Hockey Christmas (A Holiday Sports Romance Love Story)

by Naomi Niles

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “That’s what I realized once the dust had settled and I was alone in my tent. It doesn’t matter what the justifications are, it doesn’t matter if he’s the enemy, and it doesn’t matter if I was acting in self-defense. I killed a man; I took his life like I had a right to. I couldn’t wrap my head around that. I couldn’t understand that.”

  Lizzie looked at me with those sad, blue eyes of hers and I knew instinctively that she understood what I was saying. She had always been a pacifist. She had always been the girl to stop a fight, to make peace, to swallow her own pride simply to avoid an unpleasant situation.

  “I know,” she said and I felt better instantly. “And it’s ok to feel like that.”

  “You’re the only one who’s ever said that to me,” I said with a small smile. “I’ve tried explaining that to a few people and it doesn’t matter who they are. They’ve always tried to explain away my feelings. I just wanted them to understand those feelings.”

  “I do.”

  “I wish I had spoken to you then like I’m speaking to you now,” I said with a sigh that went ten years deep. “But at the time, I couldn’t talk to anyone. I retreated into myself and I didn’t resurface for a long time.”

  “You send me a letter a few months into your deployment,” Lizzie recalled. “Do you remember it?”

  I searched my head but it came up blank. “No I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I still have that letter,” she admitted. “I cried the first time I read it … not because there was anything definitive about us in it. You didn’t mention that you needed time or you wanted to take a break from us. You just spoke about your first combat mission and I could tell from the way you wrote that … that you had lost yourself.”

  “What did I say in the letter?”

  “It was this one line in particular,” Lizzie said. “You wrote ‘I’m tired, Lizzie, my body aches but it’s bearable compared with the ache in my conscience, my soul. I don’t know why I’m here ... not just in this war-torn place but also in this world.’ I memorized that line because I knew there was a secret hidden in it somewhere. You were confused and you were alone and I knew I couldn’t help you. So when the letters stopped coming, I guess I wasn’t surprised.”

  “I didn’t know what to say anymore,” I admitted. “Bastrop seemed like another life. I felt as though I wasn’t a part of it anymore. I felt that if I came back, I would taint it somehow, I would ruin everything beautiful about it: including you. I’m not trying to justify anything, I’m not trying to pretend like I stopped writing for some noble reason. The truth is I was confused and alone and I didn’t know how to deal with it. I just …”

  “It’s ok Dylan,” Lizzie said squeezing my hand. “You were so young, we both were. We weren’t supposed to know the best way to deal with things.”

  “I know,” I replied. “I just wish it had been different. I wish I had never stopped writing to you, I wish I had never given you cause to question my love for you. I wish I had chosen differently.”

  “Don’t do that, Dylan,” Lizzie said immediately. “Don’t look back. It’ll only drive you crazy; trust me I know. I did it during the worst moments of my marriage and it only made things worse. Things happened and there’s no way to change it, so why go through the torture of thinking up all the alternate possibilities? There’s no alternate. These are our lives.”

  She had always been wise beyond her years; it just reinforced how much I had missed her and how quickly she was able to talk me off the ledge. I remembered that she had been through things too. She had lived a life while I had been away and that had taught her things that had nothing to do with me.

  “What made you marry Paul?” I asked.

  She smiled. “You already asked me that question.”

  “I didn’t believe your answer,” I replied.

  She looked down and I knew I was right. “He left for college,” Lizzie said. “And he moved back into town six years later. He seemed different at first; he chased after me pretty persistently and in the end I decided to give in.”

  “But why?”

  She sighed. “Because you weren’t there, Dylan,” she said and I detected that little note of bitterness in her tone. “And I realized at last that I couldn’t sit around waiting for you. I realized that five years ago.”

  “Five years,” I repeated and then it hit me. “I visited my parents five years ago.”

  Lizzie nodded. “You were in town,” she said. “For two whole weeks, as I recall, and I didn’t hear a word from you at any point. And that was when it hit me: I was wasting my life away because I was holding on to the fairy tale we had lived in high school. And I knew I needed to stop.”

  I stared at her in shock, in surprise, in regret, but I knew that she was right: there was nothing I could do to change what had happened all those years ago.

  “I was in town five years ago,” I nodded. “And I didn’t contact you.”

  “No you didn’t,” she said, the bitterness had disappeared from her tone.

  “Would you believe me if I told you that I debated contacting you a hundred times a day?” I asked.

  She looked at me. “I suppose I could believe that now.”

  “It’s true,” I said sincerely. “I thought about you every second that I was in Bastrop … but I just didn’t think it was fair to contact you. I hated how I had just stopped writing, how I had disappeared into my world without so much as an explanation or a goodbye. I didn’t think it was fair to bring all that up again … to disrupt your life with my baggage. I thought you were better off without me.”

  “Why?” Lizzie demanded.

  “Because, like you said, war changed me,” I said trying to avoid making my explanations sound like excuses. “I didn’t want you to have to deal with my emotional baggage.”

