“How can you think he’s good enough for you?”
Anne stood and picked up her mother’s purse. “I don’t think it. I know it. And I know you don’t understand, and that’s perfectly all right. Your opinion doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care if you approve, because I love him. I do. I love Nate, and that’s all that matters, okay? When I’m with him, I’m happy. He wants me to have what I want, not what he thinks I need because of some twisted values. He doesn’t try to turn me into something I’m not. He doesn’t expect me to do a thousand things because he supposedly knows what I need better than I do. So whether you understand or not, he’s perfect for me. And you need to leave.”
I was so proud of Anne for standing up to her mother that I was shaking with it. Add in the fact that she’d said she loved me, and I was a mess inside. I wasn’t even sure she realized she’d said it, but she had, and that was all that mattered.
“Anika!” her mother shouted. “How dare you speak to your mother this way.”
“I’d say it’s about time she did,” Brian said. “And like Anne said, it’s time for you to go.”
Anne carried the purse toward the front door, but her mother didn’t budge—not until Brian put a hand on her arm and gently but firmly guided her in the same direction.
I waited in the dining room for them to come back, partially because I thought Anne and her father might need a father-daughter moment, but also because I seriously wanted to give her mother a piece of my mind and wasn’t sure I’d be able to bite my tongue. This wasn’t my moment; it was Anne’s, and she’d done brilliantly.
A few minutes later, they returned. Anne walked straight into my arms and buried her face against my neck, which was exactly where I wanted her to be. I held on to her, stroking her back until she stopped shaking.
Brian went back into the kitchen to get another beer, winking at me on his way. I supposed I’d passed his test, whatever it might have been. But that didn’t matter. The only thing important right now was that Anne wanted me.
“I love you, too,” I said quietly in her ear.
She backed away and blinked at me a couple of times. “You what?”
“I love you, too.” I kissed her cheek and winked. “You told your mother you loved me. You said it twice, actually.”
“I suppose I did, didn’t I?”
“Mm hmm. But I have to warn you.”
“What?” she said cautiously, a wary expression drawing her eyebrows together.
“If she ever barges in like that again and tries to tell you anything about how you’re not good enough, I’m not going to hold back. I’m going to give her a piece of my mind.”
Anne laughed quietly. “If she tries that again, I’ll cheer you on.”
“Good. Because I think I told you once before… I don’t like hearing anyone attack the woman I love.”
FOR GAME FIVE, Bergy moved Q up to play left wing on the third line, filling in for Soupy. Jiri Dvorak took Q’s usual place on the right wing on the fourth line, instead of sitting in the press box with the other healthy scratches and guys who were injured. That meant he had no need to double-shift me, which was just as well.
I had what was probably my best game of the playoffs that night, scoring two of the team’s four goals and nearly scoring a third in the second overtime period. We still ended up losing that one, though. Patrick Kane did what he almost always did in overtime during the playoffs for the Blackhawks, and he scored a crazy goal near the end of the third overtime period.
For the first time, we were behind in the series. It didn’t sit well with any of us. Now, we knew we had to win the next two games in a row, or else we would be heading out to the golf course a lot sooner than we wanted to be.
We had two days off before Game Six, thank goodness, so we didn’t have to fly to Chicago in the wee hours of the morning after that one finally came to an end. But there were protests planned across the country for Saturday—including in both Chicago and Portland. The people of Chicago were actually planning multiple protest marches throughout the city all day long. After the higher-ups for both teams talked it over, it was decided we’d all fly out on Friday. They weren’t keen on having us all in the city while the protests were ongoing, but there was no telling what would happen with the airports and traffic if we waited. Better to already be there and ready to go, apparently.
After arriving in Chicago on Friday, Anne was busy with her guys, filming a session with the coaching staff, so I holed up in my hotel room to take the last of my finals for the spring semester. By the time I finished with that, Anne had gone up to the United Center with Drywall Tierney and the rest of the equipment staff. Her text message to me said she didn’t expect to be back until late, so I should find someone else to have dinner with.
I texted a few of the guys to see who was around. RJ was already out with Burnzie and Harry. Babs and 501 were already eating. Hammer, Thor, Jonny, and Vinny appeared to be having a meeting of the Older-Than-Dirt Fathers Club, but they offered to let me tag along. I passed, since I wasn’t in the mood to watch hair videos all night.
Finally, though, I found a couple of takers in Aaron Ludwiczak and Dylan Poplawski. I met Luddy and Pops down in the hotel lobby. After talking to the concierge for a few minutes, we decided to head out to an Italian restaurant within walking distance of the hotel. We wanted somewhere close enough to walk since traffic was unusually heavy and we weren’t in the mood to sit in a cab for an hour to travel only a few miles.
“Why aren’t you out with Anne tonight?” Luddy asked on our way. “Hardly ever see you without her these days.”
“She’s with Drywall tonight.”
“You’ve got competition,” Pops said, laughing his ass off. “Better watch out, or he’ll be stealing your girl.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t doubt he’s flirting with her, the son of a bitch. But I’m not so sure she’ll fall for it.”
