In the Zone (Portland Storm 5) (38 page)

Ten minutes passed before Devin finally finished running through his list of notes. As soon as he was done, I darted out of my seat and raced up the aisle to get to Shane, thoroughly impatient to find out what was going on.

“Everything’s fine,” he said before I could demand he tell me what was going on. “I can see the panic all over your face, so try to breathe.”

“I’m breathing. Where’s Keith?”

“You know about Nicky? The Storm’s goaltender?”

The one who had been out of the lineup lately, probably because of his addictions. Yeah, I knew about him. He’d played in the game last night—I’d been watching, more often than not—but that didn’t mean he was all right. “Has he overdosed or something?”

“No. Nothing like that. But Keith’s with him, and he said he can’t leave right now.”

He couldn’t leave. Why couldn’t he leave? My heart plummeted, my mind racing through a thousand possibilities. None of them made sense. I stood there gawking until Shane took pity on me.

“He asked me to come and pick you up. Get changed and I can take you to him.”

“
Y
OU DON’T ALL
have to stay with me all day, you know,” Nicky said. He passed his gaze from me to Colesy and finally to Babs as he spoke. “I don’t need three babysitters. I swear, one of you will be more than enough.”

“Tough,” Babs said. “You’ve got three.”

And soon, he’d have two more. At least I was fairly certain Brie was coming with Shane. That would make five. The three of us had been the only ones still hanging around after practice this morning when Babs noticed Nicky sitting in his stall and visibly shaking.

His first thought—and mine, too—had been that Nicky had taken something and was high. It turned out he hadn’t taken anything at all; he was really fighting the urge, and having a pretty big struggle with it.

Babs had been staying late to do some extra reps on the weight machines in the gym. He’d taken to doing that this year, and I couldn’t say it was hurting him. Colesy and I had been in Bergy’s office, talking about our goals for the rest of the season since he’d told us he intended to keep the two of us as a defensive pair as long as we didn’t take any steps backward. Since he’d made our pairing official, he’d decided that meant it was time to set more goals for the future. I was starting to get the feeling that Bergy had a goal for what time of day he took a dump. It was a little unreal.

Anyway, Colesy and I had walked into the locker room about a minute after Babs had found Nicky like that, and the three of us had decided right then and there that we were going to stick with our goaltender for the rest of today. We were all going to be at the Light the Lamp Foundation event tonight, anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal. The only problem was that I still hadn’t seen Brie, and I knew she’d been expecting me, but she hadn’t answered any of my text messages all day.

I wasn’t worried about her—I knew exactly where she was and why she was too busy to respond—but I
was
worried about Nicky. He had to take precedence right now, and I knew Brie would understand. Or at least I hoped she would.

Once it was decided that the four of us were going to spend the day together, I’d suggested we all go back to my place to hang out. I had a grocery service drop off food whenever I returned from a road trip, so the kitchen was well stocked and we would have plenty of things to do all day until we needed to head out for the event. On top of that, it would keep us away from bars or any of the other typical New Year’s Eve haunts. I didn’t want to offer Nicky any more temptation than he already had.

At the moment, he was looking around at the three of us like we’d all lost our minds. “Don’t you boys have something better to do today?”

“Nothing I can think of,” Colesy said. He put his feet up on the ottoman and stretched his neck to the side. Pepper took his change in position as an invitation to help herself to his lap. He let out an “Oof!” and shifted to better accommodate her.

I really needed to figure out how to convince her she was far too big to be a lapdog. Not that I had a clue how I’d go about that. Maybe I could find a dog whisperer somewhere.

“So what was it?” Babs asked, broaching the subject that we’d all been skirting around since that moment in the locker room. “What set you off?”

“We need to know so we can try to help you out better,” Colesy added, when Nicky gave Babs an odd look.

Nicky shrugged. “I don’t know, honestly. I felt good last night. A little shaky at first, but it had been a long time since I’d been in the net. By the time I had to stop that penalty shot, I had really settled in and everything had started to feel right. My adrenaline was pumping. Maybe that was it,” he said, a circumspect expression clouding his eyes that made me think there was a lot more he wasn’t telling us. He shook his head. “Maybe it was too much adrenaline when I hadn’t had much of it lately, and my body wanted something…more. I had a hard time sleeping last night, too. Really hard. I was up, pacing and sweating, desperate to take something that would calm me down and put me to sleep. But I didn’t. I called my sponsor even though it was the middle of the night. Talked about it. I managed to get through the night without taking anything, but I hardly slept, and the itch hadn’t left me. Then we had practice…”

What he didn’t say was that he’d had a particularly bad practice this morning. He hadn’t been on his game at all. None of us had worried about it too much, not even the coaches, because we knew he was just returning and struggling to get his timing back. Plus, we didn’t have another game for a couple of days.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It was such a letdown after the big rush of being back in the net last night. And once I’d showered and sat down for a few minutes, I started shaking.”

I thought it over for a minute, and then I leaned forward, making sure he was looking at me. “Sounds to me like you need to figure out a way to channel the adrenaline of the game. Because without that big rush, there wouldn’t be the huge drop-off afterward.”

He chuckled. “Yeah. Sounds great. Any suggestions?”

