by Sarah Hegger
“Perfect.” Maddy hopped out beside him. She took a deep breath of the fresh air and smiled. “It’s so pretty here.”
“Yeah. I used to play pond hockey here as a kid.” It was working a winter wonderland theme this morning, all sparkly clean white snow and powder draped trees.
Lizzie came around from the back of the car with a large tote bag. As long as he’d known her, Lizzie had toted shit around. He’d given up asking what was in her wide array of bags.
He took this one from her and followed them on the path toward the pond.
“Every winter they turn the duckpond into an outdoor rink.” In that way women had, Lizzie and Maddy seemed to have hit it off.
Maddy glanced behind at him. “And you played here?”
“Yup.” Lizzie’s must be carting bricks in this bag.
“Sam started playing hockey here,” Lizzie said. “You’d never guess it to look at him now, but he was quite a sickly baby.”
“Really?” Maddy ran her big brown eyes over him. “Not anymore.”
“Nope, not anymore.” Sam wasn’t a big fan of discussing this, but Lizzie was on a roll and stopping her now would make an even bigger deal.
“His mom and mine have been best friends since they were at school.” Apparently, Lizzie was going to do the entire family history for Maddy. Yay!
Lizzie giggled. “You won’t believe this, but my mom was pregnant with me when Sam was about eight months old. They actually had this plan that Sam and I might grow up and get married.”
They broke into cackles, laughing so hard they had to lean against each other.
Hardy har har. “They didn’t think that for long.”
Not when, as the story went, their first play date had involved a set to plastic kid’s skittles. He’d wanted the blue one Lizzie had, and when she wouldn’t give it had whacked her with the red one. Typical Lizzie, she’d schooled him right back with the blue one.
The path wound through a stand of towering spruces. Shouts and laughter from the pond drifted over with the scratch of blades on ice.
“The doctors recommended to Danica that she get Sam into sport.” Lizzie shrugged. “She put skates on him, and the rest is history.”
Not quite the entire story, but he appreciated Lizzie not going into it. Mom had stood pond side and flinched every time he fell off his skates or got bumped by another player. On one ego-shriveling occasion, she had even run across the ice and berated another boy for checking him.
Jesus, that day had sucked. It had also been the birth of years of teasing. Some of those pond hockey kids had followed him into the peewee leagues and so had his reputation for being a momma’s boy.
Well, he’d shut them up. Amazing what a couple of good hits will do to close a set of flapping lips.
They broke free of the trees into a natural depression in the undulating terrain of the park.
The pond hadn’t changed at all. A squat brick building with glass windows housed the skate rentals, bathrooms and a small restaurant. Rubber matting led from the hut, as they called it, to the ice.
A teen girl crab walked her way down the matting toward the ice. She clung to the young guy with her, giggling and giving him big eyes.
Sam knew that play. The let’s go skating, I’ll hold on to you, so you don’t fall play. He’d gotten his first kiss behind the hut from a grateful skating companion.
Little kids stayed to a small side section of the pond that housed the fountains in summer, clinging to their skating frames. Moms and dads hovered around them. Young studs weaved through the slower traffic. To the center a few couples held hands and did the whole let it snow romance thing. Cue Harry Connick Junior.
Beside the pond, and their destination, was the outdoor rink. On the main pond it was free skating, all comers welcome. But the rink was hockey only. If you graduated to the rink beside the pond you carried a hockey stick and needed to use it.
A kid’s game was in progress as they approached.
Sam had played some of the best games of his life on this rink. The bigger kids always looked out for the little ones. They had played until the sun went down and the evening cold drove them all home. Then arriving home, exhausted and chilled to the bone with only enough energy to shower and shovel food down your face before hitting the sack.
A kid in a blue coat cranked a snapshot into the back of the net. Cheers and groans filled the air.
Not bad. Neither was the kid’s drop to one knee slide with a fist pump celly. Sam had been hours perfecting that move in preparation for when he scored his first league goal.
“Hey!” A boy yelled and pointed. “It’s Sam.”
