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Hello, and welcome to the fourth chapter of "I'm Still With the Hockey Hunk", my exciting and ongoing furry soap opera! Don't be shy to jump in if you haven't followed the series from the start, you're bound to catch on very soon!

If you have any comments, don't hesitate to drop me a line or two. All feedback helps me to be a better writer. Votes, faves and watches are great, too!

Have a fun read!

*

I got out of the bed at half past eight, showered, washed my teeth, gargled my muzzle, combed my mane, smoothened my tail tip, had a small coffee and a sandwich and then hurried to get my clothes on before my quick bus trip to downtown. The air felt much warmer, and I even managed to smile despite the early wakeup call after a day spent in feeble attempts at amusing myself while simply waiting for my Sunday encounter with Victor. The streets were still sparsely populated at this hour, and I got the curb almost to myself while I walked, paws in my pockets, stepping along and wondering on what I was going to say to him.

Maybe I should have apologized for my somewhat harsh departure already on the phone yesterday, I thought, I should have told Victor that it wasn't his fault, or Cobb's really, but mine, since there was just only that much I could do about it before it all came together and became too much. Feeling as helpless as I did on that Friday night had certainly not set well with me, sparking instincts that were deeply dormant in my university-polished, domesticated leonine mind. I knew it was a feeble defense, claiming that it was just me feeling hunted and wanting to crawl into a hole to be safe, but at least it was better than nothing at all.

I found my way to the familiar café without much trouble, and found a nice little booth, decorated with traditional leather upholstery and a red tablecloth and plastic flowers next to the small basket containing condiments and salt and pepper shakers. I settled down, folded my tail under the table and spent a few moments checking out the place, the scents, the furs populating a few tables, since it was only about half an hour since they had opened, and generally tried to make myself feel more confident about the situation. I took my phone out of my pocket and placed it on the table, in case Victor called, and so that I could keep an eye on the time, which was now 09:50.

At least I was well on time, I decided, I had enough time to settle myself comfortably and be the master of the situation, and my own skittish mind, before I had to face my foil from Friday.

A coyote waitress wearing a white blouse came over and took my order of coffee and a large cinnamon bun - hey, I could at least treat myself to something delicious now that I was here at this eye-bleary hour. She gave me a big smile and promised to be back really fast with it, and I smiled back, Rory style, and relaxed onto the leather seat and hoped for Victor to show up soon.

Somewhere on the back of my mind, the possibility of Victor being intercepted by Cobb and prevented from leaving at the last moment was making itself known, making me wonder whether Victor could come over at all. I knew that he hadn't cancelled us, so I presumed he would come, but when dealing with that unpredictable force of nature called Cobb Holden, I doubted anything could be possible.

My thoughts of Victor locking Cobb into the guest room while he escaped from the apartment were interrupted by the coyote returning with my steaming coffee and my equally hot and juicy cinnamon bun, served neatly on a plate.

"Enjoy," she smiled with her lipstick-adorned maw, and I smiled back again, and flicked my ears.

"Thank you."

The cinnamon bun was freshly baked and looked like it was the size of my paw, or almost as big, and its very scent caused a drool reaction from my sugar-hungry mind. I couldn't resist that evil allure for much longer, and I caved in quite happily, picking up the treat and taking a very good bite before sousing it all with hot coffee. The heavenly mixture of tastes and aromas and textures filled my consciousness, and I purred with each breath, chewing slowly, my tail flicking happily, as I let myself be immersed in some oral pleasures.

I had barely managed to swallow the last of my beautifully loaded pleasure bundle of cinnamon and cardamom before I heard the chime of the doorbell and instinctively looked up, as if I was expecting yet another customer to enter the Albrecht Brothers. My conditioned mind might have been at work, but nonetheless, my automatic reaction brought my eyes to rest on the form of Victor, now standing on the doorway.

