Light the Lamp (10 page)

The two girls bent their heads together for just a minute and then looked over in my direction, smiling again in a way that seemed welcoming. I decided to see if I could sit with the pair of them. When I headed over to them, they were in the process of spreading a throw blanket over both their laps. They looked up and grinned at me.

“
You’re Miss Noelle, aren’t you?” the little redhead said. “You live with Mr. Kally and Mr. Jamie. I just told Katie who you are.”

“
You’re right,” I said.

It was unnerving that people knew who I was when I didn’t have any idea who they were. Had Liam already told everyone in his life about me? I didn’t feel like I was a big enough deal to merit such fast notice. And just how did word spread so quickly? I’d only been with him for about two days. Just with him, though, not
with him
with him.

“
How did you know who I am?” I asked, adjusting the strap of my purse over my shoulder. I let my hand fall over the body of the bag, feeling the same four items inside that had been there since my car burned on the highway.

“
I’m Maddie Shaw. I live across the hall from you.” The little girl nudged her head toward the seat next to her and nodded, her eyes wide in a wordless offer. “This is Katie. She’s dating Mr. Jamie.”

I sat down where Maddie had indicated.

Katie blushed like crazy. “I’m not dating him.” She turned a shy look in my direction. “He took me to my prom is all.” I couldn’t help but notice that her lips kept curling up in an embarrassed smile. She
wanted
to be dating him.

So this was the girl Babs was out with the night I met Liam. I already liked Babs, but this made me like him even more. Katie wasn’t just any girl; he’d taken a girl with no hair to her prom. That was just about the sweetest, most thoughtful thing I could imagine. I made up my mind right at that moment to be sure he stayed in my life, no matter what happened in my future. Some people are keepers, and Jamie Babcock was definitely one of them.

I laughed. “I’d say that counts as dating.” I winked conspiratorially in Maddie’s direction.

“
It counts as
a
date. One.” Katie gave Maddie a stern look. “Don’t let my dad hear you talking like that or he’ll kill Jamie, okay?”

Maddie just rolled her eyes the way only a kid could do. Then she leaned over to me and whispered, “She’s wearing Mr. Jamie’s jersey tonight. Not her dad’s.”

“
I see,” I said, nodding my head like I really understood the finer details of how one chooses whose jersey to wear.

“
Anyway,” Katie said, rolling her eyes in a near perfect imitation of Maddie, “Mom will want to meet you later, Noelle.”

“
And my mommy and Miss Dana,” Maddie added.

“
And Sara Thomas.” Katie tugged the blanket up closer to her shoulders, tucking it in beneath her armpits. “So you should get yourself ready, because they’re all curious.”

I sat back in my seat and pulled my sweater tighter over my chest. Liam had been right. It was cold in here. I shook my head. “Why do they want to meet me?”

“
Because no one really knows Kally very well, yet,” Katie said. “He just got traded here a couple of weeks ago. It’s just what they do with all the new players’ wives and girlfriends as a way to welcome them to the city.”

“
I’ve only known him a couple of days. I’m sure all of you know him far better than I do.” A couple of moments of mild flirtation didn’t come close to having us know one another well. “And I’m not his girlfriend.”

“
Right,” Maddie said, grinning like the Cheshire cat. “And Katie isn’t dating Mr. Jamie.”

 

Aaron Ludwiczak had
just healed from a minor concussion. Tonight was Luddy’s first game back in the lineup, reclaiming his spot on the top line and allowing me to move back to my more comfortable position on the third line. I was happy to be playing down the lineup again since I hadn’t found a way to contribute alongside the top-line guys. Less was expected of me in a depth-forward role. I could play a solid defensive game and not have to worry about putting the puck in the net. If I scored, it was a bonus.

They weren’t counting on me scoring on a nightly basis, though. Or even very often at all. Jim Sutter, the team’s general manager, had been sure to tell me that a few times. He didn’t want me to stress about it; he just wanted me to get comfortable. He said the scoring would come eventually. Maybe he was right. Maybe. I wasn’t so sure anymore.

A couple of years ago, I would have been furious if a coach had tried to drop me down the lineup. I had always had a true goal-scorer’s touch. Until last year, I’d never failed to score at least twenty-five goals per season, not even in my rookie campaign. Most years I got more than thirty-five, and a couple of times I’d scored more than forty. That put me in some pretty elite company among the most prolific offensive players in the history of the game.

And then it had all dried up when Liv died. The goals had stopped coming. I’d scored three times since her death, and two of those had been flukes.

Coaches kept telling me to relax, to stop squeezing my stick, to let the game come to me. The harder I tried to do any of those things, though, the more I did the opposite. It was a vicious cycle, never ending. I’d spent a year and a half trying to figure out how to get out of this funk.

But tonight, after a week of trying to force myself into my former offensive ways, I was finally able to go back to doing the parts of the game I could actually still do. I could skate. I could check. I could block shots. I could hit. I hoped my linemates would score, but I had come into tonight’s game knowing that the pressure would finally be off me in terms of that.

The pressure was only gone until halfway through the first period, when Luddy skated off the ice with his eyes squinted together. He looked a little green, like he might puke at any moment. He headed straight down the tunnel with a trainer, not even bothering to stop to talk with the coaches before he disappeared.

