Crazy Thing Called Love (35 page)

“On top of the hundred for not running away?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“And Chuck E. Cheese?”

And here he’d foolishly thought that his life could not get any worse.

“Yes.”

“Deal.” Becky held out her hand and they shook on it.

“Here.” He pulled out his phone and tapped the Angry Birds app on the screen. “This should keep him busy.”

He passed Heather’s desk. “Coach Hornsby has an appointment in ten minutes,” she said pointedly.

“I’ll only take twenty.”

She scowled at him and he grinned.

But the grin faded when he stepped into Hornsby’s office and his coach shut the door behind him. Suddenly all of his failures, large and small, filled the corners of the large office, each waiting for their due.

He had no clue what to say, where to begin.

“Those are the kids from the show,” Hornsby said, walking past Billy, toward his desk.

“My niece and nephew.”

“Not your children.”

Billy swallowed the words that wanted to escape—the swearing, ranting protestation that came to his lips. “I don’t have any kids. Those women—”

Hornsby waved his hand as he sat in his chair. “I know, Billy. It was a joke.”

“Oh.” Billy managed a very strangled laugh. Hornsby was not funny. At all.

Unable to sit, Billy stood behind one of the chairs, his hands braced against the back. Nervous, unsure of what to do with his sweaty, panicky body, he nearly tipped the whole thing over.

“Sorry.”

“I’d rather you sat in my furniture, instead of breaking it.”

Now he had no choice but to sit down, and the second he did, he started bouncing his legs, his skin twitching. His mind racing, careening off the walls and windows. If they could just have this conversation on the ice, he might do okay. But sitting in an office, wearing a tie—he had no chance at winning.

“How old are the kids?”

“Three and thirteen.”

“Thirteen is tough. My daughter got arrested for shoplifting around that age.”

“Really?” Billy tried not to sound slightly delighted, but Christ, that was good news. Maybe Becky wasn’t such a nightmare after all.

“She did it on a dare, but …” Hornsby trailed off.

“Becky tried to hot-wire my car three nights ago.”

“You’re joking.”

“I wish. They spent the whole night trying to run away. They even jumped out a bedroom window at dawn. They probably would have gotten away if it hadn’t been for the news crews on my lawn.”

“Ahh. Is that when you shoved the reporter?”

“He was on my property. Scaring the kids. Am I the only one who thinks that kind of behavior deserves a shove?”

“No, you’re not. It’s one of the few times I can say you were right to shove someone.”

The guy was saying Billy was right, but his whole vibe was unforgiving.

This was exactly like the night he and Maddy had gone to tell her parents they were getting married. He’d sat in that dining room, with the fancy centerpiece and all the china, and gotten bitch-slapped by their silent condemnation. They’d talked about hockey and Maddy going to college, but the only thing he’d heard, the only thing he’d felt, was
you’re not good enough
.

“Why are you here, Billy? We can talk about parenting pre-teen girls all day long. But your career is in the shitter and I thought that’s why you called.”

“It is.” Billy stood because he couldn’t rip out his heart and throw it on the desk while he was sitting. “I’m sorry I didn’t answer your calls and I’m sorry I’ve been such an asshole this year.” Billy laughed, watching the traffic outside the windows. “I mean, I’m always an asshole, but I really took it to new heights this year. And you’re right, I don’t want to go out this way. I’m better than this.”

And he was. He knew that in his heart. Without Maddy having to tell him, he knew he was better than the way he’d been acting.

Despite the flop sweat and the panic and the pride-swallowing, the thought made him smile. Gave him a small measure of peace.

He exhaled, letting go of as much of his anxiety as he could.

“I might be too late.” Billy turned to face Hornsby, who sat back in his chair as if he’d been blown there. “I fully appreciate that, Coach. You tried harder than just about anyone in my life and I’m sorry to have failed you.”

“You didn’t just fail me.”

“I know. Blake, the guys, I failed all of them. And maybe worse, I failed myself. I’ve gotten so good at that,
I don’t even see it anymore. But I’d like the chance to be …” God, it sounded so stupid. “To be a better teammate and leader. I’d like to be the kind of player you need me to be.”

Hornsby stared at him, the silence tense. “Wow,” he finally said.

Billy laughed.

“You been working on that awhile?”

“All night.” Billy smiled.

“Christ, Billy, if you’d just called me back on Friday I’d have a fighting chance to change the GM’s mind, but you’ve tied my hands.”

Billy blew out a long breath. That was the answer he’d been afraid of. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Well … Nothing is guaranteed, you get that? Even if you do everything I tell you to do, you still might be sent down.”

“I know.”

“Okay, the first thing you need to do is go back on
AM Dallas
and tell your side of the story.”

“Done.” It rubbed him raw to agree, but he would do anything.

Hornsby blinked. “You’re going to need something national, too.”

“I’ll call Dominick Murphy today. He’s been bugging me to do a story.”

“Dom is an excellent choice.”

“Is it enough?”

“To salvage your career?”

“To … to go out the way I should.”

Hornsby stared at him for so long, Billy started to feel like a bug under glass.

“What makes you happy, Billy?”

Oh Jesus, just when he thought they were making progress, Coach was bringing out the Oprah shit again.
But instead of storming out of the office, he decided to answer.

“Hockey.”

Coach nodded. “Anything else?”

Maddy, he thought, but didn’t say. Coach hummed in his throat like he knew it anyway. “This sport gives a lot to its players. But there are some guys it only takes away from.”

Billy couldn’t blame hockey for his lack of a family. For Maddy. It wasn’t hockey that had ruined their marriage, or even him, it was them. Their youth. Their inexperience.

He didn’t see all that Maddy had been giving him, had no way of knowing how she’d been eroding away. Even at this moment, years later, he wasn’t sure how he could have stopped that.

