Delay of Game

by Catherine Gayle

  He was the kind of guy who couldn’t stand to be alone. He needed people around him all the time or he would start to go stir-crazy. Considering that, I’d never understood why he didn’t at least have a roommate to keep him company in his enormous home. Burnzie owned what might be the biggest house in all of Portland, although calling it a house didn’t come close to doing it justice. It was really more like a massive mansion, built into the side of the Willamette River. It was big enough that my whole family—Mom, all three of my sisters, and I—could easily live there together and never run into each other, but it was just him and his dogs in all that space. He was always having parties there, with as many of the guys from the team as would come, plus God only knew how many other people from around the city. Probably so it wouldn’t feel so big and empty all the time.

  Of all the guys on the team I might choose to go have lunch with, he was pretty much the last I would have thought of. It wasn’t that I disliked him. I just wasn’t so sure he and I really lived in the same world all the time. I liked my peace and quiet. I liked my modest house. To me, there was a time and a place for a party, and it wasn’t every single weekend in my home.

  I had to eat lunch, though, and I didn’t know where I would find Sara since she hadn’t answered my calls. I’d been thinking about going up to the hospital to visit Scotty and see if I would run into her there, but whether she’d be there right now or not was a crapshoot. Going out with Burnzie seemed like as good an option as any. I could try calling her again after, and hopefully then she would answer.

  “Yeah, let’s get out of here,” I said, shrugging on a T-shirt.

  He wanted to go to Kells, an Irish pub in Old Town that he claimed had the best shepherd’s pie known to man, and the corned beef and cabbage was supposedly good enough to write to his Irish grandma about. I didn’t particularly care where we went. I wasn’t picky. We left my truck at the practice facility since it would be on his way home after we had lunch.

  He parked in the lot across the street, and when we walked through the door of the pub, the host greeted him like an old friend.

  “Your usual booth?” he asked, grabbing two menus from behind his stand and heading toward the back corner of the bar without waiting for an answer.

  “When have you ever known me to sit anywhere else, Tony?”

  “Never. It’s still polite to ask.”

  The bartender looked up and waved at him as we walked by. They were treating him like he was family or something. How the hell often did he eat here?

  There were only a handful of other patrons in the place at this time of day, even though it was a Saturday. It was later than most people would eat lunch but too early for the dinner crowd. We slid into our booth, the one closest to a small stage in the corner. It looked like they had live music, probably regularly, and all of the TV screens over the bar were tuned to sports news.

  “It’s been packed in here during your games,” Tony said. “Standing room only. Nice to see the Storm back in the playoffs.”

  “Not as nice as it is to be back in the playoffs,” Burnzie said. He’d been with the Storm a couple of years longer than I had. Long enough that he’d actually seen some playoff action early in his career. I’d only seen the playoffs from back home in Winnipeg, watching it on TV. That was nowhere near the same thing as playing in them. I was a little closer now and could tell that without even touching my blade to the ice.

  “They gonna shorten your suspension?” Tony asked me. I must have given him an odd look because he kept talking, trying to explain himself. “You’re Cam Johnson, right? They can’t really suspend you for ten whole games. It wasn’t that bad, what you did. Besides, it’s the playoffs, man.”

  “It was that bad.”

  “But come on. Ten playoff games? I thought they always treated suspensions so that two regular-season games were the equivalent of one playoff game. That’d mean you should get off after five. You could maybe be back before this series is over.”

  I didn’t see any point in discussing this. The suspension was automatic. The hearing had already come and gone. “It is what it is,” I said.

  “You could appeal to the commissioner,” Burnzie said.

  Which was exactly what my agent, Jim, and the coaching staff had all encouraged me to do. That wasn’t me, though. I wasn’t the kind of guy who thought he should get off easy for whatever reason. I preferred to take the consequences handed down to me, whatever they may be, and move on with things.

  I looked at my menu to redirect the conversation. That kind of talk made me uncomfortable. Burnzie took the hint, and we ordered our food. Tony headed off to inform the kitchen what we wanted and to bring us our drinks.

  “So.” Burnzie sat back against the bench, taking up a casual position that looked anything but casual. “Some of the boys are worried about you. Zee, Soupy, Webs, me…a few of the others, too. I wanted to see where your head’s at.”

  “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just what it sounds like.” He shrugged. “Look, I’ve been suspended before. Zee has, too. We know what it feels like, how it can make you beat yourself up. Plus, you’re not really hanging out with the boys right now. Jens said you were pretty much always up in your room on the road unless something was going on that you were required to be at. You wouldn’t go out for a beer. You didn’t tag along even though you weren’t going to drink or go find some guys to hang out with in some other capacity.”

  That was about Sara, though, not about beating myself up. I didn’t know how she’d feel about me telling anyone else what was going on with us, though. She’d probably told Dana and the other girls by now, but that didn’t mean that any of the guys knew, and it didn’t mean she wanted any of the guys to know.

  Besides, then there was the whole issue of how the boys would feel about me being with the coach’s daughter.

  I shook my head. “I’m not beating myself up.” Except over what to do about Sara, but that was another matter entirely.

