He stared out into the crowd for a minute, and I had a hard time getting a read on him. But then he nodded. “Yeah. Thanks, Zee.”
The song was coming to an end, and that meant it was time for me to collect my mom and take her for a spin on the dance floor. I got up, and so did Babs. He reached to shake my hand, and I used my other to clap him on the shoulder.
I watched him walk away, but he was heading away from where Katie was. Nothing I could do about that, though. I’d said my piece. Now he had to sort out what he was going to do.
Soupy and I danced with our mothers. Then I danced with Rachel while Soupy danced with Dana, and others started to join us on the dance floor. Katie was out there with her father, not with Babs. I kept an eye out but didn’t see him.
When I’d had enough dancing for a little while, I took a seat to watch Dana. She danced with Jonny. She danced with Webs. Hell, she even danced with Burnzie. A little over a year ago, she couldn’t even let her father or her brother take her hand or give her a hug, and now she was dancing with half my teammates, laughing all the while.
She was definitely making up for lost time.
IT WAS ALMOST time for the two newlywed couples to leave, and I still hadn’t found the opportunity to get Jamie alone so I could tell him about my plans. I’d hoped that he was going to ask me to dance, but Mom and Dad had stuck to my side. It was like they’d put one of those kiddie leashes on me before the day had even started. They hadn’t left me alone throughout the entire reception. I figured that might have scared him off. And then once they weren’t acting like magnets, I hadn’t been able to find him anywhere. Was he avoiding talking to me? Or was it something else?
Razor had been missing, too, so maybe the two of them were off together doing some guy stuff. It only made sense, since Razor had just been traded. This might be their last chance to hang out together for a while. But still… It might be our last chance, too, and I was fairly certain Jamie had at least an inkling about that.
At the moment, Mom and Noelle were waving me over to join them. Sara was already making her way in their direction, too. We were supposed to hand out the tiny bottles of bubble solution to all the guests so that bubbles could rain down over the couples as they left, but I’d been so busy trying to figure out where Jamie might be that I’d been neglecting my bridesmaid duties for at least the last hour. I supposed I’d better get back to work. Especially since I still hadn’t found him, and it didn’t look like that would change anytime soon.
I headed over and took a basketful of the bubble bottles with their tiny sea-foam green ribbons tied around them, and I started making my way through the crowd, handing them out and directing people to stand in two lines.
“It’s time?” Mrs. Campbell asked when I handed her a bottle. She sniffled and reached into her purse for a tissue, but her eyes were all lit up and happy, despite her tears.
I nodded, wondering how my own parents would react when my wedding day arrived. Would Mom cry, or would she be too busy barking orders to anyone who would listen? It was hard to guess. She had the ability to turn from drill sergeant to sap in the blink of an eye. “It’s time,” I replied.
Mrs. C pulled me in for a hug. If I didn’t know her better, it might have been weird. But she had come to Portland during the playoffs a little while back so that she and Dana and Rachel could work on all their wedding plans together. It had been right after Scotty Thomas’s heart attack and Sara’s car wreck, and she’d helped us look after the pair of them. I was still in the midst of my chemo treatments then, so I wasn’t going to school. I had been allowed to hang out with all the wives and girlfriends a lot, then, and it hadn’t taken long to figure out that Mrs. C was a lot like my mom, only considerably less bossy and she baked a lot more cookies. But then again, baking any cookies at all would qualify as baking a lot more cookies than Mom did. She might never be a domestic goddess, but she was more than willing to hire one.
“I’d better get over there, then,” Mrs. C muttered, dabbing at her eyes and fumbling with her bubble bottle, the ribbon unraveling in her hands.
I opened my mouth to reply to her, but nothing but a squeak came out. Jamie had just come back into the banquet hall, and suddenly he was all I could see. He was scanning the room, searching for something. Or someone. Like me.
