The longer I talked, the more excited Dani became. Her eyes lit up like a fireworks display. “And you think she’d let me do a makeover for her? I mean, I’m still just a design student. I don’t have my own line or anything.”
“I think she would. If you want to talk to her—”
“Yes, I want to talk to her. I’m supposed to go back to Seattle tomorrow, but I could call her in the morning. Or better yet, I can meet her in person. Take some measurements. Get a feel for her style and what she’s looking for. Oh my goodness. This is the best thing ever.”
I frowned. “Not sure that’ll work. She’s a teacher. She’s got to go to work, and I don’t know when her planning period is…”
“Then I’ll wait until after school tomorrow to meet with her, and I’ll drive back to Seattle after that.”
“Won’t you miss classes?”
“Yeah, but it’ll be worth it for this,” Dani insisted. “And besides, that’ll give me the chance to… Well, never mind that.” She shook her head and grinned. But it wasn’t any normal grin. It was the sort of look that said her plans to take over the world were clicking into place, and we’d all better watch out.
Whatever else she was thinking of sounded more than just a bit devious, based on her tone, but I didn’t get the chance to try to deter her from doing anything she might regret later—because the phone rang.
We both looked at each other, with understanding flowing through the space between us. Without another word, we headed back into the living room, where her father was muting the television with his cell phone pressed to his ear. Dani took a seat on the couch between her parents.
“Hey, Luke,” he said before falling silent for a moment. “Yeah, your mom and Dani are with me. We’ve got a camera crew from Eye of the Storm here, too. Is it all right if I put you on speaker?”
Luke must have given his agreement, because his father lowered the phone and pressed the button. I glanced over to be sure Ben was catching everything, my gut clenching in anticipation. I’d never witnessed anyone coming out to their family before, and the emotional side that I tried to always keep in check when I was working was going haywire. I couldn’t imagine being in any of their shoes. The way they reacted in the beginning would have such a huge effect on all their lives going forward.
“Hi, Mom,” Luke said. It sounded like he had a cold, but my guess was that he’d been crying. In fact, he might be crying right now.
“Hi, baby,” she replied. She gripped her wineglass tighter, but everything about her seemed unsteady. Dani took the wine from her mother and set it on the coffee table, where it would be out of harm’s way.
“So I just wanted you guys to hear it from me first, because I’m sure it’s going to blow up as soon as the press conference happens tomorrow,” Luke said. He started to go on, but his father interrupted him.
“I just have to say something before you say whatever it is you called to tell us. We love you. You’re our son, you’re Dani and Katie’s brother, and we love you. We’re behind you, no matter what. And there’s nothing you can do or say to change that fact. Okay?”
About halfway through her husband’s speech, Laura started crying, silent but uncontrolled. Dani took her hand and squeezed. Based on the sounds coming from the other end of the line, she wasn’t the only one crying. Heck, I was about to lose it, myself, and I had never met Luke before.
“I know that,” Luke said, but those few words came out in fits and starts.
“Good,” David replied. “Because if this is some ploy to run us off, you’re shit out of luck. You got that?”
And everyone laughed, including me and Ben.
“So I guess you’ve figured out I’m trying to tell you I’m gay,” Luke said, choking on some of the words but still powering through.
“So you’re saying I have more competition with the cute guys,” Dani teased, earning an eye roll from her father.
“I’m being serious here!”
“So am I,” she countered. “Because, damn it all, you’re a hottie.”
“Oh my God,” Luke said, but he was still laughing. “You’re really turning this into a fight over guys?”
“What, did you want me to treat this like it’s a big deal? It’s not. You’re still my big brother. Nothing’s changed.”
“I know, but—”
“But nothing. That’s what we’re all saying.” Dani shrugged, not that he could see it through the phone. “Do you have a hot boyfriend? When do we get to meet him?”
“I don’t— I’m not—”
“You just be sure that any guys you date aren’t asswipes,” their father said. “And if they are, they’ll have to answer to me.”
“Oh God,” Luke said, an eye roll evident in his tone. “Dad, give it a rest with that. We’re all adults now.”
“If I’m gonna run the asswipes off from my little girls, it’s only fair for me to do the same if some asswipe decides to chase after you.”
The next few minutes passed with a lot more laughter than tears, although the occasional sniffle made itself known. But Laura hadn’t said a thing. In fact, she hadn’t been laughing as much as the rest, even if her tears had slowed and she appeared to be much calmer than she’d been before the phone rang…but Luke apparently noticed.
“Mom?” he said in a lull in the conversation. “You’ve been awful quiet.”
“Have I?” she replied, reaching for a tissue.
“Yeah, you have. You okay?”
All the laughter died off while they waited for her to answer.
“I’m fine.” But she didn’t sound fine.
“You’re lying,” Luke said. “If you’re not oka—”
“I’m just worried about you,” she cut in.
“Worried about me? Why?”