  He raised a brow. “Then what’s going on?”

  Tony came back and delivered our drinks. “A couple more minutes on your meal.”

  When he was gone, I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the table. “Nothing’s going on.”

  “Bullshit. I’ve known you four years. You’ve never been like this—so withdrawn from the rest of the guys. You’ve always been quiet, but this is different.”

  It was different. He was right about that much.

  “There’s a girl,” I finally said, steering clear of who that girl might be.

  His eyes lit up with that, and he gave me one of his trademark smiles that always seemed to make women melt. “Nice. So at least you have a good reason for avoiding us, then. Sexting, that sort of thing.”

  I gave him a noncommittal grunt in response. It seemed like that was enough, at least to appease Burnzie.

  Tony brought our meals out, and soon we were eating and talking about the Trail Blazers’ NBA playoff series, and all thought of me and whatever was going on with me was pushed to the side.

  At least for now.

  WHEN THE MEETING with Daddy’s doctors was over and he was settling in for a nap, I pulled my cell out of my purse and powered it on while the elevator took me down to the ground floor. I hadn’t wanted any distractions so I could focus on what they were telling us about his at-home care, since they were still planning to discharge him tomorrow, so I’d shut it off completely. Now, though, I had the rest of the day free to do whatever I wanted. Daddy had come really close to forbidding me to return to the hospital today. He said I was hovering.

  My phone was fully on by the time the elevator doors opened to the sunlight pouring in through the massive windows lining the front of the hospital. The bright light blinded me so much I couldn’t make out anything on the screen, so I shoved my phone into my pocket and headed out to the car.

  Once I had the engine running, I took my phone out again and looked to see if I had any messag
es. No new texts, and email-wise the only new things were spam. But the voice mail symbol was lit up. I punched in my password and turned on the Bluetooth in the car, then backed out of my parking spot.

  Jonny’s voice greeted me. “I thought we’d agreed you weren’t going to avoid me anymore. Call me when you get this so I don’t have to go back on my end of our deal, too.”

  Well, shit. I wasn’t intentionally avoiding him, but of course, it had to look that way.

  I deleted his voice mail and turned onto the access road to get on I-84. Then I tried to pull up his number in my contacts list while I was getting up to speed. I finally found it and hit “send.”

  “Sara?” he said, almost before the phone had a chance to ring.

  “I was in a meeting with Daddy’s doctors,” I explained. I turned on my blinker to merge. “I wasn’t avoiding you.”

  “Okay.” He didn’t sound angry. I was beginning to think that nothing at all would make this man lose his cool, which was equal parts fascinating and infuriating.

  I tried to put my phone on the dash mount so I could have both hands free, but it slipped out of my grasp and went down under my feet into exactly the wrong spot. “Shit.” If it stayed there, I might not be able to brake properly. I tried to edge it over using the toes of my left foot. It wouldn’t budge. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  This was absolutely the worst possible moment something like this could happen. I shot my head up to see what the traffic in front of me was doing, just in time to see brake lights everywhere. I slammed my foot down on my brake pedal.

  “What’s wrong?” Jonny asked.

  My airbag blew up in my face as I crashed into the car in front of me.

  I HEARD A long, loud crash and Sara moaning, and then the line went dead. And I went numb. “Oh God.” The phone dropped from my hand and clattered against the wooden table.

  “What is it?” Burnzie asked, suddenly serious. He’d just finished paying our bill, and we had been about to return to the practice facility for my truck when Sara had called. When my phone rang, he’d seen the image of her heels flash up on my screen, and he’d heard me say her name…and he’d smirked knowingly, wagging his brows and mouthing the words, That’s who you’re sexting with? But all of that teasing was gone now, fled as quickly as all sensation had fled from my extremities. “What the fuck is it? Did Scotty have another heart attack or something?”

  I shook my head, trying to remember how to speak. “Sara,” I choked out. “I think she was just in a car wreck.”

  “Where was she?” He was on his feet before he finished getting those three little words out, pulling his keys out of his pocket and grabbing my phone off the table. “We can call an ambulance and get to her, or meet her at the hospital, or—”

  He was still talking, but he’d already headed out the front door of the restaurant and my mind wasn’t processing anything he said. I forced my feet to move, one after the other, following behind him. When I caught up and climbed into the passenger seat of his car, he looked at me long and hard.

  “She’s the one?”

  I nodded. She was the girl who had me so fucked up. She was the one I couldn’t stop thinking about. She was the one. There was no denying it now, not to him, and not to myself.

  “Was she leaving home? The hospital? Where was she?”

  “I think she’d just left the hospital.”

  Burnzie nodded and put his car into gear. Only a few minutes passed before we were on I-84 heading toward the hospital—and we saw a big, multi-car pile-up stopping traffic heading the other direction. Flashing lights were speeding to get to it through the traffic that was attempting to merge into the left lane so they could avoid the wreck. The EMTs would get there before we would. Burnzie got off the highway at the next exit to loop around and move straight toward the accident.

  I craned my head around as we passed the wreckage, praying I wouldn’t see Sara’s car.

