21. time out!

Kitt jumped when she heard a quiet knock on her outside patio door. Who was outside her room at eleven o'clock at night? She had been laying in bed doom scrolling on Tic Tok. The lights were out, and she was trying to turn her brain off.

She tried to see if she could peek without betraying her location. What if it was a bad guy? Someone who wanted to hurt her? It didn't occur to her that an intruder wouldn't knock.

She slid off the end of her bed and peeked around the side, hoping that she would be able to make out who it was.

They knocked again.

She had no choice but to peek through the curtains to figure out who was outside her room.

She crawled across the floor and lifted the corner of the sheer curtains to peek outside. She saw feet. That wasn't helpful. She assumed by the jeans and running shoes that the person was a male.

"Kitt?" She hard the intruder call quietly.

She stood up and flicked on the patio lights before she opened her door.

"What the FUCK Leo? I thought you were here to murder me!" She said as soon as the door was open.

"You don't answer your phone." He said letting himself into her room. He slid his shoes off and closed the door.

"Ok? So?" She demanded.

"So I think we need to talk." He said looking around her dark room before settling on the edge of her bed. She decided to stand.

"Ok? So?" She said again. She stood on one foot the other one resting up on her toes. Her arms crossed as she looked at him in the darkness. Enough light came on through the glass door so that she could see him fairly clearly.

"I, um, about last night." He looked down at his hands.

"It's late, I'm tired." She said, hoping that maybe he would change his mind and just go.

"Kitt, please?" He looked up at her. He looked stressed.

"Ok fine." She said. The room dimmed as the motion sensor light on the porch went out, leaving the  twinkle lights as the only source of light filtering in through her sheer curtain panels.

"So last night?" He said awkwardly.

"You said that." She could feel the irritation creep back in.

"Sorry, I just had a long day of thinking about stuff." He said, looking back down.

"Leo, it is fine! I know what I need to know." She looked at her hands.

"And what do you know?" He challenged.

"I know that you had a date. I know that it never occurred to you to tell me. I know that when I tried to kiss you, you jumped away." Her voice dropped to a whisper at the end. She was glad that the lights were off. It helped to hide the crimson color of her cheeks.

"Ok, so I should tell you the date thing? I didn't know Axel and Amber were setting me up until she said it at the table the other  night. To be honest, I was totally caught off guard. But I could tell that Axel was supposed to ask me a while back and forgot. So I had his back." He explained.

"Ok, cool, so Axel didn't have the respect to ask you ahead of time, but you jumped on the chance to be set up." She nodded firmly. She was having a hard time looking at him. Her voice betrayed her hurt, though she was sure.

"He is my teammate. We have each other's back." He said, sounding defeated.

"Sorry if I made you uncomfortable, you can obviously date whoever you like. You don't owe me anything." She said, hoping to sound confident.

"You were on a date with Liam!" He chuckled in disbelief.

"Not really. We arrived together and then he met Josie. Those two hit it off and spent the evening together mostly." She shrugged.

"Oh no! What an ass! I'm so sorry he did that!" He stood up abruptly.

"Oh no, no, no! I am super happy for them. It feels right for them to be together." She stepped forward in the small space, and she reached her hand out to stop him.

"Ok, if he treated you bad, I would crush his head in." He sounded angry.

"Why do you even care? He only asked me AFTER you made plans with a complete stranger." She snapped. He was acting jealous one minute, which made her think he had feelings, but his recoil at the thought of kissing her the next minute made it clear he didn't.

"Look, I felt put on the spot. I didn't know what to do!" He stayed close but not touching.

"What did you WANT to do?" She demanded, stepping in even closer in a challenge. She had nothing left to lose.

"I want, I ugh. I want to not feel awkward." He said lowly.

"What a fucking cop out!" She said turning to put space between them.

He grabbed her arm to prevent her from getting too far. He pulled her back pulling her even closer.

