Page 84 of Breakaway

He was there. She caught sight of number twenty-five in the line as the national anthem played, but the cameraman apparently wasn’t as interested in him as she was and passed right by him.

“He’s there,” she breathed.

“So, that’s good.”

“I guess.” Maybe she would have felt better if he’d still been in jail or if he’d actually been hospitalized with a head injury and amnesia.

Jase did not take the opening faceoff. In fact, as the game progressed, he didn’t play a lot, and when he was on the ice he seemed sluggish and slow. Was he sick?Icy fingers squeezed her insides painfully. “Oh, Delise.” The words came out shaky. “Something’s wrong.”

Delise glanced at her and patted her leg, but Remi could tell she didn’t know what to say. Had she been rudely dumped? Or was there really something wrong? She nibbled her bottom lip until it was raw. The Wolves were not playing well as a team, and going into the third period, the score was three-one for St. Louis. Not a good start.

Even she could tell the Wolves were frustrated.

Then they got two quick goals and tied it up. They both cheered, but it didn’t make her feel much better. Gut-gnawing anxiety still chewed away inside her.

Another nail biter, the clock ticking away time. She wasn’t sure if the same thing happened in a playoff game, if they did a shoot out or if they kept playing, but she knew it couldn’t end in a tie.

The Wolves got a few more great shots on the net, but the St. Louis goalie made some heart-stopping saves. She watched as Dominic smacked his stick into the boards with frustration. Where was Jase? Why weren’t they playing him much? They needed him!

And then, with only a minute forty-three seconds left in the game, there he was, circling on the ice, ready for a face off. He crouched, alert, poised. The camera zoomed in on him and the St. Louis center, who said something to Jase. Jase said something back.

Remi had a feeling they weren’t making a bet on who’d pay for dinner after the game.

The ref dropped the puck and Jase smacked at it, but didn’t get control. The camera followed the puck, but then the crowd was screaming, the whistle blew and the television screen filled with an image of two players going at it, gloves off, fists flying, shirts wrenched.

“Oh sweet baby Jesus.” She felt her eyes go wide and her mouth hung open. She covered it with her hands. It was Jase in a fight.

Delise and Remi both sat forward, the popcorn forgotten. Remi couldn’t breathe and her heart accelerated.

The two men continued to hammer at each other and she swore she felt every punch that landed on Jase as if they struck her own body. She flinched and tensed. The refs circled them, the other players drifted over to the boards near their respective benches.

Then Jase dropped the other guy to the ice and fell onto him, punching at his face with fierce, frenzied blows.

“Jesus!” She pressed her hands to her mouth, wanted to cover her eyes, look away. She couldn’t stand it. “What are you doing?” she shouted at the television, as if he could hear her. “Stop, Jase. Stop it!”

The refs finally pulled Jase off the other player and dragged him away, bleeding from his face, chest heaving, hands still in fists.

They went to a commercial.

She shook her head, beside herself. She wanted to teleport herself to St. Louis, find him and ask him what the hell was going on. She just did not get it.

She knew fighting was a part of hockey, a big part. She and Jase had talked about it, how he didn’t condone fighting just for the sake of fighting, but with high adrenaline and intense competition it was going to happen sometimes, and it was okay if it was for some noble purpose like defending another player or protecting the goalie. Although she didn’t exactly get what was noble about beating someone up.

She’d never seen Jase fight, but then she’d only seen a couple of games. He wasn’t known as a fighter. He was known as a smart player, big, but quick-thinking and intuitive, a player who used finesse rather than his fists.

Delise looked at her, her lips rolled in. “Are you okay?”

She shook her head. She didn’t even know what to say. She stood. She walked back and forth in front of the television until the game came back on, arms wrapped around herself.

Jase had, of course, been given a penalty. She didn’t understand it all, apparently he got more than one penalty, but in the end, the Wolves were shorthanded for the rest of the game. And guess what? St. Louis scored.

And won the game, thanks to Jase Heller’s stupid penalty.

“Think, Remi, think.”

She replayed everything over in her head. “He asked me to think about moving in with him.” She met Delise’s eyes. “That shouldn’t have been enough to scare him into panic-mode and send him running the opposite direction, but…that was why he broke up with his old girlfriend, so maybe heisregretting that.” She bit her lip. “For some reason he ended up out with his hockey buddies Saturday night. He must have had a lot to drink for him to drop his pants in a restaurant and create a scene like that.”

“Maybe he was celebrating making the playoffs,” Delise suggested, her face somber.

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