Center Ice (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

- Karen -

I don’t think they knew I was home. Looking back, that’s what makes sense. I was supposed to be down at the beach with Miranda and Sara, but I’d come home early because I was strangely nervous about Tyler’s game that night. It wasn’t his playing that had me concerned; I knew he’d do well and didn’t care if he didn’t, except for the part where he’d be upset about it. I was more worried about it being one more public statement of our coupledom. Dawn had told me that the local reporters had wanted to interview her the year before when Cooper was made alternate captain, and I didn’t want to be that close to the spotlight. And even if the press didn’t care, I was supposed to be sitting in the players’ complimentary ticket area, which Dawn said meant a little extra attention. Will and the kids were going to be at the game so maybe I should have sat with them, but Tyler had offered the ticket and I’d agreed, so I couldn’t back out.

Anyway, I was nervous and I went home early to shower and get dressed. Dawn had come over the day before and helped sort through my wardrobe, trying to find something that would look natural for a hockey game without sacrificing my personal style. She didn’t dress conventionally, either, although her look was more rocker than retro, but at least she understood that I wasn’t trying to look like a kid in a magazine. I was happy with the vintage dress and jean jacket combo we’d come up with, but it wasn’t really enough to keep me calm.

There’d been no one home when I arrived, but as I came up the stairs I heard voices in the kitchen. The grandperfects, and they didn’t sound pleased. I was hoping to sneak out the back door, but I paused at the top of the stairs to plan my escape.

I glanced into the kitchen and saw Natalie standing at the sink staring out the window as if she wished she could climb through it. I hesitated, wondering if I should go in to give her a little support.

“If you’re going to do it, you need to
do
it,” her mother was saying. “I’ve got the name of Cynthia Pearson’s lawyer. You
know
what a good job he did. You should get the accounts frozen, start keeping track of every penny you spend on the kids, or on the house or the cars. If you’re doing this, you can’t mess around.”

“And you need to get that girl out of here,” her father said. “Why the hell are you babysitting his bastard? If it came down to it in court, could that be used as evidence that you
approve
of his infidelities? It’s sure going to make it hard for you to argue that you didn’t
know
about them.”

“Legalities aside,” her mother said, “the whole point of bringing the girl up here was to make
him
take responsibility for his mistakes. Instead, here you are again, covering for him, letting him get away with—”

I didn’t want to hear any more. I wanted to sneak out and pretend I hadn’t heard it at all, but I guess my purse banged on the door, just a little but at exactly the wrong time. Natalie turned and saw me. Her face was drawn tight, and she looked about ten years older than she was. “Karen—” she started, but I didn’t think I wanted to hear any more.

“I’m off to the game,” I said brightly, my smile forced but wide. “I’m going to get dinner there, I think.” Because there was no way on Earth I was going to sit down for a meal with the grandperfects. “Gotta go.” And I was off, trotting down the steps and around the corner of the house, then sprinting for a few glorious strides as soon as I was sure I was out of their sight. I slowed again when I got to the sidewalk but kept moving fast.

Nobody came after me. I might have heard Natalie call my name, but I’m not even sure about that. Probably I imagined it. Why would she chase me? What was there to say? Her parents were right. I had no right to a place in that house, and if Will was gone for good, I guessed I was, too. It made sense, and it was crazy that I hadn’t already thought of it. Yeah, I couldn’t expect Natalie to keep babysitting Will’s bastard. I just had no idea where I was supposed to go.

So I headed for the arena. I was a couple hours early, but maybe Tyler would be there, and maybe he’d have a couple minutes for me. Maybe that would be enough. Just a kiss, a few moments with his warm body making mine feel alive.

I was in the parking lot, heading for the front door, when I heard an unfamiliar voice call my name. I turned to see a man in a business suit jogging across the parking lot toward me. “Karen,” he repeated. “Right?” He saw my hesitation and smiled as he offered his hand. “I’m Brett Gaviston, Tyler’s agent.”

“Oh.” I said, shaking his hand a bit tentatively. I knew Tyler had mixed feelings about his agent, but it seemed best to be polite. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Gaviston.”

