Double Major (Portland Storm)

by Catherine Gayle

  I WASN’T SURE how it had happened but the style of dress they’d chosen for Noelle fit perfectly within the overall wedding theme, and yet it was completely her, as well. No, the fabric wasn’t covered in flowers, and yes, the colors were subdued, but the skirt flowed around her legs as she walked in exactly the same way as her everyday attire always did. Besides, she still had flowers; she was just wearing them in her hair, like the brides and the rest of the bridesmaids, instead of on her clothes. That suited her more than just about anything else I could imagine, actually.

  She looked amazing. In fact, I was enjoying myself watching her so much today that I didn’t mind not being the one standing right beside her. I’d definitely experienced a twinge of jealousy during the rehearsal yesterday, but it just didn’t make sense to feel envious today. Particularly not after the way she’d reacted to my suggestion of having a memory room in our house. I’d wanted it to be a surprise, but her exuberance had made telling her before it was finished worth it.

  And she wanted Liv to be part of it. I never would have suggested it, especially not after Noelle had felt she was competing with Liv’s memory early in our relationship. But Noelle wanted some of Liv’s wind chimes in our new house. I didn’t know of many women who would want any reminders of their man’s first love around, but this just proved, yet again, how very unlike other women Noelle was.

  I grinned in her direction as Nicky and I made our way through the receiving line to the reception, well before we reached her. She flashed me a dazzling smile in return but stayed in position between Burnzie and Babs. They were helping to greet everyone that was coming into the reception. Almost as soon as she gave me that smile, she turned back to the couple in front of her and reached out to take the woman’s hand, falling into an easy sort of conversation with the pair as though she’d known them her whole life.

  It always astounded me how readily she adapted to change and how quickly she made friends. I was fairly positive that the only people she knew at the wedding were those she’d met through me. And she’d spent her whole life in Portland. This was the first time she’d ever flown all the way across the country—she’d only taken short trips through the Pacific Northwest prior to this—but tomorrow she was going to take a far bigger step away from life as she’d always known it. She would be flying across the Atlantic Ocean with me.

  We were planning to spend the night here in Providence after the wedding and reception, before traveling to Gothenburg tomorrow. Finally, I was going to be able to take her home. To my home. To meet my family. To meet Liv’s family. To see all the things that my life had consisted of since before I’d come halfway around the world to play in the NHL.

  I had to be ten times more anxious about it than she was, even though it was all new and different for her. Noelle was handling the idea of coming with me to Sweden much better than the thought of letting go and allowing her brothers to handle a few things while we were away.

  I’m sure they’ll be fine, she’d told me dozens of times in the weeks leading up to our trip here, but then she would say something along the lines of, Won’t they? It’s not like they’re going to burn the place down or anything. Oh God, what if they burn down the house?

  In all honesty, I hadn’t been worried about her brothers or our puppy or the house. Chris had been thrilled with my idea of turning the downstairs bedroom into a memory room when I’d suggested it yesterday, and he and Ethan were taking care of getting everything moved into the house and unpacked while we were gone. They were doing the things that brothers do—the kinds of things that they would have done for her all along if she hadn’t been so stubborn about insisting she was the one who had to always take care of them. There was no cause for concern about her brothers or the house or the dog.

  It was just the idea of taking her away from her comfortable surroundings, separating her from what she’d always known and sharing more of my life with her, that was bogging me down. I wanted her to be part of it all—don’t get me wrong—but I didn’t know how overwhelming it would be for her. She’d hardly ever left the state of Oregon in her entire life, and I was asking her to come with me to another country where everyone spoke a different language, where she would be without her brothers and friends and puppy, and where there was nothing to remind her of home.

  You’ll be with me, silly, so everything will be fine, Noelle had reminded me time and again, as though my presence was all that she would require to adjust. And we aren’t staying forever.

