Taking a Shot (7 page)

As soon as I stepped into the foyer, I could hear the commotion.

“This one looks so pretty with the color of the dress, though,” Laura said.

“But it’s
flannel
,” Dani Weber—the youngest of the Weber siblings—said. You could almost hear a horrified shudder in her voice.

“Exactly. It’s flannel,” Laura countered. “Which will keep her head warm.”

“I’m not wearing a flannel scarf with this dress.”

“You could just stay home and not have to worry about what scarf to wear,” Webs put in hopefully.

“She’s going,” Laura and Dani said at the same time.

“Not in a scarf that doesn’t look right,” Katie said. “I’d rather go with nothing on my head at all.”

“But you’ll get cold,” Laura argued.

Luke glanced over at me, his eyebrows shooting up into his hairline almost comically. “See what I mean?”

He led me into the living room, where dozens of scarves of every color and fabric imaginable were draped over all the furniture. Laura must have started shopping for them the same day they got the diagnosis. Katie stood in the middle of the mess wearing an ice-blue dress that made her look like a princess. She even had on gloves, those long satiny ones that went up higher than her elbows. It was like she’d stepped right out of a fairy tale.

She looked up and saw me then. And she smiled.

My tongue got thick and dry. No one had caused that sort of reaction in me in a long time—no one but Katie. I cleared my throat. “You look beautiful.”

She gave a tiny shake of her head, and she blushed. “Do you mind? If I don’t wear a scarf tonight? I haven’t found a wig I like yet, and I just…” Her eyes fell down to the flannel scarf in her hand.

“I don’t mind whatever you do. You’ll always be beautiful to me.”

Webs shot me a go-to-hell look and grunted, and I was sure he was about to spout off another threat, but Laura’s eyes turned soft and misty before he could. “But if you get cold…” she said.

“We’ll take a scarf with us,” I said, and I felt the weight of Katie’s gaze fall on me. “And a sweater. Just in case.” She had those gloves going up her arms, but her shoulders were bare. I didn’t know how warm that dress was, but it didn’t look anywhere close to as warm as my tux, and it was cool out tonight.

Katie nodded. “Just in case.”

After a little more hemming and hawing, Laura finally relented and agreed to let us go as long as we took a warm scarf and sweater with us. I draped them both over my arm to carry them for Katie, and she picked up a small, white evening bag. I reached for her hand, but Webs cut between us and put a hand at the small of Katie’s back.

He lifted a brow at me in challenge.

I turned tail and headed for the door. The sooner I could get her away from his prying eyes, the better. Part of me wondered if Webs had gotten them to install video cameras at the school gym so he could spy on us from home. I wouldn’t put it past him.

“Wait!” Laura practically shouted behind us. “Pictures. I need to have pictures.”

“They’re already late enough,” Webs said, but he turned around. “They’ll have a photographer at the prom, won’t they?”

“Have you
seen
the kinds of pictures those photographers take?” Laura countered.

“It’ll be fine, Mom,” Katie said. “You’ve got the pictures from last year anyway. And we’ll make sure they take good ones. Won’t we?” She looked at me when she asked that last bit.

I nodded. “Absolutely.” Not that I had a clue how I could make sure of something like that, but I had seen Laura Weber staging photo shoots before at team events—ordering people around like a drill sergeant. If I let her stop us now, we’d be here for another hour. Maybe longer.

She scowled, but she let us go.

When we got to my car, I opened the passenger door for Katie. Webs helped her in and shut the door before spinning around on me.

I had my free hand up in self-defense without thinking. “I swear I’m not going to—”

“Shut up, Babs,” he interrupted.

I dropped my hand to my side, readjusting my grip on Katie’s sweater and scarf. “Sorry.”

“I just wanted to thank you. For this.” Webs waved his hand haphazardly, encompassing everything around us. “And to say I’m sorry I’ve been an ass. I just don’t know—” He cut himself off just as suddenly as he’d cut me off, and he blinked hard a couple of times. “I just needed someone to blame. Someone to take it out on. And I used you for that, even though it wasn’t fair.”

“You don’t need to apologize.” It might suck for me, but it made me really glad Katie had a dad who cared enough to be like that. That’s how families are supposed to be.

“I do,” Webs said. “And I really do appreciate what you’re doing for my little girl, but if she isn’t inside my house by midnight, all my previous threats are back in play.”

I bit down on my tongue to keep myself from laughing. Moments like this, I was never sure if he was joking around with me or being serious. I figured it was somewhere in the middle. “Yes, sir. I’ll have her back.”

“You’d better. And if you fucking call me
sir
again…” Webs headed back toward the house without finishing his thought. “Take my little girl to her prom, Babs. Get out of here before I change my mind.”

I headed around to the driver’s side and got in with an uncontrollable smile on my face. I set her scarf and sweater down on the center console.

Katie put her hand on my forearm as I put the key in the ignition. “Was he horrible? Please tell me he wasn’t awful to you.”

