by Ellen Devlin
Chris and Paige went back to the hotel with Sam, and Zee and Liz called for an Uber to head out for drinks and dancing.
***
Chris gave a low whistle when he saw the suite. “Damn, this is nice.”
Paige gave him a light smack on the arm. “Like you didn’t know.”
“I didn’t! Well, I mean, I saw pictures, but…” He looked around for a moment. “Yeah, this is nice. I could get used to this.” He winked at her, but she had stiffened.
“Paige,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “I’m just teasing. This isn’t my lifestyle, you know that. Right, baby?”
“Yes,” she mumbled into his shirt.
“Then what’s wrong?” he asked. “I just wanted to make this a really special weekend for you. And for Liz too, but especially for you.”
“I know.”
Chris pushed back to look in her eyes. “Did you have fun? Where did you guys go today? Did you enjoy the game?” He realized he was asking too many questions in a row, but he found that he was really excited and couldn’t help himself. “You met Natalia, right? Was she nice to you? Did you like her?”
Paige laughed at his enthusiasm and couldn’t help but smile at the joy on his face. She pulled him to the big, comfortable couch and sat down with him.
“Yes, I had fun. Lots of fun. It was a wonderful day, and Sam was amazing…”
“Sam?” he interrupted.
“Our driver,” she clarified. “Sam the Driver,” she said, the capitalization of his full title clear in her voice.
“Oh, right! Please, continue.”
Paige went on to tell him all about their day and their evening and the game.
“It was really fun, Chris. Man, that arena is loud. Is it always like that?”
Chris chuckled and said, “Wait until the playoffs. On our home ice, it always seems to me like the sound of the crowd is going to peel the paint off the walls. Nashville has a good home crowd,” he leaned in a bit, “but DC is the best. Don’t tell my Columbus teammates I said that,” he added with a wink.
Paige just looked at him for a few moments. He was so happy, so in his element. She smiled as he pushed a lock of hair behind her ear with a soft caress, stroking his thumb along her jaw, and then drawing gently it across her lower lip.
“I had an amazing time, Chris. It couldn’t have been better.” He was still smiling, but his eyes were looking softer and were focused on his thumb as he drew it back across her lower lip. Paige closed her eyes briefly and sighed.
“I’m really glad, baby.” He kissed her very softly, his thumb moving down to her chin. “I just wanted everything to be perfect for you today.”
“It was,” she whispered and tucked her head a little to slide his thumb into her mouth. She sucked gently on his thumb, watching his face and eyes run through about fifteen different thoughts and emotions in the few moments before she allowed his thumb to pop back out of her mouth.
In a ragged voice, he said, “Do that again.” He struggled not to close his eyes as she complied, wanting to simultaneously lose himself in the sensation and watch how incredibly sexy her lips looked wrapped around him. Around any part of him, apparently.
She swirled her tongue around his thumb for a moment more and then, with a little sparkle in her eye, changed over to his middle finger. His breath caught, and as she descended toward his hand, he just stared, breathing harder, until she sucked at the base of his finger and flicked her tongue along the connecting skin.
“Jesus.” The sensations were plowing straight through his body, his brain trying to make him accept the simultaneous yet contrary information that he was watching her suck his finger but practically feeling her suck…other things.
Seeing how much he responded to this, she kept going for a minute, licking and sucking, enjoying the complicated look on his face and the lust in his eyes.
When she slid his finger back out of her mouth and kissed the palm of his hand, she said, “So, I take it you like that?”
“Fuck, yes.”
“First time anyone has done that to you?”
He nodded.
Leaning in, she asked quietly, with a gleam in her eye, “Did it feel kinda like I was sucking your dick?” And then she squeaked in surprise as he grabbed her, put her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, and headed toward the bedroom.
“What happened to scooping me up romantically?”
“If you’re talking dirty to me, all bets are off.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Do you have plans for Thanksgiving?” Paige asked Chris as they were washing dishes after dinner at his apartment one evening. “I know you don’t have a game that day, but it seems like it wouldn’t be enough time to go home to see your mom. Or does she come to see you?”
“I don’t have plans. It is too short a turnaround to go home from here; I wouldn’t really get any time at home. It would be an eat-and-run,” Chris responded. He was on drying duty. “Last year I had my mom fly in and we went to Thanksgiving dinner at a nice restaurant, but this year I’m on my own. How about you? Do you go to Philly to see your family?”
Paige made a face that was almost a sneer, saying, “Oh, no. My sister and my niece are awesome, but my mom is a completely different story. And not a pretty one, at that.”
“Oh, geez, I’m sorry.”
“No, no. It’s fine, really,” Paige reassured him. “Not seeing my mom on holidays is a gift I finally started giving to myself several years ago. Long overdue. It’s very unfortunate, but it’s just…” She paused for a moment and then decided that she didn’t want to hide any of this from Chris. “She’s an alcoholic. It’s really bad and has been since my sister and I were kids. I think ‘toxic’ is not too strong a word to describe our family situation.”
