Overtime

by Toni Aleo

  She wanted to ease his concerns and fix him, but this was his time. She was there for support and that was all.

  “I have two,” he said roughly, looking over at Julie. “One is losing Robbie and the other is pushing Kacey away.”

  She nodded as Kacey held her breath, tucking her hands between his thighs. She knew she was one of them, but the way he said it was like a knife in her belly.

  “Why is that?”

  He leaned back, his chest rising and falling as he shrugged. “I hate knowing that someone was killed trying to protect me,” he said softly. “It’s been years, almost thirteen, but I can still see the blood, still see his eyes go blank, and still hear my screams as I tried to shake him back to life.”

  “Can you talk about what happened?”

  Kacey looked down, sucking in a breath. She knew this story, knew it well because Jordie still held so much guilt from the whole thing. He had only talked twice about it, but both those times had ended with him wrapped in a ball, her body covering his.

  “I was dating a girl that I really thought I was in love with, but Robbie never liked her. He said she was too rich. And since we were poor, he thought it was a little weird. But I was hot and, of course, she’d like me,” he said and Kacey shook her head. He tried so hard to hide his pain with humor, but when she glanced up, Julie wasn’t smiling. She was watching him intensely as he looked back down, sensing that his joke hadn’t gone over well. “Um, well, one night, after we got done having sex, we were talking, and I told her what happened to me from one of my stepdads.”

  “Why?”

  Kacey looked up then because she had always wondered that. Why did he tell her?

  “’Cause I wanted someone to care, to be sad with me.” Kacey’s heart sank as she reached out, lacing her fingers with his. “I just hated myself, thought it was my fault, and I wanted someone to make me feel differently.”

  “Did it work?” Julie asked.

  “No, she looked freaked out by it all, but I joked it off and that was it,” he said, sitting up again and holding Kacey’s hand. “The next day, she went to school and told everyone that I had sex with one of my stepdads. Left out a lot of what I’d said and turned it into me being gay instead of me being a victim.”

  Kacey had never met the girl, didn’t even know her name, but if she ever came across her, she’d kill her. It was that simple. As hard as it was for Jordie, Lord knows he didn’t need what that girl did on top of it. No one deserved that.

  “Apparently, I’d taken her boyfriend’s spot on the hockey team and she wanted to get back at me. Well, her boyfriend and some of his buddies were calling me names and fucking with me outside as we stood next to Robbie’s car.” He paused and it was like a wave of pain just washed over him. She could see the light slowly leaving his eyes. “I told the dude to fuck off. If I wasn’t hurt—I had dislocated my shoulder in gym the day before—I would have just kicked his ass. But he kept coming at me, and then Robbie stepped in. They called him names, saying that he was my boyfriend and stupid childish stuff like that. Robbie, being the hothead he was, didn’t hold back. He whaled on the dude, and then it all happened so fast. Someone pulled out a knife, and then they were stabbing him in the back of the neck.”

  She hadn’t realized she had started crying until a tear fell on her arm. Wiping it away, she kept her eyes trained on him as he sucked in a deep breath.

  “He died right there, and I felt like the world should have stopped, they should have mourned with me, but they didn’t. It was like he was nothing to no one, and when his mom turned on me, blaming me, it only made it worse.”

  “And the drinking started?”

  He nodded. “Yup, I didn’t have to think of the blood or his lifeless eyes when I was drunk.”

  Julie nodded. “You know it’s not your fault, right?” she asked and he shrugged.

  “Yeah, I know, but it doesn’t make the pain stop, or make me forget.”

  “Because you haven’t fully forgiven yourself,” she said slowly and Kacey’s hand squeezed his. “Same with Kacey. You’ve spoken many times about what you did to her, and I know you still hold so much guilt. Especially with the miscarriage.”

  Kacey looked up at him, seeing the tears welling up in his eyes, and she broke. It hurt her because she had gone through it, but they had never really spoken about it. She hadn’t realized that he was hurting because of it as well. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head against his shoulder as he slowly nodded.

  “I should have been there. I should have been a man and done right by her.”

  “Yes, but everyone makes mistakes.”

