Dropping Gloves (28 page)

I understood it. She needed to
do
something, and right now the only thing she felt as though she could
do
was take care of things so I wouldn’t have to. Still, I wished she would just sit next to me and talk to me about things that were going on outside my little house. I was feeling more and more cut off from the world.

Over the weekend, we went shopping for furniture and equipment to put in my studio. Dad was going to finish the built-in once the team got back to town, but I wanted to go ahead and get everything else in now, particularly since this first week of cancer treatment had proven to me just how isolated I was going to be. I needed an outlet. I needed a way to channel all the things I was feeling instead of keeping them all bottled up inside me, and it was worth trying to see if I could do that by creating music.

I paid extra for Sunday delivery because I wanted it all set up before the next round started, and a few of the WAGs came over to help Mom and me get everything installed properly. Julianne even brought her kids with her—all teenagers, old enough that we didn’t have to worry too much about radiation—and Elin and Maddie tagged along, too.

Maddie brought a huge stack of books with her. “Romance novels,” she explained, carrying them into my bedroom to put on the nightstand closest to the window. “Mom sent them. She likes to read them when she doesn’t feel well. Sometimes I sneak one of them off to my bedroom to read at night and put back in the morning before she notices. Don’t tell her.”

“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
É
tienne 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.