Comeback (8 page)

I followed them inside and handed the pharmacy bag to Henrik so he could put it somewhere out of the kids’ reach. He gave me a consoling look and slapped a hand on my shoulder. He didn’t say anything. Neither did I. There wasn’t really much to say at this point. He was doing everything he could to take care of Emma without causing her undue stress or pain, and I was doing everything I could to hold myself together so I could be there for the kids when they needed me.

Hugo and Nils came running out of their bedroom when they heard us come in, both wearing Storm jerseys bearing my number, thirty.

“Mama said we can go to the game tonight since you’re starting,” Hugo said.

Nils couldn’t say anything at all. He was too busy jumping around and racing in circles, his excitement running over.

“On a school night?” I asked, raising a brow in Emma’s direction. I’d never known her to let the kids stay out late when they had school the next day.

She typed into her computer. “As long as their homework is done. You don’t get to play that often. We want to come.”

We
. Not they. Emma was coming, too.

“Is everyone’s homework done, then?” I asked.

“We finished it before you came over to get us,” Elin said. She’d already picked up a third jersey and pulled it on over her T-shirt, and she was putting a thick sweater on her mother. It would be cold in the arena, and she was very sensitive to temperature these days. I wasn’t so sure about all of this, but I crossed over to help Elin, taking Emma’s hands and pulling them through the sleeves. When we finished, I straightened to find Henrik standing next to me with a couple of throw blankets he was packing into a bag. He’d pulled on a Storm sweatshirt, too.

“So it’s all been decided, then?” I said, feeling helpless. I felt that way a lot lately.

“I’ll be there. I’ll make sure she’s all right,” he replied.

“How many more times will I be able to watch you play?” the computer’s voice said, and my tongue got thick. Not many. Not many at all. “I used to go to all your games,” she said. “I want to go to this one.”

I still hadn’t told any of my teammates about Emma and the kids. About the ALS. I had kept it all to myself where the guys were concerned, not wanting them to think this was another reason they shouldn’t trust me in net. I didn’t want them to think I was going to be distracted and wouldn’t be able to focus on what I needed to focus on. I’d hoped to keep it a secret a little longer.

But secrets always seemed to come out in the end. The longer I tried to keep it hidden, the greater a distraction it would become. Maybe it was better for them to see it all now, when I was going to be in the net, when I could prove that even with all these other distractions in my life, I was capable of doing my job.

I swallowed all of my arguments and nodded. “All right. Let’s go, then.”

JESSICA WAS WALKING
in to the Moda Center from the parking garage when we pulled in. She hadn’t been to any of our games yet this season. I’d been looking for her, asking her when she would come. She was busy, though, and I knew she watched from home even if she didn’t show up in person. She always knew what had happened before I could tell her, leaving me to fill in a few details from the bench, the sorts of things that couldn’t come across on the television screen. I’d texted her earlier today, once Bergy had told me that I was starting tonight, so I could let her know. I’d thought maybe, since we’d been talking so much lately, she would show up to see me play, but I hadn’t gotten my hopes up that she’d be there.

She stopped in her tracks when she saw my minivan pulling in, and she waved, staying put until I’d parked. Then she moved over to join us. I couldn’t help but notice her smile as soon as I got out. She always smiled at me, even when the last thing in the world I could think about doing was smiling. She made my life a little brighter just by doing that. I wondered briefly if she realized she had that effect on me, if other people reacted the same way I did when they saw it. But then she was watching Hugo and Nils climb down; her attention was on them and not on me. Everything about her was still bright, though.

This was the first time she’d met the munchkins. The first time she would see Emma. I had told her all about Emma’s wheelchair, the text-to-speech program, all the things I could think to tell her in advance. There was no way to really be prepared for meeting someone in the advanced stages of ALS, though. It had been a shock to the system for me, and I’d already been around my father when he was going through it. I’d at least known what I was witnessing.

Nils walked right up to Jessica and said, “Who are you?”

“Nils!” Elin shouted. “Be polite.”

