Darkroom: A Moo U Hockey Romance

by Kate Willoughby

  I couldn’t have planned a better first time if I’d tried. Hudson had made it a perfect night. He’d been so patient and careful, and talk about skilled… I really hadn’t expected to come once, let alone twice. I mean, talk about starting with a bang.

  The next morning, we had sex again, and even though it was great, I did regret it a little because the soreness between my legs lasted until the afternoon. Ruby recommended a hot bath with Epsom salt and our apartment only had a small shower.

  But Hudson’s en suite bathroom had a tub, so I returned that night.

  Of course, we couldn’t keep our hands off each other, especially when he saw me naked in the steaming hot water, my hair pinned up, my breasts just breaking the surface.

  “God, you look so sexy,” he said.

  Smiling, I tickled my nipples with my fingertips.

  He swallowed hard, his eyes glued to my breasts. “I’d better leave. I promised myself I wouldn’t have sex with you. You came here because you were sore.”

  I could see a prominent bulge in his jeans and just the sight of him hard and ready caused a heat to bloom between my legs.

  “I’m not that sore,” I said.

  He stared at me a while, gauging my seriousness. “Don’t toy with me, Indi.”

  “I’m not. I want it. I want it as much as you do.”

  With a groan, he stripped off his clothes in nothing flat. I stood up and even though I was soaking wet, he picked me up in his arms and deposited me on top of the bed. As he fumbled with the condom, I urged him to hurry.

  “I’m moving as fast as I can,” he said with a laugh.

  That moment when he pushed into me…the pleasure was so intense my eyes rolled back into my head. It hurt a little, but I didn’t care. I wanted it hard. I wanted it fast. He seemed to understand that without me telling him, or maybe he was just as worked up as I was.

  It wasn’t long before I was coming apart, intense pleasure flooding me as Hudson came with a prolonged groan. We lay there, limp and wrung out until that inevitable moment when he pulled out and went to dispose of the condom.

  “Want a cold pack again?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “I’ll be fine. I just want to cuddle in bed.”

  He slid between the sheets and spooned me. I loved the feel of his big hard body cradling me. His breath sifted through my hair and I couldn’t have been more content.

  “Thanksgiving is coming up,” he said.

  “I know. Are you going home too?”

  “I think so.”

  I sighed. “I don’t want to be apart for a whole week.”

  “Can’t get enough of my amazing bod?” he joked.

  I reached back and gave him a light smack on the behind. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

  That’s when I got the idea.

  “What if we spend it together?” I asked. “We could spend a few days with your family and a few with mine. My parents have been hinting around that we should come for a visit and I keep telling them you have hockey games on the weekends. Thanksgiving break is the perfect solution.”

  “I don’t know, Indi. My family’s pretty intense. Sometimes there’s drama.” He scoffed. “Who am I kidding? There’s usually drama.”

  “I’m sure I can handle it. What I can’t handle,” I said with a sly smile, “is being separated for a whole week. I mean, think about it. If we take this trip, we could have sex every single night.” I wiggled my butt against him in case he needed more encouragement.

  His arm tightened around my waist and he growled into my hair. “Woman, you don’t realize what you’re getting yourself into. How about this? We spend the first few days with your parents, go to my house for Thanksgiving and come back here Friday? That way, we spend a minimal amount of time with my crazy family and you’ll still have the weekend to study.”

  I loved that he knew me well enough to know that I couldn’t ignore school, even during Thanksgiving break. So what if his family was intense? So were my parents. I was convinced this little mini vacation would be dreamy.

  The trip to Brattleboro only took a couple of hours. We took his Jeep because it was far more reliable than my car and would handle better if it started snowing. We’d just pulled up to my parents’ house when I laid a hand on his arm.

  “Before we go inside, I want to warn you about a couple things,” I said.

  “That sounds ominous,” he said with a laugh as he engaged the parking brake.

  “My parents like to greet me with a group hug when I come home for a visit and…I’m not sure if they’re going to pull you into it or not.”

