Pipe Dreams

by Sarina Bowen

  But that was the wrong thing to say. If she was going to have a child with someone, it shouldn’t be with a man who was acting out of guilt. “The consummate goalie,” she whispered. “Always taking responsibility for the whole field of play.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I love you, and I want to be with you. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.”

  She pulled her hand out of his grasp. “I can’t, Mike. I gave you everything once already. And look how that turned out? I can’t do this again, and I need you to stop asking me to.” She jerked the door open, the instructions very clear.

  He gave her one more long look. And then he walked out.

  Lauren closed the door behind him and then stomped over to the leather sofa where she promptly curled up into a ball on its expensive surface. Every time Mike Beacon opened his mouth, her life became more confusing. Not a half hour ago she’d been fantasizing about him during yoga. But when he offered to do the very thing she’d always dreamed about, she’d thrown him out.

  But of course she had. You had to trust the father of your child. And her trust in him was already shattered.

  She lay there replaying the past month in her mind, trying to decide if he was even serious. She made a list of events, because lists helped to organize her thoughts.

  1. They hadn’t spoken in two years until the play-offs were clinched.

  2. She put on the blue dress, which led to a night of wild sex.

  3. Then he offered to get back together and have a kid.

  Who does that?

  Letting out a groan, Lauren flopped onto her back. Then she let herself wonder what would happen if she actually agreed to his crazy idea. What would he do if she just turned up at the front door of his Brooklyn townhouse with several suitcases and announced she was back?

  Lauren snickered to herself. It would almost be worth it to see the startled expression on his face. He’d always been a shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later kind of guy. It would serve him right.

  She was the analytical one. The planner. She’d always told herself that the contrast made them a good fit. He could keep their relationship a little wild and unpredictable. She would keep all the details straight for the both of them.

  But then he’d done something utterly unpredictable, and she’d never gotten over it. There wasn’t a spreadsheet in the world effective enough to predict Mike’s effect on her heart.

  Her reverie broken, Lauren sat up on the sofa in a hurry. She grabbed her bag off the floor and dug out her very last dose of the fertility medication. It was madness to even ponder his flights of fancy. She had a plan, and she was sticking to it.

  She took the pill, and then a shower. Then she dug into her e-mail inbox and double-checked Nate’s travel plans for arriving in Tampa tonight, and verified with the hotel that his room would be ready.

  Her head was back in the game, and she worked through lunchtime, only glancing up at three P.M. to realize she was starving. She called down to room service to order a salad.

  A knock came just ten minutes later, and she was impressed by the kitchen’s promptness. But when she opened the door, it wasn’t a salad that was rolled on a cart through her door, but rather a giant arrangement of blue hydrangeas. She’d never seen anything so large. In fact, it might be an entire hydrangea shrubbery.

  “This isn’t a salad,” she muttered to the porter who had brought it.

  “Are you Lauren Williams?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sign here.”

  After he left her the flowers, she opened the note which was taped to the vase.

  I love you, and I’ll never stop. —M

  Her hand paused over the wastepaper basket, where she almost tossed the note in.

  But then she set it on the desk instead, wondering how everything had become so confusing.

  TWENTY

  For the next few days, Beacon set his troubles with Lauren aside the best he could. Given that his team was fighting for its life in the play-offs, he had plenty of other things to worry about. Their veteran forward Beringer was sidelined by shoulder pain that might or might not be something serious. And O’Doul skipped practice for what was rumored to be a stomach bug.

  Nonetheless, they managed to win game five in Tampa, where Skews was an asshole, but nothing Beacon couldn’t handle. Then they flew back to Brooklyn for game six, feeling great.

  And lost.

  That left the series tied 3–3, and required one more trip to Tampa. Taking the series all the way out to game seven meant that everyone was tired. Meanwhile, Detroit beat the Rangers in just five games, so their next potential opponent was resting up and recharging their batteries before the conference final round.

  By the time they got off the bus at the stadium, every one of Mike’s teammates wore an intense expression. They marched through the sticky eighty-five degree air and into the subterranean cool of the arena.

  “Good luck out there,” Lauren whispered as he caught up to her in the procession.

  “Thanks.” They had barely exchanged any words since their odd conversation about baby-making. He’d gone a little crazy to think that she’d take him back just like that. But it was one of those situations where he knew if he hadn’t at least tried, he’d always regret it. It had taken all his willpower not to blurt out that he hated the idea of her having someone else’s baby.

  Caveman, much?

  He took a sidelong glance at Lauren as the team moved through the long hallway. She looked as deflated as he felt. “You doing okay?”

  “Sure am,” she said quickly. “Can’t wait until the puck drops.” Her smile was a little unsteady, though.

  That was something to worry about later. “See you on the other side, okay?”

  She gave him a little salute, and he followed his teammates into the dressing room.

  • • •

  Some of Beacon’s teammates were wildly superstitious. They ate the same sandwich before every game, or tucked lucky charms into their hockey socks. Beacon wasn’t very superstitious, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t believe in magic.

  The game seven magic began making appearances even before the puck dropped that night.

