Her grandfather had played for Long Island in the seventies. When she was born, her father was a veteran player for Detroit. When he retired, they moved to Long Island where her father became a manager-and then the manager-of the Long Island team.
The sport was in her blood. Becoming a hockey fan wasn't a choice. It was her destiny. But that all changed two years ago.
First came the new job in Manhattan. She loved it, but it was the first time in her adult life she worked with people who didn't follow hockey.
And then Mike had begun acting strangely. As she tried to narrow down their apartment hunting options, he grew distant. His ex-wife seemed to be leaning on him for a lot of childcare as the hockey season ended, too.
"Is something wrong?" Lauren kept asking him.
He shook his head, looking troubled.
A few months shy of her thirtieth birthday, she was riding home on the Long Island Railroad from a day of training at Nate Kattenberger's corporate headquarters when her phone rang. A picture flashed onto the screen to identify the caller. She'd just gotten her first Katt Phone the week before, and had chosen this shot for Mike. He was smiling at the camera, a cupcake she'd baked in his hand.
"Lauren." His voice was a dry scrape into the phone when she answered.
"Hi! I'm still on the train. But I should make it to your house in thirty."
There was a silence, and Lauren wondered if the call had been dropped. "I'm not there," he said roughly. "There's something I need to tell you."
A chill broke out across her neck and shoulders. "Baby, what is it?"
"I . . ." She held her breath. "I moved back into the old house today."
"What?" She replayed the sentence again in her head, but it didn't make sense. He couldn't mean his old house.
"Yeah," he rasped. "I love you. Hell, I've always loved you. But my family needs me right now, and there isn't any other way."
"They . . . what?" she asked stupidly. "Mike, you're not making a lot of sense. I need to see you. Where are you?"
"No," he said haltingly. "My mind is made up. Shelly is sick."
"She's sick?" Lauren parroted like an idiot.
"Yeah. She's getting chemotherapy now. Elsa is all freaked out."
"Oh."
Oh.
That's when it started to sink in. This phone call wasn't just some kind of crazy misunderstanding. He was serious. And he'd said he was leaving her.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "This is gonna be so hard, but I have to do it."
"You don't, though," she argued. "We could change our plans . . ." His recent silences when she wanted to discuss apartment-hunting suddenly made a hell of a lot more sense.
"I'm sorry, baby. I'm so sorry."
There was a click, and that was really it. Lauren was left sitting there on the LIRR, her phone still pressed to her cheek.
She had been completely blindsided.
Not only had that phone call meant a break-up, but it had also clinched Lauren's exit from the world of professional hockey. She no longer worked in the team's office. And after Mike dumped her, she stopped reading the sports section and she never set foot near a rink unless her boss required it. (He usually hadn't, thankfully.)
For two years her relationship with hockey had been severed. Yet here she was again, watching game five of a play-offs series, in a posh corporate box beside her boss.
And so tense she was practically crawling out of her skin.
As she'd done for games one through four, Lauren had begun the evening assuring herself that she didn't care who won. But the red-blooded energy of eighteen thousand fans in one room was too much for even Lauren to resist. And much like games one through four, by the third period she held her water bottle with a white-knuckled grip, completely absorbed in the action down on the ice.
She'd forgotten how this felt-the excitement thumping through her chest as the fans stomped their feet.
"YEAH!" Nate stood up from his seat, along with eighteen thousand others, as forwards Beringer and Trevi raced down the ice, playing keep-away with the puck.
Beringer passed, and Trevi took a shot. Lauren's heart leaped into her mouth. But it was just barely deflected by the D.C. goalie, damn it. Then Trevi was slammed into the boards by a defenseman, a blatant hit from behind.
WHAT? Lauren's inner hockey fan shrieked. "No penalty? That's bullshit!"
Her heart banged inside her chest as the third period ground on, the score a 2 – 2 tie.
When there were only four minutes left in the game, everyone in the Bruisers' box braced as a Washington player charged the net. Lauren leaned forward in her seat as Beacon dove into position, deflecting the puck. Another D.C. player zoomed in for the rebound, and there was a scrum in front of the net-pads and skates and sticks all scrapping for control.
Then an opposing player fell right onto Mike, knocking him down with such force that his shoulder unhooked the net from its peg into the ice.
Lauren stopped breathing.
The next few moments happened in slow motion. The offending player picked himself up off Beacon's body, which wasn't moving.
Get up! She commanded him silently. A whistle blew, and players and officials congregated.
Mike's leg moved. But that was all.
"It might be nothing," Nate said. "He probably wants to hear the penalty called, and give his guys a moment to breathe before they restart play."
She processed her boss's words, but her gaze would not budge from the ice. All the adrenaline of the moment hit her like poison. Her stomach ached, and her head spun.
"Lauren." Nate prodded her elbow. "Breathe."
She whipped her chin in his direction. It was his fault that she was sitting here, witnessing any of this. This wasn't her life anymore. Mike Beacon wasn't her cause, damn it! Nathan made a calm gesture toward the ice. "There he goes."
When Lauren looked down again, Mike was already putting a hand on the ice and pushing himself up.
She didn't relax until he shook himself and got to his feet. The linesman conferred with the ref, and a penalty was called.
"Nathan," she demanded in a low voice. "Why am I here?"
"Because the team needs your help," he replied immediately. "And two years is a long time to miss out on hockey."
"I was just fine without hockey," she pointed out.
Nathan raised an eyebrow, looking so smug she felt like strangling him. "No matter how often you say otherwise, you love hockey."
Seriously? "Please tell me I'm not here right now because you were staging some kind of intervention. That's fucked up, Nathan."
His eyes went back to the surface of the ice, where the puck was in play once again. "It would be more convenient if you were afraid of me like everyone else is."
"Good luck with that."
He snickered. "Your boy is back in action."
"He's not my boy."
Nathan didn't argue. His attention had already turned back to the team, which was enjoying a power play thanks to the penalty called against the player who took out Mike.
With a shaking hand, Lauren took a deep pull of her water. I hate hockey, she reminded herself. And Mike Beacon is nothing to me. But the sight of his body lying still on the ice had made her feel cold inside. Damn him.
And now she was eyeing the clock, wondering if the Bruisers could capitalize on the power play. Feeling the old pull.
There were less than three minutes left, and they would decide her fate for the next two weeks. If the Bruisers scored, it was on to the conference semifinals in another city-another seven-game series. A hundred more chances to feel the weight of Mike Beacon's eyes on her in airport terminals, buses and hotel lobbies.
Or.
If they couldn't clinch the series tonight or in the next two games, it would all be over. A week from tonight she could be back at her desk in Manhattan, worrying about Nate's next international software trade show.
Why did that sound disappointing all of a sudden?
She risked another glance at the rink, where Leo Trevi was making a new charge at the opponent's net. Defenders scrambled into place, but Trevi snapped the puck back to Castro, then evaded the player who tried to check him.
Lauren went completely still inside. Then, with two minutes and forty-two seconds left on the clock, Trevi received the puck again, quickly passing backward to team captain O'Doul.
Who flipped the biscuit into the basket.
O'Doul's girlfriend, Ari, let out an earsplitting shriek of joy as the lantern lit behind D.C.'s goalie. The stadium went nuts, some fans moaning and others hooting with victory.
Lauren stared at the scoreboard as the goal became official. The Bruisers were a few cautious minutes away from going on to round two.