  “No worries,” he said. “I’m not opposed to a group hug.”

  “Well, this one lasts a while.” I glanced at the house. “Like almost a full minute. I’m not exaggerating.”

  “Bring it on,” he said.

  We got our bags from the back and headed up the concrete front walk. The home I grew up in was a plain two-story house with a garden that was spectacular in any other season, but now was nothing more than a collection of empty dirt plots and leafless shrubs and trees. My parents had grown vegetables for the pizzeria long before farm-to-table became a thing, so the entire backyard was like a mini farm.

  We didn’t even get to the front door before it swung open and my mom and dad tumbled out of the house, arms outstretched.

  The welcoming hug started out with just me and my parents, but after several moments, my dad waved an arm at Hudson, who joined in for the latter half of it.

  “It’s so wonderful to see you again, Hudson,” my mom exclaimed as we finally made our way inside. “You and Indi will be up in her old room. Why don’t you go up and get settled? Kevin and I have some work to do but we can all head over to Slice around eleven thirty, if that’s okay.”

  “Pizza for lunch sounds good to me” Hudson said.

  I led the way up the stairs and down the hall to my room. Even thought it was larger than my room at Carter Hall, it seemed smaller. Maybe that was because, with his large frame, Hudson seemed to fill up all the empty space.

  “This is so embarrassing,” I said, looking at the posters, the purple walls, stuffed animals, and flowery comforter.

  “Don’t be embarrassed. I love this. I didn’t know you were a reader of anything but textbooks and prep manuals.” He knelt to peruse my bookshelf which held everything from Dr. Seuss and Harry Potter to Julia Quinn and Anne McCaffrey.

  “It’s hard to find time to read for fun these days. Someday, I’ll get back to it.”

  “I hear you. Same, except I’ve got studying and hockey. I sometimes listen to books while I’m working out, but I like reading actual books better.”

  We spent the next two hours sitting cross-legged next to my bookshelf talking about our favorite books. My parents were avid readers too, so lunch at Slice was spent discussing even more books and then books that had been turned into movies.

  Hudson was fascinated by the restaurant, so before the dinner rush, we took him into the back and showed him how to make a pizza. It was pretty hilarious to watch. He got cheese everywhere and his crust was comically uneven and misshapen, but it was a testament to our ingredients and the recipe for the salami and hot honey creation my parents had recreated that his pizza still turned out delicious.

  “Since we saw you last, we tested, what, Bonnie?” my dad asked. “About a dozen different honeys?”

  “That sounds about right. All from local honey producers.”

  “And how many salamis?”

  “Six or seven. We settled on finocchiona sourced from Tuscany. The fennel in it really complemented the honey.”

  I had to agree. The version we’d had in Boston had been tasty, but you could get Genoa at the grocery store. My parents preferred higher end ingredients.

  “So it’s going on the menu?” I asked.

  “It’s going to be launched as our Black Friday special,” my mom confirmed. “People will be able to get it at half price for one day only.”<
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  “Nice,” Hudson said.

  “What are you going to call it?” I asked, because while we had no problem using other people’s recipes, for some reason, we didn’t poach the names people came up with.

  “We decided to call it the Bee-licious Special,” my mom said.

  “Love it,” I exclaimed.

  Hudson and I ended up staying to help with the dinner rush. Hudson wanted to “perfect” his pizza prep skills and to everyone’s surprise, it didn’t take him long to get proficient. Before long, he was speedily rolling and stretching out the dough, then adding the toppings like a pro. Several times during the evening, I got meaningful looks from my parents that said they were impressed with him.

  “You know what it means if you serve a pizza in hockey?” Hudson asked, spreading tomato sauce with the small ladle.

  None of us did. In the kitchen, there was me, my dad, and four other cooks.

  “It means your pass went right up the center of the ice only to be intercepted by the opposing team. If you’re serving up pizzas on the ice, your teammates aren’t going to be happy with you.”

