A Feel For The Ice Ch. 02

Make love, Anna repeated in her head, her heart stuttering. "I know," she replied.

"I just meant, we'll have a proper date one of these days," Hayden said. "Not just coffee after work or a pizza apology."

"Riley told me that's why you brought pizza home," Anna said with a smile, remembering her son imploring her not to be angry with Hayden. Well, she certainly wasn't angry anymore.

"I am sorry, Anna," Hayden said.

"Oh, stop," she murmured and kissed him again. "It's fine. I'm not angry. We've discussed the rules and it won't happen again, right?"

"No," he agreed. "That was the last afternoon practice for a while, anyway. I leave town after the game tomorrow night for a ten day road trip."

Anna's breath caught. "Oh," she managed to say out loud. "I guess we won't see you at all for a while then."

His arms tightened around her and she shivered at the sensation.

"I'll call every day," he promised. "And I'll see you as soon as we get back to town."

Anna smiled. "It's all right, Hayden. You don't have to call every day and we'll see each other whenever you can after you get home." When it looked like he was going to protest again, she covered his lips with hers for a moment. "We're not going anywhere."

"You'd better not," he replied and kissed her hard, his tongue slipping into her mouth to twist around hers.

After a long, hot, drugged minute, Hayden pulled away. His dark gaze swept down her body and she remembered that she was standing there with her shirt wide open. Blushing, she reached to close it but Hayden brushed her hands aside.

"Such a pity," he murmured, lowering his head and kissing a path across the swell of her breasts.

While he paid such lusty attention to her chest, he began to button her blouse together. Before closing the fabric over her breasts, he kissed her again, his tongue flicking out to sneak beneath the edge of her bra. Anna moaned, her fingers digging into his shoulders and he chuckled as he finished the last button. He cupped the back of her head and kissed her, softly this time and only for a second. At last he stepped back and smiled at Anna. She smiled back, rubbing self-consciously at her cheek.

"I should go," Hayden muttered, his voice hoarse.

"OK," she agreed and walked him to the door.

He kissed her one last time as she held the door open for him and then he was gone, his breath streaming in a white cloud behind him.

***

The first couple days on the road trip passed by in a blur. Hayden spent his time with the team practicing, eating meals and playing games. He wasn't certain how he managed it, and the guys teased him about it, but he managed to call Riley and Anna every day, at least once. Even if it was just a two minute conversation - usually Anna in those cases - they stayed in touch. It allowed Hayden to get to sleep every night. He wasn't sure when it had happened, or why, but if he tried to sleep without first hearing both Anna and Riley's voices, it just wouldn't happen.

After a particularly grueling loss in Denver, Hayden returned to the hotel, opting out of going to a restaurant with the guys. He let himself into his empty hotel room and fell across his bed, not bothering with undressing. As he struggled to pull the bedspread over himself, he hit speed dial 1 on his phone and waited as it rang all the way back in Detroit.

"Hello?" someone who sounded very sleepy and very young answered.

"Hey, kiddo," Hayden said as an easy smile spread across his tired face.

"Hi, Hayden," Riley replied and yawned. "You were great tonight."

"Your mom let you stay up and watch?" Hayden asked incredulously.

"Yeah, but only because it's a half-day tomorrow."

"Oh, how did you manage to score that?"

"I don't know," Riley answered and Hayden could almost picture the eight-year old giving him the classic eye roll and shrug. "The school gives us half-days all the time."

"Wow. Do you think they'd let me come to school with you?" Hayden asked and closed his eyes. "I could use a half-day or two."

"Well, if you had two, it'd just be a full day so what's the point?" Riley asked.

Frowning, Hayden thought about that and then had to laugh. Riley was a sharp kid and definitely thought outside the box. "You're right about that, kiddo. So you thought I was great even though we lost?"

"Yeah," Riley said and blew out a breath. "You only lost by one goal."

"One goal is all it takes sometimes." One goal that had to be reviewed for five minutes and Hayden still thought it was bogus. That was the nature of the game though.

"I think you did good," Riley told him. "You scored and you didn't get any penalties. My mom says that means you were trying real hard."

Hayden's face softened into a smile again at the mention of Anna. Other significant parts of his anatomy stirred to life as he pictured her sparkling hazel-grey eyes and broad smile. He wondered if she sounded as sleepy as her son. Stifling a groan, Hayden put those and other thoughts on the back-burner while he continued to speak to Riley. They chatted for a few more minutes and when Hayden could no longer understand what Riley was saying around his yawning, he ordered the child to go to bed.