  That was just it, though. Every time she mentioned that we weren’t going to be there forever, I started thinking about what was in store for us in a few years. I might want her to come back to Sweden with me someday, to stay for the rest of our lives. Not today, but maybe in four or five years, once I was ready to give my body a rest after almost two decades playing in the NHL. Plenty of Swedish hockey players came to North America for their careers like I had. But after they retired? They almost all went back home to Sweden. Guys like Mattias Bergstrom, who had been the Storm’s assistant coach last season but would be the head coach in the upcoming year, were the exception to the rule. I didn’t know if I wanted to be another exception.

  In general, we Swedes loved our country. We loved the people. We loved the lifestyle and the weather. We loved the food. We loved everything about it. Spending several years in this part of the world in order to make money and invest in the future was something we were willing to give up…for a time. A few years, maybe even a decade or more. I just wasn’t sure I was prepared to give it up forever.

  But that didn’t change the fact that I wanted Noelle to be my forever.

  One good thing about our upcoming trip was that it would give me a much better idea of how she might react if I brought up the idea of living in Sweden after I retired. Could she leave her brothers in the States to come with me? I didn’t even know if it was something I could ask of her, and yet if I didn’t, I would have to leave my family behind so I could stay with her.

  No matter how I looked at it, one of the two of us was going to be losing a part of ourselves in the bargain. One of us would have to leave a piece of our hearts, our souls, behind. Of course, if I didn’t intend to remain in Portland with her, why was I so concerned with buying a house and making a memory room? I really didn’t know where my head was, so I couldn’t imagine how Noelle would take it when I presented the idea to her.

  “I hate standing in lines,” Nicky muttered beneath his breath so quietly I barely heard him. “Makes me anxious.”

  He was going to be on the same flight with us tomorrow, heading home to Sweden for the remainder of his summer. He’d stayed behind in Portland after the season finished, getting some treatment for the issues that had kept him off the ice throughout the majority of our playoff run.

  He still hadn’t admitted that it was an addiction he was suffering from—at least not to me—but I’d spent enough time around enough addicts since I’d started up the Light the Lamp Foundation to recognize the telltale signs. Maybe he wasn’t ready to say he had a problem yet, but that couldn’t change the fact that he had one.

  I was going to keep close to him today, just in case. He was a fellow Swede, and that made me feel somewhat responsible for him. Besides, Noelle had duties to fulfill as one of the bridesmaids, so I wasn’t going to be able to spend the time with her for a bit. There was bound to be alcohol at the reception—champagne, at the very least, and maybe an open bar. I didn’t want to see Nicky end up back in the hospital getting his stomach pumped again, and there was no telling what he might have already taken.

  That was the thing—I didn’t get the sense that he was an alcoholic. It was far more likely to be drugs of some sort, maybe even prescription drugs, and when he drank, the alcohol only exacerbated the problem. My goal for the reception, and maybe for afterward, as well, was to keep him as far away as I could from anything he might inadvertently hurt himself with. That was why I’d spent time with him yesterday during the rehearsal, why I’d la
tched onto him as soon as I’d seen him arrive before the ceremony today, and why I was keeping him by my side now.

  When we got to Noelle in the receiving line, I leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. The scent of her flowers tickled my nostrils. “Du är så vacker, älskling,” I murmured before pulling away. She was so beautiful she made my heart lodge in my throat.

  “Wasn’t it wonderful?” Noelle gushed. “I don’t think it could have been any more perfect. And this,” she added, waving her hand around to indicate everything in the reception, “it’s like a piece of heaven in here.”

  I could have said the same thing about her, but I figured we had better move on so we didn’t clog up the receiving line. I winked at her and stepped away. “We’ll catch up with you later.”

  Nicky kissed her other cheek, as charming as ever, and we moved along. I took a minute to talk to Babs, who seemed antsy to get out of his tux, or maybe just out of the receiving line. When I got to Sara and Jonny at the very end, they were clearly distracted and didn’t want to talk long. It didn’t bother me. I moved out of the way, standing off to the side until Nicky finished up.

