Icing the Puck (New York Empires Book 2) (24 page)

Also unsurprising was the fact that Max’s mother didn’t panic; the Frenchwoman seemed almost impenetrable. Ice and calm except for her hands. They shook despite the fact that his grandfather didn’t stop massaging her shoulders.

Damn it.

Kayleigh wanted to snarl, but she didn’t. And so she put up a nonthreatening finger. “I’ll be back,” she said in French.

Fast feet took her to the waiting room just outside. Past the bathroom that smelled like the cleanser they used, the tile floor that clicked against her shoes. Finally she fell against the simple chair near a window that had a view of the east river and pulled out her phone. She had three messages, the impudent device proclaimed. One of them had to be from her brother’s girlfriend. She called her immediately.

“Kayleigh omigod…”

“Melanie? I need Emily’s number. I’m at the hospital, and they don’t have a direct human translator. I can speak French but not well enough. She has to have the name of the person they were going to get for Max.”

There was a pause, and she heard the kind of rustling that usually meant the phone was being moved from one hand to another.

“Kayleigh? It’s Emily. How can I help?”

“Do you have the name of or access to that translator? The one that they were going to get for Max?”

“Yes. I can call the one they’d had in mind for him. What did you tell my sister?”

“I told her that the hospital didn’t have a direct French translator available and we need one. Now.”

“Why the hell don’t they have…”

“Because they have a telephone system, and the only live actual translators that will come into the rooms for patients are Spanish-speaking ones. And Max’s parents and his grandfather are freaking out. And I can speak French well, just not the kind of French they’re going to need to be calm.”

“All right,” Emily said. “I’ll call her and tell her it’s an emergency.”

“Thanks Emily. Really.”

Kayleigh hung up the phone and took a deep breath.

After finishing the conversation, Kayleigh headed downstairs to the main entrance to wait for the translator.

And leaving the floor, that room, for that long, hurt. She had no idea what was going on in Max’s room, no clue what his parents were doing. More importantly, no clue what this person looked like. Every time she heard the sound of clicking heels against the tile floor, she looked up, hoping to see someone, but whoever had made those footsteps usually walked right past her, purpose or concern in their expression.

She took a deep breath and began to pace, trying to focus on something…anything other than the fact she was terrified of losing Max.

“I’m looking for Kayleigh Emerson?”

She nodded “Here,” she said. “That’s me.”

“You need a translator?”

She swallowed. She had to say it. “My boyfriend’s family is upstairs. They do not speak a word of English, barely at least, and the doctors have a phone system which doesn’t work well enough, and the only hospital translators translate…”

The translator sighed. “Yep. Happens all the time. What language?”

“If you can, you need to switch between Parisian French and Quebec French…or some kind of something that fits them both in some way…”

“You know they’re not the same, right?”

Kayleigh sighed. She wasn’t an idiot, but she didn’t have time for shenanigans. “Yes. I know. But his mother is Parisian and his father is a Quebecker. So you need to figure out what you can do to communicate to them both so that they both understand.”

The translator nodded. “Take me to them.”

She had to wait out in the hallway as the woman spoke to Max, his parents and his grandfather. She didn’t have any official family status, and so this…well…

She paced the hallway outside of the room, holding her breath, trying not to lose her mind. He wasn’t her boyfriend. Not really. He kissed well, and he had a nice smile…

And she was going to lose her mind.

Breathe. In. Out, as the clock ticked, the minutes passing by. People coming in and out of the room. Finally, the door opened. “He’s going to be OK,” said the translator, smiling.

“When can I see him?”

“That depends on his family.”

“
Tu peux venir
,” said an older gentleman with a smile that was achingly familiar.

“
Merci
,” she answered, her voice tenuous but as pleasant as she could make it.

Without a thought, it seemed, his grandfather put his arm around her. “
Tiens, petit
,” he said, his Parisian accent clear. “It will be OK.”