  “I know that, and I own up to mine. But because of my mistakes, my betrayal, and my rejection, she questions us. She believes that this life I am working so hard to give her will be taken from her in an instant, and it kills me.”

  Biting into her lip, she looked up at him as the tears slowly rolled down his face, disappearing into his beard.

  “We are buying a house, and I see it in her eyes. She wants to say, ‘But what if we break up?’ And I just hate it. I’m not leaving her. And she isn’t leaving me. I will fight tooth and nail to keep her, to be healthy for her, and to be the man she wants. I just want to ease her concerns, but I don’t know how, and it all goes back to my biggest regret. I wish I wouldn’t have pushed her away. I did this, and I’m worried that her fears, her apprehension with me, will never go away.”

  Kacey was fully crying, snot and tears rushing down her face as she watched him come undone and be completely and utterly honest. She hadn’t meant to make him feel this way. It was her issues, her fears that were mentally fucking her. She never meant for them to come out and affect him. He was supposed to be getting healthy, not worrying about what she felt. Closing her eyes, she squeezed his hands as her heart jackhammered in her chest.

  “Have you told her this?”

  He shook his head and then shrugged. “I guess I just did,” he said, looking over at Kacey, his own heart in his eyes.

  “Have you forgiven him, Kacey?” Julie asked her then, but Kacey couldn’t tear her gaze from him.

  Sucking in a breath, she nodded. “I have, and I’m sorry, Jordie. I didn’t mean to make you feel this way.”

  “No, it’s fine, I caused those feelings.”

  “But I need to let them go. I need to do what I said, and that is that I’ve forgiven you and we are moving forward.”

  “Exactly,” Julie agreed, handing Kacey a tissue. “If you two are going to make it, you have to communicate what you are feeling. Jordie, you’re so used to keeping everything inside and you can’t do that. It won’t help your recovery if you hold everything in.”

  He nodded. “I’ve been better,” he pointed out and Kacey nodded.

  “He has,” she said, leaning into him. “We communicate.”

  “But Kacey, I feel like you are so nervous to hurt him, to drive him to drinking that you won’t share what you’re feeling and your anxiety. He can’t advance in his recovery if he is continually trying to make you feel good about you two and not succeeding.”

  She was right, and Kacey hated that she hadn’t seen that she was doing that.

  “This is hard,” she admitted, her eyes flooding with tears and Jordie nodded.

  “It is hard, but I want this to work.”

  “I do too, I really do,” she whispered, pressing her nose to his. “I don’t want any other hard but you, Jordie.”

  “And it will work,” Julie agreed. “As long as you two communicate. I like that you are coming with him, Kacey. Please continue to do so.”

  She nodded, getting lost in his eyes. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll always be here.”

  “Damn right,” he said, his mouth curving up before he pressed his lips to her nose. As his lips warmed the tip of her nose, she felt as if a billion-pound weight had been lifted off her chest. She’d thought a couple weeks ago that she had let go of her nervousness, but she hadn’t. Seeing Jordie come undone, h
ow she was causing him pain with her worries over losing him, really opened her eyes. She was stressing about nothing. Jordie was there, Jordie loved her, and together, they would conquer whatever storm came their way.

  There was no other option.

  Because she wasn’t going anywhere without him.

  “We can move in in two weeks,” Jordie said, leaning back in the chair with Mena on his chest as he hung up the phone. “That’s the earliest.”

  Kacey looked over from her phone and smiled. “Cool school. We need furniture.”

  “Yeah, we’ll go shopping tomorrow if you want.”

  “I don’t know, I’m pretty sure Lacey would flip if we took Mena anywhere,” she muttered as her phone went off. “Speaking of the devil, she asked if Mena was okay.”

  Jordie laughed, looking down at the little bundle of cuteness. “You okay, Mena?” She cooed softly, her little brown eyes wide and aware, locked on him, and he nodded. “She said she’s good.”

  Kacey giggled as she shook her head, typing Lacey back. “I’m so blessed to be with a man who speaks baby.”

  He smiled. “It’s one of my many talents.”

  “Yes, so many, yet you can’t beat me on the ice.”

