True Love and Other Disasters

Chapter 7

A discordant wave of cheers and cowbells rose from the arena below and clashed with the clinking of wineglasses within the skybox inside the Key Arena in Seattle. Faith leaned forward, her fingers gripping the arm of her chair as she gazed down at the scrum in front of the Chinooks net. Sticks and elbows flew in the crease, and of course Ty Savage was right in the center of the action. Goalie Marty Darche went down in a butterfly, stacking his pads while the players on both teams battled it out in the second period.

“Clear the puck,” she whispered, just as the blue light at the back of the cage spun, tying the score at two.

“Shit,” Jules swore as a small contingent of loyal Sharks fans went wild in the stadium below. “Who Let the Dogs Out” blasted from the speakers, and Faith put a hand over her eyes. Now that she was so invested in the game, it was painful to watch. It made her nerves jump and her stomach knot and had her wishing for something stronger than the Diet Coke she had sitting next to her right foot.

As if she’d read her mind, Valerie took Faith’s hand from her eyes and pressed a glass of wine into her palm. “This will help.” Then she went back to the buffet set up in the box to entertain her girl friend, Sandy, up for a few days from Vegas. Valerie hadn’t even asked if Sandy could stay before she’d invited her. Faith had known and liked Sandy all her life and didn’t mind, she just wished her mother had asked.

After the game, her mom and Sandy planned to hit some bars and “raise hell.” Faith wasn’t sure who was the most pathetic. Them, for wearing spandex and “raising hell” at their age, or her, for going home and going to bed early.

Faith took a drink of her Chardonnay as the goal was replayed over and over on the sports timer suspended in the center of the arena.

On the ice at the other end, Marty Darche rose to his feet and grabbed a water bottle from the top of his net. Ty stood in front of him while the goalie shot water into his mouth. Marty nodded and Ty patted the top of the goalie’s helmet with his big gloved hand before skating toward the bench.

On the big sports screen, the camera zoomed in on the back of Ty’s broad shoulders and the white letters spelling out SAVAGE across his blue jersey. The San Jose Fans booed. The Chinooks fans cheered and Ty moved across the ice with his head down; the hair at the back of his neck curled up around his helmet. Last night in the Chinooks locker room, she’d run her fingers through his hair and a warm little flutter had tickled her stomach. The kind she hadn’t felt in years. But later that night after she’d returned home, the little flutter had turned into a burning stab of guilt. Virgil had been dead less than a month and she shouldn’t be feeling warm little any things with any man, let alone the captain of Virgil’s hockey team. Correction: her hockey team.

Ty stopped in front of the bench and glanced up over his shoulder. His blue eyes looked out from the sports screen. One corner of his mouth kicked up into a half-assed smile as if he enjoyed both the booing and cheering fans, and that traitorous, horrible warm flutter settled in the middle of her stomach once more. It had been a long time since she’d felt little flutters and tingles for any man. Why Ty Savage? Yeah, he was beautiful and confident and comfortable with his virility. He wore it like an irresistible aura of hotness, but he didn’t like her. She wasn’t especially fond of him.

The camera switched to the crowd and scanned the rows of Chinooks fans. It stopped on two men with their faces painted green and blue and the little flutter calmed. From her position high above the arena, Faith turned her gaze to the Chinooks bench and the players who’d stopped shaving for the playoffs. Their facial hair ranged from fuzzy and patchy to Miami Vice scruff. Ty was one in only a handful of NHL players who chose to ignore the tradition and shaved.

Ty took a seat next to Vlad Fetisov. He grabbed a bottle from a waiting trainer and sprayed a stream of water into his mouth. He spit it out between his feet, then wiped his face with a towel.

“Do you need anything?” Jules asked as he stood.

She shook her head and looked up at her assistant, who wore a red-and-white argyle sweater that was so tight, it hugged his big muscles like a second skin. “No thanks.”

Faith settled back into her seat and thought about tomorrow’s flight and the game against San Jose the following night. Faith had never planned to travel with the team, but just that morning Jules had convinced her that it was a good idea and it showed support. He’d said it was a good way for her to get to know the twenty-four men who played for her. If they saw her more, they might feel more at ease with her as the new owner. She wasn’t sure if her assistant had her best interest in mind, or if he just wanted to catch the second game.