  Doulie felt better, and nobody else came down with the flu. Even better, the MRI on Beringer’s shoulder had cleared him to play. An hour before the game they gathered on a loading dock to play elimination soccer—the team’s favorite warm-up.

  Beacon was the first man out, as usual. He was unaccountably bad at elimination soccer, but it was fun to step out of the circle and watch the rest of them duke it out. Tonight’s game got down to Doulie and Trevi and Silas, until Silas won it. He often did, too. The only man who never played for the team was the frequent victor of their warm-up game. Go figure.

  Their good spirits held when the puck dropped, and they went out swinging. So did Tampa, though. It was a weird, high scoring game, tied 4–4 going into overtime. Somehow after all that scoring the overtime period was scoreless.

  So it went to double overtime. As Mike stretched during the (fourth!) intermission he pictured his daughter in the stands with Hans and Justin, and wondered what Elsa was thinking.

  We brought it this far, he said to himself. We can take it even a little further.

  That final period saw the play go a little ragged. But Beacon’s eyes weren’t as tired as the rest of him. He watched everything. Saw everything. Anticipated everything.

  Blocked everything.

  Just when he thought his legs might not make it through another overtime period, Castro got a breakaway on rebound. There was a mad scramble in front of the opponent’s net before the lamp lit.

  Even then—because nothing was ever simple—Castro’s goal was under review. They stood around for two tense minutes while the officials watched the video.

  And then the scoreboard lit
for Brooklyn. They’d won, and would advance to round three. Smiling and practically sagging with relief, Beacon left the net to hug his teammates.

  TWENTY-ONE

  When Lauren reentered the hotel lobby after the game, she found that it had become ground zero for the Bruisers’ victory party. Players’ families had taken over the entire lounge area by the fountain.

  She was surveying the scene when Jimbo trotted up and squeezed her elbow. “I asked the hotel if you’d made any arrangements for food and soft drinks,” he said. “They didn’t have anything on order.”

  “Right.” Lauren whipped out her Katt Phone and pulled up the catering manager’s line. “Some of the guys think it’s bad luck to plan a victory party beforehand,” she explained. “They’d rather wait an extra half hour for their chicken wings than have me jinx them.”

  “Good,” Jimbo grinned. “Because I just ordered ten dozen wings and a few plates of nachos. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “That’s fine. Drinks?”

  “I thought I’d let you handle that. That guy in the black vest seems to be on top of things.” Jimbo pointed at an employee poking at a touch-screen terminal beside the bar.

  “Good tip,” she said. “I’ll talk to him right now.”

  Lauren ordered several other food items and asked the waiter to set up a table, and to rope off an alcove where they could congregate. Players would be trickling in any moment now, and this melee wouldn’t be easy for Nate’s security team to handle.

  Sure enough, Castro and Beringer arrived a moment later to cheers. Lauren stationed Jimbo at the entrance to the alcove and asked him to keep an eye on things until the bus arrived with the rest of the team.

  Lauren flitted about, checking on the status of the transport vehicles and taking care of business. Everyone was smiling and jubilant, yet she fought off an unhappy void right in the middle of her chest.

  This morning Lauren had taken an ovulation test. It was your basic pee-on-a-stick situation, and performed in the privacy of her hotel room. A minute after executing this maneuver, the digital readout showed her a smiley face.

  She’d been wearing a frowny face ever since.

  A frantic call to the fertility clinic had confirmed what she already suspected—they wouldn’t perform her insemination two days from now when she was back in New York, because it wasn’t likely enough to work. “Nobody wants to waste an expensive vial of sperm,” the nurse pointed out. “It’s best to wait until next month when you’ll be in town.”

  But I’m tired of waiting, Lauren complained to herself. Now that she’d made the big decision to become a mother, she wanted to get on with it. And even worse—next month this same scenario might just play out again. The road to the Stanley Cup finals could potentially stretch out another fourteen games, each one two or three days apart. It could be mid-June before the kings were crowned. If her boys survived this next series, and if Becca was still out of commission, she might miss another date with the clinic.

  The room began to fill with players and even more of their loved ones. She saw Jimbo admit a couple of team alumni, too, including Dan “Chancey” Chancer and his evil troll of a wife. Great.

  “Hey there.”

  Lauren spun around to find Mike standing nearby with four champagne glasses and a magnum in his hand. “Hi,” she said, momentarily stalled by the happy look in his eye, and the dazzling effect of Mike Beacon in a suit, his shirt collar open at the neck, his tie stuffed into a pocket. “Good work tonight.”

  “Thanks.” He winked. “It wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done.”

  “That’s me on a good day,” she joked.

  He pursed his lips and shook his head. “Can’t agree there. You’ve never had a day without a whole lot of pretty.” He held out the hand with all the glasses. “Take one of these, will you? I want to pour you a glass.”

  Lauren almost refused. She’d given up alcohol this past week on account of her potential pregnancy. Now she realized it didn’t matter if she had a glass of champagne. Swallowing roughly, she slipped one from his fingers. “Thanks.”

  He poured, and she was all too conscious of how close to one another they were.

  “Hans!” Mike called, lifting his chin toward the blond man standing nearby. “I have bubbly.”

