Chapter 14

The season had started and it was like my old routine had started up again. I was back to making Sid dinner every weekend when he was home, except this time he had to help. He’d actually made decent progress in the cooking department. I went to every game I could make it to and we did dinner after with the team and the girls just like we had last season. We’d even added in TV nights. When either of us got bored we just showed up at the other one’s house. This had caused heated debates about what show or hockey game we were going to watch.

“Come on, you’ve never even seen House!” I yelled at him when he vetoed my suggestion for that Tuesday night.

“NCIS is on,” he said flipping over to it. I groaned.

“It’s a Law and Order rip off!” I exclaimed.

“No, it’s not. They’re in the military,” he said holding back a laugh because he knew I was right. I narrowed my eyes at him.

“House is complete with medical mysteries, complex relationships between coworkers, and an asshole boss addicted to pain killers who speaks his mind. It’s hilarious.” I didn’t give him time to think about it when I grabbed the remote out of his hand and turned it on instead. He laughed at me but settled in to watch it. Of course I caught him laughing even though he was doing his best to pretend he didn’t enjoy it.

“Okay, we’ll add it to the Tuesday night line-up,” he said when it was over. I smiled in victory. He had the worst taste in television. I mean, come on, Friends? Totally overrated. I had just won Chuck on Mondays and he’d won Prison Break. Wednesdays would be next.

I sat at my desk at work thinking about it the next day. Sid and I were spending practically every day together when he wasn’t on the road. Technically, if you took away the age difference and everything my dad had told me, Sidney was the kind of guy I had always been looking for. He was cute, funny, smart, talented at everything he did (except cooking of course), and he was a genuinely good person. It seemed unfair to judge him based on a past experience, but there was no way around it. I’d been hurt when I didn’t listen to my father and I had decided that I wasn’t going to let that happen again. I’d never let anyone treat me the way Thomas had.

“Loralei, we need you, now!” Nancy yelled running by the door. I jumped up from my desk and chased her down the hall into the surgery room. Lying on the table was a frantic husky with slashes covering most of his back side. Then I noticed the arrow sticking out of his side, dangerously close to his heart. I couldn’t be sure before the surgery how much damage the arrow had done. Someone had whipped this dog and then shot it with a bow and arrow. I pushed aside my anger to focus on taking care of the dog. I found during the surgery that the arrow had narrowly missed hitting any major organs and had come within centimeters of puncturing his lung.

Cases like this put me in a bad mood. I’ll never understand how anyone can be cruel enough to hurt an animal like this. I knew it was a good thing I’d never find out who did it because I was never sure I wouldn’t return the favor so they could feel the pain they put the animal through. I admit I’m an overly emotional person and every time I see something like this I end up crying. It’s the most upsetting thing you could possibly see. As soon as I was done in the surgery I walked into my office and picked up the phone.

“Hello?” Sidney answered after the third ring.

“Be ready at 7, we’re going to dinner.” I wasn’t taking no for an answer.

“Loralei? What’s wrong?”

“I’ll tell you when I pick you up. Be ready.” I hung up the phone and prayed that the rest of my day would go by quickly. I definitely needed a drink. I went home to change after we closed the office. I was a little early but I was desperate to rant to someone and get a drink. Sid was ready when I came to the door.

“Is everything okay?” he asked when he saw me. He closed the door behind him and followed me to the car. I tried to fight it but before I could get in the car I started to cry. I’d never cried in front of him before and I felt foolish. He immediately came over and put his arms around me. “Let’s go inside for a minute. It’s cold out.” Without a word I followed him inside and sat down on the couch in the living room. He grabbed some tissues and sat down next to me. He waited until I had stopped enough to talk.

I told him all about the husky that had come in and how I couldn’t believe that someone could do that to a dog. The anger just all poured out and I couldn’t make it stop. I ended up going on a tirade about how awful people could be and crying over animal cruelty. He never interrupted and just let me get everything out. I appreciated it more than I thought he’d ever know. When I finally stopped talking I just looked at him and saw the concern and anger on his face. He pulled me to him and held me until I had calmed down.

“I’d kill someone if I ever saw them doing that. Those animals are lucky to have someone as passionate as you fighting on their side.” I looked up at him and smiled for the first time since that afternoon.

“Thank you.” I felt stupid sitting there with red, puffy eyes. He didn’t seem to notice. We just looked at each other for what seemed like eternity. If there was ever a time where I would be vulnerable enough to throw away all I’d been fighting and kiss him, now would have been the time. Just when I thought I was going to do it he smiled.

“How about that drink?” he asked. I laughed and pulled out of his arms. I could tell by how he was looking at me that he’d wanted to kiss me. I was grateful that he hadn’t. It spoke volumes when someone could tell when it was and wasn’t okay to do something like that.

“Let’s go,” I replied and we went back to the car and drove to dinner. We went to what had become our usual Italian spot. I ordered a glass of Riesling and followed it up with another when I had finished it before dinner even came. We avoided talking about work and animals and instead talked about his team and their recent play.

“You know, it never ceases to amaze me how much you know about the sport.” I smiled at him. If he only knew, I thought.

“I grew up watching hockey and my brother played. It’s only natural that I’d pick that kind of stuff up.” I don’t know why I was still hiding most of my family background from him. I guess I was just afraid of what it would turn into. The last thing I needed was to have my father on my case about my relationship with Sidney. I knew that they already knew of each other and had probably met, but it would be different if I was involved. I decided today was not the day to divulge who my father was.

“Thank you for coming with me. I know I didn’t really give you much of a choice.”

“It’s not a problem. I’m curious why you asked me to come. Isn’t this usually what you do with Phoebe, Reagan, and Sheila?” he asked. He was right. Whenever I had a bad day I ran to my friends and they did the same to me. I responded without thinking.

“Well, I knew that they all had stuff going on this week and I didn’t want to bother them, so I called you instead.” As soon as the words were out and I saw the hurt on his face I regretted what I’d said. The bill came and I reached for it. He beat me to it and put his credit card down. “I asked you to come, I should pay.” He ignored me and handed it back to the waitress.

“Well, I’m glad to know that I was your last hope. Sorry you couldn’t have one of your other three choices and you had to come to me. Hopefully I didn’t do that piss poor a job at cheering you up tonight.” He signed the bill when the waitress brought it back and got up to leave. I stood up and followed him out.

“Sid, wait.” He kept walking. “Sidney, please! You weren’t a last resort. Truth is, I picked up the phone and dialed your number without even thinking about who I wanted to call. Yes, this is usually the time where I would want one of them around but today was different. Sure, I realized after that they all had a pretty busy week, but I called you first. I chose you because you’re a good listener. You actually let me finish a thought before cutting in. I wasn’t interested in having three people try to one up me in the ‘who had the shittiest day’ contest. I just wanted someone to listen to me. I knew that you would and you were the person that I wanted here with me tonight, not them.” He turned and looked back at me.

“Do you really mean that or are you just saying it to spare my feelings?”

“I really mean it.” I got a half smile from him before he got in the car. I got in and turned to look at him. “I have Center Ice. Let’s go watch the Devils game.” He laughed and shook his head, and I knew that we were okay again.