Seduced by the Game (27 page)

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Taking a Shot

Book 2.5
in the Portland Storm series

©
Catherine Gayle

Dedication

For my Uncle John.

I love you and I miss you,
and I don’t know what I would ever do without you telling me I have green hair.

The team started to leave
the ice after the morning skate, so this was my best chance, at least to just
get it done and over with without Mom crying. I’d had enough of crying for a
while—hers, my own, and everyone else’s, too. Dad wouldn’t cry over this—not in
front of his teammates, at least—so I should be safe from tears for a bit as
long as I could escape Mom’s hovering and get to him.

Dad played pro hockey for
the Portland Storm. Game-day skates weren’t open to the general public, but Mom
and I didn’t count as part of the public around here. We were family.

Ever since I’d started
chemotherapy treatments for my leukemia a few weeks ago, the Storm’s general
manager and coaching staff had been allowing me to come and watch the closed
practices in addition to the off-day practices.

Mom always came with me.
Sometimes it seemed as though she believed she could make me better just by
being with me, which was ridiculous. Even these awful drugs might not make me
better, so how could she? I wasn’t exactly going to keel over and die while she
wasn’t looking, but she didn’t like to let me out of her sight these days, as
if she needed the physical reminder to know I was still alive. The only things
I needed to remind me that I was alive were the aches and pains I’d been
having.

I’d thought radiation was
bad right up until the chemo started. Then I discovered that radiation was just
the warm-up. Cancer treatments weren’t for the faint of heart.

I figured the bigwigs with
the Storm were just allowing me to tag along because I didn’t have a whole lot
to do these days. Maybe a little bit because they felt sorry for me, too, but
this was one instance where I was more than willing to take advantage of some
pity.

Plus, I thought it helped
Dad not worry too much, and that could only help him to perform in games the
way he needed to. Some days I thought my cancer was harder on my parents than
it was on me. Not physically, so much, but emotionally. I didn’t want to die,
but I’d just kind of resigned myself to the fact that it might happen. They
hadn’t. Not yet, at least. And so they hovered. And worried. And cried.

I wished they would just
accept that it might happen. That would be a whole lot easier for all of us.

With my treatments making
me so sick, the school district had assigned me a laptop and had given me
access to online coursework and a tutor who came to my house once a week for
two hours. All I did other than my online classes and tutoring sessions was
sleep, puke, try to imagine myself healthy again, and follow the Storm.
Everything else had been put on hold—indefinitely.

That last bit, getting to
follow the Storm, was the only part of my life keeping me sane, at least now in
the early stages of chemo. I’d been going stir-crazy without school and Glee
Club and all the other regular teenager things filling my days, and going to
their practices and games gave me something to focus on other than how
sometimes I wished it would just end, whatever that meant. They gave me
something to believe in, and there hadn’t been much of that lately.

My eyes followed my dad as
he skated off the ice, gave me a brief wave, and headed down the tunnel with
the rest of the guys. It was now or never. I didn’t want to lie to Mom, but if
I was going to go through with this, I didn’t have much choice because of her
hovering-to-keep-me-alive thing.

Cancer sucks and it kills
a lot of people, and there was no question I might die, but it probably wasn’t
going to happen today. I was pretty sure I’d feel a lot worse than I did before
it was all over. Not that I wanted to feel worse. I just wanted it to end.

I turned toward Mom and
tried to look green, which wasn’t all that hard these days. “I think I might be
sick.”

“Oh, Katie, today? You
don’t usually get sick so many days after a treatment…”

I put my hand up to my
mouth, as though I was trying to hold back some puke. “Yeah. Today. I’ll meet
you by the parking garage when I’m done.”

I didn’t give her a chance
to argue. I took off at a run, bolting up the stairs away from the Moda
Center’s ice with my hand over my mouth the entire way. I left my jacket,
purse, and the throw blanket she’d brought with us to keep me warm behind with
her. That way she’d have to gather it all up before she could follow. That
should give me enough time to get to the bowels of the arena instead of making
a beeline for the bathroom without her seeing where I was heading.

Sure enough, I got onto
the elevator and the doors closed behind me without Mom appearing in the
concourse.

I got off at ice level,
and I made my way along the concrete walkway toward the Storm’s offices and
locker room. When I got to the double doors I was looking for, Daniel “Hammer”
Hamm, one of the assistant coaches, was just making his way out and preparing
to let the press in. They were standing just outside the doors, three men who’d
become increasingly more familiar to me over the last few weeks.

I needed to get in before
the press. They would be in there too long. I couldn’t wait for them to finish
and leave or else Mom would really freak out. If they beat me inside, I’d have
to just go meet Mom and forget all about talking to Dad without having her
around.

“Hammer!” I called out,
still from some distance away. I was proud that I only sounded a little
panicky, not like I was in a full-fledged freak-out.

He looked at me with his
eyes squinting into a funny expression. I jogged the rest of the distance even
though it left me winded so he wouldn’t have to wait too long for an
explanation, and so I wouldn’t have to keep shouting. All three of the media
guys spun their heads around to stare at me, too. I wished they would back off.

