Body Check

by Alicia Hunter Pace

  “And sit down,” Pickens went on. “I don’t like you towering over me.”

  Truth be told, Thor was happy to comply. He was exhausted, and since he hadn’t had a chance to cool down, his leg muscles were in knots. And then there was the hit from the wave he was trying to come back from. He took a deep breath and imagined a different room—a nursery with Tradd in the rocking chair holding their baby. Yes. That room was a better one, would help him recover. Still—he would miss the locker room. But he could think about all that later. There were things to figure out now, things to settle. First he needed some facts. “Does anyone want to tell me what happened?”

  “I was about to ask the same question.” Pickens dropped back into his chair.

  Tradd turned and met Lars’s eyes. “Someone took a picture of us leaving the courthouse and put it up on a fan site as soon as the game was over.”

  Great. The whole world was the paparazzi. “That’s crazy. Why that particular time?”

  Tradd shook her head. “Who knows?”

  “I do and I’ll tell you why,” Pickens said. “They wanted a win and they knew I would fire you when I found out.”

  “Stop, Pickens,” Mary Lou said. “Just stop.” Then she turned to Tradd. “Are you all right? How far along are you?”

  “I’m fine. And about three months.”

  “Three months,” Pickens said. “This has been going on right in my face for three months—at least three months. All the while you were playing golf, coming to my house, drinking my liquor …”

  Thor had observed that Southern men had something strange tied up in sharing their liquor. He’d never quite figured that out, but it seemed to be some kind of brotherhood bonding ritual to share expensive bottles of liquor.

  Sorry about the loss of your liquor, Pickens. Would you like some wine previously owned by royalty? He almost said it, but he recognized that this might not be the best time for sarcasm. He wanted to reach for Tradd’s hand to ground himself, ground her. But this might not be the best time for that either.

  Then Pickens narrowed his eyes and put his hands in front of him, palms out. “Wait a minute. Two days ago—when I ran into you at Star View Towers. You hadn’t been sitting up with Jake Champagne all night. You’d been in my daughter’s bed!” His face took on a purple hue. “There was blood on her pillow. Your mouth was hurt.” He seemed to be speaking to himself. “I ought not to fire you! I ought to kill you.”

  Actually, Thor could see that. He imagined for a moment that the baby Tradd was carrying was a girl and it was twenty-five years into the future and—well, yes. He felt a little sympathy for Pickens.

  “No one is killing anyone,” Mary Lou said. “Or, for that matter, firing anyone.”

  Ah, Mary Lou. You might be able to save my life, but not my job.

  “Mary Lou, stay out of this,” Pickens said.

  “No, I don’t believe I will.” She said it like she was refusing lemon for her tea. “Thor is our son-in-law now, whether you like it or not.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “Don’t interrupt me,” Mary Lou carried on. “He is also the father of our grandchild—something, I might remind you, we have wanted for a long time.”

  “Not this way.”

  “How can you think to fire him? Can you imagine what people will say? Do you really want your daughter humiliated? Do you want everybody in Nashville and in the NHL gossiping about us?” There was pain in Mary Lou’s voice, and Thor was sorry for that. This woman was the soul of propriety and class, and she had always been unfailingly kind to him.

  “I don’t see how I have any choice, Mary Lou,” Pickens said. “I’ve always made my position clear on this point. I can’t back down now.”

  “You damn well can!”

  Wow. He’d never heard Mary Lou curse before. She was emergency mad. It was interesting to see her try to fight a losing battle, but the whole thing left him feeling rather detached. It was much like being the only one who knew The Sound didn’t have a chance in the playoffs this year.

  “It was a ridiculous rule.” Now Tradd was getting in on it. “In case you have not noticed, I’m not a seventeen-year-old who needs protection like Aunt Legare. I am an adult. I never needed my father for a gatekeeper.”

  “Apparently you did,” Pickens said. “But that’s beside the point. It was never about protecting you—at least not very much. It was about not creating strife within the team. Because, Sister, there was a time when you would have toyed with every player to ever put on a jersey if it suited you to do so and they had not been instructed to stay away from you.”

