Smoke Signals

by Catherine Gayle

  “Totally different scenario.” She nodded at me. “Why don’t you go fix a glass of wine and sit in the living room with those two?” she suggested, indicating Dmitri and Harper.

  I followed him and sat, watching the two interact with pure fascination. The baby was riveted by Dmitri’s beard, and the way she was pulling on the hairs was obviously painful for him. But he didn’t do anything to stop her. In fact, he started speaking to her in Russian, saying all sorts of silly things about skating on frozen lakes in the dead of winter that would make no sense to anyone but me. The sound of his voice seemed to calm her. Eventually, she stopped trying to rip out the hairs of his beard and fell asleep on his shoulder, and I could have sworn I heard him call her kukolka—my little doll.

  I ducked my head to hide my smile.

  Maybe the birthday party wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

  THE WEEKS SINCE Tori’s birthday party had been filled with one improvement in our relationship after another. She was going to see her counselor regularly and making visible progress. She was continuing to work through her dilators, and I was continuing to enjoy helping her with the process. We were talking more, and not just about things we thought we needed to know to prove we actually loved each other. They were things that came up because we did love each other.

  Once again, Greg was calling me almost every day with updates from the immigration office, outlining where we were in the process and telling me what he needed from Tori and me. After spending months with nothing to do but wait and hope for the best, all of a sudden the proceedings were moving at lightning speed.

  We were already in the second month of the NHL’s regular season, but things hadn’t gone so well on the hockey front. After winning the first game of the season, we’d dropped eight straight before finally pulling off another win—and that one only came about in a shootout. Hunter had been practically standing on his head in these games, but it didn’t matter how good he was. The team, as a whole, stunk to high hell, just like I’d known we would.

  Tori and the other dancers had filmed the video for The End of All Things last week. We still hadn’t seen it. Soon, they’d told us. Whatever soon meant.

  I knew the production would be fantastic, but waiting was difficult, particularly since rehearsals had given her something to keep her busy. She was still going up to the dance studio and taking classes, but it wasn’t the same as having a specific goal she was working toward. The community ballet was planning to put something together for the holidays, though. I hoped she might be cast in that.

  At the moment, I was gearing up for something I had been looking forward to for months. Tonight, we were playing the Storm, at home, for the first time this season.

  Did I expect us to win? Hardly. They were a serious threat to win the Stanley Cup every year lately, and we could barely score a goal some nights.

  But playing them meant two things: one, I would be up against Babs all night, giving me the opportunity to show him up, even if my team got beat by his; and two, I was finally going to get the chance to bash Koz’s nose in. I’d been thinking about it on and off since Babs’s wedding.

  My desire to rearrange his face only grew every time someone else said something to me about Tori and her history of working in porn, because I knew he’d had something to do with it. Maybe he wasn’t the only one who’d been aware of her previous profession, but he’d definitely spread the word far and wide through the league. Some asswipe on every team took it upon himself to chirp at me about it. For that matter, he might have been the one who was behind Mrs. Jernigan’s discovery, even if the path of the gossip reaching her had been circuitous and complicated.

  Regardless, tonight was my chance to let the son of a bitch know exactly how I felt about him.

  I hadn’t fought a guy in a game for a few years now. Coaches preferred to leave that to the third and fourth line forwards, not their defensemen, since it meant spending five minutes in the sin bin. Sitting in my stall, lacing up my skates before the game, my blood was already pumping with the anticipation. Electric surges kept pulsing through my knuckles. I couldn’t wait to bloody the fucker.

  Doug “Spurs” Spurrier, our head coach, reiterated a few notes for us to keep in mind tonight. “And let’s not forget, they like to clear the puck out on the right wing wall. Let’s clog that side of the ice. Keep your sticks in the passing lanes. Got it?”

  Everyone nodded or said something to confirm.

  “Good.” He took a moment to rattle off the players starting for the Storm, including Koz’s line. My whole body thrummed with the hope I’d be out there at the very beginning. Breaking his nose would be a nice way to start my night. Spurs looked down at his clipboard. “So Hunter’s in the net. We’re starting with Zee, Drew, and Goose up front, Razor and Slava on the back end. Let’s have a good game, boys.”

  This was it. This was my chance.

  We went out to the ice and skated through the foggy totem poles to the sound of war drums. Most of the guys took their places on the bench, but I stayed out for the anthem, my energy going wild.

  Finally, we lined up for the opening face-off. Koz was the center on his line. Our captain, Eric Zellinger, was almost as pumped up for this game as I was. He’d played for the Storm for well over a decade. Zee had even been their captain for many of those years, so he probably felt the urge to stick it to them. Whatever it was, he got some serious mustard on the puck when he jerked it away from Koz.

  Slava caught it on his stick, and that was enough for me.

  I decided to take the opportunity now, before things got too far underway. I skated straight over to Koz and gave him a two-hander straight to the chest. At that point, everything around us disappeared for me. I forgot all about the game, all about the crowd or my teammates. It was just me and Koz, and we had a score to settle.

  “Fuck off,” he shouted and tried to skate away.

  I grabbed a piece of his jersey. “Fuck you.”