“Can I get in there for a
minute?” I asked. “There’s something I need my dad for. It should only take a
few minutes.”

He frowned. “What do you
need that can’t wait until he gets home, Katie? We have to let the media in…”

I reached into my pocket
and showed him what I’d placed in there before leaving home this morning,
keeping it hidden from the reporters who were craning their heads to see while
trying to pretend that they weren’t doing exactly that.

Hammer looked down at my
hand and swallowed hard a couple of times. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his
throat, like Dad’s did when he was trying not to get emotional. Then he nodded,
and I put my hand back in my pocket.

“Let me go back in and
make sure all the boys have clothes on so your dad doesn’t have to kill
anyone,” he said. “Stay right here.” He looked over to the press, who were
waiting for their chance to go in and interview some of the players. “It’s
going to be a few more minutes, guys. Sorry.”

A moment later, he opened
one of the doors and let me in, closing it firmly behind me so no one else
could follow. I made my way straight for my dad’s stall.

He shook his head when he
saw me, a slight frown turning down the corners of his lips. His eyes looked
tired, with red streaks and bags under them. He’d only started looking like
that and showing his age recently. I hated that I was the reason why.

“What’s going on, Katie?”
he asked.

I took a deep breath for
courage. Then I emptied my pocket again and held the clump of my hair up for
him to see. “It’s starting to fall out. I don’t want to wait and have it leave
me with bald patches. I just want to shave it off.” My voice kept cracking over
the words, which sucked. I didn’t want anyone to know how scared I was.

I’d woken up this morning
and had nearly gotten sick when I found this big wad on my pillow. Heck of a
way to wake up. Some more had come out when I’d brushed my hair, leaving a bald
patch in the back that I’d had to hide with strategic barrette placement. I
hadn’t wanted Mom to see it. Or Luke and Dani, my younger brother and sister.
They all worried so much, and this would only make the fears more real—bring
them closer to coming true. As long as I had hair, we’d been able to pretend
that I was just a little sick. This was going to shoot that idea out of the
water, though.

It was unnaturally quiet
in the locker room. The team had been playing well lately, winning more than
losing, so that meant they were usually laughing and joking with each other
when they were all together, keeping things loose. So I knew the guys were
listening, even if their heads were turned away and they were pretending to
keep busy with other things. It didn’t matter if they heard, though. They could
handle this—a lot better than Mom could, at any rate. Maybe better than I
could.

Dad stared at the hair in
my hand for a minute and then kissed my forehead. “Does your mom know you’re
down here?”

“No. I told her I felt
sick and I’d meet her at the garage.”

“She’s going to kill me.”
His jaw was tight, like he was grinding his teeth, and his Adam’s apple bobbed
hard a couple of times.

I nodded. “It’ll be better
this way.” Maybe not
better
, but at least easier.

“I know.” He turned to Cam
Johnson, one of his teammates, who was a few stalls down. “Jonny? You have your
hair clippers here?” Jonny had kept his hair buzzed short, like a military cut,
for as long as I’d known him.

“Yeah, gimme a sec.” He
reached overhead and took out a shoebox. He brought it over to us. “You want me
to do it?”

“No, I’ll do it,” Dad
said. His voice kept getting heavier, deeper. He was barely keeping it together.
Maybe I shouldn’t have asked him to do this with his teammates all around.
Maybe I should have just kept trying to hide it with barrettes until I couldn’t
hide it any longer.

“Use one of the guards
first until you get most of her hair off,” Jonny said. “Then go back over it
without a guard. That’ll help keep it from pulling and hurting her.” He winked
and gave me a kind smile before he went back to doing whatever he’d been doing.

“Okay.” Dad sorted through
the guards in the box. He selected one and settled it over the cutting
mechanism.

“Here, Katie,” a deep
voice said from behind me.

I turned to see Eric
Zellinger, the team captain, holding a folding chair and a towel. “Sit down,”
Zee said. “We’ll put this over your shoulders to catch the hair.”

I nodded, biting down on
my lip. A lot more of the guys were getting involved in this than I’d counted
on. This was turning into something bigger than I’d expected, and it made me
wish I’d thought it through better. All I’d been thinking about was Mom and her
hovering.

He set the chair on the
floor, and I dropped onto it. Dad put the towel around my shoulders. I removed
the barrettes from my hair and stuck them in my pocket, not that I’d need them
again anytime soon. I held the ends of the towel together in the front, staring
down at my lap so he should have easy access. My hands were shaking, so I
pressed my fingers tight to my chest so maybe the guys wouldn’t notice how
worked up I was.

The clippers buzzed to
life by my ear, but then nothing happened. I lifted my head. At least half the
team had stopped what they were doing to watch, some of them shifting
uncomfortably. I didn’t mean to make them uncomfortable. I just didn’t know
what else to do without upsetting Mom.

“You sure you’re ready?”
Dad asked. His voice cracked just like mine had.