  “What?” Tradd exploded. “I can’t believe you think that of me.”

  Now Tradd was getting upset and Thor couldn’t have that. He laid a hand on her shoulder. “It doesn’t matter, Tradd. Please be calm.” She gave him a look that he didn’t understand, but it didn’t make him feel good. Meanwhile, Mary Lou soldiered on. “Pickens, that’s hardly fair. Ever since her final breakup with Brantley Kincaid, Tradd has had a change of attitude. She’s grown up.”

  “And yet we have this!” Pickens spread his hands. “The very thing I didn’t want. Dissension in my team as we head to playoffs. I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.”

  Tradd looked like she was going to cry, and he didn’t feel so detached anymore. Unacceptable. If she actually cried, Thor had no idea what he would do, but it wouldn’t improve this situation. Thor stood up. “No, you’re not.” He was going to put a stop to all of this right now and take his wife home—wherever that was. But they had several options.

  “I’m not what?” Pickens asked.

  “Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.” He marched up to Pickens’s desk, picked up a yellow legal pad, and grabbed a gold pen from its holder.

  “What are you doing?” Pickens demanded.

  “Resigning.” He scribbled a note to that effect, signed it, and held it out to Pickens. “I am absolving you of all blame.”

  “Lars, don’t do that,” Tradd said.

  Pickens looked stunned—and a little mad. He hated having a decision taken out of his hands. “What about that twentieth year in the NHL that’s so important to you?”

  “What about it?” Thor responded. “I’m getting a child. I like that better.”

  “And my daughter?” Pickens asked.

  Didn’t that go without saying? “Of course.” He smiled at Tradd. She looked tired. He needed to get this wrapped up and get her home—though there was some question of where home was. The plan had been for them to meet back at her condo tonight, but that was before all this happened. Pickens might have them locked out. He wasn’t above it. They hadn’t discussed where they would live permanently. Pickens still had not taken the paper that Thor held, so he laid it on the desk. “My resignation.”

  “Pickens, refuse to take it,” Mary Lou said.

  “No, stop,” Thor said. “Pickens is right about a lot of this. I knew the rules and I broke them. It was worse for me, because I am not some kid fresh from the draft. And I betrayed a friendship. But here we are. Tradd and I are having a baby. I do not apologize for that, or for doing what I see to be best for this situation. Pickens cannot back down. Everybody knows about the ultimatum. It’s famous. He makes the same speech at training camp every year. Every player on this team—and many other players on other teams—can quote it verbatim. But on the other hand, if he fires me, there will be gossip and embarrassment, especially for Mary Lou and Tradd. I’ll have my agent issue a statement in the morning. I’ll have him say I’m hurt and out for the playoffs anyway, and I want some time with my new wife.”

  Pickens looked somewhat appeased. “Have him run it past our PR people.”

  Enough was enough. “No. I no longer work for The Sound organization. I will handle it from here on out. You have my word I will not put The Sound in a bad light. If that isn’t good enough after all these years, there is nothing to be done for it.”

  Pickens nodded. “I wi
ll sell the team, and I will do so only with the caveat that the new owner doesn’t renew your contract.”

  “Do what you’ve got to do,” Thor said. To his surprise, it didn’t bother him much.

  “Pickens, that’s hardly fair,” Mary Lou said.

  “Do you want your daughter and grandchild in Massachusetts?” Pickens asked.

  Mary Lou looked at her hands. Both she and Pickens looked defeated.

  “You can go to another team,” Tradd said.

  “No,” Thor said. “I’m done. I won’t relocate you or have us live apart. We discussed that. I don’t want to be a part-time father.”

  Tradd looked at her hands. Good. She still liked the rings.

  “Maybe we can have a party,” Mary Lou said lamely. “You know, to celebrate.”

  “That would be nice,” Thor said.

  “Go take a shower, boy,” Pickens said. “You still stink and it’s getting worse by the second.”