I didn’t have any, but Shane and Brie came through the door before I could answer him, and then he clammed up. I guessed he didn’t want to talk about it in front of Brie. That was all right. We could talk more when she wasn’t around.

I got up and pulled Brie in for a kiss, taking it deeper than I’d initially intended to because it had been too damn long since I’d had her in my arms.

“Hi,” she said a little dreamily when we finally broke apart. I loved that I was able to make her go goofy like that with nothing more than a kiss.

“Hi, yourself. Sorry I couldn’t come pick you up today.”

She shook her head with a tiny glance over at Nicky. “Don’t be. I understand. But later…there’s something I need to tell you.”

“We’ll find time. I’ll make time.” I didn’t know when—maybe not until well after I’d finished my taxi duty for Kally’s charity tonight—but I would find a way to get her alone.

She smiled and nodded, and then she went and took a seat next to Colesy. Pepper seemed to think that was her cue to spread her canine body across both their laps, so she flopped her head down on Brie’s legs. Brie rubbed my dog’s ears, and they both let out contented sighs.

I watched for a minute, again thinking that there was nothing more perfect I could imagine than having Brie here all the time. She fit here. She belonged in my life.

I just had to figure out how to make it happen.

I
T WAS WELL
after two a.m. by the time I finished taxiing people home and Jessica Lynch gave me the go-ahead to call it quits. I’d missed the ball dropping in New York, being otherwise occupied with entertaining Kally’s guests. No one here was drinking, even though it was New Year’s Eve. Light the Lamp was all about helping addicts turn their lives around, so having alcohol present wouldn’t work out. So I wasn’t acting as a designated driver—only a celebrity driver.

My last stop of the night was at Nicky’s house. I pulled up in his driveway and put the car in park. “You sure you’re all right here alone tonight?”

“I’ve got to figure out how to do this on my own sometime,” he said.

“Sometime doesn’t have to be tonight. I’ve got lots of room. It wouldn’t be an imposition.” I knew Shane wouldn’t mind, and I was sure Brie would be fine with it, too. I’d taken her back to my place a couple of hours ago. She needed to rest up for her performance tomorrow, and it had become clear really early that I wouldn’t be done until the wee hours of the morning. I couldn’t ask her to stay with me that late, but at least she’d agreed to spend the night at my place. I couldn’t wait to crawl into bed with her.

It was the simple things that I’d missed more than anything while I was gone, like holding her while she slept or waking up with the sun gleaming off the red in her hair and making it spark like fire. It was starting to make sense why Soupy and Rachel were acting like teenagers now that they were married. They couldn’t get enough of each other. I supposed that was just how it was when you were with the person you were meant to spend your life with.

“I know it wouldn’t bother you,” Nicky said. “But I need to do this. I need to do it for myself. To know I can be okay.” He still wasn’t talking about whatever else it was that had set him off this morning, but I didn’t know how to get him to do that. Lord knew I’d been a tough nut to crack—I still wasn’t sure how Brie had gotten me to talk about Garrett—but there didn’t seem to be a guidebook that would explain how to get him to talk about his demons, whatever they may be. I supposed that meant we’d have to be patient.

I reached over and gave him a punch on the shoulder. “All right. But call if you change your mind. Or just show up. Whatever.”

“I will.”

“Remember, you’re not fucking in this alone, man. You’ve got twenty-two brothers here to help you through.”

“You boys all made that very clear tonight. Thanks, Burnzie.” He reached for the door handle, then looked back at me. “I’ll call if I need help.”

I nodded, and he got out. I waited until he got safely inside before backing out of his driveway and heading for my own house. Shane and Brie had left a couple of lights on for me, but there wasn’t any sign of either of them downstairs. I let the dogs out one final time for the night so they wouldn’t bother me too early in the morning. Pepper’s barks were loud enough she was probably going to wake Mrs. Stephenson, but I couldn’t make myself care. I wanted to get up to bed—to Brie—as soon as possible.

Once I’d ushered them all back inside and locked up, I bounded up the stairs and into my bedroom.

Brie’s eyes popped open when I came in, and she gave me a sleepy smile while I stripped down to my boxers. “Did you get everyone home safely?”

I crawled into bed, resituating the blankets so they covered both of us. Almost immediately, she snuggled against my side and put her head on my shoulder as though that was where it belonged. I couldn’t say I disagreed with that sentiment, either.

“Everyone’s home safe. And now I’m here with you.”

“Good,” she said, placing a kiss on my collarbone that only made me want more, even though neither one of us needed to be up even later tonight.

There was one small piece of business I thought maybe we could handle before she fell back to sleep, though. “Earlier,” I said, “you mentioned there was something you wanted to tell me?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Her breaths were warm against my chest, tickling my skin as the air fanned out over me.

“And it was…?”

“Oh.” Brie yawned, and her grin was so big then that I could feel it against my skin. “I just wanted to tell you that I love you, too.”

Almost as soon as it was out of her mouth, she was asleep. I doubted I’d sleep for hours, though. I could understand, to some extent, what Nicky must have been going through last night, because the adrenaline pumping through my veins made it feel as though my heart might explode at any moment. Or maybe it was simply love making me feel that way.

Either way, it didn’t matter. Brie loved me. That was the only thing that seemed important right now.