Delayed Penalty (14 page)

"No, just wanted you to have a way to get a hold of me. We talked every day in the hospital. You might miss me." I expected Ami to give me a smile or a smart aleck line, but she didn't. That was when I noticed something was wrong.

"You okay?"

"Can we just sit here for a minute?" she asked, staring at the rain streaming down the windows. Her hand reached gently over the center console to my hand.

This had to be hard for her. I knew that. Here she was going to a stranger's house in another state.

"Take as long as you need," I replied, leaning back to face her, her hand in mine. I didn't want her to feel bad about being here. Most of all, I wanted her here. This would be safe. I needed this girl safe. "You'll be safe here. Promise."

"I know. It's just…I feel kind of awkward."

"Don't," I insisted softly but firmly. "It's natural to feel this way."

She nodded, but I could see the anxiety in the way she wouldn't look at the house or me. "What are you afraid of?"

"Falling in love with them and not wanting to leave." She laughed, the truth always there, all you had to do was ask.

"It's okay to fall in love with them. It's okay to want to stay here. They're nice people. Raised me," I said as conversationally as I could, not wanting to scare her. "I know it's hard after what you've been through to have people close to you again, but I honestly believe the more you love, the more you feel and the happier you can be."

"Such a big heart." Ami laughed, trying to hide the fact that my words were exactly what she needed to hear.

"I should have a big heart. I was born on Valentine's Day." My mom used to tell people that was where all my heart came from.

"You never told me that. It makes sense, though. You do have a big heart." I felt myself smile in the darkness hearing her repeat that. "Well shit, that means I missed your birthday." She looked down at her hands. "And to think I was going to make you cupcakes or something equally as cheesy."

"Cupcakes are not cheesy and now I'm holding you to it, eventually...when you're feeling better."

"Oh please, I'm feeling better." She rolled her eyes, the same way she always did at the doctors.

"You're not going to run away from me, are you?" I asked. She knew I was joking, but I also knew she saw the sincerely curious side of my comment.

"It's kind of hard when you know where I'm staying."

"That's true. You'll be in my bed," I teased, instantly regretting it, but Ami laughed, and the comment didn't feel as crude as it seemed.

"Very true." Her smile caught my stare again. "Good night then?"

"Yes, good night."

I was fucking screwed. I had no idea what I had just done. I passed the puck blindly. She would be staying with my parents, and God knows what they'd convince her of.

Line change – The entire forward line and/or defensive line will be replaced at once, which put players on the ice who work well together.

Death sucks. Losing your family sucks. Rape sucks. No one likes to talk about it. People are raped every day. Some remember it, and then there are the lucky ones, like me, that don't. Even though we can't remember it, we know it happened, and that really sucks because someone has taken something from you, something sacred that we can never get back. Something that's meant to be given not taken. I was reminded of it and had a few scars, but I wasn't going to let it control me. There were worse things that could have happened. I thought that all the time. I could have died. I almost did die. That would have been worse.

Your whole family dying...that was worse.

The worst part for me was after the funeral when I was left alone and forced to deal with it on my own. My aunts and uncles were gone, friends and other relatives stopped coming around, and it was just me, alone in the house. I was stuck. I couldn't move on from it, and no one seemed to understand that. Everywhere I looked I was reminded of them and that they were gone. I'd look at Andrew's baseball glove and knew that he'd never put that on again. That was truly heartbreaking for me.

When Josh, my boyfriend of three years, couldn't deal with it either, he left. Then it really was just me.

One day it hit me that was no life to have.

I left.

I did the only thing that could help me move on. New city, new life.

I was just starting to move on, had a job, had a place to stay, and then…well, like I said. It sucked.

But then came Evan Masen.

Remembering his touch, I smiled. I'd never felt sparks of electricity when a man touched me before, but I did with Evan. And then he kissed me.
Sweet Jesus.

Having just left Evan outside, and disappointed he hadn't tried to kiss me again, I walked down the hall to his room where his mom had placed my bag. That was when pictures of his childhood caught my attention. They were mostly of him playing hockey and reminded me of the ones we used to have up of Andrew: a proud family supporting their pride.

Evan Masen was handsome. There was no way around that one. He had the dark messy hair, scruffy face, slightly crooked nose, and a good strong jaw. His eyes were blue like mine and spoke when he didn't. When he was in a good mood they were brighter, and when he was upset, they had more depth, entrancing almost. Then there was that body. I hadn't seen him in anything other than jeans and sweatshirts so far, but I knew enough to know from just a few touches he was definitely noteworthy under those clothes.