I felt a jolt of tension and excitement in my belly, and my tail looped itself around my legs while I raised a paw and gave a quick wave. Victor smiled and flicked his ears and started to make his way towards my corner. I realized that the Dobie was wearing his glasses now, perched carefully over his muzzle, and he smiled still when he reached me.

"Hi, hope I'm not late," Victor said, his voice that same familiar deep rumble that it had always been.

"Not at all, " I replied, having checked the time only a moment before to know that it was a couple of minutes past ten.

"Took me a while to find a parking spot," Victor continued as he sat down opposite to me on the other side of the booth and put his expansive form to rest. "Surprisingly few around here, I had to park on Maxwell Lane and walk here. Not a long way though, so it was okay."

"Guess they want to encourage pedestrian traffic on downtown areas to reduce congestion," I suggested, watching Victor get comfortable on his leather-cushioned seat.

"Yeah, it's great for everyone except those with their own car," he snuffled and rubbed the side of his neck before taking off his glasses.

"You're wearing your glasses again," I noted when he was already putting them into a small leather pouch he took out of his coat pocket.

"Need them to legally drive," Victor quipped back and hid his sheathed glasses into his pocket and then rested his paws flat over the tabletop.

He still looked pretty tired.

"I already ordered," I waved my paw over my cinnamon bun and my thrice-sipped coffee.

"I didn't get any coffee yet," Victor mused, his eyes longingly taking in my tall mug and my cinnamon bun, "I...didn't want to tempt Cobb with it."

My ears flattened briefly.

"Does he always get hyper when drinking coffee?" I asked.

Victor's broad head nodded.

"If he gets more than one mug, he gets...a bit itchy," the Dobie related. "I dunno who it is, maybe he's oversensitive to caffeine or something, but he was always like that."

"Ohhh...," I tried to sound non-judgmental, holding onto my own mug filled with the said dangerous substance if was very fond of myself.

"Don't think it's anything like ADHD or anything like that, he's always been a bit...easily excited about stuff, but I don't think it's anything abnormal," Victor wondered, rubbing his chin in that odd, weary expression. "But part of it yesterday was just him being plain stupid and messing around with me for the hell of it, just because he can."

I gave Victor a sympathetic smile, just as the familiar coyote found our spot again and directed her smile at Victor now, who replied it wearily.

"I'd like a tall coffee, black, and...do you have anything freshly baked?"

The coyote's ears flicked.

"We've got cinnamon buns, chocolate chip chocolate cake, croissants and veggie pie."

"Two croissants it is then, please."

"Coming right up!"

She smeared something on her little notepad and then left, tail wagging lazily behind her while she strutted her stuff for her own benefit. I turned to look at Victor, rather, though, and smiled as gently as I knew how to.

"How was yesterday?" I asked, morbidly curious, perhaps, but after imagining all the possible horrors Victor might have been forced to go through, I decided that I needed to know.

The Dobie snuffled.

"Well, he took me out to eat, both as a 'hello, brother' meal and as a 'I'm sorry' for Friday night," Victor started, "laughed at me when I told him that I'm watching what I'm eating, and then he ordered double fries with his steak for himself."

My ears flattened again at the thought of such a taunting display of gluttony in front of the food-self-depriving Dobie, and shook my head.

"How charming," I sipped my coffee before commenting.

"I stood fast and only had some fried chicken," Victor smiled, and I smiled back.

"Brave of you," I chuckled.

Victor flicked a quick ear at me before he continued.

"Then we walked around town and talked about stuff and this and that and then went back to my place and he insisted we get some of that Johnny Walker and have a man to man chat."

I cringed both mentally and physically at the idea, and my tail suffered a bout of erectile dysfunction under the table, flopping down to the floor. Victor snuffled at the face I made and flicked his ears.

"He's in love, I think," Victor mused, "at least judging by how much he went on about some Dobie girl's ass."

"Nice for him," surprising that there was always so much talk about Dobie butts with Victor.