“She fell for it with you,” Luddy pointed out. “Drywall might be missing some hair—”
“All his hair,” I cut in.
“—but at least he’s not a fucking shrimp.”
The ribbing went on like that throughout the night, all three of us joking around and picking at each other for our various flaws, real or perceived. The food was good, and the break from all the stress of the playoffs was more than welcome, so we ended up staying for a few hours, our waiter coming back to bring us more drinks a few times. Once we finally decided to return to the hotel, we left him a hefty tip and made our way back out to the street.
Less than a block from the restaurant, we came into a thick crowd of people—so thick we were forced to slow down and take notice. Most of them were black, but there were a few white, Hispanic, and Asian faces among them. Many were carrying signs.
“I thought the protests around the city were all supposed to be tomorrow,” Pops said.
So had I, but apparently we were either mistaken or misinformed. “Come on,” I said, trying to shove my way through the sea of bodies. “Let’s get out of here.” Most of the protests I’d seen on the news in the last few days had been peaceful, but you never knew what might happen when so many people came together over such a heated issue. We would probably be safe out on the streets, but we’d definitely be a hell of a lot safer back at the hotel.
Pops and Luddy helped me push through the bodies around us, but people didn’t want to let us through. It seemed like a big crush on all sides, like one of the New Year’s Eve parties I’d been to years ago, where everyone wanted to be somewhere other than where they were, but they all just did their own thing, not following along with any sort of flow or traffic pattern.
Speaking of traffic, the cars on the street were all at a standstill. I caught a glimpse of a few uniformed police officers blowing whistles and trying to direct people with arm-waving directions, but no one was doing what they were told. In fact, there were dozens of people sitting in the street, blocking traffic completely and refusing to move. With ever
y minute that passed, more people sat down.
This was getting worse by the moment. I pushed harder, trying to create any sort of opening in the crowd, but without much luck. We were only moving by inches, when we should have been moving by feet.
Where the hell was Anne? Was she caught up in a mess like this, too? With any luck, she’d already finished up with whatever they were filming today and gotten back to the hotel before this shit started.
I took out my cell phone, holding it as tightly as I could so I wouldn’t lose it, while I typed out a quick text message for Anne, asking where she was. No response right away, but I wouldn’t expect her to look at her phone if she was still working.
The noise in the crowd started to climb, raised voices chanting the names of Marcus Jameson and the two teenagers who’d been killed.
I glanced over my shoulder to be sure Luddy and Pops were still with me. They caught my eye and nodded, a silent confirmation that they were ready to get the fuck out of there, and the sooner, the better.
Finally, I saw a bit of a clearing ahead—not much of one, but enough to give me hope we would be able to move more freely soon—and I fought my way through to reach it.
A police officer was trying to get people to cooperate, but there was a man standing right in his face and screaming about how the fucking murdering cops needed to watch their racist asses, and no one was doing what he told them to do.
I caught the eye of another officer nearby and pointed toward the other end of the street, trying to show that we just wanted to get out of there. There was no point in trying to say anything from this distance. No one would hear me over the insanity.
He blew his whistle and waved us through. “Keep on moving, guys,” he said as we reached him. “Keep on moving and get out of here.”
“Yeah. Thanks,” I said. Stay safe was on my lips but got swallowed by the sound of gunshots and screams and the sight of the officer falling to the ground, while someone collapsed on me from behind.
“THANKS FOR LETTING us tag along,” I said to Drywall Tierney as his crew and mine both worked on putting away all of their equipment.
He winked at me and put a cover over his skate sharpener. “Any chance I get to spend time with a pretty lady like you, you know I’m going to take it.”
“Just don’t let your wife hear you talking like that,” one of his guys said, and everyone laughed.
Drywall’s guys had been doing some prep work at the arena to get ready for tomorrow’s practice and Sunday’s game, and I’d brought Ben and Dave along to get some time filming them. I wanted to show all the work that’s involved with a professional hockey team, and not simply focus on the players. Since we’d already spent some time with Jim Sutter and some of the coaching staff, I was starting to delve a bit deeper. I wanted to meet with the trainers, maybe even follow some of the scouts around as they prepared for the upcoming draft.
The family atmosphere surrounding the Portland Storm went well beyond the players and coaches, encompassing everyone involved with the team. The more time I spent with them, the more I wanted to spend with them.
Once everything was situated, we headed for the exits.
Before we got there, though, a security officer stopped us and shook his head. “Can’t let you leave right now. There’s an active shooter situation at a protest not far from here, only a few blocks away. Police are asking us to keep everyone inside.”
My blood froze in my veins. “A few blocks away?” The hotel was within a few blocks, too. Most of the team, the coaches…they could all be out and about right now.
Nate could be out there.
“There’s a television in the locker room,” Drywall said. “Let’s go put it on CNN so we’ll know what’s happening.”
Everyone nodded in agreement, and we headed back in that direction.
