Slap Shot, page 18
“So no one in Nashville knows?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. I was a rookie who hadn’t seen much ice time. It hardly made the local news, much less national. Packi might know. He seems to. The brass might. Who knows what the Red Wings’s top guys and coaches told the guys down here. But they’ve never said anything.”
“I see,” she said, though she didn’t. “She would have been young, too. An accident?”
“No. Not an accident.” He closed his eyes. “I guess you want to know what happened.”
Damn straight she did. “If you want to tell me.”
“She—Philie—was pregnant. She had preeclampsia. I was on the road. She died while I was gone. That’s pretty much it.”
“So your wife and your baby? Oh, God.” The horror of it all washed over her like lava down a mountain. “Bryant, I am so sorry.” She laid a hand on his arm.
“Don’t put a whole lot of energy into feeling sorry for me. She tried to tell me she was sick. She wanted me to drive her to St. Sebastian, but there was no time. I should have insisted on flying her mother in or hiring a nurse. But she didn’t want it. When I left, we were mad. I thought that’s why she wasn’t answering the phone. And when I came back she was dead.”
And there was fresh horror, fresh lava. “You mean you found her?”
“Uh huh.” He looked at the lake.
“And you blame yourself for this?”
“Who else is there to blame?”
“Sometimes there is no blame.”
“Not this time.”
“Bryant, you were nineteen. And it sounds like you tried to find a solution to keep from leaving her alone.”
“Not hard enough. And deep down, I didn’t really believe she was that sick. Philie was eighteen. She could be pretty dramatic.”
“Being dramatic is a vocation for an eighteen-year-old girl.”
He gave a half laugh. “I guess. And I guess it’s pretty obvious she was pregnant when we got married.”
“I don’t know about obvious, but there aren’t many teenage marriages these days.”
“No. She was my high school girlfriend. The Red Wings drafted me out of juniors, but I also got a scholarship to Boston College. I decided to go to school and put off signing with the Red Wings until I graduated. But Philie got pregnant, so I quit school, signed the contract, and there we were. After it happened, I asked for a trade. So I came here. That’s the story.”
Gabriella doubted if that was even half the story.
“What were you arguing with your mother about?” All he could do was tell her it was none of her business.
He sighed and ran his hand over his face. “That’s a whole other thing. You have to understand, St. Sebastian is small—small and tight. Everybody goes to the same school, goes to the same church, works in the same paper mill, skates on the same pond, goes to the same corn feeds, smelt fries, and chili cook-offs in the same church basement or VFW hall. Philie was friends with my sisters. Our mothers were on altar guild together. Our dads worked the same shift at the mill and played men’s pickup together.”
“A lot about that sounds nice.” She’d grown up in a small hockey town like that, too, but their family had never been part of it—isolated because of the abuse. Her father hadn’t wanted them close to anyone.
Bryant looked surprised. “A lot of it was—is. It’s like I told you the other night outside of The Big Skate. There’s a lot to love about home. And you remember how I told you my family—my mother primarily, though she’s just the spokesperson—didn’t want to let me go?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sure that it wasn’t anyone’s top choice for Philie to get pregnant first and the wedding to come later, but they weren’t that upset either.” To Gabriella’s surprise, Bryant took her hand under the blanket. It was odd to hold his hand while he talked about being married to someone else, but she didn’t pull away. “To my family, marrying Philie cemented me to St. Sebastian and them. Sure, they knew—or hoped—I’d play in the NHL and make a name for myself. But they always wanted me to come home when it was all over and be one of them. They knew Philie would make that happen. She was St. Sebastian through and through. She hated Detroit, was just serving her time out until she could go back home. When she died, all bets were off. They didn’t know what I’d do. They’d lost Philie. They’d lost the baby. And now, they might lose me, too. I’m sympathetic to that. I really am.”
His tortured expression took root in her heart. “But?”
“But every time I turn around, we have to have a big, public, Philie mourning. There’s always a birthday Mass, a memorial Mass, a grave visit on holidays. And that’s what led up to the row with my mother today. I always go back for those special Masses and the big family meals afterward where they make all of Philie’s favorite food and bring out the picture albums.”
“My sweet Lord!” Gabriella clapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry.”
“No. You’re speaking my language. So, anyway, I couldn’t make it back for the birthday mass this year because of the party for Emile and Amy. All day they sent me pictures.” His eyes went hollow and haunted. “This time, they put a bear wearing a little Sound jersey on her grave. You know.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “For the baby. They’d never done that before.”
Pure pitch black moved in and overtook her. Gabriella had felt such despair before, but never for another person. Who were these people? How could they be so insensitive? Clearly, Bryant loved them, so maybe they meant well, but sometimes meaning well wasn’t worth a damn. Her mother had meant well. And Bryant had been living with all this since he was nineteen years old. No wonder he constantly distracted himself by having sex with every puck bunny who shook her cotton tail at him, and no wonder he’d had sex with her—Gabriella—the night of the party. Oddly, she wasn’t offended. In the face of such heartbreak, if she’d offered him any comfort at all, so be it. Besides, she’d needed solace herself that night for reasons much more trivial. So it was no different.
