Chapter 16

I woke up the next morning to a loud beeping noise. At first I thought it was an alarm, but my alarm didn’t sound like that. Then I felt movement next to me and memories of the night before flooded my brain. Sidney grabbed his phone, hit a button, and the beeping stopped. He rolled back over and pulled me to him.

“Sorry about that. It was my alarm.” He ran a hand through my hair and kissed me. I was exhausted. We hadn’t slept much that night. In fact I’d be surprised if we’d gotten more than a couple hours of sleep. I smiled up at him.

“So you have to go then.” He grinned.

“I always set my alarm early because I usually have a tough time waking up.” I bit my lip and giggled. How could I have just spent all night making love with him and I was still craving his touch?

“How much time do you have then?” I asked.

“About 45 minutes.” That was good enough for me. I wrapped my arms around him and pressed my lips to his.






Sidney walked into the rink knowing that today might be the worst practice he was ever going to have. He was tired, but it was all worth it. He couldn’t get the smile off of his face. He never expected last night to happen. It had been a year of pursuit and he’d all but given up on her. He was resigned to knowing that they would just be friends and nothing more. He’d hide his feelings and respect her wishes. It was better to have her in his life as a friend than to not have her in his life at all. But all that had changed now. Turns out she had feelings for him too. She hadn’t come out and said it, but he knew she was just scared. He just wished he knew why. Every time he asked her about her family and her past she clammed up. Something was wrong, but he didn’t want to push. Now he knew it was just a matter of time before she would finally open up to him.

“What’s wrong with you?” Geno asked him in his heavy accent. Sidney looked at him unsure of what he meant.

“Nothing’s wrong, why?”

“You’re just grinning like a jackass,” Ryan Whitney volunteered. Sidney ignored the comment and continued getting ready for practice. “Did you get laid last night or something?”

“Who’s the lucky lady?” Letang threw out. Sidney turned to them and gave them his best “captain” look hoping they would just let it go.

“Come on guys, leave it alone,” he told them.

“Holy shit, you fucked the doc!” Colby exclaimed. Now the whole room was looking at him. Well isn’t that just great, Sidney thought.

“Hey, I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. The way you wouldn’t tell us made it obvious it was her. You’ve only been in love with her for a year now,” Colby argued. The room laughed as it all made sense. Sidney decided not to respond. She didn’t deserve to become a locker room story. Let the boys think what they want, he wouldn’t feed it. So he’d have to deal with a little ribbing for a bit, he could handle that.






I sat at my kitchen table staring down at the bowl of soup I had just made. It smelled delicious and homemade cream of potato was my favorite, but I had no appetite. Instead I thought about last night and this morning. Had that really happened? I was still in a bit of shock that I’d let down my walls enough to give Sidney a chance.

For the first time since I’d met him there were no feelings of panic or worries about what I was getting myself into. In fact I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I’d been denying any feelings for him to everyone including myself for so long that after last night I felt like I could finally breathe again. It was nice to finally give in to the feelings I’d always deep down knew were there, even if I was doing it cautiously. I heard my doorbell ring and walked to the door.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Phoebe asked stepping through the door followed by Reagan and Sheila.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I told her confused. They all exchanged glances before giving me a round of looks that told me they didn’t believe a word of that.

“Rory, wipe that stupid grin off your face or tell us why it’s there,” Reagan demanded. I sighed and collapsed down on the couch in the living room. I braced myself for their reactions.

“Something happened last night,” I started.

“If you’re even going to tell me that Thomas called or flew down and apologized I can’t be held responsible for the beating I’ll give you,” Sheila said. I laughed and shook my head.

“No, it has nothing to do with Thomas,” I replied.

“I’m not going to lie, you had me worried. I haven’t seen you smile like that since him,” Phoebe told me. I took a deep breath. It was best just to say it, I thought. I opened my mouth to tell them when the doorbell rang again.

“Hold on, sorry,” I said getting up to answer the door. My smile grew when I saw Sidney on the other side. Before I could greet him he leaned in and kissed me. My heart flipped as I kissed him back. Suddenly squeals of laughter rang out behind us and I spun around to see all my friends standing there.

“Finally!” Reagan called. I blushed and Sid laughed.

“Sorry, I didn’t know you had company,” he apologized.

“Sid, as much as we love you we need to talk to Loralei. You probably don’t want to stick around to hear it,” Sheila told him. I turned to look up at him.

“Dinner?” I offered smiling up at him. He nodded.

“I’ll be here. See you guys,” he called to my friends. Then he leaned down to give me a quick kiss before exiting my house.

“Tell us everything!” Phoebe exclaimed grabbing my arm and dragging me back into the living room.

And I did. I told them about the chain of events of the night before and about how relieved I felt now. They stayed around for a few hours constantly gushing about how glad they were that I’d finally come to my senses. After they left I jumped into the shower and when it was time to get dressed I suddenly felt stressed out. This was the first time I was going to be getting dressed while dating Sidney. As ridiculous as it sounded it made me nervous. The guy had only seen me wear all of these clothes before, so what was the problem?

I finally decided after tearing out half of my closet. I spent the next 20 minutes putting clothes away. Then I went downstairs to see what I had at the house to cook up. I decided on a simple lasagna since I didn’t have a ton of time to get too fancy. Sidney rang the doorbell just as I was getting started.

“Hey,” I said smiling up at him when I pulled the door open.

“Hey,” he repeated leaning down to kiss me. He followed me back to the kitchen and immediately washed his hands getting ready to help me with dinner. I admired his butt as he did it.

“Is lasagna okay?” I asked going back to mixing up the cheeses and spices.

“It sounds great,” he replied coming up behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist, resting his chin on my shoulder.

“It’s not easy to do this with you on my shoulder like that,” I told him. He didn’t budge, but I felt him shrug. “You know, if you want dinner, you’ll have to let go.”

“I really don’t want to do that,” he said. I turned around to face him while remaining in his arms. I lifted my face to his, having to stand on my toes, and kissed him. Everything just felt so natural with him. Kissing him like that seemed routine, like I’d done it millions of times before, and I liked that feeling.

“If you let go now, you won’t have to let go later.” He smiled down at me and unraveled his arms.

“I’ll hold you to that.” He walked over to look at all the ingredients. “How was your talk with the girls?”

“It was good. They were happy about us. Could you stir the beef in the skillet please?” He did what I asked and then accomplished every task I gave him before the lasagna was made and put into the oven.

“How much time until it’s ready?” he asked.

“About 45 minutes,” I responded while beginning to clean up. I dropped the measuring cup I’d just grabbed when Sidney picked me up.“I have an idea about what we can do to kill time,” he said carrying me to the stairs. I giggled but didn’t put up a fight. I let him carry me to the bedroom. I could definitely get used to this.