  He spun around and cross checked me. “The fuck do you want?”

  “My fist up your fucking nose.”

  “You wanna go? That it? You still pissed because you married a fucking whore and I pointed it out?”

  “Yeah, I fucking wanna go.” I tossed my stick and flung off my gloves at the same time he did before grabbing for him again. I was faster. I filled my left fist with his jersey and took a swing with my right. Landed right in the kisser. “Fucking watch what you say about my wife.”

  That was the last either of us said with words. After that, we let our fists do the talking. I got a few good jabs in against his ribs before he could really get into the fight. But once he started swinging, he was like the goddamned Energizer bunny. He peppered me with rights and shook the elbow pads free from his left. He got me in the eye before I tied up one of his arms. Aimed straight for his nose with three strikes in a row.

  The linesmen came in to break us up when I was just finding my footing in the fight.

  “Come on, Razor. That’s enough.” The zebra with his arms around me skated me over to the penalty box.

  Koz didn’t take a seat in the other box, though. They sent him off for repairs. When he skated to the bench, there was a trail of red dribbles following him.

  Zee brought me my gloves and stick. “Get that out of your system?”

  I nodded.

  “Good. We’ve got a fucking game to win, and you’re not helping us do that in here. I think you broke his nose, though.”

  “Looked like he needed it. He’ll probably look better now. Might have helped him get a girlfriend.”

  Zee was laughing when he skated away.

  IT WASN’T EASY, and it definitely wasn’t pretty, but we pulled out a win against the Storm. Koz had returned wearing a full face mask with tampons shoved up his nostrils. The guy had all the skill in the world, but there was no denying he wasn’t up to snuff for the rest of the night. As for me, my knuckles hurt like a son of a bitch, but it didn’t keep me from being a thorn in Babs�
�s side all night long. I didn’t score, but neither did he. For me, that made it a successful outing.

  But now, I wanted to get Tori and take her home.

  Since the beginning of the season, our time together was so limited. The T-Birds had started the season with twice as many games on the road as we’d had at home. The road games had helped to bond us as a team, in a sense, but it had been hell on my growing relationship with my wife.

  I saw Dima on my way up to the wives’ room. I hurried in case he had any plans to stop me and make more plans for his charity gig, not even looking to see if he was still around. That didn’t turn out to be necessary; he’d left before I did. As soon as I caught up to him, he put an arm around some new blonde’s waist, and they headed for the exits. Maybe he would stick with this one for a while, or at least more than one date. Most likely not.

  The moment I walked through the door to the wives’ room, Tallie stepped into my path, putting a hand on my chest to keep me from taking another step.

  “Let her do this,” she said, bouncing the fussy baby on her hip.

  “Do what?”

  Without waiting for an answer, I scanned the room to figure out what was going on. Tori was in the far corner with Mrs. Jernigan. Just the two of them. No one was there to hold that woman back. No one was close enough to step in and protect Tori if she needed it.

  But she didn’t look like she needed it. At all.

  She looked calm but determined, not like she was trying to melt into the walls or anything like that. Confident, even. Her shoulders were back, and her hands were at her sides, not crossed in front of her. She looked in control of the situation, whatever was going on.

  “Do I want to know what they’re talking about?” I asked Tallie.

  The baby started fussing louder. Tallie sighed, looking as frustrated as I’d ever seen her.

  “Give me the baby and tell me what’s up.”

  “Oh, thank goodness.” She passed Harper over to me, not that it helped quiet the baby. I wasn’t Dima. I didn’t have a beard for her to grab on to and pluck out a hair at a time. Tallie visibly relaxed as soon as her daughter was in my arms, though. “All right, so I think you know Mr. J is planning a sermon because of everything that went down, right?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, Mrs. J is trying to convince Tori that the two of you should go to church on Sunday so they can make a big spectacle of her. Granted, she didn’t put it that way. She said she wanted y’all there so they can publicly apologize. But that’ll just put the spotlight on Tori. They’ll make sure that everyone in that church, and everyone who watches at home on TV, will know exactly why they need to apologize.”

  “Bullshit. Over my dead body.”

  “That’s what I said. Well, actually I told Mrs. J that she was nuttier than a five-pound fruitcake if she thought that was gonna happen, but that’s beside the point. The point is that Tori thanked her for the offer but politely declined. Mrs. J wasn’t too happy about that, so they’re discussing it.”

  “Discussing it?”

  “Tori’s reading her the riot act and letting her know that it ain’t gonna happen, no way, no how, never.”

  “All right, then.” Even though I was tempted to go over and eavesdrop, I forced myself to stay put and let her take control of the situation.

  Harper let out a fresh, blood-curdling scream in my ear that made me clench my toes.

  “Dima’s not still around, is he?” Tallie asked, sounding panicky.

  “Nah, he’s gone with a girl.”

  “How come he never has his girlfriend up here with us? And why doesn’t he bring her around, like for Tori’s birthday party?”

  I tried not to laugh out loud. “I don’t think he’s got a girlfriend. Or maybe he has ten girlfriends.”

