Positives & Penalties: A Slapshot Novel (Slapshot Series Book 4)

by Heather C. Myers

  Game 2 definitely was not better than Game 1, but Emma was going to talk to Kyle anyway.

  Chapter 11

  Emma didn't care about decorum. She didn't care if Kyle needed space or time; he had two days of that. She needed to apologize. She needed to make this right.

  The game had been a disaster. The Suns beat them six to zero despite the home ice advantage. She hadn't seen a game played so poorly since their 2010-2011 season, where they came in under five hundred - which meant they didn't break even with the amount of games they played. That was when Ken Brown fired the coach and brought in Henry Wayne to coach. Things started turning around at that point; they never made the playoffs but at least they played better.

  To be honest, Emma had no idea what she could do to tell Kyle she was sorry. She knew she needed to put herself out there but not in a way where it put him on the spot or made him uncomfortable. She kissed her father on the cheek once the game was over and headed into the team store to see if there was anything she could get for him.

  Which was stupid since Kyle had everything he could want and wasn't particularly materialistic.

  Her eye caught sight of an adorable polar bear with a Newport Gulls home jersey on. She couldn't help but smile at it? And for a minute, she imagined it in the corner of an oak crib, keeping a sleeping baby company. On a whim, she decided to buy the bear, using her season ticket holder discount, and went down to the locker rooms to wait for Kyle to emerge from the locker room.

  When she got there, Harper and Zach were just leaving.

  "Em, what are you doing here?" Harper asked, furrowing her brow.

  Emma tilted her head to the side. "I'm here to see Kyle," she said as though it was obvious.

  Harper and Zach glanced at each other before Zach murmured, "Emma, he took off right after Cherney released us. I think he wanted to go home before the media asked to interview him."

  "Oh." She felt her cheeks burn with frustration at the fact that they knew something she didn't about her boyfriend. She felt like an idiot, a fool. She was angry with Kyle for ditching her and angry with herself for causing this tension between them in the first place. "Okay, well, I'll check on him then."

  "That's probably a good idea," Zach agreed with a nod. "He needs all the love he can get."

  Emma pressed her lips together and looked away.

  "Do you want us to walk with you to your car?" Harper asked, her voice soft and compassionate.

  Emma looked at her friend and squeezed the bag holding the bear. She shook her head, forcing a smile on her face. "No," she said. "No, I'll be okay. Thank you, though."

  Harper pressed her lips together and squeezed her forearm. "Call me when you're home," she murmured.

  Emma nodded. She couldn't find it in her to respond.

  She huffed a sigh and decided she could figure out what to do on her way to the car. She needed some space anyway, from everyone. She needed to figure out what was right for her - and for the baby. Telling Kyle had to be done, no matter what. She knew she needed to find the right time, of course. Being in the middle of a fight wasn't going to help the situation at all, considering she had kept something from him which started the original fight in the first place. He also might think she was lying in order to trap him in their relationship if he was contemplating leaving her after her idiotic mistakes.

  She hoped not. She hoped not more than anything. Space, yes, fine, take as much space as he needed. But to break up?

  Her eyes started to tear up and as she emerged from the elevator, she took a breath and tried to control herself. She needed to make sure she didn't look as wrecked a she felt.

  Regardless of all of that, she had to tell him. Because he needed to know. He needed all of the information so he could make the right decision.

  And she owed him that much.

  By the time she reached her car, she knew she wanted to meet him at his place. She just hoped that he would be open to seeing her.

  She parked in his driveway where she always parked, on the right side of the garage because he always parked on the left side inside his garage. She pressed her lips together and inhaled deeply, curling her fingers into fists and balling them up by her hips. She followed the paved pathway up to his front door and reached up to knock...

  ...before hesitating and slowly dropping her hand back down at her side.

  Was this the right thing to do? Should she really be here?

  He already had a rough night and considering all they had been through, she highly doubted she was the first person he even wanted to be.

  "But this isn't about hockey," she mumbled to herself and placed a hand over her stomach. She couldn't even imagine something was actually growing inside of her body. Besides her new breasts, her morning sickness, and her emotions, she didn't feel pregnant. Sometimes, she actually forgot - as bad as that sounded.

  But then her breasts would twinge or she would start tearing up at a car commercial or she would dash to the nearest toilet. Almost as though the baby was reminding her that it was there, deep inside her pelvis, waiting to meet her in the next nine months.

  Kyle was going to find out eventually. Whether her raging hormones, her bigger boobs, or her belly, he would realize what was going on and their tiff from a couple of days ago would be nothing to what it would be.

  "Courage," she whispered to herself. "Have courage."

  She took another deep breath and this time, forced herself to knock on his front door without thinking about it.

  It didn't take long before Kyle opened the door, his short blond hair damp, as though he had just gotten out of the shower. He wore a white thermal with the Gulls' logo across it - one of her favorite shirts on him. It fit him elegantly and she couldn't help but let her eyes linger on his broad shoulders, the stretch of the anchor across his broad chest. He wore faded blue jeans and socks on his feet. This was one of the outfits he wore if he knew he wasn't going out but didn't want to hang out in his pajamas all day - or night, considering.

