Delay of Game (33 page)

“Sorry. I got caught up helping Dana and her mom with wedding invitations and stuff like that. I almost forgot to call you.”

“It’s okay. Jens is still out with some of the boys, at least for a little while.”

It was unreal how something as simple as hearing the deep rumble of his voice on the other end of the line was enough to make me tingle.

I sat down on the side of my bed cautiously, careful to sit close enough to the edge that I would be able to get up again without too much effort. “So what’s going on? Why did you need me to be alone when I called you?”

“Because you might get mad at me, and I didn’t want anyone else to hear us arguing.”

Well, hell. “What did you do to upset me this time?”

“It’s just… Apparently, word is already making the rounds about us, so my sisters know, and they want to meet you. And my mom, too.”

“I…” What the hell? I was almost groaning to myself, trying to figure out how to respond to that. Because he’d said that they know about
us
. Which meant that there
was
an us to know about. Which meant that this was moving along a hell of a lot faster than I was prepared for. I didn’t know how to feel about any of this other than frustrated. “Well, I suppose we can plan a time that I can meet them after Daddy and I have recovered and once the team is out of the playoffs.” That would give me time to adjust to the idea and figure out how I felt about it all.

“Yeah,” he said, and I got the distinct impression that there was something else he had to say. “I thought about something like that, too. But the thing is—”

This could
not
be good.

“—they all have it in their heads that they should come to Portland. Now. So they can take in a playoff game when they meet you.”

A whoosh of air flooded through my lips, and I nearly slipped off the bed. That would have been bad, because it would have hurt like hell to get myself back up again. “Now?” I managed to squeak out. I couldn’t handle a visit now. I didn’t know what Cam and I
were
together. I didn’t know what I wanted us to be. I’d barely adjusted to the fact that there was a baby growing inside me, and his mom and sisters thought they needed to be here
now
?

“Yeah. I tried to change their minds, but they’ve already booked flights. They’ll be in Portland by tomorrow afternoon, before the game.”

Now seemed like a good time to start panicking.

SARA WAS SO
silent on the other end of the line for so long I worried that she’d stopped breathing. Was she furious with me? Nervous about meeting my family? Unsure of what to say or how to feel? A combination of all of the above? I wanted to know so I could figure out what my next move should be, but she wouldn’t say a word.

“Talk to me,” I said. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I just… I can’t… Tomorrow? You won’t even be here tomorrow.”

“We’re flying back after the game.” But Mom and the girls would still get there hours and hours before I would. “They’ll go to my house when their flight gets in. Mom has a key.”

“I don’t have to meet them without you?”

I hated how she sounded so damn skeptical and unsure. It didn’t suit her, which only further proved to me that my nerves over the girls’ idea of coming now was absolutely the wrong thing for this point in my relationship with Sara.

“No, you don’t have to meet them without me. Do you want me to come to your house when we get in, or should I go home?” I hoped she would tell me to come to her house. In a very short amount of time, I’d adjusted to sleeping with her wrapped all around me, and the thought of going without for any longer than I had to would eat at me.

Before she could get a word out, Jens came through the door along with what seemed like half the team, all of them talking over one another and creating a massive amount of noise—so much of it that I wouldn’t be able to hear her response.

“Shit,” I said. I caught Jens’s eye and nudged my head toward the door. “Can you guys give me a couple more minutes?”

I didn’t have a clue what was going on or why he’d brought them back to our room. He didn’t normally do anything like that. He would hang out with the guys, and when he was done, he’d come back to our room alone. Neither one of us was the sort who liked to have a party in our room. This was completely out of character for him.

But then I realized that the boys weren’t all laughing and joking around. This was no party; they looked as serious as we all had the night Scotty had a heart attack right in front of us.

Jens shook his head and said something, but the only word I was able to make out among the cacophony in the room was, “Nicky.”

Fucking hell. What the hell had happened to Nicky?

“I’ve got to go now,” I said to Sara. “I’m sorry. We’ll talk about it more tomorrow.”

I couldn’t hear whether she responded or not before I hung up the phone. I tossed it onto the nightstand and sat up straighter against the headboard, every muscle in my body on high alert like I was preparing for a fight. “What the fuck is going on with Nicky?”

They finally all shut up, probably because I’d yelled and I wasn’t a yeller. Now was not the time to be quiet, though, and every now and then yelling was called for.

Kally sat down on the foot of my bed. “We were all out having dinner and drinks, and he started acting like he was drugged. Same thing that happened that night we were in San Jose, when you were with us.”

My whole body went cold, like someone had just sent ice through my veins. That night was seared into my memory, stored right alongside some of the worst moments of my childhood involving my father. “Someone drugged him again?”

