Light the Lamp

by Catherine Gayle

  We ate our meal and shared a lighthearted banter that I doubt either of us truly felt. There was a heavy weight between us, even as she told me about family trips to the Oregon beach and Mount St. Helens when she was a little girl. She laughed when she remembered her brothers fighting in the backseat while her father drove and how she was often put between them in the hope that her presence would discourage that sort of behavior. I talked about how my father would make me go fishing with him instead of just going to the feskekôrka to buy fish someone else had already caught. I had always complained about it because it took time away from hockey, but today those were some of my best memories from my childhood that didn’t revolve around playing the game I loved. It had been during one of those fishing trips that I’d first met Liv, but for some reason I kept that part to myself. The thought of sharing that with Noelle and then having her leave didn’t sit well with me.

  Like a couple that had been married for years, we cleaned the kitchen and then sat together on the sofa—Noelle leaning into me, my arms around her waist and keeping her close—for hours. Sometimes we talked. Sometimes we let our thoughts take over while we simply remained in one another’s presence. I didn’t want it to end because I didn’t know if I would ever have another night like this with her again.

  She must not have wanted it to end, either. After a protracted silence while I tried to memorize the steady rhythm of her heartbeat, her head felt heavier against my shoulder and the soft, fluttering sounds of her breaths lengthened. She’d fallen asleep in my arms.

  I ought to have been a gentleman and carried her to her bed. I ought to have left her there because she wasn’t awake to invite me to stay. At the moment, though, I didn’t feel very gentlemanly. I wanted to carry her to her bed, all right, but once I got her there I wanted to take her clothes off and make love to her. I wanted to be inside her again and to hold her all night, and then maybe to make love to her again in the morning before I had to leave.

  The thought of walking away from Noelle tomorrow, not knowing if she’d be here when I got back, felt like someone was chopping my legs out from beneath me. It had always been hard to leave Liv—both in Sweden and in New York—but this was different. Somehow, this was even more difficult. Maybe because the last time I’d left Liv, she hadn’t been there when I came back and so I already knew how ridiculously painful it was to lose someone you loved.

  We couldn’t stay like this all night, though. Babs would be home at some point, and I had to at least attempt to sleep before practice. I shifted Noelle into my arms so I could take her to bed, my hand getting caught momentarily in her skirt, and her clear-blue eyes fluttered open almost immediately. She locked her gaze on me and smiled, and I couldn’t stop myself from kissing her. I needed to ground myself in her touch, to lose myself in her taste.

  I needed her.

  Her arms came around my neck and her lips parted, and I tried to keep the kiss loose and languid to match the way she collapsed in my arms, trusting that I would catch her and keep her safe. And I would. As long as she would let me, I would be here to take care of her.

  When she pulled away, her fingers were twirling in my hair. “Come to bed with me?” she said. It came out like a question, but one she shouldn’t ever feel the need to ask.

  “Always.”

  She laughed when I stood with her in my arms. She laughed again when I kissed her everywhere and my whiskers tickled her, but then her laughter turned to moans needy enough to match my own.

  I made love to her twice, both times watching the sense of wonder take over her face at the moment her climax struck. Afterward, she kept her legs locked tight around my waist, anchoring us together so that my weight pinned her to the mattress, her fingers toying with my hair until she fell asleep.

  For hours, I lay there watching the movement behind her eyelids as she dreamed, listening to the sound of her breath by my ear, marveling in the sense of peace that enveloped me when I was with her. This was perfection. This was right. This was everything I’d wanted and was certain I would never have again.

  “Jag älskar dig,” I murmured over and over as she slept, as though chanting my love for her could be the magic spell that might somehow convince her to stay.

  Eventually, I slept, too, but it wasn’t long before dawn crept through the windows to steal my moment of bliss.

  She smiled up at me as soon as her eyes flickered open. “Did you sleep at all?” she asked, her hand rising up so that her fingers could tease my hair again. “You were in exactly this position when I fell asleep.”

