This Is Forever

by Madison, Natasha

  “I would have given him everything that I have,” he says, and he dries my tears with kisses. “Right down to my last cent if it got him away from Dylan.”

  “I don’t know what I did,” I start to say, and I kiss him, “to deserve you.” I peel his shirt from him. His hand slides under my shirt, and he cups my breast and kisses me again. He pulls my shirt over my head. “I love you,” I say and then kiss him again.

  He flips us around, and I’m on my back now in the middle of his room, and he moves my pants down and slowly kisses my leg all the way up my leg and he gets up. “I have to get a condom.” I stop him from walking.

  “I have an IUD,” I say. “And in the shower, you didn’t use one.”

  He covers me now with his body, and I push his shorts down. “Put me in you,” he says. I grab his cock with my hand and place him at my entrance, and he slides into me. Our mouths find each other, and we swallow our moans as he makes love to me. Slow, ever so fucking slow. Until we both let go, and his name is on my lips. He falls down on me, and I hold him close. My arms and legs hold on to him. He rolls off me, and I get up off the floor. Going to the bathroom, I clean up, and when I get into bed, I look over at him.

  “Is that where you went this morning?” I ask, and he turns to me.

  “Yes,” he says, and I look up at him. “He came to me yesterday when I went to get my wallet.”

  “That’s why you acted weird all last night?” I ask, and he nods.

  “I thought …” I start to say.

  “You thought I was breaking up with you?” he says, and I roll my eyes.

  “What was I supposed to think? You were distant yesterday, and then today, you didn’t even kiss me goodbye.” I pretend that it doesn’t bother me, but all day long, I was on pins and needles.

  “I was afraid that if I said anything, I would tell you, and then you would stop me.”

  “Did you go by yourself?” I ask. I want to know it all. “Please tell me everything.”

  “No. Matthew got there yesterday when Andrew was there, and if he tried anything, Matthew would have been another one arrested.”

  “Oh my God,” I say. “Did he come with you today?”

  “Everyone was there,” he says. “The men, at least.”

  “Oh my God,” I say, putting my hand in my face feeling embarrassed.

  “We got there, and I was a nervous wreck. I thought he wasn’t going to show. I think deep down I hoped he’d wake up and realize what he was doing, but he walked in there and had no care in the world.”

  “He’s a horrible person.”

  “He’s a son of a fucking bitch, and I fucking hate him,” Justin says. “I made sure he knew that he wasn’t allowed to contact him, and the only way he would have communication with Dylan was if Dylan wanted to talk to him.”

  “What do we tell him?” I ask, and he takes a deep breath.

  “I have no idea. I was going to say nothing and hope that when he gets older, he has no memory of him,” Justin says. “I hate Andrew, but he did do one thing. He made Dylan.”

  “I had more of a hand in it than he did,” I say, and he laughs. “He’s mine. I want to change his last name.”

  “Okay,” Justin says. “We can go to the lawyer, and he can take care of it.” He kisses me. “There is one more thing I did today, and I want you to know that I love you.”

  “Why does this sound like you did something that I am not going to be happy about?” I ask.

  “Well, you might be pissed,” he says. “Matthew said …”

  “Oh, Jesus, nothing good comes when you start a sentence with Matthew said.”

  Justin laughs and sits up, and I sit up with him. He reaches to the bed and grabs another sheet of paper, except this one is thicker than the one he just gave me. “I also did this.”

  I open the papers and see my name now on a credit card statement and see the balance is zero. I flip to the next one, and it’s zero also. All the debts I had are paid. “What?” I ask, not sure I’m seeing right.

  “How?”

  “I might have stolen your social security number from your file at work and given it to my lawyer,” he says, and I just flip through the pages. “And I know you're going to be pissed, so you can pay me back, just with no interest.”

  I look up at him. “You’re going to let me pay you back?” I ask, and he looks away from me.

