Cade: Fire And Ice: A Second Chance Hockey Romance (11 page)

I had no choice but to go to work after leaving Cade behind in the car. I wiped the tears and smeared mascara off my face in the bathroom and took a couple of minutes to take some deep breaths and calm down. Having a breakdown in front of customers wasn't optional, so I spent the whole day making fake, robotic conversation with my co-workers and the women who came in to have their hair cut and their nails done. By the time it was time go home and feed the kids dinner before heading off to the grocery store the entire surface of my skin was tingly with the effort it had taken to contain myself all day. I walked back to my trailer in the cool evening wind, crying silently and not bothering to wipe the tears off my face as they flowed copiously down my cheeks.

Bill was sitting at the table with the boys and Kaylee when I walked into the kitchen. There was no chance of hiding my upset from them, nor did I have the energy to try.

Baby Ben, seven years old at the time and eating mac and cheese out of a red plastic bowl, looked up at me.

"Ellie. What's wrong?"

Before I could answer, Bill replied. "Her old boyfriend's back in town."

I was hungry, but I realized I wasn't going to be able to sit down and eat with the kids without scaring them with my upset. So I just smiled at the boys and Kaylee, told them I was going to get ready for my other shift and disappeared into the bedroom. Bill followed me, barging in behind me and slamming the door.

"Bill, seriously. I can't do this right now."

"Can't do what right now? Tell me what the fuck is going on?"

I took a deep breath. "Actually, nothing is going on. Cade is flying back to Los Angeles."

"Oh, so that's why you're so upset. I should have known."

I looked up at him, searching for some sign of compassion in his eyes. There was none.

"You broke up with me - remember? You said we were roommates only. Did you forget that conversation?"

"You know that wasn't real, Ellie."

"No I don't. I can't read your mind. If being in a relationship is too much for you - and it kind of seems like it is - we can be roommates. It might be easier for both of us."

"Did you fuck him?"

"Because that's all that matters, isn't it? If I fucked him. Don't worry, it was all that mattered to him, too."

"What mattered to him?"

"If I was fucking you!" I yelled, immediately lowering my voice when I realized how loud I was being.

"Well did you tell him you were?"

"You know what, Bill?"

"What?"

"I am completely and utterly sick of men caring about who I am fucking and nothing else. It makes me feel like a piece of meat you're hoarding, not a person you care about."

Bill paused, clearly unsure about saying what he said next, but unable to stop himself.

"Well did you?"

"YES!" I shouted.

He didn't reply right away so I started to get changed into my grocery store uniform. Then I grabbed my purse and my car keys and went to walk out of the room.

"That isn't cool, Ellie. That is not fucking cool."

I whipped around and got right up in Bill's face. There wasn't a single drop of patience left in me.

"You told me we were broken up. If that was a lie, it's your fault. If you don't like it or if you can't handle it, leave."

I spent the next few weeks on autopilot, doing my shifts at the salon and the grocery store like a zombie with a fake smile plastered to my face and then coming home to look after the kids. I refused to look up any news about Cade online. When my mind wandered to him, which it often did, I stopped it forcefully. After that first day, I barely cried at all. It became a point of pride, a little badge I could wear on my soul that allowed me to keep telling myself lies about not caring. The boys knew something was up. They were more subdued around the house, more willing to do their chores and clean up after themselves. It almost broke my heart. I told them I was fine when they asked but they were old enough to know better. Time. That was all it was going to take. Hopefully not another five years, but time. I wasn't in high school anymore. I had responsibilities, a life, things that needed to be taken care of. I couldn't afford to mope.

I had a lot of dreams around that time about losing things. Little things. My purse, my phone, David's inhaler. Night after night I would search through endless rooms with endless doors, getting more and more desperate to find the lost thing until I woke up in bed, sweaty with anxiety.

In early fall, about seven weeks after Cade's fateful visit, I was stocking feminine hygiene products at the grocery store and the thought just popped into my head - it seemed like a long time since my last period. I wasn't even worried at first, it was just a curiosity. For the next few days I waited for the familiar light cramping and spotting. They didn't come.

I wasn't an idiot, I knew how women got pregnant. It just seemed so surreal and unlikely. Days passed and my curiosity started to turn into something more pressing. When the smell of perm solution, which had never bothered me before, sent me running to the bathroom one day at the salon, I knew I had to get a pregnancy test. I got three, driving to the next town over so no one would see me and then I drove home with them sitting in my purse like little pink time bombs.

