Delay of Game (42 page)

She wasn’t crying constantly, at least. Every now and then, overwhelming grief would strike her out of nowhere and she’d have to let the tears run their course. I cried with her sometimes, like on the night she couldn’t get to sleep because she couldn’t stop thinking. She would cry for a while, and then she would stop, and just when I thought she was about to fall asleep, a fresh wave of tears would start up. After the third time that happened, it had just been too much for me, and so I’d cried, too. I’m not sure if she’d noticed or not. Her sense of loss was far more profound than she’d expected, it seemed, and occasionally, she got so deeply lost in it that she didn’t notice what was happening around her. That would get better with time. At least that was what the counselor we’d gone to see on Wednesday had told us.

Sara hadn’t initially been very keen on the idea of counseling, but the doctors had strongly encouraged it, and I thought it was a good idea for both of us. It was only when her dad told her he’d gone through counseling for years after her mother had left that she decided to give it a try.

One of the things I’d brought up in our sessions was the idea of her coming to live with me. When she was ready, of course. I didn’t want to rush things or for her to make a decision she wasn’t fully comfortable with, but that was the direction I wanted our relationship to be moving in. Right now, I was still staying with her and Scotty because she needed him as much as she needed me. He’d been her one constant in life. In all the moving around they’d done, from NHL city to NHL city, he’d been the one person she’d known she could count on. I wouldn’t take that away from her, not even to move her across town to stay with me, even if I hoped she would start to count on me a little more, too.

She wasn’t trying to push me away anymore, though. She let me hold her when she cried, and she didn’t completely clam up when I asked her what was going on in her head. I was pretty sure the counseling had a lot to do with that, because in our sessions, she heard what I was thinking and feeling. She knew now that I had some of the same fears, although they manifested in different ways. We spent a lot of time talking about my father, how he’d abandoned my family to go party and drink and use drugs. We talked even more about her mother, how she’d left not only Scotty to go run off with one of his players, but how she hadn’t ever tried to be part of Sara’s life even once since then. How she’d had other kids with that man—half siblings whose names Sara wouldn’t even know if not for the media. Her mother had never called or sent a birthday card. That woman had written Sara out of her life just as completely as drink and drugs had written my father out of our lives. Maybe even more thoroughly.

I’d always coped by trying to be the man he hadn’t been for my sisters. Sara had coped by doing everything she could to
not
be like her mother in any way. Different methods. Different results. Same fears.

I knew she was trying hard to sort her feelings out, but her ribs were healing more quickly than her heart was. She was getting up and around pretty well on her own. It was still best if she avoided doing any sort of heavy lifting or hardcore exercise, but there weren’t a lot of everyday things she couldn’t do anymore.

That meant she didn’t need to sleep with me as her body pillow any longer, although we hadn’t stopped sleeping that way. I doubted either of us wanted to change it. When she was draped over me like that, it was as though she was actually a part of me, as though we existed as a single entity. Once we’d been lying together like that for a few minutes, our hearts beat at the same pace and our breaths filled our lungs simultaneously, and the rest of the world drifted away until it was just the two of us. Sleeping that way had become a habit now, and I had always been a creature of habit.

I wasn’t sure how she would take it when I had to leave with the team to fly down to LA. I’d promised her I wasn’t going to leave her, and I’d told her I would prove that to her…but I still had a job to do, and sometimes that job required me to be apart from her, at least physically. She knew that. Sara had grown up around the NHL, so she knew how these things worked. But I still worried, since it was so soon after her miscarriage and since her emotional state was so fragile, that she might not be ready for us to be separated.

The team was going to fly out Thursday so we could be well rested and as mentally prepared for Game One on Friday as possible. When I started to pack my bag, Sara came up to help me. We worked silently—her taking items out from the small bit of closet space she’d allowed me in her room and laying them on the bed, me organizing them all in the single carry-on bag I always used for short road trips. She picked out the shirts and ties I would take, selecting colors that she liked together. I started to put a pair of shoes in the bag, but she shook her head and took them from me, handing me a different pair. Since I liked her taste in her own shoes so much, I figured I should trust her when it came to mine, too. I put them in the bag.

With the two of us working together, it didn’t take long before we were done. I didn’t have to leave for the airport for another half hour or so, but I didn’t have anything else I needed to do first. I’d barely zipped it closed before Sara came to me, burying her head against my chest and wrapping her arms around my waist.

The peppermint oil from her shampoo tickled my nostrils, and I breathed it in deep, as though that would help me hold on to her scent when I was gone. Somehow, we ended up back in bed, me on my back and Sara by my side, resting her head on my shoulder. I kept trailing my fingers through her hair, and she traced the plaid patterns of my shirt over my chest.

“What do you want to do after hockey?” she asked me after a minute.

“Go to college.” I didn’t even have to think about that. I’d chosen to play major junior hockey to get experience and be seen by scouts, and I’d gone straight from there to the AHL and then finally the NHL. My education had been put on hold for the sake of my hockey career and my family. Cadence might end up doing figure skating’s version of the same track, but education was important to my whole family.

“Yeah?” Sara looked up at me, her eyes filled with curiosity. “And then what?”

“I don’t know. Something business related—maybe still in the hockey world, but maybe not.” I had time to figure that part out still.

“But you’d want to settle down and find a place to call home?”

I nodded, trying to see beneath the surface of her question. I’d always had a place to call home. We’d grown up in Winnipeg, and my mom and sisters still lived there. I’d moved around some—from Halifax in juniors, to Seattle during my time in the AHL, and now to Portland—but Sara had spent her whole life moving from city to city every few years. Wherever Scotty’s coaching career had taken him, that was where she’d gone, as well.

