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I nearly trip over my own skate, whipping my head around and then skating backward so I don’t have to look away from where Misty is taking the stairs down to Noel’s seats…with my wife behind her.
My breath punches out on a laugh, and the knot in my chest unravels as those soft blue eyes meet mine.
Jesus, she looks gorgeous. Her hair is a dark spill around her shoulders, and she’s wearing a Slayers jersey, but it isn’t until she turns around to wave at someone in the row behind hers that I see it has my name on it.
Our name, at least for now.
I circle past again, trying to get the beast slamming around in my chest under control. She’s watching me as I pass, and the eye contact nearly wrecks me, I need it so bad.
Before I skate into O’Brien, Noel catches me and steers me off to the bench. “You know she was coming?”
“No,” I say, cranking my head around to watch her another second. “You?”
“No, man. But that’s a good sign, yeah?”
I fucking hope so.
* * *
My head isdefinitelyin the game. Because no way are we losing while my girl is here for the first time in weeks. I’m playing with a ferocity that pushes the edge of my control but results in two assists and a win.
I’m ready to tear through the locker room, desperate to see if she’s outside. But playing like a fucking lunatic has its cost, and as soon as I get my jersey, shoulder pads, and skates off, I get pulled to talk to the press before I can get to her.
I wrap it up as quickly as I can, and when they cut me loose, I blow past one group and then another, searching for the blue eyes and soft smile that have haunted every minute of every night and every day since the last time I saw them. I’m desperate. I’m—
There.
Misty’s standing with Noel, speaking with an urgency that has my lungs tightening so I can barely breathe. I look around, frantic.
“She left?” I ask, craning to search for her.
What does it mean that she came but didn’t stay? Why would she leave?
Misty’s hand lands on my arm. There’s a stitch between her brows. “She was here. She wanted to talk to you. And then one of the security guys came over and told her a man claiming to be your father was asking to talk to her.”
My throat seizes up, but somehow, I manage to choke out the words. “She went with him?”
“She wouldn’t let me come with her.” Misty looks sick. “They went down that way.”
I take off down the corridor, dripping sweat in my hockey pants, athletic shirt, and the sneakers I stuffed my feet into for the interview.
I don’t have my phone so I can’t call her. Can’t call him. Can’t read the texts I’ve refused to open from him over the last week. Can’t do anything but run and lose my fucking mind at the thought of that man near my wife.
The deeper down the corridor I get, the more the crowd empties out and the harder I panic.
And then, from around the bend, there she is, walking toward me with her head down, her hands clutched at her chest.
“Stormy!” I shout above the deafening sound of blood hammering past my eardrums.
Her head jerks up, and she breaks into a watery smile as I haul her into my arms.
“I’m sorry.” Crushing her to me, I bury my face in her hair and say it again and again and again. I’m sorry for lying to her, for bringing this poison into her life, for touching her when I’m completely disgusting after my game. For whatever it is my father said to her.
“Where is he?” We’re alone now, out of sight of the circus outside the locker room and past the bank of elevators everyone takes to leave. My father is nowhere in sight. “What did he want?”
Except then her arms are locking around my neck, and she’s clinging to me so tightly, I tell her again. “I’m so fucking sorry. Tell me you’re okay. Please.”
“Liam, I’m okay,” she breathes against my neck. “Areyouokay?”
