Hockey Christmas (A Holiday Sports Romance Love Story)

by Naomi Niles

  “Are you sure?” she panicked, pushing the window up. “I’m sure I can sneak you in a different way.”

  “No, no,” I told her quickly. “That’s the way that I’m coming in.You just wait there for me.”

  Chapter 32

  Danielle – Wednesday

  It was safe to say that my last day in Minnesota had me in the worst mood possible. I was stomping around the house, feeling like crap, and to make it even worse, I knew that Miles had some hockey stuff to be dealing with so I didn’t even know if I was going to be seeing him. It felt like we had left things a little open ended, and for such an important decision, that didn’t feel like the right way to go.

  All I really knew for certain was that if I felt this bad leaving him knowing that we could see each other again, it was a good thing that we hadn't decided to cut communication completely. I wasn’t sure that I would be able to go if that were the case – I might have ended up giving everything up completely. I knew that Miles didn’t want that for me at all; he was the only one who actually supported my dreams, but I wasn’t sure that I would be able to help it.

  “Did you want some dinner?” my mom yelled up the stairs, actually sounding a little pleasant. To be honest, ever since our chat the other night, she had been much better with me, and I had a feeling that she had spoken to my dad too because he hadn't mentioned any of my choices again either. It would make things much easier if we could just get along without all of the bullshit pressure. Of course I would much prefer it if my parents could be happy for me and what decisions I’d made, but silence would be better than what we currently had.

  “Yes please,” I replied, looking forward to some company, even if it wasn’t who I really wanted to be with. “Thank you.”

  “It’ll be about five minutes,” mom told me. “I made plenty, so come down whenever you want.”

  I sighed deeply, feeling a little sorry for myself. I stared at my reflection in the mirror for a few seconds, trying to rearrange my features into something more of a smile, but somehow, it wasn’t quite working. I couldn’t make myself look even close to happy when I was so gutted inside.

  I eventually gave up and thundered down the stairs to join my mom and dad for dinner, hoping that they wouldn’t comment on my saddened expression. I wouldn’t know how to cope with them actually showing a genuine interest in me; it would be too much to handle. Luckily, they seemed as awkward as I felt when it came to genuine emotions, so we spent the entire meal all skirting around how we were really feeling.

  The meal made me appreciate what I had with Miles so much more. I never felt like I had to contain myself around him; I never believed that I had to be someone else for him. He just seemed to like me for me, and that was amazing to me. Sure, I loved my mom and dad just fine, but what I had with Miles was so much different to everything that I’d ever been through, and that was something that I really needed to hold onto.

  “Are you looking forward to going back tomorrow?” my mom eventually asked, shooting my dad a quick look. “To get back to your course and everything.”

  “Yeah,” I replied quietly. “I am.” In the past, I would have been over the moon to get back to what I considered my real life, but as time passed during this holiday, this started to feel like my reality, and my time at college felt like the part of my life that was simply passing time.

  “Good,” she drawled, looking a little confused. “That’s…good.”

  I hoped that she didn’t take my sadness for confusion about my course, but this had nothing to do with that. I still wanted to be a teacher, nothing was changing that, it was just the idea of leaving all of this behind.

  “Anyway,” I slid my chair back and stood up, unable to take the tension in the room once more. “I better go and finish packing for tomorrow morning, so I’ll see you guy’s later, okay?”

  As I trudged back up the stairs, exhaustion flooding through me, I felt grateful that at least I’d actually finished packing. I couldn’t have faced doing all of that right then. I wanted to simply veg out on the bed and wallow in my emotions.

  But it didn’t seem to last very long, because almost as soon as I lay my body down, my phone rang out and Miles was on the other end, asking to come inside.

  As I hung out of the window, shaking my head and laughing as he climbed up towards my bedroom window, I felt a whole lot better. There was something about Miles that lifted my mood however low it was, and I felt grateful to be able to keep him in my life for a little bit longer, however difficult it was going to be. He just had this aura that drew me in and brightened my spirits, and I didn’t want to let him go, ever.

  “You’re crazy,” I gasped as he fell into my window with the brightest smile across his face. “What am I going to do with you?”

  He instantly pressed his lips up against mine and the sizzling fireworks exploded within me once more, driving me wild with desire. He had me panting and breathless with only one kiss, and almost right away I wanted more. I needed Miles, wanted his body, I felt desperate for him to consume me, and it honestly no longer mattered that my parents were down stairs and that they might overhear us. This was our last night together and I really wanted to take advantage of that.

  “Come over to the bed with me,” I pleaded into his mouth. “Come and lie down with me.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked, clearly excited, but not wanting to read the room wrong. “Aren’t there people in the house?”

  I shrugged and sent him a flirty grin before wrapping my arms tighter around him, and pulling him close to me, allowing him to see exactly what I wanted. Then I walked him backwards, still kissing him, until I fell backwards onto the sheets, laughing and grinning with him.

  He leaned down on top of me and kissed me lightly for a while, running his hands all over my curves. Half of me was enjoying taking things slowly and really taking the time to explore one another’s bodies – especially when our clothes began to shed in a blur and I got to spend some much needed time with those amazing muscles –but another half of me wanted him inside of me, screwing me hard and fast at every angle possible.