  But there it was. The light-blue Lexus her dad had given her. Right in the middle of it all. Crushed in the front and from behind…sandwiched between several other cars.

  “Fuck.” My stomach was in my throat.

  “It’s her?” Burnzie asked. “You’re sure?”

  As sure as I’d ever been about anything. My heart sank to the floorboard. I don’t know if I responded to him or not. I couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t feel. Couldn’t do anything but picture her dead. Bleeding. Dying.

  Most of the cars in front of us were staying on the service road since the accident had happened in the acceleration lane, but Burnzie drove us onto the ramp to enter the highway. He pulled up on the shoulder behind the accident. I didn’t even wait for him to come to a complete stop. I whipped my seat belt off and was out of the car before he’d put it in park.

  Six vehicles were involved, and some of the other drivers were out, trying to help each other. The paramedics had arrived and were attempting to get a handle on the situation and sort through all of the people involved.

  But I didn’t see Sara. She wasn’t out and moving about like the others.

  I worked my way through the crowd to her car. She was slumped over in the seat, her head resting against the steering wheel.

  “Sara?” I tried to open her door, but it wouldn’t budge.

  Neither did she. A trickle of blood streamed down the side of her face.

  Fuck. “Can I get some help over here?” I shouted. “She needs help.”

  Burnzie was on the opposite side of her car, trying those doors. I tried to get into the back seat behind her, but the car was so smashed that none of the doors would release.

  “I can’t get them to open,” Burnzie said.

  “We need help over here!” I shouted, louder this time.

  A couple of paramedics finally came over. “You’ve gotta move out of the way,” one of them said to me. I’d barely stepped back before he raised a metal tool into the air and broke the glass in the rear window.

  “Shit,” Burnzie said, watching the glass spray everywhere. My thoughts exactly. Some of it might cut Sara, but a few more cuts were the least of my concerns about her health. We had to get her out of there. She had to get to the hospital.

  More rescue workers streamed in, some of them on the opposite side, and Burnzie stepped back, as well. They broke out all the windows, and then they used the Jaws of Life to cut through the metal and remove the driver’s side door.

  The whole time they were working, I watched Sara. She was breathing. Her chest was rising and falling steadily. But she didn’t wake up through it all.

  They wheeled a stretcher over and immobilized her head before pulling her free. I couldn’t stop myself. I got in their way and took her hand in mine while they were strapping her down to it. It was warm and sticky with blood, and she moaned.

  Moaning was a good sign. A really fucking good sign.

  “Sir, you’ve got to—”

  “She’s my girlfriend,” I interrupted, my eyes flashing up to meet his. There was no fucking way I was letting them take her away from me right now, no chance I was being left behind. “And she’s pregnant. And I’m coming with her.”

  The paramedic across from me met my eyes. “Okay, but if we tell you to move so we can help her, you have to move.”

  I nodded. I’d move, but I wasn’t fucking staying behind. I wasn’t letting her out of my sight.

  They finished strapping her to the stretcher and started wheeling her toward the ambulance.

  “What hospital are you taking her to?” Burnzie shouted after us.

  “Providence,” one of the emergency workers responded.

  “No,” I said. “Kaiser. Her dad’s at Kaiser.” The last thing she needed was to be taken to a different hospital than where Scotty was.

  “It’ll be quicker to keep heading in this direction than to try to turn around,” he said.

  “It’ll only take two minutes to get turned around. Her father just had a fucking heart attack. That’s where she needs to be.”
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  They agreed to change their plans. It was only after we were in the back of the ambulance that I realized I’d been making fists with my hands and taking on a fighter’s stance, as I would on the ice.

  Burnzie headed back toward his car, shouting over his shoulder, “I’ll follow you there.”

  I nodded to let him know I’d heard, not that he would see that since he was running in the opposite direction, but I couldn’t look away from Sara for even one second. She was grimacing, but she hadn’t opened her eyes yet, and those pained moans were coming with more frequency. It scared me that she was in so much pain, but being in pain meant she was alive.

  I had to let go of her hand so they could get the stretcher into the back. I climbed in and took a seat next to her, taking hold of it again in both of mine. They closed the doors and turned the siren on, and then we were in motion. The two guys in the back with us set to work, putting an IV in her arm and taking her vitals and checking all the different places she was bleeding to see how bad her wounds were.

  Her eyes fluttered open, and she blinked a few times before settling her gaze on me.

  “Cam?”

  I’d never been happier to hear her say my name. “I’m right here,” I said. And right at that moment, I made up my mind that I would always be there.

  I’D BEEN RIGHT by Sara’s side through every moment in the emergency room until now. I’d held her hand and talked to her, trying to keep her calm through everything. She had a pretty nasty concussion, and she kept asking me what had happened. Time and again, I had explained that she’d been in a car accident and she was in the hospital where they were going to take care of her, and I wasn’t going to go anywhere. But then a few minutes later, she would ask again, and we would have to start over from the beginning.

  This was probably the one and only time in my life that I was glad I’d been around guys with concussions so many times. Her behavior didn’t freak me out like it would have if I didn’t know what to expect, if I hadn’t already seen things like this on numerous occasions. Brain trauma was a scary business.