Hip Check (New York Blades) (30 page)

“Michelle?”

“Mmm?”

“Do you think he’d mind if I pretended he was my grandfather? Most people have two, and I don’t like the one I have very much.”

Michelle had to clear her throat to keep from laughing. “I think he’d like that a lot.” She tugged on Nell’s ponytail, noting how much she needed a trim. “Why don’t you like the other one, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Dull,” Nell answered in a leaden voice. She added, “And he doesn’t smile much. There’s no way he would play Magic 8 Ball.”

“Well, that’s his loss.” Michelle made a mental note to ask Esa about the dinner with his folks, then realized that maybe he wouldn’t be so free about sharing information now that things were over. “What did he and your grandmother give you for Christmas?”

Nell rolled her eyes. “Knee socks.”

“That is sort of dull.”

“I told you,” Nell replied as if it were self-evident. She looked at Michelle hopefully. “Are you going to be here tonight?”

Good question. She could: her dad was still in the hospital. And Esa still wasn’t 100 percent comfortable with Nell on his own. Michelle was his security blanket.

She decided it would be better for her not to be there tonight. She did have a few things she wanted to sort out at her father’s apartment. It would give Esa a chance to sort out what they’d just discussed. Her, too.

“No, sweetie, I’m not. I’ll be here tomorrow night, though.”

“Good,” Nell declared. She bounced back up, sitting cross-legged. “Maybe we could get pizza, then.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe we could get some tonight!”

“That’s up to your uncle.”

“I like it better when it’s you, me, and him.”

Michelle smiled sadly. “I know you do.”

The corner of Nell’s lips tilted up into the tiniest shadow of a smile as she shyly ran an index finger up and down Michelle’s arm. “Are you two going to get married?”

Michelle flushed, clicking her tongue affectionately. “Now that’s a silly question! Why would you think that?”

“Because isn’t that what people do when they’re in love?”

“We’re not in love, honey.”

“Yes, you are,” Nell insisted.

Michelle’s body suddenly felt so heavy she feared she might just tip over off Nell’s bed like an upright bag of sand. “People can go out with each other and not be in love,” she explained, fighting not to sound strained and weary.

Nell went into mulling mode, which meant she’d grabbed her right braid and had started nibbling on the end of it. “But then they fall in love eventually, right?”

Michelle gently removed the braid from Nell’s mouth. “Not always,” she said. “Sometimes they break up.”

Nell flopped back on the bed. “I don’t understand this one bit!”

“You will one day.”

Nell resumed studying the ceiling. Michelle remembered herself doing the same thing as a little girl, the ceiling seeming like a big blank canvas where she could project what was in her mind and try to make some sense of it. But with each passing second of Nell’s silent staring, Michelle felt more weary. Finally, Nell turned to look at her. “Do you think you
could
fall in love?” she wanted to know. “If you started to really, really, really, really, really like each other?”

Michelle knew it was hedging a bit, but she replied expansively, “I think for people to fall in love you’d have to add at least a hundred more ‘reallys’!”

“But it
could
happen,” Michelle heard Nell murmur insistently to herself.

Michelle slapped the tops of her thighs lightly and stood up. “You should go talk to your uncle about pizza. As for me, I’m going to put someone’s wash up.” She teased Nell with a grave expression. “And I expect someone to put it in the dryer tonight so I can fold it tomorrow.” She kissed Nell on the cheek. “Have fun tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

43

THREE MONTHS LATER

He’s going to drop it for the trailing defenseman.
Esa was having one of those games where he could sense what everyone on the ice was going to do seconds before they did it. When the Hartford winger made the drop pass Esa had seen coming; he was the one who was there to intercept it at the Blades blue line. Without turning, Esa backhanded the puck off the boards where it was gathered in by Rory, who was just where Esa knew he’d be. As Rory rushed up the left wing, Esa broke up the ice. The Hartford defenseman stood up to make a play on Rory, who chipped the puck deeper. Esa reached the puck before the Hartford center, who’d been marking him all the way up the ice. Rather than send the puck behind the net, Esa spun right and crossed to the top of the circle. He could see the Hartford goaltender starting to move off the right post, anticipating Esa would keep skating to the slot. Instead, Esa snapped the puck high and inside the post the goalie had just vacated. The red light flashed. The crowd rose to its feet with a roar that overpowered the blare of the horn. Hats began hitting the ice.

The team was all smiles as Esa skated past them, exchanging fist bumps with his teammates before he hopped over the boards and assumed his place on the bench. As the clean-up crew swept the hats into a pile and loaded them into a container, Esa felt someone rubbing the back of his neck. Michael Dante leaned over and whispered in his ear. “Great fucking play. I’d say you just sent a message to Kidco.”

