On the Fly (15 page)

I narrowed my eyes and raised a brow.
“You have to finish all your homework and take your baths first.
Both of you.” There were few things Tuck would waste more time
doing than taking a bath on a normal night, because it was usually
the last thing he did before going to bed. He could be a champion
lollygagger in the bathtub if it meant staying up an extra ten
minutes…and more often than not, it resulted in a big mess of water
splashed all over the floor for me to clean up once I’d gotten them
into bed.

“
Really?” he said, a wide
grin taking over his whole face. “We get to watch the
game?”

“
Until bedtime. But I want
no complaints when eight o’clock rolls around, even if the game
isn’t over yet.” I’d never watched a hockey game before in my life.
I didn’t have the first clue how long they lasted but it didn’t
even start until seven.

“
Yes, ma’am,” they both
said in unison.

It got really quiet at the table, both
kids eating their dinner with a gusto they rarely displayed when
ice cream wasn’t involved. When we’d finished eating, I cleared
away the dishes, put the leftovers in the fridge, and cleaned the
kitchen. While I did that, they took out their backpacks and dove
into their homework.

I was amazed that by seven o’clock on
the dot both kids had finished all of their schoolwork and taken
their baths. I couldn’t think of a time anything like that had
happened before. Apparently, the chance to watch Mr. Jamie’s hockey
game was a far better incentive than anything I’d offered them in
the past. I made a mental note of that tidbit.

When I flipped the TV to the right
channel, a woman was in the midst of singing “Oh, Canada.” She
followed that up with “The Star Spangled Banner” before the
announcers broke in to discuss the two teams playing tonight, the
Storm and the Vancouver Canucks. Tuck settled himself beside me on
the sofa, pulling a blanket up over his legs, and Maddie took the
chair off to the side.

After a commercial break, the game was
back and an official dropped the puck in the middle of the ice. A
flurry of action took over the TV screen and I literally had no
idea what was going on. The guys were skating back and forth across
the rink, and the puck moved faster than I could keep up
with.

After a while, the Storm
were leading two to one when they took a break. The players headed
down a tunnel and out of sight, and two big trucks came out onto
the ice, driving in slow circles over the surface. I figured it was
halftime, but the commentators called it intermission. The
term
intermission
made me think of musical theater, though, so that just seemed
odd for a sporting event.

I glanced up at the clock. It was
7:53. “I think we’re going to have to turn it off now, guys,” I
said, ignoring their whines. “It’s almost bedtime.”

“
Not until
exactly
bedtime, Mommy,”
Tuck argued. He always did that. He’d push and push, right up to
the very edge of what was allowable, just to see if he could get me
to bend or break. He looked up at the same clock. “We go to bed at
eight-zero-zero.”

I didn’t bother trying to stifle my
smile. “Since you’ve already had your baths, we can leave it on for
a few more minutes. But the game won’t start again until after
you’re in bed. It’s just halftime.”

“
You have to watch the
rest, then,” Maddie said, yawning. “So you can tell us if Mr. Jamie
wins in the morning.”

I wasn’t so sure I wanted to sit up
and watch the rest of the game once they’d gone to bed. I could get
up early and find the score on the news or online before I woke
them, though. They’d never know the difference. “All right. I’ll
let you know.”

When the commercial break ended, my
jaw nearly hit the floor. Brenden was staring back at me on the
screen, red-faced and covered in sweat.

“
Mr. Soupy!” Tuck
squealed.

Brenden had taken his jersey and
helmet off. A deeper red line was visible across his forehead where
the helmet had been, and he had a towel draped across his
shoulders, somewhat covering his black T-shirt. He reached for a
bottle of water and took a swig as the announcer thanked him for
agreeing to do the intermission interview.

“
Glad to do it,” he said.
“Thanks for asking me.”

“
You seem to really be
flying tonight,” the announcer said. “Welcome back. It’s like you
never missed a step with your injury, the way you and the captain
always seem to find each other out there.”

Brenden wiped his face with the towel,
but it didn’t look like it helped much. He was sweating too
profusely. “That’s what happens when you play with a world-class
centerman like Zee. He can always find you on the ice; you just
have to find a way to get open.”

“
I’m sure it doesn’t hurt
that you two played together for years.” The announcer’s laugh was
one of the most obnoxious laughs I’d ever heard.

“
No, definitely not. It’s
always fun to play with Zee. He makes the game easy.”

“
Nice work getting the lead
late in the period. Tell us about that goal.”

“
Babs did a great job
digging the puck out of the corner.” Brenden drank more of his
water, wiped his forehead again. “He caught Zee heading out of the
zone, and I just did my best to keep up with him so we could
maintain a two-on-one advantage. I figured he’d shoot, but I kept
my stick down on the ice just in case.”

“
It’s a good thing you
did.” Again with the laugh. If I watched hockey again after
tonight, I definitely didn’t want to have this guy’s voice running
over it the whole time.

“
Yeah, he just kind of
saucered it over Bieksa’s stick and it landed right on my tape.
Easy tap in to get it past Luongo, but all the credit has to go to
Babs and Zee. They did the hard work. I was just in the right place
at the right time.”

The clock showed eight o’clock, and
the announcer thanked Brenden for his time again, and I got up to
usher my kids to their rooms.