  But I stuck with the calmer pace, because I felt like Miles was trying to commit every inch of me to memory considering we wouldn’t be able to see each other every single day once this was over, and I actually wanted to do that for myself. As his hands worked their way over my breasts and down my stomach, I took the time to slowly run my fingers over the scar on his cheek, really thinking about our future together.

  I hoped that it wasn’t a pipe dream to picture us as a real life, committed couple, one that would just be together and do normal things. It shouldn’t be too much to ask to just be with the person that I was so clearly falling in love with, but considering the situation we were in, it really was.

  Then, as his lips ran down my neck, I allowed my imagination to go even further, and I pictured myself engaged to him, living with him, even getting married to him, and with that I no longer needed him to be careful and gentle with me.

  I needed passion.

  I needed more.

  I took action by reaching down and grabbing at his cock, feeling him already hard for me, which got me even more excited. I started to trail my fingers up and down his length, loving the way that he trembled underneath my touch. He was biting on his lip hard, trying to keep his screams inside, and that made it even more fun. I loved teasing him to the point where he almost couldn’t take it anymore, it made me feel powerful and sexy– something I’d never really felt before Miles.

  “Oh God,” he whispered into my ear. “Stop it.You’re driving me crazy.”

  With that, he forced my hands off of him by unexpectedly sliding down my body, kissing me the entire way down. When his mouth found my entrance, and I could sense him getting closer, I gripped tightly onto the sheets beneath me, waiting on edge for him to explore me in the expert way that only he could do. His tongue was an absolutely amazing feature, and the phenomenal way that he alternated between plunging
it into me and flicking it over my clit, forced me to grab the nearest pillow for me to press my face into, to prevent me from attracting the attention of everyone in the building.

  I arched my back, starting to buckle against him, and it was only the moment that Miles started to see that I was almost about to lose it right there and then that he pulled away to slide his length into me.

  “Oh God,” I hissed, clinging tightly onto his broad shoulders as he moved in and out of me. “Oh fuck, Miles, I…” I bit my tongue to stop myself from saying too much, and I lost myself in the sensations instead.

  We held onto one another as the orgasms shuddered through us both, bringing us even closer together. We had a really intense bond, one that was extremely powerful, and having this romantic, intense moment made it feel even more special.

  “You’re amazing,” Miles panted against me, as we both did our best to catch our breath. “You’re so beautiful.”

  “You’re pretty good yourself,” I joked, smiling and kissing him lightly on the lips. “I’m so glad you came tonight; I was worried that I would have to return to California without seeing you.”

  “I wouldn’t have let that happen,” he told me, hugging me close to him. “I don’t want you to go having not spent the night together. I mean, I know that I’m coming to see you in Cali soon, but it still feels too long away.” Too right! I thought to myself at his words. “But I’m glad we’re going to give it a shot at being together anyway. I think that it’ll be great.”

  For a while, we simply lay there in one another’s arms, hugging and occasionally kissing, but it got to the time where Miles needed to head back home far too quickly. He stood up with a sadness in his eyes, and in that moment, I honestly felt like my heart was being torn from my chest.

  “I’ll come and see you soon,” he promised, holding me close to him. “Obviously I’ll be in touch the entire time, but as soon as I find out the details of my schedule, I’ll be there. I promise.”

  I nodded against him, hoping and praying that he would follow through on his promise, and that he wouldn’t just forget about me the second that I left. I hoped that his feelings were real and that they weren’t just because I was around. It didn’t seem that way, but at the same time it felt like it was too good to be true that a pro hockey player would be interested in little old me.

  I watched him slide out of my window with my heart breaking, but I plastered a grin on my face regardless, not wanting him to see me sad. It would be okay. I would be fine.We both would.

  At least I hoped we would be.

  Chapter 33

  Miles – Thursday

  I spent the next morning serving soup and cookies at the homeless shelter with my mom, in the way that I did every single month. It wasn’t something that I did for the fame or the acknowledgement, which was why I never told anyone what I was doing. I did it to pay something back. When my dad passed away, things could have gone very differently for me and my mom, and I never wanted to forget that. We could have ended up broke and homeless, we could have ended up in a terrible position, but we didn’t, and for that, I was incredibly grateful.

  I wanted to help, because I was perfectly aware that the day might come around where I needed help myself, and if it ever did, I wanted to feel like I’d earned it. I also donated a lot of my pay check too, but even my mom didn’t know about that one.

  “What’s wrong?” mom asked me, giving me a funny look. “You’ve been quiet all morning. That isn’t like you at all.Usually you chat to everyone in here.”

  I sighed deeply, feeling more than a little sorry for myself, before answering her question. There was no point in trying to hide my sour mood from her – she always knew exactly when I was down. “Danielle is leaving for California today,” I admitted, my face falling even further. “I don’t know what is going to become of us, and that’s a little scary. Like, I’m worried that we might not be able to work and that it’ll explode epically, hurting us both in the process. Not knowing the future is honestly driving me insane.”

