Comeback (25 page)

“I’ll have to think what else we have going that would be appropriate,” I said.

Rachel rolled her double stroller over to us, little Mason in tow, crying like only a two-year-old could cry.

In a flash, Mia set her plate on the bench beside her and pulled him into her arms. “What’s wrong?”

Mason couldn’t articulate anything intelligible, of course, particularly with the sobbing.

“I wouldn’t let him skate with the big boys,” Rachel explained.

Based on his tearful gesticulations toward the ice, Mason didn’t seem to think there was any good reason why he couldn’t go play hockey with the kids who were four times his size.

“Come on,” Mia said to him, not that he’d calmed down enough to register anything she had to say. “We’ll go find Daddy. He’ll take you skating.” She carried her son off in search of her husband, and Rachel took the seat she’d just vacated.

“So, how’s Nicky doing?” Rachel asked as soon as we were alone with her twin daughters. She kept moving the stroller back and forth.

I arched a brow in the babies’ direction.

“Peyton won’t stay asleep without motion. She does all right if she’s in her crib, but anywhere else is a no-go.” She hooked the toes of one foot on the bar between the stroller’s back wheels and used that to keep the rocking motion going. “So…Nicky?”

“Are you asking because Jim needs to know?” I hedged. It still didn’t feel right, talking about him without his knowledge.

“What Jim needs to know is between Jim and Nicky. He leaves me out of that kind of thing. I’m asking because he intended to go through my purse looking for pills the afternoon of his sister’s memorial service. He probably would have gone through with it if Hunter hadn’t talked him down, not that he’d have found anything. Brenden keeps them locked away at home and only takes them if he really can’t bear the pain. Which means he doesn’t take them. That man is as stubborn about dealing with injuries as anyone I’ve ever known. So how’s Nicky really doing?”

Her spiel about Nicky intending to rut through her purse took me aback. I’d been aware that Nicky had been struggling, but I hadn’t realized he’d gotten to the point that he’d thought about taking something.

“Are you serious?” I spluttered. “He would never go through your things.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure about that?”

“Well, no. But how do you know?”

“I know because Nicky told Hunter what he’d been intending, and then Hunter relayed that to me as soon as he was sure Nicky was doing well enough to be left alone.” Rachel grimaced. “I wouldn’t tell you something like that if it wasn’t true. I have no reason to lie.”

“I’m sorry. I have no reason to doubt you. It just took me by surprise.”

It shouldn’t have surprised me, though, and should never have been suspicious of what Rachel told me. Nicky
was
an addict. And this was the pattern with addicts, the way they dealt with things they didn’t know how to handle: they fell prey to their addictions. I’d known that truth a heck of a lot longer than I’d known Nicky. Was that why he’d said he needed to see Brenden? Maybe he was trying to bum a few pills off his teammate. It wouldn’t be unheard of.

My mouth suddenly went dry. I blinked a few times, trying to figure out how to answer her.

She put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Never mind. Don’t worry about it. Your reaction right now is just about all the answer I need.”

It only filled me with more questions, though, and I doubted I’d be able to do anything but worry for the rest of the day.

FOR THE REST
of the day, it felt as though Jessica was as far away from me as Emma was. It seemed as if she’d turned on the same eternally-polite-but-aloof façade she’d formerly used with me, back before she’d finally let me see behind her walls. Whenever I tried to kiss her, she turned so that I got her cheek instead of her lips. Whenever I reached for her hand, she crossed her arms and tucked them under her breasts. Whenever I asked if she wanted to get out on the ice with me, she said she needed to talk to Mia some more and headed off in search of Q’s wife. Then, when we drove home with the kids after a long afternoon and evening of “fun,” she sat silently staring out the minivan window, oblivious to the chatter and laughter coming from the backseat.

The worst part of it was that I had no idea what had happened to cause her to pull away. I understood the need to go into your own head sometimes. Lord knew I did it often enough, probably so often that it drove her crazy. It wasn’t something I had expected from her, though, and I didn’t know what to think. She’d always been very open with me, direct and honest. She wasn’t one of those women who kept everything close to her chest, leaving you to guess what she was feeling based on a few limited clues; Jessica tended to lay everything out on the table, leaving nothing open for misinterpretation, no room for misunderstanding.

By the time we got home, it was well after the kids’ regular bedtime. I sent the three of them off for their baths right away to start the going-to-bed ritual, hoping that I could use the time while they were cleaning up to get Jessica to talk about whatever was bothering her.

I had no such luck. She filled a glass with water and moved past me into the hall. She disappeared into her bedroom—the one that I’d made ready for her but that she hadn’t used at all because she’d been staying with me—and closed the door, leaving me all alone to wonder what I’d done wrong.

She came out in time to tell the kids goodnight, a meaningful glance skittering over me on her way out of Nils and Hugo’s bedroom. After I turned the boys’ light out and shut the door, then made sure that Elin was settled in her room for the night, I went back out to the living room with the assumption that I’d find Jessica there. I did. She was sitting in a straight-backed chair, her legs crossed at the ankles. Her hands were up behind her head, tying her hair in a knot of some sort to keep it out of her face.

I took a seat on the couch facing her. “Want to talk about whatever’s wrong?”

Jessica didn’t hesitate in answering me. She just jumped straight to it, something I had always admired and appreciated about her. “What did you need to see Brenden Campbell about today?” she asked.

