“You’re kidding, right?” He looked out at the arena where only workers remained, cleaning up the mess left behind by the crowd. He was blushing, which I’d always adored about him. Most guys his age wouldn’t blush. But Jamie wasn’t most guys. “You’ve got to be the only person on the planet who can’t see straight through me if you really don’t know the answer to that question.”
He couldn’t mean that he liked me. I mean, yeah, he had always been really nice to me and hung out with me at team events, but that was just who he was. He had latched on to Tuck and Maddie, too, once they’d moved in across the hall from him. The way he treated me couldn’t mean anything…could it?
But why would he tease me about something like that?
My pulse was roaring through my head and these crazy, jittery tingles kept racing around in my chest and belly, and I couldn’t force a single word past my lips without fear that I’d make an absolute fool of myself. I could only stare at him and wish that he’d look at me again.
“Will you go with me?” he said finally. When he faced me, his blue eyes were so dark they were like the midnight sky, and he looked just as sick and anxious as he had when he’d watched Dad shaving my head. “Will you let me take you to your prom?”
“I…” My whole body shook so hard that even my lips trembled. I pressed them tightly together, trying to rein in my response.
That was when he touched my cheek with the back of his hand. I half gasped, half sighed and turned my head in toward his touch, seeking more like a greedy cat.
Of course, that was also the moment when my dad walked into the owner’s box. Jamie’s gaze lifted over me to the doorway, but he didn’t take his hand away.
“I’m going to murder that dipshit,” Dad said, but somehow his voice was growing distant, like he was moving farther away from us instead of coming closer.
Jamie’s lips quirked up on one side. “Zee and Soupy hauled him out of here. Looks like they were waiting on him to come in like that. I don’t know how much longer we have before he comes back to finish me off.” He laughed. How could he laugh about something like that? “So will you? Let me take you?”
“But my dad…” No matter how tempting it was to forget reason and agree to go to prom with Jamie, I knew it was nothing more than a dream. There was no chance my father would ever agree to let one of his teammates take me out, whether it was to my prom or anything else. That would be an absolute nonstarter.
Jamie moved his hand, and his fingers dipped beneath the edge of my scarf. I wanted to pull away, but the look in his eye held me in place while he used nothing more than his fingertips to caress my newly bald scalp. “I’ll deal with your dad. Let me worry about that.”
Maybe having no hair made my skin more sensitive, or maybe it was the effects of the chemo—I couldn’t be sure. All I knew was that my whole body was zinging with awareness from the way his fingertips were dancing over the skin an inch or two above my ear.
I’d dated a few boys before. I’d been kissed and touched in various ways, and it had all been exciting and wonderful and new, but this was so different. The way he was touching me was so much more intimate, and I felt more vulnerable and scared and raw than I could ever remember feeling in my life, but I didn’t want it to end. Because it was perfect.
It made me wish I wasn’t sick, that I was whole and alive and vibrant like I used to be.
I wasn’t entirely sure what came over me because everything I’d said about not wanting to be the bald girl at prom was still a massive deterrent to going, and I had a very real fear that my father would do actual physical harm to Jamie, but I said, “Okay. Yes. I’ll go with you.”
He smiled, one of those amazing, shy smiles he had that made his dimples come to attention and left me wanting to kiss him. “Good. Now I’d better go deal with Webs before he hurts one of the boys.”
I took his hand when he pulled it away from my head, holding it in mine for just a second. “Don’t…don’t let him hurt you, either.”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said, squeezing my hand and sending a flood of warmth through to every nerve ending I had.
Before I could come up with a reasonable argument to convince him to leave by escaping through a back alley or some other means where he wouldn’t have to go near my father, Jamie let go of my hand, winked at me, and was gone.
Mom came over almost instantly, like she’d been watching and waiting for Jamie to leave. “Do you want to tell me what that was about, or would you rather keep it to yourself?”
“Prom,” I said.
That damn wetness popped back into her eyes, and she said, “Oh,” all soft and touched and mom-like while she tried to blink the tears back.
“Don’t let Dad hurt him,” I begged. “Please.”
Mom nodded and steeled her spine. “Not if I have anything to say about it.” Just like that, her eyes were focused and she looked like Super Mom, ready to set the world right, at least for today.
I felt sorry for anyone who didn’t have a mom like mine.
Heck, I felt sorry for anyone who didn’t have a dad like mine, too.
They might drive me crazy sometimes, but it was only because they loved me.
“I asked Katie to let me take her to her prom. That’s all.”
Webs hadn’t stopped glaring at me since I found where Zee and Soupy had dragged him. For now, he was just sitting on a bench in the concourse. That meant he wasn’t trying to close the distance between us so he could wring my neck or rip my head off my shoulders or any of the much more horrifying things involving certain parts of my anatomy I’d been imagining ever since Kally had put the idea of taking Katie to prom in my head this afternoon.
I didn’t expect he would stay there very long. Not with the energy vibrating off him like it was. You could almost see it pinging through the air around him.
