Rooster: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (18 page)

I don’t know what to say. Even if he does somehow magically recover by the time his visa runs out he’ll have only played a handful of games. That might not be enough.

“And this shit with Brad doesn’t count?” I ask.

“If we can prove Rory didn’t have a part in it then it’ll count in his favor massively. If not, it could go the other way. The footage doesn’t look good for either of them”, Francis says.

“The footage can be manipulated”, I say.

“Yeah, it’s a shame the visa can’t.”

I’m blown away. Rory not even out of hospital yet, Brad sat at home on full pay, or probably more likely to be in one of the casinos down on the strip, and this. A fucking fucked up piece of legislation that’s supposed to keep this country clean.

“And Oscar?”

“That may make a difference”, Francis says. “It just depends on how you play it. He’s your son after all.”

There’s nothing more to say. A one-year contract has been reduced to three months with absolutely no guarantee of renewal, even if Francis, Kowalski and the rest of the States want it.

In the emptiness of the arena, where the cold coming off the ice condenses my breath, I walk out into the center circle. Here, with nothing but shadows and empty seats around me, I scream as loudly and for as long as possible, before the weight of what’s happening drops me to my knees.

Eleven.

Rory

The nurse is looking at me like I’m doing something wrong. One fucking week and I’m ready to kill someone. I thought I’d be here for a day. After the second night, I was climbing the fucking walls. One week feels like being back in prison. The food is just as bad, the bed a little comfier but the TV programs even worse. Here, I’ve had even less time outside too. It’s either too cold, there aren’t enough nurses available, or I can’t fit myself in the fucking elevator.

“You’ve never driven one before have you?” the nurse says to me.

It’s a fucking wheelchair, of course I’ve never driven one before. My leg doesn’t bend either, which makes it kind of difficult to get out of the way of things.

“You’re going to have to learn if you want to go home”, she adds.

Fuck this. I’m going home with this or without it. I’ve done a week out of respect for Francis, but as of right now, I’m discharging myself.

I’m going to get a taxi to Izzy’s and surprise her. With any luck, April will be at work as well which means we can do the other thing I’ve been missing out on. That girl has been here as much as she can manage all week looking after me, and if it hadn’t been for her I’d have gone completely fucking mad.

There is no way I’m staying any longer. I’ve had enough of this nurses big fat owl eyes, the non-stop tedium here, the lack of Guinness, the stale fucking conversation and acrid smell of chemicals and death. I need Izzy, I need my son, I need Irish stew, good alcohol, fresh air and I need to get laid. I’ve been waking up every morning with a boner that wouldn’t even go down if Brad chopped at it with his fucking stick.

I’m sour about that too. I’ve seen the papers, I’ve spoken to Izzy and Francis about the contract and visa situation, I’ve heard the rumors and I’m keen to get out of here and get working on doing something about it.

If I can’t skate and I can’t hurl, which is obviouly a possibility, however fucking low, I’ll find something else to keep me here. If Izzy and I have to get married, so be it. Right now all I’m thinking about is where the elevator is and what I have to do to get out of here as quickly as possible. The rest of the shit we can sort out afterward.

The nurse watches me struggle out of the room, her fat arms crossed over her even fatter chest, her wobbly head shaking from side to side.

In the corridor, one of the senior doctors blocks my way.

“Not advisable Rory”, he says.

“I’m not staying”, I say to him. “I told the nurse earlier.”

“You’re far from ready to go. That leg isn’t going to heal itself.”

Of course it’s going to heal itself, and it’ll do it much more quickly in a more welcoming environment, like a pub or Izzy’s bedroom.

“I’m not staying”, I say again. “You can either help me get in the elevator, or you can watch me struggle down the stairs.”

The nurse lines up alongside the doctor, while another of the consultants stands the other side of him, effectively blocking my route through the corridor.

“Where are you going, Rory?” the consultant says. “I was just coming to check on you.”

“For fuck sake”, I begin. This is beginning to feel like a fucking mental home, or prison again, and I can’t work out which is worse. “I’m discharging myself or whatever the fuck you call it, I’ve had enough, I’m going home.”

“You’re not fixed”, the nurse says.

“Does Francis know?” the doctor asks.

I hang my head.

“You’ll need that changed at some point”, the consultant says. “It was a hell of a break.”

“Please”, I say, almost at the point of giving up.

The doctor looks at the consultant and the consultant looks at me. The nurse shakes her fat head.

“Write him up”, the consultant says. “One week, I want him back here and don’t send him away without meds.” he turns to me. “Don’t do anything stupid like walking or driving will you?”

“Driving? I can barely take a piss without sitting down to do it.”

“See you in a week then”, he says.

“That it?”

“That’s it. I can’t keep you here if you don’t want to stay. I can advise you not to leave, but it looks like you’ve already made up your mind. The brakes are still on by the way, that’s probably why you’re struggling.”

I watch him disappear down the corridor, give the nurse my best set of dagger eyes for not telling me and then nearly pop my shoulder out reaching behind the chair to flip the brakes off.

The doctor and nurse stand aside as I wheel my way through them, and then stand aside again as I retrace my steps down to the other end of the corridor where the elevator is.

Outside, in the freezing fucking cold of an oncoming bitter New York winter, I finally feel free. I may have a broken leg, I may be in a spot of bother when the time comes to renew the visa, but right now I feel like I’m on top of the world. That sensation lasts for about fifteen seconds until the camped out journalists descend on me like flies.

Fans I can handle, journalists, on the other hand, are about as welcome as an infestation of cockroaches. It goes with the job, much more over here than back home, but it’s still never welcome and much less so outside a hospital, when all I want to do is get to a cab and fuck off home.

