“I need to know if you’re going to Spain by the end of the week. You have to tell me by then,” he said suddenly.
Caroline fought the urge to reply.
Ludvig’s little car shot out of a tunnel and crossed the last bridge, heading for the giant white ball in front of them. When they finally pulled into a parking space, Ludvig turned off the motor, but he didn’t climb out. She was surprised to hear a hint of uncertainty in his breath, as if he were just as uncomfortable as she was. Caroline felt a sudden wave of sympathy for this man, unable to simply ask for what he wanted.
“I brought all the information for Spain if you’re coming,” he said, reaching into the back seat and returning with a small stack of papers. “The contract should be ready some time later this week.”
Though she had already made up her mind, she took the papers from him and looked down at them, though putting off the inevitable wasn’t making her feel any better.
But what she saw in the middle of the page was a number that made her gasp aloud. 30,000 Euros. She would be paid 30,000 Euros for a month of work. She wasn’t sure about the exchange rate, but she knew enough to realize this was more than $30,000. More than she had made during the entire last year of work. Enough to do whatever she wanted for the next year. She would no longer have to cross off dream stops like Dubai, Japan and Hawaii from her list because of the costs. With her ticket already paid for, she could go anywhere.
Caroline closed her eyes, suddenly unable to think through the situation clearly. She would never get an opportunity like this again. She couldn’t turn it down.
Before her mind began to work again, churning out all her doubts, before she had the time to change her mind, Caroline opened her mouth and answered.
“Yes, I’ll go.”
It was done. She was going to Spain.
The tension she had felt from Ludvig suddenly transformed into unbridled enthusiasm. And before she understood what he was doing, he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
“Fantastic,” he said, smiling. “You’ll love it. We already have everything planned.”
Ludvig was talking as both of them climbed out of the car, but Caroline didn’t take anything that he said in. All the debate and resolve of the last days had disappeared the moment she had seen the number 30,000. Now, as the fog that had filled her mind just a few minutes before disappeared, her thoughts rushed back in, and they weren’t forgiving.
Is 30,000 Euros my price? she thought. And if so, what is he buying from me?
Caroline swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth and tried to listen to Ludvig’s words. But nothing he said made her feel any better.
ON THE WALK from the parking lot to the arena, Ludvig’s words had all floated past her in a cloud of smoke, hazy and thick. What bothered her most was the position she now found herself in—or, more bluntly put, the situation she had created for herself. At the bottom of Ludvig’s offer was the question, will you come to Spain with me? She could feel it, and her gut answer to his question was, in no uncertain terms, no. But when faced with a large sum of money, she thought bitterly, the integrity of her answer crumbled immediately.
The cloud of dark thoughts hovered as they walked over to the arena, but when she entered, they began to dissipate. The smell of the ice hit Caroline as they walked through the hallway, towards the rink, and Caroline found herself swept in by the cheers and whistles of the crowd around her. As they walked in, the lights went off, and a swirl of spotlights hit the ice. The announcer’s voice echoed around in the darkness as she and Ludvig found places along the edge of the rink. Then, in a burst of music, the red-clad Swiss players poured out from the tunnel opposite from them and gathered on their side of the ice. The music stopped, and the announcer’s voice returned. Music filled the arena again, and she could see the yellow and blue Swedish jerseys coming through the tunnel.
Caroline steadied her breath and squinted, looking for Niklas across the ice. She felt a messy swirl of desire and dread brewing inside of her. He had told her not to come, and here she was. With a huff of frustration, Caroline tried to push away the nag of guilt at her blatant disregard for what he had asked her to do. Didn’t he think she had a say in where she went and what she did? It was her career, after all.
Then she saw him. When he stepped onto the ice, the cheers of the crowd around her grew, and she felt her heart pound harder. She, who had dragged herself to sporting events for four years of college wondering why the people around her had paid to come, now found herself gripping her camera in anticipation.
The Swedish team circled her side of the ice, passing pucks back and forth and shooting at the goalie. Niklas wove in and out between the other players with a puck gliding at the end of his stick. As he swerved around towards center ice, Caroline lowered her camera, and his head turned away from the action for a moment. Over past the boards. Over to where she was standing. Niklas looked straight at her, though it happened so quickly that Caroline wasn’t completely sure he had seen her. But she had seen the look on his face before—this much she was certain of. His blue eyes were filled with intensity, the same hunger she had seen just before he had lifted her up and carried her into the bedroom. But this time, there was something else there, something that made her turn away. And she didn’t know what to do with that idea.
It didn’t take long for the game to get underway. The rink in front of her was a mesh of red players and yellow players racing by her, first in one direction and then in another. Despite all the hockey games Caroline had been to in college, she had never bothered actually learning any of the rules beyond the most obvious ones. She paid attention to the referee’s whistle only because it often indicated a moment of emotion, possibly one she could capture on camera.