* * *

“You doin’ steroids?”
Eric Mitchell asked Esa as he smiled and lifted his glass to toast him. Esa, the Mitchell boys, David, and Ulfie all laughed and took long drinks of their beers. They were at their usual table at the Hart, celebrating a 6-0 demolition of Hartford, and Esa’s first hat trick in the NHL.

The team had been on fire, peaking just as the final seatings for the playoffs were being determined. Esa’s productivity of late had driven a commentator on ESPN to nickname him “Lazarus.” His agent wouldn’t guarantee anything, but he was confident Kidco would soon be making him an offer.

“Yeah, right,” said Esa. “If I was doing steroids my arms wouldn’t still be toothpicks and my balls wouldn’t still be so big.” That got a big laugh from his friends, particularly Ulfie who insisted on buying the next round to the amazement of the others, who’d never seen the Swede reach into his pocket unprompted.

Esa was thrilled with his play of late, and wondered if it was the universe’s way of compensating for how things were going at home. He and Michelle tried hard for Nell’s sake to keep up appearances, but Nell was astute: she silently took note of every move they made (or didn’t make). Michelle sometimes used to be there on “Nell/Esa nights”; now she was always at her father’s on those nights. Nell didn’t say anything. She just watched them. Sometimes he felt: we’re all going backward, and it frightened him.

Torture didn’t even begin to describe the situation, at least for him. In the beginning, he couldn’t refrain from touching her; a small squeeze of her shoulder when he passed her sitting at the kitchen table on his way to the fridge, a smoothing of her unruly hair. Michelle would always freeze, and then later, when they were alone, she would tell him to cut it out. She was trying to look tough as she stood there in front of him, and he worked hard to keep from laughing because the difference in their sizes made the scene comical. But there was nothing funny about her determination to make sure certain boundary lines weren’t crossed. Unfortunately, all that did was make Esa want to throw her down on the floor and fuck her brains out. Which he had no right to even think; he was the one who’d said “Consider the romantic part of our relationship over for good.” Michelle’s adherence to boundaries was her protecting herself.

A detached cordiality whenever they were alone was the only way he could survive. Cordiality and a safe physical distance. Often the whole situation pissed him off, because it was stupid, and the boundaries were those he himself had created. What made him even more pissed off was that Michelle didn’t seem unhappy with the way things were.

“I did steroids once, back in Sweden,” said Ulf, running a gnarled hand through his growing blond hair. His goal was to look more like his Viking ancestors.

Rory eyed him dubiously. “Just once?” he asked, hoisting a pint glass to his lips. “From your brain damage I’d have thought you spent years on the shit.”

Esa hadn’t talked that much to Rory about the situation with Michelle, because Rory could be such a windbag. Esa loved him, but the Irishman could take a simple situation and turn it into a drama with more twists and turns than a test road. Halfway through their one and only conversation about he and Michelle, Esa’s eyes had rolled back into his head. At least Erin had been more to the point: “If it’s meant to be, it’ll be.” Succinct, but not much fucking help. No one else on the team had really known he and Michelle had been together, which was how he’d wanted it to be. Funny, how he used to put his personal life out there for all to see. But that was before Nell.

Nell had a week off for spring break coming up soon. Unfortunately, it coincided with him being on the West Coast, and he and Michelle had a couple of scheduling issues to work through.
Had
to work through.

“Christ,” said Rory, tossing a bemused look Esa’s way, “what’re you looking like such a misery guts for? We not kissing your arse enough?”

“Screw you, Brady.” Esa sucked down some of his Russian imperial stout. “No, I’m just trying to work out Nell’s vacation time. She’s got spring break the same week we’re on the West Coast, and Michelle has some other stuff planned so she can’t be with her full-time.”

Ulfie shrugged. “So? Bring her with us.”

Jason slowly turned his head to peer at Ulf. “The longer your hair grows, the dumber you get.”

Ulf rolled past the insult. “Listen to me, you assholes. It might be fun for her. When we practice early, she can come along, or she can sleep in. All we do during the day is pretty much hang out anyway. We can take her to matinees or museums or whatever.”

Esa listened with interest. “And what about when we
play
?”

“She sits with Lou. They get along, right?”

Esa nodded slowly. “Lou really likes her.” He remembered Lou saying something in the very beginning about not dumping Nell on him, but that was because he’d done it unexpectedly.

“Bingo, problem solved,” concluded Ulf, giving Jason the finger.

“Yeah, but she finds hockey boring sometimes,” said Esa.

“She won’t if she’s sitting with Lou,” said Eric, warming to the idea. “He’ll let her eat all the crap she wants. And she can bring a book if she gets bored. Or her iPad. Didn’t you say you got her an iPad for Christmas?”

