Pipe Dreams(43)

Nothing civil, that was for sure.

Hans got up and disappeared for a minute, reappearing with a beer for each of them.

"I knew I liked you," Mike muttered as his hand closed around the cold bottle.

"Maybe wait until tomorrow to talk about it with her," Hans said quietly.

"At least. She can't go around calling people . . ." Slutty. He couldn't  even say it out loud. Poor Lauren. "But if I went in there right now  we'd both say more things we regret. I shouldn't have mentioned Shelly.  That was a low blow."

"Shelly would not like her behavior tonight," Hans pointed out. "But if  Shelly were still alive, Elsa would not be acting this way. She's angry  all the time. When one of her friends mentions she did this or that  activity together with her mom, you should see Elsa's face."

Mike groaned. "I can't fix that."

"Of course not."

"I just . . ." Mike rubbed his temples. "There's no way for her to understand."

"That her mother is gone?"

"Yeah. And that I'm going to get on with my life eventually." Maybe  soon. "She's going to hate it." Shit. He was still breaking hearts. It  was never ending.

"I think you're wrong," Hans said slowly.

"Join the club."

The other man chuckled. "No-I think she can understand a lot. She's  fighting you because she's afraid of more change. But not all change is  bad."

"There's going to be more change," Mike admitted to himself as well as Hans. "A lot more."

"I hope the hinges on her bedroom door are strong."

Mike grinned into the bottle in his hand. "Let's keep the beer stocked. We're going to need it."





TWENTY-FOUR



The following night, in a burst of optimism, Lauren went to watch Mike  try to shut out Detroit in game four. She didn't need a ticket. Her team  credentials got her all the way into Nate's box-voluntarily this time.  Neither Ari nor Georgia so much as raised an eyebrow.

Even though it was empty, Lauren didn't take the seat beside Nate,  though. She was too nervous. Pacing back and forth near the cheese puffs  was more her speed.

"Glass of wine?" Georgia asked. "You look like you could use one."

She almost said yes, before remembering why she couldn't. "No, thanks. Too nervous."

"More for me! Tommy is handling the press conference tonight, so I can be the tipsy publicist."

When the game was still scoreless at the end of the second period,  Lauren let out a loud groan. "I think I've aged a decade in these two  periods."

"Honestly," Ari agreed. "Civilizations have risen and fallen since the puck dropped. It's torture."                       
       
           



       

Nate, as usual, sat stoically in his seat, eyes affixed to the ice.

Lauren noticed that Rebecca was not present tonight, and she wondered why that was.

When Nate got up to refill his glass of Diet Coke, he gave her a Nate  smirk. "Didn't expect to see you here tonight. Look who remembered she's  a hockey fan?"

"Don't be smug," she grumbled. "I'm here in an official capacity."

He lifted an eyebrow. "How so?"

"I'm here to remind you not to be smug."

Georgia giggled.

And that was the last moment of levity that evening. The game ground on,  scoreless through the third period. After the Zamboni cleared the ice  one more time, Lauren watched her boys come back on for the overtime  period. They looked tired, but determined.

So did Detroit.

Lauren fidgeted as play began again. She chewed ice cubes and rocked on  her heels. Her eyes were dry from staring so long at the rink.

Overtime periods weren't like regular periods, though-they were played  with the sudden death rule. A goal ended the game. So one moment Lauren  was watching Trevi try to get the puck away from his opponent, who  passed it behind his body. One second later another opponent was flying  toward Mike with the puck, unguarded on a breakaway. She saw Mike look  for the deke and make his choice, positioning his body toward the left.

Then the puck flew right past his right shoulder and into the net.

Before she could had even make sense of the play, the game was over.  Mike collapsed in frustration onto the ice, his head in his hands. And  fifteen thousand Brooklyn fans made noises of frustration.

That was it. Time to hit the showers, boys. Nothing more to be done tonight.

Depressed, Lauren made her way downstairs, as if by habit. At a home  game, with Becca covering the office again, there was no reason for her  to stick around.

Except for one.

The corridor outside the dressing room was buzzing with journalists and  family members. It was terribly crowded. Even as Lauren contemplated  fighting her way through the scrum, she spotted Elsa and her babysitter  down there, waiting for Mike to make an appearance.

Lauren hesitated. She hung back, trying to decide what to do. Whatever  words of support she might offer Mike tonight would keep until tomorrow.

As she thought it through, the dressing room door opened and the man  himself came through it, his hair wet from the shower. His daughter  lunged. She threw herself at him, grabbing him around the neck and  hugging him tightly.

Mike closed his eyes. He lifted his girl into the air and said something tender into her ear.

Lauren turned around then without another thought. The man had his hands  full. She made her way out to street level, where she found a yellow  cab with its light on and got inside.

I'm sorry, she texted Mike from the cab. Can't win 'em all. Talk tomorrow?

When her phone vibrated a moment later, she looked for Mike's reply. But  the text wasn't from him. It was from her father. I knew they'd choke,  he said.

Nice, dad, she wanted to reply. The man was still bitter. Yet glued to  the game. She could picture him in his lounge chair, yelling at the TV.

Lauren put her phone away and spent the rest of the ride looking out the  window, watching the lights of New York City speed toward her on the  Brooklyn Bridge. It was such a romantic view of a busy city that it was  easy for her to imagine that she was the only one alone tonight.

Don't go there, she coached herself. She was no more alone tonight than she'd been during her other single years.

When her cab arrived at her apartment building, she paid the man and got  out. Inside her lobby, she gave Jerry, the night doorman, a wave on her  way to the elevator.

"Hot date, maybe?" he asked as she waited for the car to descend. "Please don't tell me you worked late again tonight."

"Not this time. I was at the hockey game in Brooklyn."

He leaned forward in his seat. "Yeah? I didn't take you for a hockey fan, Miss Lauren."

She laughed, because that was hysterical. Her whole life had been hockey  until the minute she moved into this building. "For the record, I  didn't take you for a hockey fan, either. But I used to work for the  team. Before I moved to Manhattan."

His eyes popped wide. "Shut the front door! You know all the players?"

"Pretty much." The elevator doors parted in front of her.

"Stay cool, Miss Lauren!" Jerry yelled as she stepped inside.

"You too, big man!" she returned.

Upstairs, her apartment was dark and quiet. She changed into a nightgown  and took a prenatal vitamin. Then she got in bed, wondering if the game  had left her too keyed up to sleep. She was just drifting off an hour  or so later when the doorman's buzzer blared through her small  apartment.                       
       
           



       

She almost ignored it. Nobody ever knocked on her door at midnight.

But it buzzed again.

She got up and padded to the handset on the wall. "Jerry?" He never rang her this late.

"Sorry to ring you so late but you have a visitor. Mike Beacon is here to see you." He said it as if announcing the pope.

"He is?" She failed to keep the surprise out of her voice.

"That's what I said, too," Jerry whispered. "It's one thing to drop this  bomb on me that you know the team. It's, like, a whole other level of  gossip when the goalie shows up asking for you at midnight."

"Send him up already."

"Go on, sir," she heard Jerry say. "Apartment 12B." But the doorman  didn't hang up yet. After a beat he whispered into the handset again.  "We are going to have to discuss this later."

"We are?"

"Most def. And do you know how a guy could get an autograph for his little girl?"

"Angelique is a hockey fan?" Hockey fans were just coming out of the woodwork tonight.

"She has a poster of Castro up on her wall. She said, ‘Look, Daddy, you can play hockey even if you have brown skin.'"

"Oh, man. I'll have to hook that girl up with a jersey."

"You are the coolest resident of 251 East 32nd Street, Miss Lauren."