Mrs. C turned her head in his direction, and then she gave me a pat on the cheek. “Here, give me those,” she said, taking the basket from me and giving me a nudge toward Jamie. “You’ve got more important things to do.”
“I—” I couldn’t speak because my eyes were filling with tears of dread over what I needed to say to him, and any effort at making words come through my lips was just going to end up making me cry.
“Go on. You’ve been looking for that young man all night, trying to talk to him. Now’s your chance. I can do this, and no one will miss you.” She gave me a little shooing motion with her hands, and somehow my feet started moving.
I’d hardly taken three steps when his eyes landed on me. He smiled, but it wasn’t his usual smile, and he started crossing over to me, closing the distance between us. I had to wonder about that awkward smile. Today ought to be a great day for him because his brother got drafted by his team…but then, his best friend had been traded. That had definitely put a damper on things. And I had a feeling I was about to do even worse than that.
But maybe I was giving myself too much credit. Maybe he didn’t feel as strongly for me as I did for him. Maybe to him, I was just like one of those girls who brought the signs to the games, and he’d only taken me to my prom because he’d felt sorry for the sick, bald girl. There was a part of me that was sure that was the case, even though he’d given me every indication—both then and now—that there was more between us than that.
Out of habit, I reached up and felt the soft, downy hair that was gradually coming back in. It was a little darker now than it used to be. I didn’t know if the chemo had permanently altered the color of my hair or if it was only a temporary change. Either way, I kind of liked the new color. I still wasn’t sure about how short it was. For some reason, I was far more self-conscious about having my hair like this than I’d been when I was bald. At least then, I’d been able to put a scarf over my head and didn’t feel quite so bare.
“I’ve been thinking about touching your hair like that since I saw you come in yesterday,” he said when he reached me, and I blushed like crazy at the thought of him running his fingers through my hair. He was blushing, too. “Can, uh…” He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked over his shoulder for a second. “Can we go somewhere and talk now? We’re running out of time before your parents will want to take you back to the hotel.”
I glanced over to where all the other bridesmaids were shepherding the guests into position, and my mom caught my eye. She gave me a look—the sort of look only a mother can give—and waved her hands at us in the same sort of shooing manner Mrs. C had done only a minute ago.
She was right. I had to do this. I couldn’t put it off any longer because he deserved to hear what I had to tell him in person. This wasn’t something I should say over the phone or by text message. I owed him more than that.
“Yeah. Let’s go,” I said, reaching for his hand.
He let me take it, and all I wanted to do was melt into him, to put my arms around his waist and have him put his around me and stay like that for as long as we could. Forever. But that wouldn’t be fair of me, so I settled for holding his hand.
We went out into the hall where all the dressing rooms were located, and Dana and Rachel were just coming out wearing regular clothes instead of their wedding gowns. Zee and Soupy had been waiting for them in the hallway, along with Maddie and Tuck. We passed them all on our way to a side exit of the building. Dana winked at me as we went by, and Zee slapped a hand on Jamie’s back, but none of them tried to stop us or said anything—not even Tuck, who seemed to think Jamie hung the moon. That kid always wanted to hang out with him.
The sun was just beginning to set when we got outside, and the summer sky looked like a watercolor painting—soft pink and Creamsicle orange mixing with lavender, with only a few fluffy clouds floating around up there. Even though the door closed behind us, we could still hear the celebrations going on from all the way on the other side of the building.
I wasn’t really in the mood to celebrate anymore. How could I be? I felt as if my heart was breaking in two, and I was the one causing it. I might be about to break Jamie’s heart, too, which led to a whole other sort of heartache.
Jamie didn’t let go of my hand. He just stood there, holding it in his and waiting.
I figured I’d better get it out fast before I lost my courage and couldn’t tell him. “I sent a video to Derek Hatch.” Only a single sentence in and tears were already falling down my cheeks. I batted them away with my free hand, impatient with myself. “He’s an entertainment agent based in LA—kind of a big deal. Mom and Luke and Dani helped me put the video together. It’s just some singing and dancing, and some footage from a school play I was in a couple of years ago. Nothing fancy.”
