“Our secret,” I murmured.
She pulled a fancy notebook out, as well, setting it beside the books. “For songwriting.”
“How’d you know I was thinking about writing songs?”
Maddie shrugged. “Why would you be making a studio in your house if you weren’t going to be singing? And a lot of singers write their own songs. It just makes sense.”
I supposed it did. I picked up the book on the top of the stack. Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase. “Have you read this one?” I asked. Maddie had always been an avid reader, but I supposed she’d grown up a lot in the last few years if she was reading books like these. I was used to seeing her with the Percy Jackson series or the Harry Potter books.
She nodded, eyes wide with excitement. “That’s one of my favorites. Mom’s too. That’s why she put it on top. She said to start with that one.” She looked around my room, her brows puckered. “You need a reading chair in here.”
“I hadn’t thought of that yet,” I murmured, tossing the book back on the pile.
“Which one is the most comfortable? From the living room?” Maddie was already on her way out. “We can move one in here for now, and then sometime you can get one that’ll go with the rest of your furniture in here better. But if you’re going to be shut away in your room a bunch, you need a good chair.”
I followed her and picked one out. As soon as I did, she hollered for Étienne and his older brother, Patrice, to come and move it, directing them as to exactly how it should be placed.
“You take after your mom a lot,” I said to her. “Did you know that?”
Maddie rolled her eyes. “We all look like Mom.”
“I wasn’t talking about the way you look,” I said, winking. “I meant the way you just get things done.”
She blushed, but she kept working. She found a warm blanket and draped it over the back of my chair, and she relocated a floor lamp so it was behind the chair. In no time, she’d created a cozy reading corner.
It wasn’t long before everyone else had my studio set up and functional. Soupy came over after a while, claiming that Rachel had kicked him out because he was a nuisance. I suspected she just wanted a quiet evening without having to watch the game, though. She worked for the team, and she was married to one of the players. I had a feeling she couldn’t escape it. Anyway, Tuck had gone over to play with some friends for the afternoon, and Soupy said the twins had come down with something they’d picked up at daycare and were napping. I figured she didn’t want the game—or Soupy’s reactions—to wake them up.
I ordered pizza, and everyone dug in while we watched the Storm’s game against the Washington Capitals. The guys played much better this time, and I couldn’t help but notice that even though Koz still liked to showboat a bit out there, he was at least starting to make an effort at backchecking when the play headed the other direction. That was a huge improvement. Maybe Jamie’s plan was starting to work.
They still lost the game, but it wasn’t for a lack of effort this time. It was more that the Caps’ goalie was a beast in the net tonight, and he wasn’t letting much of anything past him. That happened sometimes. They could play well but run into a hot goaltender who would essentially steal the game. We all knew Nicky had done that on more than a few occasions himself, so you couldn’t curse the hockey gods for it. All signs were starting to point toward the guys turning their season around, though, so my guests went home in a more relaxed mood than they would have a week or two ago.
Soupy and Maddie were the last to leave. I followed them out to be sure he didn’t catch one of his crutches on something in the dark. Maddie got into his SUV and dug a book out of her bag—I had to wonder if it was one of her mom’s romance novels—but Soupy held back for a minute.
“You ready for tomorrow?” he asked.
“No.” I would rather not think about tomorrow at all.
“You’ll get through it all right. I’m on afternoon Katie-sitting duty. Rachel said I get to be there for the puking-up-your-guts part this time. Something about men being disgusting pigs anyway so I should be able to handle it.” He laughed. “It can’t be any worse than changing explosive diapers, right?”
I didn’t feel like laughing.
“Hey,” he said, “lighten up some. There’s more than enough time later to be down about it.”
I smiled for his sake even though I was on the verge of crying again. Those tears seemed to always be just under the surface these days. I was like a ginormous ball of anger and anxiety and fear lately—mainly fear. Always fear. “I’m trying.”
“I know you are.” He let go of the handgrip on one of his crutches and waved me closer. “Come here.”
“I shouldn’t get too close right now.” They said some contact was all right, but how could they be sure? And how much was too much? Soupy had a family who needed him healthy and whole, and he had enough issues of his own without adding whatever my radioactive body might add to the mix.
“I promise I will avoid touching you at all costs for the next few days and I’ll follow all the damn safety rules while I’m around you, but right now you need a fucking hug. So come here.”
He was right about that. I needed a hug. I needed human contact. I was so desperate for it that I didn’t know what to do with myself. That desperation finally won out, and I crossed over to him.
Soupy gave good hugs. He was a big, strong man with arms that felt safe, and I let him enfold me in a brotherly embrace. He held me a lot longer than I should have allowed, and he kissed my cheek when he finally backed away.
“Better?” he asked.
I nodded. “At least for now.”
“All right. I’ll see you after lunch for cleanup duty.”
I wandered back inside, not sure what to do with myself now that I was alone. Jamie would probably call me after a while, but not until they got to the hotel in Tampa. I thought about reading one of Rachel’s books, but I wasn’t in the mood. Instead, I picked up the notebook and pen, and I headed out to the backyard to sit on the swing, thinking I could give songwriting another try. It hadn’t worked out so well the first time, but I wasn’t ready to give up. There’d been a lot on my mind lately, which surely had an effect on my ability to be creative.