Jessica took it all in stride. She kneeled down so she was on eye level with my youngest nephew, holding out her hand. “I’m your uncle’s friend, Jessica. And who are you?”

“Nils Larsson,” he said warily, but he still stuck out his hand for a very awkward handshake. “Are you his girlfriend?” he demanded. “Uncle Nicky said he doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

Jessica gave me a panicked look, and that was when I knew I needed to intervene. She felt trapped. Hell, I felt slightly trapped, too. I liked Jessica a lot, and I would have to be blind not to be attracted to her, but we weren’t anywhere close to having that sort of relationship. I couldn’t even think about starting up that sort of relationship when I was still coming to terms with the fact that I was soon to be a single parent to my niece and nephews, all the while trying to stay clean and sober.

I picked Nils up and put on my best stern expression. “Jessica is my friend, not my girlfriend.”

“But she’s a
girl
.”

“Girls can be friends without being girlfriends.”

“Says who?”

“Says me,” Jessica said, confidently taking over. “I could be your friend, too.”

“I’m not so sure you want to be friends with this one,” I said. “He gets to be kind of smelly sometimes.”

She laughed. “So do you.”

“It’s a guy thing,” Hugo said, putting himself into the conversation. He came over and stood in front of Jessica. “I’m Hugo. We don’t mean to be smelly.”

“I’m sure you don’t.”

“
I’m
not so sure about that,” Elin said when she, Emma, and Henrik came around from the other side of the minivan. “I think sometimes you try to be as stinky as possible.”

I sniffed Nils. “Not stinky now.”

“Good. I think I’m safe, then,” Jessica said, laughing.

“Are you going to sit with us tonight?” Hugo asked her.

“Oh. I don’t…”

She looked at me, but I couldn’t tell if she wanted me to steer her clear of them or give her the go-ahead. There was a selfish part of me that wanted her with them tonight. I would have to be down on the ice while they would be up in the owner’s box with all the other players’ wives and girlfriends and kids. I didn’t know how people would react when they saw Emma. Having Jessica there would provide at least a bit of a buffer.

I raised a brow, shrugging. “Might be your only opportunity to be around them when they aren’t trying to clear the room through somewhat less-than-covert methods.”

Her expression turned wry, and she laughed. “I suppose if you want me to and it’s all right with the powers that be, it would be just fine.”

“Good,” Emma’s computerized voice said. “Then that’s settled.” She gave Jessica an appraising look, and then she nodded. Her wheelchair started moving toward the arena as though she knew exactly where she was going, leaving the rest of us to follow. Elin walked right beside her mother, never letting Emma get very far away. I set Nils down on his feet, and he and Hugo scampered off after them, with Henrik keeping them in easy grabbing distance.

Jessica and I walked along behind them at a more sedate pace.

“Do you mind?” I asked once they were far enough ahead that they wouldn’t overhear.

“No. Do you?”

I didn’t know how to tell her everything that had been running through my head since I saw her walking up. I didn’t know how to put into words the relief I felt knowing that she would be with my family, the peace of having her beside me now.

I shook my head. “Sorry for all Nils’s questions. He doesn’t have a filter.”

“Most kids don’t. It’s fine.”

When we got to the players’ entrance, I had to explain to the security guards that they were all with me. I ushered them toward the nearest elevator so I could get them settled in the box before heading to the locker room. Even when we were jam-packed in the elevator, the kids couldn’t stop talking over one another, their excitement bubbling forth so much that I could still talk to Jessica without worrying they’d be listening in.

“I’m glad you came tonight,” I said.

“Me too. I wanted to be here. For you.”

For me
. Probably because she thought there wouldn’t be much of anyone here who was really behind me tonight. Under normal circumstances these days, she’d be right about that; a few years ago, it would have been a different story. The crowd here at the Moda Center used to chant my name when I made a big save or when I stole a game for the boys.
Nicky! Nicky! Nicky!
The whole place would come alive when they chanted my name like that. These days, I got the sense that they braced themselves when they knew I would be in the net, waiting for me to fuck things up again. Crowds still chanted my name sometimes, but it was usually in other arenas, and it was more of a mocking jeer than anything meant to build me up and cheer me on.

