Delayed Penalty (10 page)

It was unlike me to bring her back to my place, but I thought that if I was at home, maybe it wouldn't be so bad and I could relax. Nope. Nothing changed.

So not only did I hyperventilate during sex, now it wasn't fucking working. I was pissed.

Still horny, I tried calling Callie, thinking if anyone could get me to relax it would be her.

It didn't work. We went at it for something like forty-five minutes, tried everything, and I still couldn't get off. My mind kept going back to Ami and that night. I need that little gadget in those Men in Black movies where they erased your memory. I really needed that little device.

"You want me to try sucking your dick?" Callie asked.

I laughed, my movements stopping. She was always so crass. "That's okay. I'm good."

Callie rolled to the side and then completely off of me. "You kind of suck right now."

"Sorry." I really was because I really wanted to get off. Like I said, it was pissing me off.

Callie grabbed her phone beside my bed and sent someone a text when I went to the bathroom. I came back, put on a pair of sweatpants, and noticed Callie was on my couch now, smiling, phone in hand, and it dawned on me. Her big chocolate brown eyes always gave her away. "You tell Leo and I will kick your ass, Cal."

Callie smiled and I knew she'd already dished the dirt on me to him.

"You little fucking brat." Taking a seat next to her, I reached for the remote to the television, wondering how much he already knew.

"I'm sorry. He asked, and Leo is kind of sneaky when it comes to getting things out of people."

"Why do you tell him everything?" I looked at her out of my corner of my eye. "Why would he ask that?"

She shrugged as though I shouldn't care and snuggled into my side. "Let's order Chinese."

We ate, I explained my problem to her, she laughed some more, and teased me, which only added to me being pissed off at the situation instead of helping me.

"You should be talking me through this shit as my friend."

"Hey, I never claimed to be that kind of friend." Callie rolled her eyes, tucking her legs up on the couch. She got comfortable and twirled her fork in the container of noodles. "We fuck. That's usually all we do. Since when do you want advice from me?"

Giving a shrug, I placed my own carton of food on the coffee table.

"Does this mean you want your jersey back?" You couldn't miss the little sense of regret in her voice.

"No..." Leaning forward, I kissed her forehead. "...You keep that."

Callie gave me a look and then picked her food back up, a contemplative look coming over her. "So, who's the girl?"

"Ami…" Just saying her name did things to me, and fuck if I wasn't annoyed by that. I looked at my food on the coffee. See? I couldn't even eat. "She's really fucking me up."

"And this Ami, does she know you've got a thing for her?"

"I don't know. Probably not. I can't stop thinking about her, and then I think about what happened and that it's wrong I even have feelings for her, you know?"

Callie gave me the same glazed over look Leo did at times but surprised me when she asked, "What happened to her?"

"The night before Christmas Eve when we got back into town after playing the Red Wings..." I looked to Callie to see if she was following me. She nodded, twirling her fork in the noodles, her legs propped on my thighs. "Well, I was walking home and found her nearly dead in the alley, so I took her to the hospital. She was raped and beaten to shit. Fractured skull and broken bones…it was awful."

Callie blinked. Her expression held an emotion I couldn't register, almost like sympathy.

"Her parents were killed in a plane crash last year so she has no one else."

"Is she okay?"

"Sorta…she's coming out of it and is finally awake, but she doesn't remember anything surrounding the accident and can't really give us any clues."

"Did they catch the guy?"

"No…" The thought that he was still out there made me sick as it always did.

Callie stayed for a little while longer and then went home. I was lost in my thoughts again and lately nothing good had come from that.

That was when Leo texted me.
Hey, man, can you come over and get my jersey off the floor for me?

His question should have been a red flag. Lesson one: Leo never said anything without taking it in a direction you'd never expect. My girl problems didn't matter to him. If anything, that was ammo. I wasn't dumb either. I knew where he was taking this.

No. Get off your ass and get it.

I can't seem to get up. Can you help
?

FUCK YOU and Callie!

You tried, remember? Couldn't. You know there's medication for that.

I had to turn my phone off. He wouldn't stop. Lesson two: he never quit.

The very next day, I went back to the hospital to see Ami.

She looked better and every time I saw her, I noticed something I didn't notice before. Like the freckle on her nose and the way she would crinkle her nose in the cutest way whenever the smelly doctor came in to check on her. The dude seriously needed to wear some deodorant.

What I didn't appreciate was the way he flirted with her. Yeah, she wasn't mine, but I wasn't cool with him showing any interest in her. She was young, too young for his mid-thirties ass, so I voiced my opinion to him.

"Hey," I began, looking down on him in more ways than one. "Why don't you keep your hands to yourself and treat her like your patient, not your girl."

I had no claim on this girl either, but this sort of thing left me a little bent. Something rubbed me the wrong way with this guy, too. Maybe it was that I was constantly looking at every guy like they were a suspect. I wanted them to be because I wanted the guy that did this to her to fucking pay for it.

The doctor, with his smelly body and overly large eyebrows, glared. It was meant to level me, but I was a hockey player and saw that shit daily. "You know, Mr. Masen, I let it slide that you have been in Ami's room at all hours of the night, but visiting hours end at eight. I suggest you get back in there. You've got ten minutes."

I didn't like this new doctor. Not one bit. I didn't like the look in his eyes when he examined Ami, and I didn't like the way he talked to her. Most of all, I didn't like the way he was talking to me. He was trying to intimidate me, and that was my game, not his.