I’d spend all the time in the world with someone who wants my autograph, someone who wants to sell me up the river is a different thing entirely.

The papers have made me out to be this violent, ex-con with a blood lust for fighting, which is about as far from the truth as you can get, but, you know, whatever, I can see how they might have come to that conclusion, what I can’t tolerate is them bringing Oscar and Izzy into it. They can say what they like about me, it isn’t fair for them to drag my family into the dirt as well.

The kind of shit they make up about us as well. Apparently, according to a particularly low-brow gossip rag, which has had to issue a groveling retraction since, there was a wild accusation that when Oscar was conceived that incredible first night Izzy and I met, it wasn’t exactly entirely consensual.

I mean, how fucked up is that? Just to make me seem like the kind of asshole that deserves to get his leg broken in two places and put his career in any sport, let alone an adopted one, completely up in the air.

I do my best to appear relaxed and helpful, even though I’m none of those things. This wheelchair is difficult enough to maneuver as it is, impossible with a crowd of people blocking my way, so there is no way I can escape without answering their bullshit questions first. Eventually, I’m saved by another patient - someone who looks like she’s on a fag break from her chemotherapy session - who takes charge of the situation pushes everyone out of my way and guides me to a waiting cab driver.

I can’t thank her enough.

I just about fit into the front seat, and it takes me a frustratingly long time to get in there, but when I do, and the door finally shuts on the crazy world around me I feel like I’ve won the fucking hurling championships.

The taxi driver looks over at me suspiciously.

“You’re that Irish guy right?” he says.

“Rory O’Connor”, I tell him.

“That’s it. You know I’m an Islanders’ fan”, he says, and for a moment I think I’m going to have to get back out of the cab. “Or I was, at least”, he continues. “That shit was fucked up.”

“That’s not the way every Islander fan sees it”, I say.

“Any fan of ice hockey will not condone that shit. I’m the first one to get on my feet to cheer a fight, but that was something else. You ain't gonna remember it because they hauled your ass off pretty quick but there was a silence in that arena afterward like a fucking church. No-one could believe it. I know they’re saying some shit like you provoked it and all that, and there’s this girl involved and a baby and stuff, but whatever man, you don’t do that. Now, where do you want to go, free ride, from a life long Islanders’ fan to the best debut Rangers player I’ve ever seen in my life.”

He drops me off at the bottom of Izzy’s block and after he’s spent ten minutes pulling me out of the cab and getting me into the chair, I try to give him fifty dollars. He says he won’t accept it and apologizes for what his team did to me.

Inside the entrance hallway, my dick already hard, thinking about what waits for me upstairs, I stare with horror at the broken elevator shaft and then I turn and stare with even more horror at the fucking stairwell.

I hadn’t remembered. In my eagerness to get here, I hadn’t remembered the fucking elevator doesn’t work and Izzy lives on the sixth floor.

“Good luck, buddy”, someone says as they breeze past me and skips up the stairs, two steps at a time.

Fuck. “Fuck”, I scream out. I wanted to surprise her in the h
ey look at me I’m out of hospital and I’ve made it all the way here
way, not the
hey, guess what? Feeling strong enough to carry me six flights and over the threshold
way.

I feel completely fucking impotent. I guess that was Brad’s intention in the first place. Make me less of a man. Well, guess what? That asshole has succeeded, because right now, I feel like a complete and utter fucking prick.

I hear the door go behind me again and wait for whoever it is to breeze past, carry on up the stairs and leave me here like I’m a new piece of furniture. When they don’t, I wonder if I’ve imaged it all, until I hear that unmistakable voice.

“Not going to happen, Irish.”

I turn so quickly I nearly pop my neck. Kowalski, that piece of shit.

“Kowalski, what the fuck are you doing here?” I say.

Not only Kowalski, but Staal, Howell, Nash and Glass too. I can’t believe it.

“Francisco said you’d checked out, figured you’d come here.” Kowalski puts his hand on my shoulder. “Didn’t seem fair to let you crawl.”

I’m touched. I’m seriously fucking choked up. Of all the people that could have come through that door, the last person in the world I’d have guessed at would have been Kowalski.

“Fuck, Kowalski, I don’t know what to say.”

“You just better hope she’s home, because if she’s not, you’re crawling down on your own.”

They carry me like a coffin, Kowaski in charge of the broken leg, Glass coming up behind with the chair, and I feel like a King being delivered to the chamber of his beautiful princess, trapped up here like the maiden of the castle.

Every so often they pretend they’re about to drop me, only to catch me again at the last minute and, despite everything that’s gone on up until now, it makes me feel like they truly consider me part of the team.

They’ve really come through for me, none more so than Kowalski, who was the one who got everyone together and decided to come here in the first place. I’m so happy I could fucking cry. If I could stand, I’d give Kowalski the biggest man hug he’s ever seen.

We group together outside her apartment, me back in my chair and the rest of them crowded around me.

I can’t reach the bell from where I am so Staal does it for me, and after an agonizing wait, during which time we all think nobody’s home, Izzy finally answers the door.

“Surprise”, I say, a big fat smile on my face.

“Oh, my, fucking, God”, Izzy says and nearly drops the baby.

Izzy

Well, this is unexpected. Five professional ice hockey players in my apartment drinking coffee. Four squashed onto the couch, and Rory placed alongside them in his wheelchair, leg stuck out into the center of the room, toes covered against the cold with a stupid hospital issue stripey sock, Oscar perfectly happy to sit peacefully in his lap.

“I can’t believe you are here”, I say.

“I couldn’t stay in that place any longer. I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t call, I wanted to surprise you, and then I got surprised by these sensitive twats”, Rory says by way of an explanation.