Page 91 of Pipe Dreams
“Why aren’t you at school?” was the first stupid thing that popped into his head.
Her eyebrows lifted, and her look of disapproval was so much like Shelly’s that it wasn’t even funny. “Teacher-in-service day,” she said slowly.
“Oh.” Hans had probably put it on his calendar, but he’d forgotten to check. He dropped his gym bag on the floor where it landed with athunkthat sounded deafening in all the silence between them.
“I thought you were upstairs, sleeping in,” she said.
That’s what I wanted you to think. “Where’s Hans?”
“Skyping with his mom upstairs. Why are you wearing last night’s clothes?”
Mike took off his jacket and hung it on the doorknob of the little coat closet. Then, having no further busy work for his hands, he took a seat on the opposite end of the couchfrom Elsa. “I was at Lauren’s,” he admitted. He knew this conversation was a can of worms, but lying wasn’t a good option. Elsa wasn’t stupid, and it set a horrible example.
“All night?” Her eyes narrowed.
“Yes.”Kill me already. Maybe lying would have been the way to go after all.
“Is that going to happen a lot?”
Oof. He had to think carefully about his answer. But it was tricky to be honest without allowing the conversation to veer into topics too personal for discussion. “I’m going to see a lot more of Lauren. But I haven’t figured out how that’s going to work yet.” And wasn’t that the truth.
“Are you going to get married?” Elsa’s voice was as sharp as her questions.
“I really don’t know.”But I like the sound of that.
“You shouldn’t,” Elsa said quickly. “It’s too soon.”
“Honey,” he said softly. “I’m not going anywhere, okay?” He checked her face, which was half grumpy and half scared.
“Uh-huh,” she croaked. “That’s a funny thing to say when you’ve been out all night.”
Fuck. Elsa: 1, Daddy: 0. “You know what I mean. If I do marry Lauren someday, she will live here. I wouldn’t have to go somewhere else to see her.”
Elsa made an anguished noise that doubled his blood pressure. He’d thought he could ease her into the idea. Then he got caught doing the walk of shame. But it didn’t even matter, because any mention of Lauren at all turned his daughter into a rabid cat.
“Look,” he said, and then realized he had no idea what to say next. “Your mother and I...”didn’t love each other. That wasn’t the right thing to say, because Elsa didn’t care. She just wanted her family back the way she remembered it best. “Lauren has been important to me for a long time,” he said instead. “And you’ve been important to me for even longer. I love both of you. I’m going to take care of both of you the best way I know how.”
His daughter’s eyes reddened, and he braced himself for an outburst. But it didn’t come. She lifted her chin and stood, her posture regal. Then she carried herself up the stairs to her room, where he heard the door click shut.
He let out a heavy breath. That could have gone worse, he reminded himself. But it hadn’t gone well. Baby steps, right? He was a patient man. All top-notch goalies were. He would wait Elsa out, and tell her he loved her at every opportunity.
She’d believe him, eventually, because it was the truth.
•••
The next four days were shitty, and it had nothing to do with the women in his life.
He had a terrible game five in Detroit, letting in goals he should have saved. They could have clinched the series that night if he hadn’t been off his game. Off nights happened, it was a known fact. But his timing was spectacularly bad.
Going into game six the series was 3–2, which wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for those two back-to-back losses. The team had squandered all the momentum they’d built up early in the series.
Back in Brooklyn, the dressing room was quiet before the game. Too quiet. “Let’s make some noise out there,” Doulie said, walking around the oval to give every one of his guys a slap on the back. “We can get this done tonight.”
They couldn’t, though.
It was only a small consolation that the game six loss wasn’t Beacon’s fault. The defensemen screwed up early in the first period, giving Detroit an easy goal with an odd man rush. Then the forwards seemed to freeze up, and it was downhill for the rest of the game. They lost 5–2.
The series was now 3–3, and the pundits were having a field day. “Brooklyn Chokes” blared more than one headline. The talking heads began to drop statistics like raindrops. “Seventy-eight percent of teams who never led during gamesix will lose game seven.” And, “No team who’s squandered a three-game lead has ever advanced to the finals.”
