“Let’s just try for the ‘get a word before he goes on the ice’ plan,” I said quickly and headed for the fountain. I knew I was behaving like a bit of a maniac, and Tyler would be completely within his rights to not want anything to do with me, but it seemed like the sooner I was able to talk to him, the less chance he’d have to realize he was better off without me.
The cool water made me feel a bit more in control, and I let it run all over my face and my arms before pulling away. I wasn’t looking too good, I knew, but Tyler had seen me covered in sweat enough times that I didn’t think a little rosiness and a lack of makeup was going to be a big turnoff. “Okay,” I said, jogging back to where Natalie was waiting for me. “I’m ready.”
“Let’s do this,” she said, and we headed off toward her minivan like we were on a mission.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
- Tyler -
I drove around for a few extra minutes to make sure I was kind of under control, but I guess it didn’t do as much good as I’d thought. As soon as I took one step into the locker room, Coach saw my face and jerked his head at Winslow. I knew what that meant, and sure enough, about two seconds later Chris was looming over me, his face good-natured and totally relaxed.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” I snapped at him. “I’m the captain. It’s my job to look after people, not to be looked after.”
Chris nodded and held out his left hand. “I’ve got a sliver, I think. But it’s one of those ones you can’t really see, you know? It’s right on this finger.” He extended his middle finger, flashing me the bird with an innocent smile. “Can you see it?”
“Fuck off, Winslow.”
“I thought you were going to look after me. I’m in pain, here.” He clutched his chest melodramatically. “‘Oh Captain, my Captain’…” He trailed off and shrugged. “And then some other stuff. I don’t know what comes next. The point is—I have an invisible sliver, and you’re no help at all. That’s a nice leadership style you’ve got there, chief.”
Oh, god, if Winslow was calling me ‘chief’ it meant he planned to keep this up for a lot longer. It was like he thought he could just harass people into being in a good mood, and it was truly frightening how often it actually worked. But in this case, he was out of luck, and any chance he might have had disappeared entirely when I looked over his shoulder and saw my dad making his way into the room.
I pulled my shirt over my head and unbuttoned my jeans. I didn’t need Dad bugging me for being late on top of everything else. But I guess losing a piece of clothing wasn’t enough to disguise the fact that everyone else in the room was already geared up and I’d barely started, because Dad’s first words were, “Where the hell have you been?”
“I had to see somebody,” I muttered, pulling my compression shirt over my head.
“Did you see any scouts out there, Mr. MacDonald?” Winslow asked, innocent and bouncy as a damn puppy.
Any other day that would have been enough to distract my dad and I would have owed Winslow huge, but I wasn’t so lucky this time. “You had to see that girl,” my dad said, ignoring Chris and making ‘girl’ sound like a dirty word. “God damn it, you should know better. Brett said he had this taken care of.”
I froze for a moment, then turned to stare at him. “What?” I demanded.
I could tell from his reaction that he’d said more than he planned, but of course he couldn’t just admit it. “You should know better,” he repeated. “This is your big year, and—”
“What did Brett say he’d taken care of?” My voice was low, but there must have been something in it that made my dad take me seriously.
Still, he didn’t give up entirely. “He takes care of everything. He’s your agent and your best friend. He looks out for you, in all ways.”
“I’m going to ask once more, and then I’m going to go figure it out myself. What did Brett take care of with Karen?”
“Don’t use that tone with me,” he tried.
I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and headed for the door, punching numbers as I went. When I saw a text from Karen—saw that it had been sent just a couple minutes earlier—I started moving faster.
If you have time, can I talk to you? I messed up. I’m really sorry. I don’t think I meant it.
I typed back Where r u? as I left the change room and headed toward the back parking lot. I felt a hand on my shoulder and whirled, ready to yell at my dad, and saw Winslow instead. “I can’t worry about the game just this second, Winslow!”
He shrugged. “That’s cool. But you should do up your pants, chief.”
“Shit.” I handed him my phone as I worked on my fly, and he peered at the screen with interest.
“She’ll meet you in the front lobby,” he told me calmly and didn’t complain when I grabbed the phone back to see the message for myself.
That meant going back the way we’d come, and of course my dad and now Brett were there, and they tried to intercept me. I brushed past them. There were things I needed to sort out with them, stuff I should have made clear earlier, but it wasn’t what I was most worried about right then. So I charged on, dimly aware of Winslow looming behind me, blocking Brett and my dad as well as he could without actually body checking either of them.
Once I got to the lobby, it took a while to find Karen because the area was crowded with people coming in for the game. “Over there,” Winslow said and pointed. He was easily three inches taller than me, so he’d seen her first, but as soon as I started moving, the crowd parted a little and there she was. Karen.
She looked unsure, and her face was kind of blotchy, but she was there. She’d texted me, and she’d said she didn’t think she meant it, and that made her look more beautiful than she ever had before. I got to her and froze. She’d said she thought she didn’t mean it. But that wasn’t quite enough, was it?
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I should have talked to you about it. I thought I was doing the right thing, but I don’t think I was. Can we erase everything in the park, and just start over again after the game? I can tell you what happened, and you can tell me what you think we should do.”