  He glared. “Now, we have yet to play before I have practice. Which will happen soon, ’cause your bragging is killing me.”

  “Four and oh, baby,” she said, shrugging her shoulders in a pathetic dance as she grinned.

  He rolled his eyes, annoyed. So what if she kept beating him? He was tired and she was fast with her long legs and stealthy ways. Again, it wasn’t like he could plaster her against the wall. Also, she was doing little tricks that no one could pull off in the NHL. She was a pain, but his pain, and he wouldn’t trade her in for anyone.

  Ever since last week when he took her to therapy with him, things had been different. He felt like she was more confident in them, and that took one hell of a load off his shoulders. He already had so much up there, and he was thankful to have her anxiety gone. He understood he’d caused it, it was his fault, but it had been tearing him down slowly. He wanted her to look at him and only see love, not nervousness about them ending. Since his session, it had been just like he wanted, and because of that, they were now enjoying the house-buying process.

  Moaning as her phone went off again, Kacey rolled her eyes. “She’s gonna drive us batty.”

  He couldn’t agree more. Lacey had only left four hours ago and had texted them or called at least nine times since. He understood that she was freaking out a bit as it was her first time without her baby, but they were more than capable of caring for Mena Jane. They were her godparents; they had this.

  Grinning, he looked over at her. “Hey, we should mess with her.”

  She looked up. “Why do I feel like that’s a bad idea?”

  He scoffed. “What’s the worst she could do?”

  “Kill us if we hurt Mena Jane,” she reminded him and he laughed.

  “I don’t want to hurt her, weirdo,” he said, getting up and holding Mena close. “I’m saying we should send her pictures of Mena doing things she shouldn’t be doing.”

  “See that’s tiptoeing on the line between getting killed and making her laugh. She’s not in her right mind right now. I’m pretty sure Karson went just to make sure she didn’t kill that chick.”

  Jordie shrugged. “Right, so we should send her some comic relief.”

  Kacey eyed him and then slowly shrugged. “Okay, I’m intrigued.”

  “Good, come on.”

  And for the next hour, between laughing so hard and then laughing some more, they set Mena up in different scenarios. Mena was eating it up, having a blast, all smiles as they went all over the house doing things that Lacey wouldn’t even think to do. At one point they were in the car, Mena holding on to the steering wheel with a huge toothless grin on her face, while Jordie and Kacey acted as if they were screaming out in horror of her crashing the car. The caption read, “Who let the baby drive?” Then they had her with bras on her head, lace in her mouth, and the caption on the picture was, “Following in her mom’s footsteps.” After stuffing her in a helmet, they sent a picture to Karson that said, “Or maybe daddy’s footsteps?” When they handed her Kacey’s gold medal, she looked at it like it was the Holy Grail—which to Kacey it was—and Jordie quickly snapped the picture since Kacey had started twitching from the medal being out of the box. Sending it to Lacey, he said, “Or maybe her auntie’s?”

  It went on like this for quite a while…that was, until Lacey called just as he was stuffing Mena in the fridge.

  “Okay, it was all cute until you stuffed her in a pot and said, ‘Baby. It’s what’s for dinner,’” she complained and Jordie laughed as Kacey snickered, holding Mena close, kissing her head.

  “It’s supposed to make you laugh,” he said. “No baby was hurt in the process of making Mommy laugh.”

  She did laugh then and Jordie’s grin grew. “There’s what we wanted. You okay?”

  She let out a long breath. “No, I fired her and we aren’t speaking. My dad came up to the shop, but I called the cops on him. I’m now in the process of hiring a new manager. So we probably won’t be home till Monday since Karson won’t leave me,” she said, saying the last bit louder for him.

  “I don’t trust these people. I’d say close the shop, but I know you won’t,” Karson yelled and Jordie grimaced. They both sounded stressed. “Not that I think you should.”

  “Yeah, I’m not, and it will be fine, no worries,” she said, but she sounded very worried. “Please don’t stuff my baby anywhere else.”

  “Will do, boss lady. She’s actually about to get a bottle and go to bed.”

  “Oh good,” she said, sounding relieved.

  “Hey, you’re taking your meds, right?”

