Comeback (28 page)

I WASN’T ENTIRELY
sure what I’d expected Christmas to be like, but the holiday flew by with very few hiccups beyond the fact that Nicky seemed determined to avoid me as much as humanly possible. I was no longer sure if there was anything I could do or say to convince him that his avoidance wasn’t necessary, that we could have a discussion like two adults and work things out. He had apparently decided that the opposite was true.

Yes, I had attempted to keep my distance from him the day after I’d told him my fears. I knew that what I’d said had hurt him; I’d been hurt, too. I’d simply thought that it would be good for both of us to have a little time apart while we had the opportunity, so we could really think about what was happening between us and decide what we wanted. We couldn’t exactly go on as though nothing had changed between us. We couldn’t ignore the fact that we’d gone from friends to lovers so fast that we might not have thought through the potential ramifications. Everything was shifting within our relationship on a fairly constant basis right now, and we both needed to know where the other stood.

I hadn’t wanted the time apart to be permanent. If I had, I would have moved back to my own apartment and tried to figure out a way to help with the kids without living in his house and forcing myself into such frequent run-ins with him. Maybe I should have been more explicit about how long I might need when I’d told him I wanted some time and space.

Nicky wasn’t making it possible to have a conversation and hash it all out, though. He was staying late at practices and spending more time with his teammates, and in those moments that he was home, he was doing his best to steer as clear of me as he could. We had civil conversations in front of the kids, each of us doing our best to make sure they didn’t catch on to the tension. I knew it wasn’t working, or at least it wouldn’t for very long. Kids in general were aware of far more than most adults gave them credit for, and these kids, in particular, were highly attuned to what was going on with the adults in their lives. But I didn’t know what to do about it.

Everything between Nicky and me was uncomfortable. I’d already lived with a man I cared deeply for but was unable to talk to, and that had ended in divorce and years of trying to get my head on straight again. Nicky and I weren’t married, and frankly we hadn’t been together all that long, but somehow the rift between us stung far more than anything between Steve and me had.

I reminded myself time and again that Nicky was going through something I’d never experienced before, and he was coping as well as could be expected. I reminded myself that I should be thankful that he was coming home in the evenings, that he was still involving himself in the kids’ daily lives, that he hadn’t taken to using pills or alcohol to self-medicate as I had so readily accused him of wanting to do.

And I supposed I
was
thankful for all of that. But at the same time, I missed him. I missed his wry humor and the way he would make jokes at his own expense. I missed the way he would come to me to talk about all the problems in his life. Now, I believed I likely
was
one of those problems, and I wondered who he was talking to in order to deal with it. Would he talk to Jim? Or maybe one of his teammates? I had the sense, now that I’d gotten to know him a little better, that he tended to keep himself separate from the guys on a personal level. Most of all, though, I missed him physically. It wasn’t just about sex. I’d learned to live without sex in all the years after leaving Steve, so I could deal. In the brief time Nicky and I had been involved, there had been more nights when we’d simply held each other than nights we’d taken things to a sexual level.

On the first couple of days over the team’s Christmas break, some of the guys on the team had skated informally at a rink not far from Nicky’s house. They’d rented ice time, some of them had brought their kids along, and there had been no coaches or anyone else in the organization involved. Nicky had been one of them, and he’d taken the boys along with him, leaving Elin behind with me. She hid in her room during those hours, talking on the phone with Maddie. I used that time to work. I’d thought about asking her to come out and help me. I worried about her isolating herself as much as she was, but the fact that she was talking to Maddie helped to ease my fears somewhat. Not only that, but she was getting to be that age when girls started looking for a bit more privacy.

She asked me to go with her to watch them all skate on the day after Christmas, though. She said she wanted to get out of the house, to watch but not participate, and she wanted me to be there with her so we could talk. I couldn’t have been more pleased that I’d left her to her own devices to sort out her feelings. Now she was seeking me out. I wasn’t sure what she wanted to talk about, but I definitely wasn’t going to pass up the chance to get to know her a little better and find out what was on her mind. I might not be able to talk to Nicky right now, but at least I was starting to make some headway with Elin.

When everyone started getting ready to go, I went into my bedroom to do the same. I pulled on a warm sweater because it was always cold close to the ice, and I threw a book and my iPad into my purse. I didn’t think I’d end up using the iPad, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Nils got bored skating after a little while and would need something to occupy him. He was still at an age where he could only focus on one thing for so long before needing to move on to the next. I’d recently put a few games on it that the kids could play. Ready to go, I headed out into the living room.

Nicky had three massive gym bags on the living room floor, one of them far bigger than the other two, and he was going through them. He looked up when I came in, his eyes moving from my face to the purse slung over my shoulder and then back to my face. “You’re coming?” He sounded surprised.

“Elin asked me to.”

“You don’t have work you need to do while we’re gone?” he asked. “I just… I know you’re always bringing work home. I thought it could give you some peace before I have to leave.” He zipped up each of the bags and stacked them by the entryway.

He didn’t need to elaborate on what he meant by
leave
. The Storm were due to go on another road trip after the break. He’d be gone for five days, and it would be just me and the kids, and they would be out of school the whole time he was gone.

“Work will just have to wait,” I said. “Elin asked me to come.” Surely he understood what a big deal it was that his niece was initiating something. He saw how she pulled away. I knew he was as worried about her as I was.

He nodded, but before he could say anything else, the boys raced into the living room. Hugo jumped on Nicky’s back, locking his arms around his uncle’s shoulders.

“Help me! He’s tic-tickling me to death.”

