Light the Lamp

by Catherine Gayle

  “Campbell bumped into the goalie’s arm on the play,” the ref said. “Goaltender interference.”

  Soupy was one of the guys who was always willing to go to the front of the net, where he was likely to get a bruised back and legs from being cross-checked and slashed all night by the opposing defense and goaltenders. It wasn’t all that out of the ordinary for those kinds of players to get called for interference, whether it was deserved or not.

  And this time, it wasn’t. The replay being shown on the Jumbotron overhead—repeatedly, and accompanied by a chorus of boos from the crowd—proved it.

  It didn’t matter, though. He was headed to the box, and we only had a little over a minute left in regulation.

  Phoenix pulled their goaltender to gain a two-man advantage while they tried to tie the game. It didn’t take them long, either. They won the draw, passed the puck over to a sniper waiting at Nicky’s back door, and got it in.

  Tie game. A minute left. I could feel the points slipping away.

  Babs was the first of the guys to come up to the owner’s box after the game, and I was glad for it. As soon as he stepped foot through the doorway, Katie threw off the blanket we had been sharing and ran into his arms. She’d been a nervous wreck about him ever since he’d gotten into that fight and had left the game for a little while. I couldn’t say I blamed her. The more of these Portland Storm games I’d come to, the more I was starting to realize that, for hockey players, injuries were kind of like cockroaches—they never really went away, and instead just kept multiplying.

  Of course, Rachel had found out from her boss that Babs had “only” broken his nose and he would be just fine. She’d shared that news with the rest of us, but Katie hadn’t been able to stop worrying the rest of the night, through the end of overtime and the shootout—which the Storm won—and then the seemingly interminable time after the game came to an end. Her disquiet had rolled off her in waves, pouring into me and keeping me bound in the same flood of anxiety.

  My turn to really worry—my own worry, not taking on Katie’s or someone else’s—had come during the overtime period when Liam had gotten caught up in a big pile of bodies near the goal and someone’s skate blade had ripped a gash in his cheek. They’d rushed him down the tunnel, but he’d left a trail of bright-red blood all along the ice as he went.

  “He’ll be okay,” they’d all told me, rubbing my back and holding my hand and doing any number of other things meant to console but that only increased my nerves because they weren’t Liam. “He’ll just need some stitches. If there were more time left in the game, he’d probably come right back out to play just like Babs did.”

  I was glad there wasn’t enough time left in the game for him to get back out there. I didn’t want to see him return to the ice so soon only to get hurt again. How could these women stand to see the men they loved go through this over and over again? Obviously it wasn’t something they ever really got used to, if Katie was any indication. She’d grown up watching it all with her dad, but it had still torn her to shreds when Babs had gotten hurt.

  I didn’t want to think about that aspect of hockey too much. Instead, I watched Babs and Katie once he joined us. He was so sweet with her. When he got up to the owner’s box, he stopped to talk to a couple of the kids—especially Rachel’s little boy, Tuck, who absolutely idolized him—but as soon as Katie reached him, he wrapped her in his arms and held her close. The top of her head, covered in a shimmery, silvery scarf tonight, barely came up to his shoulders. He kissed her on the forehead and said soft, comforting words the rest of us couldn’t hear from so far away, and I was so glad that those two had each other.

  Even when Katie’s dad came in a minute later and glared at him, Babs didn’t let her go. He just kept talking to her and calming her and running his hands soothingly over her back until I could feel a sort of tranquility start to take over where the anxiety had been.

  I got so caught up in my thoughts while watching the pair of them that I completely lost track of everything going on around me. I was even oblivious to the fact that Liam had come in until he stood right beside me and cleared his throat. I jumped, startled, and then turned my eyes up to look at him. The gash on his left cheek was even longer than I’d thought, and it was still an angry sort of red, held together with a series of stitches.

  A lot of stitches.

  I figured that even if you added up all the stitches my brothers and I had all had over the course of our lives, you wouldn’t come up with as many stitches as Liam had on his cheek right now.

  I stood up without a thought in my mind other than to comfort him in some way, my hand rising as though to touch him almost of its own accord. “Does it hurt?” I asked and then instantly shook my head. “Of course it hurts. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve had worse.”

  That didn’t surprise me at all since he’d been playing hockey for so much of his life and I’d already sorted out the whole injury-cockroach connection. But having been hurt worse in the past couldn’t diminish the pain now.

  He didn’t flinch or pull away from me when I let my fingertips fall over the cut. It was hot, but that wasn’t surprising, either. It took a lot of energy to heal a wound, and energy produced heat. It didn’t feel too hot, like it would if it were infected.

  It was too soon for that to happen, though. I was jumping too far ahead.

  “Only twenty-six stitches this time,” he said as though that could help me to relax about it.

  “Twenty-six?” How could a number like that be referred to as only?

  “They had to do a row internally, too.”

  There were more than I could see? I felt faint just thinking about it. “That’s awful.”

  “Really,” he said, and he even smiled while he said it. The smile tugged his stitches, but he didn’t wince in pain. “It’s okay. I’m going to be fine.”

  I nodded my head. “You’re sure?”