“
Please can we watch just a
little more, Mommy?” Tuck whined, but he was yawning just like
Maddie had been, and there wasn’t a whole lot of conviction in his
request. “So we can see if they talk to Mr. Jamie next? Or Mr.
Zee?”

“
Not tonight.” Besides, I
didn’t have an idea what any of it meant, that whole interview. For
that matter, I didn’t have a clue what was happening the entire
game. I’d even missed the fact that it was Brenden who’d scored the
last goal. Clearly, hockey was not an easy sport to follow without
someone around to explain even the simplest things. Like icing.
What the heck was that supposed to mean? The game was all played on
ice.

It was exciting to watch because it
was almost constant action…but it was confusing the heck out of
me.

“
Okay.” Tuck sighed
melodramatically.

I shooed the kids down the hall and
went to the bathroom. When I finished, I stopped in each of their
rooms and tucked them in, telling them each a quick bedtime story
and kissing them goodnight.

I made my way back into the
living room to turn off the TV, but my hand froze on the remote
before I could hit the “power” button. There was a fight—like a
gloves-off-and-fists-raised
fight
—taking place on the ice, one
guy from each team. Everyone else was just standing around
watching, even the officials, and the fans were on their feet,
roaring like it was something to be proud of. No one was trying to
stop them. I’d never seen anything so barbaric in a game—nothing
outside of boxing and wrestling, but you expect it in those
sports.

What really worked its way into my
consciousness through it all, though, was that obnoxious
announcer’s voice. “Campbell lands a right, and another! Oh my, did
you see that? It’s one haymaker after another, both pugilists
trading blows, and Campbell surprises him with a left. Oh, what a
blow! And Kesler is down on the ice. Campbell took him down in a
glorious tilt.”

Campbell
. I was pretty sure Brenden
was the only Campbell in the game.

Sure enough, once the officials
finally stepped in and broke the two apart after they’d fallen to
the ice, the camera zoomed in for a close-up on Brenden’s face. He
skated over to a glass box, separate from the rest of his team,
wild eyed and still yapping at the player he’d just been fighting
with.

The TV broadcast immediately replayed
the entire fight, and I found that I couldn’t turn it off despite
the fact that it sickened me just a little bit that it had happened
at all. No, it sickened me a lot. What sort of player would fight
an opponent in the middle of a game? Why was it allowed to
happen?

More than anything, as I sat there
watching the rest of the game, I tried to reconcile the man who had
done that with the man who had tended to my feet and carried me
around for the past couple of days. How could he be the same
person?

This dual nature he seemed to have
made me more certain than I was before that I couldn’t trust him,
couldn’t let him get too close. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to
know which side of him to expect.

I watched the entire game even though
I hadn’t intended to, and I watched the post-game show as well.
After that ended, I turned down the volume on the TV but couldn’t
make myself go to bed. I sat there on the sofa, listening for
sounds in the hallway that would indicate Brenden and Jamie were
home.

I had to wait a long time. When I
finally heard the deep rumble of their voices in the hallway, it
was almost midnight. For reasons I couldn’t explain even to myself,
I got up, went to the door, and opened it.

Brenden turned around and looked at
me. He and Jamie were both wearing suits, their ties a little loose
around their collars. Brenden’s cheek was red and puffy. It
probably ought to be worse than that, after what he’d done
tonight.

He stared at me. I did nothing but
return his gaze for so long I felt like an idiot. Why had I even
opened the door? I didn’t want him to get any closer to me. Not
after what I’d seen tonight. I wanted him to keep his distance so I
could keep mine.

I started to close the door, but his
voice stopped me.

“
Rachel?” Just my
name.

My gut twisted into the craziest knot
of my life. I ought to close the door and lock it.

I didn’t.

Rachel looked
scared
.

No, not just scared. She
looked like she was scared of
me
. There was something inherently
disconcerting in the way she was staring at me, unblinking,
bug-eyed, and slack-jawed.

Why was she afraid of me all of a
sudden? And if I was right, if she did fear me, why was she waiting
up for me to come home? She could have stayed in her place, kept
her door locked, but instead she was halfway out in the hall,
between our condos, wearing nothing but an old pair of sweats and
staring at me as though I’d just murdered someone.

“
I’ll be in in a bit,” I
said to Babs.

He made an indistinguishable sound,
unlocked our door, and went in, but I didn’t immediately cross the
hall to be closer to her. Frankly, it wouldn’t have surprised me if
she had started to scream or do something crazy if I got too close
to her, and I wasn’t in the mood for anything like that. I wanted
to go to bed more than anything, but I couldn’t do that until I
defused whatever had gotten into Rachel’s head about me.

I’d had my first Gordie Howe hat trick
at the NHL-level tonight: a goal, an assist, and a fight. All in
all, it was a pretty decent way to return to the Portland Storm and
show Jim Sutter that I belonged.

The fight had happened because Canucks
center Ryan Kesler had taken a run at Andrew Jensen, the star
defenseman that Jim Sutter had orchestrated a blockbuster trade for
over the summer. It had been an ugly hit from behind that had
upended Jens near the boards. He would have stood up for himself,
but I’d beat him to it. If Jonny had been out on the ice, there was
no doubt he would have been the first one to hold Kesler
accountable. It’s just what we do in the game of hockey. The
players police the game.