And at that moment, she believed him.

Max

The light was harsh when he opened his eyes. The beds were soft. People were holding his hands. He blinked again. And nothing. Just people.

His heart pounded against his chest. No feelings, no nothing, no nerves. Clarity.

The realization was almost enough to make him pass out again.

But he held on tight and remained conscious. He was aware of the beeping monitors and everything that followed. Of the people in the room. He focused and felt his grand-père’s worries, focused on his mother and felt her sudden calm, on his father and felt him, too.

Could he now
control
his
percée
? Had the knock on his head managed to make his life easier?

But there was no time to consider that, no time to even discuss it because there were footsteps. And Kayleigh.

He started to try and sit up, but all that got him were angry looks, beeping monitors and not very far off the pillow. And so he lay back down, taking Kayleigh’s hand in the process. “
Tu es venu
?”

“Yeah,” she whispered as she squeezed his hand. “I came. I’m here. Not for long though…”

He saw his father and the doctor nod.

“You’ll be back?”

“I’ll visit wherever you are.”

And that was good enough for him.

Kayleigh

Kayleigh tried to visit Max. Many times. Nobody would let her see him. Not in the morning, not in the evening, not in the afternoon nor in the wee hours between any of those. Not at his apartment, not in his hospital room. It was as if he’d fallen off the face of the earth. At first she thought it was because he needed space to recover. But as time went on, so did her concern, and she began to try and get information from anybody she could talk to. Nobody. Not her family, not the team. Nobody.

On girls’ night, three days before the gala, after way too many shots of tequila, she spilled the beans. “I miss him,” she said.

“Oh my god,” Sousa murmured pouring a glass of water and shoving it toward her as Melanie walked through the door. “You didn’t see it?”

Kayleigh shook her head before taking a long drink of water. “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” she managed, now that she was starting to feel her tongue again. “I haven’t seen
Max
. I can’t get near him.”

Sousa shook her head, pity in her eyes. “Yep, it figures. There’s this Quebec TV reporter…LeBlanc or whatever his name is? Anyway, he’s been going on a whole bunch of different sports shows. He’s been talking about how the fact that the New York dude didn’t get penalized for Max’s injury, but Brody Evans got suspended.”

Apparently she hadn’t been paying attention. “Evans got suspended?”

“Yeah.”

“And why did my family not tell me this?”

“Because here’s the thing. LeBlanc is basically saying, Why did Evans get suspended when the New York dude that hit Max didn’t get a penalty? That Evans wouldn’t have acted if the dude that hit Max got the kind of…disciplinary action he deserved for playing in such an unsafe manner.”

“Which is amazing that he’s doing this, but…”

“Anyway,” Melanie said as she sat down and poured herself a glass of moscato, “apparently Max himself is locked up tight. Nobody’s seeing him. Nobody even knows where he is right now. At least the ones who do aren’t saying anything.”

Emily nodded as she hung up her coat on the rack. “Yep. We don’t even know where he is, either officially or unofficially. So no visitors, no nothing. Because of course, if anybody sees him, they’re going to want to talk to him, and if we want to make it clear that he’s injured, seeing him in public isn’t a good idea unless and until he’s cleared. You remember what happened with the Norwegian dude on the New York team last year? Nobody saw him, nobody talked to him. Turned out the injury was, in fact, as bad as they said, but you know, when we’re pushing an injury inconsistency, it’s always better to be safe than sorry and control the situation.”

“I have to say,” Kassie, the Floridian flautist who came to join them, said, “that it’s kinda cool someone who the league needs to listen to is standing up for this. League’s had a problem with enforcement consistency for a while, and seeing this officially neutral party say something in a way the league can’t ignore? I love it.”

Emily smiled for a moment then rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but LeBlanc is going a little apeshit.”

“Better apeshit than letting this stand,” Melanie informed her sister. “The officiating and the suspensions have been inconsistent and awful. And even you need to admit that.”