How the hell could something like that happen? Especially twice in such a short time, to the same guy? It wasn’t uncommon to hear about girls having drugs put in their drinks at parties by assholes who wanted to make it easier to rape them, but this was an entirely different situation. Nicky Ericsson was a big, fit man, and he’d been drugged twice in two completely different cities in the span of about a month.

Thank God the boys had been with him tonight. I didn’t want to think about what might have happened if he’d been alone.

Zee shoved his way past a few of the boys, shaking his head. “I don’t think anyone drugged him, Jonny. I was right beside him the whole night. The only time he was out of my sight was when he was in the bathroom.”

If no one drugged him, then… “You think he took something?” Why the fuck would Nicky do something like that? We were in the middle of the playoffs, for fuck’s sake, and he was our number-one goalie. He had a great life, a great career. I didn’t get it. No matter how many times I tried to make it make sense, no matter how many different ways I analyzed it, I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

Zee didn’t answer my question, but the look on his face said it all. “They’ve taken him to the emergency room to get sorted out. Hunter’s starting tomorrow night, and Jim’s already put in a call to get someone from Seattle to come back him up.”

Well, that was perfect. Just fucking perfect. Not only could
I
not play, but now we were going with our backup goaltender in the playoffs. That was definitely not a recipe for success.

Nothing against Hunter, of course. He’d done a great job this season when we’d needed him during the stretch that Nicky was out due to his concussion. But at a time like this, you really wanted your top guy in the net.

So now my Mom and sisters were going to see the Storm lose
and
scare Sara off, and my suspension would end up carrying over until next season and my life might very well turn to shit.

That all sounded great.

I’D BEEN LYING
in bed for over an hour trying to fall asleep, but I hadn’t been able to. Hell, I hadn’t even gotten close. No matter how much I twisted and turned, I couldn’t find a comfortable position without Cam. Plus, there was the fact that he’d just screwed with my mind by telling me that his family was coming here tomorrow because they wanted to meet me. How the hell did they already know about us? Why did they want to meet me?

I’d never been a meet-the-folks sort of girl. I wasn’t usually even with a guy long enough to be considered a
girlfriend
; I was just the girl they went on a couple of dates with and slept with a time or two. After that, they were too close for comfort and I put an end to it. I was definitely not the girl a guy would take home to his parents.

But his family wanted to get to know me, and Cam wanted me to meet them, and it was all going down tomorrow. Granted, he’d said they were going to his house and not coming here when they got in, so I wouldn’t have to technically meet them until Saturday, but still. Saturday was only one more day beyond tomorrow. That left me without anywhere close to enough time to mentally prepare myself for the idea of meeting them. So, at the moment, my thoughts were running away with me.

And then he’d had the nerve to ask if I wanted him to come here or go spend the night with his mom and sisters when the guys got in tomorrow night. I’d been
this close
to telling him I wanted him here with me, too, before he’d cut me off and hung up on me.

I didn’t want to want him. I just couldn’t seem to make myself stop.

I rolled over onto my good side and tucked my knees up near my chest, hoping that would ease the ache a little. The crazy part was I wasn’t entirely sure the ache was all related to my ribs and not the more emotional things going on in my life. There was a niggling voice in my head telling me that the ache was because Cam wasn’t here with me, but I didn’t particularly feel like listening to that voice. That voice could go fuck off.

Just before I gave up on that side position, my cell phone buzzed, the screen lighting up in the dark room and nearly blinding me. I squinted to read the text message.

You still awake?

The bastard. Did he have some sort of Spidey-sense telling him that I couldn’t stop thinking about him or something? And now I was adding Spider-Man to the long line of comic book heroes I was comparing him to. That shit had to stop.

Still, I’d told him I wasn’t going to avoid him. I figured I’d better respond.

Yeah, I’m awake. Thanks to you.

And not just because he’d texted me, either. I’d barely hit “send” on that message before my phone was ringing. I didn’t even bother looking to see who was calling. There was no chance it was anyone but him at this hour.

“What do you want, Cam?” I didn’t even attempt to hide my irritation.

“Sorry I had to hang up like that earlier. Nicky’s in the ER.”

“I— Oh.” I’d been all prepared to give him a serious tongue-lashing, but that took the bite out of my bark. “Will he be all right?”

“Yeah. Probably. Maybe.”

“That was really convincing.”

“He was drugged again. Or maybe he took something. I don’t know.”

The latter seemed more likely than the former, even though Nicky had never seemed the type. But none of them ever seemed the type once you realized which guys were self-medicating to deal with things. Over the years, I’d known a few of my father’s players to have some issues with drinking and drugs. There had been a few really high-profile cases around the league in recent years, too—guys who’d accidentally overdosed on something and died, or a couple that had taken their own lives after struggling with their addictions.