But now, suddenly, she wanted to know how the game worked. As the clock counted down the minutes of the first period, she turned to Ludvig with her questions: Why was the Swiss team offside? Why did the referee call a penalty for checking this time when only seconds before, another player got hit with an even harder blow, and the referee ignored it? Why would anyone not wear better face protection in a game as rough as this one? She no longer cared if these questions made her sound ignorant; she just wanted to know.
Ludvig’s face flushed as he took her through the game, pointing at each set of lines on the ice, lines Caroline had mistaken as decorative. Ludvig’s face grew increasingly animated as he went through different teams’ strategies. As much as he looked down on the players in front of them, he clearly loved this game.
“Do you mind if I take a couple photos of you while you talk?” she interrupted him suddenly, mid-sentence.
He stopped and looked at her, confused.
“If you’d like, I suppose,” he said in his proper British accent and then continued where he had left off.
The next period had begun and the tempo on the rink pulsed through her as clumps of players skated by. Caroline kept her eyes on Niklas as he pursued the hulking red figures, weaving his stick around the offensive players to steal the puck before shoving them into the boards. What surprised her most was just how fast he could skate. It was something she had missed in other games, but now, following Niklas around the rink, her mouth hung open as the final seconds on the scoreboard ticked away. The first period ended, and the score was still tied, 0-0.
Caroline watched as the players skated off the ice and into the narrow tunnels. When the last of them had disappeared, she turned back to Ludvig, who she found was staring at her with an expression that she couldn’t quite read.
“You’re watching him,” said Ludvig. His face was guarded, but there was a hint of accusation in his voice. “You’re staring at him. First he was in your apartment, and now you can’t take your eyes off him.”
Even if she had wanted to respond, Caroline had no idea what she would say. Why Ludvig thought that her personal life was any of his business was beyond her, she thought, though in truth, she knew the answer.
His presumption made her feel all the more uncomfortable: Ludvig asked her to join his team in Spain because he wanted to be with her. He just didn’t have the nerve to say it.
Realizing that he wasn’t getting a response, Ludvig finally took his eyes off her and said, “Let’s see what you got this period.” He took her camera out of her hand and slowly began scrolling through her photos. He squinted down at the tiny screen, looking for something—a photo that revealed some truth about Niklas and her? Apparently, it wasn’t there. Finally, he gave her camera back.
Then he turned on his own camera and found the photo he was looking for.
“You should have taken one of these,” he said, handing it over.
It was Niklas, checking a Swiss player onto the boards.
“It happened right next to us,” he said with another hint of bitterness. “You had a good shot. And everyone else wants to see him like this, even if you don’t.”
Caroline remained silent, looking at the photo, until Ludvig took his camera back from her.
“I’m getting something to eat,” he said and walked away without bothering to wait for her.
THE SECOND PERIOD was rougher than the first. The players knocked each other against the boards over and over again skidding across the ice. Caroline watched as Niklas’s line filed off the rink and fell back onto the benches. They were getting tired, and the Swiss team didn’t look any better. The score was still tied with no goals, and only a few shots had found their way to the goalies. Packs of players circled around in front of her, grunting, eyes flashing, fighting for the puck.
Niklas’s line was back on the rink now. They spread out and shot forward against the Swiss line, passing the puck back and forth. Niklas stayed on the outside, passing it in and then taking it back over the line as the offensive players repositioned themselves, looking for a hole in the Swiss defense. The Swiss missed their opportunity to switch lines, and now they were wearing down, stuck on the defensive, fending off the shots and tips the Swedish team bombarded them with. Someone in yellow passed the puck back to Niklas, but this time, instead of looking for someone closer, he drew back his stick and lifted the puck into the air, straight at the goal. A mess of yellow and red jerseys swarmed around the net, blocking the goalies line of sight. By the time the goalie saw Niklas’s shot, it was too late. The puck floated into the top corner of the net. Niklas had scored.
The spotlights flashed back on, and the sound of the crowd exploded in Caroline’s ears. Niklas’s teammates buried him in a giant swarm, and when they finally released him, she caught a glimpse of the open joy across his face she thought she had seen before. Happiness. At that moment, he looked as if nothing else mattered to him.
The crowd was still on its feet when the puck dropped again. The Swiss passed back and forth but couldn’t get the puck far enough down the ice. And the more they lost possession of the puck, the harder they seemed to check the Swedish players.
Down at the Swedish goal, Niklas curved his stick around to steal the puck, but before he could skate away, the Swiss player hooked his stick around Niklas’s leg, bringing him to the ice. Ludvig had explained enough for Caroline to understand that this was illegal, but the referee was momentarily distracted by two other players, yellow and red, shoving each other behind the goal. He didn’t see the hook.
Niklas stood up, but instead of heading for the puck, which was already on his teammate’s stick, he turned back to the Swiss player and skated toward him, much too fast. The Swiss player came at Niklas as well, and they crashed into each other. Niklas dropped his stick and grabbed a hold of the red jersey in front of him. The Swiss player pointed and yelled back. From somewhere beyond, the whistle blew, but before the referee could intervene, the Swiss player’s glove was off. He drew back his fist and punched Niklas in the face.