When his health had permitted, Virgil had sometimes traveled with the Chinooks, often catching a game or two before returning home, but Faith had never traveled with him. Never had the urge to live and breathe the game. And although she was just beginning to understand a little about what “points against” and “averages” meant, she wondered if she would ever understand it completely. The kind of understanding that came with living and breathing and loving hockey for years.

Jules returned with a Corona and a taquito and sat next to her. “Tell me something,” he said in a voice just loud enough for her to hear. “Do you automatically think a guy is gay because he says ‘hair product’?”

Faith looked into Jules’s dark green eyes. “No,” she answered carefully. “Did my mother or Sandy say you were gay?”

“No.” He took a bite of his taquito. “I know you’ll find this surprising, but some of the guys on the team think I’m gay.”

“Really?” She kept her face blank. “Why?”

He shrugged one big shoulder and raised the bottle to his mouth. “Because I care about my appearance.” He took a drink, then added, “And apparently straight men don’t say ‘hair product.’”

“That’s ridiculous.” They suspected he was gay for the way he dressed and his dubious color choices. She turned her attention to the ice as Walker Brookes skated to the face-off circle while Ty watched from the sidelines. The camera panned the Chinooks bench. Some of them were relaxed and watchful like Ty, while others yelled at opposing players as they moved past.

Walker entered the playoffs circle, stopped in the middle, and waited with his stick down. The puck dropped. Game on. “Who says you can’t say ‘hair product’?” she asked.

“Ty Savage.”

She looked back at Jules. “Don’t listen to Ty.” He had too much testosterone to be any sort of judge. “Straight men say ‘hair product’ all the time.”

“Name one.”

She had to think about it for a few moments. She snapped her fingers and said, “That Blow Out guy, Jonathan Antin.” Jules winced as if she’d just proven Ty’s point.

“I don’t think that’s even on TV anymore,” Jules grumbled. “That guy was kinda gay. I’m not gay.” Something in her face must have betrayed her because his gaze pinched. “You think so too!”

She shook her head and rounded her eyes.

“Yes, you do.” He made a motion with his hand. “Why?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Tell me.”

She shrugged. On the ice below, the whistle blew and Sam Leclaire automatically skated to the sin bin. Sam might not be a great fighter, but that didn’t keep him from throwing his gloves and sitting out an average of seven penalty minutes a game.

“It’s the way you dress. You wear everything really tight and your color choices are a bit bold for a straight man.”

Jules frowned and folded his arms across his bulky chest. “At least I’m not afraid of color. You dress in beige and black all the time.” He glanced at the rink below, then back at her. “A few years ago, I was fat. I got really tired of wearing a size forty-six, so I decided to change my life. I work hard on my body. So why not show it off?”

“Because sometimes less is better,” she answered. As in showing less skin, and she should know. “And sometimes loose is more flattering.”

He shrugged. “Maybe, but everything you wear is so loose it looks like you’re trying to hide something under your clothes.”

Faith looked down at her black turtleneck and black pants. Before Virgil, she’d worn tight clothes with cutouts over her cleavage. She’d gone from one extreme to the other to try and fit into his world. Now, she no longer fit in either.

“But I guess it doesn’t matter what you wear. You’re beautiful and don’t have to worry about it. Sometimes I worry that some guy is going to think I’m your bodyguard and try and start something with me.”

Faith figured Jules was being weird and just a tad dramatic. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. You might dress like you’re experiencing some kind of metrosexual meltdown, but I need to keep you around. Plus,” she said through a smile, “your hair’s bangin’.”

He looked at her a moment as “Are You Ready To Rock?” blasted from the arena speakers. “That’s the first genuine smile I’ve seen out of you,” he said.

“I smile all the time.”

He raised his beer. “Yes, but you don’t mean it.”

Faith turned her attention to the sports timer and the action below. Long before she’d met Virgil, she’d learned to smile when she didn’t mean it. Long before she’d stepped her first acrylic heel onstage and transformed herself into Layla, she’d learned to mask her true feelings with a smile. Life was sometimes easier that way.