  Her eyes were hooded and I couldn’t quite read the expression behind them. She had gotten better at masking her emotions and I wondered if she employed that mask her everyone or just me. “I appreciate the thought,” she said at last. “And I understand it too; I just wish you had left that decision up to me.”

  “You know what? I wish I had too,” I admitted.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Lizzie said after a small pause. “We’re not kids anymore, we’re adults who have our own lives now. And in a few weeks you’re going back to yours.”

  “Yes, I am going back,” I agreed. “But I don’t know if that is my life anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I feel like I’ve served my time,” I said. “I think it’s time for me to retire.”

  “Retire?” Lizzie repeated. “Really?”

  “The last couple of years, I’ve had this idea of opening up a center for war vets,” I tried to explain. “Sort of like a rehabilitation program that would focus on getting them prepared to re-join society.”

  Lizzie raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Dylan,” she said. “That’s a wonderful idea.”

  “You think so?”

  “I do,” she nodded enthusiastically. “I really do. We need more centers like that across this country. We make such a big fuss about all the heroes who fight for us overseas but we don’t give much thought to what happens to them once they come back.”

  I smiled, thrilled with her approval and her excitement at the idea. “I’m glad you think so,” I said. “Hopefully it will work.”

  “It will work,” Lizzie said with certainty.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I know you,” she replied simply. “You enlisted when you were eighteen and you went through the toughest training program in the world to become a Navy SEAL. You can do anything you set your mind to, and I’m not just saying that. I have proof.”

  I laughed. “You’ve always made me feel ten feet all.”

  Lizzie smiled. “You always gave me the ammunition I needed,” she said. “And if you ever need some real help, I’d be happy to pitch in.”

  �
��Really?”

  “Anything you need,” Lizzie nodded. “Nurse, cook … even a beer wench if you need it.”

  I laughed. “Nope, definitely not,” I said immediately. “Every man who laid eyes on you would lose his mind and hit on you and then I’d have to get involved. It wouldn’t do to have a rehabilitation for war vets and then have the owner beat them all up.”

  Lizzie laughed. “It would make quite the headline though.”

  I pulled her close and we laughed together, as the conversation gently tilted back into carelessness. She smelled amazing and I couldn’t help but lean in to bask in her scent. When I pulled back I realized she was looking straight at me, her eyes were impossibly large and impossibly beautiful. I felt as though I was hypnotized.

  “Lizzie,” I whispered slowly as I cupped her face in my hand. “I’ve missed you so much.” Then I leaned in and kissed her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Elizabeth

  It felt amazing to sit there, nestled against Dylan’s chest with the sun setting slowly in front of us. It was as though the sky was our theater and the sun was putting on a show just for us. I could almost believe that we were the only two people on earth and quite apart from feeling lonely, all I felt was a sense of peace and fulfilment.

  It felt amazing to open up to him, to hear him open up with me. It made me realize that we hadn’t just been lovers, we had been best friends, and after being starved of that friendship for eleven years, it was impossible to turn away from it now.

  “Lizzie,” he whispered to me, as his hand reached up and gently cupped the side of my face. His blue eyes were soft and tranquil, but they held passion. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  He leaned in and I knew he was going to kiss me. I didn’t even think to stop it, I had anticipated this moment all evening. Despite that, it still felt like a first kiss and I could feel the anticipation course through me. He kissed me as though he were scared to break me. He kissed me like I was the most precious thing in the world. He kissed me like I was the only woman in the world.

  It was so easy to fall into him again, and when he was holding me like that, it was impossible to believe that we’d lived separate lives for the last decade. Those years became something like an elusive dream that I couldn’t quite hold on to and I found what little resolve I had left slip away into the sunset.

  Dylan pushed me down gently onto the grass as his body came over mine. It felt like déjà vu, as though we had lived this moment in the past, but there were things that I knew were different. He was different. His body had changed. His stomach was flat and lined with a ridge of muscles that seemed to go on forever. His arms were powerfully defined and twice the size they had been in school.

  But it was more than just his physicality that had changed. He was more confident, more experienced, he was sure of himself in a way that had been absent before. He explored my body as though we were strangers and I was a mystery to him. He looked at me as though I was an enigma that he needed to decode.

  The first time we’d had sex, I had been fifteen, and Dylan was close upon his sixteenth birthday. We had already been together two years, but we had decided to wait a little longer. It hadn’t been planned, it had happened out of nowhere, a bolt of light in the dark that took us both by surprise. I had been in my room crying because my parents had just informed me that they were getting a divorce. Dylan and called earlier, and when I hadn’t answered, he had come over right away to make sure everything was all right.

  “Lizzie,” he had said, his voice going soft with worry. “Don’t cry …”

  “They’re giving up,” I wept. “Dad moved out last night.”

  He didn’t say a word. He just sat there, holding me until my tears had dried. “We’re not a family anymore,” I told him with my head on his shoulder.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You and I are a family; that will never change.”

