by Luis, Maria
“Imagine if it was an Olympic event—you’d place first.”
“I’ve always wanted a gold medal.”
“Now’s your chance to take what’s yours.” He kisses the crown of my head, then loops his arms around the small of my back to lift me off my toes in a tight hug. “How about you go upstairs to your room and get ready for bed?” He sets me back down on my feet again, stealing away his body heat while heading for the room phone that’s perched on the desk. “I’ll take care of all”—he plucks up the phone from the receiver and gestures to the broken bed—“this.”
“What are you going to tell them?”
“That you had your wicked way with me.” He waggles his eyebrows. “Wouldn’t let me come up for air because you were so desperate to have me sucking on your cli—oh, hey. Cliff. I was just about to say that I’ll be climbing a cliff tomorrow.” Jackson flashes me a thumbs up, mouthing, go upstairs. “No mountains in the area? Seriously? Damn, well there goes that idea. Way to kill a man’s dreams, Joe.”
When he gestures at me to get dressed, I swallow an ill-timed chuckle and begin pulling my clothes on again.
Jackson, on the other hand, remains fully nude, not a hint of embarrassment straining his features while he apologizes to the front-desk receptionist about “the travesty done to the bed” and asks that all damages go on his personal credit card.
Picking up my purse from where I’d sent it sailing earlier in the evening, I hook the strap over my shoulder and move toward Jackson.
He hooks a hand around mine, eclipsing the final steps between us. Drops his mouth to my ear, away from the receiver, to ask, “What room are you in?”
Guess the cuddling thing is definitely going to happen.
I search around for a hint of worry, any slice of panic that I’m making the wrong step here, but I find nothing but excitement. “301. First door on your right out of the elevator.”
He nods, once, and sends me off with another kiss to my temple.
I head up to my room with a bounce in my step.
Strip off my clothes and pull on a basic T-shirt and sleep shorts with a smile that can’t be stopped.
Twenty minutes after I climbed into bed, with the TV’s volume turned down to a gentle murmur, I hear the knock on the door.
And the grin comes right on back.
Once inside my room, Jackson wastes no time teasing me out of my clothes all over again, tugging my shirt up and over my head and my shorts and panties down the length of my legs. He eyes the full-sized bed with distrust, making a dramatic show of giving the mattress his weight in several increments.
He makes me smile.
He makes me throw my head back in laughter.
And when he wraps me up in his big arms, my chin resting on his chest, as he surfs the TV for something good to watch, he makes me crave something more than a hotel-room stay while I’m technically on the clock.
Love. Forever. Him.
I don’t know if any of it is attainable—not in the long run, not if we allow all our past faults to come tumbling in between us again.
I squeeze him tight, inhaling his familiar sandalwood and fresh-breeze scent.
For tonight, I just breathe.
29
Holly
Jackson’s weekend getaway brings us to Newport, Rhode Island, home of Gilded Age mansions and beautiful oceanside views and picture-perfect little shops along the main strip in town.
I mean, even the Dunkin’ Donuts that we stopped at for coffee looked like something out of a magazine. It had seating outside and cute little picnic benches, and the girl at the counter actually smiled when she took our order.
Smiled.
Boston has its charm, don’t get me wrong, but the term “Masshole” is applicable because it’s the undeniable truth. Having grown up in the South, the land of gentile hospitality, I’m fully aware that there’s a difference.
Here in Newport, the only asshole we’ve come across is the Massachusetts driver who cut us off at the intersection in front of our bed and breakfast, and then proceeded to roll down his window and shout obscenities at us.
And maybe I’ve lived in the Northeast a little too long, the Dunkin’s coffee thickening my blood and steeling my spine, because I rolled my window down and yelled right back at him.
“Can’t take you anywhere,” Jackson teased as he pulled into the small parking lot behind the B&B where we’re staying. “Can’t lie, though. It’s a turn-on when you’re all fired up like that.”