"Yeah, I think that's why he came early, you know," Victor snuffled, scratching behind his ear, "he mentioned the name Colleen in the same sentence with some spa or something, so I think he has big plans."

I amused myself briefly with the image of Victor in a pair of swimming trunks climbing up the stairs to a really nice water slide, and found that my tail approved of the image and began its usual sway again, much to my relief. I smiled to Victor.

"Yay," I chuckled.

Maybe he'd get stuck in the water slide and be unable to pester Victor...

"He didn't mention when he's planning to do it though," Victor's ears flopped down again, "So I guess he hasn't yet decided how long he is going to stay this time."

Now that didn't sound so good.

LOVE YOU BROTHER, WANNA SPEND TIME WITH YOU!

Rory-Cobb resurfaced itself briefly on the back of my mind, only to be strongly pushed back by yours truly, determined not to let my overactive consciousness make up things that didn't do any good for me and Victor.

"He came without telling how long he's going to stay?" I asked him, carefully, once the nagging voice was subdued.

"He usually stays for a couple of weeks at most" Victor spoke, quickly, sounding almost hopeful, somehow.

Two weeks with Cobb Holden sounded quite enough for me, thanks.

"Talk about a visit," I snuffled empathetically.

"He said that he worked crazy hours to make enough free time to spend some of it with me, too," Victor replied with a gentle, fond smile, and of course, I couldn't help but understand.

"What does he do for a living?" I asked, curious now on what kind of an occupation enabled him to take off so much time at will.

It certainly didn't sound like an eight to four office job, at that.

"Works at the family business," Victor chuckled.

I smirked.

"You got a family business?"

Okay, I admit, I had a few Dallas flashes just right then, when my brain tried to replace the earlier water slide Victor with one wearing a cowboy hat and involved in a drunken fist fight with his brother Cobb. Hell, Cobb almost sounded like Bobby, at least in my dark and terrifying imagination.

Victor chuckled again.

"It's kinda new as far as family businesses go, so don't think of me as the secret heir to a business dynasty or anything like that, "he smirked, " Cobb and Evelyn, that's my sister, they run an online retail business."

My ears perked at the surprising information.

"Wow!"

"Evelyn does the computer stuff, since she used to work for IBM, and Cobb does much of the odd jobs, I suppose you could call it like that. Keeps the warehouse running and checks orders and deliveries and generally keeps things going the way they're supposed to be. The only thing he doesn't do is handle the money, because he says he doesn't want that kind of responsibility."

I nodded.

"Guess he has his reasons," I replied, my cinnamon bun tempting another bite out of it before Victor had the time to answer me.

"I suppose he has enough work in what he does, yeah, better leave the money to the accountant," he mused.

The coyote waitress delivered Victor's goodies on her small tray, piling steaming coffee and delicious-looking croissants in front of a smiling Dobie before she told Victor to enjoy, receiving a nod in reply. I let Victor taste his enviously good-looking treat before making more questions.

"What do they sell?"

Victor cleaned his muzzle on a napkin and rested his paws on the table once more.

"Well, it's...well..." he scratched himself on his favorite spot, behind his ear. "They actually run a few online stores, working from the same company and premises. Buying the service from an independent company saves a lot of money for their customers, too, I guess."

"Ahhh...kind of a centralized...thing?" I suggested.

Victor nodded, licking croissant crumbs from his lips.

"They get paid pretty well for providing that service for those who buy it from them, yeah," he spoke with a grin, "I think most of them are fan shops, actually."

"Fan shops?" I asked.

"Record companies and TV studios run fan shops," Victor explained, "So, when someone wants to buy, say...uhhh...an NCIS coffee mug, they go to the officially endorsed online fan store and get the official studio-approved fan favorite mug from the store. Or, if you want to buy a band T-shirt, or anything like that..."

I nodded.

"So, your brother and sister have a warehouse where they have one shelf for NCIS mugs and one for...uh...Madonna T-shirts?"

"Pretty much, as far as I understand," Victor replied.