Every single one was positive. As soon as I saw the clear, bright pink lines appearing on the sticks everything suddenly seemed obvious. My breasts were fuller to the point that my bras were starting to feel uncomfortably snug. Everything about me looked rounder, from my face to my hips. I sat on the side of the bath and stared at the tests, dumbfounded. I hadn't had sex with Bill for a few weeks before Cade showed up and even if I had, we always, always used condoms. Neither of us wanted another mouth to feed. On my next day off I went to Planned Parenthood and they did a blood test and an ultrasound that confirmed what I already knew. They said it looked like I was between seven and eight weeks along.

What the hell was I going to do?

First, I was going to have to tell Bill, which I did that night after the kids were in bed.

"I have to tell you something."

Bill must have heard something in my voice because he looked up at me right away, pausing the game he was playing on his phone.

"What?"

"I'm pregnant."

He sat staring at me for a few moments and then spoke in a slow, calm voice.

"It's not mine, is it?"

I shook my head. Bill got up and walked to the bedroom, closing the door behind him. A week later, he left. I wanted him to go. We didn't love each other and I knew there was no way he was ever going to be OK with me having Cade's baby. He knew he didn't really have a leg to stand on, either, given his insistence before it happened that the relationship was over, that we were just roommates. A few nights after he left, when I thought the boys were all asleep, Jacob walked into the kitchen where I was eating leftovers for dinner and sat down across from me.

"I'm almost thirteen."

I smiled at him. "Yes you are. I'll bake you a cake on your birthday and you can have some of your friends over to watch a movie."

Jacob nodded at me, his expression serious.

"Ellie, I'm just telling you because I think I'm old enough to help out now. I can look after David and Baby Ben when you go to work at night. I know that you're, um, I know that you're having a baby. I heard you talking about it with Bill."

"Did you?"

"Yeah. I'm going to help you. When the baby is born I can help you look after it. I can change its diapers and help make lunches in the morning."

I put my hands over my face to hide the tears in my eyes. Jacob was, as he said, almost thirteen. He didn't look like a little kid anymore. His voice was getting deeper. I reached out across the table and took his hand in mine.

"I always think of you boys as so young, Jakey. But you're growing up. We're a family aren't we? We look out for each other."

He surprised me then by proceeding to get emotional himself.

"Yes, Ellie. You're a better mom to us than mom ever was. I..." he paused and wiped his eyes, "I just wanted you to know that I want to help now. You don't have to worry about quitting your job. And when I'm old enough, I'll get a job at the grocery store, too, after school. I already talked to Mr. Barnes about it."

Mr. Barnes was my manager at the grocery store.

"Did you?"

"Yeah, when I heard you talking about the baby. I thought Bill might leave so I went to the store and talked to Mr. Barnes after school one day. He said when I'm fourteen I can work part-time as a bag boy."

My heart swelled with pride and sadness. Pride because Jacob was such a kind-hearted, mature boy and sadness because he was being forced to grow-up too fast, to take on responsibilities no twelve year old should have to. I went to him and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, kissing the top of his head.

"Thank you, Jacob. I'm so proud of you."

When I sat back down again, he caught my eye.

"What?"

"Is it Cade Parker's baby?"

I was caught off guard, unable to answer because I didn't know how to, so Jacob kept going.

"I heard you talking to Bill about it. Is it Cade's baby?"

"Um, yeah. Yes, it is Cade's baby."

"Does he know?"

I shook my head. "No, he doesn't know. It - it shouldn't have happened. He lives in Los Angeles."

"I know. I watch his games at school, on the computer in the library."

"You do?" I asked, surprised.

Jacob looked down at the tabletop, slightly sheepishly. "Yeah. I started watching them when he lived in North Falls - when he was your boyfriend. He's really good. He won the Art Ross trophy last year."

I had no idea what the Art Ross trophy was but Jacob seemed suitably impressed. "It's for the most goals scored in a season, not counting the play-offs."

"Oh, wow. Really? He must be good, then."

"I'll stop watching his games if you want, Ellie."

I looked up quickly, confused. "Why would I want you to do that, Jacob? You can watch any hockey games you want."

"I just mean, you know, I mean if he did something - if he did something bad to you."

"No, Jacob. No. He didn't do anything bad to me, it's not like that. We just - sometimes people change. I didn't see him for five years and we both changed, we both grew up. He has to live in Los Angeles because he signed a contract. And I have to stay here-"

"To look after us," Jacob finished my sentence for me.

"Well, yes. But I want to look after you guys. And North Falls is where we live. I have two jobs. I don't want to move away from you boys."

At that, Jacob's body suddenly sagged over the table, his shoulders shaking.

"Jacob! Jakey! What's wrong? What did I-"

"We thought that maybe you were going to leave," he whispered, his voice shaking. "We thought you were going to move away because looking after us was going to be too hard with a baby."

I got up and knelt down beside him, taking his face in my hands and forcing him to look at me.