"OK," Riley replied with no argument. "Good night, Hayden."

"Good night, kiddo. Have a good sleep. Dream of winning the Stanley Cup," Hayden told him.

"OK," Riley said one last time before passing the phone to his mom.

"Go upstairs and I'll come tuck you in, sweetie," Hayden heard Anna tell her son before she spoke to Hayden. "Hello, Hayden. How are you holding up?"

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean, how are you? That was a tough loss and you're only five days into your road trip. I don't think I'd be in the finest of moods if I was in your place."

Hayden grinned as several thoughts crossed his mind. "If you were in my place, I'd be there too and we'd both be in a better mood."

Anna's soft laughter filled his ear and it did wondrous things to his body and mind. Everything about Anna made Hayden feel better. His muscles relaxed, the tension behind his eyes eased and of course, he was hard as a rock.

"You're really something, Hayden," she murmured. "You know that?"

"I do," he agreed. "But you don't know. Not yet."

"Hmm, I like the sound of that."

Hayden groaned and threw an arm up over his eyes. "Don't talk like that now."

"Why not?" Anna asked with another laugh that effectively drained his body of blood except for one important organ.

"Because I'm in Denver and you're in Detroit," Hayden told her, knowing he sounded like a whiny kid and not caring.

"Haven't you ever heard of phone sex?" Anna asked.

Once he found the phone after dropping it, Hayden lifted it to his ear to hear Anna calling his name.

"Hayden? Hayden, are you there? Did the call get dropped? Hayden?"

Clearing his throat, Hayden replied. "I'm here, Anna. Sorry, I dropped the phone."

"Oh, all right," she said, completely unaware that she'd been the cause. "You must be exhausted. I should let you go so you can sleep."

"I'm fine," he assured her.

"Don't you have an early morning flight to L.A.?" she asked.

"Yeah, but I still want to talk to you."

"OK," she said. "Let me tuck Riley in and I'll call you back in a few minutes."

"All right," Hayden agreed and they hung up.

Those next few minutes were pure torture for Hayden. He used the time to undress himself since his clothes were all too hot and restricting now. When the phone rang again, he was just about ready to call her back himself.

"Hi," he murmured into the phone and relaxed back against his pillows.

"Hi," she replied and he heard a rustling and creaking noise.

"What are you doing?" he asked, trying to picture her moving through her house.

"Just getting into bed," she replied and this time Hayden heard the breathless catch in her voice. "I'm so tired."

"Are you? Why?" he asked, swallowing and trying hard not to imagine himself naked in bed with her, running his hands all over her body.

"We had an early start this morning and then Riley had a hockey practice after school. Dinner was late because of that, and then he insisted on staying up to watch your game," Anna replied and then sighed. "It feels so good to get off my feet."

"Ditto," he agreed, still bombarded with feverish images of them wrapped around each other. Wow, he thought. What kind of hound am I that I can't even hold a conversation without thinking of making love to her?

"I knew you were tired," she said with a soft little laugh that turned Hayden's brain to sawdust. "Why don't you just go to sleep? I don't mind. It's already past twelve here."

Oh yeah, the time difference, Hayden thought. "I can't believe you let Riley stay up to watch me play."

"Like I said, he insisted. Every time I tried to argue, he just gave me this puppy-dog look and I was done."

"I'm flattered that he wants to watch me play so much," Hayden said with a smile. He was flattered and it made him feel good to know that talking to Riley was a part of his daily routine.

"You should be flattered," Anna agreed. "You're all he talks about. I don't know what I'll do if you ever-" she stopped short and fell silent.

Frowning, Hayden sat up in bed. "Anna?"

"I'm here," she whispered.

"What were you going to say?" Though he could pretty much guess.

"It doesn't matter," she replied, still whispering.

"It does to me," he argued. "I want to know what you're thinking."

"Hayden, it-"

"Anna, please," he interrupted. "Tell me what it was."

She blew out a noisy breath and relented. "Fine. I was just saying that I don't know what will happen if you... ever stop calling. Or visiting. Riley's pretty attached to you now and I don't know... I'm just scared of how he'd react."

"Then I'll just have to keep calling and coming around to your house," Hayden replied, his chest feeling tight. It had never occurred to him that Anna might be having these sorts of doubts.

