Page 3 of Body Check

two

. . .

Jason

I feel like I’m eighteen again, constantly beating off to the memory of my new neighbor putting on a show for me.

Because it was a show. There’s no denying she knew I was there. She knew I was watching, and she did it anyway.

And while I’d normally feel guilty about perving on a younger woman in a vulnerable position… there’s nothing about our encounter that indicated she wasn’t fully consenting.

Fuck, and I don’t even know her name. More importantly, I don’t know her apartment number. I’m sure I could reverse engineer what floor she lives on—it’s the same level as mine, and I’m on the nineteenth floor—but her building probably has a different unit system than mine.

It’s early, maybe five o’clock in the morning. The team plane has just landed at the airfield, and I’m trudging into my apartment when movement in place catches my attention.

Except it’s not the woman who haunted my dreams for the last week.

There’s a man in the apartment across from mine, shirtless, a tiny baby snuggled in his arms. He’s bouncing the baby, his lips moving as he says something.

As if he senses me watching, the man pauses, and then his eyes trail across the way. He lifts a hand in greeting and turns his back, still rocking the baby.

And then I see her. In the early morning light, she’s wearing tight shorts and a loose top. Her dark hair is cut bluntly just beneath her shoulders. She hands the man a bottle, but doesn’t move to take the baby.

She has a baby.

I perved on a woman who has a baby. And a partner.

Fuck. I’m just as depraved as my ex-wife always said.

Leaving my suitcase in the middle of my apartment, I strip out of my clothes and crash into bed. When I wake up a few hours later, everything hurts.

As I stumble to the bathroom, I glance to the left, to my open bedroom window. I forgot to close the blinds, too exhausted to care.

There’s nobody in the apartment across the way. Good. I’ll make sure to close the blinds going forward. We’re strangers; we don’t need intimate access to each other’s lives.

Guilt churns in my stomach at the memory of the woman, naked and wanting. The way I wanted to leap from my apartment to hers and take the invitation, to kiss her lips, to lick my way down her body, to taste her pussy. The show she put on was for me, and we both know it.

Her face was shrouded in shadow, so even if I ran into her on the street, I can’t guarantee that I’d recognize her features. But I know her body. I know what she looks like in the throes of pleasure.

I know I want to watch her again, and again, and again.

But she has a partner. A baby. I can’t take advantage of her. I don’t condone cheating, especially after the way my marriage broke up.

Shaking my head, I push the thoughts aside, and focus on the here and now. I’ve got a workout in half an hour, then film review, and a meeting with Coach and the front office.

Being captain of an Original Six hockey team is not for the faint of heart. It’s a grueling job, even more intense than actually playing hockey. I’m the liaison between the team and the staff, and everyone wants a piece of me. That’s not me being conceited; it’s fact. Between my teammates wanting advice on their shots or bending my ear about their girl problems, and the coaching staff griping about specific players’ faults, and management wanting a impossibly long list of social media access, it never ends.

When my marriage fell apart, it was almost a relief. I didn’t have to keep placating Harper with promises we both knew I’d never be able to fulfill. The team comes first. It has to.

The drive to the practice facility is over before I know it, and as I make my way past the security desk with a wave to Joe, the old security guard, the familiar hum of activity soothes that itch in my soul.

I missed this.

The off-season was long, and although we’re still in pre-season prep mode, I don’t feel like I’m all the way back yet. We’ve played three games—one home, two away—and have another five on our schedule before the regular season starts.

Between the divorce finalizing, the renovations on my new condo, and finally moving in last week, I’ve barely able to relax all summer. My only vacation was a week at the lake house with my parents, my siblings, and their children. And let me just say, no matter how many hours you spend in a beach chair on the lakefront, it’s not a vacation when you’re woken up each morning before five o’clock by three screaming toddlers and Bluey blasting on the TV.

I love my siblings. I love my nieces and nephews. I just love them more from a distance.