Crazy Thing Called Love (40 page)

“Can I wake her up?”

“Nope, buddy. After breakfast we’re going to the bathroom.”

Charlie got mutinous. His little face screwed up tight. Bathroom wasn’t anything he liked discussing. “Diaper.”

Billy reached under the counter for the candy he’d bought yesterday. “Not if you want these.” He lifted the bag of M&M’s and Charlie looked sideways at it.

“What are those?”

“Bribes. Come on, Charlie, let’s go pee like big boys!” He corralled the unhappy, sticky three-year-old and headed for the bathroom, feeling for the first time in years like his life was heading somewhere. Somewhere good.

“Are you nervous?” Becky asked as she and Charlie sat backstage while Billy got his makeup done. He was glad that Gina was taking care of him and not that other girl, the one who had been so eager with the mascara.

“No.” He lied, his leg bouncing, the fabric of his gray slacks shimmying with the motion.

Becky slapped her hand on his knee and he worked harder to bounce it. She laughed and pressed harder to hold it down, until Charlie joined in and suddenly the two of them were holding his leg down, laughing.

This was the strangest game, but they seemed to love it.

A little over a week with Becky, and her laughs were becoming a common occurrence.

“Hi, guys.” It was Maddy coming around the corner, and he stiffened. Jerked actually—the sound of her voice was like a knife to his throat. Becky stood, staring at Maddy like an angry guard dog.

Charlie, who was three and clearly had no loyalty, ran over to Maddy to hug her legs.

She wore a red dress with a purple belt at the waist and purple high heels that made Billy want to hug her legs, too.

The pain that came from looking at her was nothing new. He’d ached for her since he was a kid. But there
had always been something sweet tempering it, a hope or an understanding that made the ache bearable.

There was nothing making it bearable right now. Her beauty cut him to the bone. And so he looked away.

“How are you guys doing?” Maddy asked.

“I peed in a potty!” Charlie cried. They were tempting fate by going without a diaper today, but that’s what all the websites told him to do. Whole hog.

Maddy seemed suitably impressed.

“How about you, Becky?” Maddy said, coming to stand closer to the girl, who shrank back, her guard dog look turning to a sneer. The thirteen-year-old had picked up on his feelings and maybe she was hurt herself because Maddy hadn’t called once over the last week. Ruth had been the one to contact him with all the details about the show.

“Fine,” Becky said.

“Your hair looks great,” Maddy told her with a tentative smile he remembered so well from when they were kids. Like she was sidling up to something that might rip her hand off at any moment. That’s how she used to look at him.

Becky was totally impervious.

“I brought you something,” Maddy said, pulling a book from behind her back. “I just finished it a few weeks ago. It’s about killer horses.”

Becky’s head came up and Billy realized that with all the fun they’d been having—the Chuck E. Cheese and the potty training and the swimming—he’d forgotten about things like books. He’d forgotten that Becky really liked them.

He tried not to think about what a team they could be, he and Maddy.

“You can take it,” he assured Becky. He wanted to tell her that she wouldn’t be betraying him, or herself. That being angry because she was hurt would only hurt her.

Talk about a lesson he could learn.

“Thanks,” Becky said and took the book, opening it immediately.

“Are you ready?” Maddy asked him and there was something slightly eager about her smile. Something hopeful.

“Ready as I’ll ever be to talk for an hour.”

“It’s more like thirty-eight minutes, actually.”

“Why doesn’t that make me feel better?”

She reached out to put a hand on his shoulder and he flinched away. There had to be some rules if he was going to survive this.

“Please, Maddy,” he whispered. “Have a little mercy.”

She clenched her hands together, holding them still. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Sorry
, he thought, getting angry despite himself.
Fuck your sorry
. “Yeah. Me too. I’ll see you out there.”

He pulled Charlie close, the kid clambering up into his lap like a monkey. For a moment it all registered on Maddy’s beautiful face—she was on the outside and she was cold and lonely and miserable there and he wanted to reach for her. To welcome her in.

All the family he’d ever need.

But it wasn’t worth it. He knew the pain her lack of faith brought.

“I’ll see you on the set,” he said.

Maddy composed herself and walked away.

Around the corner from the dressing area, Maddy stopped. She stopped and leaned against the wall, her knees liquid, her lungs cramped.

Oh my God
, she thought.
What is wrong with me?

Billy was okay. She’d broken his heart again and he was okay. And the kids … oh, the kids, they looked so
good. The last week had changed them. Billy had changed them. Just like he’d changed her.

Sabine came walking past. “The audience is arriving,” she said. “They seem pretty lively. Lots of excitement.”

Maddy didn’t care. She didn’t care about any of it. She’d fought for this new job, this new show, and it was good. She was proud. But looking at Billy, at those kids … she realized exactly what she’d thrown away. The chance to have everything.

She could connect all over the place, with the guests, with her audience, with the stories. She could be amazing at her job but part of her would continue to die. Just like it had been dying for fourteen years without Billy.

No, she thought, trying very hard to stem the tide of these thoughts, to convince herself that allowing the possibility of pain back into her life was tantamount to getting hurt.

But something different was happening in her body, something beautiful and strange, painful and sweet. Like spring.

Faith was returning to her. After a fourteen-year-long winter, faith was fighting its way free from the dark mud she’d buried it in.

In a riot of color it exploded into her heart. Into her body.

Purples and reds and oranges.

“You okay?” Sabine asked.

Maddy stepped away from the wall, her knees rock solid, her lungs working. Her heart making plans her brain struggled to translate.

“No. But hopefully I will be.”

