Comeback (11 page)

“Sorry,” Nicky said quietly to me. “The boys… We all tend to pick on each other.”

“I’d noticed. Like the way you poke at them when they do the third-period interviews.” I’d discovered that new segment hadn’t been merely a special treat for opening night. The broadcast crew had continued it every game, spending a minute or two talking about the game with whichever goaltender happened to be playing backup that night.

It gave the fans a true glimpse of Nicky and his personality. Some nights he ribbed the guys nearest him on the bench. Other times he offered sage advice to some of the younger players as to how they could gain a better advantage against the opposing goaltender. At still other moments he shared his unvarnished assessment of the team and their efforts for the night. Nicky was good on camera—so good that I had no difficulty envisioning him pursuing a career in broadcasting after his playing days were over.

“Yeah.” He shrugged and actually ducked his head down, as though he was feeling bashful. “I probably shouldn’t do that on TV, should I? It’s one thing in the locker room, but people at home might not understand.”

“I think people understand perfectly well. It shows you all like one another well enough to joke around.”

“Does that mean I can start picking on you, too?” He raised an eyebrow at me. “I think I’d like teasing you.” The back of his hand brushed the top of my thigh under the table.

I’d just taken a sip of water, and I nearly spewed it on the boys sitting across from me. I coughed and forced it down, staring wide-eyed at Nicky the whole time. I had to have misinterpreted what he was doing and saying. Hadn’t I?

There wasn’t any misunderstanding, though. Not if the way he was looking at me now was any indication, at any rate. His eyes were alive, fiery, glinting with some unnamed emotion.

I scooted over in my seat, putting more distance between us while I tried to compose myself. “I’m not so sure about that,” I finally replied.

“Oh. All right.” Nicky went back to eating his meal, both hands above the table where I could see them.

Once again, all the emotion had fled from his eyes, taking the light along with it. And once again, I had been the cause of it.

What was I doing?

BY THE TIME
I took Nils and Hugo home to Emma’s apartment, I had moved well past the point of exhaustion mentally, physically, and definitely emotionally. Trying to keep everything together for those kids—not to mention for the team—over the past few weeks was taking its toll on me in more ways than I’d ever imagined. I felt like I’d been through the wringer, and I wanted nothing more than a shower, a hot meal, and my bed.

Instead of granting me that, Henrik met me at the door with a grim expression and a hunched posture that could only mean more burdens I would have to somehow find a way to shoulder.

I patted the boys’ shoulders, one hand on each of them, and nudged my head in the direction of the hall. “Go get cleaned up. You two reek so bad Elin can probably smell you from here.” Wherever she was. I imagined she was with her mother in the master bedroom since the pair of them weren’t out in the living room.

The boys complained a bit before trudging to the bathroom, but only halfheartedly.

Once they were out of earshot, Henrik wasted no time in explaining the reason for his dire countenance. “Emma is in a lot more pain than she wants anyone to know. She’s going downhill fast. I don’t think she’s going to be able to hold out much longer.”

He would know better than anyone but Elin. Definitely better than me. I still had to go to games, practices, film sessions… I had responsibilities that took me away from Emma and the kids and lessened my time with them, even as such obligations granted me a brief reprieve from it all. But Henrik was there all day, every day. He was the one doing all the heavy lifting, moving Emma from her bed to the wheelchair and back to the bed, bathing her, feeding her through a tube in her stomach. He saw everything. Even if Emma wouldn’t admit to how hard it was for her, he knew.

It was mid-November. They’d only been in the US for less than six weeks. It was too soon.

Outwardly, I nodded and presented the calm façade of having my shit together, just like I’d been doing every day since they’d arrived at my door. Inwardly, I wanted nothing more than to curl up in a fetal position and never move again, wallowing in my misery all alone. Well, maybe that and a handful of pills to ease the ache, if not for the fact that there wasn’t a pill in the world that could make my heart stop hurting. Vicodin could knock out a lot of physical pains, but not this one. The physical part was only a side effect.

“Thanks, Henrik,” I said through the fog filling my mind. “For telling me.”

“I just thought you should know. So you can be prepared.”

Prepared for the end. Prepared to somehow comfort those kids when I couldn’t even comfort myself.

I nodded again. Shook his hand because I didn’t know what else to do. Then I headed down the hall, following the sounds of the two boys having too much fun in the bathroom. It was good to hear their laughter, but I couldn’t join in it. I could hardly breathe.

I stopped at the door to Emma’s bedroom to find her sleeping, my niece curled up at her side on the king-sized bed. Elin was wide-awake, and her big brown eyes popped open to stare at me. They were filled with as much emotional anguish as I was sure Emma felt from a physical standpoint. As much as was threatening to cut my legs off at the knees.

I moved over to the side of the bed and brushed Elin’s hair off her forehead. “Hungry?”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to leave her.”

“I know.” I didn’t want to leave her, either. I was scared that I’d come back to find her gone. Emma had promised she would let me know before ending it, that she’d have us all together. But what if it got to be too much at some point and she just couldn’t go on?

Elin scooted closer to her mother and patted the bed. “Stay with us for a while?”

“I’m as stinky as your brothers.”

“It’s okay. Just…just stay.” Her lower lip trembled when she spoke. That was the closest she’d come to crying, at least that I had seen, since they’d arrived in Portland. I knew she cried at night sometimes. I’d seen the tear stains on her pillows. But in front of me or around her mother, she wouldn’t let herself.