“Oh, Bryant. Oh, sweetheart.” She would have taken him in her arms if they hadn’t been sitting in full view of everyone inside. The best she could do was offer a term of endearment.
He waved his hands. “I don’t want to talk about that. But on to getting into it with my mother today. I had said I’d go to Mass this Sunday at the Cathedral and we’d light candles for Philie. But my mother set up a whole new birthday Mass without discussing it with me. That’s what you came in on. I said I was the husband, and it wasn’t going to happen.”
“Good for you. That’s not good for anybody.” And he was the only one who could put a stop to this morbid way of life.
He didn’t seem to hear her. He was on a roll. “On Philie’s actual birthday, I was in Colorado. They all called to tell me they were thinking about me. All. Consider what all means. I have parents and six brothers and sisters. Most of them have spouses. Philie had parents and five brothers and sisters. They all have spouses. Do you know how many phone calls that is? And it was game day. Pretty soon, the nieces and nephews will be old enough to call. Then they’ll get married and there will be more spouses. And I just want some peace.” He stopped abruptly. “I sound like an unappreciative bastard, don’t I? Whining because my family cares about me. There are lots of people who would love to hear anything at all from their families.” He stopped abruptly. “I’m sorry. I’m sure you’d love it if your family called you all the time.”
For the barest second, she was confused. “My family does call me all the time. There was a short time there for a bit when I wasn’t hearing from Emile as often as usual, but it passed.”
“I didn’t mean Emile.”
“I know.” She took a deep breath. Inasmuch as Gabriella never talked about the abusive home she and Emile had grown up in, everyone knew it because Emile had no secrets. But maybe it was time to give a little piece of herself away—just a tiny piece. That’s all she could spare and this wasn’t about her. “But Johanna and Paul are my parents. Wishing things had been different doesn’t do any good. It only robs you of the present. My mother died. I’m sorry. I mourn her. My father is in prison. I don’t hear from him. I don’t wish to. I don’t have baggage about it—or at least very little. A lot of people would. But I chose a different path. I chose to let Johanna and Paul be my parents. Bryant, it is possible to move on.”
“I wish my family knew that.”
“It’s been, what? Five years?”
He nodded. “Five years. Nearly six.”
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think you sound like an unappreciative bastard. You sound like a man who wants to put his grief in its appropriate place and move on.”
He let his eyelids drop to half-mast and looked at her for a long minute. “Yes. You get it. You get it exactly. And why not? What happened to you was as bad . . . worse.”
“No. You can’t compare. Bad is bad. Everyone has it. You just have to find a way to live with it. The only difference is, I have found a way and you haven’t.”
He nodded. “I’m a grown man. I should have found a way.”
She got the feeling no one had ever validated him before. “Bryant, what you’re feeling is appropriate. There’s no timeline to finding your way.”
“Do you really think so?” Just for a split second, he was a little boy who wanted to be sure his finger painting was good enough.
She squeezed Bryant’s hand under the blanket.
“You just have to let it go. Sure, you’ll always mourn. There are days that it’s on your mind. But you can’t live with it day in and day out. It’s not natural. What you’re feeling is natural. I’m sure your family loves you and they mean well, but this needs to stop.”
“They really do and it really does.”
“But I don’t think they are the ones making you hang on to your guilt and grief. You’re doing that yourself.”
He opened his mouth, probably to protest, but seemed to think better of it. “You might be right.”
“I never wanted to hear from my father after he murdered my mother, and Paul, Johanna, and Emile all told him that. But he kept trying to contact me. This rocked on for a few years. But do you know what it took to end it? I had to write him a letter and tell him. You’re the only one who can get control of this situation.”
“I’ll give it some thought.”
She didn’t tell him that sleeping with every lithe young thing in a Sound jersey was no way to cope either. That would seem too much like she wanted him for herself.
But there was something she was going to ask. “Is this why you are emotionally unavailable? Because you loved Philie so much?” Her voice was a scared whisper.
If possible, his face became more miserable. “No.” He shook his head. “Because I didn’t.”
She didn’t believe that for a minute. If there had been no love, he wouldn’t be so haunted. but she wouldn’t insult him with platitudes.
In that moment, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’d been telling the truth when he said he would never hurt her. He was safe, sensitive, and utterly incapable of hurting someone.
“You’re a good man, Bryant. That’s really all that matters. And you deserve to be happy.”
“It means a lot that you think so, Gabriella, even if it isn’t true.”
“I can’t make you believe it. You have to get there yourself, just like you’re the only one who can stop your family from putting you on this eternal emotional roller coaster.”
He nodded.
They both gazed at the lake for a few silent minutes. The sun was setting.
Finally, she spoke again. “If I can help, I’m here. Anything I can do, I will.”
His head snapped up. “Do you mean it?”
“Of course. We’re friends. Remember?”
“How do you feel about a Tour of Italy?”
“As appealing as it might sound, I don’t think running away to Italy would help.”
He gave her the old Bryant smile. “No. It’s an item on the Olive Garden menu. Would you go with me to meet my family Saturday? I need a friend.”