  “With all due respect, Pickens, you said my locker room days are over. I’ll take a shower elsewhere.” He looked at Tradd. “Tradd, come with me. I don’t want you driving in this traffic. I’ll send someone for your car.”

  “I’ve had enough of all of you.” Tradd stood up. “I might go to Massachusetts anyway. I might move there tonight.” And she stalked out of the room before any of them could move.

  “What did I do?” Thor asked of no one in particular. And he hurried out of the room only to find Tradd nowhere in sight.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  So it wasn’t going to be all orgasms and fluffy baby blankets.

  Tradd pulled her car into the traffic that her father and Lars were so intent on her not driving in.

  Assholes. No wonder they got along so well together, because that’s what they were: King Asshole and Asshole Junior. Right now, she would have been hard-pressed to say which was which.

  And her mother, with all her talk about what would people say. A party was her answer to everything. Tradd briefly considered driving to Greenwood and breaking every piece of crystal in the place.

  It had been quite the spectacle, all right. It was practically a work of art how they’d all been at odds with each other but, at the same time, united in ganging up on her.

  At least that’s how she felt. Well, screw them all. She wasn’t going to any party and she wasn’t wearing any La Perla nightgown—not tonight or any other night.

  Lars had absolved Pickens from any wrongdoing, and what had he said? “Tradd and I are having a baby. I do not apologize for that, or for doing what I see to be best for this situation.”

  Doing what he sees best? For this situation? And let’s not forget he didn’t want her upset—because it wasn’t good for the baby. What about her? For her own sake?

  And let’s face it, the situation was that he wanted this baby. He wanted it more than he wanted that sacred twentieth year in the NHL, and she was just an of course—and of course he wouldn’t relocate, because he wanted to be a full-time father. This was his last chance to have what he’d thought he never would. It wouldn’t have mattered who was carrying it—puck bunny, Mrs. Santa Claus, or Tradd Davenport.

  Right now, she hated herself a little. She wasn’t jealous of her unborn child—not exactly. What kind of woman would be? But it was a little too close to that for comfort.

  She’d deceived herself into thinking the hot sex mattered to him as much as it did to her, but why would it? She had been the orgasm virgin, not him. All his sex had been hot—probably hotter, better, more glorious. Except for one thing: none of that sex had ended with a pregnancy. She held the golden ticket for that.

  There was something else she’d deceived herself about. Though she had not admitted it to herself in so many words, she had thought that as long as she could be with him, it didn’t matter why—didn’t matter that he only wanted her for the baby. Turned out she was wrong.

  She wanted him to want her for her. And he wasn’t going to.

  It would serve them right if she drove straight to Massachusetts, bought a Bruins jersey, and rooted for them in the playoffs. She could get started raising her baby to be a Bruins fan while he was still in the womb. Only trouble was, there weren’t a lot of opportunities for Rita May Sanderson in Massachusetts.

  She was two blocks from Broadway when a sign caught her eye: Billy Ray’s Barbecue and Karaoke Bar. Billy Ray’s was a dive of the highest art form. It didn’t look like much, and there was nothing about it that would attract the attention of tourists, and the locals liked it that way. It was also an institution—so much so that that it wasn’t uncommon for real stars to drop in, partake of the excellent barbecue, and take a turn with the mike. Should she? The locals could be a tough crowd. Would she be assuming too much to think that she was important enough that it would give the audience a thrill?

  Maybe, maybe not, but why the hell not? If they booed her off the stage and laughed at her, it wouldn’t be as bad as what she’d just been through.

  She turned her car around.

  Oddly, she dealt fine with the traffic.

  And the audience did not boo her off the stage or laugh at her. Quite the opposite, in fact. At least she still had them.

  Where was she?

  Thor called her phone again and—again—it went to voice mail. First, he’d gone to Star View Towers and parked in one of Tradd’s two designated parking slots and waited, figuring she’d be along any minute. In fact, he’d been surprised that she hadn’t arrived first since she’d had a head start. After a half hour, he’d driven to his house and alerted the caretakers to be on the lookout for her and call him if she came there. It didn’t make sense that she would go to Greenwood, but he did a drive through anyway. No luck and no sign of her car. Then he’d gone to the Bridgestone and driven around looking for her. Nothing.