"Leo stop it. You are being unfair." She said quietly.

"Unfair, how?" He asked, holding her close.

"I tried to kiss you, you recoiled!" She said, exasperated, that he seemed to be playing dumb.

"Kitt!" He gasped almost in frustration.

"What? You have made it perfectly clear that you don't see me like that, which is cool, whatever, but like the flirting and touching me makes it hard on my heart." She didn't pull away from him. He held her around her waist close but not too close. Her arms were between them and she looked down at her hands.

"Kitt, I did not 'recoil'!" He gasped.

"I beg to differ." She scoffed.

"Kitt! I promise!" He said firmly.

"Leo! I was there! I know what happened." She finally looked up at him. The darkness made it hard to really see his face, but she could see him enough to make her heart leap. His face was so close. She forced thoughts of him kissing her out of her head. She hung onto every ounce of hurt and confidence she could as she challenged his words with her gaze.

"Kitt!" He said sharply.

He leaned forward and captured her lips with his. He pulled her against him, crashing her against his chest. His lips moved against hers, and she responded with all the feeling she had been pushing down. She reached her arms around his neck. He stepped back, pulling her with him, until he felt her bed behind his knees. He sat down and pulled her onto his lap. He reached his hand up to the back of her neck and intensified their kiss.

Her body reacted, and her brain faltered. She pulled off his lap and pulled him down onto the pillows. She rubbed her hands down his back.

He finally broke their kiss and dropped onto the pillow beside her.

"What was that?" She asked quietly, intertwining her fingers with his.

"I thought it would be ok." He shrugged with a little smile.

"But I mean, why did you kiss me now, but pull away last night?" She asked, looking down again. She noticed she did that a lot when she was uncomfortable asking him questions.

"You were drinking last night, and you were sad. I didn't want to be your, I don't know, distraction? Or a regret?" He said softly.

"What?" She was surprised to hear him say that.

"I had a date, a really terrible one, by the way, and so did you. You had been crying and were drinking. I didn't want our first kiss to be like that." He admitted.

"You thought about our first kiss?" She said, having a hard time believing it.

"I thought about it a lot." He whispered, leaning in to kiss her gently.

"And how did it measure up?" She asked teasingly.

"Fantasy has absolutely nothing on reality." He said, kissing her again.

"When did you start thinking about kissing me?" She asked, snuggling in closer.

"The day I met you at the arena." He grinned at her in the dark.

"You are full of shit." She laughed. She had hardly been nice to him, and she looked a mess.

"No, seriously, and then when I saw you across the ice that day, the day of the exhibition game? I was yours." He hugged her in tighter. He moved so he was on his back, and she was curled in next to him, her cheek on his chest.

"And after that game? When we had kicked your ass?" She asked.

"I was a gonner." He admitted.

"I think you're full of crap." She accused.

"You looked at me with that challenge in your eyes and that smug smile, and my heart nearly leaped out of my mouth." He said with a smile in his voice.

"Why didn't you say anything?" She asked, listening to his strong heartbeat with her ear on his chest felt so intimate.

"I did! Remember you friend-zoned me and didn't even seem amenable to that?" He laughed.

"Yeah, that was great." She laughed.

"When did you decide you wanted to kiss me?" He asked.

"I don't know exactly, but eventually, you wore me down with all your touching and attention." She said, trying to think of the exact moment she went from tollarant of him to interested.

"Touching?" He laughed.

"You would put your arm around me or touch my back or my knee. Just like little things like that. I think that's why when you agreed to the date with Eva, it hurt my feelings. I thought you liked me, at least a little. And I figured you knew I liked you, so when you agreed so easily, it told me that you didn't like me, and that was your way of letting me down easy." She hoped her jumble of words made sense.

"That was a mistake. I was so put on the spot. You kept calling us 'friends' with like air quotes, and that made me confused. And I told you already, I only agreed as a favour to my teammate." He said, kissing her head.