Angels above and demons below, hell no! “Of course,” she said. Because that’s what friends say—especially friends who are pleasers. But somehow, she knew she would have wanted to please Bryant even if she hadn’t been a pleaser by nature.
She stood. “Come inside, Bryant. You need to take a hot shower and put on some warm clothes.
“Can you persuade your brother to let the inferno die down?”
“I’ll try.” And she would. She would have tried to fly to Egypt by flapping her arms if he’d asked it of her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Confession is good for the soul. Bryant had heard that all his life. He wasn’t sure about the soul, but it was good for the shoulders.
He felt lighter. It seemed as though the secret between him and Gabriella had caused them to drift together. He’d come down from his shower to find that everyone had moved to the deck to sit around the outdoor fireplace. He’d gone straight to the little couch for two where Gabriella sat like he had a homing device strapped to his back and she was home. It never occurred to him to sit anywhere else. Likewise, she had unfolded her long legs from the space beside her and moved over to make room for him as if there wasn’t another empty seat available.
And as far as he was concerned, there wasn’t. Though it didn’t make a lot of sense, the buzz between them was still as strong, but it was softer, too—like a solid shot of the puck to the net wrapped in finesse. The place above her knee was comforting against his hand, but it was more—full of expectation. No one would have noticed that he was touching her even if she hadn’t had a blanket over her lap. How could they with all the s’mores making, wedding talking, and fire poking? And let’s not forget the reveling because the Packers had pulled it out in the last quarter.
But Gabriella noticed. When he settled her hand on her leg, she barely turned her head in his direction, but her expression was clear. She felt what he felt. They were going to have sex—tonight—and they both knew it. There was no hurry, no manic need to rush upstairs like a four-year-old eager to see what Santa had brought. They knew what Santa would bring, and they were totally in sync in their restful anticipation. The rest was good. He felt a good kind of weary, like he always felt after swimming all day.
So they rested in a mellow kind of way. He had a few beers. She had a glass of wine. They shared a turkey sandwich because neither of them wanted a whole one, and he was happy to slather it with cranberry sauce because she wanted it, though he didn’t usually eat it.
Later, after the kids had been put to bed and the fire had died down, they all pitched in and cleaned the kitchen. Sparks and Robbie settled in to play a video game, and Mikhail tossed over his shoulder as everyone else went upstairs, “Eat more if you like, but if you mess it up, clean it up.”
Bryant had one bad moment when Jarrett said, “And remember, guys, there are some things you’d better not mess up, because they can’t be cleaned up.” He pretended like he was talking to Sparks and Scottie, but it was Bryant’s eyes he met. “Right, Swifty?”
“You usually are,” he said.
But that wasn’t going to deter him. It was going to happen.
But how long did one need to wait before visiting the lady in question when her brother was under the same roof? Not to mention a judge and spy in training, otherwise known as The Saint? Bryant pondered this as he sat on his bed and stared at the clock on the DVD player.
Then there was a knock on his door. If that was Jarrett, he was going to throw him off the roof.
But it wasn’t. Gabriella had come to him—in a nightgown. It wasn’t a sexy nightgown, but she didn’t need it. Neither did he.
She tasted like the chocolate and marshmallow of her s’more. He tasted it for a good long time because he took a good long time with her mouth. And she was fully and completely in his arms—no hand holding outside The Big Skate or under a blanket. No just touching her knee.
Finally, he broke the kiss. With his mouth millimeters from hers he said, “Secondhand s’mores.”
She laughed and leaned her forehead to his mouth. “Such sexy talk.”
“This room can’t hold any more sexy.” He lifted her face so he could see her eyes.
“Kiss me again,” she said. “I could kiss you like that all night.”
And he did. The kiss set the tone—slow and thorough. From there, they continued to take a good long time with each other—the undressing, the caressing, the just lying close together, belly to belly and cheek to cheek.
This time it wasn’t hurried and desperate. Her hands were soft, sweet, and comforting on him and he did his best to return the favor. There weren’t just moans of pleasure, but sighs of contentment, not just demands for more, but sweet words of gratification.
It had never been like this before, not just with Gabriella, but with anyone. Over the years he’d learned some things and taught some things, but this was brand new. This was a surprise when he thought there were no surprises left, the most intimate sex he’d ever had.
Aside from Swifty, he had another nickname—one invented by and circulated among the puck bunnies. Sexpert. He’d always laughed about it, but he’d never been proud of it.
This—what passed between him and Gabriella—he was proud of. Maybe it should scare him. Maybe it would another day.
But not today. Not tonight.
She snuggled against him and snored, just a little.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Gabriella woke up the next morning in her own bed—or the bed that Sharon had assigned to her. She sat up confused. Had she dreamed last night with Bryant? Surely not. Her imagination wasn’t that good.
She reached for her phone to check the time. 8:43 a.m. Oh. And she had a text message from Bryant.
Had to leave early with the boys to get back for early skate. You were sleeping really good, so I put you to bed. Olive Garden tomorrow at 11 a.m. TY.