"I see..."

"They've got a couple of staff, too, so I guess Cobb could simply take the time off simply because he's the boss," Victor snuffled.

"Convenient," I wondered how it felt like to be the boss.

"To him, maybe not to me...uhh...to us," Victor corrected himself, quickly, gazing at me across the table meaningfully.

I returned his eyes gladly, adding a smile to them, grinning a little at his gentle expression. My belly fluttered a little, the way it was meant to do, and I had the urge to move my paw over the tabletop, so that Victor might, if he wanted, hold it. I wasn't sure if that was a good idea in public, though, so I refrained, just for now, and simply smiled more broadly, and didn't stop looking him in the eyes.

"Yeah...we...," I put special emphasis on the plural, "...got to something of a wrong end of things with him, yeah."

"I'm still terribly sorry," Victor's ears flopped cutely, and my earlier urge for paw-holding was repeated, and again pushed back.

"I know, it's...it's okay," I put my bravest face up. "It was just a lot."

"I know it was and I'm sorry it had to end like that," Victor replied, his heartfelt expression still in place, "It was so nice before Cobb...shit...well, made things shitty."

"It was really nice," I replied, honestly. "Dinner and...and..."

"And," Victor affirmed with that same smile.

It was a really nice smile, and surprisingly, not really dirty at all. Of course it was my loose, dirty muzzle that made the implications more naughty.

"...and we could've had a lot more fun if for the interruption," I winked, too.

Victor chuckled throatily at my suggestion, and I could hear the telltale sound of his tail wagging against the leather of the seat. It made me wonder whether he was any sore back there...in his very special back there, that is.

"Yeah, I think we could have," he replied, smiling still.

My tail flicked happily at his affirmation.

"Well, doubt there's nothing stopping us, if we want to...well...see again?" I suggested.

Victor rubbed his chin.

"Guess there isn't," he replied, before his ears flopped again. "Except for..."

"Yeah," I concurred over my cup of coffee.

Victor frowned now, watching me carefully over his knuckles.

"Hope you...well..."

"It's only two weeks," I chimed up bravely, putting my mug down after a throat-singing sip, "that's practically...nothing."

"True, I guess," Victor mused after a moment of contemplating his plateful of croissants, not me.

"We'll make everyone happier, yeah?" I suggested now, "you get to hang out with your brother, he gets to hang out with you, and we'll know that in two weeks..."

Victor's ears told me that he thought it was a fine idea alright.

"Then I'll treat you to an even better date, I promise," Victor sounded determined alright, and frowned, even.

I chuckled, slightly nervously.

"Maybe it'd be my turn to take us out on a date," I proposed.

"Or that," Victor nodded enthusiastically, "if that's alright, eh?"

"Sure!" I was sure to put my mind into best use in thinking of many amusing things I could subject Victor to, including those that didn't involve plenty of barbs and lube.

"Yay...," Victor cheered, and I did feel cheered, much so, now that we were looking better and better than before.

"And we can phone and maybe you can sneak out to Facebook..."

"Ohhh, I have to be careful with that," Victor snuffled, "Cobb might try to spy stuff about you from Facebook if he catches me doing it."

I cringed at the knowledge that he wasn't just joking with that quip.

"Yeah...maybe it's to phone calls and text only," I mused.

"I'll try to shake him off at some point and maybe we can go and catch a movie or something, or dinner?" Victor smiled, obviously enthusiastic at the prospect of another outing of Team Victor and Rory.

My tail flicked happily against Victor's calves, under the table.

"Yeah, that'd definitely lighten up my day."

*

Where's the Gruffhanger? Has it quit? Why didn't Cobb barge in to spoil coffee date? What's going on? Stay tuned when Hockey Hunk returns next time with another exciting chapter!

If you have any comments about story as a whole or this particular chapter, don't hesitate to drop a few lines. All comments are appreciated and the feedback cherished. Votes, faves and watches are a must, too!

Cheerio!