  She rubbed my arm and gave me a sad smile. “If you’re meant to be, you will somehow manage to make it work,” she told me. “It might not be an easy road, but the path to true love never is. I’ve never seen anyone make you as happy as that girl, and it makes me happy that you’re going to give it a try. You are just going to have to give it a go, to see what happens. You’ll regret it much more if you don’t try.”

  She was trying to be wise, but in all honesty, her words weren’t making me feel any better at all. “But what if this distance is too much? What if neither of us can hack it?”

  “You won’t know unless you try,” she reassured me in the best way that she could. “But you’ll need to be aware of your own life too. I don’t want you to focus so hard on making your relationship work that it makes everything else fall apart either. Like I said, it is going to be challenging, but at the same time, if it’s meant to be, it will all work out.”

  I hung my head, completely unconvinced and seeing that her words weren’t making me feel any better, she decided to change tactics.

  “Did you know that your dad and I started out as a long distance thing?”

  My eyes shot up towards her as she told me a story that I’d never heard before. “But I thought you met at a friend’s wedding?” I asked, a little confused. I’d heard some of the story before, but it was obvious now that I didn’t know everything.

  “We did,” she confirmed. “But your dad had travelled into town for it. He actually lived a few towns over.” Watching me roll my eyes, she defended that statement. “You have to remember that it wasn’t like it is today – we didn’t have cell phones and the Internet to keep in touch; it wasn’t easy for us to send messages back and forth, and even though we didn’t live too far away, it felt like a life time away. It felt like the other end of the universe because we didn’t have cars and things.We had to really make the effort to spend time together, but we did it because we were in love. We persevered despite the odds being stacked against us because we knew that we were meant to be, and it all worked out okay in the end. Well…at least for a long while it did. Of course it had a sad ending, but before that, there was a whole heap of happy things.”

  I pulled her in for a deep hug, realizing that I shouldn’t be acting as sad as I was because at least Danielle was still here, at least I could still see her. My mom had lost the love of her life, yet there she was, being strong for me.

  “I’m sorry you lost him mom,” I told her sadly. “You didn’t deserve that to happen.”

  “At least I got you out of it,” she grinned, holding me tight. “I wouldn’t change it for the world. Plus, the time I had with your dad was absolutely amazing, and even though it hurt like crazy when he died, and it still hurts now, I wouldn’t do anything differently.” She pulled back and looked into my eyes. “If you want to make it work, and the distance does become a problem, you’ll just have to work a way around it. I’m not suggesting that you give up your hockey, because you’ve spent your entire life working towards that dream, but maybe you could think about Danielle coming here. She’s studying to become a teacher right? That’s something that she could do anywhere.”

  “Thanks,mom,” I grinned, feeling grateful for our chat, and as we got back to serving the food to the needy, I started to think that maybe she was right after all.

  *****

  As I walked back into my apartment, my mood was a little higher than before. I knew that it was pretty likely that Danielle’s flight had already left, which saddened me, but I felt like I had something new to focus on now. Maybe my mom was right, and if I could find another course for Danielle to take, one that was here, one that was better than the one she was already taking, then maybe she would consider it.

  The more that I thought about it, the more that I knew it would be better if she was here full time. I felt like if she was here, we could really allow things to progress and grow into something real, and that would be a lot ha
rder if she was in a different state. We would remain in limbo for far too long, and I didn’t think either of us wanted that.

  To give myself just a little more time to really think it through, I busied myself by cleaning up my apartment. I had allowed it to go to shit a little bit during the season of partying, and it was time to put that behind me now and to have a fresh start. I felt like with Danielle no longer around, I needed to get a little serious about life, to start really thinking about things properly, and the first step to that was putting any silliness behind me.

  Once I had the place straightened up a little, I put in a call to order a pizza because I really wasn’t in the mood to cook, and while I waited for it to come, I logged online, just to have a look at what courses were available near me. I just wanted to see if there was a possibility, and the Internet was the best place to do that.

  After hunting for a short while, I printed out a selection of information with regards to the teaching courses that were available at the nearby colleges, and I actually felt pretty good about it. It seemed like there were some truly amazing lecturers around and that the courses led to a lot of opportunities, which could only be a good thing. I was certain that Danielle had an awesome course sorted in San Diego, but I wasn’t convinced that it had all the same things to offer as some of these did.

  I examined the printed out bits of paper with a big smile on my face, excited to get the chance to show her…but then an image of her face filled my mind, and in it, she was giving me the same look that she gave her parents. The one that showed disappointment as they tried to control her life and to turn her into someone that they wanted her to be. I really didn’t want to be that; I wanted to be more…better. I wanted to be the person who she could turn to when the world was shit, I didn’t want to be the person causing her any heartache.

  With that, I tore the paper up and I chucked it in the bin, shaking my head at my own stupidity. Danielle shouldn’t have to change her life for me, and I definitely shouldn’t suggest it. I wouldn’t want to taint what we could have in the future because I felt impatient. Who knew?This really could be the woman that I ended up marrying and spending the rest of my life with, and if that was the case, then this short time, this year and a half, wouldn’t seem like anything in the long run. It would be such a short time in the length of our lifetime, and I needed to keep that in mind.