Unfortunately for him, whatever lust heated his dark eyes died a quick death the moment the B&B innkeeper ushered us inside.
“You’re here!” she exclaims, clapping her hands together before yanking us in for a hug, one after another. Her bony arms threaten to cut off my oxygen supply, and I swallow a fistful of air and hope for the best. She’s somewhere between fifty and sixty, give or take any range of years on either side. “Oh, my goodness, this is brilliant. Just brilliant.”
Her red hair is pulled back in a low ponytail, her face makeup free. Unable to contain her enthusiasm, she bounces on the balls of her ballet-slippered feet. “I have all sorts of people stay here at The Ruby Slipper, but I’ve never had a hockey player before.”
Oh, God—a fan.
I don’t know whether to laugh or hustle Jackson back out to the car and make the trek back up to Boston before anyone else notices that we’ve got a pro-athlete on our hands.
“I’ve been watching Getting Pucked,” she goes on, all smiles and jabbing hands. “I’ll be honest, I’m not the biggest sports fan. Unless we’re talking about cricket, since I do love me some cricket. Oh! And I do love golf. But that hockey show is just”—she snaps her fingers in the air—“it grabs you, just like that! I was hooked from day one.”
Jackson’s smile is strained. “So glad you’re enjoying it . . . I’m sorry, is it Ginger? I think we corresponded when I booked our stay?”
Now he’s done it.
Ginger’s face positively blooms with happiness. “Yes! Ginger, that’s me. That’s so kind of you to remember my name. And I have to tell you, you sound exactly the same as you do on the TV! So very manly.” She gives Jackson a slow, appreciative onceover before glancing at me, her smile still evident on her face. “And you! I know you too.”
It’s been a long time since I was recognized in any capacity, and I grip the handle of my suitcase a little tighter, amusement curling through me. Maybe she’s seen my face in passing on the show? I’ve been careful to stay out the way for the most part, but when you’ve got multiple camera crews all bustling around the same area, it’s hard to be completely invisible. “That’s so sweet of you, Ginger.” I rock onto the back of my heels, then ask, “You’ve seen my work before, then?”
I bump Jackson’s hip with mine. She knows who I am! I want to shout.
The tip of Ginger’s nose bunches as her brows tug inward. “Your . . . work?” She shakes her head, and I feel my stomach drop with dread for the words that will inevitably come next. “No, I don’t know anything about that, but I do know that the two of you were married! I saw you on Mr. Carter’s Wikipedia page. How cool is that, by the way? I’d love to be on the Wikipedia although I’m sure I wouldn’t have an interesting enough story to warrant anyone wanting to write about me.”
My lungs seize as her words sink in.
She doesn’t know me, not anything about my photography or my business or my work with Getting Pucked.
Though I shouldn’t let it get to me, her easy dismissal that I could be anything more than Jackson’s ex-wife feels like a punch to the gut.
So much for progress.
Ginger claps her hands again, completely oblivious to the slap of reality she’s hand-delivered. “I promise I won’t say a word to those newspapers, but are you two . . . are you getting back together? Oh, please, please say yes. You would make such adorable babies!”
Jackson’s expression stiffens.
No doubt about it, he does not look charmed by the effer
vescent Ginger.
Well, that makes two of us.
Lifting his duffel bag off the floor and over one bulky shoulder, he stares down at the innkeeper with a look that would send any sane person running. “We’ll take the room keys, Ginger.”
Keys? As in plural?
I try to catch his eye, but he keeps his gaze resolutely on the woman in front of us.
She giggles at the steel in his voice. “I know you mentioned the two rooms, Mr. Carter, but this will be on me.” Prancing behind the front desk, she plucks a key from an old, fancy-looking vault and thrusts it up in the air. “You’ll have one, instead.” At Jackson’s protest, she cuts him off with a raised hand and an unsubtle wink. “No, no need to thank me. I’m just doing what anyone else in my position would do.”
When I make a move to grab the key off the counter, she adds, “An invitation to the wedding wouldn’t hurt either, of course.”