“Because this isn’t just you coming out to your family and friends. This is you making an announcement to the whole world—in a world that doesn’t necessarily already love you. You’ve seen all the things that happen just because someone’s gay. Our world isn’t kind to anyone who’s different, for whatever reason. And it’s not like there’s a huge community of other gay hockey players out there for you to lean on.”
“I’ve got support, Mom. Not just my family, either. My team’s standing beside me for this.”
“I’m glad to hear that, but do you have any idea how big a mantle you’re picking up with this? There’s not a single out player in the NHL. You’ll be paving new ground.”
“If I even make it to the NHL, which right now, that’s not looking good.”
“Yeah, but if you do?”
A couple of moments passed before Luke said, “Someone has to.”
“But why you?” Laura asked with a worry-filled ache in her voice. “Why not someone else?”
“That’s the problem. Everyone keeps hoping someone else will do it. Someone has to be the first, Mom.”
“And you’re determined it has to be you,” she said, sounding resigned.
“It has to be me because it’s time for me to be myself, no matter what the fallout might be because of it. I’m tired of hiding. I’m tired of keeping secrets.”
“Well, then…” Laura steeled her spine, like she was preparing to do battle. “I guess that’s all there is to that.”
They kept talking for a while, but I stopped paying such close attention. My focus strayed to thoughts of how it must feel to have a mother like Laura Weber. She might want different things for her children than they wanted for themselves, but she was ready and willing to fight for them, no matter what decisions they made. It was clear to me that her concern was because we lived in a world that could be less than accepting of anyone who was different…something I knew all too well. If only all mothers were cut of the same cloth.
After another ten minutes or so, Luke said he needed to call Katie so he could fill her in on the same thing, and they hung up. David went back to watching the game, with the Blackhawks pulling ahead while it had been muted. Laura h
eaded into the kitchen to get more wine. Dani came over to me to continue our conversation about my proposal, and I left Ben filming in case anything else of significance took place. An hour later, when Ben and I packed up our gear and left the family in peace, I knew three things: the Storm would be facing off against the Blackhawks in the next round, I’d done at least one good deed with my day, and I had the beginnings of what could make for an incredibly powerful episode—and the blessing of the Weber family to use it—if only I could figure out the right context to present it.
By the time I crawled into my bed at the end of the night, I was as bone-weary as I could remember being. To say the day had been eventful would be putting it mildly. I was more exhausted than ever before on every front—physically, professionally, and especially emotionally. All I wanted to do was sleep for the next week.
Before I could fall asleep, though, my phone dinged with a text message. I was tempted to roll over and ignore it until tomorrow, but I’d never been able to do that any more than I could leave emails unread in my inbox at the end of the day. I swiped my thumb across the screen and found a message from Nate.
Thinking of you. Can I tear you away from your work tomorrow night? I want to follow through on what got interrupted this morning.
Despite my exhaustion, my heart started racing just from reading those words, and I was right back in the moment when Archie had walked in and stopped us from kissing. It’d taken me almost an hour to get over my disappointment, once they’d sent Nate off to the hospital for tests, and my day had gone downhill fast after that, before coming to a climax at the Weber house.
I keyed in a response.
Me: I can be finished by six.
Nate: Pick you up then. Wear something nice.
Nice? How nice? Suddenly, this was sounding a whole heck of a lot more like a date and less like a quick kiss. I did a quick inventory of my closet, but the only things I could think of that would qualify as nice were the usual suits I wore for work, and I somehow doubted that was what he had in mind.
I really needed someone to give me lessons on girly stuff. That was so not my forte. I hoped he didn’t expect me to have on some cute dress or a flirty skirt, because I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d worn something like that.
Although, a quick trip to the store on my lunch break might not be out of order. If such a thing could happen in such a short amount of time.
For a moment, I debated responding again and backing out, because that would be so much easier than trying to find something to wear on short notice.
But before I could do that, he sent me another text.
It kills me that I have to wait that long to kiss you. I’m tempted to come over right now and take care of that, but I figure you’ve already changed for the night, and I’d have a hard time leaving. And I took your challenge for being romantic, so I’d better wait. Barging in like that wouldn’t be very romantic of me.
It might not be romantic, but I wouldn’t turn him away…a thought that warmed me through and left me tingling in all the right places.
I could find myself falling for Nate Golston if I wasn’t careful.
I’d never been one to be overly careful when it came to making decisions that could impact my life. If I were, I’d be married to an Indian doctor and popping out babies like my mother wanted. Instead, I was treading water encouraging a relationship with a man that would almost definitely end my career.
THE MRI HAD shown a mild to moderate sprain to my ACL. Doc agreed to let me keep playing since I wasn’t experiencing stability issues, with the understanding that I could potentially make the injury worse, and it might then require surgery. He told Bergy and the rest of the coaching staff to let me rest as much as possible, and he put me in a knee brace that I had to wear off the ice and was fitting me for one to wear during games. In addition to that, I had to ice it as much as possible and go in to see the trainers for treatment anytime I sat out of practice. Bergy then informed me that I would not be participating in practices until further notice, but only in game-day skates to get the blood pumping.