But life had a weird way of throwing curveballs, or curved pucks, rather. Never in a million years would she have thought she’d someday own a hockey team. It would never have even occurred to her in a wild fantasy, but here she was, watching her team shoot pucks and throw punches. She wondered what they were going to think when she boarded the jet with them tomorrow.

The next morning she found out as she followed Coach Nystrom into the BAC-111. She couldn’t see beyond his wide shoulders, but a low hum of male voices filled the forty-passenger craft. It was seven thirty, and they were still keyed up from their win against the Sharks the night before.

From the back of the plane, someone complained loud enough for everyone to hear, “The son of a bitch tried to shove his stick up my ass.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time you walked around with a stick up your ass,” someone else said. This triggered a lot of deep manly laughter followed by numerous “up your ass” commentaries and speculations.

“Listen up,” Coach Nystrom said from the front of the plane. “Mrs. Duffy is traveling with us to San Jose.” As if someone pushed a PAUSE button, all laughter and butt jokes abruptly stopped. “So keep it clean.”

The coach took his seat and Faith was suddenly the focus of several dozen startled male faces. From one row back, Ty Savage looked up from the USA Today sports section he held in his hands. The light above his head shined in his dark hair, and his eyes locked with her for several long seconds before he lowered his gaze to the paper once more.

Jules waited for her in the third-row window seat and she took her place beside him. “How long is the flight?” she asked.

“Less than an hour.”

Behind her she heard a few low whispers and a couple of deep chuckles. She buckled herself in and, except for a few bits of conversation too low for Faith to hear, and the rustle of Ty’s newspaper, the fuselage remained quiet as they taxied to the runway and took off. Once they punched through the thick, gray clouds, the stabbing rays of morning sun flooded the oval windows. Almost as one, the shades were all pulled down.

Faith wondered if they were quiet because they’d played a grueling game the night before that had ended in a 3-4 win in overtime and it was suddenly catching up to them, or if it was because she was sitting in the front of the jet.

Once the snow-covered summit of Mount Rainier was behind them, Darby Hogue leaned across the aisle and asked, “How are you doing?”

“Okay. Are they usually this quiet?”

Darby smiled. “No.”

“Are they uncomfortable flying with me?”

“They’re just a little superstitious about traveling with a woman. A few years ago, a female reporter traveled with the team. They didn’t like it at first, but they got used to her. They’ll get used to you, too.” He turned and looked into the seat behind him. “Got that tape, Dan?”

He was handed a DVD that he plugged into his laptop. Then he turned the screen for Faith to see. “This is Jaroslav Kobasew. We’re looking at him to fill the hole in our second-line defense. We need more size in the back, and he’s six five and two thirty-five.”

She hadn’t known they had a hole in the second line or anywhere else. “I thought we couldn’t make any trades.”

“Not until after the season ends, but we’re always scouting new talent,” Darby told her.

She looked into the screen across the aisle as a huge man in a red jersey battled for a puck in the corner. The huge guy won by knocking the other player off his skates. “Good Lord.”

Jules leaned over her. “How does he hit?”

“Like he has cement in his gloves,” Darby answered.

“How does he skate?”

“Like he has cement in his shorts.”

Normally, Faith would have thought cement in shorts was a bad thing. But this was hockey and she didn’t know. Maybe that meant he could take a hit. “And that’s bad. Right?”

Jules nodded and sat back.

“He’s just one of the players we’re considering,” Darby said and turned the screen to face him. “When I narrow it down, I’ll let you know.”

“Okay.” She turned to Jules and asked out of one corner of her mouth, “Do they have to discuss trades with me?”

He nodded and set his briefcase on his lap. “Did I forget to tell you that?”

“Yeah. You did.” And it was kind of important, although she couldn’t complain. If not for Jules, she’d be lost. Well, even more than she already was lost.

He pulled out a stack of Hockey News magazines and handed them to her. “Dig in.”

She flipped past various copies and settled on the February issue, with Ty Savage on the cover, his face beaded with sweat as his vivid blue eyes looked at the camera from beneath his white helmet. He looked intimidating and intense. The caption on the left read “Can Ty Savage Deliver Lord Stanley to Seattle?”