I’d never been able to deny Elin anything, and now was no exception. I toed off my shoes and crawled into bed, fully dressed, putting an arm around her. She snuggled back into me and rested her head on my upper arm, her hand holding tight to Emma. A few minutes later, Hugo and Nils joined us, not fully clean but at least they’d washed the dirt and grime from their faces and hands. They settled on Emma’s other side.

I wasn’t certain how long we stayed like that. All I knew was that my arm was wet with my niece’s tears and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to make her hurt less.

I DROVE UP
and parked across the street from the Thurstons’ house, scanning the other cars nearby to see if any of them were Jessica’s. At the far end, I spotted her sensible white Malibu, and I instantly felt a bit of the weight lift off my shoulders. I stopped by the construction site as often as I could, at least for a few hours. Sometimes, Jessica was there. A lot of times, there were other volunteers helping out like I was. Other times, it was just Carter and his crew.

Whenever I showed up, they would give me a nod, outfit me with protective gear, and arm me with a hammer or drill or some other piece of equipment. I’d started to find it calming, even though there was constant noise on a construction site. Wielding a hammer allowed me to vent my frustration in a much healthier manner than turning to a bottle, and my frustration was only growing.

The Storm had been on a long home stand through the end of November and leading into December, seven games in a row at one point. That had given me a lot of time with Emma and the kids, but it had also given me a lot of time to stew.

And now we had a road trip coming up. A long one. There was some big event they were going to host at the Moda Center—almost two weeks long—and we would have to be out on the road the whole time.

I didn’t want to leave Emma and the kids—especially Elin—for that long, but I didn’t have much choice. Back when I’d explained the situation to Jim, he’d told me if I needed time off to let him know. I didn’t want to abuse that, though. I was trying to hold out as long as Emma could. When it was time, then I would take leave from the team.

Tomorrow, we were due to fly out to Tampa—the first stop in a lengthy East Coast swing. That meant today was my last chance to help out at the site for a while, and I wanted to make the most of it.

I crossed the street, looking for Jessica, but she was nowhere to be found. I walked up to the first crew member I recognized, a short burly man covered from head to toe in tattoos called Bud. “Where do you need me today?” I asked.

He handed me a hard hat and pointed at the front door. “Ever put up drywall before?”

“Never.”

“Today’s a good day to start. Stewie will show you the ropes.”

I nodded and headed across the yard that consisted primarily of dirt right now, wishing I’d found Jessica before I’d found Bud. I really wanted to see her again before the team left tomorrow, but I always felt awkward calling her unless it was about something important. Especially after the way she’d shot me down a while back, essentially reminding me that she didn’t want our relationship to be a relationship, exactly. Hell, I didn’t know what I wanted it to be. I just knew I liked spending time with her. Sometimes, I felt like I
needed
to be around her. But that wasn’t what she wanted.

I headed through the open doorway and nearly ran right into her as she was making her way out. She skidded to a stop and looked up at me with her always-professional smile. Her clothes weren’t anything like what I’d come to expect from her, though; she was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved coral T-shirt with her hair pulled back into a low ponytail underneath her hard hat. A hint of tangerine tickled my nostrils. Some sawdust littered the left arm of her shirt, and she had a streak of dirt on one cheek. Without thinking, I reached up a hand to brush the dirt away.

And she didn’t recoil. Instead, she laughed and scrubbed at her cheek with the end of her sleeve, looking down at it to see if she’d gotten anything. “Dirty there, too? I guess I’m a lost cause.”

That was where she was wrong.
I
was the lost cause. “Sorry I almost ran you over.”

She took a couple of steps back until she didn’t have to crane her head back so far to see me, and the tangerine smell faded with the space between us. Then she shook her head. “I wasn’t paying attention. It’s fine.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here today, though. Don’t you leave today?”

“Tomorrow.”

“I just thought…” Jessica’s voice trailed off. “Never mind what I thought. You’re here now. That’s what matters.”

And
she
was here, which mattered to me.

I took a quick glance around the structure, noting all the changes since my last visit. “Things seem to be rolling along pretty well, here.”

“Ahead of schedule, thanks to all the help from the volunteers. Carter thinks the Thurstons should be able to start making this house into a home in a month to six weeks, as long as there aren’t any major setbacks.”

“Guess I should get to it, then,” I said, shuffling my feet.

She smiled. “Me too. See you later, Nicky.” Then she moved around me and through the doorway.

“Jessica,” I called out before she’d gotten too far, not really sure why I’d stopped her other than to see her face again.

She turned around, a question in her eyes.

“I just… Can I ask you for a favor?” Then I mentally kicked myself. I was constantly asking her for favors. She didn’t owe me a damn thing.

But she said, “Sure,” before I could take it back.

“While I’m gone, will you stop by and check on them? Emma and the kids? Just to ease my mind a little.”

Henrik would be there, and I knew he would keep me informed, but his primary concern was Emma. He looked after the kids, but I didn’t get the sense that there was any sort of connection there. It was just a job for him. Jessica was different, though. She seemed to have this way of making everyone feel comfortable with her, especially the kids. Being gone as long as I would be, I worried that Elin was going to withdraw further into her shell. I worried I might not be able to draw her back out of it. If I couldn’t be there with her, I wanted to know that there was someone checking in on her emotional needs, not just the physical ones.

Jessica hesitated, but then she nodded. “Of course I will. You just worry about playing hockey.”

If I could manage to not worry about anything but hockey, it would be nothing short of a miracle.