“The whole town knows him,” Lizzie said to Maddy.
Maddy beamed like a proud parent. “Of course they do. They must be very proud of you.”
“Did you see my snapshot?” The kid in the blue coat turned an eager face up at him.
Sam couldn’t help but smile. The love of hockey transcended age. “I saw it. You keep that up for a few years and I might have to watch my back.”
“Are you here to play?” A bunch of other eager faces joined the kid in the blue coat.
“Nah.” Sam shoved his hands in his pockets. “You guys are too good for me.”
“No.” Lots of heads shook at once. “Come and play with us.”
“I would guys, but I’m with my friends here and I didn’t bring my skates.” He hooked Lizzie around the nape and hauled her into him.
She surprised the hell out of him when she slipped an arm around his waist, her curves pressed against him slowing his brain down for a few fatal seconds. “Funny you should say that, Sam.”
A nasty feeling wormed up through his gut and he tightened his grip on her.
Lizzie gave him her sunshine and unicorn rainbow-farts smile. “Your skates are in the bag.”
Chapter 5
The ringing phone woke Sam the next morning. He scrabbled for it and answered. “What?”
“Sam?” His mother’s concern crept down the line. “Did I wake you?”
“Uh…no.” He checked the bedside clock. Half past eleven and time he was up and about. “I was reading.”
“Oh.” She took a breath. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you for two weeks.”
“I answered.” He chugged the glass of water by his bedside.
Mom got soft and wounded. “You texted me.”
Guilt body checked him.
“Yeah, sorry about that.” He scrubbed his face and tried to wake his ass up. “I needed time.”
“From you mother?” Bam! Into the boards again.
“From everyone, Mom.” From himself mostly. After Maddy had left last night, he’d climbed into a leftover quart of Jack Daniels that Way-too-Busy Lizzie hadn’t discovered. She’d even tossed his Baileys out. “It’s been a bad couple of weeks. I needed to get my head together.”
“Oh, Sam.” Mom sighed, and her voice wavered. “I’ve been so worried about you since I watched the game. Then I couldn’t get hold of you.”
He worked saliva back into his desiccated mouth. “Sorry about that, Mom. Sometimes a guy has to do what he has to do.” What a dick thing to say. He could imagine what Liz would have to say if she’d heard him.
Mom was a lot kinder than Liz, and probably a lot kinder than he deserved. “I was so relieved when I saw that photo of you in the park last night.”
He didn’t know what she was on about. Then it hit him. The park, yesterday, Liz and Maddy and damn Liz pushing all his buttons.
“I’ve been trying to get out there. You know, spend time with people.” Was that ass burning sensation his pants on fire?
“Really?” Mom didn’t sound convinced. Then again, she had known him since his ass was cracked. “Because Mrs. Koenig says she hasn’t seen you outside the house in two weeks.”
And Mrs. Koenig would know. Nosy old biddy probably had her binoculars trained on their house all day and night.
“You know Mrs. K.” He kept it l
ight. “She probably went for a nap and missed seeing me.”
“Hmm. She doesn’t miss much.” Mom took a breath. “Anyway, seeing you with those children did my heart good.”
As much as he really, really didn’t want to, he had to give that one to Lizzie. Taking him to the park and making him talk to the kids playing pond hockey had been inspired. Even if the sneaky bitch had suddenly produced his skates, and he had spent the next two hours playing pond hockey with the under-eight contingent. Side note and not worth mentioning to Lizzie, he’d had a blast.
He missed hockey. Its absence in his life ached like a sore tooth. Yesterday had brought everything he had to lose rushing back.
“I’m fine, Mom.” He managed to sound convincing. “I’m suspended for twenty games, but after that, I’ll be back on the ice.”
“Oh, that’s good, Sam. I don’t know what you’d do without hockey,” Mom said.
Neither did he. He also didn’t mention that his twenty-game suspension was only the penalty imposed on him by the league. His coach had sent him away with a clear message. Straighten up and fly right, or he was grounded. Forever. His agent had gone one further. Once the Titans were done with him, there was nobody else who would touch him.