“Thanks,” I said, shifting my weight and suddenly anxious to get off the elevator. Thankfully, the bell dinged and the doors opened, and everyone cleared out so I could breathe again.

I took them to the owner’s box. We were early enough that none of the other family members had shown up yet. Before long, this room would be overflowing, but for now they were able to get themselves settled and comfortable. I was just about to head out when Rachel Campbell came in with her kids—Maddie, Tuck, and her one-year-old twins, Sydney and Peyton—all five of them with flaming-red hair and lots of freckles. Rachel grinned at me before she noticed Jessica and Emma, making her way over to them with nothing more than a passing glance in my direction, pushing the babies in a dual stroller. Tuck saw Nils and Hugo, and he grabbed them to haul them over to a corner filled with toys. Maddie quietly sat down next to Elin and started talking.

I took a breath, reminding myself that they would be fine. If nothing else, the way the Campbells had breezed through the door and taken in Emma and the kids as if they were family should ease my concerns. Still, I felt heavy as I headed toward the door again, until Emma caught my eye.

Because of the way the muscles in her mouth were deteriorating, she couldn’t really smile anymore, or at least when she did smile it didn’t look like it ought to. But I could still see it in her eyes, bright and twinkling and so full of the life that was slipping away from her. She looked over at Jessica and then meaningfully back at me. I walked away trying to piece together what she was telling me with that look.

FOR NEARLY THREE
solid minutes of game time, our boys had kept the Oilers hemmed in to their own zone. We’d gotten in a couple of full line changes, and they had barely managed to replace their forwards once. The Oilers
D
had been out there the entire time, and at the moment, they were utterly gassed, barely able to move at all. Right now, they had their top line of Eberle, Hall, and Nugent-Hopkins on the ice trying to help out their defensemen and get the puck free, but our fresh legs were making that a very difficult task for them. The Oilers were a team that was always struggling for consistency, but that number-one forward line could be lethal at any time.

This kind of play was great for the Storm. Bergy would be thrilled with the boys and their efforts, how they’d been strong on the puck and hadn’t let up on the attack. It wasn’t quite as good for me. I liked to stay involved in the game to keep my focus where it needed to be, but that wasn’t exactly easy to do when the puck was always two hundred feet away.

The games when I was at my best were also the games in which I faced a steady barrage of shots. But coaches didn’t like to give up that many scoring opportunities, so they were always telling their defensemen to block shots, telling their forwards to push the play to the perimeter and limit the amount of rubber that made it to the goalie. That kind of defense just dulled my senses, though. I wanted a clear line of sight on the puck, and I wanted it coming at me often enough that my mind couldn’t wander.

Right now, I was fighting that very urge. A fraction of a second’s inattention could mean the difference between making a much-needed save and letting these guys start to claw their way into the game.

It was almost halfway through the third period, and we’d scored twice. So far I had a shutout going, but Edmonton had only managed to get about a dozen shots, give or take, on me the whole game. If something didn’t change soon, I might end up scanning the crowd, and that was undoubtedly when I would end up creating trouble for myself. Since this was my first game of the season, my first game in the NHL in more than a year, I really wanted to keep my shutout alive. I couldn’t afford to give up a goal on a breakaway or some random dump-in from center. I had to make an impression if I was going to win back my spot.

I didn’t have to wait much longer for some action to head my way. Colesy went off for a change, with Cody Williams—a guy we all called
Harry
because he was a dead lookalike for the British royal—coming on to replace him. Then it was time for 501 to go off for a replacement. He needed to be careful about the timing of his change, though, which any defenseman in the league should know. Damn if 501 didn’t pay attention. That was all it took for Nugent-Hopkins to get a stick on the puck. He steadied it and passed it up to a streaking Hall. There was no chance Harry was going to catch up to him. I was the only one who could stop the Oilers’ forward.

I took a breath and blocked out the crowd, the rest of the guys on the ice, everyone on the benches. Focused in on the guy coming at me. It was just me and him.