  Finally, he’d gone back to Star View and talked himself into the condo, which had not been easy. He’d had to show a photo ID and their marriage certificate—which he’d tossed on the backseat of his car after leaving the courthouse. Even at that, the concierge had called the manager, who had come down and scrutinized the documents himself.

  By then, Thor was frantic, and through it all, he’d still smelled like rotten roadkill—and felt worse. He considered calling Pickens and Mary Lou, but he didn’t want to do that until absolutely necessary. It was bad enough that after having her less than twelve hours, he’d already misplaced her without them knowing it.

  So he called the hospitals. At least she wasn’t there. Finally, he’d taken a shower. It was looking more and more like he was going to have to get some help, and he needed to be clean.

  He was drying off when it hit him that he had nothing there—not even a pair of underwear or a bottle of deodorant.

  He texted Sparks, “Can you bring me some underwear, a pair of shorts, and a T-shirt to the fifteenth floor?”

  The reply was immediate. “I cannot and I would be almost sorry if I were not where I am now having things done to me that most only dream about. This must be some story.”

  Was Sparks actually texting and having sex at the same time? Either way, Thor wasn’t getting any clothes.

  And now he was going to have to call Pickens Davenport—who would no doubt rush over to find Thor wearing a towel and smelling like Tradd’s girlie deodorant.

  And it was time to call. This was the part in crime movies where everyone was asking the husband, “Why didn’t you call someone sooner?”

  Oh, God. Crime movie. He had assumed she was off somewhere pouting, but what if something really had happened to her?

  He hung the towel around his hips, sat down on the sofa, and reached for his phone.

  And just then, the door opened and in strolled Tradd. He was flooded with relief and sprinkled with anger. Had she not known he’d be terrified?

  She didn’t even look surprised—not that he was there or that he was wearing a towel. She placed her keys and purse on a little table inside the door that seemed to have been
created for that purpose. It probably had. Mary Lou Davenport didn’t leave much to chance.

  “There you are.” She began to leaf through a stack of mail. “I saw your car downstairs and Lisa said they let you in.”

  He ignored the last part. “Here I am?” He got up and moved toward her. “Here I am? I’m not the one who has been missing!”

  She looked up from the mail. “Are you insinuating that I have been missing?”

  “I’m stating it as a fact. And you weren’t answering your phone.” What was that smell?

  “Oh. Sorry.” She didn’t sound sorry. “My phone is dead.” She breezed by him and plugged her phone in to the charger on a little desk in the corner.

  “Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you for hours.”

  “You should have looked at Billy Ray’s. You would have found me there singing karaoke. I also ate a certain amount of barbecued pork and coleslaw.”

  “What is Billy Ray’s?” Was it a club or some man who owned a karaoke machine and a barbecue maker—whatever that was.

  “Nothing you’d know about, since you aren’t from Nashville.” Sounded like a bar. “I sang ‘Stand by Your Man,’ though I wasn’t really feeling it. But I really made up for it with ‘Friends in Low Places.’”

  There was that smell again. Then it hit him! “Have you been smoking?” he demanded.

  She looked incensed. “Of course I have not been smoking.”

  “You smell of smoke.”

  She sniffed her sleeve. “I suppose I do. Not surprised. I was at Billy Ray’s.”

  “Are you saying you were in an establishment that is not a smoke-free environment?”

  She nodded. “That’s what I’m saying. Some of the bars are smoke free. Others are not. Billy Ray’s is an other.”

  “Secondhand smoke isn’t good for the baby,” he said. “Not to mention you.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “By all means, let’s not mention me.”

  What the hell? “Tradd, what is going on with you?” He replayed what he’d said. He couldn’t find any fault with it and didn’t see how she could. It was Jonteau all over again, except he got the feeling that he couldn’t rescue this situation by turning over his credit card and not asking any questions. “What did I do?”