Room for More (26 page)

“What the fuck?” Viper skated up to me as the burgundy jerseys from the Colorado Avalanche all clumped together, high-fiving and celebrating their goal against me.

Without making eye contact with him, I lifted my helmet up and rested it on top of my head. The Colorado fans cheered and banged on the glass, some of them even flipping me off, as I set my stick on the net. It took every drop of strength within me not to flip them off in return. My eyes panned over to Coach Collins who was pacing the bench with his arms folded across the chest of his cheap-ass suit, glaring at me.

Calm down, Collins. It’s one fucking goal.

“You’re playing like shit tonight. Get it together,” Viper snarled at me when he realized I wasn’t going to answer him. Now I wanted to flip him off too. I took a swig from my Gatorade water bottle and pulled my helmet back on.

Four more times the Avalanche players piled in together and congratulated each other.

Four more times Collins glared at me.

After the game, I put my head down and tried to ignore the taunting fans as I skated off the ice.

“Fuck you, Murphy!”

“Don’t look like an MVP to me!”

We’d lost 5-2 and it was my fault. I get the whole “Win as a team, lose as a team” bullshit, but this was all on me. It was my job to block that little black puck from making its way across the line and sounding the alarm, but I failed tonight.

Five times I failed.

I hated that fucking alarm, especially when it came from my goal. That spinning red light and annoying horn signaled failure to me. I heard it more times tonight than all the other games this season combined.

Big deal.

It was one game.

One game that, at the end of the season, wouldn’t matter.

I’m lying.

That game did matter. They all mattered. More times than I could count, a team lost a play-off spot with one game. Sometimes one fucking goal in your
whole entire season
made the difference between being on the ice for play-offs and sitting at home and watching them on TV.

When I got to the locker room, Collins was already in there, standing by my locker.

“You okay?” he mumbled as I walked up.

“I’m fine,” I lied, not wanting to tell my coach that my world had collapsed in more ways than one over the last few days.

He nodded and scanned the bustling locker room. “Just an off night or what?”

“Yeah,” I snapped, looking him in the eye. “I had a rough night. Sorry.”

“You want to go up for interviews?”

“No. Not tonight.”

He patted me on the shoulder and walked off.

The
last
thing I needed was a bunch of bloodthirsty sports reporters asking me the same questions over and over, wanting to know why I’d missed so many shots. Who the hell even knew the answer to that?

I pulled my jersey over my head and started the process of taking my pads off. Louie glanced at me out of the corner of his eye before he turned the TV in the locker room on and flipped the channel to the postgame interview. It was no secret I’d played badly tonight. It was also no secret I was pissed off at myself about it. Normally, I was the jokester after the games, but tonight, I didn’t want to talk to anyone.

Well, except for one person, but I wasn’t ready to talk to her just yet.

I sat on the bench and sighed, leaning forward on my elbows and resting my head in my hands. It was bad enough that I could hear the interview; I didn’t want to see it too. The reporters started firing out questions about me right away.

“Coach, are you worried about how Murphy played tonight?”

“No,” he responded. “It is what it is. We’re all human. It’s his first bad game all season. Everyone is entitled to a couple.”

“Coach, coach!” another reporter shouted out. “This is a contract year for Murphy. Is that having an effect on his abilities?”

Collins exhaled loudly into the microphone. “It
is
a contract year. Is it having an effect on him? Who knows? I can’t answer that. I’m sure it’s stressful to know that your every move is being watched and weighed by the front office, but he’s tough. He can handle it.”

“Coach Collins, sources close to Murphy say that there are some personal relationship things that could be affecting the way he played tonight. Do you know anything about that?”

My head snapped up to the TV.

Fucking vultures.

I could feel every guy in the room staring at the back of my head.

“Listen. You know what? He doesn’t talk to me about things like that and he doesn’t owe it to me either. He’s here to do a job and he does it damn well. Did he have a rough night? Yes. Will he bounce back tomorrow? Yes. Do I think his personal life has anything to do with it? No. Even if it did, it’s none of my—or anyone else’s—business. That’s all for tonight.” He pushed the microphone away from his face and stood up from the table looking as pissed as I’d ever seen him. He lost his cool just as much as the next guy, but almost never on camera and certainly not during an interview.

Collins stormed through the locker room without making eye contact with anyone—especially me.

“That was rough.” Viper sat down next to me, sweat dripping from his temples. “You all right?”

“Fine.” I slammed my skates into my bag.

“You don’t look fine.”

“Okay, I’m not fine.”

“Anything you want to talk about?” he asked carefully.

I sat up and stared straight ahead. “I don’t want any advice,” I warned.

“Done. Lay it on me.”

“He’s back, her ex. For weeks apparently, but she didn’t tell me.” I sighed.

“Interesting.”

“That’s all? Interesting?” I gawked at him.

“You didn’t want my advice.” He shrugged. “So I’m listening.”

“If I were to ask for your advice, what would it be?”

“Easy. Kick his ass. She’s your woman; fight for her.”

“I did. I think I broke his jaw.”

His head whipped around to look at me as he clapped my shoulder, hard. “Nice! Attaboy! So why didn’t she tell you?”

“I don’t know. I’m assuming she didn’t want me to be mad?”

“Wait a second.” He stood and tossed his own skates in his bag. “What the fuck do you mean you don’t know why she lied? Didn’t you ask her?”