“Nice to meet you, too. And, please, call me Brett.”

I nodded to show that I understood, then waited. Were we supposed to be making small talk?

Brett checked his watch, then looked at me. “You’re here early.”

I shrugged. “I guess so.”

“That’s great. It gives us some time to talk. Why don’t we sit over here?” He had his hand on my elbow, not really grabbing hold, just sort of guiding me. I could have gotten free if I’d tried, but it would have felt rude. So I let myself be taken over to the stone bench beneath the trees. He sat down and looked up at me expectantly, so I sat down, too. I wasn’t quite sure when I’d gotten so suggestible; I guess I was still kind of numb from everything at the house.

We just sat quietly for a bit, and then Brett said, “This is a big year for Tyler.”

I nodded. “The draft, right?”

“That’s the goal. Absolutely. But, I’m not sure…” He trailed off, then looked at me apologetically. “You don’t want to hear all this.”

“All what?”

“All my concerns. My worrying about the future. Tyler’s future. That’s not something a pretty girl should have to worry about on a beautiful day like today.”

Reverse psychology? It seemed so transparent, but, damn, it was still working. “If there’s something you think I should know, I’m happy to listen.”

“Are you? Of course you are. Because you care about Tyler.” He nodded. “That’s nice. It truly is. I mean, a lot of people—a lot of young women—care about him. But you’re special, right? Because
he
cares about
you
.”

I didn’t feel too special right then, but I shrugged. “This is what you wanted to tell me?”

Another smile. “I’m not sure I need to tell you anything, really. I mean, you’re a smart girl. A compassionate girl. And you care about Tyler. You know how much he’s given up to get to where he is. How he barely sees his mother, or his brother and sister. He was granted exceptional player status to enter the OHL. Did you know that? So he came down a year early, when he was only fifteen. Left his family behind, started a whole new life in a new town. But you know how hard that is, of course.”

He leaned back and looked up into the leaves over our heads for a moment, like he was lost in reverie. I was getting pretty tired of the performance, but I wanted to see where he was taking it. So I waited patiently, and finally he said, “You haven’t seen how hard he works during the season, of course. Not yet. You haven’t seen him playing hurt, haven’t seen how much it bothers him when he makes a mistake in a game, or how much he hates to lose. Hates letting the team down.”

“He loves the game.” I sounded kind of defensive, even to my own ears.

“He does,” Brett agreed. “And he’s got a chance to make all the pain pay off. All the sacrifices. But he must have told you that it’s far from a sure thing?”

Tyler had definitely told me that. Winslow and the other players I’d met seemed a lot more confident, but Tyler said he wasn’t really big enough for the NHL, and probably wasn’t fast enough, either. “I thought maybe he was just being hard on himself.”

“Realistic, more like it.” Brett shook his head. “If Tyler’s going to be drafted—if he’s going to get the chance to make his dream come true and get the payoff for everything he’s given up—he needs to play better this year than he’s ever played before. He needs
everything
to go right.” He smiled at me again, this time with a little sadness mixed into his expression. “He needs to be totally focused on hockey. No distractions whatsoever.”

Oh. He was talking about me. I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I just stared at him, and after a few moments he shrugged. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t have fun together. It’s just…he’s a good guy. A caring guy. He wants to help people. And you?” Another shrug. “You seem like you could use quite a bit of help.”

“What? You don’t know anything about me.”

“Of course I do. You’ve been here long enough to know how small towns work. I know plenty about you, and I know how things are going at your house.” The smile was gone, now. “I know that things have gone downhill there since you arrived. And maybe they’ll be able to pull themselves back together—I don’t know. But you need to understand that a family is a lot more resilient than a fledgling hockey career. If your dad has a few rough months, that’s too bad for him, but he can bounce back. If
Tyler
has a rough few months? Now, with every scout on the continent watching every breath he takes? That’d be it for him. For all of his dreams. He could be someone who makes millions of dollars playing a game he loves, or he could be another washed-up minor-leaguer, another unemployed drywaller trying to live his dreams through his son.” He waited again, and when he saw I had nothing to say, he gentled his voice. “That’s how important the next few months are to Tyler. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I nodded. I understood. I wasn’t sure how I felt about any of it, but I understood it.