For the first time since his mother had laced him into skates at three-years-old, he was staring straight into a future that didn’t include hockey. It seemed everyone was tired of Sam Stone’s crap. Even Sam Stone. Especially Sam Stone.
After chatting with his mom a bit longer, and even managing some enthusiasm for her visit to the tulips, he lay in bed and stared at the ceiling of the spare room.
He’d bought mom this house when he’d first been drafted by the ’Cudas. As nice as it was, and as much as Mom loved it, this house wasn’t home to him. Neither was his apartment in the ByWard market.
He missed his bedroom in their old house. The one with the huge posters of Gretzky, Roy, and Lemieux. The room that had always stank of hockey gear. Back then he had lived and breathed hockey with a passion bordering on obsession. When Mom got him his first brand new Bauer stick, he’d slept with the thing.
Too restless to sleep, he climbed out of bed and wandered through to the kitchen naked. If Quizzy Lizzie climbed the wall this morning, she’d get a real eyeful. He’d changed since they used to bath together as tots. So had she, and in ways he wouldn’t mind catching an eyeful of.
Another side note never to be mentioned to Lizzie.
She and Maddy had done a good job of the cleanup yesterday. He put some coffee on and gave the countertops a careless swipe. He’d have to get a cleaner in here before Mom came back.
His cell rang and he checked caller display.
Coach.
Heart pounding, he took the call. “Hey, Coach.”
“Stoney, how you doing, big guy?”
Stoney? Big guy? A jovial coach made him twitchy. “Fine, and you?”
“Can’t complain.” Coach chuckled. “Well, I could but what fucking good would it do me? Am I right? Tell me I’m right.”
Oh-kay. Last time he and Coach had been together, they hadn’t parted buddies. “Team’s doing well?”
“Yeah, not bad. Playoffs are looking doubtful though.” Coach had his management shit-eating voice on. “We’re missing our big guy.”
Fucking time out here! “What’s going on, Coach?”
“What, I can’t call one of my favorite players and see how they’re doing?”
Sam rolled his eyes. He hated this side of pro sports. Even a gruff old war horse like Coach had to pull the schmooze wagon. “Considering you called me a shit for brains, fuck headed goon the last time we saw each other, I’m a little dubious.”
And then coach had said the thing that made him itch for the bottle again. “Stone, you’re a two-hundred-and-seventy-degree player. It’s all there but the ninety degrees that would make you a hall of famer.”
Coach did his warthog grunt. The one he used when he’d been caught out or embarrassed. “Had a chat to the league this morning. They asked after you.”
“Yeah?” He needed to sit down.
“They’re reviewing the duration of your suspension.”
He grabbed a kitchen stool and dropped on it. “And?”
“For the first time they might be thinking a shorter term.”
“Yeah?” He couldn’t get any more words past the constriction in his chest. “What did they say?”
“Look, Stoney, they’re not promising anything but they like the direction they see you going in, and they would certainly be amenable if they were to see more of the same.”
The only direction he had been going in was right to the bottom of the Jack Daniels bottle. Pushing on through to the end of Orange is the New Black. Except for yesterday.
“What did they like? Specifically?” He needed to play this cool or he’d blow it.
A second call bleeped. His agent. Another stalwart soul conspicuous by her absence for two weeks.
Coach cleared his throat. “The whole thing. You playing with the kids. Out there being an ambassador for the sport even when you’re suspended. The cute girl who doesn’t look anything like a hooker.”
Holy Fuckballs! The only woman he hung out with who didn’t look like a hooker was Lizzie. He almost snorted. They wouldn’t say that if they’d clocked her ass coming over his wall yesterday.
“Whoever she is, she’s good for your image,” Coach said. “Gives the right impression of who you really are. Off the ice.”
“Right.” Liz would bust a gut laughing if she could hear this conversation. “She’s just a friend.”
“Ke-rist, Stoney! I don’t give a crap who you’re fucking. Keep that shit to yourself.”