Both teams swarmed around the two players, pulling them apart and yelling at each other. Niklas’s back was to her, and he was bending over, holding his face. Blood dripped onto the ice, leaving a trail behind him as he slowly glided over to the long tunnel and off the rink.
“Nice,” said Ludvig. “We’re in a great position to get all this.”
Caroline turned her head away from the tunnel and looked back to Ludvig. He lowered his camera and revealed the glow of unabashed triumph on his face.
Chapter Sixteen
Caroline was dreading the ride home from the game. The last thing she needed right now was more time alone with Ludvig, but she was too exhausted to lug her camera and herself over to the subway station right now. Reluctantly, she climbed into his car and shut the door.
“That was the best game I’ve been to in a long time,” said Ludvig, seemingly oblivious to her dampened mood.
Caroline raised her eyebrow. “Aren’t you supposed to be upset that Sweden lost?”
“Sure,” he laughed. “A win would have been nice, too. But the intensity of those fights is what everyone came for. And that’s what makes the news. No one wants to look at photos of smiling hockey players making polite passes to each other. They want to see blood. And Almquist definitely gave it to us. You can count on that from him.”
His mouth turned down at the corners as he spoke Niklas’s name aloud.
But Caroline had to admit that there was some truth in what Ludvig said. She, too, had felt the rush of the game as she watched Niklas weave around the rink and, yes, when he shoved the Swiss players against the boards and skated away with the puck. Ludvig was right about that. But the trail of blood that followed Niklas out of the arena was too much.
When she didn’t respond, Ludvig turned, and finally he registered the grim look on her face. His face tightened as well, and when he spoke again, his eyes bore into hers, as if to make sure she didn’t miss his message.
“Those guys out there play the game and fight with each other because they love it. To be a hockey player, you have to care about the sport more than anything else, every single day of your life. All those guys out there on the rink? Nothing in their lives will ever come before hockey. And they have to practice their ruthlessness every day, on and off the ice. That’s what makes them good.”
Ludvig turned on the engine, but before he pulled out of the parking space, he turned to look at her one more time.
“The players chose that life, just like you and I chose this one.”
THE CAR RIDE home was silent. Caroline kept her head turned toward the window, silently wishing what he had said wasn’t true. Ludvig’s car was small and stuffy, and she needed to get out. She had to extricate herself from the mess she had gotten herself into. Ludvig stopped at the curb in front of her building, his face still hard and angry. He didn’t say anything.
Caroline let out a heavy sigh. Her relationship with Ludvig was supposed to be professional. If he was angry at her because she was clearly more interested in Niklas, despite his very public faults, well, he’d just have to get in line. She was just as frustrated with herself about it.
“Thanks for the ride,” she managed to say before she closed his car door.
Caroline opened the heavy door of her apartment building and walked in, listening to her steps echo through the quiet stone hallway. After all this, how could she still be thinking about whether or not Niklas was home? Niklas, who was the subject of a photo far worse than she imagined it could be. But he had said it wasn’t true. And nothing in the headlines suggested he was arrested, only that the circumstances looked bad. Really bad, as he had so bluntly told her. Should she give him a chance to explain? But what could he possibly say that could make her see that photo differently?
The night they had spent together, the way he had looked at her, held her, touched her, whispered her name, were all so different, so far from this mess. When they were alone, it was as if none of these other things—hockey, Ludvig, her future, the photo—mattered. But that feeling didn’t last. It couldn’t. Even that next morning after he had spent the night, he had left early, the pull of hockey to
o great. And besides, she was leaving. How many times had she been through this debate in her mind?
Caroline stopped at the bottom of the spiral stone staircase, knowing she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from seeking him out. Besides, nothing Niklas could say about the photo would make this situation worse.
As she listened to her shoes tap on the marble floor, Niklas’s apartment only a flight away, the idea of knocking on his door suddenly felt both ill-conceived and ill-timed. Her footsteps slowed as she continued up the empty stairs until she came to her landing. Their landing. Caroline took a deep breath.
She stopped in front of Niklas’s door and listened. Nothing. She knocked. First, there was nothing, but then she heard what sounded like a door closing. Was it from his apartment? Did he hear her knock and retreat further away? Caroline stood still, her resolve continuing to crumble. She knocked again, but this time she heard nothing but the pounding of her own heart in her ears.
The sound of the elevator came from behind her. She listened to the motor until the tiny box appeared through the stained-glass window of the elevator doors. The gate opened, and Niklas stepped out.
He was freshly showered and wearing a button-up shirt and jeans. Across his left cheekbone was a long red cut, sealed shut with surgical tape. Niklas looked up at her, and what Caroline saw in his eyes made her catch her breath. His face opened for only a moment, full of unguarded lust and anger and passion as he took in her unexpected presence. Then it all disappeared. He drew in his emotions, and in their place, Caroline saw the same steely look that she had seen when Ludvig appeared at her door, interrupting their last conversation.
“You’re back late,” he said, looking down at the camera bag she had dropped at her feet. Caroline looked at her watch. It was 7:22 pm, which her empty stomach confirmed.
Stockholm Diaries, Caroline Page 12