  "Hey." His crystal blue eyes seemed surprised to see her at his doorstep and she couldn't blame him. They never really fought before, but when things got tense, they gave each other a few days to get over it and when they saw each other again, they didn't talk about whatever was bothering them.

  Emma only realized now that that probably not the healthiest way to handle problems.

  "Hey," she told him, trying to sound casual and not upset that they hadn't spoken in the past couple of days. "Do you mind if I..." She let her voice trail off and gestured to the door, pushing up her brows.

  "Yeah." He didn't even hesitate. That certainty in her was nearly her undoing.

  After what she had done to him, how could he so easily forgive her?

  Her father's voice floated in homer head. 'Because he loves you more than the mistake you made,' he told her. 'He loves you more than his pride. Do you think people want to be mad at each other? Of course they don't. They want their feelings heard, acknowledged - even if there is no agreement - and they want to figure out a compromise that works best for both of them.'

  "What's up?" he asked, shoving his hands into his pocket as Emma shut and locked the door behind her.

  She slowly turned around so they could lock eyes. She could see the pain and frustration in his eyes after that game and she wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around him and pull him close so he was safe, so he knew that this what he was going through would pass. Until she realized that maybe, just maybe, she was the cause of his poor play. Maybe he could feel her withdraw on some subconscious level and he was worried about it. And instead of talking about the worry, it reflected in his play.

  She gnawed at her bottom lip. She needed and fix this. She needed to fix this now.

  "Before you say anything," he told her, "I've been running every morning for three miles. I'm trying to get into better shape."

  Emma furrowed her brow. "You think this has anything to do with your play?" she asked, not unkindly. She pre
ssed her lips together; she didn't want to simply react. She wanted to make sure she said the right thing, or at least, didn't allow her emotion to dictate her diction.

  "This is about us. You and me."

  "Oh."

  Emma couldn't tell what that single word meant. She wasn't sure if he was disappointed or wary or stiff or defensive or... She couldn't tell. Maybe it didn't matter. Maybe all that mattered was fixing this thing between them, removing the tension between them in whatever way she possibly could. Her head felt light. She started to feel dizzy but she pushed through her nervousness, ignoring her racing heart.

  "First, I wanted to apologize," she said. "I should have told you about Broadway. I should have told you that because you deserve to know. I want to know all about you and I'm sure you want to know all about me. And I'm the one who's keeping up this wall between us because I'm afraid you're going to leave."

  "Emma, I'm crazy about you," he told her. "I don't intend to leave you -"

  "I know, I know," she said with a small smile, her cheeks flushing pink. "But it's still hard to wrap my mind around the forever portion of a serious relationship." She shook her head, trying to clear it. "My father has been my only constant in my life." She picked her eyes up to lock with him. "It's hard for me to trust that anyone else will stay."

  "Em, I'm in it for the long haul," he told her. "Yeah, I want to talk to you about our future plans. I want to talk about trips and marriage and kids. Eventually. When you're ready."

  She snapped her head in his direction. "You're ready?" she asked, pushing her brows up.

  "I'm ready to start planning it," he told her. He shifted under her gaze and she realized she must have some sort of glare on her face, a judgmental look that indicated that he was crazy for even wanting to talk about it. Which wasn't going to fix things. It was her defensive mechanism jumping up to protect her when things got too serious.

  Her heart started to race. She was getting lightheaded. Maybe this was too much, too soon to fix...

  But no.

  No.

  She wanted to fix this. She needed to tell him.

  "Kyle," she murmured. "I'm - I need to talk to you about something."

  His eyes sharpened and there was concern pooling into the depth of blue. She wanted to take away that concern, wanted to push it off of his mind. But she couldn't. Because she wasn't quite sure how he was going to react.

  "Okay," he told her, his voice a gentle mumble. "I'm ready to listen."

  "It's..." She shook her head. Little dots blocked out a direct line of vision. She blinked, trying to get them to go away. "I'm not sure it's what you want to hear..."

  "Tell me," he said, taking a step towards her. He furrowed his brow, cocking it to the side. "Emma... are you okay? You don't look so good."

  "What?" Emma blinked but that was too much. She nearly tripped over something -

  Except no. It wasn't there. Nothing was there.

  That was strange.

  As a dancer, she always had good balance. She never lost it for no reason.

  And then, the dots turned bigger until her vision turned black and she fainted in that moment.

  Chapter 12

  Kyle played like shit and he didn't know why. This never happened to him. Not when he was a kid playing in a league. Not when he was a draft pick playing in the AHL. He always was on point, even if the team wasn't. He had fifty-two goals last season; he produced the most offense on the team the past three years. Now, his stats barely reflected he was actually part of the team. He was a minus the last four games due to the fact that goals had been scored against the Gulls while he was on the ice. He had gotten lazy; instead of skating after a player, he reached with his stick, which caused him to get stupid penalties. For whatever reason, their penalty kill was atrocious - they only managed to kill off thirty-seven percent of them during the regular season - and the trend seemed to be following them in the post-season, considering the last two home games were bad.

  As in 4-1 and 6-3 bad.

  The Sacramento Suns were not this good.

