by Sarina Bowen
“I don’t want to be able to see the bandage out of my peripheral vision,” he said as they worked on him. “It’ll distract me.”
“Shoulda thought about that before you decked him,” Coach Worthington said.
“I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
“We need your ass in that net,” Coach pressed. “You let ’im get to ya. I told you not to, and you didn’t listen.”
This was entirely true. “I’m fine,” he insisted anyway. “I won’t let him get to me again.”
Even so, it was a grueling third period. He let one in after six minutes, which made everyone tense. Fortunately, a penalty was called against Tampa when Skews tripped O’Doul. Brooklyn took the opportunity to score, which restored the team’s equilibrium.
But not Beacon’s. For the rest of the game, his face throbbed mightily, and his boys looked tight and tense.
So did Tampa, though. And in the end, their opponent couldn’t get it done. It was 3–2 at the buzzer. Mike skated off the ice thinking about painkillers and a good, cold beer.
If this were a regular season game, they’d be done with this opponent for a while. But not in the play-offs. They were three games into a best-of-seven series, and while their 2–1 lead was nice, the job was far from over. And forty-seven hours from now he’d be face-to-face with Skews again.
Punching him had been a dumb idea, Mike was ready to admit. Now he’d be expected to fight the guy again the day after tomorrow.
He didn’t even make it to his locker before the press was on it, the bright light of a TV camera in his face. “Yeah, I got a little overheated,” he said with a scowl. “I’ll keep a better lid on it next game.”
Outside the dressing room door he found Elsa and Hans. “What happened?” his daughter demanded. “Let me see the wound.”
He chuckled, which only made his face hurt. “I lost my shit, that’s what happened. Don’t let it happen to you.” He put a hand over the bandage. “You can’t see it, the doc already closed it up. It hurts, but I’m fine.”
“Are you going to be okay?” She looked so young when she asked the question, and his heart broke a little.
“Yeah, baby. I promise I’m fine. Go home with Hans, okay? It’s going to be a while until I’m free of this place. And it’s late.”
He moved in to hug her, but she wrinkled up her nose. “You are so sweaty.”
“Sorry,” he laughed. “Go to bed, sweetie. I’ll make you pancakes for breakfast.”
“And bacon?”
“Yeah.”
She beamed and walked off with the violin teacher/babysitter/roommate. He watched them go, wishing he could leave with them, too.
• • •
Seventeen years later he’d showered and then submitted his face to an unreasonable amount of further prodding. “Will I still be beautiful?” he grumbled to the doctor inspecting his face.
“It wouldn’t be a bad idea to take yourself to a plastic surgeon for some more skillful sutures.”
He might have laughed, but it would have hurt. “I was kidding,” he said carefully.
“Ice it tonight,” the doctor advised. “And keep it dry. I’ll change these dressings when I have a look in the morning.”
He was nearly the last player to leave the building. And, just as he donned his suit jacket, Lauren’s face peered into the dressing room. “Mike?”
“Yeah, baby?”
Her gaze dipped. “Are you all right?” she asked, her voice tentative.
“’Course I’m all right.” He patted his pocket to make sure he had keys, a wallet and a phone, then he approached the spot where she stood by the door.
She didn’t let him get close, though. She stepped out of the way and folded her arms in front of her chest, in a classic defensive posture. But he didn’t buy it.
His girl was worried about him. It had to mean something.
“You heading home?” he asked, following her down the long corridor toward the exit.
“Yes, I have a car waiting.”
“Think you could drop me off?” he asked. “I’m only two miles from here. I know it’s late, though . . .” He gave her an out.
“I suppose I could do that,” she said after a beat. “Sure.”
They went outside, where Lauren opened the door to a hired sedan and sat down on the backseat. “We’re going to make two stops,” she told the driver. “What’s your address?” she asked Mike.
“Uh, Willow Street and Pierrepont in the Heights,” he said, thinking back to the days when they were planning to move in together. He’d been full of anticipation for the time when they would have their own place. Now she didn’t even know his address.
“Then we’ll take the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan,” Lauren told the driver as Mike shut the door. “Unless the FDR is backed up.”
“Should be fine at this hour,” the driver said, tapping on his dash instruments to pull up his GPS.
The car slid away from the curb, and they rode in silence for a minute. Then Mike found himself thinking about that pill bottle in her bag, and all the guilty feelings it had dredged up. He turned his aching neck to look at her in the semi-darkness. “How are you doing?”
“Fine,” she said, resting her briefcase on the seat between them. “Long day, though.” She yawned.
“No kidding.”
“I didn’t expect you to take swing at that jerk.”
He grinned, which wasn’t easy with a big old bandage on his face. “I wasn’t planning to do it. It just happened.”
“But will it make your life harder tomorrow?”
He shrugged. “It will or it won’t.”
She snorted.
“What?”
“That’s the goalie mentality. The past is the past. Time for the next play.”
He leaned back against the leather seat and smiled. It was the goalie mentality. If you stood around worrying about the goal you just let in, there was no way you’d be ready to stop the next one. And Lauren had always had his number. Today was no different. “You got a better idea?”