"Come on, Hayden," Anna said, her voice sounding tense now. "We're both adults and we know how these things can go. Christ, I'm divorced! I definitely know what happens when a man gets tired of the woman he's with. Riley was too young last time to understand but this time..." She let her sentence trail off but Hayden knew what she would have said.

This time Riley would know. He'd see that Hayden wasn't calling and he'd miss his presence in their house. And Anna would have to somehow deal with that.

The feeling in his chest got much tighter as Hayden realized just what kind of relationship he'd got himself into. Terrifying didn't even begin to cover it. But he couldn't, he just couldn't put the phone down. He wanted to reassure Anna and he wanted more than anything to be in the house with her so he could look in on Riley while he slept. The feeling was so strong and so unexpected that Hayden felt short of breath.

"I don't know what to say, Anna," Hayden said at last and it was the truth.

"I figured as much," she replied and sighed. "Hayden, we should talk when it's not so late and when we're not both so tired."

"No," Hayden said, more sharply than he'd intended. "I'm sorry, Anna, but I want to talk about this now. I don't know what to say and that's the truth so forgive me if this takes a few minutes to get out." Silence greeted his announcement but he could hear her breathing so he went on.

"I don't want to stop calling you," he said. "Or Riley. I never thought I'd be so... so... connected to someone that I couldn't stop myself from calling every day. If I was in town like a normal man, I'd never stop coming to your house either. It's so hard not being near you guys every day, you have no idea. I know it's only been a couple weeks and I understand that this is scary for you too but I think we have to try. I can't walk away without at least giving it my best shot."

Anna laughed then, a breathless little sound and Hayden relaxed somewhat, sinking back into his pillows. Everything he'd just said was true, if somewhat less than eloquent. "So?" he spoke when she still didn't respond to him.

"You know, your accent gets thicker when you're upset," she murmured.

"Does it?" he replied. He'd been in the states so long that he hardly thought about the language difference anymore. He spoke Swedish with several of his teammates but not everyone on the team spoke the language so unless he was alone with Nathan or one of the other Swedes, they all spoke English. "Could you understand what I was saying?"

Another laugh came through the phone, across the distance and set Hayden's blood on fire. "Every word," she told him. "You're right, Hayden. I am frightened. Not just for me, but Riley as well. I still don't know how this will all go-"

"Neither do I!" Hayden interjected quickly.

"-But I'm willing to try," she went on, ignoring his interruption.

"I'm so glad, Anna," he said and exhaled slowly. "You have no idea."

"I'm beginning to get the idea," she replied. "So..."

"So?"

"Are you still pretty tired?" she asked.

"I guess," he answered with a shrug of one shoulder. "Aren't you? Do you want me to let you go?"

"Mmm, not really," she replied. "Did you hear my earlier suggestion?"

Hayden's mouth went dry and his boxers tented boldly before his eyes. "I sure did," he replied, his voice hoarse. "Why do you think I dropped my phone?"

Anna giggled and Hayden had to squeeze his eyes shut, picturing icebergs and fat men on the beach to keep from shooting his load into his boxers. How is she doing this to me? he wondered.

"I guess you must be too tired for that?" she asked and Hayden could hear the nervousness in her tone.

"Never," he muttered and cleared his throat to speak more clearly. "I will never be too tired to do anything with you, Anna."

"All right. Why do I get the feeling that you're letting me down easy?"

Hayden exhaled and pressed his palm to his erection, willing his body to calm down. "I would love nothing more than to stay on the phone and tell you everything I want to do to you, Anna," he said. "But I'm not in a single room and my roommate could be back any minute."

"I understand," Anna replied around a sigh. "I guess you don't even want to stay up to talk to me."

"Can you stay up?" Hayden asked with a chuckle. "You just told me five minutes ago how exhausted you are."

"That's true," she answered and added a yawn for emphasis.

Chuckling again, Hayden told her to go to sleep. "I'll be home in another five days and we can talk then."

"Talk?"

"Or whatever you want," he added, his voice husky as he thought of all the possibilities.

"All right," she agreed. "Good night, Hayden."

"Good night, Anna."

***

"Do you know what you're doing?" Kevin asked on Sunday afternoon.

Anna paused near the coffee maker and looked over her shoulder at him. He was seated at her kitchen table and somewhere in the house, their two eight-year olds were screaming and having a great time, as usual. Anna had invited Kevin in for coffee when he dropped Riley off following hockey.