“I was mad. I left. Haven’t talked to her since.”

His mouth hung open as he pulled his brows in tight, frowning at me. “What are you? An idiot? What if there’s a perfectly good reason why she didn’t tell you? What if you, being the stubborn asshole that you are, are sitting here stewing about it while that douchebag is comforting her and mending her broken heart?”

“I told her I’d call her when we got back.”

“Moron, we’re on a road trip. How long do you think it would take for him to weasel his way back in? Hopefully not literally?”

“She wouldn’t do that. Not with him.” I shook my head, blowing him off.

“Why the hell not? You’re not talking to her. She’s heartbroken. She’s going to be looking for some sort of shoulder to lean on.”

I felt sick to my stomach.

Viper was right… and that’s not something I could say often.

I got back to the hotel room after my shitty game and checked my phone before I took a shower. I had four missed calls—three from my mom, which I wasn’t in the mood to return, and one from Shae.

I didn’t have to think twice about whether or not I was going to return my sister’s call, even though I was nervous as hell to do so. Had Mom and Dad talked to her yet? Did she know? If she didn’t, could I act normal, like nothing was wrong? I didn’t want to be the one to break her heart.

“Hey, kiddo.” I tried my best to sound cheerful when she answered the phone.

“Brody!” she blurted out when she answered. “What the hell is going on with Mom and Dad?”

I sighed. “They told you, huh?”

“Yeah. They called me this morning claiming they wanted me to find out from them, not you.”

“How nice of them,” I said sarcastically as I stretched out across the hotel bed.

“What happened with them? They won’t tell me anything.” Her voice was quiet, sad. She sounded how I felt.

“I don’t know. They didn’t say much to me either.” I rubbed my temples with my fingers. “I wasn’t there long, though. I kinda stormed out.”

“Mom told me. She’s most upset about that, of all things,” she said in disbelief.

“Did they tell you how long they’ve known about this?”

“Yeah,” she yelled. “A whole fucking year! What the hell? This is such crap, Brody. We have to do something.”

“Shae, what can we do?” I understood how she felt. She was reacting the same way I did the other night when I was determined to fix them.

“I don’t know,” she whined. “Lock them in a room together until they decide to drop all this?”

“Unfortunately, life doesn’t work like that.”

“I’m mad, Brody, and hurt and confused and… mad.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m mad too, kiddo. I just don’t know who to be mad
at
.”

I started my morning, just as I had the previous few days, by sending a text to Brody that he most likely wouldn’t respond to.

YOUR SILENCE IS KILLING ME. I MISS YOU SO MUCH I ACHE. PLEASE CALL ME. XO

Three days without a text or phone call from him was complete torture. Every time my cell phone made a noise, my heart leapt into my throat. I’d even started praying the house phone would ring, though I didn’t think he had that number. There was an ache inside of me that even a phone call couldn’t heal. I had texted him a few times just to say I love you, always without a response.

I’d just about finished my externship hours and was pretty sure that Maureen was going to pass me. Apparently she’s grumpy to all of her students; it’s just her personality. Darla assured me that if I were hired on at the hospital and she saw me as a coworker and not just a student, she’d actually be quite pleasant to work with.

Whatever.

There was a better chance of Viper marrying a nun than of me applying at that hospital. I would miss working with Darla, though. As close as we’d become, I knew we’d still see each other often.

“Look at how far you’ve come,” Darla said proudly.

“I know! I’m almost like a real nurse, huh?”

“You are a real nurse, Kacie. It’s in your heart.”

“It is, but I think I’ve made a decision.” I sat down next to her at the desk. “I think I’m going to apply somewhere doing labor and delivery.”

She tilted her head slightly and raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

“Yeah.” I shrugged. “I’ve been talking to my girlfriend from Italy a lot about her pregnancy and I realized that’s where my passion is. Helping women who are pregnant or in labor, that’s what I want to do. And don’t even get me started on holding those teeny-tiny babies. It’s like heaven.”

Darla stuck her finger in her mouth and proceeded to make a gagging noise. “You can have it. All those whiny, complaining women who act like they are the first ones on the planet to have a kid. No, thanks. I’ll stick with my middle-of-the-night drunks, broken bones, and God knows what else here in the ER.”

“Well, we’re just going to have to meet up often to swap stories, then.” I smiled at her.

“Definitely.” She smirked at me. “Maybe we can go on a double date sometime.”

“Ooooh. Double date? Who’s the lucky guy?”

She batted her eyes at me as a devilish grin spread across her face. “Let’s just say he has a giant snake.”

Realization washed over me and my mouth fell open. “Viper? I thought you said that was a one-time thing?”

“It was supposed to be.” She shrugged. “But he texted me and I couldn’t stay away. That boy can lick the bark off a tree.”

“Okay, okay. I get it.” I scrunched my eyes closed and held my hands up, not wanting to hear anymore. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re happy. And I would love to go on a double date, assuming…”

“You’ll still be together,” Darla said softly, reaching over and putting her arm around me. “He’s just angry. He’ll get over this. You guys will be just fine. Want me to ask Viper to tell him to call you?”

“Sure.” I laughed. “Maybe Viper can pass him a note in homeroom to meet me in the science lab after the assembly. I appreciate it, but no, thanks. I got myself into this, I’ll get myself out.”