Chris had paled and looked somewhat uncomfortable. “I’m so sorry. Baby, you don’t need to tell me this if you don’t want to.”
Paige finished up and shut the water off, shaking the last drops from her hands and wiping them on the dishtowel that Chris was holding. “I’ll stop if you don’t want to hear about it. That’s okay.”
“No.” Chris shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. I just don’t want you to feel like you owe me any explanation.”
Paige gave him a wry smile and said, “I don’t mind unloading my family baggage. I carried it around by myself for most of my life. It’s been nice these past few years to give some of that up.”
Chris put away the last of the clean dishes, grabbed two wine glasses and a bottle of wine, and they sat on the couch together.
“I’m all yours, Paige,” he said, handing her a glass of merlot and settling in with his own. “I want to hear everything about your life.”
“Everything?” she asked, with a raised eyebrow and a small smile.
“Everything,” he responded seriously, although he knew that she was teasing. “The good, the bad, and the ugly.”
“All right, you asked for it.” Paige clinked her glass together with his gently. “I have one older sister, Becca, who is four years older than me. Our dad left when we were little—I barely remember him at all—so we were raised by a single mom our whole lives.
“Mom is an alcoholic. I’m not sure when it crossed over from drinking some every day to not being able to stop drinking, you know? Not only was I just a kid, but I think that line is really blurry for everyone. That’s one of the reasons denial is so easy. ‘I can stop anytime’ is actually true for some people. Just not for everyone.”
She paused for a moment, trying to think of the best way to tell the story.
“Well, at some point when Becca and I were still young, it became clear that things were just not right, you know? It was bad even when my Grammy—her mother—was alive, but after Grammy passed, things got worse…I don’t want to drown you in sad details, so I’m trying to pick out the synopsis of the story, if you will.”
Chris smiled at this comment. “Always the English teacher.”
&
nbsp; “Definitely.” She took a sip of her wine. “Becca and I dealt with things differently. I think that’s both a function of siblings—the second one almost always goes in the opposite direction from the first one—and because of our ages when things started to really fall apart at home. Becca was in the beginning of rebellious teenage years; I was still in the ‘make people happy’ stage. So we kinda both got stuck there, you know?
“That’s what seems to happen…both for the addict and for people in their lives…they get developmentally stuck at the point where the problem starts. Anyway, rebellious Becca got pregnant at seventeen, while dutiful, co-dependent Paige was trying to do everything right, get straight A’s, make everyone happy, and keep shit together at home.”
“Damn.” Chris was slowly shaking his head.
“It’s weird to tell this story, because it’s simultaneously worse than it sounds and yet not as bad as it sounds.” She looked over at Chris. “I realize that makes no sense, but it’s true. On the one hand I had a good middle-class suburban life, with friends and activities and an awesome sister, and while Grammy was alive I had a wonderful relationship with her. She was the one who taught me to cook. On the other hand, shit was a mess, everywhere, and I was constantly trying to make things look right and clean up the problems caused by my mom. Because I felt like that was my responsibility.”
“Why?”
Paige shrugged. “Because that’s what co-dependency is. Anyway…” She poured them both a second glass of wine. “Becca had my niece, Margot, who is beautiful and amazing. Long story short, Becca managed to pull her life together in a stunning way and became a wonderful mother. She’s a single mom but for the last year has been dating a super nice guy who loves them both. She’s got a great job, and Margot at fourteen years old is self-confident and talented and just a joy to be around.
“I went off to college and found myself. I met fantastic friends—Liz and I met our first day of freshman year—and started getting help understanding the problems with how I grew up and how they affected me. I read a lot…” Chris chuckled, and she said, “Shocking, right? And I found people and organizations to help steer me where I needed to go to accomplish what I want in my life.”
She spread her hands and said, “And here I am.”
“God, Paige.” Chris’s eyes were filled with admiration. “You are amazing.” He put his wine glass down and leaned forward to take hers from her so that he could hold her hands. “Truly, you amaze me.” He kissed the knuckles on each hand gently.
“Thank you. Thanks for listening, Chris.”
“Of course, baby.” He moved over to tuck her under his arm so that her head rested on his shoulder. “I meant it—I really do want to know everything about you.” Moving his hand up, he stroked her cheek with his thumb and turned to kiss her hair.
The words were sitting there on the tip of his tongue. God, he wanted to say them.
“Oh, so, I almost lost track of my original question.” Paige sat up and turned back to him. “If you have no plans for Thanksgiving, would you like to come over to our apartment? It’s nothing huge, but I cook a real turkey dinner for Thanksgiving every year. And Liz and I always try to invite strays.”
“Strays?” Chris asked with amusement.
“You know, people who, for whatever reason, have nowhere to go on Thanksgiving. Strays.”
“So, I’m a stray?”
She smiled. “Apparently. Would you like to join us for Thanksgiving dinner?”
“I would love to.”
***
Thanksgiving morning Paige was up early, getting the turkey ready to be put in the oven. She had done most of the prep work, and good bit of the cooking, the night before, so the only big thing left to manage was the turkey. Dinner would be around two o’clock; Chris would be coming over earlier than that.