I turned the key, and the engine purred. I might have been purring, too, because she was touching me. Shit, I was a mess. “He wasn’t awful. He just loves you,” I said finally. I almost said something crazy like
Just like I love you
, but I stopped myself. I didn’t even know if I loved her. I knew I liked her a lot—more than I should, considering she was Webs’s daughter. But tonight wasn’t about me spilling my guts and making her feel like she needed to reciprocate. Tonight was about giving Katie a night where she could be a princess. “But we’d better not be late getting you home. I don’t want him to turn my car into a pumpkin.” Or me, for that matter.

I’D NEVER IMAGINED
I would think the school gym looked pretty, but that was exactly the right word to describe it.

The prom committee had strung tons of white Christmas lights from a disco ball in the center out to every corner of the enormous space, like a canopy of fairy lights hanging above us. Ribbons of red and white—our school colors—had been woven through them. They drifted down to flutter over our heads. The typical folding tables you’d expect to find had been covered with delicate tablecloths, and each of them had some sort of centerpiece—a flower arrangement, candles and mirrors, those sorts of things. Even the chairs had been draped with cloth covers, so they fit the decorative scheme.

I held Jamie’s hand tightly to steady myself and let my head fall back to take it all in as soon as we got inside. I wobbled slightly, dizzy from tilting my head back so far.

He gently tugged me closer to him, lending me more of his strength. “I’ve never seen a school gym decked out like this before,” he said.

“Never? Not even at your own prom?”

“I didn’t get to go to my prom.” Jamie shrugged and flashed a dimpled grin in my direction. “We were playing in the Memorial Cup while it was going on.”

“Oh, yeah.”

I hadn’t even thought about the fact that he probably would have missed out on his prom, among countless other things when he’d been in high school—things I took for granted. He’d played for the Windsor Spitfires in major junior hockey, so he hadn’t even lived with his family for his last couple of years of school. He’d lived with a billet family.

My dad may be a professional athlete and so I had a lot of privileges that other kids hadn’t, but for the most part, Mom and Dad had made sure our lives were as normal as possible. Even now, most people Jamie’s age were off in college trying to figure out who they wanted to be when they grew up. He was already living it.

“Do you ever feel like you’re missing out?” I asked. “Do you wish you’d done things a different way?”

“Sometimes.” Jamie put his arm around my back, supporting me more than he could by just holding my hand.

I got goose bumps everywhere he touched me. It was like an electrical current was flowing to each point of contact, leaving me hyperaware. He met my gaze and held it so long I had to fight off a head-to-toe shiver.

“But then I remember,” he said, “that I’m experiencing things most other people never will, so I should be grateful for what I have. And
then
I remember that if not for the path I chose, I wouldn’t know you right now. I would hate that.”

He made it sound like knowing me could make his decisions worthwhile. Like I really mattered to him. I hadn’t felt like I mattered to anyone but my family in months. My heart thundered so loud he must’ve been able to hear it.

I bit my lower lip. “Should we go get pictures taken now, do you think? So we don’t forget and my mom doesn’t kill us?” I needed to redirect my thoughts—to do something so I could stop myself from wishing for more than what Jamie was really offering. Wishing for anything, really.

“If you want. I’ll do anything you want me to do tonight, Katie.”

He sounded so serious and earnest. There he went, being completely perfect again. It seemed like I was destined for a huge letdown at some point because I kept building his pedestal higher and higher in the sky, so high he would surely have to fall from it somewhere down the line.

But not right now. Right now, at least for tonight, he could be perfect.

“Then let’s do that before I change my mind and don’t want permanent reminders of how I look.” Getting pictures taken as an alien princess might not be my brightest move ever.

The photographer was set up in the opposite corner from where we’d entered the gym. As we walked over to him, I felt stares following us each step of the way.

I couldn’t make myself look at them. It would hurt too much to see their pity or disgust at my bald head, or their shock to see me at prom, or their jealousy that someone like Jamie would be here with someone who looked like I did right now. I didn’t want to feel any of the emotions those things would call to the surface. Not tonight. So I stared straight ahead at our destination, not letting my eyes wander even the tiniest bit.

There were a few couples ahead of us in line when we arrived at the photo station. I watched the photographer work, but all the while I kept reveling in the corded muscles in Jamie’s arm as he held me close to him. He made me feel safe and secure, just like my dad always had, but it was different, too. None of the boys I’d ever dated had made me feel that way—like he could fight off anything in the world that might hurt me.

They couldn’t fight off everything, though—Jamie and Dad. They couldn’t fight off leukemia. The drugs and doctors had to do that. And me. Somehow, I had to find the strength within me to fight back, and the courage, too, even though all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry some days. Even though sometimes I just wanted it all to end. I had to figure out how to kick cancer’s ass even though I didn’t feel strong enough to kick a fly’s ass right now. He was making me want to find that strength, though. I let myself lean on Jamie a little more than I had been, let him take a bit more of the burden of my weight.