Soupy? What the hell did he have to do with anything? I couldn’t discern what this was about from either her tone or from her demeanor. I could only tell she was hurt. “We’ve been talking about Elin and Maddie. He’s only been Maddie’s father for a few years. He adopted her after he and Rachel got married, and Maddie was really withdrawn like Elin is. I wanted to ask his advice on how to get her to open up to me.” Not that he’d been a hell of a lot of help. Mainly, he’d told me I just needed to be patient with her, be there for her when she needed me. He’d said I was already doing all that I could, but whatever he said, it didn’t feel like it was enough. I thought I needed to do more.

“It was just about Elin?” she asked. Her tone was level, but there was no chance in hell I could miss the pain that had seeped into her eyes. I’d hurt her in some way, and I didn’t know what I’d done or how to fix it. She shifted in her seat, angling herself away from me ever so slightly. “You weren’t trying to get some pills from him?”

Pills
.

She thought I was trying to get high. She thought I was trying to escape from all the shit in my head by doing what I’d done so many times before. She thought I’d wanted to get some pills from Soupy. Hell, maybe she thought Soupy had given me some. I didn’t know whether I should be hurt that she’d think that of me or glad that she’d confront me about it so soon instead of letting it fester between us.

“I didn’t ask him for any pills.”

“Maybe not today, but you wanted to a few days ago. You were going to dig through Rachel’s purse after Emma’s memorial.”

“I thought about it. I didn’t, though. I got through without taking anything. Without a drink. I managed on my own.”

“Because Hunter stopped you.”

“Hunter helped, yes.” I was trying to get a sense of where this was heading, but I couldn’t read her. She’d put her wall back up, and all I was getting was an emotionless mask. The only way I knew she was hurt was because her eyes were red. Everything else was blank. “But the point is, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t take anything.”

“This time.”

“No,” I said cautiously. This was beginning to feel like very dangerous territory. “I didn’t take anything this time. I told you before that I would do everything I could to keep from hurting you, and I am.”

“What if Hunter hadn’t been there? What if there’s not someone there next time?”

I got up and paced. I couldn’t hold still. I needed to move, needed to keep my blood pumping and air going through my lungs. “I can’t play the what-if game, Jessica. I can’t do it. All I can deal with is what is in front of me right in this moment. I can’t promise you that I’ll never take another pill. I can’t promise I’ll never pick up a beer. All I can promise is to take it a day at a time, a moment at a time.”

“I know that,” she said quietly. Then with more conviction, “I do. I know that. But I think today it all really hit me.”

“What hit you?”

“I was talking to Rachel, and she told me all that, and I realized just how close you are to a possible relapse, how close you always will be…and how close I am to being hurt again. Not only that, but you didn’t tell me. You didn’t say a single word to me, even though you
know
my history, and you
know
how much that would hurt me. You asked me to promise I wouldn’t enable you, but that street goes both ways. You have to be honest with me about these things, Nicky.”

I crossed over to the window and leaned my head against it, letting the temperature outside cool my forehead. She was right. I should have come straight to her and told her. I wasn’t even sure why I hadn’t done that. Was I scared of her reaction? Whatever it might have been, this was worse. So much worse.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have told you.”

“Whatever this is between us, I can’t keep doing it if you’re not going to be honest with me.”

Did that mean she was going to leave? Was this it? I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t have already fucked this up beyond repair. I needed her. “What, exactly, are you saying?”

She didn’t answer. I lifted my head away from the glass and looked over my shoulder at her. She had her arms crossed before her, and there were tears in her eyes.

I pressed my head to the window again, wishing the coolness could give me the answers I needed through osmosis. “I thought you said it hurt too much to go without love.” My voice shook, and my breath fogged the glass.

“It does.” For the first time in this conversation, her voice cracked, betraying a hint of the emotion I’d seen in her eyes. “But that doesn’t make loving you hurt any less.”

Loving me
. She still hadn’t come out and said that she did, but she might as well have. That put a whole new spin on things, and it initiated an entirely new sense of panic within me. I wasn’t sure I was ready for the responsibility that would come with Jessica loving me. It meant she was putting her heart in my hands, and that would be one more thing I needed to protect. I hadn’t even figured the rest of it out yet.

I forced that thought aside for the time being. The fact was, she
hadn’t
said those three words yet, and I wouldn’t be doing either of us any favors by putting words in her mouth. There were other things that needed to be dealt with in the here and now.

“So what happens next?” I asked. “What does all of this mean?”

“It means I need to take a step back. To think.”

I traced a pattern in the fog I’d created, needing to do something with my hands. “Are you leaving?” That was a real fear, but only one that rested on the surface. There was so much more lying deeper than that, so much I didn’t want to face.

She didn’t answer right away. In fact, she didn’t answer for a long time. The longer she remained silent, the more my chest ached.

“No,” she finally said, and I breathed again. “I’m not leaving. I promised Emma and Elin, and I promised you. I don’t break my promises.”

“Neither do I.”

“I know you don’t.” She made a sound that I could swear was a sniffle, and I wanted to punch myself. “But you already pointed out that there are certain things you can’t promise. I just need some time. I need to think.”

Time to think. That was something I seemed to have in droves, but the thought of what might come from Jessica taking the same left me in knots.