“Which means,” Sousa said meaningfully, “if you want to give Max something…send him something.”

Kayleigh nodded, took long drink from her glass of water, and thought about her email.

From [email protected]

To: [email protected]

I miss you.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

I miss you too. When is the gala of yours?

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

It’s fine. Seriously. Totally fine. It’s in less than two days and you’re not going to make it. I almost forgot about it myself except they reminded us in practice. Don’t worry.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Send me the details ;) you never know what will happen.

Kayleigh

Kayleigh had been primped and powdered to within an inch of her life, and her dress was killer. She knew she looked gorgeous, but she didn’t have the heart for glamour. Not tonight.

Nevertheless, she shook hands and smiled with board members, charming them as best as she could, sharing stories of her childhood, explaining how the design of the rink had been altered to allow the Empires to watch the orchestra play during the intermission, and genuinely doing her best to keep her game face on.

And it worked, at least until she ran into Joe. “Thought you were bringing someone,” he said.

The board members hadn’t mentioned it, nobody else had. Not even Arun or Jonathan when she’d seen them in the coat room. “And that matters because?”

“It just makes you look bad, is all. You know. Most of us are settled in good sturdy relationships, and you…well are not,” Joe replied.

She barely managed to get away from him, choosing to make a beeline to the bar instead of telling the stupid viola player to fuck off. She leaned her elbows against the marble bar, took a deep breath and ordered a drink. Something strong enough to stop her brain from whirling.

“Come sit!”

She turned toward the voice; it was Jonathan. He sat, somewhat at ease, at a table no more than two steps away. She grinned, took the drink, tipped the bartender and headed over to accept the invitation.

“Thanks,” she said as she sat in one of the empty chairs and smiled. “How are you doing?”

Jonathan smiled back at her and patted her hand. “He’s going to be fine,” he said, ignoring her question.

She was glad she’d swallowed the sip of her drink she’d taken before she started talking. “What?”

He rolled his eyes. “You told A that you’d bring a hockey player. You’re as pale as a sheet. You went to the game where Evans got suspended and St. Laurent got injured, and you’ve been a mess since then. Doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out you’re worried about the guy you were supposed to bring. And you were bringing St. Laurent.”

She blinked.

“Kayleigh, I’m a litigator, not an idiot. Though some confuse the two, the truth is that I spend way too much time making sense out of the crazy. And he’s going to be fine, otherwise they would have had a press conference like they did with the other team and their goalie. The only reason he’s under lock and key is because of LeBlanc.” He looked down at his watch. “Give it about…say five more minutes, and then blow this overdressed popsicle stand and go check on Lucky Seven.”

She nodded and smiled. “Thank you.”

Suddenly she found herself genuinely relaxing. It was as if she’d been given permission to breathe again. Jonathan and Kassie were chatty and awesome enough to make her forget the people she didn’t want to see…or talk to. Finally, there were footsteps, and Jonathan’s face lit up in a way that made her realize Arun had joined them.

“You should go,” he said as he came over to join them. “You’ve done your time, Kayleigh. Seriously. It’s OK.”

She raised an eyebrow and took another sip of her mystery drink. “You sure?”

Arun nodded, patting her on the shoulder. “Now.”

She needed no more suggestion, no more prodding. “OK.”

Max

Max’d had enough of waiting. He’d been hidden away at the very luxurious house of the team owner, so he had to fake symptoms he was not having until it felt…safe. Then he had to go see the doctor, who had a horrible accent. Apparently, it was because the team’s doctor was from Boston…

But he did ask if he could dance. The doctor, as well as the other people in the room, laughed.

He was glad the only part of the response he caught was “yes.”

As he and the team owner left the doctor’s office, Monsieur “call me Arnie” Dawes wondered aloud, “So why do you want to dance?”

He smiled. Dawes’s interest was genuine. So he spilled the beans. “I was…invited to an event by a girl…and it was formal so…”