"Hey, Ami, are you all right?" My eyes snapped up to his mother with a mixture of surprise and confusion. She was standing beside me holding a blanket and pillow. My eyes dropped to the blanket. "It gets kind of cold in Evan's room, so I thought you might like extra blankets. Evan said you like to keep warm."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry. I wasn't trying to snoop or anything," I responded, simultaneously trying to act like I wasn't just staring at Evan's school pictures on the wall.

"It's all right, sweetie." Judy pointed to a picture of Caitlin and Evan when they were kids, both with big smiles. "He's always been protective of her, but they have never really gotten along."

I gazed at the picture again. "It's strange to admit and even stranger to feel, but it's like I know him already, like he was meant to find me that day because we were meant to know each other."

The two of us walked down the hall to Evan's room. I sat down on the edge of the bed, as did she, and I arranged the blankets and my bag so I didn't have to bend over to get them. I got dizzy and nauseated anytime I bent over. Physically, I healed since the accident. There was no permanent damage to speak of, but I still had stomach pains and then of course the headaches and vertigo. Emotionally, I was fine. It wasn't any worse than what happened to my family, and it definitely wasn't something I was struggling with. I had Evan.

I didn't want to attach myself to anyone. Believe me, that was the last thing I wanted, but there was something about him that made me feel alive again.

Judy smiled, her soft spoken voice gentle as always. "Sweetie, that's Evan. It's not strange at all." She moved to sit closer. Her arm draped over my shoulders in a loving manner I hadn't felt since my own mother was taken from me. "When Evan was first placed in my arms, I knew the power he had. I was young when I had him, seventeen…his dad was eighteen and just getting out of junior hockey. Once we had Evan, there wasn't much time for our own dreams, but we had him. That's all that mattered."

I saw it back home, coming from a small town. The parents had kids young and before you knew it, the kid was being forced to live the parents' dream for them. I saw it with Joey, Andrew's best friend, but you didn't get that feeling with Evan and his family.

Judy went onto explain how Evan got started in hockey and his love for it; all things he had already explained to me in the hospital, but I loved hearing it again. It made me feel that much closer to him.

Throughout the night, Evan kept his promise and sent regular text messages asking if I was still there or if I ran away. I ignored them at first, well, aside from the obvious of practically mauling the phone to get to it every time the little fucker dinged with a message. But then the messages got flirty, and I couldn't help myself.

I ended up going to bed after that, exhausted from the long drive. I slept with the lights on. I had said I was healing, and emotionally, I thought I was doing pretty well, but I didn't like the dark. The dark was all I saw for months. I needed light.

Game 62 – New York Islanders

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

The next morning I stepped foot into the Masens' kitchen and saw Judy standing over the stove making pancakes and Evan's sister sitting at the table, legs pulled up into the chair with her phone in hand.

Clearing my throat, I said hello, and Caitlin turned around.

"Hi, I'm Caitlin, Evan's little sister. It's so nice to meet you!" Caitlin jumped up from her chair and ran over to me, wrapping her arms around me. She was definitely Evan's sister. They were both huggers. "I was tired of hearing about this girl Evan couldn't pry himself from but never meeting her."

I was so excited to finally meet Caitlin I wasn't sure how to respond to her. Evan thought highly of his younger sister, and through his frequent conversations about her, I felt like I knew her already.

"Nice to meet you, too!" I managed to get out, caught off guard by Evan's dad walking into the room with a bright smile. I understood where Evan got his looks and build—from Sam, his dad.

The same brown hair covered his head and identical piercing blue eyes gave his face that same boyish look Evan's had. Though they were easily twenty years apart, you knew exactly who his father was.

Sam put his arm around my shoulders, gazing down at me with a fatherly smile I hadn't seen in a long time.

I smiled, not knowing what else to do, and he rubbed his belly. "It's good to have you here Ami. Jud-bug here makes pancakes to die for."

Caitlin, who was still beside me, loped gracefully past me to put her phone on the counter and then reached for the plates in the cupboard. "Hey, Mom, can I go to Evan's game on Wednesday?"

The thought of seeing Evan play live was thrilling to me. He had told me I could come, when I was feeling better, because he would love for me to watch him.

"No, Caitlin, you have school. You can go to the one on Friday when they play Vancouver." Judy gave a nod to the calendar on the wall of the kitchen near the sliding glass door.

Their backyard caught my attention. Well, the landscaping did. When I got here last night it was dark, and I couldn't see much else other than their white house. Now, it was clear they were very much into gardening and the appearance of their property. The thought made me smile.

My mom was a landscaper. It started with her love for flowers and making floral arrangements for around the house and that turned into friends asking her to design their backyards for them. By the time I was fifteen, she had her own business and loved it.

My dad had a local repair shop and did mostly routine maintenance on cars and race cars. Our small town was known for a race track called Willamette Speedway, where he spent a good amount of time when he wasn't with Andrew at the field. Baseball was our sport, just like hockey was the Masens' family sport.