"Jacob. Listen to me. I am not leaving. I don't even know where you would get an idea like that from. I am not going anywhere. Do you hear me? Tell me you understand."

Before he could reply, David and Baby Ben appeared from around the corner where they'd been hiding and listening to my conversation with Jacob. They both crouched down and wrapped their skinny arms around me, weeping with relief. I swallowed, hard, and looked at all of them one after the other.

"Listen to me, you three. I am not going anywhere. I am staying right here, with you."

Baby Ben started wailing loudly and buried his face in my shoulder. "You're staying Ellie? Promise?"

"I promise. I never even thought about leaving, not for a second."

David piped up. "And if you did leave, you would take us, right?"

"Yes. If I did leave, I would take you. Even if I went to Timbuktu. Even if I went to the moon. I had no idea you boys were worried about this. You can stop worrying, alright? We're going to stick together. All of us. Now look at me and tell me you understand."

They all looked at me with their tearstained, tired faces and told me they understood. When I was absolutely sure that none of them were harboring any more doubts about my future presence, I finally got them all tucked into bed again.

The next morning, before they left for school, I made sure that they understood not to tell anyone about Cade Parker being the father of my baby. News like that would spread like wildfire and I had no doubt it would get back to Cade himself very quickly. I had no idea what I was going to do about him.

I suppose in a way I was unlucky that I waited until I had a measure of life experience under my belt before pissing Ellie Hesketh off badly enough for her to write me off. I was in my mid-twenties, at the peak of my professional life and worshipped by fans and sportswriters alike. I had never been more unhappy.

The first time I left North Falls I was naive and young enough to believe that the intensity of the bond between Ellie and I would outlast everything - time, distance, other relationships, life in general. The second time, there was no such mental safety net and the harder I tried to ignore the void in my life that her absence left, the deeper I fell into a spiral of partying and bad behavior. At least I knew enough not to do it in public.

Four months after I returned from the disastrous trip to see Ellie, my wrist was healed and I was back on the ice. The goals still came but the fluidity, the ease of skates on ice and pucks in the back of nets was gone. I barely slept. I began to develop an aversion to being alone that almost bordered on a phobia. People noticed - my parents, my coach, my teammates, Jessica, various Kings staff. Jay McLelan, my best friend on the team, got traded to another city. Before he left he came around to my house with a big box in a bag under his arm.

"Jesus, a present? You in love with me, man? Just say something if you are, gay marriage is legal in some places now."

He laughed and put the box on the counter in my enormous, expensive and entirely unused kitchen.

"Naw, it's just - fuck, man, now I feel awkward. It's just, uh, it's just this thing - I've got one. They're pretty sick."

I pulled the box out of the bag and looked at it.

"A Vitamix? What the hell is this? Is this a blender? Dude, what the fuck?"

"Calm down, Cade. It's not a blender. Well, it is, but it's like, the Ferrari of blenders."

I eyeballed Jay, wondering if he'd suffered a concussion.

"Don't look at me like that, man! I just - I've got one myself and it's really helped with my nutrition over the past year. I was getting kinda tubby last season, remember?"

I chuckled, thinking back to the shit we'd all given him in the dressing room when he'd started to develop a roll around his belly.

"You think I'm fat, bro? Just tell me. I can take it. You don't have to go buying me gifts."

"Aw, fuck off, Cade. I just thought you might want one. If you want to start, I dunno, getting back into shape."

Getting back into shape? What the fuck was he talking about?

"I'm probably gonna take the Art Ross trophy again this year, man. I'm in fine shape."

I was trying to keep things jocular but goddamned Jay wasn't having it. He just stood there looking serious and awkward.

"Are you, man?"

I took a step back, surprised. "What? Dude, are you serious? Did fucking Renner send you over here with that?"

Alice Renner was our team doctor and she'd been on at me all season to stop partying so much. As far as I was concerned it was none of her business what I did off the ice as long as I performed on it.

"Nope," Jay shook his head, "Renner didn't send me. Come on man, don't act like you have no idea about..."

As Jay trailed off I could feel myself starting to get angry.

"About what, man? Just fucking say it already, I don't have time to engage in girl talk with you."

Jay rolled his eyes at me. "About the fact that you're out partying, taking God knows what and fucking God knows who every night of the week, Cade. You're talented, everyone gets that, OK? But even you aren't going to be able to keep going at this rate. You've got to slow down, man."

"Taking God knows what? Fucking puck bunnies? Jay, this is such bullshit. You're not home with a nice cup of tea and a book every night either, you know?"

"You're right, I'm not. I'm also not out every single night until four in the morning, Cade. There's a difference between partying low-key, on the weekends, and what you're doing."

"Is there?"

"Yeah, man, there is. I can see that you're getting pissed off and I just want you to know I'm not here to lecture you. No one sent me - not Renner, not coach, I came here of my own free will because you're my friend and because I care about you."