  “Some. Not much.” I wished I could keep her just like this forever.

  We had lazy, sleepy, first-thing-in-the-morning sex before I finally forced myself to leave her bed. My arms felt empty as soon as I closed her door so she could shower and get dressed.

  I went through my morning routine, pleased that the coffee Babs made today wasn’t the sort that was likely to kill us, all the while trying not to let my mind wander too much.

  Noelle had breakfast with us and then went into the kitchen to clean up. Babs and I grabbed our bags, ready to go. But before I walked out the door, I dropped my suitcase on the floor, pulled Noelle into my arms again, and kissed her senseless. She’d showered and smelled like some rose-scented soap, but she’d put on a pajama top and some silky shorts that my hands slid over like butter while I molded them to her ass and pressed her against me. I knew we had to be embarrassing Babs like nothing else, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t leave without touching her one more time, without holding her close to me and doing everything in my power to be sure she understood how much I loved her.

  A knock sounded at the door, and Babs opened it to Soupy. We would be late if we didn’t leave now.

  I forced myself to pull away, even though it felt like I was ripping my own arm from its socket, and I took her face between my hands. “Jag älskar dig.”

  She met my eyes, but hers were filled with tears. She shook her head, like she was trying to shake the tears away. “I’m sorry, Liam.” Her words echoed in my head, ominous and dark.

  She might as well have stabbed me in the gut.

  Soupy cleared his throat. “We have to go, Kally.”

  I nodded. “I’ll be out in a minute. I’ll catch up to you.”

  “I’ve got your bag,” Babs said. Then the door closed.

  I slid my thumbs along Noelle’s cheekbones, brushing away the wetness accumulating there. “I love you,” I said, emphasizing each word so she couldn’t misunderstand if she tried. I kissed her forehead and her eyelids. Her tears hit my lips like salt stinging in an open wound. “I need you to know that, älskling. I love you.”

  She shook her head again and opened her mouth to deny my claim, and I silenced her with another kiss. I couldn’t bear to hear her tell me anything other than that she loved me, too, and clearly she wasn’t going to say that.

  She was shaking when I backed away, but her hands clung to my shirt as though to keep me with her.

  I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to leave. “Keep the phone charged, Noelle,” I said as I backed through the door. I pulled it closed behind me and started down the hall.

  “Don’t hate me,” she said, her muffled voice dogging my leaden steps.

  I had such a miserable practice that Jim Sutter sent word down that he wanted to see me in his office before we left for the airport.

  After I finished cleaning up, I made my way upstairs to the offices inside the practice facility and stopped at Rachel’s desk. She looked up and smiled in a way that made me wonder if Noelle had talked to her about her plans yesterday while they were having their girls’ day. It was a pitying sort of smile, one that made me feel sicker to my stomach than I had since the moment I’d walked away from Noelle this morning.

  “Jim’s waiting for you, Kally,” she said kindly. “You can go on in.”

  I didn’t trust my voice, so I nodded my thanks and moved past her.

  Jim looked up and waved me in even befo
re I could knock. “Coffee?” he asked.

  I closed the door and shook my head. Trying to drink something right now would likely bring everything roiling in my stomach up to the surface, and that wouldn’t be any good for anyone.

  “All right,” Jim said. He took off his glasses and folded in the earpieces before setting them on the desk in front of him. “I’m not going to beat around the bush. I watched your practice today. I know things aren’t right with you, even if I don’t know what’s wrong. Are you okay to travel with the team, or do you need to stay behind and deal with some things in your personal life?”

  Staying behind wouldn’t help. If Noelle intended to leave, there wasn’t anything I could do to stop her. I couldn’t force her to stay with me. I couldn’t turn her into a prisoner, whether it was through force or coercion. She needed to make the decision to stay on her own or we would both be miserable.

  I shook my head, biting down on the inside of my cheek. “I’ll figure it out. I’m not going to stay here. I won’t leave the guys in a lurch.”