I had my mouth open to agree, but then my dad was there, stepping between us. He turned to face me, ignoring Karen completely. “Get your ass back in that locker room,” he bellowed, and the excited buzz of the crowd faded to nothing as everyone waited to hear what was going to happen next.
Again, I was just about to speak, and again, someone else did it before I could. This time it was Mrs. Beacon, sliding forward with a gentle smile, her hand reaching politely for my dad’s forearm. “I think this is something the kids need to work out on their own,” she said calmly. “I’m sure Tyler will go back to the game in just a—”
My dad ripped his arm away from Mrs. Beacon so hard she stumbled a little, and then he took an aggressive step toward her. “Stay out of my son’s business. We wouldn’t be in this mess if you could have kept your husband at home, you dried up bitch!”
I would have done something, once I recovered from the shock, but again I didn’t have time, because suddenly Mr. Beacon was there, pushing my dad away from his wife, then hauling off and landing a solid punch right in my dad’s face. “Don’t talk to my wife like that,” he growled.
My dad caught his balance and surged forward, blood streaming from his chin, but I was finally alert enough to step in and catch him. I was dimly aware of Winslow behind me, holding back Mr. Beacon, but mostly I was focused on my dad.
“Calm down and walk away,” I told him, still grappling a little, my voice quiet because my mouth was near his ear. “If you walk away now, you and me still have a chance. We might still be able to pull something out of this.” I pushed him back then because I wanted to see his face and be sure he understood what I was saying. “The loan, saving the house, everything that might work for you? If you walk away now, we can still talk about that. But if you stay here, and you make things worse? That’s it. We’re done. You understand me
?”
His disbelieving stare made it clear that he comprehended the words, but maybe not the sentiment behind them. “Because of a girl?” he whispered.
“No.” I glanced at Karen’s tense face, and added, “Not completely.” I looked back at my dad. “Mostly because of me. Because this is my life, and I’ll make the decisions. Not you. And if you can’t accept that, then there’s no place for you.” It felt good to say the words, and even better to watch him as they sank in. More quietly I said, “I want to be a family. But not at any cost.” And then I let him go and waited to see what he would do.
There was a moment when I really thought he was going to plow back into it all, and I’d have to catch him and throw him out, and I was almost wishing it would happen. It would be so much easier to just be done with all this, and if he was the one who made the decision, he’d be the one who had to take the blame. Instead, he cursed softly to himself, looking down at the blood dripping onto his shirt. And then he turned and pushed his way through the crowd, heading for the front door.
I felt softness at my shoulder and half-turned to see Karen peering up at me anxiously. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“Are you dumping me?”
“No. I’m not.”
“Then I’m fine.” I grinned at her, and it felt so good I smiled a little wider. “I’m better than fine.”
Winslow loomed over us, then. “So, if everything’s good here, maybe we should go play a little hockey? I hear that can be a fun way to spend an evening.”
“Is that okay?” I asked Karen. “Whatever went wrong before, it’s not going to go wrong again if I leave right now?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m good. We’re good.”
“Can I ask one question? Just a preview of the big important talk we’ll have after the game?” She nodded, and I said, “Was this because of something my agent said? Did he do something to freak you out?”
She made a face as if trying to decide what to say, then nodded again. “Sorry, yeah. He did.”
“Don’t be sorry.” I sure wasn’t. Maybe I hadn’t gotten a clean break with my dad, but this? This was much easier. I looked around until I found Brett hovering indecisively at the edge of the crowd, clearly wondering whether to do damage control with me or with my dad. “Hey, Brett,” I said casually. He looked at me, a quick, oily smile on his face and it felt really good to say, “You’re fired. Stay away from me, and stay the fuck away from my girlfriend.”
And that was it. One more look at Karen, enough to earn me a wide-eyed smile, and then Winslow was clearing a path through the crowd, dragging me back to the locker room. I let it happen. In terms of people pushing me around? Winslow, okay. But anyone else? No. I was done with that.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
- Karen -
“You just punched a man,” Natalie said, staring at Will.
Will was looking down at his knuckles in amazement. “I guess I did, yeah.” He looked back up quickly. “Sorry. I know you could have handled it yourself. You didn’t need for me to do that.”
She was still staring. “No, I didn’t need you to,” she said quietly. Then she smiled, just a little, but I could see Will notice it and I could see that it gave him hope. “But I’m not sorry you did.” She looked over at me and archly raised an eyebrow. “He called me a bitch?”
I shook my head. “We don’t use that word.”
And that got me a smile from her, too. Then she reached over to take my hand. “You going in to watch the game? Want to sit with the family?”
“I kind of do. But Tyler might look for me, and he’d expect me to be in the other section.”
“The girlfriends’ seats,” she said. “No problem. But you know where we are if you need us, right?” Then she turned to look at Will. “You can sit with us, if you want.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she said. “We need to start talking, right? Might as well start off casual.”
“Great,” he said, and we all turned to walk into the seating area.
When it was time for me to branch off and go find my own seat, they both smiled and waited for me to leave, but I stopped and took a deep breath.