The light of the moon combined with the streetlights around the city were just enough that I could see what I was writing. At first, I just scribbled a few words that didn’t make any sense. But then the emptiness I felt from seemingly being alone even while I had people surrounding me started to take shape in words, and I filled the page. As I moved farther down the page, some inner sense took over. I realized some of the lines I’d written early on were wrong, they merely skimmed the surface of what I’d meant to say, so I went back and scratched through them, scrawling in the margins to put down what I really meant.
I got so caught up in what I was working on that I completely lost track of time. It was only when my phone rang and I realized it was Jamie calling me that I had a clue how many hours had passed. I answered, gathering up my notebook and pen so I could go back inside.
For a while, we talked about the game and other things going on with the team. He told me about a prank Coop and some of the other guys had played on Levi, and he filled me in on the fact that Dad had done a face-plant coming off the plane and busted his nose so badly that he looked like he had been in a fight. I walked him through my day in much the same way.
“Sounds like you had a bunch of company all day,” he said.
“Yeah.” But I’d still been lonely. How did that work? I’d been surrounded by people all day, people who obviously cared about me because they’d given up their time to help me out, but I had still felt as if I were on an island of one.
“You alone now?”
“Yeah. Soupy stuck around for a bit after the game, but he had to get home and help Rachel with the kids. Mom’s coming back at the butt crack of dawn to take me up to the cancer center.” And then the whole process was going to start all
over again. I got choked up just thinking about the isolation that would be upon me in less than half a day. “Jamie, I don’t know if I can do this! I can’t handle it.”
“You can. You will.” He sounded so certain, but I was on the verge of a total meltdown. “I’ll be back late on Tuesday. I’ll come over when I get home if you want.”
“You can’t stay with me then.”
“I could stay in your guest room.”
“Blackbeard needs you.”
“So do you.”
I did, but he couldn’t give me what I needed right now.
“It’s bullshit. It’s absolute fucking bullshit.” Soupy was barking into the phone, spouting off more obscenities than I could keep up with, and I still didn’t have a clue what the hell he was talking about in the first place.
“Slow down,” I said over the latest string of curses. “What’s bullshit? What’s going on?”
“You haven’t seen the pictures of me and Katie?”
Apparently not. “What kind of pictures?” I asked warily. I knew better than to think anything had happened between the two of them. Soupy was as head over heels in love with Rachel as I was with Katie. Plus, Katie had been dealing with cancer treatments, for fuck’s sake. But I was quickly learning that there was no telling how sick and twisted the media could make something innocent seem.
“I hugged her last night out in front of her house,” he said. “She needed a hug, and I was there, and I gave her a fucking hug. They’ve apparently been camping out down the street all week, taking pictures of me every time I come and go so they can talk about how often I’m coming over to fuck her or some shit. And then last night, they got their money shot when I hugged her. Like it’s fucking proof of anything.”
“They don’t need proof,” I said. They just needed some fodder to work from and then they were off to the races.
“What the hell do we do about it?”
Punching things wouldn’t help, I reminded myself. “Does Katie know yet?”
“I doubt it. I hope not, at least. This is the last thing she needs right now. Laura’s got her home now, but I doubt she’s feeling up to doing much.”
“Well, for now, just keep doing what you’re doing. It doesn’t matter what people think. What matters is keeping Katie’s spirits up enough that she can get healthy again.” And in the meanwhile, I needed to up my game on figuring out a way to combat the paparazzi.
That was just the way my life was lately—solve one problem and another would crop up to replace it.
When we finally got back to Portland, Blackbeard had nearly doubled in size. Or at least it seemed that way. He hadn’t forgotten me, though. As soon as I walked through the door, he made a flying leap for me and climbed the rest of the way to my shoulder. I tried to pet him, but he bit my finger and butted his head against mine, rubbing all over me so hard that he would have fallen off if not for my hand holding him steady.
I texted Katie to see if she was awake. No answer. Even though I was desperate to at least see her, despite the fact that I couldn’t touch her, I stayed at my house all night. She needed her sleep. Not that I got any. The whole night, I tossed and turned, going crazy being this close to her again and not being able to talk to her or touch her, to let her know that I was here and do whatever I could to make her feel better. Blackbeard wasn’t a fan of my insomnia. Every time I rolled over, he grumbled at me and readjusted, sometimes nipping my nose or my ear to be sure I understood the gravity of his displeasure.
Morning finally arrived. I felt like shit from lack of sleep and having flown all the way across the country after yet another loss, but it didn’t stop me from texting to see if she was up. Still nothing. I took a shower, made my breakfast, and played with Blackbeard for a bit, waiting for her to wake up.
She didn’t respond, though.
I needed to leave for practice soon. Bergy had told me I should take the day off. He and Jim were willing to call it a maintenance day for me even though I didn’t have any injuries that needed to be rested. I didn’t feel good about that, though. Yeah, the guys all knew that Katie had cancer again, and I needed to be with her, but we were finally starting to play like a team even if we were losing. Skipping out on practices didn’t seem very captain-like, so I wasn’t going to go there.