“My mistakes have been my own,” he said.

A buzz, then Heather’s voice over the intercom. “Your nine-thirty is here,” she said.

Hornsby pushed a button on his phone as he stood. “Thanks, Heather.”

Hornsby walked Billy to the door.

“I’m glad you came in today,” Hornsby said.

“Me too,” Billy said. “If nothing else, I’m glad I got to apologize. You didn’t deserve the way I treated you.”

Hornsby opened the door and the two kids were standing in front of the fish tank, their faces illuminated by the light. A yellow fish swam by Charlie’s wide eyes.

“What are you going to do about them?”

“I’m trying to get custody. But I have to be accepted as a foster parent first, which might not be so easy.”

Hornsby’s eyebrows lifted up to his hairline.

“You can tone down the horror,” Billy muttered.

“I’m not horrified. I’m surprised and … proud of you. If there’s anything I can do to help, please let me know.”

“Really? Because I’m going to need some serious character references … though you’ll probably have to lie.” He tried to make it a joke but Coach didn’t laugh. He clapped Billy on the back so hard, things were shaken lose inside his chest. All the resentment and bitterness toward those men in his life—all those well-meaning coaches and trainers, even Maddy’s dad—who would have been a father figure for him, all of it got pulled down. And instead of feeling claustrophobic he just felt grateful.

“No,” Coach said. “I won’t have to lie at all.”

Madelyn flopped back in the chair in front of her makeup table just as Ruth sat down in her customary seat in the corner. She’d practically run off the set after the cameras went dark. The applause had been empty, the grumbles behind the clapping loud and clear.

“That was terrible,” Maddy said.

“Awful.”

“Dogs that juggle?”

“It was all we could get on such short notice.”

Maddy’s BlackBerry buzzed on the corner of her desk and she picked it up.

She had to read the message twice before she could believe it.

“He’s coming in,” she said.

“Who?”

“Billy. He’s coming in to talk about doing the show. He’ll be here in an hour.”

They stared at each other for a moment, and then suddenly they were hugging. Laughing and hugging.

“You did it,” Ruth said.

The sex did it, she thought and felt awful. Felt truly squeamish. It hadn’t been her intention, but the result was the same.

She’d slept with him and now he was coming in to talk about the show.

“It will be the perfect launch for our new format,” Ruth said and she was so right that it made Maddy feel sick. “We’ve got some work to do before he gets here. Go ahead and get changed, and then meet me in the conference room in ten minutes.”

“Great,” she agreed and Ruth left, leaving Maddy with the sharp edges of her doubt. Not about the show, but about Billy. She shouldn’t have slept with him again. That was so obvious. All the warmth that had been generated from yesterday, that sense that they were in this together, it wilted.

She felt mercenary.

The phone on her desk buzzed and the receptionist from the front office got on the intercom. “Maddy, I have a call for you on line one. A reporter who wants to ask you some questions.”

Maddy reached over to the phone and pressed line one, and lifted the receiver.

“Maddy Cornish,” she said and then winced. “Madelyn,” she amended very quickly.

“Hi, Maddy, it’s Dominick Murphy, I met you at the New School fund-raiser—”

“Of course.” She smiled, thinking of the grizzled writer with the seasoned hair. “What can I do for you, Dom?”

“Well, Billy has finally agreed to let me do a story on him and I was hoping to ask you a few questions.”

“About the show?” she asked, unzipping her too tight boots. She got the first one off.

“No.” He cleared his throat. “About your marriage.”

The other boot fell.

Her heartbeat echoed in her ears.

“How … how did you find out?”

“I’m a reporter, Madelyn. It’s what I do. So, can we meet?”

Meet? she thought. How innocent. How utterly clueless he seemed to be about the pain of being Billy Wilkins’ wife. Like she would just talk about it. Like she had sweet, clever stories about their years together.

With icy white clarity she saw the real mistake of Sunday. In kissing him, letting him into her bed, her fucking house. In falling right back in love with him, she’d opened herself up to that pain all over again.

She’d opened up her life all over again.

The thought shut her down. Closed every door that Billy had managed to open in their time together.

This wasn’t about her identity. It was about survival. And she couldn’t survive that kind of pain again.

She had to stop this now. Because if she continued, thinking she could handle him, handle her emotions, there’d be no keeping Billy out. He’d be her past and her present, and how long would it be until she just handed over her future? How long until they were saying things like
Let’s try again
?

And how would they hurt each other this time? How would they fail each other? No. No, she wouldn’t do it. Couldn’t risk it.

She liked her life. Cold and sterile, counting calories and relying on the products on infomercials to make her house a home, to make her life look like someone was actually living it.

“I don’t talk about my relationship with Billy.”

“Madelyn—”

“Good-bye, Dom.” She hung up. Stared at the phone.

Her life might not be happy, but at least it didn’t hurt.

Billy walked back
into the studio of
AM Dallas
with a headache, and a foulmouthed entourage.

“What about Chuck E. Cheese?” Charlie whined.

“I just have to do this first,” Billy said with fraying patience.

“This is bullshit,” Becky muttered just loud enough for Billy to hear.

He stopped and Charlie ran into the back of his legs. “Say it one more time, Becky,” he warned, staring up at the ceiling, “
one more time
, and I swear I’m going to take twenty bucks from the money I’ve given you.”

“Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.”

Billy turned, murder in his heart. Charlie stepped backward and tried tugging Becky with him. But Becky didn’t go—nope, she put her chin up and faced him head-on.

If all that murder weren’t in his heart, he might laugh.

“What is with you?” he asked. “I thought … I thought we had a good day on Sunday. Why are you so mad?”

“Why are you so mad?”

He rolled his eyes as he turned, only to come face-to-face with Maddy. Who looked about as warm and welcoming as Becky.