Once the bird was started, Paige sat down for a moment, steeling herself for the one obligation that she dreaded every year.
She had to call her mother.
Becca would be at their mother’s house soon, if she wasn’t already, so that would make some of this more palatable. Paige had realized over the course of the years that it was far better for her to call in the morning, when there hadn’t been as much time for drinking. Things got worse, and deteriorated faster, the longer she waited to call. She would get the unpleasantness over with as soon as possible, and then she could enjoy the rest of her day.
“Paige! I was waiting for you to call!”
There was no slurring yet, so that was a good sign.
“Hi, Mom. Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Your sister and niece have just gotten here. I still don’t understand why you can’t come to our house. It’s selfish of you not to join us for Thanksgiving.”
Paige ignored the opening dig. “Please tell Becca and Margot I said hello. Is Jose with them?”
She heard a huff on the other end of the line. “He’s here. I don’t know what she sees in him.”
“He’s a very nice man, and he makes them happy. He’s great with Margot, Mom.”
Paige had responded without thinking it through first—always a mistake when dealing with her mother.
“You always take her side. You’re not here. You don’t know. I do.”
Realizing her error, Paige tried to change the subject before this line of discussion spiraled.
“So, how are things in the neighborhood? Did Mrs. Miller finally cut down that dead tree?”
Success. Her mother ranted on for a few minutes about how the neighborhood was going downhill, that people didn’t care about property values anymore, and the danger that the offending tree posed to her and her property.
Paige half-listened, inserting agreeing sounds here and there where appropriate. But then, disaster.
“When were you going to tell me that you’re dating someone?”
She froze. Shit. Becca must have said something.
“Oh. Well, eventually. We haven’t been dating for very long.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
Paige’s phone chimed with a text.
Becca: I’m sorry!! She overheard me talking to Jose!
“I heard that he’s some rich hotshot hockey star.”
She heard the clink of ice hitting a glass…not good news. That meant the hard liquor was coming into play.
“Well, he does play hockey.”
“I knew it!” And then more distantly, as if her mother were talking to other people in the room, “I told you!” Back to talking into the phone now, “I knew you would finally find a man to take care of you. Why else would you have gone to college for a degree in education of all things? No one makes money in teaching. You can’t make any kind of life for yourself that way.”
Paige’s heart sank. This was it. This was the recurring horrible conversation with her mother that she could never escape, even if she managed to avoid it occasionally. She braced herself, feeling sick in the pit of her stomach, holding the phone away from her mouth, while her mother ramped up.
“I knew that you would finally end up using that hot little body of yours to get a man. You acted all noble, but I knew it.” The glee in her mother’s voice was poisonous. “Better get him tied down soon, before you get any older and your looks fade.” The slurring was starting; her mother must have started drinking earlier than she had originally thought.
“Mom…”
Her mother continued without pause. “A prenup! That’s what you need. I’ve always told you that. Make sure that you’re set for life when he moves on to someone younger. It’s how I managed to raise you two girls after your no-good father left us…”
“Mom, it’s not like that…” Paige knew before she said it that it was useless; the only way to get out of this was to hang up the phone, but the nagging sense of obligation kept her from doing that. Kept her hanging on the line because this was one of the few phone calls that she made each year.
“Of course it’s like that! I know you better t
han you know yourself. You always flaunted your figure, trying to get attention from men. Don’t bother trying to deny it. Just make sure you don’t get screwed in the prenup. Get a good lawyer. You don’t want to be left high and dry when he moves on to greener pastures. You’re not going to look like that forever, you know.”
Panic was starting to press against her chest. She needed to get off this call soon, before things got even worse.
“Mom, I need to go. The timer on the oven is going off.”
She tried to ignore the comments that started about her cooking, about how was she going to keep this man if she couldn’t even cook well.
“Bye, Mom. Happy Thanksgiving.”
She disconnected and sat, shaking, heart pounding, until Liz walked out of her room.
“Hey, I thought I heard you talking with someone…” Looking more closely at Paige, she finished, “…oh, fuck, it was your mother. Goddamnit.”
Liz hurried to get Paige a glass of water, cursing under her breath the whole time.
“I’ll be okay. I just need a minute.”
Liz sat down at the table with her. “What was it this time? Same shit? Or do you not want to talk about it?”
“Some of the same but worse. She overheard Becca say that I was dating someone. A hockey player.”
“Motherfucker.”
“Yeah. Becca texted to apologize as soon as she heard Mom start in on it.”
Liz sighed. “I’m so sorry, Paige. You know the shit your mom says isn’t true. You know that.”
It was Paige’s turn to sigh. “I know. But God, Liz, it still gets under my skin right away. Every time.”
“Well, Chris will be over in a few hours, and I know that will help you feel better. Please feel free to take some ‘alone time’ with him if you need to. You can either leave me to watch the food or tell me to go out to run an errand or something.”
Paige laughed and said, “Thank you for the offer. But you know I would never trust you to watch the food.” She stood and stretched. “I’m feeling a bit better already.”