"Well he is an ass." Kitt said with a little pout.

"You're not wrong." He agreed.

"So why didn't you ask me?" She asked quietly.

"To the dinner?" He sounded surprised.

"Yeah." The was glad he couldn't see her face.

"Because you were already going, you were going to be there anyway. So I just kind of assumed we would hang out while we were both already there." He shrugged.

"Ok, but that's not the same as being your official date." She said sadly.

"No, I guess not." He agreed.

"Especially when you bring another girl as a date." She added sarcastically.

"Ok, ok I get it. I messed up." He laughed.

"How was your date with the devil?" She asked, knowing he was there with her, holding her, hissing her  He had already said it wasn't good, so now she felt like she could ask.

"You really want to know?" He laughed a little.

"Of course!" She put her face up to meet his gaze.

"Amber is a piece of work, she is rude and crass and basically chasing Axel to become, like, an NHL wifey, so she never has to have a real personality. Eva? Is her protégé. She laughed too loud, dressed super revealing, was way to touchy, and had nothing to add to any conversation. It was like being out with a toddler one minute and sex addict the next. It was weird and creepy. She kept offering to take eme places to, um, do things?" He sounded uncomfortable.

"Did you take her up on it?" Kitt felt her stomach lurch.

"No! She ended up being sloppy drunk by the end. She made me walk her home where she tried to act all sexy inviting me in, but I couldn't get away fast enough." He shivered at the memory.

"Sounds eventful." She said not sure why her stomach was clenched in a ball.

"Hey, I promise, I didn't touch her." He said softly.

"At least not the way you want to touch me, right?" She blushed furiously. He let all the air out of his lungs like he had been punched in the gut.

He pushed her back gently and kissed her again, deep and passionate. Her heart flipped.

She gently pulled away.

"Are kissing me to shut me up?" She accused narrowing her eyes but fighting the smile that threatened her lips.

"I would never!" He said in mock horror.

"So tell me more about this horrible girl, what did you hate about her?" Kitt encouraged.

"She had nothing intelligent to say. She mocked other people. She kept trying to act all coupley, like she had a say in my life. It was so weird." He shook his head.

"Like how?" Kitt asked confused by what he could possibly mean.

"Like saying things like, 'when we are out boating this summer with my dad you will have to remember not to drink so much beer, my dad likes guys who drink liquor with him.' And 'we don't go to places like that, do we babe?' I was like what the fuck are you talking about? 'WE' don't do anything." He shuddered.

"I used to know a girl like that. She would talk to her crushes like that and when I asked she said most of the time the guys just went along with it and that's how she landed her boyfriends, almost like sneaking in when they weren't looking and just claiming them." Kitt told him.

"Wow that's so manipulative!" He said snuggling back down into her pillows.

"Yeah, we used to joke she would just walk into a company and start working and tell them they forgot to file her paperwork. We also said she would just go into a house and start living there. She was a piece of work. She lied a lot too, almost like it was pathological." She said.

"What makes girls do such shady things?" He asked yawning and pulling her back against him.

"Lack of confidence?" Kitt said enjoying the snuggles.

"I could never be with someone so insecure." He shook his head.

"What if I tell you that I am insecure?" She asked.

"You are most secure person! Are you kidding?" He pushed up to look at her.

"Not really." She said thinking about all the times she second guessed herself, or battled her nerves, or had to escape a situation rather than deal with it.

"When you are on the ice you are the most confident person I have ever seen! It is mesmerizing!" He said wrapping her in his arms. He leaned back against the pillows and he kept her against his chest, so she had to move between his legs to stay in his arms.

"That is totally different! On the ice I know what to do, I know the rules I know what to expect. On the Ice I can take charge." She admitted.

"Oh! Well than you can pretend we are on the ice, feel free to take charge when ever you want!" He said flirtatiously, making her gasp.

"Leo!" She smacked him asking him laugh.