“I guess not.”
She bit her lip, and he watched, wishing he could bite it, too. “Lo, can I ask you something?”
“I don’t know. Can you?”
“Miss Grammar, are you trying to get pregnant?”
Her head whipped around to look at him. “What? Jesus. Did you snoop in my papers?”
“Papers? No. I just . . . saw this pill bottle roll out of your bag at the pool. You told me to watch your stuff and your bag was tipping over. I didn’t mean to read the label.”
“Oh.” She let out a big breath. “Nosy much?”
He made his best contrite face. “I know it’s none of my business but I just didn’t understand. Are you with someone?” He cleared his throat. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have, uh . . .” had a lot of wild sex with you.
“No!” she said for the second time inside of a minute. “God. No! I’m not with anyone. You don’t need a guy to get pregnant.”
“Uh, technically . . .” He let out a nervous chuckle.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” She put her head in her hands. “There’s technology, Mike. Not that it’s any of your business. It’s between me and my doctor.”
“So . . .” His head was spinning. “You’re going to do it all alone?” He tried to picture Lauren bringing her newborn home to a quiet apartment. Those early days were rough, with the baby crying all the time. He felt a stab of something like fear for her.
“Seriously?” He looked up to see her staring daggers at him from. “You don’t think I can hack it?”
“I didn’t say that,” he said quickly.
“You know you’re a single parent, right? And yet it’s weird if I am?”
“Hell, Lauren. You’d be twice the parent that I am.” Not
like the bar is set very high, though.
That’s when the car slid up to his corner and the driver cleared his throat. “Which house?”
“Uh, that one,” he said, pointing.
Lauren sat up a little straighter and stopped glaring at him long enough to peer out her window at the antique brick facade of his row house. “Nice place, Mike.” Her voice was sharp.
“Thanks,” he said, feeling more than a little embarrassed. It was a ridiculously nice house, and fancier than he’d really planned on buying. But when you needed at least three bedrooms and you’re in a hurry, you had to buy what was on the market.
He opened the door, wondering where she lived, and what it was like there. “Want to come inside for a beer?” he heard himself ask. He wished he could take back everything he’d said in the past five minutes.
Slowly she shook her head. “It’s midnight. And I’m already in the car.”
Right. “Good night, Lo. Thanks for the ride, and have a safe trip home.”
“Thank you,” she said stiffly.
He shut the door and stepped onto the curb so the car could roll away.
A moment later the car’s taillights turned out of sight.
NINETEEN
TAMPA, FLORIDA
MAY 2016
Four days later Lauren knelt in child’s pose on her yoga mat, which she’d unfurled on the wood floor in an exercise studio in the team’s Tampa hotel.
At the front of the room, Ari took the class through some breathing exercises. Lauren expanded her diaphragm on command, inhaling deeply. But she tuned Ari out in favor of indulging herself in a few private play-offs calculations.
The location of play-offs series games was always dependent on team standings. In this case, Tampa had entered the postseason with the higher ranking. So they’d enjoyed a home ice advantage for the first two games. Then there had been two in Brooklyn—the one where Mike fought Skews, and then another.
Which they’d lost, unfortunately.
The series was now tied 2–2, and Lauren was hoping her boys could win the next two in a row. According to the rules, game five was back in Tampa, which accounted for the location of today’s team yoga class. Game six would happen in Brooklyn. If the Bruisers could win two in a row, the series would be over then.
However.
If the series lasted seven games, the final one would take place in Tampa. That wasn’t going to be good for Lauren. Because on the date of game seven, she needed to be in New York, where her reproductive endocrinologist was located. If her calculations were right, she’d be ovulating then . . .
“Rise into tabletop,” Ari said at the front of the room. “Exhale, rounding your back, tucking your tailbone. Take stock of your body as we begin a series of cat and cow poses. What feels tight? What feels good? Take it slowly . . .”
Lauren listened to Ari’s voice and tried to shake off her private worries. Upstairs in her hotel room she had a test kit which would help her predict her ovulation. Today she’d take her last dose of the fertility medication, then she could begin testing tomorrow.
Maybe everything could still work out fine. Her body was unpredictable enough that she’d needed the drug to regulate her cycle. Maybe she would ovulate while she was still in New York for game six, or maybe her ovaries would wait until after game seven.
Whenever the test kit gave her the “smiley face” indicator, she’d call the doctor to make an appointment for her intrauterine insemination. The clinic was open seven days a week to accommodate the fickle ovaries of its patients.
Either way, she’d cheer hard for Brooklyn during games five and six. Win this, so we can stay home, she’d be praying.
Ari brought her class into a standing position. “Sweep your arms up on the inhale,” she instructed. “Bring your hands together at heart’s center. As you exhale, dive forward with length.”
As Lauren dove, she admired Mike’s well-muscled backside a couple of rows ahead of her. He was wearing a pair of Lycra shorts that were probably illegal in several states. When he folded his body forward, his nose came right to his knees, and his leg muscles stood at perfect attention like handsome soldiers ready for battle.