"I'll leave when I want to leave,
Dr. Dagger
. I'm the only friend she has."

Friend? Is that what I was now? Part of me wanted to be more already.

Dumb ass.

This wasn't the first time I told someone to basically stay away from her either. Remember my conversation with the dance instructor?

I was getting pretty good at this protection thing, but for some reason I had this defense zone around this girl, and damn it if I wasn't going to play good defense. I never wanted to see something like this happen again.

When I got back into her room, Ami smiled. "That guy is super weird."

Laughing, I took a seat next to her. "You have no idea."

Ami was lying in the bed, slouched to one side with the remote in her hand, looking for something to watch. That was when she turned it to baseball, which was kind of weird to me since it was on in the middle of January.

Ami frowned. "My brother was a baseball player."

"Brother?" She must have sensed my confusion. They said her parents were gone. Where was this brother at?

"Yeah…he…" Ami's eyes dropped from mine and she swallowed. "My parents…he was just about to sign with the Angels. Baseball was his life and had been since he was old enough to hold the bat. My parents and Taylor, his girlfriend, were with him on that plane…it crashed en route to California."

Well fuck. As if this girl's life couldn't get any worse.

I didn't say anything. What could I say?

The sadness in her voice made me want to hug the shit out of her. I wasn't sure what it was about the girl, but she turned me into a big mushball, and I was constantly looking for ways to make anything I could easier for her.

That fucking douche of a doctor came back, him and his smell. "It's time to go…Mase."

Mase? He really was trying to get under my skin. Only family and friends called me that. He was neither, and it was clear he never would be.

Ami glared at the doctor and rolled her eyes. "I let you guys prod at me all day long. The least you can do is let my friend stay."

Fuck yeah.

The doctor, even though he was a doctor, was hardly mature and rolled his eyes. He eventually left.

"Why did he call you Mase? I thought your name was Evan."

"Oh, well my friends and family call me Mase." I shrugged, watching her again. "My dad started calling me it when I was a kid and it stuck."

Ami gave a nod and glanced back at the television. A half smile formed on her lips, maybe a distant memory.

"Why did you come to Chicago?" I asked.

"Needed a new life I guess." There was an emptiness behind every word. Somehow I managed to stop staring and looked out the window. It was snowing again.

Ami looked over, too, but watched the wall as she spoke. "After my family was killed, there was nothing left. My boyfriend moved away and went to college without me, and I came here hoping for a new start. Apparently..." She shifted, adjusting her blanket and smiled, looking up with in amusement, "...I'm off to a
great
start."

"And a new haircut."

A giggle escaped her lips, the sound echoing throughout the room. I smiled.

"Why'd your boyfriend leave?"
Oh lord
.
Shut up already.
Honestly, I couldn't imagine anyone leaving this girl.

"His sister was my brother's girlfriend, the one who was on the plane. I guess it was too much for him."

We sat in silence. I wasn't sure I should say anything else. I wasn't exactly off to a great start. The lack of conversation after that seemed to evoke emotions both of us were trying to suppress.

That was when Ami started to cry, attempting to hide her tears by looking the other way, and despite my conscience telling me to leave her alone, I moved to console her.

I knew then, with my arms wrapped around her, there was no way I could continue to be around her with the way she was consuming my every thought. There also wasn't a goddamn thing I was willing to do about it.

"I'm sorry," I whispered into her hair.

"Why?" She brought her eyes to meet mine. "You have no reason to be sorry. You saved me."

"There are shitty people out there, Ami," I mumbled, hoping I wasn't about to reveal too much. "There are good ones, too."

"Funny, my brother used to say things like that to me." Brushing her tears away, she took a deep breath and smiled. "Andrew was always looking for the good side, the sunny side. Which was funny because he was this hot shot baseball player, pitcher, number five." She gave me a smile as though she knew I'd laugh at the way she described him like a sports announcer.

It felt so surreal hearing her talk. For over two weeks, I talked to her, wondering if this moment would ever come, if she would actually talk to me.

Ami went on to explain that Andrew, her brother, was just starting out in his career and skipped out on college, much like me, and was just about to sign for his pro career. And then the plane crash happened. A chance at a lifetime never fulfilled.

I had a really hard time with it when I learned about what happened to Ami's older brother. He was the exact same age as me. My first thoughts when she had told me went back to when I entered the draft and how my family was with me. What if something like that had happened?

Why did I get to live my dream and Andrew didn't?

Why did shit like this happen?

Why them?

When she told me, I was sad. She was young, he was young, and I couldn't imagine the pain she went through.

To save myself the embarrassing part of getting choked up through her story, I didn't speak. It frustrated me, consumed me even, but I was finally starting to understand why I attached myself to her. I wanted to protect her.

For everyone out there each day, each year, is arguably different than the last, bringing with it different struggles, highs, lows, new friends, and fading friends. In five days, in twenty minutes, in a second, everything about that year could change.

Taking a different route to work ends in an accident. Planning a vacation for years, only to die in a plane crash. A chance of a lifetime destroyed in that one split second when that year becomes different from the last.

But then there was the second chance, the swerve to miss the car coming into your lane, and you gain control, your adrenaline taking over and you're thankful for being alive. The choppy weather and turbulence stabilizes, and the plane rights itself. You're safe and you look out the window.

A deep breath, a second chance, and everything seems different and will because it's new, it's your chance.

Those who wanted that second chance got it. Those who didn't were left trying to either prove there was nothing wrong in the first place or ignore that it was even there.