Plié and Clout

Deleted Scenes: Stomach Bug (2/2)

AGAIN: NOTE AT BOTTOM

AUGUST

It takes maybe a couple seconds of quiet and me rubbing his back before his eyes are closed and he's asleep. The telltale of him being asleep is that his mouth parts just a little and I start to hear his gentle snore.

I fall asleep not long after him, laying back down beside him. When he unconsciously realizes I'm no longer sitting on top of him, his arms start reaching around for me.

I let him tug me into him, his face right in my chest like he was before.

When I wake up in the morning, I let him sleep a little longer, he's still in the same position that he was in when he fell asleep, out cold.

I physically don't understand how he has time for everything. Pro hockey is one thing, most people are straight up exhausted after any of that. I know that I'd die after only one day. Morning skate then a late night game followed by a bus or plane ride, then waking up and doing it all over again? I can't imagine. On top of it, he's raising his sister, not an easy feat on its own either.

Then, somehow, he still wiggles me into his schedule. I wouldn't mind if he told me he was too tired to do anything, but he never is. I figure there's eventually a breaking point, where he's simply too exhausted to keep going, but he hasn't hit it yet, surprisingly.

Jilly isn't up yet either, and since it's a school day, I assume he's going to let her miss because she was sick yesterday.

So I raid the kitchen, in a gentle way, but I totally raid the kitchen. Before anyone else is even up I've made a couple different things for breakfast, including Steph's eggs.

There's a little creak and I look up, Steph's leaning against the wall of the end of the hallway, still shirtless, a little smile on his face.

"How long have you been standing there?" I put a hand over my chest, trying to suppress how much his presence just startled me.

"Not that long." he assures me.

"No shirt, huh?" I let my eyes drift to the soft lines of his body, the form of his muscles clear from halfway across the kitchen. His abs are sharp as day in the early morning before he's eaten anything, they're not model abs, not all lined up right, but they're there, staggered a tad, and hot as hell from any angle.

He smiles. "If I'm not mistaken, you don't seem to mind."

"Well, good morning to you too." I get a short kiss on his way over to me, then he wraps his arms around me and sets his head on my shoulder, rocking me a little while I clean up.

"Do you have practice today?" I turn to the side so I can look at him. He blinks at me once, content just looking at me.

"Yeah, but I'll go in late, I want to make sure Jills is alright before I leave." He yawns, then kisses the side of my head. It turns into quite the flurry of little kisses and I'm wildly distracted from what I was doing. Now I'm only focusing on trying to escape his death grip and ticklish kisses.

"Steph!" I gasp, one of his arms is still secured around my hips, but his other hand is tickling patterns up and down my stomach over my shirt.

It's not at all a surprise when his hand darts under my shirt, pulling the fabric up, thank god I'm wearing shorts under it, because if I was just in his too-big shirt I'd be mostly bare under it and we can't have Jilly showing up and me being in my underwear, that's beyond awkward.

Steph's hand is making me squirm but he seems to be enjoying this, kissing up and down the most sensitive parts of my neck. I'm a giggling mess, breathing hard and trying to wiggle out of his grip.