  The Gulls were not this bad.

  Hell, Kyle was not this bad.

  He clenched his teeth and shook his head. The minute Cherney and Thorpe released them after the game, Kyle bolted. He didn't want to talk to the media. He didn't want to talk to the guys. All he wanted was to be by himself and think. And yeah, that would probably make things worse considering he was his harshest critic but he couldn't sit around and pretend everything was fine when it wasn't. He wasn't like Zachary Ryan. He didn't have the energy to be charming - not that anyone ever considered him charming in the first place.

  He also wanted to avoid Emma.

  Granted, after their disagreement - a nice word for what happened between them - he wasn't even sure she would even show up at the locker room after the game like she normally did, but on the off-chance she did, he didn't want to be there.

  He couldn't face her. Not yet.

  His heart ached and he tried to force the feeling down, so deep he couldn't feel it anymore. He slid into the driveway of his relatively humble four-bedroom home in a quiet part of Newport Beach. He didn't want to live beach-front like some of the guys. He preferred the solitude, the stillness, of some of the neighborhoods. He locked his car before heading to the path that would take him to his front door. He had a black gate that he undid the latch to before clicking it back into place and then unlocked the front door before heading in and sliding off his jacket.

  The first thing he intended to do was shower and get the sweat and stench of the game off of his body.

  Then, after that...? Well, he didn't know. Normally, he would have cracked open a beer and slowly enjoyed it while allowing him to focus on everything but the game, everything but Emma.

  Now?

  He cut drinking out before the post-season, deciding that even though it wasn't a direct factor in his poor play didn't mean it was helpful to him. He hired a personal trainer who would help with his endurance as well as with his nutrition and was already making changes to his diet. Physically, he felt better in the last week than he did the last year. To be honest, he was surprised that it all went back to food and diet even though it seemed like common sense.

  He shook his head, heading to the bathroom, stripping off his clothes and heading into the hot shower connected to his master bedroom. He lingered there longer than his usual ten minutes, feeling the beads of water run down his back, sweep over his skin. He was being cleansed. He was being rid of the negativity that lingered on his body.

  He wanted to be rid of it all.

  The shower soothed him. By the time he got out, he was relaxed, his mind clear and less distracted with hockey and Emma. He would flip on Netflix, maybe watch a mindless comedy show that would keep his thoughts at bay, prevent him from thinking too much and then getting tense all over again.

  He was just about to crash on his leather couch and flip on his television when he heard the door knock. He furrowed his brow, dropping his towel and rifling through the hamper so he could quickly throw on something to wear.

  Who the hell could possibly be bothering him right now? There was no way in hell the media even knew where he lived except Harper Crawford and there was no way she would go to his place just for a story. She wasn't like that. It could be one of his teammates but they knew him well enough to know when he stomped off, he wanted to be alone. Didn't want anyone to bother him about reassurance or worse - talking. Which left Emma. But that didn't make sense because Emma was angry with him. Wouldn't tell him important things he wanted to know like that she was applying to go to school in New York. That she one day dreamed of dancing on Broadway.

  He clenched his teeth together at the thought. How could she not trust him with something as important as that - as a dream she had had since she was little. Those were things you shared with your significant other. At least, that was what Kyle thought.

  'And have you shared everything with her?' a voice pointed out as he mad
e his way to the front door. 'Every little detail about you. About what you want to be now, what you wanted to be when you were a kid?'

  He pressed his lips together and looked through the peephole of the door, refusing to answer his own question.

  He furrowed his brow when he saw Emma standing there on his doorstep, looking ridiculously beautiful in all of her uncertainty. Her hazel eyes were looking to the left, her blonde bangs nearly grazing her eyelashes. She seemed... uncomfortable wasn't the right word. Hesitant, perhaps. Almost as though she wasn't sure if she should be here. But she showed up anyway.

  Kyle felt his heart squeeze together. He hadn't realized how much he missed Emma until he saw her standing there, bathed in the shadows of the darkness, glowing in his porch light. He didn't like that she shifted, that she doubted he would answer. Then again, he couldn't exactly blame her. They hadn't spoken since their tiff a few nights ago and it sucked. He hated being apart from her. He hated not being near her. Even when he was on the ice, focusing on the game, he felt a sense of safety knowing she was under the same roof as he was, knowing that she was with him, supporting him, no matter what happened, and would continue to show up regardless. During the commercial stoppages of the game, he would catch her from the corner of his eye, watching him or talking to her father. It made him feel special, knowing she was here for him. He never told her this, didn't like to reveal something that made him vulnerable, but it was true. She didn't realize it, but she gave him strength. Gave him a strength he hadn't realized existed within himself.

  He didn't know how to live without it.

  But at the same time, if she couldn't give him herself fully and wholly, he couldn't commit to being with her. It would absolutely break his heart but he knew it was the right thing.

  Now, though, she was standing outside his porch and perhaps that meant something.

  Kyle didn't hesitate letting her in. When she walked by him, she smelt like some floral scent mixed with vanilla. He thought it was lavender; at least, that was what he remembered her wearing him before their first Christmas. In case he had wanted to get her some lotion or perfume.