  “I was going to put it in Dylan’s account,” he says. “Or not.”

  “I can’t believe this,” I say in shock. “This whole thing.”

  “It’s about time,” he says, and I look at him. “It’s about time that someone finally took care of you and not the other way around.”

  A tear escapes my eye. “You just have to protect and take care of us.” My hand goes to his chest, and my finger plays with the necklace that he hasn’t taken off. “I love you.” There are no other words that I can say right now.

  “I love you, too,” he says to me. “Forever.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Justin

  “I don’t know about this,” my agent, Carey, says to me. I smile at him and adjust my tie when I get out of my car and walk into the building. I fasten the button on my blue suit jacket, and we walk to the elevator. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  “Relax,” I say, getting in the elevator and looking forward. I see from the reflection that he’s rubbing his forehead. I look at myself in my blue suit and white shirt. This morning when I put it on, Dylan laughed at me and said I looked like a banker.

  “You know that, as your agent, I have to be on your side,” he says. “But this … it’s just …” He puts his hand on his chest, and I have to laugh again. He’s been with me since the beginning. “I thought your brother was nuts, but this …” Now I laugh. “It might kill your career.” He doesn’t just represent me; he has my whole family under him.

  “That’s okay,” I say. “I made enough money to last a long time.”

  We walk out, and the receptionist greets us and asks us to follow her. “Here we go,” he says when we get to the conference room. She opens the door, and we walk in.

  I spot all the key players sitting around the table. The general manager for the team, Hartley. The owners of the team, Albert and Charles, and finally, the coach of the team, Claude. “Gentlemen,” I say, and they each stand and shake my hand. “Thank you so much for coming.”

  “No problem,” Albert says.

  “Anything for you,” Charles chimes in after him.

  “Well, not really anything,” I say to them, and they don’t say a word as I unbutton my jacket and sit down in front of them with Carey beside me.

  “Well, gentlemen,” Carey says. “I bet we are all wondering why we are here.”

  “I mean, I don’t think it’s actually that much of a surprise,” I say. Putting my hands on the table in front of me, I fold them together.

  “We were going to reach out to you,” Hartley says.

  “But you figured that before you reached out to me to get my side of the story, you would suspend me.” I look at them and see Claude lean back in the chair and side-eye the rest of the guys. “And tell the press before picking up the phone and telling me?”

  “Justin.” Charles starts to talk. “You have to understand that our hands were tied.”

  “You were charged with assault,” Hartley says, “in front of a church.”

  “Charged doesn’t mean convicted,” Carey says from beside me, and I know that he is nervous, but I also know by the way he just leaned in his chair that shit is going to go down. “Especially now that the DA has thrown the case out, and all charges were dropped.”

  “We stand by what we did,” Charles says. “It’s a family-run company, and we can’t let it slide, even if we didn’t want to.”

  “Funny you should say family,” I say, looking at them, “because a family-run company would have called me to ask if I was okay. Would have been at the police station making sure I was all right. A fami
ly would have had my back no matter what.” Claude just nods. “A family doesn’t just turn their backs on each other because it’s going to get messy.”

  “I agree,” Claude says.

  “See, me assaulting that man was me protecting my family,” I tell them. “Not that any of you asked. I have been a part of this ‘family’”—I raise my hands and use air quotes—“since I was eighteen years old. I’ve gotten on that ice every single day, having the backs of my teammates. I’ve never once questioned any of the decisions that you guys have made over the years.” I smirk now. “And there have been some shitty ones, and some not so smart ones, but I’ve stayed true to my commitment to this organization and to who I thought were my brothers.”

  “Your commitment to the team is not in question,” Hartley says.

  “You’re right, it’s not. What’s in question right now is how I can skate for an organization that doesn’t stand with me,” I say and then look over at Claude. “I’m sorry that I am doing this, especially to you.” I then look over at Carey, who just nods. “I refuse to get on the ice with this organization going forward. I will not be attending camp. I will not be on that bench, and I will never wear that jersey.”

