Yaaas! They had the lead!
The doctor and the trainer clucked over him like hens during the intermission. They used some kind of nasty medical glue to seal up his face.
"I don't want to be able to see the bandage out of my peripheral vision," he said as they worked on him. "It'll distract me."
"Shoulda thought about that before you decked him," Coach Worthington said.
"I'd do it again in a heartbeat."
"We need your ass in that net," Coach pressed. "You let 'im get to ya. I told you not to, and you didn't listen."
This was entirely true. "I'm fine," he insisted anyway. "I won't let him get to me again."
Even so, it was a grueling third period. He let one in after six minutes, which made everyone tense. Fortunately, a penalty was called against Tampa when Skews tripped O'Doul. Brooklyn took the opportunity to score, which restored the team's equilibrium.
But not Beacon's. For the rest of the game, his face throbbed mightily, and his boys looked tight and tense.
So did Tampa, though. And in the end, their opponent couldn't get it done. It was 3 – 2 at the buzzer. Mike skated off the ice thinking about painkillers and a good, cold beer.
If this were a regular season game, they'd be done with this opponent for a while. But not in the play-offs. They were three games into a best-of-seven series, and while their 2 – 1 lead was nice, the job was far from over. And forty-seven hours from now he'd be face-to-face with Skews again.
Punching him had been a dumb idea, Mike was ready to admit. Now he'd be expected to fight the guy again the day after tomorrow.
He didn't even make it to his locker before the press was on it, the bright light of a TV camera in his face. "Yeah, I got a little overheated," he said with a scowl. "I'll keep a better lid on it next game."
Outside the dressing room door he found Elsa and Hans. "What happened?" his daughter demanded. "Let me see the wound."
He chuckled, which only made his face hurt. "I lost my shit, that's what happened. Don't let it happen to you." He put a hand over the bandage. "You can't see it, the doc already closed it up. It hurts, but I'm fine."
"Are you going to be okay?" She looked so young when she asked the question, and his heart broke a little.
"Yeah, baby. I promise I'm fine. Go home with Hans, okay? It's going to be a while until I'm free of this place. And it's late."
He moved in to hug her, but she wrinkled up her nose. "You are so sweaty."
"Sorry," he laughed. "Go to bed, sweetie. I'll make you pancakes for breakfast."
"And bacon?"
"Yeah."
She beamed and walked off with the violin teacher/babysitter/roommate. He watched them go, wishing he could leave with them, too.
• • •
Seventeen years later he'd showered and then submitted his face to an unreasonable amount of further prodding. "Will I still be beautiful?" he grumbled to the doctor inspecting his face.
"It wouldn't be a bad idea to take yourself to a plastic surgeon for some more skillful sutures."
He might have laughed, but it would have hurt. "I was kidding," he said carefully.
"Ice it tonight," the doctor advised. "And keep it dry. I'll change these dressings when I have a look in the morning."
He was nearly the last player to leave the building. And, just as he donned his suit jacket, Lauren's face peered into the dressing room. "Mike?"
"Yeah, baby?"
Her gaze dipped. "Are you all right?" she asked, her voice tentative.
"'Course I'm all right." He patted his pocket to make sure he had keys, a wallet and a phone, then he approached the spot where she stood by the door.
She didn't let him get close, though. She stepped out of the way and folded her arms in front of her chest, in a classic defensive posture. But he didn't buy it.
His girl was worried about him. It had to mean something.
"You heading home?" he asked, following her down the long corridor toward the exit.
"Yes, I have a car waiting."
"Think you could drop me off?" he asked. "I'm only two miles from here. I know it's late, though . . ." He gave her an out.
"I suppose I could do that," she said after a beat. "Sure."
They went outside, where Lauren opened the door to a hired sedan and sat down on the backseat. "We're going to make two stops," she told the driver. "What's your address?" she asked Mike.
"Uh, Willow Street and Pierrepont in the Heights," he said, thinking back to the days when they were planning to move in together. He'd been full of anticipation for the time when they would have their own place. Now she didn't even know his address.
"Then we'll take the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan," Lauren told the driver as Mike shut the door. "Unless the FDR is backed up."
"Should be fine at this hour," the driver said, tapping on his dash instruments to pull up his GPS.
The car slid away from the curb, and they rode in silence for a minute. Then Mike found himself thinking about that pill bottle in her bag, and all the guilty feelings it had dredged up. He turned his aching neck to look at her in the semi-darkness. "How are you doing?"
"Fine," she said, resting her briefcase on the seat between them. "Long day, though." She yawned.
"No kidding."
"I didn't expect you to take swing at that jerk."
He grinned, which wasn't easy with a big old bandage on his face. "I wasn't planning to do it. It just happened."
"But will it make your life harder tomorrow?"
He shrugged. "It will or it won't."
She snorted.
"What?"
"That's the goalie mentality. The past is the past. Time for the next play."
He leaned back against the leather seat and smiled. It was the goalie mentality. If you stood around worrying about the goal you just let in, there was no way you'd be ready to stop the next one. And Lauren had always had his number. Today was no different. "You got a better idea?"
"I guess not."
She bit her lip, and he watched, wishing he could bite it, too. "Lo, can I ask you something?"
"I don't know. Can you?"
"Miss Grammar, are you trying to get pregnant?"
Her head whipped around to look at him. "What? Jesus. Did you snoop in my papers?"
"Papers? No. I just . . . saw this pill bottle roll out of your bag at the pool. You told me to watch your stuff and your bag was tipping over. I didn't mean to read the label."
"Oh." She let out a big breath. "Nosy much?"
He made his best contrite face. "I know it's none of my business but I just didn't understand. Are you with someone?" He cleared his throat. "If I'd known, I wouldn't have, uh . . ." had a lot of wild sex with you.
"No!" she said for the second time inside of a minute. "God. No! I'm not with anyone. You don't need a guy to get pregnant."
"Uh, technically . . ." He let out a nervous chuckle.
"Oh, for Pete's sake." She put her head in her hands. "There's technology, Mike. Not that it's any of your business. It's between me and my doctor."
"So . . ." His head was spinning. "You're going to do it all alone?" He tried to picture Lauren bringing her newborn home to a quiet apartment. Those early days were rough, with the baby crying all the time. He felt a stab of something like fear for her.
"Seriously?" He looked up to see her staring daggers at him from. "You don't think I can hack it?"
"I didn't say that," he said quickly.
"You know you're a single parent, right? And yet it's weird if I am?"
"Hell, Lauren. You'd be twice the parent that I am." Not like the bar is set very high, though.
That's when the car slid up to his corner and the driver cleared his throat. "Which house?"
"Uh, that one," he said, pointing.
Lauren sat up a little straighter and stopped glaring at him long enough to peer out her window at the antique brick facade of his row house. "Nice place, Mike." Her voice was sharp.
"Thanks," he said, feeling more than a little embarrassed. It was a ridiculously nice house, and fancier than he'd really planned on buying. But when you needed at least three bedrooms and you're in a hurry, you had to buy what was on the market.
He opened the door, wondering where she lived, and what it was like there. "Want to come inside for a beer?" he heard himself ask. He wished he could take back everything he'd said in the past five minutes.