"No, what am I doing?" Anna asked with a smile.

"You were humming," Kevin told her, his smirk wide.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I was not." She never hummed. Being born tone deaf and then relentlessly teased for years about it by her friends had left her unable to sing or whistle or do anything musical unless when she was alone.

"You were, too," Kevin replied.

Anna paused with her hand on the coffee scoop and stared at the wall before her. "What was I humming?" she asked. She didn't even recall having a tune in her head. She'd been imagining what she'd say to Hayden when he called that night.

"Damned if I know," Kevin said. "You can't carry a tune to save your life."

Scowling, Anna whirled around and chucked the little plastic scoop at his head. He laughed and swatted it away. Anna turned back to the coffee, pulling out a spoon to use instead. Chuckling, Kevin bent down to pick up the plastic scoop she'd thrown. He tossed it onto the counter and leaned one hip against it, turning to face her with his arms crossed over his chest.

"So what's the deal?" he asked. "What's got you humming a lousy tune in the middle of a Sunday afternoon?" A moment later he winced. "I didn't mean to make that rhyme."

Laughing, Anna finished with the coffee maker and pressed the 'start' button. She turned to her friend and mirrored his pose, looking up a good ten inches into his open face. "Nothing's going on," she replied. "I'm just in a good mood."

Kevin rolled his eyes. "Oh, please. Don't give me that. I've seen Zimmerman coming and going and Riley talks about his 'good friend Hayden' enough for me to know the conversations front and back. You know this already, but man, your kid just doesn't stop!"

"I know," Anna agreed with another laugh. She moved to the kitchen table to sit down, trying to ignore the heat in her face. She could only hope that Kevin wouldn't say anything to make it worse.

"Come on, Anna," Kevin implored, sitting down across from her and leaning his forearms on the table. "Tell me what's going on. Are you dating Hayden Zimmerman?"

Anna blushed and covered her face with her hands.

"Anna, there's no need to be embarrassed," Kevin chided. "Look at me."

She lowered her hands to see him smiling at her, no longer smirking or laughing. "Yes, I'm dating Hayden. Sort of."

Kevin's eyebrows went up. "What's 'sort of?'" he asked.

"Well, we talk on the phone a lot," Anna said. "And he and Riley talk on the phone even more. Hayden took me for coffee after the parent-teacher interviews a few weeks ago and he came over for dinner one night before he left on this last road trip." She paused and looked up at her friend. "Does that count as dating someone?"

"Like I'd know?" Kevin replied with a laugh. "I've dated as often as you have, you know that."

"Yeah," Anna agreed and blew her breath out.

"Listen, Anna, if these phone calls and whatever else you're doing makes you hum like you just were, I'd say it counts."

"Thanks, Kevin," Anna said. "You're a good guy to lie like that."

"I'm not lying!" he protested with mock indignation.

"Honestly, we've talked about it a bit and if you want to know, we are dating."

"I'm glad," Kevin said. "Really. You're too good a person to spend the rest of your life alone."

"I'd hardly be alone. I've got another ten years at least with that... creature in the other room!" This she said with a great deal of warmth so no one could think she was serious.

"I mean it, Anna. I think it's great that someone else has noticed what you've got to offer," Kevin replied, ignoring her joke.

"What do you mean, 'someone else?'" she asked after processing Kevin's words.

He met her curious gaze and flushed before averting his eyes. Anna felt very uncomfortable all of a sudden. "Kevin, you don't-" she began to say but he cut her off.

"It's fine," he said. "I missed my chance and that's all right. I can live with that."

Anna studied his face as he spoke. He wouldn't look at her and the color was still very apparent in his cheeks. His fair skin made the color appear that much deeper. "Kevin, I had no idea you felt... that way. About me," Anna said quietly.

Kevin did glance in her direction then and smiled sheepishly. "Don't feel sorry for me, Anna. I wasn't over the moon or anything but I would be lying if I said it had never crossed my mind."

"Kevin..."

"Anna," Kevin stopped her again and held a hand up. He looked at her and smiled, the flush fading from his face. "I'm fine. I'm happy for you."

Blushing, Anna smiled at her friend and neighbor and thanked God again that she'd been so lucky to find him. She stood up and circled the table to give him a hug and kiss on the cheek. Then she asked if he wanted cream and sugar in his coffee.