“Jesus,” Jackson breathes out next to me. He scrubs a hand over his face, his dark hair falling over his forehead. Louder, he says, “You got it, Ginger. Where are we?”
She drops a chin to an upturned hand and lets out a long sigh. “Second floor, second door to your left. There’s a king-sized bed, too!”
The last bit is hollered at our backs because we’re already halfway up the flight of stairs. Neither of us says a word until we’re locked in the guestroom and taking in the “charm.”
Four-poster, king-sized bed.
Floral decorations everywhere.
Creepy porcelain figures situated on every flat surface throughout the room.
An old TV that’s the depth of my arm span, or close to it.
“The view’s pretty, at least,” I say, setting my camera bag down next to the door.
A low chuckle is my only answer before he mutters, “The curtains are clear plastic.”
I point at the settee in the far corner of the room. “It looks like the seventies vomited all over.” Striding forward, I whip open the plastic—who uses plastic?—curtains. There’s nothing but ocean as far as I can see, a beautiful blue that I can’t wait to photograph over the next two days. “But this view makes up for it.” Throwing a glance over my shoulder at Jackson, I murmur, “Who knows what our other two rooms would have looked like had Ginger not given us this one?”
His heat warms my back as his hands rest on the glass doors that lead out to a tiny balcony. “I didn’t want you to feel as though you were quarantined to the same room as me.” I feel his heavy sigh skate along the nape of my neck, and I fight off a shiver. “Let’s face it, Holls. Talking is gonna happen this weekend, and I’m sure most of it isn’t going to be all sunshine and unicorns. I never wanted you . . . fuck, I . . . I need you with me on this, us taking these steps together, not me pulling you along behind me. I figured space would help with that. I figured it wouldn’t make you panic.”
Panic, just like I did that night in Chicago when we kissed for the first time in a year.
I get where he’s coming from, I really do.
And, in a way, I want to hug him for thinking this out and doing what he can to make sure I have the space I need at all times. He’s assuming that things will get bumpy and I’ll want somewhere to lick my wounds in peace.
But space tore our relationship apart.
We were two boxers sitting in our own designated corners of the ring, never confronting each other with the issues that bubbled up between us.
He went to his teammates.
I stayed in my office.
Until our lives truly became a permanent separation.
Staring hard at the glass door, watching the whitecaps of the waves as they crash and tumble over each other, I lift my hands to settle them over his. “Sometimes love gets messy, babe. The way we were before didn’t work, so if we’re going to do this—you know, making Ginger a proud member of our future wedding—then we’ve got to change the game, flip the rules.”
His big hand leaves mine to sweep my hair back from my neck. It’s a gentle gesture, a familiar one, and so are the lips that claim that spot right behind my ear. The shiver I fought earlier returns, and this time there’s no holding it off. Jackson knows how to touch me, how to make me pant with want.
“You’ve always been a rule follower, sweetheart,” he says, his tone husky, “you sure that you know how to change the rules?”
“Weren’t you just telling me two days ago how much trouble I am?” I rock my butt against his crotch, which is nestled up against my backside. “Don’t doubt my troublemaking prowess, Mr. Carter.”
He grips my hips, pulling them sharply backward. “To a weekend of trouble.”
I ignore the fact that we don’t have champagne to properly toast and instead twine my fingers with his and rest the back of my head on his hard chest. “To a weekend of messy love.”
I feel his rumble of appreciation reverberate in his chest, and then again as he asks, “What’s up first on the agenda?”
If I listen hard enough, I can hear the ocean waves crashing on the beach. It calls to me like no other, probably from having grown up in a middle of a state where muddy rivers were our only water source.
“To the Cliff Walk.”
30
Jackson
Holly and I spend hours along Newport’s famous Cliff Walk, a stony width of space that winds along the city’s rocky coastline, offering views of the Atlantic Ocean on one side and Newport’s infamously grandiose mansions on the other.
The farther we walk, the more natural our conversation becomes.
