I had such
a miserable practice that Jim Sutter sent word down that he wanted to see me in his office before we left for the airport.
After I finished cleaning up, I made my way upstairs to the offices inside the practice facility and stopped at Rachel’s desk. She looked up and smiled in a way that made me wonder if Noelle had talked to her about her plans yesterday while they were having their girls’ day. It was a pitying sort of smile, one that made me feel sicker to my stomach than I had since the moment I’d walked away from Noelle this morning.
“
Jim’s waiting for you, Kally,” she said kindly. “You can go on in.”
I didn’t trust my voice, so I nodded my thanks and moved past her.
Jim looked up and waved me in even before I could knock. “Coffee?” he asked.
I closed the door and shook my head. Trying to drink something right now would likely bring everything roiling in my stomach up to the surface, and that wouldn’t be any good for anyone.
“
All right,” Jim said. He took off his glasses and folded in the earpieces before setting them on the desk in front of him. “I’m not going to beat around the bush. I watched your practice today. I know things aren’t right with you, even if I don’t know what’s wrong. Are you okay to travel with the team, or do you need to stay behind and deal with some things in your personal life?”
Staying behind wouldn’t help. If Noelle intended to leave, there wasn’t anything I could do to stop her. I couldn’t force her to stay with me. I couldn’t turn her into a prisoner, whether it was through force or coercion. She needed to make the decision to stay on her own or we would both be miserable.
I shook my head, biting down on the inside of my cheek. “I’ll figure it out. I’m not going to stay here. I won’t leave the guys in a lurch.”
“
You’re sure? Because if you need a game or two—”
“
Staying behind won’t help anything,” I interrupted. “I’m going to have the same problems whether I stay or go. I’ll figure it out, Jim.”
He stared so hard it felt like he could see straight through me. Like he could tell—the same way I could—that I wasn’t going to be able to solve this. Like I was even more fucked up on the outside than I felt on the inside.
But he nodded his head, putting on his glasses again. “All right. I’ll see you on the plane, then. But remember this: we need you, Kally. We need you to keep playing like you have been the last several games.”
“
I know. I’ll sort it out.” What I didn’t know was how I would manage to do that when my heart had just been ripped out of my chest.
Jim went back to whatever he’d been doing on his computer, so I headed out to the hall. Soupy had come upstairs and was tugging Rachel out from behind her desk so he could steal a kiss before we flew down to California. I gave them a wave before heading back down to the locker room.
Nicky was still at his stall putting a few things in his bag, and a few of the other guys—Jonny, Webs, Zee, and Slava Lukashenko—were still hanging around and gabbing. Luka’s girlfriend had just had a baby this weekend, a little girl. He had his cell phone out and was showing them pictures.
I inclined my head in their direction but then set to work trying to sort myself out.
“
Är allt rätt
?” Nicky asked me.
“
Everything’s fine,” I said. I appreciated that he would give me the opportunity to talk in Swedish if that was what I wanted. No one else would understand us if we did that right now, but I didn’t care if the other guys heard. I had no intention of revealing any of the shit eating at me from the inside. If I couldn’t even open up to Noelle, how the fuck was I supposed to talk to anyone else?
Nicky turned to me with an astute look. “Bullshit. Did she tell you to go fuck yourself or what? We can go get some drinks once we get to San Jose and find you someone else. It shouldn’t be too hard to find a puck bunny or two.” He wagged his brows.
I knew he was just fucking around with me, but I thought everyone in the NHL knew me well enough to know I’d have no interest in a fling or a one-night stand. I’d never been the type to be out looking for a good time, and I doubted I ever would be. Late nights and drinking and girls throwing themselves at me held no appeal.
“
Nah,” I said, “not going to happen. And it’s nothing like that.” It would be easier if that had been what happened, actually—if Noelle had brushed me off and told me to take a hike. But she would never do anything like that. She would never be so callous or caustic. She cared, at least almost as much as I did. That was why everything about our situation was so hard. We both cared, but apparently that wasn’t enough.
