Delayed Penalty (9 page)

After the game, I didn't go out with the boys. Instead, I did what I had been doing for the last nineteen days.

The five-minute drive to the hospital went slower than it had in the previous weeks because, for once, there was this anxiety that had settled over me, knowing that I would finally meet her.

What would I say?

Should I ask about her family?

No. Stupid idea. Let her talk.

What if she can't talk?

What if she doesn't want to see me?

No, that wasn't true. Wendy said she asked for me.

Wendy was just getting ready to leave, dressed in street-clothes, when I walked in. It was late. She probably just wanted to get home.

"Has the doctor seen her since she woke up?"

"Yes, he said she has no memory of the few hours leading up to the attack, as well as the entire attack itself. She doesn't remember."

Nodding, my next question was, "Did you tell her who I was?"

Wendy gave me a grin as she walked to Ami's room with me. "I told her your name, but no, I didn't say that you were a hockey player or anything. That's your business."

My arm wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her into me. "Thanks. I appreciate that."

"Does that mean you'll take me to dinner soon?"

I gave her another smile. "Sure."

I wasn't lying. I would take her to dinner. Going home with her was another story. I knew I couldn't do that again.

The anxiety of actually meeting Ami, now that she was awake, was written all over my face. Wendy noticed and asked, "What's going on with you?"

"I don't know…what if I'm not who she expected?"

"Believe me, she's pretty cool, and any girl would be lucky to be saved by you." Wendy gave a nod in the direction of the room. I smiled, giving her one last look before she left.

I stood outside the room for a few minutes, not knowing what to say. It was more along the lines of my fucking feet wouldn't move, and my heart was in my throat.

What if I wasn't who she expected?

That was a big
what if
in my head. It was the one question that was keeping me from stepping inside. Until now, I'd never seen her eyes open, her smile, or her voice. She'd never seen me, never heard my voice, looked into my eyes, or felt my touch.

At some point, I must have gotten my balls back because I knocked lightly and poked my head inside the door.

And then I heard her voice for the first time. "Come in." Sweet like syrup, but a touch raspy from having the tube in her throat for so long. It was also tender and just as scared as I felt.

She was sitting up; that was also a first. Her eyes were downcast as stared at her hands resting on her lap. She looked up as I came through the door, her bright starry blue eyes, though tired, met mine and I smiled at her.

They were bigger than I imagined and somehow the same cool blue as mine, just brighter. When you looked at her pale complexion and then the eyes, they looked misplaced with their clarity and innocence. I couldn't look away from her, and the anxiety I felt was overwhelming. Beneath the eyes was a depth and intensity I'd never seen in another person. But then again, I'd never taken the time to really stare at someone before.

The doctor came in right then, ruining anything I was about to say, but it gave me a few minutes to decide what to say.

After being around Ami for all of two minutes, I learned a few things. She didn't take shit from anyone, which explained the bruises on her fingers and the blood under her nails when I found her. She fought hard for her life. And she was adorable. When she kept rolling her eyes at the doctor, I dug that. I liked her more by the second and was starting to understand why I was so drawn to her. She was just like me in some ways.

When the doctor left, she turned her attention to me.

"Hi," I said, because I was stupid and couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Wow, you're bigger than I expected." Ami blinked, the motion and her words bringing me from my thoughts and back to her.

Say what?

I just smiled. What the fuck do you say in a moment like this?
"Hey, glad you're okay."

No that seemed too…cheesy?

I nervously cleared my throat, trying to gain some composure, if I even could.

Ami must have sensed the edginess surrounding me and motioned to the chair I'd spent almost every night in wondering what this moment would be like. "You can sit…if you want."

So I sat, awkwardly, but I did sit. She watched my every move, her eyes roaming over my body again. I could feel the rush of blood to my face, and other places, because she was watching me so closely.

There was another round of some awkward silence but more from the both of us this time.

I cleared my throat again. It was the only way I could get my words out. "How are you feeling?"

That seemed to spark the fire she needed to talk as well. "Thank you for what you did. I don't know how I can ever thank you for saving me."

"No thanking necessary." My elbows rested uncomfortably on my knees, unable to relax, knees bouncing. "I couldn't leave you out there."

There was a nervous energy swirling around the room, and every breath I took, she did the same, as if we were trying to breathe for each other, say what the other needed. Stumbling over words, we talked about the hospital staff and what they did to save her, but then we were left in silence again.

Ami, noticing the silence had settled, let out a small soft laugh. "Do you know Wendy?"

"Yeah, we've known each other for a few weeks at least."

She nodded, her eyes on her hands. Thankfully, the bruises were disappearing, and if you looked at her now, aside from the bandaged head and pale face, you'd never know she'd been injured with a smile and eyes like that.

But if you looked close enough, and I did, her pain, her memories, what she wouldn't say, was written in the frown she tried to hide when you'd look away or the heavy blinking and the glossy stare.

Wendy had told me her memory surrounding that night was gone, and it may very well have been, but there was a deeper part, a darker part of her that knew pieces of what happened.

She must have noticed I was watching and looked over at me and smiled. I did the same, feeling that connection I'd always felt with her grow a little stronger with her breathtaking smile. "They cut my hair, didn't they?" her hand reached up to touch the side of the bandage and then fell back to the bed.

"Yeah, they had to," I said, looking at my hands and my swollen knuckles from fighting Grady earlier. "It'll grow back, though." I gave her a wink before I realized what I did.