Sitting in front of the live studio audience Billy was plenty nervous, but what was really freaking him out was Maddy.

She was sweating.

As Billy got mic’d during the first commercial break, a girl came out and powdered Maddy. But the sweat was still there.

“You’re doing great,” he said to her, and she glanced up from her cue cards.

“You think?”

“Yeah. The new style, it’s … great.”

It was true. The music and set, the logo. The live audience was responding to all of it. Responding to her.

But Maddy didn’t seem like a woman who was reaping the rewards of her hard work. No, she seemed like she was about to jump out of a plane or something.

He glanced offstage to where the kids sat. Becky had her head buried in that book Maddy had given her and Charlie was mastering another level of Angry Birds. Beside them sat Gina, who gave him a thumbs-up.

Billy had warned her about the no-diapers situation, but she’d volunteered to take care of them anyway.

“We’re on in five,” Peter said.

Billy took a deep breath and ran his hand over the white shirt Becky had chosen for him.

“I love you, Billy,” Maddy said, and he spun to face her.

Oh, she was a mess. Sweaty and panicked.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his stomach replaced by a storm of nerves.

“I’m not sure.”

The red lights came on the cameras and they were live.

“Billy, walk us
through that fight at the end of the last Mavericks game,” she asked. So far, so good. Five minutes in and there hadn’t been any more surprises, and whatever freak-out Maddy had been in the middle of seemed to have passed. He still felt jittery with adrenaline, waiting for some kind of ambush.

“I … I was angry. I was angry that our team had played so hard and still lost. The guys are young but they’ve got so much heart and they were coming off that ice beaten. You know? Defeated. And I was defeated. I had a crappy season last year, which was all my fault and I had no one to blame but myself. And, well, sometimes a fight can cheer you up better than anything else.”

“So you fought to make yourself feel better?”

He smiled. “I never said I was very smart.”

Her eyes snapped and he remembered how she hated it when people called him stupid. Even him.

What’s going on?
he thought.

“You have a history with fighting, though.” She leaned forward in her chair, her whiskey eyes sucking him in. When she looked at him like that the studio audience fell away and he tried to resist, but he knew it would make for a better show if he followed her lead.

He’d had this plan to keep himself removed. To just barely answer the questions. To do his part and then get the hell out of there.

But she’d been so sweaty.

And the
I love you
thing. Was it another trick?

“It’s a part of hockey,” he said with a shrug. “I think the culture is changing, though.”

“Do you think it should?”

“You know, I might be putting myself out of business, but yeah, a fight is one thing—two guys, center ice, agree to drop gloves; fine—but the guys that play dirty … there’s no place for that anymore. We’ve lost too many guys to crap like that. The crap I used to do. It’s got to stop.”

“You played dirty. That cheap shot at the end of the last game.”

“You’re right.” He nodded, taking full responsibility. “And I don’t want to play that way anymore.”

“Even before hockey you had a history with violence.”

Here we go, he thought, unable to believe he was going to talk about his childhood … without mentioning her. It was ridiculous. He couldn’t even look—

“I grew up with Billy,” she said, turning to the audience, and his mouth fell open. “In fact, many people don’t know this, but for about five minutes about a million years ago, Billy and I were married.”

The crowd gasped, murmurs rippling through the room. Cell phones were pulled out of pockets—the news of their marriage was going to be all over the world in less than a minute.

If a rock had fallen from the sky he wouldn’t have been any more shocked. He could only gape at her while she talked about their neighborhood. His ears were buzzing, his heart pounding.

What the hell was she doing?

“You …” He cleared his throat and tried again. “You were the one who handled all the bullies,” he said. “You were like the playground enforcer. Anyone so
much as looked at another kid’s lunch money, and you’d go over there and take out their knees.”

“Well,” she laughed, tossing that hair over her shoulder, “it was easier to do that when I knew you’d come charging down like a madman if anyone tried to hurt me.”

“I would have,” he said, and the words came out raw. Honest.

The crowd gasped, some people clapped.

“We’ll be right back with more from Billy Wilkins,” she said and the lights on the cameras flicked off.

“Is this for show?” he whispered, unable to play her game. He wanted to rip off his mic, but he’d done that before. And he was supposed to be cleaning up his mess, not making it worse.

“I called Dom,” she said, “before the show. I told him I wanted to talk to him about you. About us. I’m sorry I was scared. I’m so sorry I pushed you away.” Now she wasn’t sweating … she was crying. And her words were dangerous. Falling down around him like fire. “And if you don’t want to talk about us, about growing up or our history, I understand. I can go back to the script. But I just want you to know, I’m not … I’m not scared anymore. I’m not ashamed. I believe in you.” She glanced backstage. “With those kids, you’re … you’re amazing. I want the world to know. I want people to look at me and think of us. I would be really proud of that.”

“Maddy,” he sighed, scared to believe it. Worried that in his desire to believe it he was being fooled.

“It’s okay,” she said, wiping her eyes. “This is crazy. I totally understand. I have no idea what I was thinking. We’ll go back to the script. I understand. I do. It’s got to be hard to trust me. I just wanted you to know that I have faith. In you.”

Gina came running out, and slapped powder on Maddy as fast as she could. “You’ve got to stop this
nonsense. Those kids are freaking out and you’re gonna look like a raccoon in front of a million viewers.”

Gina vanished and Peter was there with the hand count and the lights were on and Maddy was smiling, calming down the buzzing audience before talking about the New School.

The studio darkened and on the screen behind them they showed the promotional video that Luc and Tara Jean had made. It was slick and emotional and Billy sat there, cold to all of it. His eyes on Maddy.