  “Positive. Let’s get out of here.” He took my hand—the one I’d been touching to his cheek—and tugged me toward him, his other hand coming around my waist.

  I felt the blush steal over my cheeks, even though I didn’t know why I should be embarrassed. Everyone here knew I’d been living with him. I already knew most of them had drawn conclusions about our relationship, justified or not, as soon as they’d met me. I didn’t want to feed those conclusions, though. Not if I wasn’t going to stay. I didn’t want them to think poorly of me when I left.

  I eased my way out of his grip and bent over to pick up my purse and the blanket. Liam took the throw from my hands and folded it.

  “Y’all are heading out?” Rachel asked. When I looked up and nodded, she said, “Okay. I’ll come over to get you after the guys get back from practice tomorrow.”

  “All right,” I said because I still hadn’t thought of a good reason to back out of the girls’ day. It would be rude of me at this point, whether I was comfortable with going along with them or not. “Good night.”

  Liam had draped the blanket over one arm, and he took my hand with the other. “Do you want to go out with the guys tonight, or would you rather just go home?”

  “I’m not really in the mood to go out,” I said. I couldn’t let myself call his place home. Tonight was exactly one week from when we’d first met. That meant that as of tomorrow, our week was officially over and I could tell him I was leaving. I could go to the women’s shelter. I could work on finding a job and a place to live so I could sort things out before Chris and Ethan came home for the summer.

  I just hadn’t decided how or when I would do that. Soon, but not before I went out with the girls, apparently.

  “Good.” He led me out into the concourse, moving me past several of his teammates, most of whose names I still didn’t know. “I was hoping you’d say that. I’d much rather have a quiet night at home with you.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from saying something I might regret.

  When w
e got to his car, he opened the door and waited for me to situate my skirt. Even then, he didn’t close the door, though. I looked up, curious.

  “You look really nice in that shade of pink,” he said. “You should wear it more often.”

  “Thank you,” I murmured. I looked down to see what I was wearing as he shut the door. It was a soft coral top that veered more toward pink than orange. I vaguely remembered picking it out of the closet because it reminded me of the sky during a sunset.

  “I have to admit,” he said after he got in and put the car in gear, “there’s a part of me that’s jealous you’ll be spending the whole day tomorrow with the girls. I’d rather have that time with you since we’re leaving for a road trip the next day.”

  “We’ve had the whole week together.”

  “Not really. I’ve had practices and games and a meeting, and you’ve gone walking and to Helping Hands.” He reached between us and took my hand, twining his fingers with mine. “We’ve had some time together, but not as much as I want. Once the season’s over and we’re out of the playoffs, that can change, though. We can be together a lot more.”

  My breath caught, and I suddenly felt hot. He was already making plans for after the season? I shouldn’t have stayed even the week I’d promised I would. I should have left that very first night instead of letting him talk me into living in his apartment. Instead, I’d let him buy me clothes and a phone and so much more.

  I’d allowed him to get attached. I’d allowed myself to get attached.

  This was becoming a mistake of epic proportions, and I didn’t know how to undo it. We didn’t talk the rest of the way to the building, but he didn’t seem to notice how tense I’d become. I couldn’t shake it off. I couldn’t even pretend I was calm and relaxed and content. It just wasn’t in me after how the entire night had gone.

  Back at the apartment, we ate a meal and then sat together on the sofa, as we had several times over the last week. He drew me close to his side almost immediately, tucking an arm around my waist and nudging me to rest my head on his shoulder.

  “You don’t happen to have a passport in your purse, do you?” he asked.

  “I— No.” I’d had one, but it was in the car when it caught fire. What gave me greater pause was why he was asking about it.

  “Why don’t you go get one this week? Babs and I can go to the airport together on Monday, so I can leave you my car—”

  “I don’t think you should do that,” I cut in.

  He laughed. “Go to the airport with Babs?”

  “No. I didn’t want you to buy me a car, and I don’t want you to leave your car with me. It’s yours. I have a pass for public transportation.”

  “But it would be easier for you to get your passport—”

  “Why do I need a passport?”

  His arm around me got as tense as I’d been all night, and even the part of his shoulder where my head was resting tightened up. “Why do you think? I want the possibility of taking you back to Sweden with me this summer, if we get to that point in our relationship. It takes a while to get a passport, you know. We can’t do it on the spur of the moment. You showed me where you grew up; I want to be able to do the same. I want you to meet my parents. I want—”

  “Aren’t you jumping ahead of things?” With every word he said, my heart ached a little more over what had to happen. In all that, it was still about what he wanted. There was nothing about what I needed. I needed all of him, or I couldn’t keep going with this relationship. That might be a lot to ask, but I’d already given him as much of myself as he would let me give.

  “What do you mean?” he asked after a long minute.

  “I mean, you’re talking about spending time together after the season and going to Sweden together and God only knows what else, and I’m still not sure I can stay with you at all much longer.”

  His hand on my waist gripped me tighter, as though he could physically keep me with him even if I left emotionally. That wouldn’t do either of us any good.

  “We agreed to a week,” I whispered.