But then she smiled again, seeming to get lost in my words anytime I spoke.

I wanted to say so much, but I couldn't. The words still weren't there, and I didn't want to scare her with everything I had wanted to ask her. Fuck, I was scaring myself with how I was reacting. Image if I could have spoken!

"You must be tired," I said, watching her again. "I should let you get some rest."

Her face fell slightly, and I could tell she didn't want to me to leave.

"Oh, okay." She looked down again, her fingers fidgeting with the IV tube in her hand.

"I just thought…"
Fuck
. I wanted so bad to stop staring at her, but I couldn't. Her eyes flickered between my eyes and my mouth as we stared at each other.

"I get it if you have to leave. Thanks for coming to say hello."

Then I thought I could stay until she fell asleep. God knows I didn't want to leave. Here was a perfect excuse.

"I could stay…if you want," I suggested, not really wanting to leave. "I used to just sit here and watch movies."

Those bright blue eyes looked even brighter and lit up her face. "That sounds good."

She reached for the remote beside her bed the same time I did, and our fingertips grazed. It wasn't the first time I had touched her, but it was the first time I had
touched
her. Before there was nothing there. Now, I felt that fucking touch from the tips of my fingers to my toes.

Leaning back in the chair, not knowing what else to do, she looked up at me, and I was gone. Fucking gone. I knew then why I couldn't
not
come here every day. This girl had a hold on me.

I knew why she wanted me there. She didn't want to be alone, and I didn't want her to be. It was part of the reason I kept coming to the hospital. She had no one right now. If I didn't come, who would?

I couldn't tell you what movie was playing. My eyes were only on her, in a non-creepy stalker way. She seemed different.
Of course she seemed different. She was awake, dumb ass.

We ended up watching a movie that was on one of the basic cable channels, and before I knew it, I started nodding off.

When I woke up, Ami was asleep, curled to the side with a peacefulness about her, so I snuck out quietly. I left a note beside her bed that said:
I'll see you tomorrow
.

When I closed the door behind me, I leaned against it and closed my eyes, then slid down the length of the door until I was seated on the floor. I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes, trying to hold back any emotion I had. She was awake and that attraction, that draw that had kept me coming back, was intensified to the point where I knew I'd never be able to leave this girl alone.

Once I got back to my apartment and into bed, I only had about two hours before our morning skate. I couldn't sleep, thinking about what had happened to her, but the shitty part was it didn't even happen to me. It happened to her. A girl. Just a girl.

Shitty things happened. They happened, and there was nothing you could do about it. Then they're over and you dealt with it, or you didn't. Some people did, some didn't. Ami was trying, I could see that, but the guilt that she survived was written all over her face.

Part of me, a part I frequently told to shut up, wondered what I could possibly offer someone like Ami. Maybe friendship, but for someone who spent the majority of the fall through spring traveling, it was hard to offer her much.

Then again, would she even be interested in me?

You're so far ahead of yourself it's pathetic.

What was pathetic was the fact that I was even thinking like this. Leo was right. I was cherry picking.

Sometimes I felt like I was stalking Ami, like I was the guy in the corner, taking everything in, waiting. That kind of stalking. Or maybe that was just watching? It felt like stalking. If I had the chance to learn anything about her, I would wait a minute, an hour, a day, a week, a year, just to know her. For me that was the hardest part because I wasn't a patient person.

Defensive Zone – The zone or area nearest a team's goal.

Game 47 – Columbus Blue Jackets

Thursday, January 14, 2010

(Home Game)

Hockey players weren't like your average athletes. Some were, but most of us were different. If you compared us to football players, you'd see the differences right away.

We were aggressive; some girls called us secretive, and others called us whores.

They didn't usually say that after a night in the sheets with us, though. They were usually begging for more.

They liked us because we didn't give a fuck. If you wanted rough, you got it rough with a hockey player. And then there was the endurance part.

Not many guys could take hits like we could or got off their asses and continued their shift while sweating, skating, taking bone crushing hits against glass, getting their teeth knocked out, having the shit beat out of them by hits to the face with pucks, sticks, elbows, and then score a goal.

In between the physically demanding prowess of the game there was a skillful presence and the crafty strategies of the sport we loved.

With all that came the endurance, an endurance most women couldn't keep up with.

I was twenty years old and had pussy whenever I wanted it. I had one regular, but it wasn't like we were dating. We never had that kind of relationship.

There were plenty of times throughout the season and off season I got my dick wet with the willing puck bunnies that pressed against the glass, but I never made a habit out of it.

Callie, on the other hand, she was a friend. Not a girlfriend by any means, but I'd taken her out a few times and tangled in the sheets more times than I could count.

She was a goddamn freak in bed, too. I'd show up at practice with a swollen lip, and it hadn't been from the game.

Callie was also a regular with a few other guys, too, so it wasn't like she was looking to settle down. I dug that because it was just like me. Shoving guys into the boards all night and roughing them up left me amped at times. That game against Minnesota Wild left me that way. It was the way of the game, and before long we found ourselves unwinding at a club downtown. Though I wasn't twenty-one, that night it wasn't questioned. Liquor flowed, and soon I found myself with a girl on my lap and then my mouth all over her, trying to forget. I thought maybe this time I could finish. Back at my condo, yes, I said my condo, with her head in my lap, I still couldn't get off, and I was getting kind of pissed. The chick was, too, and ended up leaving. I couldn't blame her.