I tease her about being able to see her bright pink sneakers from outer space.
She leaps on my back, arms clinging to me like a hundred-pound-and-change monkey, just to throw me off guard when I stop and stare too long at a seagull attacking a poor woman down on the beach while he aims for her lunch.
I hold Holly like that, her arms hooked around my neck, her legs wrapped around my hips, for far longer than necessary.
She nips my left shoulder. “Put me down.”
I readjust her weight and keep trudging along the elevated path. During team workouts, I bench-press double her weight. I could go miles like this and not even lose my breath. “Your view is better on my back. You can see over the stone wall now.”
“Jerk,” she mutters, but I can hear the smile in her voice, “I’m not that short.”
Yeah, she is. “You’re what? Five-two?”
“Subtract an inch, maybe.”
“Like I said, short.” The walls of the Cliff Walk come up to my waist, but Holly makes me feel like I’m a teenager on some mission to prove I’m as tough as the Hulk, sans the green body.
But just as Bruce Banner is stuck in the Hulk’s body, my brain is locked inside my skull—whatever the hell that’ll do for me if the migraines worsen and Dr. Mebowitz lays down the law. In coming to Newport this weekend, I knew right away that telling Holly about the possible CTE was a necessity.
You can’t build a relationship without all the facts, and the fact of the matter is, I don’t know where my future leads. All I know is that I need her in it.
I don’t know what kind of life I can offer.
That’s the kicker, isn’t it?
I’m not some average Joe with a normal nine-to-five job that requires sitting at a desk, day in and day out. I’m no soldier, no cop or fireman, but every time I step out onto the ice, I risk another chunk of my soul to see the lamps light and to hear the crowds cheering us on—all at the expense of doing so much harm to my body that migraines might one day be the least of my worries.
The night I shared her bed in D.C., I spent hours on the internet after she fell asleep. Hours of reading account after account of NFL players and hockey players—some I personally knew—who experienced all the same symptoms that I do, only to have a brain aneurism or a stroke or begin to lose their precious memories.
I watched a fellow NHL player sit in front of a camera, tears coating his lashes, and announce to the world that if he’d
ever been told how much his brain would suffer from the repetitive head trauma, he never would have picked up a pair of skates.
Behind my dark-tinted aviators, my lids slam shut. Slowing to a halt, I let Holly’s body slide down the length of mine, until her feet touch the stone walkway. I can’t un-hear the tremor in his voice. Can’t un-see the anger in his gaze. I wish I could, but I can’t.
I’m already itching to get back on the ice next Tuesday and win against the Tampa Bay Lightning on our home turf.
It’s fucked up, all of it.
“I remember your very first game with the Bruins.”
I blink my eyes open. Holly’s leaning on the stone balustrade, her eyes on the ocean. She looks younger than thirty-two, dressed as she is now: knee-length shorts, those bright pink shoes of hers, a faded Cornell T-shirt that hugs her trim back and reveals the twin dimples at the base of her spine.
So damn beautiful.
Unable to stay away, I move in beside her and mimic her pose. “It was a shit show.”
She laughs softly, the sound merging with the crashing waves and the squawking seagulls circling like ruthless scavengers above us. “Yeah, it was. Do you remember what you told me when we got home that night?”
I search through the memories, shifting through that time period like a slideshow of events, and come up blank. My first instinct is to lean into the panic that’s sprouting to life in my chest before I shove the fear so far deep in my soul and clamp a heavy, wooden lid over it. Loads of people can’t remember things from their past—and what’s memorable to one person might not be so to someone else.
Easy. Simple as that.
It has nothing to do with TBI or CTE or whatever Dr. Mebowitz wants to call it.
At my silence, Holly clasps her hands together and lets them dangle over the stone wall. “You were barely given any ice time. You vomited in the locker room. And yet, we met in the parking lot at my car afterward, and you said, ‘I’ve never felt such an adrenaline rush.’ I teased you about turning into a junkie.”