  The guy came closer, and Lauren realized where she’d seen him before—the airport. And sure enough, Hans was followed by Elsa and another man, too.

  “I want some!” Elsa sang, pointing at the bottle in her father’s hand. “Just a taste!”

  “You can have a sip of mine,” he said, pouring another glass. “This is for Hans, who makes it possible for me to go anywhere or do anything.” He gave the man a warm smile. “We should be drinking to his health instead of my victory.”

  The blond cutie blushed, and took the glass.

  “Hans, this is my friend Lauren Williams.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” she said. “And how are you, Elsa? I love your hair longer like that.” She waited to see what the girl would find to say. The poor thing had never been able to tolerate Lauren, but Lauren wasn’t about to take it personally. The kid had her reasons.

  “Thanks,” she said stiffly. “That’s a nice suit jacket you’re wearing.”

  The compliment startled Lauren. “Thank you!”

  “My granny has one just like it,” Elsa added. Then she smiled like the Cheshire Cat.

  “Does she now?” Well played, sister. Lauren bit her lip against a bark of frustrated laughter.

  Behind Elsa, Hans the babysitter looked mortified. And Mike gave his daughter a stern look that said, We’ll talk later.

  Looking pleased with herself, Elsa took Hans’s champagne glass out of his hand and took a taste. Then Hans snatched it back. They obviously had their hands full with this kid.

  “This is Justin,” Mike said a beat later, handing a glass of champagne to a redheaded guy on the edge of their group. “And that’s my whole entourage tonight.” He poured a glass of bubbly for himself. Elsa tried to take it, but he held it out of her reach. “That’s enough,” he said, and she could swear it had more than one meaning.

  Lauren shook hands with Justin and made a couple of minutes of small talk with Mike’s crew. She learned that Hans was Elsa’s violin teacher, and that springtime was—in addition to play-offs season—the season when classical musicians auditioned for symphony jobs.

  “It has been somewhat crazy,” he said in a slightly clipped accent. “Last week I left for Philadelphia the minute Mike got home from Tampa. Tomorrow Elsa flies home with Justin and I go off to Cleveland.”

  “That sounds stressful,” she sympathized.

  “Not as stressful as the actual auditions,” Justin said, wrapping an arm around Hans.

  Hans smiled again. The two of them were adorable.

  Even so, Lauren made her excuses. She thanked Mike for the glass of bubbly and made noises about checking to see that every player had made it back from the arena.

  There was really no more work to do tonight. The team had done it all themselves, and had earned themselves a trip to the conference finals next week. She finished her champagne and abandoned the empty glass on a table.

  It was time for her to head upstairs. As she wove through the bodies toward freedom, Lauren spotted the bald head of an infant in the crowd. And when she looked over its little round head, she found that it was held in one burly arm by the young forward Castro.

  She maneuvered closer for a better view. There was nothing sexier than a hunk of a guy holding a chubby little baby. “Who’ve you got there?” she asked the player.

  “Hey, Lauren! This is my nephew. Isn’t he cute?”

  “The cutest,” Lauren agreed. The baby had the smoothest dark-gold skin, and little starfish hands, one of which he jammed into his drooling mouth. “Can I hold him?”

  “Of cour
se you can,” Castro said, passing her the baby immediately. “I was trying to give my sister a break, and now she’s gone and ditched me.”

  “Hi,” Lauren cooed to the warm bundle landing in her arms. “What’s your name, handsome?”

  “Xavier,” Castro supplied.

  “Hi, Xavier. Do you have any smiles for me?” The baby looked up at her with wide eyes, as if trying to decide. She used the pad of her thumb to stroke just under his soft little chin, and then he made up his mind. He opened his mouth and gave her a giant, toothless smile.

  “Aw, man. I think he’s in love,” Castro said.

  So was Lauren. “You are a very handsome man,” she said to the baby in a low voice. Lauren loved babies, yet they didn’t inspire her to speak in a high voice. “What are your hobbies?”

  “Drooling,” Castro said quickly. “Watch your jacket, actually.”

  But Lauren wasn’t worried. It wasn’t, as a matter of fact, one of her prettiest outfits. Elsa had pointed that out rather harshly, but it was half true. “What do you think, Xavier? Are you teething? Is that why you’re so drooly?”

  He jammed one chubby fist into his mouth and seemed to agree with her.

  “Dude, you passed my child to the first set of willing hands, didn’t you?” A woman with Castro’s coloring and a cheerful smile punched her brother in the biceps. “I’m Jackie,” she said to Lauren while Castro rubbed the spot on his arm that his sister had punished.

  “Lauren,” she said, smiling at Jackie, who wore an empty baby sling over her dress and munched on a carrot stick. “I’m happy to hold him.”

  “Still. I was trying to get my brother to do a little aversion therapy. How am I ever going to get any free babysitting out of him if he’s afraid of the baby?”

  “I’m not afraid,” Castro sniffed. “Just . . . inexperienced. And Lauren asked.”

  “I’m sure you put up a big fight,” Jackie teased.

  “He did,” Lauren lied. “But I was adamant. In fact, I’m tempted to tuck him into my carry-on and take him home with me.”