  “Hey, that reminds me,” my dad said. “I saw on the news that the Zamboni driver at the local rink is missing.”

  “Really?” Hudson said. “I hope nothing’s wrong.”

  “Well, last I heard, they think he’ll resurface.”

  A pause and then Hudson laughed. “Good one, Kevin.”

  “Oh no,” I said. “Now you’ve done it.”

  “Done what?”

  “Dad loves telling bad jokes.”

  “Hey!” my dad protested. “That Zamboni one was good!”

  “And if you encourage him,” I continued, ducking the piece of pepperoni my dad had thrown at me, “it’s like throwing fuel on the fire. Don’t waste the product, Dad!”

  “I’ll show you fueling the fire,” he said, then yelling, “Team, why do hockey rinks have rounded corners?”

  Everyone in the kitchen, including Hudson, said, “WHY?”

  “Because if they were ninety degrees, the ice would melt!”

  I gave Hudson a look but he was laughing with everyone else and thus, we were rewarded with several more minutes of hockey jokes that I knew my dad had looked up and memorized just for our visit.

  When we got home around midnight, my parents said good night and went to their room while Hudson and I went to mine.

  “My parents were so impressed with you. Everyone was. In fact, my dad said if you ever flunk out of hockey, you could have a job at Slice.”

  “God forbid,” Hudson said. “I mean, it was a lot of fun, but night after night? I couldn’t hack it. I had no idea how much work was involved in running a restaurant,” Hudson said. “It was nonstop for hours. And then when all the customers are finally gone you have to clean everything.” He shuddered for emphasis. “And the heat! I finally understand that saying about it being too hot in the kitchen.”

  “I’m convinced that’s why so many restaurants fail. People don’t realize how hard it is.”

  He took me in his arm and nuzzled my neck. “You smell like pizza,” he said.

  “You do too. It’s an occupational hazard. I usually take a shower after I work a shift there.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  He started undressing, but I hesitated before I began rubbing my face with one of my makeup-removing wipes. When I finally joined him in the shower, he greeted me with a broad smile.

  “There’s that beautiful birthmark,” he said, brushing a thumb over it.

  I glanced away. “It still feels weird, letting you see it.”

  “The more you do it, the easier it’ll get. Pretty soon, it’ll be second nature.” He caressed my backside and kissed my shoulder. “You feel like fooling around?”

  “Why do you think I got in here with you?”

  He grinned as he pulled me to him and covered my mouth with his. We’d never had shower sex before, but I had to say, anything that involved Hudson’s body, wet and naked, was worth doing.

  27

  Indi

  The next morning, the smell of coffee woke me up. Hudson was still out like a light so I snuck out of the room in search of caffeine. My mother loved flavored creamers and so did I. She usually dedicated a whole row of the fridge door to them.

  “There’s my beautiful girl,” my mom said as I entered the kitchen.

  Unlike the commercial kitchen at Slice, which was all industrial stainless steel and white subway tile, our family kitchen was small and cozy, with moss green walls and antique wooden cabinetry. The fridge was covered with pictures of me at various ages, coupons of every sort and take-out menus.

  I got myself a mug and filled it with coffee and a liberal amount of pumpkin spice creamer while my mom pulled ingredients out of the fridge.

  “I thought I’d make breakfast pizza this morning,” she said.

  “Breakfast pizza. Trying to impress Hudson?” I asked.

  She smiled. “I’m certainly not going to toss cereal boxes on the table.”

  “Honestly, he’d be fine with that.”

  “Well, it’s not every day my daughter brings home a boy who could star in his own season of The Bachelor.”

  “That’s not too far from the truth,” I said. “He’s one of the stars of the hockey team and girls fall all over themselves to talk to him. After games, especially.”

  “But he didn’t go on a week-long road trip with any of them,” my mom pointed out. “Are you two serious?”

  “Mom, don’t. We’re just enjoying each other’s company right now. Hockey keeps him very busy and I’m scheduled to take the MCAT at the end of January. Neither of us have a lot of time.”