  Sure enough, there was a bar along the opposite wall with a pair of bartenders working it. I wanted to snag Nicky and keep him away from there as long as possible. When he turned around, I nudged my head toward an empty table nearby, well away from the bar, and waved him over to join me. He scanned the whole room with his eyes first, but then he did finally come over and take a seat.

  “Keeping me away from the booze?” he joked, but there was something more serious in his tone.

  I shrugged.

  “Thanks.” He turned over the glass at the place setting in front of him and reached for the pitcher of water near the center of the table. “It’s not easy.”

  That was the closest he’d come to talking about it. Maybe with anyone. It was hard to know. The league had a policy of protecting its players’ privacy when it came to things like this, so unless Nicky wanted to talk, the other guys on the team and I would never know.

  “There are ways to make it easier,” I said, trying to gently ease us into the discussion.

  “Like getting involved with your foundation?”

  “If you wanted to. But that’s not the only thing out there. It’s not your only option.”

  He nodded and sipped from his glass, but he let his eyes wander back to the receiving line. With the glass still in his hand, he pointed toward Noelle, lifting his chin in her direction. “What are you going to do after you retire if she doesn’t fall in love with Sweden?”

  He was already changing the subject. I supposed we had gotten as far in the talk of his addiction as he was prepared to take it, then. That was all right. I knew better than to push. All I could do was make sure he knew I was around if he needed to talk or wanted help.

  I sighed. “That’s the million-dollar question.”

  “You should compromise,” he suggested. “You could spend half the year in Portland and the other half in Gothenburg.”

  Now that was an idea with some real merit. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it myself. I mean, I’d already been doing that, myself, throughout my NHL career, and we didn’t have kids in school that it would affect.

  After we’d been sitting there talking for a few minutes, the rest of our table started to fill in. Ray Chambers, Andrew Jensen, and Aaron Ludwiczak, a few of our Storm teammates, sat with us along with Jeremy and Dina Connor and their kids. Connor must have been one of Mr. Campbell’s teammates back in the day. He’d been a teammate of mine for about a month during my rookie season with the Islanders before he’d been traded. We said hello and spent a few minutes catching up, but it wasn’t long before the meal was being served and the reception activities were underway, preventing any of us from talking too much.

  I turned my attention to the row of tables along the front of the room where the two couples and the entire wedding party were seated. Noelle caught my eye and lit up the room with her smile, but when I passed my gaze over to Jonny and Sara, I was baffled at the angered looks coming back toward my group, particularly from Sara. Her eyes were blazing in a way I’d rarely seen in the few months I’d known her. Jonny seemed as though he was more upset that she was angry.

  I scanned my table, trying to see what could have riled her so thoroughly. The only thing that seemed problematic was that Razor kept pulling his cell phone out to check it. I caught his attention and indicated for him to put his phone away so he wouldn’t keep causing a distraction, and then I returned my attention to Noelle.

  She’d turned to listen to Zee, who was thanking everyone for coming out, and she had the most serene expression on her face. Maybe I needed to give Nicky’s suggestion more serious thought. Because if I couldn’t be sure Noelle was happy, there was no chance in hell I would be, whether we were in the country I loved or not.

  NOT EVEN CAM’S hand holding mine, enveloping me in the peace of his steady presence, could keep me from teetering on the edge of a serious flip-out moment. I was trying to hold it together because this was Dana and Rachel’s day and therefore not an appropriate time for me to confront my fucking mother and cause a huge scene, but it was taking every ounce of restraint I could scrounge up to keep my ass in my seat and my damn mouth closed.

  Yes, I’d promised Cam that I had no intention of doing anything right now, but I was having a hard time keeping that promise. I couldn’t have guessed that she would have the fucking audacity to plop herself and her replacement family down with a bunch of Cam’s teammates, right in front of me where I couldn’t help but see her. All of the nerve endings in my body were screaming to march over and really lay into her, especially because she hadn’t even done so much as look at me. Not once. Not during the ceremony. Not when she and the wife-stealing bastard she was married to had come through the receiving line with her other children. Not now. Not at all.