  “Yeah, I am,” she said, and he could tell she was telling the truth.

  “You sound frazzled,” he commented and she scoffed.

  “I am, but no worries. Promise. Let me let you go though. I need to get some paperwork done. Give Mena kisses for me, and don’t roll your eyes and make fun of me when I text every thirty minutes.”

  Jordie smiled as Kacey laughed. “We will try not to.”

  They said bye and Jordie laid his phone down, grinning at Mena. “Well, my little rock star model, we are done for today.”

  “Yup, bedtime,” Kacey sang, bouncing her around, which had Mena giggling before they headed out of the kitchen. “Bring the bottle, I’m gonna go change her.”

  “Be there in a second,” he called to her before turning to make the bottle. As he filled the bottle with water, he couldn’t help but think how easy this was for them. They were going to be good parents. They fed off each other while laughing and having a good time. He still thought of the child they had lost though. Would it have been a boy, born with pads and a stick? Or a little girl, also born with pads and a stick? He didn’t know, but he wanted to have another chance. Soon.

  Shaking the bottle, he went down the hall into Mena’s room, just as Kacey lifted her off the changing table and settled into the rocking chair. “Mm, nighttime snack is here,” she cooed before taking it from Jordie and putting it in Mena’s mouth. She sucked happily, her eyes trained on Kacey, and he couldn’t blame her. Kacey was beautiful.

  She was only wearing sweats and a tank, her hair in a short little ponytail, but Jordie was completely taken by her. To him, she was wearing the red dress from the team party, her heels teasing him—she was always that gorgeous. Emotion choked him as he watched her, wishing like hell that it was their baby instead of Karson and Lacey’s.

  “You look good, baby,” he said, clearing his throat. “Holding a baby.”

  She smiled up at him. “Yeah, one day.”

  “Soon?” he asked and she shrugged, looking back down at Mena. Smiling, she glanced back up at him.

  “Maybe after we get married?”

  “So tomorrow we get married and, boom, baby time?” he asked and she laug
hed.

  “Or, maybe after your first year of sobriety, we get married, and then we enjoy time just the two us, and then we try?” she asked slowly.

  “That sounds like a much smarter plan instead of just doing it tomorrow, huh?”

  She winked. “Just a bit smarter.”

  “You aren’t hesitant, are you?”

  She shrugged. “I just want you to get to a year and then see if it’s still all that you want.”

  His face remained blank. She was being honest and he wanted that. “It will be.”

  “Good, I hope so,” she said, a grin pulling at her mouth. “It would be awkward living with someone who doesn’t want me. I’m not leaving my new house.”

  “Me either,” he said, his grin matching hers.

  She shook her head and then her grin dropped. “I’m actually nervous that I’ll miscarry again once we do decide to go down that road.”

  “Don’t be, please,” he urged and she nodded, biting her lip.

  “If I can’t have babies, will you still want to be with me?” she asked hopefully, and his heart lurched in his chest.

  He didn’t even pause. “Why would you ask that? Of course, I will.”

  She smiled, her eyes locking with his as she whispered, “Just making sure.”

  He shot her a dubious look as Mena’s eyes slowly fell shut. Waiting a few more minutes, Kacey handed the bottle to him before getting up and carrying Mena to her crib. Laying her down slowly, she smiled as the baby sprawled out in the crib.

  “She’s perfect,” she whispered, tracing Mena’s palm with her finger. “So pretty.”

  “She really is,” Jordie agreed, kissing her shoulder. “So are you.”

  She leaned into his face, and his eyes drifted shut before he wrapped his arms around her waist. Holding her, a part of him knew it was smart to wait because they still were young in the relationship. But the other part of him said, fuck it, let’s do it now. They hadn’t been together long, he understood that, but there wasn’t a moment he didn’t think she was the one. Even when he was pushing her away, he’d always loved her. They had spent so much time apart, and he didn’t want to waste any more time. He was in love with being in love with her. It was so fulfilling, but it was probably smart to wait it out. Enjoy them, enjoy her, and get settled. It was just easy to rush in, though. They had the love, the money, and now the house; nothing could hold them back.