  As she mixed frozen shredded potatoes, shredded cheese and eggs together in a bowl, my mom shrugged. “People make time for what’s important to them and if you ask me, you’re very important to Hudson.” She sprayed a sheet pan with olive oil, dumped the mixture onto the tray and began shaping it into a circle. “He’s head over heels with you.”

  “He is not.”

  “Oh, really? Last night was all about impressing you.”

  “No, it wasn’t. It was about impressing you and Dad.”

  My mom shook her head. “We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one. He kept stealing glances at you while you were working, and when you and Walt were talking about that music video, he quietly glowered. In fact, if memory serves, that was right before he started spinning the pizza pan on his finger and singing ‘That’s Amore.’”

  Out loud, I poo-pooed that, but the idea that Hudson had been jealous last night amused me. I was so in love with him, I could barely think of anything else, but I had no idea if he felt the same way, so any evidence he did was more than welcome.

  “Well,” she said, popping the pan into the oven to bake, “I can think of worse things than being married to a professional athlete.”

  “Mom, shhh!” I glanced toward the stairs, terrified Hudson had come down unnoticed.

  He hadn’t, thank God.

  “We haven’t even talked about being exclusive.” I wrapped my hands around my coffee mug.

  “Do you want to be exclusive?” she asked.

  “Maybe,” I hedged, but at her arched eyebrow, I gave in. “Okay, yes. I absolutely hate the idea of him dating anyone else but me.”

  “Then you should have a conversation with him, let him know where you stand.” She chopped some bacon and tossed it in the hot cast iron skillet. The tantalizing aroma filled the room.

  “But I don’t want to scare him off,” I said, still keeping an eye on the stairs.

  “Indi, honey, I understand that, but you owe it to yourself to be with someone who recognizes how wonderful you are and wants to be with you as much as you want to be with him.”

  Of course, I agreed with her in theory. It was obviously a bad idea when one half of a couple was wildly in love, while the other was indifferent. But when, against all odds, you ended up with someone completely ou
t of your league, better safe than sorry. That way, when they took off looking for greener pastures, you weren’t taken by surprise.

  After the crust had cooked for a while, my mother cracked four eggs over it, tossed on more cheese and finished it with the bacon before putting it back in the oven. My dad and Hudson wandered downstairs just as the timer went off.

  “Good morning,” Hudson said before leaning down to give me a kiss.

  “Good morning. There’s coffee there on the counter,” my mom said, pointing with the oven mitt on her hand. “Hudson, how did you sleep?”

  “Coffee sounds great. Thank you. I slept like a baby. Is that…are we having pizza for breakfast?”

  “Yes we are,” my dad said as he took a seat at the table. “Bonnie makes the best breakfast pizza. She always gets the hash browns really crispy. I like to dump ketchup and sriracha on mine.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but do you have pizza at every meal?” Hudson asked.

  “It sure seems like it sometimes,” I quipped.

  “Funny story,” my dad said, “when I was a kid, I loved pizza day at school and I would often say, ‘I’d eat pizza every day, if I could,’ and look at me now.”

  “I’d probably eat pizza every day if it was pizza like you make at Slice,” Hudson said. “I have to tell you, I don’t usually eat all the crust on my pizza, but yours is so good. Crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside.”

  “It’s the oven. It’s an antique, imported from Italy.”

  “Really?”

  My dad laughed. “No. The oven was from a kit we got from a company in Salinas, California. But it really does make the best crust.”

  My dad then talked about his beloved pizza oven, Marge, short for Margherita for the next fifteen minutes—the eight-hundred-degree temperatures necessary for cooking the pizzas, how the draft and ventilation system created and maintained those temperatures, how we could bake one hundred pizzas per hour in it…

  Poor Hudson. I’d warned him my parents could be a little much.

  Eventually, my mom said, “Enough about Marge, Kevin. I want to find out how these two met. I meant to ask you when we were in Boston but I forgot.”