Zee was sitting next to him, and Soupy was standing off to the side—by all appearances, both of them ready to hold him back if needed. I didn’t attempt to delude myself that they were doing it for my sake. It was for Katie, just like my somehow finding the balls to ask her and then coming here to talk to Webs about it was for Katie.
It was like Jim Sutter, our GM, was always saying: the Portland Storm wasn’t just a team and a business. We were a family, and we took care of our own. It was my turn to do some of that taking care of our own bit.
“I don’t give a fuck what you asked her,” Webs growled at me. “She’s my little girl, and you’re going to stay the fuck away from her and keep your hands to yourself.”
“No, he’s not. Not this time, Dave.”
I would know Laura Weber’s voice anywhere. It was so much like Katie’s, smooth and warm, but a little older and more careworn. I turned my head to see her marching straight for us, looking more determined than I’d seen her look about anything since Katie’s diagnosis. She’d always been a force to be reckoned with, as long as I’d known her, but it was like she’d forgotten all of that when Katie had gotten sick. They’d all been losing a bit of their fight lately, the whole Weber family.
“She’s still in high school,” Webs shot back at her. “I’m not letting one of my fucking teammates, who’s a grown-ass man, anywhere near my little girl.”
“And she’s got cancer.” Laura didn’t stop until she was standing between me and Webs, like she could somehow stop him from killing me just by standing between us. She planted her hands on her hips and stared at her husband while I tried to maneuver myself around her. There was no chance in hell I was going to let Katie’s mom be a shield for me. She glanced at me but then returned her focus to her husband. “Cancer trumps your illogical need to keep her under lock and key until she’s past her child-bearing years.”
“The fact that she’s sick is one more reason she’s not going. She needs to stay home. She needs rest.”
“All she does is rest!” Laura practically shouted at him. “She can rest the whole day leading up to prom so she’s got the energy to go. Bu
t she’s going. And Babs is taking her. And that’s all there is to it because what she needs to do more than anything else is live—really live and not just survive like she’s been doing the last few months.”
It was almost as though she’d kicked me right in the nuts with that one. There was something in the way she’d said it, something that made it seem possible that if Katie didn’t really start living again, then maybe she wouldn’t survive it at all.
That’s the thing with cancer, in my limited experience. It doesn’t matter what the doctors say about your chances. If you give it the finger and keep going with your life, you have a hell of a better likelihood of kicking its ass than if you just give everything up and count on drugs and therapies and all that bullshit to fight it for you. At least it had always seemed that way to me, but I’d never had cancer before. I’d only watched my aunt go through it a few years ago—and I’d watched her lose. She’d shut herself off like Katie had once they’d started pumping the drugs into her, and it had eaten all the life out of her eyes until one day there’d been nothing left. She’d given up, and it had taken her away from my uncle and my cousins and my mom.
I couldn’t handle seeing that happen to Katie. I wasn’t ready to let her go.
It seemed like Laura’s words had hit Webs just like they’d hit me. He looked as nauseated as I felt.
She moved a few steps closer to his bench and sat down next to him. “She has to remember that she’s still alive. She has to remember what she’s living for or we’re going to lose her. This whole ordeal has just proven that, no matter how much we may want to, we can’t protect her from life.”
“I don’t want to protect her from life,” Webs grumbled. “I want to protect her from dipshits like him—”
“He’s not going to hurt her, Dave, and you’re seriously deluding yourself if you for one second believe otherwise.”
I was a lot more afraid that I was going to be the one to get hurt in all of this—that I would end up with a broken heart. Someday, when Katie was healthy again and ready to get back to her life as it should be, she would move on. She’d probably head to LA or New York, somewhere she could pursue an acting or singing career. It was what she’d been dreaming of as long as I’d known her. I’d have to let her go, even though it would probably rip me to shreds. It would be worth it, though, getting hurt in the end. At least it would if it meant giving Katie something—anything—she could hold on to.
If it meant getting to hold her at least for one night.
“I don’t like it,” he said, looking straight through me.
“None of us likes it,” Laura said. “It makes us feel helpless because we can’t do anything. But for once, try to imagine what it’s like for Katie.”
I had to wait a long time for Webs to respond.
* * * *
We had several games on the road after that, so I didn’t get the chance to see or talk to Katie for over a week. I got to see Webs a whole lot more than I might have liked, since he was still more than happy to glare at me and tell me all the horrible and painful things he’d do to me if I did hurt her in any way.
I’d do anything to keep her from getting hurt, though.
Once we got back, I was really glad I’d taken Zee’s advice last season and bought a tux. He’d told me there would be black-tie dinners, an annual Casino Night, and God only knew what else that I’d need one for during my pro career, and it just made more sense to have one of my own instead of wasting time trying to rent one. When you considered the fact that most hockey players needed custom-made pants anyway because we tend to have big thighs and asses, it really seemed stupid to rent.
Even still, I’d had to get some adjustments made to mine before Casino Night about a month ago. Everyone had warned me to get one with extra allowance for alterations because I probably wasn’t finished growing. They’d been right. I’d added a couple more inches in height and about fifteen pounds of muscle since I got drafted the summer I was eighteen.