  “You’re sure? Because if you need a game or two—”

  “Staying behind won’t help anything,” I interrupted. “I’m going to have the same problems whether I stay or go. I’ll figure it out, Jim.”

  He stared so hard it felt like he could see straight through me. Like he could tell—the same way I could—that I wasn’t going to be able to solve this. Like I was even more fucked up on the outside than I felt on the inside.

  But he nodded his head, putting on his glasses again. “All right. I’ll see you on the plane, then. But remember this: we need you, Kally. We need you to keep playing like you have been the last several games.”

  “I know. I’ll sort it out.” What I didn’t know was how I would manage to do that when my heart had just been ripped out of my chest.

  Jim went back to whatever he’d been doing on his computer, so I headed out to the hall. Soupy had come upstairs and was tugging Rachel out from behind her desk so he could steal a kiss before we flew down to California. I gave them a wave before heading back down to the locker room.

  Nicky was still at his stall putting a few things in his bag, and a few of the other guys—Jonny, Webs, Zee, and Slava Lukashenko—were still hanging around and gabbing. Luka’s girlfriend had just had a baby this weekend, a little girl. He had his cell phone out and was showing them pictures.

  I inclined my head in their direction but then set to work trying to sort myself out.

  “Är allt rätt?” Nicky asked me.

  “Everything’s fine,” I said. I appreciated that he would give me the opportunity to talk in Swedish if that was what I wanted. No one else would understand us if we did that right now, but I didn’t care if the other guys heard. I had no intention of revealing any of the shit eating at me from the inside. If I couldn’t even open up to Noelle, how the fuck was I supposed to talk to anyone else?

  Nicky turned to me with an astute look. “Bullshit. Did she tell you to go fuck yourself or what? We can go get some drinks once we get to San Jose and find you someone else. It shouldn’t be too hard to find a puck bunny or two.” He wagged his brows.

  I knew he was just fucking around with me, but I thought everyone in the NHL knew me well enough to know I’d have no interest in a fling or a one-night stand. I’d never been the type to be out looking for a good time, and I doubted I ever would be. Late nights and drinking and girls throwing themselves at me held no appeal.

  “Nah,” I said, “not going to happen. And it’s nothing like that.” It would be easier if that had been what happened, actually—if Noelle had brushed me off and told me to take a hike. But she would never do anything like that. She would never be so callous or caustic. She cared, at least almost as much as I did. That was why everything about our situation was so hard. We both cared, but apparently that wasn’t enough.

  He quirked his lips into a grin, but then he gave me a commiserating shrug. “Is she worth it, at least? Being this fucked up over?”

  Was Noelle worth having my life turned upside down? Was she worth the huge, aching knot that had taken residence in my stomach and added about twenty pounds of misery to my life? “Yeah, she is.”

  “Okay.” He finished fiddling with his skates, set them back in his stall, and then zipped up his bag. “We could still go have a drink when we get there. There doesn’t have to be a girl involved. Or whatever you want. Let’s just do something to get your head back on straight before the game.”

  “Yeah, we could go for a beer, I guess.”

  In the end, I wound up going to a sports bar with Nicky and Jonny after we got settled in our hotel. It wasn’t uncommon for the boys to go out on the road like that, and I was still one of the new guys on the team. I felt like I needed to go along and get to know them a little, even if all I wanted to do was stay in my hotel room and call Noelle, maybe see if she would FaceTime with me. These guys were going to be my teammates for a while; I had no way of knowing how long she would remain in my life. Hanging out with them might help me sort myself out before our game the next night. Getting worked up over Noelle would probably do the opposite.

  It wasn’t the worst way to spend an evening. We watched the Sharks game—they were playing the Kings in LA tonight and us tomorrow back here in San Jose—and we had a couple of beers. Our waitress flirted like crazy with Nicky, which wasn’t all that surprising, and a fan recognized Jonny and asked for an autograph from “the best fucking goon in the goddamn league.” Jonny took it all in stride, signing the guy’s shirt without arguing the fact that he was a goon.