Since I intended to keep playing, Doc warned me to expect that it wouldn’t fully heal until after we’d finished our playoff run, whenever that might be. Hockey was hard on a body—something we’d simply come to accept as a reality of our lives.
That said, this injury definitely wasn’t proving to be the end of the world, and if I was lucky, it would heal up on its own before too long.
In my opinion, the fact that we were facing the Blackhawks in the next round was a much more difficult pill to swallow. I wasn’t looking forward to the return of the media attention that had finally started to shift away from me in the last week or so, but I couldn’t delude myself that it would do exactly that.
Unless something or someone else came along to take the attention off me.
I was in the trainers’ room with Archie working on my knee when one of the other trainers flipped the TV from CNN’s coverage of the protests in Chicago over to NHL Network, which was airing Luke Weber’s press conference. The guy was still in college, not in the NHL, but that didn’t seem to matter. The fact that a hockey player at this level was coming out—the son of a former NHL player and current NHL coach, no less—meant it was big news. Huge, even. The number of reporters who’d gone out to be part of it was astounding, given that the guy hadn’t been drafted and had yet to sign with any NHL team as a free agent.
It was the sort of news that might deflect some attention away from me, but that was my selfish side talking.
It was also the sort of news that might keep Anne busy.
Again, with my selfish side rearing its ugly head. I needed to get that under control.
The other guys came off the ice after practice at about the time that the press conference was coming to a close. I caught sight of Anne and a couple of her camera guys shuffling down the hall past me on their way to Bergy’s office—following Webs, it seemed—and hoped that maybe this was a sign that I was right.
She glanced back over her shoulder before heading into the office, and her gaze met mine. She winked in the moment before ducking inside.
Damn, but I couldn’t wait for tonight.
ANNE CAME OUT wearing a soft green dress made of some fabric that practically floated on her skin, along with some strappy heels that I doubted Archie would approve of, given her barely healed ankle sprain. I didn’t particularly care if he approved or not, at the moment, because the complete package was enough to nearly have me drooling.
I’d never seen her in anything that wasn’t a business suit of some sort, usually in black, navy, gray, or brown—all bland and lacking in personality, even if she wasn’t. The only real pop of color came in with whatever top she wore under the jacket. But in this, she looked like spring turned to human form.
“This okay?” she asked, sounding tentative as all hell. “You just said to wear something nice, but you didn’t say what we were doing, so…”
“This is better than okay.” I didn’t understand how she could be so uncertain of herself. In some things, she was the epitome of confidence. Apparently not when it came to dating, though. It was kind of cute, in a way that made me want to kick the asses of any guy who’d ever overlooked her, or whatever it was. “You look amazing. Makes me think you should wear dresses more often. I didn’t realize you had legs under there,” I teased.
That only made her look even more self-conscious than before, wrapping her arms in front of her in a protective sort of gesture.
“Just trying to help you relax,” I said. “I’m not giving you a hard time.
She shook her head. “I’m probably overreacting. I do that. When it comes to this kind of thing.”
“This kind of thing?”
“Dating,” she clarified. “I’m okay hanging out with guys when there’s a bunch of them and we’re talking about sports or whatever, but this is just…”
“Different,” I finished for her when she trailed off.
“Right.” She gave me a sheepish look.
“I get that. But I’m still the same guy I’ve been all along. I don’t expect you to change anything about who you are. I’m into you already, exactly how you are.”
“Yeah, but you like me in dresses…”
“I think it would be safe to say I’d like you in anything. Or nothing.” I winked.
She bit her lower lip, which made me want to kiss her just there. But I had plans for that first kiss, and those plans didn’t involve us still standing just outside her apartment.
“Come on. Let’s get out of here.” I held out a hand for her.
Anne hesitated for a moment, but then she placed her hand in mine and let me lead her out to my car. “Where is it we’re going?” she asked as I held open the passenger-side door for her.
I waited until she’d safely settled the fluttering fabric, then closed the door and walked around the front to get in. “Will you kill me if I keep it a surprise until we get there?”
She gave me a look that said she might, but in the end, she consented.
I drove us to the waterfront park along the Willamette River and found somewhere to park.
“Here?” Anne asked. She looked around at all the office buildings and businesses. “I’m confused. What’s going on down here?”
“We’re taking a dinner cruise on the river.”
“Oh.” She sounded both surprised and awed. Her gaze traveled over to the Portland Spirit, which was docked and waiting for us to board.
I shut off the engine. “Not what you were expecting?”
“Not even close, not that I could tell you what I thought we were doing.”
Game Breaker (Portland Storm Book 14) Page 13