My tux still fit me now, though. My body hadn’t changed too much since Casino Night. I adjusted the cummerbund and bow tie, looking myself over in the mirror. Fuck. I should have gotten a haircut, at least. It was a lot shaggier than it should be, and my faux hawk probably wasn’t the best choice for an event like this, but there hadn’t been time for that once we’d landed at PDX. I’d just had time to get home, eat something, and get dressed.
I rubbed some product between my hands and tried to get my hair to settle down—without much luck. Yeah, I really should’ve worked in time for a cut. If I was going almost anywhere else, I could toss a ball cap over it and pretend there wasn’t a problem. Not tonight.
After a minute, I gave up trying to get it to lie flat or even to stop poking up in random ways. There wasn’t much point.
I headed to the living room. Kally came out of the kitchen with a glass of water. He looked me over and nodded.
“You’re doing a good thing,” he said. “Katie’s really lucky to have you.”
He had it all wrong, though. I was lucky to have her. I tried to shrug off all the jumbles of things racing through me. At least for tonight, I had to keep it together.
“Got big plans for tonight?” I asked him. In the few weeks since Kally had arrived in Portland, there hadn’t been too many times that he and I weren’t doing something together on a night off. I’d been trying to help him get to know the area, to make sure he wasn’t alone too much. It had to be tough, being the new guy on a team that had been together all season.
He shook his head. “Not really. I think I’m just going to drive around and see the city. I haven’t had much opportunity for that.”
“Yeah. Well, if you get bored, call Burnzie,” I said. Keith Burns didn’t believe in boredom. He always had something going on. Granted, probably not the sorts of things that would interest Kally, but still. I hated to see the guy alone, knowing what I did about how his wife died. It had been all over the news—the mainstream news, too, not just the hockey news. She’d had a flat tire on the highway and had been hit by an eighteen-wheeler while she was trying to change it.
He’d been gone with the team on a road trip. I hadn’t ever talked to him about it. I didn’t know how to bring it up, or if it would be stupid or rude of me to try to get him to talk. But everyone knew.
“I doubt I’ll need to do that,” Kally said, grinning.
I could never tell if his smiles were real or if he was just trying to pretend he was okay. How long does it take to get over something like that? I hoped I didn’t have to learn anytime soon. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”
“Get out of here. Go get Katie, and don’t worry about me.” He swallowed a big swig of water. “I can look after myself.”
I didn’t have time to argue with him unless I wanted to be late picking up Katie. Considering all the threats Webs had issued lately, I didn’t think that would be a good idea.
I pulled into their driveway about five minutes early.
Luke Weber—Katie’s younger brother—opened the door. “You’d better come in and help or you’ll never get out of here. Mom’s fussing over her.”
As soon as I stepped into the foyer, I could hear the commotion.
“This one looks so pretty with the color of the dress, though,” Laura said.
“But it’s flannel,” Dani Weber—the youngest of the Weber siblings—said. You could almost hear a horrified shudder in her voice.
“Exactly. It’s flannel,” Laura countered. “Which will keep her head warm.”
“I’m not wearing a flannel scarf with this dress.”
“You could just stay home and not have to worry about what scarf to wear,” Webs put in hopefully.
“She’s going,” Laura and Dani said at the same time.
“Not in a scarf that doesn’t look right,” Katie said. “I’d rather go with nothing on my head at all.”
“But you’ll get cold,” Laura argued.
Luke glanced over at me, his eyebrows s
hooting up into his hairline almost comically. “See what I mean?”
He led me into the living room, where dozens of scarves of every color and fabric imaginable were draped over all the furniture. Laura must have started shopping for them the same day they got the diagnosis. Katie stood in the middle of the mess wearing an ice-blue dress that made her look like a princess. She even had on gloves, those long satiny ones that went up higher than her elbows. It was like she’d stepped right out of a fairy tale.
She looked up and saw me then. And she smiled.
My tongue got thick and dry. No one had caused that sort of reaction in me in a long time—no one but Katie. I cleared my throat. “You look beautiful.”
She gave a tiny shake of her head, and she blushed. “Do you mind? If I don’t wear a scarf tonight? I haven’t found a wig I like yet, and I just…” Her eyes fell down to the flannel scarf in her hand.
“I don’t mind whatever you do. You’ll always be beautiful to me.”
Webs shot me a go-to-hell look and grunted, and I was sure he was about to spout off another threat, but Laura’s eyes turned soft and misty before he could. “But if you get cold…” she said.
“We’ll take a scarf with us,” I said, and I felt the weight of Katie’s gaze fall on me. “And a sweater. Just in case.” She had those gloves going up her arms, but her shoulders were bare. I didn’t know how warm that dress was, but it didn’t look anywhere close to as warm as my tux, and it was cool out tonight.
Katie nodded. “Just in case.”
After a little more hemming and hawing, Laura finally relented and agreed to let us go as long as we took a warm scarf and sweater with us. I draped them both over my arm to carry them for Katie, and she picked up a small, white evening bag. I reached for her hand, but Webs cut between us and put a hand at the small of Katie’s back.
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