  “Surely, you don’t mean that,” Hartley says. “You can’t just do that. We can …”

  “You can, what, suspend me?” I shrug. “Whatever.”

  “You’ll be in breach of contract,” Charles says.

  “Oh, well, I guess you can either sue me or pay me out,” I say. “Or here is something, you can trade me.”

  “That’s crazy. You are the franchise name,” Harley says.

  “And not even that was good enough to stand by me,” I say, pushing my chair back. “I’ll let you guys think about it, and Carey will call you this afternoon to know which option you pick.”

  “You would ruin your career,” Albert says. “All because—”

  “All because in my time of need no one was there,” I say and then look at Carey. “You ready?”

  “This is fucking bullshit,” Hartley snaps.

  “No, what’s bullshit is getting a fucking phone call from SportsCenter asking me to comment on my suspension.” I push the chair back in. “That’s fucking bullshit.”

  “I’ll trade you to the bottom of the fucking barrel,” Hartley says, foaming from the mouth.

  “You can try, but obviously, my agent has my back, and there is only one team I’ll go to.”

  “Fuck you,” Hartley says.

  I nod at them, smiling. “Have a great day, gentlemen, and good luck in the future.” Then I turn to my coach. “Claude.”

  “We’ll talk soon,” he says, and I turn and walk out of the conference room. Pressing the button on the elevator, I wait. I don’t know why I thought they would come chasing after me or even apologize for what they did, but I don’t get any of that, and it just makes my decision easier.

  When we walk out into the hot sun, I turn to Carey. “I say give them five and call them with my offer.”

  “I’ll let you know,” he says and walks to his car. “Never a dull moment with you.”

  “Hey.” I smile. “Could be worse.”

  I get into the BMW and make my way back to the rink when the phone rings, and I see it’s Carey. “Don’t tell me they called you already?”

  “I was shocked also,” he says. “You can thank Claude. He said he didn’t want you sitting on his bench.” I laugh.

  “Did you give them my demands?” I ask him.

  “Please, you think I’m a rookie?” he asks. “I’ll let you know if they approve.”

  “I’ll be on the ice,” I say and disconnect. When I get to the rink, I walk in and say hello to a couple of kids who see me and then I walk into Caroline’s office. She is sitting behind her desk typing away on the computer, and her eyes come up when I walk in her office. I smile when I think about her here with me.

  “Hi,” she says, smiling at me, and I walk over to her, turning her chair and kissing her on the lips. “It’s not my lunch break,” she says and wipes off the lip gloss that is now on my lips. “How’d it go?”

  “It went the way it was supposed to go,” I say, not telling her anything yet.

  “Well, do you think they will still suspend you?” she asks, and I shrug. When I made the decision about quitting the team, I made one phone call and then decided not to tell her until the end. I didn’t want her to think this was another thing I did for her. In reality, I wasn’t doing it for her; I was doing it for us.

  “No clue,” I say, and I kiss her again.

  “You look really sexy in a tie,” she says. Twirling the tie between her fingers, she looks around. “Maybe tonight I can take it off you.”

  “Sweetheart,” I say, looking around. “If you don’t stop, I’m going to close the blinds on your window, lock the door, and then fuck you on this desk.” I lean in now. “All while wearing the tie.” She shudders in her chair. “That isn’t helping.” I’m actually thinking about how mad she would be if I did that when my phone beeps in my pocket.

  “Saved by the bell,” she says and pushes me away from her. “Now go teach hockey stuff so I can work.”

  “Fine,” I say, kissing her one more time and then taking my phone out of my pocket and seeing it’s a message from Carey.

  Carey: Deal accepted. I’ll send over the contract.

  I look back now. “Change of plans tonight. The three of us will have dinner.”

  “The three of us always have dinner,” she says, laughing.

  “I mean out. Let’s get pizza,” I say, and she just shrugs.

