On the Fly (21 page)

I nodded. “Thanks, Jim.” After he
left, I squished down into the chair with Maddie, wrapping my arm
around her.

“
See, Mommy?” She looked up
at me with sleepy eyes. “Mr. Soupy didn’t forget.” Then she leaned
into me and closed her eyes again.

No, he hadn’t forgotten. I’d been very
ready to believe that of him, though. Maybe too ready. It was
easier to jump to conclusions about him than it was to learn the
truth because it didn’t require trusting that he could be the man
he seemed to be. It was easier to believe he’d forget his promises,
or that he’d turn out to be a big jerk, or that he’d hurt me or my
kids in the end.

Easier to keep my distance and protect
my heart.

But was I really protecting myself if
I did that? Or was I depriving myself? Not to mention my
kids.

I smoothed my hand over Maddie’s hair,
listening to the pattern of her breaths as they got deeper, longer,
smoother as she drifted off to sleep again.

Another ten minutes passed before the
doors at the end of the hall opened and guys from the team started
to drift past on their way home for the night. Brenden and Jamie
were among the first to come out, both with their hair still wet
from the shower.

“
Sorry,” Brenden said
quietly as soon as they came into the assistant coaches’ office.
“Jim said he explained?”

“
It’s okay.” I smiled
almost despite myself.

Jamie went straight over to Tuck and
picked him up. He still didn’t wake up. Brenden bent over to pick
Maddie up, but I put out a hand to stop him. It was instinctive,
and maybe a little too overprotective.

“
I’ll carry her.” I still
couldn’t let anyone touch her. No one but me.

He frowned at me, but he didn’t argue.
The look he gave me was one I couldn’t quite put my finger
on.

Once he’d backed away, I extricated
myself from Maddie’s hold and got out of the chair. That movement
startled her awake. She blinked up at me, but then she saw
Brenden.

“
See, Mommy? Mr. Soupy
remembered.” She stood up and stretched her arms up over her head.
“Are we going home now?”

“
We’re all going home,”
Brenden said.

I might not have been able to place
the look in his eyes, but I definitely knew what the tone in his
voice was: hurt.

And I’d been the one to put it
there.

While Rachel was
still taking care of Maddie, Babs got Tuck settled
in his bed and then went across the hall to our place. I almost
went with him.

Instead, I stayed. I couldn’t leave
now, no matter how much I thought I wanted to. The whole reason
she’d stayed after the game, the whole reason she had kept the kids
out so late was because I’d asked her to wait for me. So I sat down
on the couch and waited while she did all the mom things she needed
to do, satisfying herself that her kids were safe and sound in
their beds.

I put my left ankle up on the coffee
table, giving it some elevation. It still hurt from how I’d crashed
into the boards, but I hadn’t told the trainers how bad it was. The
last thing I needed was for them to make me sit some more. We were
about to have a few days off for Christmas. That should be enough
time for me to rest it, and then I’d be fine.

Pumpkin leaped down from the Christmas
tree by the window and perched on the coffee table next to my
ankle, his keen yellow eyes watching my every move. I reached out
to pet him, but he hissed and swatted in the general direction of
my hand. That only reminded me why I preferred dogs. If you wanted
to pet a dog, they were usually all too happy to let you. Cats were
way too temperamental for my taste. I didn’t need one giving me a
hard time, especially since I was already being beat up from all
sides.

The whole night had been a beating for
me, actually—for the whole team—everything from the way we’d played
during the game itself to the hour of sweat Scotty put us through
afterward. But none of that ate at me like the look in Rachel’s
eyes when I’d tried to pick up Maddie.

She’d looked terrified, like I was
reaching for Maddie to hurt her. I recognized that look. For years,
I’d seen it in Dana’s eyes more times than I ever cared
to.

So now I knew. I may not know who had
hurt Maddie or what they’d done to her, but for the first time
since I’d met Rachel, I was starting to understand. The pieces of
the puzzle were beginning to come together, each one falling into
place, even if it was happening far more slowly than I would have
liked.

What I was coming to understand made
me want to go punch something.

That was what I’d done after Dana had
been raped. I’d gone to the gym and pounded my fists against
punching bags until my knuckles had been bloody and my hands had
swelled, and I’d kept punching until I literally couldn’t raise my
arm anymore. Then I’d gone back to do it all over again the next
day.

That hadn’t helped. It hadn’t helped
then, and it wouldn’t help now. Beating something until my hands
bled wouldn’t do anything for Maddie or Rachel, and it definitely
wouldn’t help me at all.

I had to find another way, something
productive instead of destructive.

Once I realized that Rachel was so
insanely overprotective of her kids, and of Maddie, in particular,
because she’d been abused in some way, I felt like someone had come
along and ripped a huge piece out of my chest, and I didn’t know
how to make it stop hurting.

