay with him.

That thought was enough to keep a smile on his face as he drifted off.

The End

Notes