  “Oh.” Tallie nodded slowly. “So he’s playing the field.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Damn. I was kinda hoping I could steal him for long enough to calm her down and get her to sleep.”

  “I think he’s caught on to the fact that you want him on baby duty. He’s probably not going to make himself available so much for a while.” At least not until his jaw healed from all the hairs Harper had ripped out the last time she’d gotten hold of him.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mrs. Jernigan leaving the wives’ room. She gave me the stink eye on her way out. What a piece of work. I spun around to find Tori heading our way. Smiling.

  I couldn’t stop the grin from taking over my face. “Hey,” I said when she reached us. “So how’d that go?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Honey, fine ain’t gonna cut it,” Tallie said. “Details. The more, the better.”

  Tori shrugged. “I told Mrs. Jernigan I accept apology but not coming to church. Told her it’s not okay. Not going to sit in church while she tells whole world I’m porn star.”

  “And she just accepted that?” I asked.

  “Not exactly. But doesn’t matter. I’m not going to church. Won’t play her game.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t stop staring at her and grinning like a lunatic, thinking about how different she was now than when we’d first met months ago. That night, she’d tried to put off the air of a woman oozing self-assurance and sexuality, but she hadn’t been able to fool me. I’d seen through her façade to the scared, damaged woman underneath all the bluster. But now? There was no pretense. No falseness. Tori might always be a little shy, other than when she was dancing, but there was a quiet confidence shining through that made her sexier than any woman I’d ever known.

  “Are you ready to go home with me?” I asked.

  She nodded. “But leave baby with Tallie.”

  “Oh, no,” Tallie said. “It’s all right. Seriously. I swear. Y’all keep her tonight. You can say it’s practice for when you have your—”

  “Need time with Razor tonight,” Tori interrupted her.

  I didn’t think I’d ever heard her interrupt someone other than me. Yeah, she was starting to feel like she belonged in my life. Lord knew I couldn’t imagine my life without her in it.

  Tallie took Harper with an exaggerated pout. “Fine. Be that way. But one of these nights, I’m gonna talk y’all into babysitting.”

  Tori laughed. “No Baby Whisperer here.”

  I WAS STILL riding an emotional high from my talk with Mrs. Jernigan when Razor and I got home that night. She’d set my teeth on edge, but there was no chance I was going to allow her to make a mockery of us in front of her entire congregation. There would be thousands people in the church that day, not to mention all the ones watching on their televisions at home. Hundreds of thousands more? Maybe millions? More than enough of my life had already been broadcast for the whole world to see. I wasn’t going to do anything like that again unless it was something that I wanted, like the video we’d filmed for The End of All Things, and not something I’d been pushed into.

  I was worth more than that.

  While I might not always feel that way every moment of every day, I was starting to believe it. Like my counselor told me, I hadn’t started feeling worthless overnight, so there wasn’t any point thinking I could change how I felt about myself with a snap of the fingers. It was a process. And I was working the process.

  In fact, I was even starting to like myself. Maybe someday I would love myself. That was the plan, at least. So far, so good.

  Tonight, I wanted to harness the energy flowing through me from that confrontation and use it to seduce my husband. Because, after months of physical therapy and counseling, I was ready. Or at least I thought I was. We wouldn’t know for certain until he was inside me, but I wanted to take that step.

  We hadn’t been speaking much on the way home, but it was a comfortable silence. Razor reached for my hand and threaded his fingers through mine. When I glanced down, his reddened, swollen knuckles filled my gaze.

  “Why did you fight him?” I asked, sliding my thumb over the injured flesh
and remembering how my stomach had jumped into my throat while it happened. I’d been to enough hockey games by now to know that fighting sometimes took place on the ice, but Razor had never been involved in them when I’d watched before. Knowing that the guys who fought almost always stayed in the game afterward wasn’t much consolation in the heat of the moment. I’d wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t out of fear that I’d miss seeing him get seriously injured, and I wouldn’t know it had happened.

  The corner of Razor’s lips twitched up. “Because he’s more of an asshole than I am.”

  “You’re not asshole. You’re good man.”

  “Still think so after I picked a fight?” He chuckled. “I guess I’ll never convince you I’m not as good as you think I am. But you make me want to be that man.”

  Maybe none of us ever saw ourselves the way we truly were. If Razor couldn’t recognize what a kind heart he had, I supposed it only made sense that I had a hard time seeing myself the way he saw me.

  I lifted his hand so I could kiss his knuckles. We didn’t talk the rest of the way home. I was nervous, thinking about how to go about initiating sex once we got there. He’d rejected so many of my previous efforts—for good reason, of course, but that was beside the point—that I’d lost much of my confidence in that area.

  My cell phone chimed with a text message when we got inside. I was half tempted to ignore it so I could get started seducing Razor, but he raised his eyebrows in question.

  “Aren’t you going to see what Tallie wants now?”

  “Might not be Tallie,” I said, laughing. But I dug my phone out of my purse and slid my finger across the screen to unlock it.

  And it wasn’t from Tallie. The message was from Devin.

  Here’s a quick and dirty draft of the video. They still haven’t finished editing it, but I thought you’d want to see what they’ve done so far.

  He’d included a link to download the video.