“Good. So you need to make a choice. If you can be the right kind of girlfriend for Tyler? If you can be supportive, someone he comes to for fun and relaxation, someone who knows her place and her role? Then you can help him out. But if you want to drag him into your mess? If you want to make your relationship all about
you
and what you need? You’ll be hurting him. You could be
ruining
him.”

“I’m not going to hurt him.”

He stared at me, then nodded slowly. “I believe you. I believe that you wouldn’t hurt him on purpose. But, honestly—can you stop him from hurting himself? Because if he knows you’re upset about something, he’s going to want to help you, isn’t he? That’s the kind of person he is. But he can’t
be
that kind of person. Not this year.”

I didn’t want to hear any of this. I just wanted to find Tyler, and…distract him? Make him worry about me instead of about the game? Wasn’t that why I’d been coming to the arena in the first place?

“I think you can see the problem,” Brett said gently. “Even talking to him about this conversation? Asking him what he thinks you should do? Even doing that will be a distraction. He’ll be worrying about this instead of about his game. Do you see that?”

“It should be his choice,” I managed to say.

Brett frowned. “He’s made his choice, Karen. Every morning when he got out of bed before dawn to go to the rink, he made his choice. When he left his family behind so he could play hockey, he made his choice. He’s made it so many times already. But now? If he feels guilty, if he feels like he has to protect you and look after you? Is that really a choice
he’s
making, or is it a choice
you’re
making?”

I felt a bit sick. I’d done nothing but create trouble since I got to town. First the Beacons, and now Tyler. “What am I supposed to do?” I whispered.

Brett put a kindly hand on my shoulder. I wanted to shrug it off, but I couldn’t seem to find the energy. “A clean break is probably best,” he said gently. “After the game tonight, you can just tell him you need some space. Tell him you want to be friends, or whatever, but that there are too many changes in your life and you need to keep things stable. That would work, right?”

Of course it would work. It was almost the truth. It was what I’d already told Tyler, and he’d believed me then and given me the space I thought I needed. And I’d gone running to him as soon as I’d been upset, dragging him away from his team dinner, acting like I was the only one who mattered.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I think you do.” He smiled again, and I really wanted to punch him right in his smarmy face. He was a con man, trying to control Tyler because if Tyler made lots of money, Brett would make lots of money. I wasn’t stupid enough to miss all that. But I also wasn’t stupid enough to ignore the truth of what he was saying.

“I need to go,” I said, pushing myself off the bench.

“Be back for the game,” Brett said firmly. “Until you’ve officially broken up, you need to be supportive.”

I didn’t answer. I just walked away, even though I had no idea where I was going to go.

Chapter Twenty-Five

- Tyler -

I pulled the truck into the lot at the park and wasn’t too surprised to see someone Karen-shaped sitting on one of our benches. Her step-mother had called me at the rink, looking for Karen, and said just enough to freak me out. I’d tried Karen’s cell, and when she hadn’t answered I’d convinced Coach to let me take a quick road trip. He’d made it clear I wouldn’t start in the game if I didn’t get back in time for the pre-game skate, but that was okay. It was still early in the season, and our rookies needed ice time. Coach wouldn’t have let me go if he’d thought it was a big deal.

But now that I’d found Karen, I wasn’t quite sure what I was supposed to do about it. Mrs. Beacon had been a bit vague on the phone, just saying that Karen had overheard something she shouldn’t, and they needed to talk, and I should tell Karen that nothing she’d heard meant anything. Probably something with Miranda, I figured, so I hadn’t asked too many more questions.

Sitting there in the parking lot, though, I wished I had a better idea what I was getting into. I reminded myself that this was Karen and I needed to just get over myself and go make sure she was okay, and that helped. So I headed across the grass toward her, and when she saw me coming, she straightened up like she was bracing herself. Like something unpleasant was coming. It totally threw me off.

“You okay?” I asked, trying to sound casual and gentle.