He quirked his lips into a grin, but then he gave me a commiserating shrug. “Is she worth it, at least? Being this fucked up over?”
Was Noelle worth having my life turned upside down? Was she worth the huge, aching knot that had taken residence in my stomach and added about twenty pounds of misery to my life? “Yeah, she is.”
“
Okay.” He finished fiddling with his skates, set them back in his stall, and then zipped up his bag. “We could still go have a drink when we get there. There doesn’t have to be a girl involved. Or whatever you want. Let’s just do something to get your head back on straight before the game.”
“
Yeah, we could go for a beer, I guess.”
In the end, I wound up going to a sports bar with Nicky and Jonny after we got settled in our hotel. It wasn’t uncommon for the boys to go out on the road like that, and I was still one of the new guys on the team. I felt like I needed to go along and get to know them a little, even if all I wanted to do was stay in my hotel room and call Noelle, maybe see if she would FaceTime with me. These guys were going to be my teammates for a while; I had no way of knowing how long she would remain in my life. Hanging out with them might help me sort myself out before our game the next night. Getting worked up over Noelle would probably do the opposite.
It wasn’t the worst way to spend an evening. We watched the Sharks game—they were playing the Kings in LA tonight and us tomorrow back here in San Jose—and we had a couple of beers. Our waitress flirted like crazy with Nicky, which wasn’t all that surprising, and a fan recognized Jonny and asked for an autograph from “the best fucking goon in the goddamn league.” Jonny took it all in stride, signing the guy’s shirt without arguing the fact that he was a goon.
After a while, Nicky got up to head to the restroom. I had been watching the action on the TV, but out of the corner of my eye I noticed him wobble on his way there. He straightened himself up and got into the bathroom without further incident, but it still wasn’t a good sign.
“
How many beers did Nicky have?” I asked.
Jonny downed the last of his. “Just two. You saw that, too?” He reached for Nicky’s glass and sniffed it, like he was checking to see if anything had been put in it.
Could you smell any of the drugs someone might put in a beer? I doubted it. “Yeah, I saw it.” I didn’t know if it was just that Nicky couldn’t really handle his beer or if something more serious was at play. Either way, we needed to get him out of there.
Without another word, Jonny followed Nicky into the bathroom to make sure he came back okay, and I flagged our waitress over so I could pay the tab. By the time she returned with my credit card, Nicky and Jonny were on their way back to us. Jonny was practically carrying him out.
“
Call us a cab, please,” I said to her as I scribbled in a tip and signed my name to the slip. She nodded and hurried away.
Jonny pulled out his cell phone and put it up to his ear. “Jim, it’s Jonny. We’ve got a situation with Nicky.” He headed out to the sidewalk, still practically dragging our goaltender along with him. Nicky’s wobbling had gotten worse in the few minutes that had passed. This was a hell of a lot more than just the result of a couple of beers. It had to be.
I hurried to catch up to them and pulled Nicky’s other arm around my shoulders. Jonny and I worked together to carry him out while Jonny explained what he could about the situation to our GM. By the time the cab pulled up for us, he’d relayed everything to Jim, knowing the team doctors would be waiting for us at the hotel.
“
The fuck?” Nicky slurred as we tried to angle him into the backseat of the cab. “Where’d that waitress go?”
“
She’s staying here, bud,” Jonny said. “And you’re not.” He pushed down on Nicky’s shoulder and head, attempting to force him inside.
That was when Nicky fought back for the first time, even going so far as to throw a punch at Jonny. I grabbed for his arm to stop him, but before I could do anything about it, Jonny had twisted Nicky’s arm around behind his back and was pushing him into the cab with authority.
“
Knock it off and get in the fucking cab before you make me hurt you,” he muttered. He looked over his shoulder at me. “You too, Kally. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Since I was pretty much redundant to Jonny’s efforts, I got into the front seat next to the driver and gave him the address for the hotel. The whole way there, Nicky was muttering beneath his breath, but little that came from his mouth made any sense.