Maybe his concussion hadn’t completely healed, then. The hit he’d taken just before coming off the ice hadn’t been that bad. Just a little rub-out along the boards. No contact to the head. Nothing to cause new brain trauma.

Or he might have some sort of a stomach bug. That was a possibility, as well.

I didn’t have much more time to wonder what was going on with Luddy because the head coach, Scotty Thomas, shouted my name. When I turned to look at him, he said, “You’re going back to the top line with RJ and Eller. Jonny, you’ll be taking the right wing with Hank and Webs.”

I nodded my acknowledgment, my stomach already roiling at the thought that I’d be expected to score again when I’d almost been free of those expectations, and turned back to the ice. Zee, Soupy, and Babs were heading over the boards to take the next draw, but Zee stopped and looked at me.

“
Just play your game,” he said, his eyes boring into me. “Don’t try to be Luddy out there.” Then he skated off and won the face-off against Henrik Zetterberg of the Red Wings.

Play my game. Right. That’s what I’d been trying to do for a year and a half, and I hadn’t gotten anywhere with it. But he had a point about not trying to fill Luddy’s shoes. I could never be him. He was a sniper. He lurked around the net, waiting for a pass to hit his stick so he could get off a quick wrister and beat the goalie with the speed of his release. That had never been my game. I was the kind of winger who would cycle and move the puck, looking for a seam. My slap shot had always been more lethal than my wrist shot, so I was more dangerous from a distance than in close.

Not that anyone would consider me dangerous these days.

Zee’s line did a great job of making crisp passes to each other, getting smoothly into the offensive zone. Zee shot the puck on net from the half-wall, and Soupy jammed away at the rebound, trying to poke it through the goaltender’s five-hole.

Somehow, Nicklas Kronwall, the Wings’ top defenseman, got the puck free and shot it out of the zone. Our
D
corralled it and held on to it in the neutral zone, waiting for our forwards to clear so we could go back in without being offside.

This time Babs took the puck in and cycled it down low. The forwards started passing from one guy to the next to the next. They couldn’t get any more shots on the net, but they were seriously wearing the Wings down. One at a time, our guys came off for a change, and Scotty shouted for my line to replace them.

When Babs got to the bench, I jumped over the boards and skated into the offensive zone as fast as I could. Zee passed me the puck on his way off to change. It hit my stick right on the tape. I didn’t have a good angle, and I knew nothing I shot at the net would go in anyway, so I passed it back to our
D
at the point and moved into a better position. The guy trying to cover me couldn’t keep up; Zee and the boys had exhausted them already. The puck made it over to RJ, who had come out to replace Zee, and RJ didn’t even hold on to it for a second. He cocked his stick back and faked a slap shot, instead redirecting it so it was heading straight for me.

I had a great angle. No one would be able to move into my shooting lane to block the shot in time. If I could elevate it and shoot glove side, I doubted the goalie could catch up to it.

But that meant I had to shoot. I couldn’t pass and hope someone else would.

I brought my stick back. I swung it forward, dropping down to get more torque on my stick. Contact with the puck. It flew toward the net, rising as it traveled.

Top shelf.

Red light.

Goal horn.

I’d finally scored a fucking goal.

 

“
The boys all
say you must be my good luck charm,” Liam said. “I’m inclined to agree with them.”

I didn’t know about all that.

We were walking through the main concourse at the Moda Center after the game. He’d come to get me once he’d finished showering and talking to the media, and now we were headed to the parking garage so we could leave.

He’d put his hand on the small of my back when we’d left the owner’s box, using it to gently guide me through the building. That slight contact brought him close enough that I could smell the earthy, spicy cologne he’d put on after showering. Close enough that I could feel the heat still radiating from his body after all that physical activity. I liked the sensation, his warmth wrapping around me like a blanket. Even with my sweater, I’d been cold the whole night. I had already decided that the next time I came to one of his games, I was absolutely going to steal Maddie and Katie’s idea and bring a throw blanket with me.

We walked past a group of fans that was still lingering, even though the game had ended quite a while ago. The fans were all dressed in purple-and-silver jerseys, and they’d obviously been drinking judging by their loud voices and unsteady gaits.

They must have recognized Liam, because all of a sudden one of them shouted out, “Kally! Nice fucking hattie!”

“
You can stay as long as you want if you keep scoring like that!” another added.

There were more shouts, and a few of the men started following after us. Liam pulled me a little closer to his side, which I was glad for, but he slowed and turned around, walking us backward while we faced the rowdy fans.

“
Hope you all enjoyed yourselves tonight,” he said calmly. I was anything but calm. The same way I didn’t know how to deal with angry people, I really didn’t know how to deal with drunk people. They made me nervous.

“
We did, thanks to you,” the one closest to us said. He was slurring his words a little. “Fucking hat trick. Way to bust out of a fucking slump.”

“
Yeah.” Liam smiled at them. “Listen, how are you guys getting home?”

“
Ronnie’s our designated driver,” the guy said, pointing at another man who couldn’t walk straight and was barely remaining upright. Ronnie might be the most wasted of them all.