“What are you doing here? You’ve got a game.” She sounded like she was accusing me of something. Sounded kind of like my father, to be honest.

But I tried to ignore that. “Mrs. Beacon called. She said she was worried about you, and said you weren’t answering your phone. And you didn’t answer when I called, either, so that made me a bit worried myself. So…here I am.”

“Your game,” she said. “You need to be at the game. You can’t be chasing me around, dealing with my stupid shit, not when you’ve got something important going on.”

“Okay, well, it’s not a big deal. It’s just hockey, right? Just the Corrigan Falls Rangers? Nothing to get upset about. But, yeah, I should get back as soon as I can. So, do you want to tell me what’s going on? Or maybe just call Mrs. Beacon and talk to her?”

She stared at me, then looked away, over to the forest, her face kind of twisted around, and I realized that she was trying not to cry. It shouldn’t have felt weird to sit down beside her, but it did, especially when I felt her body tense up. “What can I do? I’ll help, but you’ve got to tell me what you need. Seriously, I have no idea what’s going on.”

“No, you don’t,” she said, and she sounded angry. “You have no idea, and it’s none of your business. Look, I have my own stuff, okay? It’s
mine
, and I’ll deal with it. I don’t need your help.”

That was pretty clear. It felt wrong to pretend there was nothing going on, but it also felt wrong to ignore her instructions. “So you want me to just leave? Can you at least call home and check in with her?”

Karen whirled toward me. She wasn’t trying to control her tears anymore. “You need to go to your game. Do you not understand that? This is a big year for you, and you can’t…you can’t…” She stopped talking, then, and turned right around so only her back was facing me.

“I’m fine,” I tried, but she shook her head really hard, making it clear she wasn’t listening to me. “What the hell?” I said, mostly to myself. Everything had been fine, and something had happened, and now everything was wrong. And Karen was suddenly obsessed with me playing hockey? “Should I call your step-mom?”

She shook her head then sat up straight. I could see her taking a deep breath, and then letting it out and taking another. Trying to calm herself down. I was definitely in favor of that idea. Except that after another breath, she turned to face me, and something in her expression made my stomach clench.

“This isn’t working for me,” she said. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I need more space.”

“What? Because of…what? Because you heard someone say something mean about you? Is that what happened? Jesus, Karen, who the hell cares what someone else says, and what does that have to do with you and me?” I needed to figure this out. “Did you hear someone say something about
me?
I honestly don’t think I have any secrets, but if you heard something you don’t like, you should tell me what it is. You need to give me the chance to at least explain it, okay?”

“It’s not about you,” she practically snarled. “It’s about me. And I don’t have to explain it to you, or give you a chance to explain it to me, or anything else. It’s not your choice, it’s
mine
.”

“But—”

“Leave me alone, Tyler. It’s over. Go play your stupid game.”

It didn’t make any sense. But maybe these things never did. Maybe I was just one more in a long line of idiots who thought things were going well when they really weren’t. I mean, Karen wasn’t the first girl I’d slept with, but she was my first real girlfriend. And this was my first real dumping. Maybe they always felt this way. Maybe one person was always mad, and the other one was always shocked, almost dizzy with confusion and fear and denial. “I could call you later,” I tried.

She stood up and took a few steps away from the benches. “I won’t answer.”

I had no idea what to do. I don’t remember deciding to go back to the truck, but somehow, I was in it, staring through the windshield at Karen, back on the bench, with her knees all curled up like she was hugging herself. Hugging herself because she had no one else to do it. I found my phone and dialed, and when Mrs. Beacon answered I said, “Karen’s at the park, the one down from your house, with the forest. She’s…upset, I guess. She didn’t want to talk to me.” Didn’t want to talk to me ever again, but I wasn’t going to tell that to someone I barely knew. “But maybe you should go see her and make sure she’s okay.”

“I’m on my way,” Mrs. Beacon said, and she hung up.

I sat there in my truck until I saw Mrs. Beacon pull in a few spots down, and then I backed out and headed for the arena. Karen didn’t want me. I might as well go play my stupid game.