I could only imagine what Rachel must
be going through. And Maddie. And did Tuck know what had happened?
How was he handling it?

Dealing with the aftermath of my
sister’s rape had been difficult enough. At least she’d been an
adult, with all the means of coping with trauma that come with age.
Maddie was just a little girl.

I felt sick just thinking about it,
and the longer I had to wait for Rachel to join me in the living
room, the more time I had for the awful thoughts to take over my
mind—all the while with that cat’s eyes fixed firmly on
me.

It was after midnight when she finally
came down the hall from her kids’ bedrooms. As soon as she did,
Pumpkin gave up his vigil and headed off to supervise the kids as
they slept.

Rachel stopped when she saw me on her
couch, still several feet away. “I thought you would have gone
home, as late as it is.”

“
Do you want me to
leave?”

It took too long for her to answer.
That meant she had to think about it—that she didn’t really know
whether she wanted me to stay or go. Finally, she shook her head.
She looked tired—too tired. Her eyes were red, bloodshot, with dark
circles under them. Her shoulders slumped forward
uncharacteristically.

“
Come. Sit with me,” I
said. I slid over on the cushions so she’d have more space.
“Please?” I added when she just looked at me warily.

She sat, but not as close to me as I
wanted. And she was stiff, not relaxing at all.

I was starting to realize that she
wasn’t just always tense with me—it had nothing to do with me, or
at least not very much. She was wound up so tight that she couldn’t
let go, like a pressure cooker full of steam with no way to release
it. I wanted to rub her shoulders, to help her relax, but I doubted
she would let me.

“
I’m sorry,” Rachel said,
taking me aback.

There was nothing she needed to
apologize to me for. “Why are you sorry? I was the one who kept you
out so late.”

“
You were hurt. Because I
thought you’d forgotten we were going to wait for you.” She sounded
so sincere about it, so determined to make things right. “It’s
second nature for me to assume people are going to break their
promises. You haven’t given me any reason to doubt you, but I did
anyway. That’s a habit I need to break, and I’m sorry I hurt
you.”

“
You didn’t hurt me.” My
need to touch her in some way, to offer what comfort I could, kept
growing. I reached across the space between us, resting my hand on
her shoulder.

She flinched but didn’t pull away.
“But you looked hurt. Your voice— You were upset.”

“
You’re right, I was
upset.” I kneaded her shoulder, despite the tension in her posture
only increasing in intensity when I did. “I
am
upset, but that doesn’t mean you
did anything to hurt me.”

“
Why are you upset if it’s
not something I did?”

I doubted she either wanted or needed
to hear the entire laundry list of reasons I was upset. There was
only one that was really relevant. “Because you still don’t trust
me enough to tell me what happened to Maddie.” I turned her so her
back was to me, angling myself so I could rub her shoulders with
both my hands. This was a much better use for them than punching
something, at least. “You won’t tell me who hurt her or what they
did. You won’t let me help.”

Rachel remained so silent I could hear
every breath that filled her lungs. Every beat of her heart pulsed
beneath my fingertips. “I don’t know how to let you help,” she
whispered. “I’ve never had anyone willing to help me, not since I
was a kid, so I’ve gotten used to only relying on
myself.”

As soon as the words left her lips,
her body gave a series of tiny shudders. She sniffed and raised a
hand to wipe her eyes but that only brought on a torrent of
sobs.

A lot of guys would cower away from a
woman’s tears. They’d do anything they could to get the crying to
stop, or else they’d just leave until it had passed.

Not me. I knew better.
Tears may not solve a problem, but they could still bring healing,
could provide some relief.
Better out than
in
was what Dad and I always said when Dana
or my mom cried. Right now, these tears meant Rachel was actually
letting herself feel all the stuff she’d been trying to keep
bottled up.

So I didn’t try to get her to stop,
and I didn’t get up and leave. I just kept rubbing her shoulders
and let her cry as much and as long as she needed.

When the sobs slowed to a
dull roar instead of giant, racking heaves, I got up and went to
the bathroom. I brought back a box of tissues. She looked up at me
with puffy, red eyes. She took two tissues and blew her nose.
“Thank you.” Her voice was ragged. Hell,
she
was ragged.

I tossed the box on the coffee table
and sat down next to her again. “Do you want to talk about
it?”

“
I don’t know how to talk
about it.”

I knew that, at least some small part
of me, but I’d had to try. “Okay.”

“
Will you hold
me?”

I pulled her onto my lap, and she
tucked her head into the place where my neck and shoulder come
together, wrapping both arms around my waist.

In all the times I’d carried her in my
arms or held her on my lap, she’d never held onto me. Not like
this. Not like she wanted to be as close to me as I wanted her to
be. A couple of times she’d put her arm over my shoulders, but that
was more for balance than anything. She hadn’t ever tried to be
close to me; it had always been me making the effort.