Hockey Christmas (A Holiday Sports Romance Love Story)

by Naomi Niles

  Our tongues entwined and I felt my heartbeat race up, fueled by his wandering hands and the way his lips felt against mine. I wanted him inside me, I wanted to feel him inside me, but I knew that we shouldn’t be travelling down that road now.

  We had had our time together and now it was coming to a close. If our relationship continued after this point, it would have to be a friendship that kept the lines firmly drawn. I pulled back before his hands could go any further down.

  “You’re leaving tomorrow, Dylan,” I whispered. “And I can’t let myself get any deeper into this than I already have.”

  He looked like he was going to argue, the passion was burning steadily in his eyes and then after a moment, I watched it go out slowly. He nodded once and loosened his grip on me. “I understand,” he said.

  “What time are you leaving tomorrow?” I asked and the question tasted like sawdust coming out of my mouth.

  “In the morning,” Dylan replied. “After I have breakfast with mom.”

  I nodded.

  “Why don’t you join us?” he asked.

  “Thank you,” I said sincerely. “But I think it would be a little too … hard for me.”

  Dylan sighed but I saw the understanding in his eyes. I could see a little relief too, neither one of us wanted to fall to pieces with sad goodbyes and the uncertainty of our future relationship.

  “I guess we’ll have to say our goodbyes now then.”

  “Let’s not say goodbye at all,” I suggested quickly.

  “That’s a good idea,” Dylan nodded enthusiastically. “A goodbye implies that we’re never going to see each other after this and we’re going to stay in touch; I promise.”

  “Don’t promise,” I said gently. “Let’s just do the best we can. We had our beautiful relationship, and that was perfect, but now …”

  “We’re friends,” Dylan finished for me.

  “Yes,” I nodded. “We are friends.”

  “All right then,” Dylan said. “I guess I’ll be seeing you, Lizzie.”

  He rose from the sofa and I walked him to the door. He leaned in and pulled me to him for a kiss. We stood by the door kissing for five minutes before he finally broke away. His eyes were calm and tranquil but I could see the regret etched across them as though he was remembering memories that he couldn’t avoid.

  “I’ll be seeing you, Dylan,” I said repeated his words from a few moments ago.

  He smiled, kissed me softly on the lips again, and walked out the door. He didn’t look back and I didn’t expect him to. Looking back only kept you from moving forward.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Dylan

  I couldn’t stop thinking about her. The knowledge that I was leaving only made it more impossible to keep her off my mind. I kept thinking of all the things we could be doing if we had just decided to stay together until I left for the airport. Everything felt like wasted time to me, but I knew she needed to disengage before she got her feelings too deeply involved.

  I knew I had to give her that. She deserved to move on with as little pain as possible, and if not seeing me and not saying goodbye was what she needed, then I would disappear quietly without a word.

  I finished packing my bags and I brought them downstairs before I made my way into the kitchen. Mom was standing by the stove, sliding sausages out from the frying pan to a large plate. The table had already been set and breakfast was ready. I looked at the feast mom had prepared for me and everything looked beautiful, but I had no appetite.

  I moved towards her and gave her a kiss on the cheek before I sat down with her. “You’re looking nice today,” I said.

  “Really?” mom replied. “How so?”

  “I don’t know,” I observed. “Just … brighter somehow.”

  She smiled. “Maybe that’s because I decided to start work soon.”

  “Really?” I asked in surprise. “It’s very soon.”

  “I need to be distracted and I want to be of some use,” mom replied. “And I’ve always loved nursing.”

  “Well, if that’s what you want, then I fully support it.”

  “Thanks, darling.”

  “Where’s Tyler?” I asked.

  Mom sighed. “He went out for a jog,” she said.

  “Oh,” I replied, knowing that the real reason for his jog was probably to avoid me. “He’s been out awhile.”

  “He likes staying fit.”

  “I’ll bet,” I said trying to keep the sarcasm from my tone.

  “I take it you two haven’t made up yet,” mom said pointedly.

  I shrugged. “We’re just keeping to ourselves.”

  She sighed and spooned scrambled eggs onto my plate. “You barely see each other and when you actually get time together you want to keep to yourselves? I don’t understand the logic in that.”

  “Clearly you haven’t had an insufferable sibling,” I said lightly but mom shot me a severe look.

  “He is your brother, and I know it may not seem that way, but he loves you, Dylan,” mom said with a weary sigh. “And he’s proud of you.”

  “He does a good job of hiding it though.”

  “He’s disappointed with his life,” mom said. “Things didn’t turn out the way he planned.”

  “Well welcome to the club,” I groaned. “He’s not the only one, mom.”

  “You achieved what you wanted, Dylan,” mom pointed out. “You wanted to enlist, you wanted to serve your country, you wanted to follow in your father’s footsteps, and you did all those things.”

  “But there’s a lot I sacrificed along the way,” I pointed out.

  “But you knew you were sacrificing those things,” mom said. “You understand what you would have to give up and you did it anyway. You made the choice: Tyler wasn’t always given one.”