Wowzers.
Ari took the class through its first sun salutation, and Lauren found her eyes drifting to Mike over and over. “Rise into Warrior II,” the teacher said, and Mike lunged forward, his arms outstretched perfectly, his back muscles rippling.
Gawd. He was so beautiful. She’d never met anyone more comfortable in his own body. When they were together he used to walk around naked all the time, while she tried not to swallow her tongue. “Don’t you own any shirts?” she’d asked him one January evening, as he’d poured her a glass of wine wearing nothing but a pair of baggy shorts.
“I run hot,” he’d explained. “And this way there are fewer clothes in the way if you decide to pounce on me.”
If memory served, she’d done that very thing about fifteen minutes later.
In the past, when Lauren had fantasized about baby-making, she’d always imagined conceiving while burning up the sheets in his bed. Getting pregnant on a table at the fertility clinic had never been part of her life’s plan.
But that’s okay, she reminded herself. Things change, and I’m done feeling bitter. She followed the class into downward-facing dog pose and stretched her hamstrings. Yoga was relaxing. Maybe Ari would help her find a prenatal yoga class if she became pregnant next week.
Next week. Wow. A little zing of excitement pulsed through her body.
There were good things happening in her life, and not one of them depended on Mike Beacon.
After class, Lauren wiped down her yoga mat and rolled it up. She pulled a stretchy little skirt over her yoga leggings and took the elevator up to the top floor of the hotel. She occupied the usual suite, even though Nathan wouldn’t arrive to occupy the adjacent one until tonight.
Humming to herself, she almost didn’t notice the man standing beside her hotel room door. “Mike,” she squeaked, wishing too late that she hadn’t sounded so much like a teenage fan girl.
“There’s something I need to discuss with you,” he said. “Got a minute?”
“Sure.” She took out her keycard, and tried to avoid glancing at his muscular legs. At least he’d pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of baggy shorts over his tight ones. That made concentrating a little easier. Though that T-shirt was stretched tightly across his pecs, and his skin glowed with the sweat of yoga exertion . . .
Stop. She had to cut out all the lustful thoughts about him. Thanks, hormones.
The door gave way and she stepped into her hotel suite. At least it wasn’t the same room or the same town where they’d had their recent sex fest. Small mercies.
“So . . .” Mike said, closing the door behind himself.
“So?” She had no idea what he wanted to discuss.
Frowning, he walked past her and sat down on the leather footstool in the suite’s seating area. He crossed his delectable arms in front of that lickable chest and looked up at her. “Sit down, honey.”
The small demand rankled for some reason. But she obeyed the request because it would probably get him out of her room more quickly. “Spit it out, Mike. I have a lot of work to do.” She sat on the sofa across from him.
“It should be me,” he said, his dark eyes boring into her. “Not a stranger.”
“What should be you?” Had she missed the first part of this conversation?
“The father of your child.”
She had to take a moment to play back the words he’d just spoken, because they didn’t make a whole lot of sense. “What do you mean?”
“I want it to be me,” he said simply. “We were going to have a family. We can still do that.”
Her blood pressure kicked up several notches in a big fat hurry. And since avoidance had been her
go-to response to all things Mike Beacon these past two years, she tried to cut off the conversation. “I don’t remember asking for your opinion. If I wanted you to weigh in, I would have let you know.”
He winced. “I know you didn’t ask me. But you don’t have to turn to a stranger. I want to give this to you.”
As if it were as simple as a gift he could drop off on her doorstep. “Seriously? That would just be so awkward!” she yelped, her voice getting high. “And you are a stranger, by the way. By choice.” She hated the sound of hysteria that was creeping into her voice.
He held her eyes, though his looked remorseful. “Let’s not be strangers, then. Let’s not be awkward.”
“You want to have a child with someone you used to date?”
He shook his head. “Not at all. I want a second chance to have a family with you. Together.”
If exploding heads were a real thing, hers would have just detonated. “And you came to this realization just recently because you spotted a fertility drug in my purse.”
Mike did something very unexpected then. He smiled. The corners of his mouth turned up, and the smile was slow and sweet. “No, baby. I already knew we needed a second chance. But what I didn’t know was that you were in a hurry. So I’m saying this now instead of waiting until the season is over.”
Lauren stood up suddenly. Her heart was still galloping, and her hands felt twitchy. She hated all the anger that tightened her chest. It was all well and good to tell yourself to give up on the bitterness, and it had worked just fine on a yoga mat. But when some macho athlete sat down in your hotel suite and informed you that you should have his baby, it was a little harder to keep a cool head.
“I can’t discuss this with you,” she said, walking toward the door. “You can’t just walk in here and tell me I’m making a mistake with my life.”
“We’ve already established that I make all the big mistakes.” He stood up slowly. He stalked toward her, his dark eyes serious. And when he reached her at the doorway, he took one of her hands and squeezed. “Let me do this with you.” He kissed her palm, and the play-off beard he was sporting tickled her palm. “Please. I caused you pain, honey. And I want to fix it.”