I was relieved to see an ambulance waiting for us with Jim, the coaching staff, and the team trainers and doctors all waiting alongside the paramedics. Jonny helped them get Nicky situated in the back of the ambulance, and Jim pulled me aside.
“
You didn’t see anyone put anything in his glass?”
“
Nothing.”
“
Did he take anything?”
“
Not that I saw. Maybe before we left, though?” If he
had
taken something, the alcohol could have intensified the effects, whatever it was. But why would he do something like that? It didn’t make any sense.
Jonny came back over to us as they closed the door to the back of the ambulance.
Jim nodded at the two of us. “Good thing you were with him.” One of the doctors waved him over, so he excused himself. “I let Zee know what’s going on, and Hunter, too, since he might get an unexpected start tomorrow.”
Hunter Fielding was the backup goaltender. He hadn’t played in a single game since I’d been with the team, but there had been a pretty long stretch where he’d been the guy in the net for the Storm while Nicky had been out with a concussion. Here, in the home stretch, when we were gearing up for the playoffs, Hunter wasn’t expected to play much at all. Maybe in a back-to-back situation, but probably not much else. Teams tend to lean heavily on their number-one goalie in situations like these.
“
I’m going to the hospital at least until we learn more,” Jim said. “I’ll let you boys know when I do. For now, you two just try to get some rest so you’ll be ready for tomorrow.”
“
Yeah, thanks, Jim,” Jonny said.
The doctors and trainers had piled into a waiting car, and Jim followed.
Jonny and I headed inside the hotel, where Zee, Soupy, and a few other guys were hanging out in the lobby. We went over and joined them.
“
Do you think he took something?” I asked. I didn’t know Nicky well at all, but that seemed somewhat more plausible than someone slipping something into his drink.
Zee’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Nicky? What the fuck would he take?” He shook his head. “No, he didn’t take anything.”
We shot the breeze in the lobby for a while, trying to pass the time while we waited on word from Jim. I’d been expecting him to call, but instead he came back to the hotel himself.
“
They’ve pumped his stomach. He’s going to be okay, but the doctors are probably going to rule him out for a game or two while he recovers from this. They’re keeping him overnight for observation. We’ll know more tomorrow.”
“
Do they know what got put in his drink?” Soupy asked.
“
We don’t know that.” Jim loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. “We might not ever know. It isn’t what’s important right now. What matters is that he’s going to be okay. I’m calling it a night, boys. I’ve got to be up early so we can get someone in to backup for Hunter tomorrow.”
“’
Night, Jim,” several of the guys said. After a few minutes of idle chitchat, everyone wondering who would have drugged Nicky and why, guys started heading up to their rooms. When I got to mine, it was already after eleven. A lot more time had passed standing around waiting for news on Nicky than I’d expected. It was kind of late to call Noelle—she might already be in bed—so I settled on sending her a text.
What did you do today? I miss you. Wish you were here with me. I love you, Noelle.
I plugged my cell in to charge and turned on CNN while I got ready to settle in for the night. I’d changed clothes, washed my face, thought about shaving but decided not to, and climbed into bed, and she still hadn’t responded.
It wasn’t something I should get too worked up over. She had always been more of a morning person than a night owl, at least in the time I’d known her. She was probably already asleep. I should be, too. I made sure the ringer on my phone was turned all the way up so I’d hear it if she called or texted me, and then I turned off the TV and flipped off the lights.
Even though I hadn’t slept much the night before, it was hard to fall asleep. Between everything that had happened with Nicky at the bar tonight and the fact that I hadn’t heard a word from Noelle since I’d left her this morning—since she’d asked me not to hate her—my mind wouldn’t shut off. I lay there for hours trying to sleep before I finally got up and dug through my suitcase for an Ambien. The team psychologist had prescribed them for me after Liv had died, when I hadn’t been able to sleep. I didn’t like taking them. I didn’t want to get hooked. But some nights I would just lie in bed with my brain going a hundred miles an hour without them.