“Will,” I said. “This might not come to anything, but if Tyler’s interested… He just fired his agent, and his dad is…well, you’ve met his dad. But I think Tyler might need some business advice. About his parents’ house, and some other stuff. He might have his own ideas, but if he doesn’t? You’re good at business, right? That’s your thing? So, would it be okay if I suggested that he talk to you about it?”
He nodded slowly, then swallowed before saying, “Yes. Of course. I’d be honored.”
Well, that was a bit more intense than I was willing to get. The whole point of asking for a favor for Tyler was that I wasn’t quite ready to start asking for favors for myself. Not yet. But I guess Will could get worked up about weird stuff if he wanted to.
So I made my way to my seat and cheered when Tyler and the rest of the team came out on the ice, and when they got goals and whatever, and waited impatiently for the damn game to be over so Tyler and I could talk. He might have fired his agent, but that didn’t automatically mean that the man hadn’t had a point, after all.
Dawn and I waited for the guys in the parking lot, and when Tyler came out he hesitated just a moment before leaning in for a kiss, long enough for me to have to stretch up on my tiptoes to reach him. It felt like there was a lot riding on this kiss, somehow. When we finally pulled apart, he had his hands braced on the door of his truck on either side of my head, and he looked down at me with a strange mix of sweetness and hunger. “Do we need to talk?” he asked.
I tried to remember what words were and finally came up with, “Your agent said you need to focus on your game. He said this is a big year and you couldn’t be distracted. He said… I don’t know, I think he said drama could be bad for your game.”
Tyler squinted at me. “So, we don’t really need to talk, then.”
“What? Why? I mean, I think we still do.”
He shook his head. “Drama. Like today, you mean? That total rollercoaster? Drama like that?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“Karen, I got two goals and three assists tonight. Did you notice that?”
“I…I guess? I mean, okay, yeah, but isn’t that…is that good? I mean, I’m not stupid, I know it’s good, but is it good enough to get you to the NHL?”
He made a frustrated sound. “It’s good. I had a good game. A great game, maybe even. The drama didn’t get in the way, not at all. Hockey’s an emotional sport—there’s nothing wrong with going into a game with a little tension built up.” He kissed me gently before saying, “Was it a good enough game to get me to the NHL? I have no idea. Seriously. I can’t worry about that. I just have to play my game and live my life. You know?”
“I think so.” It sounded kind of like sport-speak mixed with surfer philosophy, and I wondered whether Winslow had been involved in its formulation. “Play your game, and live your life.”
“And I can worry about the ‘play my game’ part all on my own. I’ll let you know if I need help with anything, but otherwise, you don’t need to worry about it. I just…I’d like it if you were involved in the ‘live my life’ part. I’d like you to be heavily involved. If that works for you.”
“It does,” I said. “It works for me. It really does.”
And then he kissed me, and I forgot what words were for again. And I didn’t care if I ever needed to use them again.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
- Karen -
Will met with Tyler and they sorted out a plan to use Tyler’s celebrity power to find a job for Tyler’s dad, and it worked within, like, two days. And then Tyler and Will visited a banker friend of Will’s and arranged for an extension on the MacDonald family mortgage. It was all still tight, and it depended on Tyler’s dad actually showing up at work and not getting fired, but it was something, at least.
And Will st
arted coming to the house for dinner most nights. Things could be a bit tense, but they were getting better. He and I started talking a bit more, just the two of us, and sometimes when Tyler was out of town Will would go on my morning runs with me. Not nearly as much fun as running with Tyler, and I got a bit tired of slowing myself down so Will could keep up, but he was making an effort, so I made an effort, too. Everyone was working on things, and that was okay.
One Friday night, Will and Natalie decided to go out on a date, and Miranda and Matt and Sara had their own social events, and Tyler didn’t have a hockey game for a change. So he came over, and at first it was weird. We’d spent lots of time together, with and without clothes, but always either in his truck or outside. Honestly, I’d never fooled around with him in a house, and it felt weird. Like I was doing something wrong.
He called me crazy and then flopped down on the big couch in the basement. “Do you just want to watch TV, then? Or should we play backgammon or put a puzzle together, or…I’m trying to think of other things my grandparents do to pass the time.”
I let myself fall, not quite on top of him but close enough to earn an “oof” before he wrapped his arm around me and pulled me in close. “We’re not quite grandparently yet,” I told him and kissed him in a way I hoped would prove my point.
“But clothes stay on,” he said. “You’re sticking with that?”
“Someone could come home any time.”
“We could go out,” he suggested.
“Let’s stay here. I might get more comfortable soon.”
“That sounds promising,” he said and pulled me in for another kiss.
But I squirmed away from him instead, just far enough to pull out my phone. Tyler knew about my mom’s message; we’d talked about her a bit, and I’d let him listen to it so he’d at least know what she’d sounded like.
But now I was trying something different. “I talked to Mr. Jabowski,” I said slowly. He was the librarian at school and really good with technology. “He helped me download my mom’s message onto my laptop, and then we backed it up in, like, fifteen different places.” That had felt good, knowing that I wasn’t going to have some sort of phone malfunction and lose the sound of my mother’s voice forever.
Center Ice (Entangled Crush) (Corrigan Falls Raiders) Page 18