  “Whatever you want,” she says, and I have to say in the past three weeks she’s grown into her own. She’s also started hanging around my sisters more, which makes it worse for me. You see, after everything that happened, they decided to spend the whole summer in Canada with me.

  I don’t get on the ice that day. Instead, I watch from the stands and pick ten kids who I want to extend the program for. I had to choose, and it was the perfect day to do it.

  When we finally decide dinner everyone agrees that we should just go home. Dylan starts talking about the weekend and how he wants to go to the cabin we went to last week and try fishing again.

  “We can,” I say. “I’m sure everyone is going again.”

  “Michael said he’s going,” Dylan tells me, and Caroline just looks at me.

  “So,” I start, and she looks at me. “I had a meeting with my team today.”

  “Are they still mad at you?” Dylan asks, and I look at him. He was very upset when some of the kids said I got kicked off the team. I had to explain to him that sometimes you get in trouble, and this was my time-out, which just made him even madder since he didn’t understand any of it.

  “No,” I answer, and then I look at them both. “I’m mad at them.”

  Caroline just looks at me and waits. “Why?” Dylan asks me.

  “Because when you are with a team, you expect them to have your back and be on your side,” I tell him. “On that team, on the ice, they are your brothers.” He just nods, and I decide I’m just going to have the rip off the Band-Aid moment. “I told them I was not getting on the ice in Edmonton anymore.” Dylan opens his mouth, and Caroline gasps.

  “What does that mean?” she asks quietly.

  “It means that tomorrow, the whole world will know that I’ve been traded,” I tell them, and Dylan starts to cry. “What’s the matter, buddy?”

  “You’re going to move away from us,” he says, “and you are going to get another family.”

  I decide that maybe doing this during dinner was not a good idea, and I get off my stool and take Dylan in my arms. “Let’s sit on the couch.”

  I carry him to the couch, and Caroline walks behind me, her own tears hidden when she sits down and just holds Dylan’s hand.

  “I know that this is your home,” I tell them. “I know that you love this city, and you have lots of friends here. But I was hoping …” I start. “I
was hoping you guys would come with me.”

  “You want to take us with you?” Dylan asks.

  “Of course, I want to take you with me,” I say, kissing his forehead. “Obviously, I want you guys with me always,” I say, looking at Caroline who blinks away tears. “Would you be willing to move with me?”

  “Yes,” she whispers at the same time Dylan nods his head.

  “Just like that?” I say, my heart finally beating. “Without even knowing where I’m going?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Caroline says, coming to me. My hand goes around her shoulders, and she puts her head on my shoulder. “Doesn’t matter where it is, we’ll follow you always.”

  I turn to look at her and kiss her lips softly. “I love you,” I whisper.

  “So where are we going?” Dylan asks.

  “There was only one place I would accept,” I tell them. “Home.”

  “What?” Caroline says, sitting up.

  “Next stop,” I tell them. “New York.”

  Epilogue One

  Caroline

  Six Months Later

  “What time are you going to be home?” I ask Justin, turning in the bed. He’s on another road trip, and I’m not liking anything about him being gone right now. I mean, I thought it would be okay, a couple of games here and there, but the past two weeks have been brutal. He’s been on the road, and the past two games have been crazy to watch, especially with him being in Edmonton and facing his old team.

  “Does someone miss me?” he says, his voice low, and I roll my eyes.

  “Yup, Dylan,” I say, ignoring his laugh. “The bed is cold.”

  “I’ll be home tomorrow night,” he says. “I have to go.”

  “Love you,” I say, and he disconnects, and I toss my phone on the empty side of the bed. I throw the white cover off me and walk to Dylan’s bedroom. One thing that Justin did when he signed the contract with New York was get Zoe to get us a house. I was thinking maybe a nice two-story house, but when he brought me to see it, and we drove through the front gates, my mouth dropped to the ground.