With about ten minutes left before I had to head out the door, I thought maybe I could look across the back fence to see if I could get a glimpse of her through one of her windows. Right now, anything would help to ease my worries. I went out back and walked up to the fence to find her swinging under the tree.
“Hey,” I said, and she swiveled her head to look at me. I propped my arms on top of the rails and rested my chin on them, staring. Just staring. I couldn’t get enough of her.
“Hey,” she said, her sweet voice cracking.
“I texted to see if you were up yet.”
“My phone’s inside. I came out to watch the sun come up. Haven’t moved since.”
She had on a checkered shirt with a soft, fuzzy blanket draped around her shoulders. It wasn’t cold out, but she was shivering hard enough I could see it from here. All I wanted to do was go over to her side of the fence and hold her close until she stopped shaking. We both knew that wasn’t possible right now, though.
“Why don’t you go inside and warm up?” I suggested.
She turned her head again, looking off into the distance. “Why? So I can turn on the TV and see the latest headlines and figure out what they’re accusing me of next? Katie Weber bought a house across town so she can screw every guy in the NHL right under her father’s nose! Next thing you know, they’ll be saying I’m screwing Dad, too. Or maybe that he’s my pimp. I bet that’s it. He’s sending you guys my way so he can take a cut of the profits, and Mom’s working as my madam. Maybe I’m busy training up all the other WAGs so they can prostitute themselves, too. I bet that would make for a great headline.”
“Have you thought about revealing that you have cancer again?” I asked. I didn’t want her to have to do that if she wasn’t ready for it, but I was grasping at straws to figure out a way to get them to leave her alone. “Maybe if you let the world in on what’s really happening, the gossip sites would leave you alone.”
“Or maybe they’ll just find a new way to twist it into something worse than it already is,” she bit off. “Breaking news! Katie Weber is funding a radical, costly, and dangerous cancer treatment by whoring herself out to everyone with a cock and two pennies to rub together. Thanks, but no thanks.”
I wished she would look at me. I wished I could see her face and know she was looking in mine, so I could reassure her in some way. But there wasn’t much I could say, and it felt as if there was even less that I could do to actually help.
“I’ll figure something out to get them to leave you alone,” I said.
“Good luck with that. For all we know, they’ve found some way to tap our phones. They’ve probably been recording our calls, and they’re saving that to broadcast sometime soon, when the latest bit of gossip has died off. Sordid phone sex with Katie Weber is just a button away…for the right price! Just wait. It’s coming.”
But it wasn’t. Not if I had anything to say about it.
“New Year’s Eve?” I repeated after Brie, glancing up at her, Jessica, and the guys from The End of All Things to be sure I’d heard correctly. They nodded. It seemed so far off even though it wasn’t all that far at this point.
It was a day off for the Storm, and Katie was with her mother at the cancer center to get another round of radiation. She’d refused to let me come with her. All I have to do is drink some nasty shit and wait for it to start working. And by the time it does, all I want to do is puke, and you can’t be around me then, anyway. I’d still go over to spend my couple of hours with her later, but this had given me the perfect excuse to get together with Brie and see where our plans stood. She’d set up a meeting with the band and Jessica so we could all be together at the same time and hash out the
finer details. We were at the Light the Lamp offices, and Jessica’s assistant was manning the phones while we talked over coffee and Voodoo Doughnuts.
“That’s the soonest we can possibly get something put together,” Spencer Braddock, the lead guitar player, said. “We’ve got the final leg of our tour to finish up. While we’re doing that, we can have Brie, Jessica, and some of our people back here doing the legwork.”
“But what about the Light the Lamp event that night?” I argued, adding cream to my coffee. Every year, Jessica put on a big event on New Year’s Eve for her foundation, a party where addicts and anyone else who wanted to join in could come and hang out for a sober good time. It acted as a fund raiser for Light the Lamp, too, since she got local hotshots to be celebrity drivers for the night. If we were in town, she usually wrangled a bunch of the Storm players to take part. Katie and Beau had done it last year since they’d been in town. People would bid on the opportunity for us to drive them home afterward. It didn’t seem fair to take that night away from Light the Lamp in order to do something for Katie.
“We’re going to figure out a way to combine it all into one big night,” Jessica reassured me. “This is actually going to work out great for Light the Lamp because if we can get the band involved, the turnout will be through the roof.”
“We’ll pay for the production costs for the concert out of the ticket prices,” Brie said. “Everything that’s left after that is going to be split equally between Light the Lamp and the Katie Weber Foundation.”
“Laura and I should be done getting the new foundation set up in the next couple of weeks, so it’ll all work out,” Jessica said.
“And you guys don’t care that you’d be working for free?” I asked the band.
“It won’t be the first charity gig we’ve done, and it won’t be the last,” Emery Johnson said. He was the keyboard player for the band, and the one who did most of the songwriting. He was the one I wanted to get Katie involved with more than any of them.
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