While we walked, I tore through my backpack to find my cell phone. All the guys who’d been with me did the same, immediately looking to see who had been trying to reach them and to tell their loved ones that they were safe. The wait for my phone to power on seemed interminable. I cursed myself for my habit of turning it off instead of just silencing it while I worked, but finally the screen came to life at around the same time as Drywall got the TV on and found the news coverage.
I had half a dozen messages waiting for me. One was from Nate, sent about ten minutes ago, simply asking where I was.
I replied that I was still at the arena and was safe, but that they were keeping us there until further notice, then asked where he was.
No reply.
While I waited, I responded to the messages from my father, Ben, Bill, Tim, and the other members of my crew who weren’t with me, keeping one eye on the news.
Everyone but Nate replied almost immediately.
I felt like I might vomit.
Once I’d contacted everyone I could think of, including my mother, to let them know I was safe, I set my phone aside and tried not to worry about Nate. His phone might be dead. He might be somewhere that he couldn’t use it. He might not have heard it at all. For all I knew, he was out with some of the guys at a bar, and they were all none the wiser about the situation going on in the city.
Other than the news reports, the only sounds in the locker room were the message alerts on our cell phones or occasionally one of the guys answering a call to calm a loved one. But the more I watched the news, the more I worried about Nate.
Because he still hadn’t responded. And because what I saw was awful.
A protest in the streets that started out peaceful but quickly got out of hand. People sitting in the roadways. Drivers threatening to run them over. Citizens getting in the faces of police officers and screaming bloody murder at them. It was utter chaos, and that was before someone opened fire with semiautomatic weapons.
The first shots were fired about thirty minutes ago, but there were already reports of at least three deaths and close to a dozen injuries. Not only that, but shots were still ringing out on the live footage.
It appeared the shooters were targeting the police officers. The first reports said there were two gunmen. Then three. Now they were saying they suspected at least four were involved, and they wouldn’t rule out the possibility of more than that. Some people were calling 9-1-1 and reporting bomb threats. It was impossible to know just exactly how bad the situation was. Only that it was horrific.
If he was out there, would I ever see him again? What if he was one of the people who’d been caught in the crossfire? He could be dead or dying at this very moment.
Despite the gravity of the situation, the one thing slapping me over the head repeatedly was that even though I loved him, and even though I knew I wanted nothing more than to be with him, I still hadn’t ever let him see any part of my body other than a bit of forearm and calf. How unbelievably selfish was it of me to keep any part of myself from him? And how ridiculous was it that I was so concerned about modesty when it came to being with a man who clearly loved and respected me?
I hoped beyond hope that Nate wasn’t out there on those streets. But if and when I ever saw him again, things would change between us. I wouldn’t hide from him anymore. I wouldn’t allow my mother’s voice to stand between the two of us. That was a promise I was making to myself, here and now, and I would damned well keep it.
But amid the chaos, the live cameras captured acts of true heroism.
A woman was caught in the middle of the pandemonium with her three small children, one she was pushing in a stroller. When others saw that she couldn’t carry them all and the two walking kids couldn’t run to safety fast enough, they dropped what they were carrying to help her protect her children.
A police officer had two men screaming in his face, but when the first shots rang out, he knocked them both to the ground and covered them with his own body, drawing his weapon so he was ready to take on whatever threat came their way.
A restaurant employee raced out into the streets and ushered dozens of people inside
the restaurant, providing them with cover from the gunshots.
There seemed to be no end to the stories of humanity shining through this act of wanton hatred.
The news anchor announced they were going to cut to another bit of amateur footage that had been posted to social media, so I took out my phone one more time to see if I’d somehow missed a message from Nate.
Nothing. Nothing at all. I wanted to cry, but I knew that once I broke down and started, I wouldn’t be able to stop any time soon. Becoming a blubbering mess wouldn’t help anything, so I forced my tears back.
“Shit, that’s Luddy,” Drywall said. “Isn’t it? Looks like Luddy.”
I jerked my head up to see two men, one with his arm draped over the other’s shoulders and limping along, with blood staining one leg of his jeans as he walked.
“It is. And Poplawski,” Ben said. “That’s Poplawski carrying him.”
The tears I’d been trying to hold inside stung the backs of my eyes. But then any attempts to keep myself from crying fell apart, because the camera panned over to show Nate dragging along a police officer, who had a hand pressed to his belly, in much the same way Poplawski was helping Ludwiczak.
The four men were going as fast as they could away from the shots in the background, but they couldn’t move very fast. Then more shots sounded in the distance, and the grainy cell phone video came to an end.
I dropped my phone onto my lap. Dave moved to sit beside me, putting an arm around my shoulders. All I could do was let him hold me, because there wasn’t any chance my tears would stop for a long time to come.
A COUPLE OF EMTs raced over to us, taking the officer I’d been dragging. They helped him onto a gurney. About a block ago, he’d completely passed out from blood loss or shock or something. I’d picked him up onto my shoulders and carried him as far as I could that way, but he was almost as big as I was. He weighed too much for me to get very far like that, so I’d just done what I had to do.
They whisked him off and loaded him into the back of an ambulance. He was gone before I realized I didn’t even know his name.
Game Breaker (Portland Storm Book 14) Page 21