  I sighed; she was right about that much at least and I couldn’t deny it. “I don’t know what to do mom,” I said honestly. “Every time I try with Tyler, he ends up pissing me off and then I walk away thinking I never should have tried in the first place.”

  “With family, you always keep trying,” mom said stoically. “If you’re not willing to try, then you won’t have anything left. Trust me, son; I know when you’re young, some relationships seem dispensable to you, but when you get a little older, you’ll realize their value.”

  “Ok,” I sighed. “I’ll try again.”

  “That’s my boy,” mom said and her smile brightened infinitesimally. She was looking a little better since dad’s funeral and I knew she had got most of her grieving done in the days shortly after we had buried him. She was eating a little more and she had gained some color in her cheeks. She had started talking about dad too, and when she said his name she no longer flinched like she used to.

  I felt bad about leaving but her progress had made me feel slightly better. And despite my tense relationship with Tyler, I was grateful that he was around to take care of mom. I understood that he had dealt with the lion’s share of the problems since I’d left and I knew that because of that, I had to be a little more patient with him.

  Once we had finished breakfast, I walked outside towards the lake and spied Tyler sitting by the banks under the shade of the trees. He was dressed in his sweatpants and sneakers, but it looked like he had been sitting by the lake for a while now. I moved towards him.

  “Hi,” I said and Tyler passed me a cursory glance.

  “Hi,” he nodded back without getting up.

  I lowered myself to the ground beside him and stared out at the lake the same way he was doing. “When are you moving back into your apartment?” I asked Tyler.

  “I’m not,” Tyler replied taking me by surprise.

  “What?”

  “Mom needs me,” Tyler said. “She misses dad and I don’t think it’s good for her to be living all alone in this big house anymore.”

  “What about selling it and going for a smaller place?” I suggested.

  “I mentioned the idea to mom already, but she’s re
fusing to leave this house,” Tyler said. “She doesn’t want to leave behind all the memories.”

  “I guess I don’t blame her,” I said. “We grew up in this house.”

  Tyler nodded. “I’m putting my apartment up for sale next week and I’ll move the rest of my stuff here in the next few weeks.”

  “Wow, you’re really doing this?”

  “I’m really doing this,” Tyler nodded.

  We sat there in silence for a few minutes and I contemplated all the different ways I could begin to start the conversation. It was harder than I thought to open my mouth and say the words, especially considering I didn’t really feel as though I had done anything wrong. Still, like mom had said, perhaps Tyler had earned the right to be a little unreasonable considering everything he had done in the past decade.

  A part of me couldn’t help but feel a little bitter about the fact that everyone seemed to assume Tyler had had the harder life between the two of us. True, I might not have been there for the family very much but it wasn’t as though I was off travelling the world in five star resorts. I was fighting for my country, I was watching men die and I felt as though I was losing little bits of myself along the way.

  Still, I bit back my stubborn pride and took a deep breath. “Tyler …” I started tentatively. He didn’t say anything; he just waited for me to get to the point.

  “Listen … I just wanted to clear the air before I left,” I said awkwardly.

  He turned to me then. “Clear the air?” Tyler repeated as though my wording confused him.

  “I just wanted to say that I’m … sorry for everything,” I said feeling suddenly self-conscious. “I’m sorry for the way things have been between us since I arrived here. I just want you to know that I know how much you’ve done for mom and done over the years and I really appreciate it.”

  Tyler regarded me expressionlessly and I couldn’t for the life of me discern what was going through his mind. “Are you just saying that because mom made you?” he asked.

  I sighed internally. It was just like Tyler to make this harder than it needed to be. Why couldn’t he just accept my apology and be done with it?

  “I’m not going to lie,” I said keeping my tone level. “Mom did persuade me to have this conversation with you, but I wanted to do it.”

  “Because you’re leaving?”

  “No, because you’re my brother,” I said with some annoyance in my voice. “You’re my big brother and I realized that once mom’s gone, we’ll have only each other.”

  Tyler looked out towards the lake again and he was silent for so long that I thought he was just going to ignore me without acknowledging my apology at all. Then he turned to me and I realized he looked a little sad. “Thanks for the apology,” he said at last. “I appreciate that.”

  “Good,” I said with relief.

  “I owe you an apology too,” Tyler said unexpectedly.

  “Really?” I asked only because I had never expected to get as much from him.

  Tyler almost smiled at the shock on my face. “I wasn’t exactly the most gracious host while you were down and I wish I had been a little different.”

  I stared at Tyler, wondering where all this gracious calm had come from. “It’s ok,” I said. “You were grieving.”

  “It wasn’t just that I was grieving,” Tyler said. “I was jealous of you. I guess I’ve always been jealous of you.”

  “You know that I’m not out there living the high life, right?” I asked.

  “That’s not what I’m jealous of,” Tyler said shaking his head. “I’m jealous of the fact that you chased your dreams, you accomplished what you set out to accomplish. You didn’t let anyone hold you back and you never apologized for any of it.”

  I was so floored by his words that I couldn’t think of what to say for a moment. “Well … thanks Tyler,” I said at last. “But the truth is …”

  “Yes?”