  I was the one who kissed him. I kissed him because I realized he was right. I kissed him because I realized that he was the one I called whenever something went wrong, whenever something went right, whenever something happened at all. He was the one I called for first, above my own parents sometimes. He was like an extension of myself. He was my family.

  Rampaging teenage hormones or societal pressure didn’t motivate us. We were motivated by our need for one another, by the realization that our love was pure and therefore it was untouchable. It may not have been true in the greater scheme of things, but it was true for us in that moment.

  “Lizzie,” Dylan whispered in my ear, calling me back to the present. He was kissing me tenderly, slowly and I knew he was taking his time because he wanted this to last as long as possible.

  I smiled up at him, seeing the boy I had fallen in love with all those years ago. “Dylan,” I replied.

  “If you want me to stop… I will,” he said.

  He was asking because he wanted to give me a choice. He was leaving in a few weeks and he didn’t want to leave me like he had the first time he had gone. I loved the gesture; I loved the fact that he cared enough to ask me the question. Especially because I could see in this eyes that he didn’t want to stop. It didn’t matter though.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t want you to stop.” I couldn’t have stopped even if I had wanted to. The pull was too strong, the need was too powerful, and I knew that the only thing I would regret once he was gone was if I didn’t go through with this.

  He dropped his head down to my neck and started kissing me, slowly and patiently as though we had all the time in the world. His hands explored my body, slipping under my blouse and moving in gentle rhythms up and down the length of me. Slowly, he unbuttoned my blouse and undid the clasp of my trousers. He undressed me leisurely so that he could watch me as he pealed each layer away.

  It wasn’t until I was lying beneath him in nothing but my bra and panties that the nerves kicked in and I started to feel vulnerable and panicky. He sensed my unease immediately and he pulled back a little and looked down at me. “Are you ok?” he asked.

  “I don’t look the same as I did eleven years ago,” I managed to say. “I’ve changed, my body has changed.”

  “I don’t care,” he said before he bent down to kiss me again.

  This time I pulled away from him. “Dylan …”

  “It’s ok,” he said softly. “Tell me.”

  “I’m just… I don’t know why I’m so nervous,” I admitted. “You seem so calm.”

  “I’m not,” he said. “Trust me. I’ve gotten used to keeping a calm façade but inside, I’m just as nervous as you are.” He pushed himself up on his knees. “Maybe this will make you feel better,” he said as he removed his shirt and began to undo his trousers.

  I stared at the beautiful marble perfection of his body. “That doesn’t make me feel better,” I said. “You look like you’re carved out of stone. Are those even real?”

  “The abs?” he asked looking down for a moment. “Why don’t you give them a close inspection and find out yourself.”

  I blushed and he noticed. He smiled and came to lie beside me once more. He took my hand and held it close to his heart. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with,” he said. “But I want you to know that you are the single most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life. I meant it then and I mean it now. I have travelled the world, Lizzie, and no woman has ever come close to you.”

  I took his hand and placed it back on my body, and he smiled at the gesture as he leaned in and started kissing me again. This time he was not as patient or as gentle. He was more insistent; there was a hunger in his kiss and his touch that made me feel unbelievably desired.

  He slipped off my bra and I felt the cold air rush at me before Dylan’s hands came over my breasts. He touched them first, his fingers caressing my nipples slowly. Then he bent down and took a nipple in his mouth. I felt a moan escape me and I grabbed at the grass around me. I could feel his hands slip downwards until he had p
ushed off my panties and I was lying completely naked under the fading sunlight.

  I remembered our first time so perfectly that it almost felt like a recent memory. His hands had fumbled at my clothes, we had bumped our noses together more than once, and our teeth had grated together when we kissed. We had been so nervous that day once we realized what was happening, once we realized we were actually going to go through with it.

  I had been nervous then, but at some point during our fumbling, once we were naked and staring at one another, the nerves had melted away. Suddenly instinct had taken over and that instinct told me that I could trust Dylan. A similar feeling engulfed me as Dylan’s fingers slipped inside me and I realized that I could trust him. I could trust him to see beauty in my body, I could trust him with my flaws, and I could be as vulnerable as I needed to be because he would not hold it against me.

  I could feel his erection hard against my thigh and it excited me further. I turned into him and wrapped my hand around his hard-on. He moaned in response and I felt a thrill of pleasure overtake me. My consciousness left me with that moan and I explored his body the way he was exploring mine. When he finally slipped inside me, I felt such a strange mix of emotions.

  They were a serious of contradictions that left me feeling confused and exhilarated. I felt as though I was coming home after a long absence, I felt sad and happy at the same time. I felt as though I was holding something precious in my closed fist but I knew that the moment I opened it, it would fly away. He moved inside me, slowly at first and then a little harder, a little more insistently.

  It felt so amazing that it scared me. He was my first love; he was the man I had trusted with my body and my heart. We had been so young when we had first started dating that we had grown together, we had taught each other, we had become two sides of the same coin. Dylan used to say that we were each other’s reflections and I was only now beginning to understand what that meant.

  “Dylan,” I whispered into his ear.