| |
Behind the lightly applied blush on her cheeks, Lynn paled. Her mouth opened and closed and the muscles in her neck flexed as she swallowed. Benjamin waited, poised on the balls of his toes, ready to take a punch.
“Move? To Minnesota?”
He nodded, his neck stiff with tension. “Yes.”
“And they want you to go with the team.” Her tone was flat. It wasn’t a question.
“Maybe. That’s not a done deal yet. They want to see how the last few games go.” He’d done it. He was all in. The decision to stick it out, to see how things went between them was with Lynn now. No more hiding, no more avoidance.
“And you want to go with them.” Again, it wasn’t a question.
“If the Canyon Cats leave town, there’s nothing for me here.” He was talking about his career, but even as he said the words he realized he wanted her to say that she would be here for him. She and Oscar.
She recoiled, her chin lifting, her arms crossing in self-defence, and a glassy sheen flooded her eyes.
A different interpretation of his words blazed across his mind. “I didn’t mean it like that!” His breath scraped in his chest. “Lynn. I wasn’t dismissing you and Oscar—”
“It’s okay.” She unfolded the coat from her arm, plunged a hand toward the sleeve, and missed. He reached for the collar to help hold it and she swung away from him. “Really, it’s okay. We knew this day would come, right? It was only a matter of time.”
“No.” He had no idea what he was denying, but it was the only syllable his brain could conjure up. I love you made it as far as the tip of his tongue but disintegrated at her look of distress.
She managed to get one sleeve in place and twisted her other arm to get to the other. “When did you say they were announcing?”
He answered by rote, his lips numb. “When the regular season is over.” After the two games this weekend, there was a home-and-home series against their nearest rival the next. “Probably a week from Monday.”
“You’d think they’d wait until after the playoffs. Why disrupt the team while they’re in the post-season?”
Her tone was calm, professional, but she spoke through gritted teeth and a tendon flexed in her jaw. She buttoned her coat with short, fierce twists of the shiny brown disks.
“I guess they don’t think we’ll make the playoffs.” At the moment, he didn’t care about the very real chance he would fail in his goal to make the championships and rewrite history while honouring his father. All he could think of was how he’d hurt Lynn with his careless words.
“I’ve got to get home.” She shoved her hands in the pockets of her coat and pulled out her keys and phone.
“Wait.” He side-stepped to prevent her from leaving, his hands hovering midair. She folded her arms and huddled into herself. It as good as shouted don’t touch me. “I’m sorry. I really screwed this up. Can I go with you so we can talk? We need to figure out what this means to us.”
“Us? How can there be an us if you’re leaving town?” Her voice wavered, the evidence of her pain a thousand cuts to his soul. “My life is here. Oscar’s life is here. If you go to Minnesota...” Her shoulders rose and fell helplessly.
“I told you, that’s not a done deal.” His desperation had him repeating himself.
She met his gaze. Like the slow fading of lights in a theatre, her expression dimmed. The lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth, the lines he rarely noticed, deepened. Her hand cupped his jaw gently, her thumb rubbing the short bristles on his chin. “Goodbye, Benjamin.”
She swept past and he could do nothing but watch her leave, her touch burning like a brand on his skin.
––––––––
LYNN PULLED TO A STOP in her driveway but left the ignition running. She needed a minute before facing Helen and Nathan.
Her hands gripped the steering wheel at its apex and she lowered her forehead onto them, suddenly too tired to stay upright.
Benjamin was leaving.
What a time to realize she loved the jerk.
Tears prickled and she sniffed. She’d been such an idiot. She thought she’d been safe, because that’s how Benjamin felt. Safe and comfortable and easy to be with. Oh, there was heat in the bedroom, heat that hadn’t waned in their weeks together. But she’d thought that, because she wasn’t obsessing over him all the time, she wasn’t in love. Because wasn’t that what falling in love was? A burning, awkward feeling that nothing was right in your world unless you were with that person? While she’d missed him during his frequent road trips, she hadn’t pined for him, spent sleepless nights yearning for his return.
What a time to realize the difference between infatuation and love.
Her experience with Lance had also taught her confusing lessons. She’d thought she’d loved him—why else would she have planned to marry him, have children with him? When he’d left, she’d been angry that he’d ruined her plans, her life’s agenda. But it hadn’t taken her long to adjust her expectations, to achieve her dream of being a mother in a different way.
What a time to realize she’d never been heartbroken.
Because she hadn’t experienced this soul-tearing black hole of emotion before. It was as if all her vitality, her joy, her self had been sucked into nothingness. All that angst she thought she’d managed to avoid had come home to roost with a vengeance.
The curtains twitched. Helen or Nathan must have heard her arrival and wondered what was keeping her. She turned the key and climbed out, her bones aching as if she’d been body-slammed by a professional wrestler.
She didn’t have the luxury of wallowing in her misery. She had a full day with Armstrong tomorrow, though she didn’t have to attend the game tomorrow night since Brewster was playing host from dinner on. Once she’d brought her celebrity guest to the airport Saturday morning, she’d quarantine herself and Oscar in the house and focus on their new future.
Her and her son. Just the two of them against the world.
––––––––
FRIDAY’S GAME WAS A disaster on so many levels.
Not only did the Canyon Cats lose—and badly—but that loss was a direct result of two coaching errors that could be laid at Benjamin’s feet. His mind hadn’t been with the team, but at home with Lynn.
He should have been more depressed about the results, given his future as a coach depended on these next few games and that every loss kept him a step further from his redemption. But misery over the colossal mistake he had made off the ice left no room to worry about those he made on it.
Aware of Levi standing just behind his shoulder, ready to pounce, he addressed the morose players in the dressing room.
“I owe you an apology.” A couple of heads lifted but most avoided looking his direction, focusing on unlacing skates and unbuckling equipment. “My head wasn’t in this game, and I screwed up.”
A few sideways glances. Levi’s aura grew even more disapproving. He’d think this was yet another show of weakness, but it had to be done. Avril and Ryan, waiting in his office for the post-game conference, would hear a repeat of this apology as soon as he saw them. If he expected his players and staff to own their mistakes, he had to do the same.
“We can still make the playoffs. The Wolverines lost tonight, too, but we can’t depend on them to clear our route. We can’t afford any more losses.” He wasn’t telling them anything they didn’t know and he could feel their attention drift. “So we won’t lose. I won’t allow it.”
That drew a few more glances. He waited, silently urging them to be open, to be receptive. Maybe Lynn was right. Maybe the first step to achieving a goal was believing to the marrow of your bones you could do it.
“How are you going to do that?” For once, Nechayev sounded curious, not condemning.
“I believe in you. In all of you. I need you to believe in me.” He had all eyes now. “I’ll learn from tonight’s mistakes and not repeat them. Losing isn’t an option. So we won’t do it.”
A tap in the adjoining shower room dripped, clearly audible in the silent room. Expressions ranged from doubt to speculation, hope to confusion. But he had them thinking, and that’s what he wanted.
He nodded. “See you tomorrow.”
Levi followed him into the hall. “You think telling them to believe is all you need to do to make them win?”
He stopped and faced the older man. “We’ve had our differences during the season, but I’ve never once thought you weren’t a good coach. You understand the players, know the systems, work hard. But belief is something you can’t teach. You have to feel it. And if any of us”—he narrowed his eyes to make sure Levi understood he was included in that—“don’t believe right down to our toes that we can win, we won’t.”
“You know the odds—”
He held up a hand. “Believe, Levi. I meant it. Losing isn’t an option. So we won’t.”
He’d already lost Lynn. He wouldn’t lose this, too. It was all he had left.