  “Enlisting was a dream of mine,” I admitted. “But it didn’t end up being what I wanted; not in the long run, anyway.”

  “So what do you want?” Tyler asked.

  “I want … I guess I don’t know what I want, really,” I admitted. “But I do know that it’s not what I have now.”

  “Then change it,” Tyler said. “Do what you have to do and get the life you want.”

  “You know you can benefit from your own advice,” I pointed out.

  Tyler sighed. “I’m not that kind of guy.”

  “Sure you are,” I nodded. “You built a business from scratch, a successful one at that. You need to stop focusing on my life and start focusing on yours.”

  “And how the hell do you propose I do that?” Tyler asked defensively.

  “You could start by going on a date,” I suggested. “Mom mentioned that you haven’t had a relationship for a while.”

  “It hasn’t been that long.”

  “How long has it been?” I asked pointedly.

  Tyler looked uncomfortable. “I went on a date a few months ago.”

  “A few months ago?” I repeated incredulously. “Seriously?”

  “It didn’t work out.”

  “I gathered,” I said. “Seriously, man, you need to get out there. You’re in a rut and you need to claw yourself out of it.”

  Tyler smiled. “It’s not quite as bad as that.”

  “When’s the last time you had sex?” I demanded.

  “Ok, ok,” Tyler said holding his hands up. “I will admit that I’m in a semi deep rut. I’ll work on it.”

  “Good,” I nodded.

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?” I asked.

  “You’ve been seeing Lizzie, right?”

  It was my turn to feel uncomfortable. I swallowed hard and shook my head. “Not anymore,” I replied.

  “You ended it?”

  “There was nothing to end,” I said. “We had the unspoken agreement that things would come to an end, romantically speaking, when I left.”

  “Does that mean you’re still going to keep in touch?”

  “I’m hoping we still will,” I nodded. “I don’t want to lose touch with her again.”

  “And yet you’re not pursuing a relationship with her?”

  “In my experience, long distance relationships don’t work out too well,” I said. “I’m going to be deployed soon and I don’t want to leave all my baggage with her. I don’t want her worrying about me or fearing for my life. She needs to move on and live and be happy.”

  “That’s very selfless of you.”

  “Not really,” I sighed. “I’m protecting myself just as much as I’m protecting her.”

  Tyler nodded and we sat there for a while, savoring the feel of a silence that wasn’t marred by underlying tension and hostility. It was nice to feel as though we were brothers again and not strangers butting heads over things that didn’t really matter anyway. I wasn’t fool enough to think that it would always be easy between us, but at least it was a start.

  “What time do you need to leave to the airport?” Tyler asked, breaking the silence.

  “Half an hour from now should be fine,” I said.

  “I’ll drive you,” Tyler said as he stood up.

  “I was going to take a cab,” I said.

  “I’ll drive you,” Tyler said insistently. “I’ll just go have a shower and meet you here in ten.”

  He left me by the lake and walked up towards the house. I sat where I was, wishing that Lizzie were sitting there next to me. I wished I had kissed her more and touched her more and made love to her more. It felt strange knowing that I wouldn’t see her again for months, perhaps even years.

  I had moments of weakness when I was sorely tempted to call her up and suggest that we try the long distance relationship thing but I always backed out at the last minute. I didn’t want to complicate her life and things always looked so different when I was over there surrounded by war and death.

  I took out my phone and stared at it for a m
oment but then I decided I shouldn’t call. I settled for writing her a text. “I’m leaving soon, Lizzie,” I wrote. “I just wanted to thank you for the last few weeks. I’ll miss you.”

  A minute later I received a little beep that told me I had just received a message. I looked down at it and read Lizzie’s reply. “I’ll miss you too,” was all she had written.

  I took a deep breath and wrote the thing that I most needed to say. I knew that I couldn’t leave town without extracting some kind of promise from her. I needed it for my own peace of mind. “I know this is probably not my place, Lizzie,” I wrote. “But I need to know that you will make sure that Paul stays away from you. Don’t try to protect him and don’t let him back into your life.”

  “I won’t,” she wrote back.

  “Promise?” I asked.

  “Promise,” she replied.

  I breathed a sigh of relief and put my phone away. It was time for me to get back to my life.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Elizabeth

  Two Months Later

  “Lizzie, get your butt over here!”

  I glanced up as Maddie’s voice reached me but I stayed where I was. It was nice to sit beneath the shade of the trees and observe. I was humming under my breath distractedly as I watched Maddie and Tyler splashing about by the lake. Their relationship had developed unexpectedly, but it was probably only unexpected to me because I hadn’t been paying attention.

  Maddie was so much happier these days and I could see an obvious change in Tyler too. He was less surly and much more talkative. I had never thought to pair the two together before, but now that they were a couple, it seemed to make perfect sense. Maddie walked up and collapsed down beside me.

  “What are you doing back here?” she asked.

  “Just thinking.”

  “You think too much,” she said shaking her head.

  I smiled. “You and Tyler make a nice couple.”

  Maddie’s grin grew wider. “Who would’ve thought huh?”