Jamie lifted his hand to my cheek and used the pad of his thumb to brush away a tear. “And he liked it?” He was doing a damn good job of hiding whatever he was thinking or feeling, but I’d learned over the past few months that there was one thing that would always give him away: when he clenched his jaw, it made his dimples pop out. They were insanely evident at the moment.
I nodded, biting my lower lip and looking anywhere but at him. “He said it was great, that I’ve got all the tools and he’s sure I can get a ton of work in no time. He wants to be my agent. He’s really excited about it. He’s already got a few auditions lined up for me, for as soon as I can get down there. I told him I had to be here for the wedding, but…” But my heart was shattering, and if I went to LA, I would end up in a bunch of broken pieces that would never fit back together again, wouldn’t I?
“Why are you crying?” he asked, and he tried to laugh. “This is what you’ve dreamed of. This is everything you wanted, and now you have the chance to reach out and grab it.”
But it wasn’t everything I wanted…because I wanted Jamie, too. No matter how many times I tried to convince myself that we could make it work long distance, that I could be in LA or wherever my career sent me and that he could still be in Portland, it always blew up in my face. I didn’t want him long distance; I wanted him to be with me all the time. I wanted to be the one he came home to after a long road trip so we could spend hours wrapped up in each other and make up for all the time we spent apart.
It was hard enough to be a hockey wife. I’d seen it my whole life with my mom, and with all the other players’ wives I’d known over the years. But to not even be able to have that time together when he was home? I couldn’t do it.
Thinking about that again only made me start crying harder, so hard that he let go of my hand and put both his arms around my back and pulled me to his chest. For just a moment, I let him offer me that comfort. I could only allow it for a moment, though, because I didn’t deserve to have it. I was the one walking away. I was the one putting an end to any idea of there being an us, so why should he be the one to make me feel better about it?
“Let me hold you,” he murmured just before I was going to force myself to separate from him. With one hand, he caressed the back of my head, which only made me cry harder. “Please, just one more time. And then you can go to LA and have this guy be your agent and go on all sorts of auditions and become the person you want to be. But let me hold you one more time before you go.”
And I did let him hold me, all the while cataloging all of my memories with him. The first time I’d seen him, when he’d shown up to the Storm’s big welcome event his rookie season and accidentally bumped into me, and we’d had to grab on to each other’s arms to steady ourselves, both blushing like idiots. The way he had always ducked his head and shuffled away whenever my dad would come across the two of us—until a few months ago, at least. The fact that he’d taken me to my prom. Our first kiss—sweet and awkward and tear filled. Going to Voodoo Doughnuts together after prom. All the times since then when he had hugged me and held my hand and sometimes kissed me, despite the fact that my father was trying to intimidate him into stopping.
No one ever tells you how much love hurts. I think maybe if you knew in advance, you’d be too scared to go there, to let yourself feel something that was both wonderful and horrible all at once. That kind of ache was intense, somehow even worse than all the pain I’d felt for months as I went through all of my cancer treatments. Jamie held me through the worst of my present pain. Or at least I hoped, maybe naively, that it was the worst of it. I hoped that once I walked away, the tears would dry up and the hot knife stabbing my gut would disappear and the hammer pounding my heart into millions of pieces would find something else to strike.
I sobbed and sobbed, and he just wrapped me up tighter, which only made me love him more. I wouldn’t have thought that was possible. He held me until my eyes were raw and my tear ducts were dry and the sun set behind us, and even then he didn’t pull away. I didn’t want to, either. I wanted to stay just like we were, as though I could somehow put off the inevitable. I didn’t just want to catalog this moment; I wanted to freeze time.
“Katie?” It was my sister, Dani, and her voice was coming from the doorway leading back inside the building. “Mom and Dad said it’s time to go.”