  They’d skipped past me in the receiving line, pretending to be so caught up in talking to other people that they’d neglected to see me entirely. I might as well have been invisible. Was it because she was worried I’d scream at her like a banshee? Did she think I would pick a fight and try to rip her hair out or claw her eyes with the perfect manicure I’d gotten while I was out with the other girls yesterday? She would deserve no less, but I was better than that, and my friends deserved better. I could damn well keep my shit together, at least well enough to avoid that kind of behavior. I fucking refused to stoop to that level.

  Thank God Cam had realized what was happening before I’d even said a word to him. He hadn’t left my side once since he pulled me into that dressing room in the hall after the ceremony. Every moment that passed, he had one of those big, strong, steady hands on me in some way—holding my hand, wrapped around my waist, resting in the small of my back—something. He was the only thing keeping me from coming completely unglued, and I had no doubt that he knew it. He was becoming indispensable to me in that way, and I actually kind of liked it.

  “She’s not worth all this anger, baby,” Cam said quietly as he refilled my glass. “She’s not worth getting yourself so worked up over. You’re not hurting her with it. You’re only hurting yourself, and that hurts me.”

  He was right, of course, but I had never been very good at letting go of things. It was just one of many traits I’d picked up from my father over the years. Now didn’t seem like the best time to try to perfect the subtle art of forgiveness, considering I hadn’t gotten very good at it in twenty-three years, at least when it came to my mother.

  “I know that,” I muttered, and I speared a piece of chicken with my fork, trying to channel some of the anger into that action so I wouldn’t expose my raw nerves for all of the wedding guests to see. It was fine for Cam to know how fucked up I was over this, but I didn’t want anyone else to catch on. I didn’t want them to know how easily she could still get to me. Especially because she hadn’t done anything. She hadn’t done a single goddamn thing beyond show up and exist,
and yet I was still sitting here and imagining all sorts of things I wanted to do to her with this fucking fork.

  It was safer for me to stay mad, though. If I let go of my mad, I might collapse into a fit of tears. I didn’t want that woman to see me like that. I didn’t want her to know how bad she’d fucked me up inside. I didn’t want her to see the mess I was because of her. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction, to show her how much control she still had over me.

  It had been more than thirteen years since she’d left us. Thirteen fucking years without a single phone call or birthday card or even a lump of coal to go in my Christmas stocking. Nothing. It was like she’d completely forgotten I’d existed, like she’d written me out of her life, like I’d only been penciled in and so had been easy to erase. Weren’t your parents supposed to put you down in permanent marker in their lives? She should have used a fucking Sharpie to write my name on her heart. But she hadn’t.

  She hadn’t been there to help me figure out puberty and hormones and tampons. She hadn’t been around for me to talk to about boys. She’d missed my first kiss and prom and graduation and trying to sort out how to navigate the world of dating and men and sex—and until Cam had come along, I’d done a fabulous job of royally fucking up that part of my life. She’d missed me being pregnant, and she hadn’t been there to hold me when I’d fucking miscarried.

  She’d missed it all.

  And now she was sitting there with her new family, apparently pleased as punch with herself, and it didn’t look like she was going to miss any of those things with her new kids. They’d gotten the Sharpie treatment, and I’d been rubbed out of existence with a brittle eraser.

  Why the fuck did she love them more than she’d loved me? What the hell did I do wrong? Why didn’t she want me?

  The longer I sat there mulling it over, the closer I got to breaking down. The bite of chicken I’d stabbed was still languishing in my mouth; I’d hardly even chewed it. I couldn’t focus on eating. I felt like I would be sick if I had to look at her and her perfect fucking Sharpied family for even one more minute.