Nils caught up in no time and started tickling both Hugo and Nicky at random, with no indication as to who was his primary target.

The next thing I knew, all three of them were rolling around on the living room floor tickling one another indiscriminately. They were laughing like loons—all of them, even Nicky—in a way I hadn’t heard since well before Emma died.

Elin came down the hall and stopped when she’d just come into the living room, looking down at the mess of arms and legs writhing on the hardwood. Then she looked up at me, rolling her eyes, and shook her head. “Boys.”

That apparently caught Hugo’s attention. The next thing I knew, he was flinging himself over the back of the sofa to haul Elin into the tickle fest. She let out an indignant laugh that quickly turned to a gale of giggles fit to match theirs.

I couldn’t help but chuckle. Then I wished I hadn’t.

Nils ran over and dug his tickling fingers into my belly before I could escape. He dragged me into the middle of it all, and so I did the only thing I could think of to defend myself: I started tickling them in return. We played until we were all gasping for breath and clutching our sides because we’d been laughing so hard.

I rolled onto my back, one hand above my head on the floor, the other holding my stomach while I waited on everything internal to go back to normal. Every few seconds, Nils laughed again, a snort here and a snicker there. In no time, he was laughing full-on once more, and I was helpless to do anything but chuckle right along with him.

“Come on,” Hugo said, getting up even though he was still snickering, too. He pulled on Nicky’s arm to get him up off the floor, but he couldn’t do much against his uncle’s big frame. Nicky wasn’t going to move until he was good and ready to.

Hugo crossed his arms and frowned down at the pair of us. “We’re going to be late. I want to play hockey.”

“Oh, I see how it is,” Nicky said, laughing quietly. “When you’re going to be out on the ice, all of a sudden we can’t be late. But if you’re just going to watch…”

“Come
on
,” Hugo repeated, rolling his eyes.

By then, both Nils and Elin had gotten up and all three kids were heading for the door. Elin and Hugo both grabbed the smaller hockey bags, and Nils tried to haul Nicky’s behind him. That was when we knew we had to get moving or there would be trouble. Nicky’s gear had to weigh more than Nils, but that didn’t stop the little boy from trying to move it on his own.

Nicky got up, and he reached down to offer me a hand. I took it, letting him help me up from the floor. I swayed, lightheaded from all that laughing, and he put a hand on my waist to steady me.

“I’m fine,” I said.

He nodded, eyeing me up and down. His gaze was warm in a way it hadn’t been when looking at me in days. “If you’re sure.” But he didn’t let go.

His equipment bag smacked against the doorframe, and Nils said something in Swedish but I didn’t have the first clue what it meant, but Nicky and I both looked over. The bag needed to be turned sideways to fit through, but Nils was trying to drag it lengthwise.

Nicky chuckled and backed away from me, crossing over to his nephew. “Are you supposed to be using language like that?” he asked. He reached down and ruffled the boy’s hair before picking the bag up and slinging it over his shoulder.

“Jessica doesn’t know it’s a bad word,” Nils whispered, but I heard every bit of what he was saying to his uncle.

Nicky looked back over his shoulder at me and winked. “She does now. And so do I.
And
so do
you
. I’d better not hear about you saying that one again.”

The two of them headed out the door, side by side. I picked my purse back up, slung the strap over my shoulder, and tried to decide what had just happened between me and Nicky and if I wanted it to happen again.

I was fairly certain that I did want it.

In fact, I intended to be sure that it happened again, and the sooner the better.

I’D BEEN SITTING
patiently by Elin for several minutes, waiting for her to initiate conversation, when Brenden Campbell came through the door to the rink with Tuck and Maddie by his side. He was still on crutches, so there was no chance he’d be getting on the ice today. He must have brought the kids so Tuck could get out and skate. Brenden and Tuck headed over to the rest of the guys who were getting ready to go out on the ice, but Maddie spotted us on the other side of the rink and headed our way.

She sat down on Elin’s other side, her hands locked tight together on her lap. She seemed almost as nervous as Elin was.

Almost.

The truth was, Elin had been vibrating ever since we’d sat down on the cool, metal bleachers, shaking so hard that I could feel it. She’d been watching the door almost constantly, oblivious to the guys on the other side of the ice and essentially oblivious to me, as well.

She seemed to breathe a little more easily once Maddie sat down with us, so I assumed it was Maddie she’d been anxiously awaiting.

I assumed wrong.

“So can we talk to you about boys?” Maddie asked me tentatively, and I almost spit out the sip of water I’d just taken. “I mean, it’s not for me. I’d talk to my mom if I needed—” She blushed, her face as red as her hair in an instant. “I told Elin she could talk to my mom, too, but she doesn’t really know Mom well and we thought maybe you could help. Please?”

“Don’t you think you could talk to your uncle about whatever it is?” I asked Elin, floundering to figure out how to handle this. Nicky was her guardian now. I didn’t know what he thought about boys in terms of Elin—how old she needed to be before she could have a boyfriend, or go on a date, or anything, really. Elin was twelve and in middle school, so it made sense that she was starting to think about boys and dating and all of that. Now that I thought about it, I remembered getting my first kiss when I was eleven—a bit young, to be sure, but not unheard of.

Elin’s eyes went huge at the mention of her uncle, and she shook her head frantically.

“Mr. Nicky is easy to talk to about some things,” Maddie said in a tone that made it seem as though she was explaining something important about life to her little brother. “But
boys
? No.
Just no
. I couldn’t talk to Mr. Soupy about boys, either.”