Only Coach had brought it up, but what the hell. “So, what you’re saying is that the league likes the way I’m handling my suspension.”
“Yep.” Coach sniffed. “Seagulls like it too. Made sure to send the message down the line. They like to see you looking like a team player.”
Part of that missing ninety degrees Coach went on about. Apparently Sam was not a team player. Also the reason often cited for why he had been traded as many times as he had.
Management was looking kindlier on him, and if Coach was making this call—which he was—he was doing the same.
“Well.” Sam gave it all the sincerity he had in him. “I wasn’t happy about the suspension, but I’ve been using this time to think. Get back to the basics. Touch base with my love of the game.”
“Right.” Coach cleared his throat. “Whatever the fuck that means. Do more of it.”
After Coach hung up, Sam padded through to the laundry and found a pair of boxers. Only then did he dial his agent.
“Sam!” Tammi had a voice made for phone sex and the toughest head in sport. “I’m gonna send you a fruit basket, you clever, clever boy.”
“What bit of genius are you referring to this time?”
“The pictures.” She sounded surprised. “The ones that hit the old inter webs yesterday evening and have been zinging all over the twitter-facebook-insta-snapchat-verse ever since.”
Maddy had taken pictures that he hadn’t bothered to look at.
“Tell me, for realz, did you set them up?” Tammi giggled, bringing to mind a smirking boa constrictor. “Don’t tell me. I don’t wanna know.”
“I…um…it happened.”
“Well, it happened in the right way at the right time,” Tammi said. “Even Marc Gracie had nothing shitty to say about them.”
“Huh!” Marc—fuck nuts—Gracie. The bane of Sam’s life, and the most respected sport’s journalist in hockey. Gracie had been making byline after byline on Sam’s suspension. A big advocate for cleaning up the on-ice fireworks, Gracie had made Sam his poster boy for everything wrong with hockey.
“A couple of the other guys had some stuff to say.” Tammi read him a few snippets.
Sam let her roll. Getting a word in with Tammi took skill his pre-coffee brain didn’t have.
&
nbsp; Somehow Lizzie had hit on the magic key to unlocking his chains. His suspension had come on the back of several questionable hits last playoff season. To be fair, only some of those hits were his, but when you were big, fast and not afraid to drop gloves, you earned yourself a reputation.
The league had come under heavy fire for not doing anything. Mothers against violence in sports—MAVIS—had been knocking on influential doors and turning their focused maternal eye his way. When MAVIS yelled, people paid attention.
“Anywho, baby blue, what you need to know is that your star is on the rise again. Up, up, up and away.” Tammi laughed like grating steel. “And I’m calling to impress upon you, in the strongest terms, to keep on keeping on. Following that yellow brick road. Rolling down that river.”
The coffee had dripped enough for Sam to get a mug under it and take a slug. “You got something for me?”
“Nothing definite but the sharks are circling.”
“The Sharks?”
“Not the actual sharks.” Tammi tsked. “But there are teams looking to drop their hooks in the water.”
She went on in that vein for a bit longer while Sam finished his coffee and went for another. Once he’d hung up, he hit Twitter.
Maddy had excelled herself and the Foxes had taken the threads and run with them. One picture had gotten the most traction. The sky was blue behind them, the snow Tide detergent white. In the foreground rosy cheeked kids played pond hockey. And right slap dab in the middle was him, with his arm around Liz’s neck as he whispered in her ear.
Liz’s big green eyes sparkled. Her wide mouth was split in a laugh. She looked hot. Not that he would, but still hot.
They looked like a couple sharing a private moment. If say, the reality the picture did not reflect was that one member of that loving duo had the other in a headlock and was whispering, “You’re going to pay for this, Dizzy Lizzie.”
Chapter 6
Elizabeth left work about five minutes to seven the following evening. Thus far today had been the Mondayest Monday ever.
Dad had been balled out by a client for a shoddy job done of cleaning their offices, which had somehow become all Elizabeth’s fault.