  “We agreed to four weeks.” His voice wasn’t even close to a whisper.

  “Four weeks with an option for me to leave after a week if I knew it wasn’t going to work out.”

  He turned me around so we were facing each other. I’d never seen his eyes so wounded before, so haunted. They matched what I felt coming from him. What I felt inside myself.

  “That was only supposed to be if I turned out to be crazy,” he ground out. “Not just because you weren’t sure about where we were heading.”

  Even though I was the cause of his current pain, the need to comfort him was nearly overwhelming me. I reached up to cup his cheek—the one not covered in stitches—but he caught my wrist within his hand, holding it still in a vise-like grip.

  “You can’t leave me.”

  “Not tonight,” I conceded. I’d already resigned myself to staying through tomorrow at the very least. I couldn’t stay much beyond that, though. Not unless there was something more keeping me here. Our relationship had to become more equal.

  “I thought—” Liam lowered my hand until it rested against his chest, still not releasing my wrist. The furious pounding of his heart only intensified when we made contact. “We made love last night. I thought you felt the same way I do.”

  “I do care about you. A lot.” I curled my fingers against him for a moment before flattening my palm on his chest, my fingers stretching up toward his face. I didn’t want him to let go of my wrist. “But I used you. When we had sex, I used that to try to get what I needed from you, to try to get you to open—”

  “That’s not using me.” He crushed his hand down over mine, as though he was trying to make it a part of him, to make us one instead of two disparate beings. “There’s a lot more involved in sex than just the physical. Emotions tend to be heightened.”

  “Yours were until you shut me out again.”

  “I didn’t intend to shut you out. I just… I don’t know how to let you in.”

  “But that’s exactly what I need, Liam. I told you last night—”

  “You have to give me a chance. You have to give us a chance.”

  “Are you ready for there to be an us? Really ready?”

  He didn’t speak for a long time. He just stared at me, deep into my eyes until I felt as though our souls were somehow meeting in the middle of that gaze. I wished I could stop myself from blinking. I didn’t want to break the moment.

  “I lied to you last night,” he said finally. “When you asked me what jag älskar dig meant. It means I love you.”

  A sharp gasp filled my lungs, and a hot tear dripped down my cheek. Liam released my hand, using the pad of his thumb to brush the wetness from my skin.

  “I do,” he said. “I love you. I love your smile and your laugh, and the way you brighten my world. I love the fact that you have a heart ten times as big as most people have, and I even love that you tend to forget everyday things because you want to help someone else.” He slid his hand around to the back of my neck, his fingers slipping into my hair as he drew me close, into his arms. “I love you, Noelle. Don’t leave me. Please, I just— Please don’t leave.”

  She hadn’t reacted in any way to my declaration, other than a protracted silence that had only ended when I’d changed the subject, but now she wanted to go to bed. She still hadn’t agreed to stay, I didn’t know what I would do if she left me.

  I’d had all day to think about what I’d inadvertently said while I was making love to her. The longer I’d thought about it, the more I was sure that I really, honestly did love her. It didn’t seem like it should be possible, because Liv had been the love of my life and I’d never thought I would love like that again.

  That was just it, though. I didn’t love Noelle like I loved Liv. I loved her in her own way. It was different, but it wasn’t any less powerful or all-consuming or life-altering. It was just…different. Much like Noelle herself.

 
I hadn’t released her since the moment we first sat on the sofa and started talking, always keeping a hand on her, if not more than that. I couldn’t bear to lose any more time with her than I had to. Being with her was the only way I could possibly figure out how to meet her needs.

  And if I couldn’t figure it out, and she left…

  Time was fleeting. That was no secret. It was a lesson I’d learned the hard way, and not one I had any intention of repeating. What I would miss most if she left was simply being with her, watching her smile, holding her. The little things. The quiet moments. Those were the things I’d struggled to deal with once Liv had died.

  It would be no different if Noelle left. I already knew I would be going about my business someday, thinking everything was fine and that maybe I was finally moving on with my life, and then the image of Noelle’s skirt fluttering around her ankles in the wind would crash into me like a plane hurtling down from above, and I’d lose my ability to breathe. To function. To live.

  But that was in some potential future, not the here and now. I breathed in the scent of her as she stood up to go to bed and stretched her arms overhead, my hand lingering at her waist. My unwillingness to let her go wasn’t limited to merely the emotional. Physically, I couldn’t bear the thought of not being able to touch her again.

  “Can I come to bed with you?” I asked on impulse. There wasn’t a thought in my head other than finding ways to be with her. “Just to hold you,” I added. I wanted to take all of her in, see her smile… Every moment possible, I wanted to be wrapped up in her and her in me. I wanted to make love to her again, too. I wouldn’t even attempt to convince myself otherwise. Only the next time I got that privilege, I intended to do it right. To undo her the way she could undo me, to “use” her, to borrow her word, until she was as overwrought with emotion as I was and she couldn’t deny she loved me, too.

  And she did. I knew it. She would never have let me make love to her last night if she didn’t love me. Maybe she didn’t know it yet, but I did, and I needed to help her to understand it, to give in to it.