“Yes,” I finally said. “I want to be grounded somewhere, not always on the move. I want a house where Buster can play and where my kids can grow up.” I wanted that place to be home for Sara, too.

We stayed like that, talking about whatever came to mind right up until the point that I had to leave for the airport. Every night while I was gone, she called me to talk before going to bed. Sometimes she cried. A couple of times she laughed.

The Storm managed to win Game One, but it was a tight game. We only beat them by a goal, and it was a fluke goal at that. Two nights later, they came out playing with more energy, and they pushed us to overtime and won. We came back to Portland tied at one win each.

I was thrilled that both teams had taken at least one game, even though the rest of the team would have far preferred for us to be up two to nothing in the series. This meant there wouldn’t be a sweep. The series would run through at least five games, and that meant I would have finished serving my suspension and could get back on the ice. I was going to be able to help my team again in a tangible way, not just by providing moral support.

Sara was in bed already by the time we got back to Portland, probably fast asleep. I tried my best not to wake her when I went into her room to change clothes, but she sat up in the bed almost immediately.

“Hey,” she said, but her voice was scratchy as if she’d been crying again.

I dropped my jacket and tie on the dresser and sat down on the edge of the bed, cupping her face with my hand. Her cheeks weren’t wet right now, but her eyes were swollen and puffy.

“Wanna talk?” I asked.

She shook her head, but she started talking anyway. “It’s silly. Don’t worry about it.”

“I do worry about you, though. Don’t tell me it’s silly.”

“It’s just that since the Kings won, that means you’re going to have to go back to LA with the team next week, and you’ll be gone, and I miss you when you’re gone.” She sniffled and shook her head, pulling away from me. “I told you it was silly.”

I didn’t think that was silly at all. It meant she was starting to admit to me how she felt about us. Maybe she wasn’t ready to tell me she loved me, but she couldn’t believably deny that she cared an awful lot. I kissed her cheek and told her I loved her before changing and getting into bed.

Then she kissed me so hungrily for so long that I knew I wouldn’t be getting to sleep anytime soon. Not that I minded. Not at all. The woman I loved was slowly coming to terms with loving me, too, and there was nothing that could make me happier.

“ONCE YOU MOVE
back to your house, we’re going to have to get Daddy a dog,” I said. “He’s way too attached to Buster. Those two have gotten to be almost inseparable. I think it’s been good for him, too, having a dog around. I think it’s helping his recovery.” Hell, Buster was helping with
my
recovery, too.

“Once
we
move back to my house,” Cam corrected on the other end of the phone. He was in LA again for Game Five of the Storm’s series against the Kings. “I don’t want to go home without you. I want you to come with me.”

My breath still caught when he would say things like that, but it was different somehow. Maybe because not only did I believe that was what he wanted but it was starting to be what I wanted, too. Maybe he would always have the ability to steal my breath that way. That might not be such a bad thing.

It was early afternoon, and the game would be tonight—the first game Cam would be able to play in a solid month, since the night of Daddy’s heart attack. His suspension was over. He’d served it and it was in the books, and now he was going to get back on the ice to do what he did best.

We didn’t have long to talk right now. Soon, Jens would be getting back to the room they were sharing on the road, and they’d both be turning in for a pre-game nap. The Storm had beaten all the odds in winning the first game of the series, but things had taken a decided downhill turn after that point, losing each of the three games after that. They hadn’t lost any of them badly. They’d all been one-goal games, with two of them being decided in overtime. The Kings had just been the team getting all the bounces so far, and Cam hoped his return to the lineup would help them to turn the tide. Otherwise, they’d be shaking hands in a few hours and gearing up for a summer of golf, starting tomorrow, and that wasn’t what anyone in the organization wanted.

“Should we get him a puppy, or would he do better with an older dog?” Cam asked.

He never let too much time pass after he would say something breath-stealing before he moved on to something else. I got the impression that he didn’t want to give me the time to linger on those things and get panicky. The panic, the need to push back—that was all starting to ease, though.

I let a smile creep over my lips, even though he couldn’t see it. “I bet Noelle could help us find a rescue that would be a good fit.”

After a few more minutes of talking about random things, he had to go. Jens had returned, and it was nap time.

“I love you,” he said before we hung up, just like he always did.

This time, I said, “I love you, too.” And I meant it. I meant it so much that it warmed my belly and spread out from there, until my whole body was filled with this insane tingling sensation, and I wanted to say it over and over again until it sounded natural to my ears.

I was pretty sure that this time, I was the one to steal his breath. I was more than okay with that.

CAM HAD BEEN
so amped up to get back on the ice that Hammer and Bergy had sent his line out to start the game. Usually, they’d start RJ’s line or maybe Zee’s line, especially since offense had come at a premium in this series. But at least for this time, they thought it was best to get Cam out there and let him burn off some of his pent-up energy.

It paid off. He scored a goal on his first shift, mainly by taking the Kings completely by surprise. It set a tone for all of the boys, and they followed his example the rest of the game. The Storm didn’t run away with it by any stretch of the imagination. It was yet another close game, but they won it two to one, and that meant they’d staved off elimination, at least for now.

Since there was only one day off before the next game, they flew right home after the game. I tried waiting up, but since I didn’t sleep well without him in bed with me, I hadn’t gotten much sleep at all the night before. I ended up going to bed with the assurance that he’d wake me as soon as he got in.