  After a while, Nicky got up to head to the restroom. I had been watching the action on the TV, but out of the corner of my eye I noticed him wobble on his way there. He straightened himself up and got into the bathroom without further incident, but it still wasn’t a good sign.

  “How many beers did Nicky have?” I asked.

  Jonny downed the last of his. “Just two. You saw that, too?” He reached for Nicky’s glass and sniffed it, like he was checking to see if anything had been put in it.

  Could you smell any of the drugs someone might put in a beer? I doubted it. “Yeah, I saw it.” I didn’t know if it was just that Nicky couldn’t really handle his beer or if something more serious was at play. Either way, we needed to get him out of there.

  Without another word, Jonny followed Nicky into the bathroom to make sure he came back okay, and I flagged our waitress over so I could pay the tab. By the time she returned with my credit card, Nicky and Jonny were on their way back to us. Jonny was practically carrying him out.

  “Call us a cab, please,” I said to her as I scribbled in a tip and signed my name to the slip. She nodded and hurried away.

  Jonny pulled out his cell phone and put it up to his ear. “Jim, it’s Jonny. We’ve got a situation with Nicky.” He headed out to the sidewalk, still practically dragging our goaltender along with him. Nicky’s wobbling had gotten worse in the few minutes that had passed. This was a hell of a lot more than just the result of a couple of beers. It had to be.

  I hurried to catch up to them and pulled Nicky’s other arm around my shoulders. Jonny and I worked together to carry him out while Jonny explained what he could about the situation to our GM. By the time the cab pulled up for us, he’d relayed everything to Jim, knowing the team doctors would be waiting for us at the hotel.

  “The fuck?” Nicky slurred as we tried to angle him into the backseat of the cab. “Where’d that waitress go?”

  “She’s staying here, bud,” Jonny said. “And you’re not.” He pushed down on Nicky’s shoulder and head, attempting to force him inside.

  That was when Nicky fought back for the first time, even going so far as to throw a punch at Jonny. I grabbed for his arm to stop him, but before I could do anything about it, Jonny had twisted Nicky’s arm around behind his back and was pushing him into the cab with authority.

  “Knock it off and get in the fucking cab before you make me hurt you,” he mu
ttered. He looked over his shoulder at me. “You too, Kally. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  Since I was pretty much redundant to Jonny’s efforts, I got into the front seat next to the driver and gave him the address for the hotel. The whole way there, Nicky was muttering beneath his breath, but little that came from his mouth made any sense.

  I was relieved to see an ambulance waiting for us with Jim, the coaching staff, and the team trainers and doctors all waiting alongside the paramedics. Jonny helped them get Nicky situated in the back of the ambulance, and Jim pulled me aside.

  “You didn’t see anyone put anything in his glass?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Did he take anything?”

  “Not that I saw. Maybe before we left, though?” If he had taken something, the alcohol could have intensified the effects, whatever it was. But why would he do something like that? It didn’t make any sense.

  Jonny came back over to us as they closed the door to the back of the ambulance.

  Jim nodded at the two of us. “Good thing you were with him.” One of the doctors waved him over, so he excused himself. “I let Zee know what’s going on, and Hunter, too, since he might get an unexpected start tomorrow.”

  Hunter Fielding was the backup goaltender. He hadn’t played in a single game since I’d been with the team, but there had been a pretty long stretch where he’d been the guy in the net for the Storm while Nicky had been out with a concussion. Here, in the home stretch, when we were gearing up for the playoffs, Hunter wasn’t expected to play much at all. Maybe in a back-to-back situation, but probably not much else. Teams tend to lean heavily on their number-one goalie in situations like these.

  “I’m going to the hospital at least until we learn more,” Jim said. “I’ll let you boys know when I do. For now, you two just try to get some rest so you’ll be ready for tomorrow.”