Esa rolled this over in his mind, finally arriving at, “There’s no way Michelle is going to go for it. No way.”

“Sure she will,” said Eric, who always seemed to have a plan. “Tell her it’s a way for you two to bond.”

“Hmm.”

“I think it could be cool,” said Jason. “She’ll be like our mascot. She’ll love it. There are enough of us to keep an eye on her at all times to make sure she doesn’t get into trouble. It’ll be like she has this cool pack of uncles looking out for her.”

“Nell doesn’t get in trouble,” said Esa. “She’s eight, a bookworm, and extremely well behaved.”

“So, it will be a piece of cake, then,” said Ulf.

Esa took another sip of his brew, thoughts flying through him. “What will the media make of it?”

David finally piped up. “This is PR gold, my friend; an uncle bringing his little orphaned niece on the road with him? PTI will be talking about how great you are, and Gumbel will probably profile the two of you for
Real Sports
. Lou’s gonna kiss your feet for this.”

Esa grunted. What David said was true: Lou could get some human interest pieces out of this. Taking Nell on the road was pretty unique. And it really could help them bond. There was only one real obstacle he had to overcome. It was tiny, beautiful, and as protective of Nell as a lioness of her cubs.

“I can’t believe you pack of morons convinced me,” he told his teammates. “I’ll talk to Michelle.”

* * *

“No, no, no,
no. You’re not bringing Nell to the West Coast with you,” Michelle said as Esa followed her around the kitchen while she put away dishes. She glanced up at him as she crouched down to put a colander in a cabinet below the counter. “Have I mentioned the answer is no?”

Michelle knew men were capable of coming up with some dumbass ideas sometimes, but this took the cake. Bring Nell on the road with him? Was he out of his mind? Yes, there were some scheduling hitches that needed to be worked out over spring break. Michelle figured that if she couldn’t get Delilah or Marcus to watch Nell for a little while on those days she had to bring her dad to the doctor and cardiac rehab, she’d ask Jamie to work his shifts around it. That way, Nell would already be at her dad’s apartment when she got back, and she could sleep over. It was too bad Nell’s friend Selma was going to be away with her family in the Caicos Islands; Selma’s mom adored Nell, and Michelle was pretty certain she wouldn’t have minded Nell staying over for a few days. She’d figure something out. She always did.

“You’re reacting viscerally. You need to hear me out,” said Esa, taking a plate from her hand as she strained on tippy toes to put it back on a high shelf.

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do, because when it comes down to it, she’s my niece and I can do as I please.”

Instant stress headache. “So why even have this conversation, then, if you’re going to do want you want, anyway?”
Which, by the way, nice to see you’re back to being a douchebag
.

“Because your understanding and approval in this matter is important to me,” Esa said quietly.

Michelle’s fingers loosened around the butter knife in her hand. “I appreciate that.” She slid it into the cutlery drawer, dazzled by the shine of the silverware. You could never accuse Mrs. Guittierez of slacking off when it came to her polishing duties, that was for sure.

“Should I make some coffee?” Esa asked.

“Chamomile tea’ll be fine for me, thanks. I’m trying not to drink coffee anymore after six p.m. It keeps me up.”

“All the worrying about your father,” Esa deduced.

“Yeah.”

“How’s he doing?” Esa asked politely.

“Well,” Michelle answered. His doctors had all remarked on how fast he’d recuperated. Michelle knew that deep down, he really didn’t need her there anymore, but he wanted her there. He enjoyed the attention, and her brother still brought up the timing between Christmas and their father’s heart attack whenever he could, just to ensure she stayed guilty—as if she needed his help with that.

“Is he taking care of himself?” Esa’s voice remained polite.

“Yes. My brother and I have been helping him revamp his diet, and he’s been going to the cardiac rehab center, gradually building up his strength.”

“If he’s doing so well, then . . .?” The end of the question hung in the air.

“Soon,” Michelle snapped.

“I hope so.” Esa looked back over his shoulder at her on his way to make the coffee and put up the electric kettle. “Nell misses having you live here full-time very, very much.”

* * *

Mugs in hand,
they sat down at the kitchen table. One of the things Michelle had figured out over the past three months was that it made things much easier if she and Esa didn’t sit together on the couch. They sat together with Nell, because Michelle would never
completely
change direction and not spend time with them; plus, it would confuse and upset Nell too much. But in situations like this, when they were on their own and things needed to be discussed, the kitchen table was better.

Michelle opened the conversation. “So. This insane idea of yours of bringing Nell on your road trip.”

“It’s not insane at all.” Esa coolly sipped his coffee. That’s definitely one of the irksome things about him, thought Michelle, who’d been compiling a list in her head. He looked cool even when he did mundane things like sip coffee. King Cool.