"Well," I shot Jay a sarcastic smile, "I appreciate the concern but how about you come back when I'm not scoring goals anymore, OK?"

"Why do you have to be such an asshole, Cade? Everybody knows you're fucked up. Look at you, you look like shit. Hangover, right? People are worried about you."

"People are worried about their paychecks, man. And they shouldn't be. Everything is fucking fine."

Jay realized he wasn't going to be able to get through to me and held up his hands in surrender.

"OK, man. Cool. Listen, I'll text you. And I'll be back in L.A. all the time so we'll hang out then. I'm always here if you need anything."

I grunted noncommittally and took the stiff bro-hug Jay gave me before he left. Of course, I knew he was right. I wasn't even angry at him, I was angry at myself for handling everything so badly, for being so fucking weak. Not that I could admit any of this at the time. The roar of Jay's sports car peeling out of my driveway had barely faded in my ears before I was getting ready to head out again. Five minutes with my own thoughts was too much. I had to drown all the questions and doubts and pain.

Later that night at the glitzy, exclusive club I'd started to spend most of my time at and already four vodka shots in, I spotted a girl who reminded me of Ellie. She was sitting alone at the bar, sipping a drink and discretely checking out the men. It was her eyes, they were huge and dark like Ellie's. Or maybe it was her body language, the slope of her shoulders as she leaned over slightly to talk to the bartender. I can't even remember. But it was something. She'd seen me, too. I'd already caught her looking a few times. As usual, I stayed exactly where I was. Girls came to me, not the other way around.

That's exactly how pathetic I was then. Forced to scrabble for the tiny self-esteem boosts offered by the fact that women approached me. Sure enough, once I made deliberate eye contact with her a couple of times, she came over to me and threw me a coy smile.

"You're Cade Parker, aren't you?"

"Yep," I replied, openly looking her body up and down. She looked less like Ellie close up. Her tits were fake and her perfume smelled sugary and cheap. I was desperate.

"Oh my God. I love hockey."

"Do you?" I asked as she slid one of her manicured hands up my thigh.

"Yeah. I love - I love hockey players."

Jesus. She wasn't going to make it easy. I endured her inane conversation for as long as I could, maybe five minutes, before inviting her back to my place.

"Do you have any friends?" I asked as we left the club, suddenly worried that one girl - especially one barely coherent girl - wasn't going to be enough company to stave off the howling loneliness. Hailey - that was her name - looked up at me.

"Friends? You mean, like, for right now?"

She knew what I meant. She wanted me all to herself, of course, but what she wanted wasn't my concern.

"Yeah, for right now. Call them up, I'll give you my address."

And that's how I ended up with Hailey and two of her closest (ha!) girlfriends, standing naked in front of my bed and furiously masturbating to try and stay hard while they made out with each other on my stupid, ostentatious chinchilla bedspread. I could barely contain the rising levels of desperation inside me. I told myself that this was what every man on earth wanted. Money. Fame. Power. Young women willing to do anything you asked of them just to spend time with you. So why the fuck wasn't it working? I disappeared into my en suite bathroom and popped a Viagra. When I came back out, limp-dicked because it hadn't kicked in yet, I caught one of Hailey's friends giving her a look. One of those 'really?' looks that women give each other when a man is failing to live up to whatever it is they think he should be living up to.

"Hey, you don't have to be here." I told her. "Get your ass back to the bar and find yourself another chump if this isn't doing it for you."

Hailey cut in. "Cade, do you have any, uh, treats?"

Treats. Yes, I had treats. Five minutes later she was snorting a line of coke off one of the other girl's tits and they all perked right up. I ended up having to jerk off over all three of them as they knelt on the floor in front of me doing their best to feign arousal and begging me to come all over them. When it was over, after I'd closed my eyes and locked my brain onto the picture of Ellie's half-open mouth when she had an orgasm, I passed out in a chair and the girls did the rest of my coke before leaving.

That was my life. That fucker Jay turned out to be right, too. Early that year, as the play-offs loomed, my career-long goal scoring streak came to an abrupt end as my lifestyle did finally catch up to me and I lumbered around the ice like a drunk, oversized toddler night after night. Stories started appearing in the sports media about the state of my game. Coach became less and less willing to make exceptions when I showed up late (or not at all) to practice.

Ellie Hesketh was gone. She'd slipped through my fingers like sand. And no amount of alcohol or drugs or pussy or partying or fancy cars was able to paper over her absence. By the same time a year later trade rumors were swirling and I was being benched on a pretty regular basis. My own self-loathing just added to the velocity of my downward spiral and the only question became not whether or not I was going to fuck up my life, but how irreparably I was going to do it.