I nodded, unsure and not caring whether she saw it or not.
“You should go,” Jamie said. He pressed his lips to the top of my head.
I didn’t know if I could. Just the thought of letting go, of taking half a step back, seemed like more than I could manage.
He must have known how difficult it was for me because he gently eased my arms from his waist and stepped back into the darkness.
“Good-bye, Katie.”
He didn’t go inside; he just walked away, heading around the side of the building while I fought the urge to chase after him, to tell him I’d changed my mind and I wanted to stay in Portland so I could be with him, to beg him for a kiss.
“Come on,” Dani said, gently tugging on my arm. She led me back inside, where Mom, Dad, and Luke were waiting. As soon as I saw them, I started bawling all over again.
My father opened his arms, and I did the only thing I could think to do: I ran straight for them.
“WASN’T WEDDING CAKE enough?” I couldn’t stop myself from laughing at the same time I asked Liam that question. After the newlyweds had gone off to start their married lives—Soupy and Rachel hauling Tuck and Maddie along with them to enjoy their family honeymoon at Disney World—and those of us in the wedding party had made sure all the things they would want saved had been stowed away before the cleaning crew came in, Liam had insisted he wanted to take me out someplace nice so we could have dessert.
I wasn’t so sure I could handle eating anything else after everything we’d already had today, let alone something sweet. I might not have been sitting right beside Liam during the reception, but I knew for certain that he’d had a good-sized piece of the wedding cake, and I had seen him later with a plate bearing a large piece of the grooms’ cake on it, too. But a few sweets on a day like today weren’t going to hurt him, and he almost never indulged like this. I’d never known anyone in such good physical shape—at least not until I started getting to know all the other hockey players on his team. Now I knew a lot of men who seemed to be all solid muscle with hardly an ounce of fat to be found anywhere on their bodies. It was both awe-inspiring and unnerving, to be honest.
But Liam apparently wanted more dessert today, and he could be pretty convincing when he wanted something. Typically, that persuasiveness struck me in one of two ways, depending on the circumstances: either it annoyed me to no end or I found it utterly charming. Right now? Definitely charming. Granted, I was already in a good mood because the wedding had been so beautiful. There was little in this world that co
uld be more touching than watching two people who loved each other promise to continue loving each other for the rest of their lives. To witness four people doing that very thing all in one day? It had filled me with a sort of joy that was hard to explain verbally.
Liam had stopped trying to get me to put my happiness into words a while back. He just liked to bask in it and let some of it rub off on him. I was pretty sure it was working, too. He smiled a lot more these days than he had when we’d first met, and I loved seeing him smile.
“You don’t have to get dessert if you don’t want to,” Liam said. “You can have a cup of hot chocolate and watch me eat.” He was grinning and waggling his eyebrows at me, and that only made me laugh more.
“You make it seem like watching you eat ought to be code for something.”
“It wasn’t,” he said, angling his head so he could eye me through slits as we walked through the still-bustling parking lot to our rental car. “But maybe that’s not a bad idea. It could be code for—”
“Don’t say it!” I darted in front of him and put my hand over his mouth before he could utter something that would embarrass me to no end. There were tons of other wedding guests—many of whom we knew—hanging out in the parking lot, making plans for how to spend the rest of the evening. I would be mortified if someone had overheard Liam say what I believed he was thinking.
We were walking past Burnzie, for goodness sake. I’d discovered in the last twenty-four hours that Burnzie had a way of smiling that made me blush straight down to my toes, as though he could read every thought in my mind and even knew when I was thinking about things that shouldn’t be shared in polite company. If he heard whatever Liam was about to say…
“Code for holding hands and walking on the beach,” Liam said emphatically through my hand. Not that there was a beach anywhere near us. Or at least I didn’t think there were. I’d never been to Providence before, and geography had never been one of my strengths.
Double Major (Portland Storm) Page 8