The magazine had come out a month before Virgil’s death, and she thumbed past a story on Jeremy Roenick to the center of the magazine. On the right side was a color photo of Ty appearing bare chested. He had his hands behind his head and his chest was rippled with clearly defined muscles. In black ink, his last name was tattooed down his side from just below his armpit to the waistband of his jeans. She had a Playboy bunny inked in the small of her back. It had hurt like crazy, and she couldn’t imagine getting a tattoo the size of Ty’s.

Looking at his photo, if she didn’t know better, she’d think she was staring at a “hunk of the month” calender. The shot was from the waist up and only the hint of a smile curved his mouth. The left side of the center spread was filled with columns of career stats with the byline “Saint or Traitor?” superimposed on the impressive list going back to his days in the minors. The article began:

Without a doubt, Ty Savage is one of the NHL’s best and toughest players. He’s known for laying on the big hits on open ice. As a result, he makes opponents keep their heads up and think twice about going up against this Selke winner.

He is, as everyone who follows the game knows, the son of hockey great, Pavel Savage. A relationship he is reluctant to talk about.

“My father was one of the best players in NHL history,” he says in his best surly Savage.

Faith smiled. She knew exactly what the reporter was talking about. No one did surly better than Ty.

“But I am not my father. We play different games. When I hang up my skates for the last time, I want to be judged by my skill on the ice. Not by my last name.”

Enough said.

Unless he commits an unpardonable sin, history will judge this former Art Ross Trophy winner with the same respect it reserves for the likes of Howe, Gretsky, Messier, and dare we say it, Pavel Savage.

Although there are those in Canada who’d like the younger Savage deleted from their national archives. This stems from Ty’s defection from the Vancouver Canucks to the Seattle Chinooks this past month. To many Canadians, the name “Savage” is sacred, like Macdonald, Trudeau and Molson. Perhaps unfair, this native son who once was hailed as a hero is now considered a traitor. In the past weeks, the Vancouver media has vilified him, even going so far to burn him in effigy. At which Savage merely shrugs. “I understand their feelings,” he says. “Canadians are passionate about hockey. That’s what I love about them, but they don’t own me.”

When asked about his reputation for playing a hard physical game, he laughs and responds, “That’s my job.”

Faith looked up from the magazine. Ty laughs? She’d been around him several times in the past few weeks, and the man had barely cracked a smile.

She returned her gaze to the Hockey News in her lap and turned the page. She looked at the photos of Ty colliding center ice with a Flyer, and of him scoring a goal against Pittsburgh.

“Some might say your hard physical style hurts people. That you’re not a very nice person.”

“I play hard physical hockey. That’s my job, but I never go after anyone who doesn’t have the puck. If that means I’m not a nice person, I can live with that. I’ve never been interested in the Lady Byng Trophy, and I’m not going to lose sleep worrying about whether people think I’m ‘nice.’ If I’m a dick sometimes, no one will ask me for money or want to borrow my truck to move their crap.”

“Has that happened to you?”

“Not so much these days.”

Speaking of money, the Chinooks paid $30 million for their captain, and there were a lot of people, including those in the Chinooks organization, who thought the money would have been better spent on their defense. But owner Virgil Duffy knows the wisdom of acquiring a player the caliber of Savage.

“Every time he steps on the ice,” Duffy is quoted as saying, “he increases the value of the Chinooks franchise.”

A few rows behind Faith, she heard the shuffle of newspaper mixed with the low hum of deep male voices. If Virgil had thought Ty was worth 30 million, then he was, and more.

Traitor or Saint doesn’t matter much to Ty Savage. He just wants to play hockey his way and win the cup. “I have no doubt we’ll make it into the final round. We’ve got the talent to get us that far. After that, it’s going to come down to who hits harder and puts the most points on the board.” He flashes a rare smile. “And what a guy’s got in his sac.”

Enough said.

Faith closed the magazine. Somehow she doubted Ty had been talking about those Sac poof chairs.

A warm breeze blew through the San Jose airport, bringing with it the smell of asphalt and jet fuel. Ty climbed down the steps of the BAC-111 and walked across the tarmac. He unbuttoned his team blazer, shoved his hands into the pockets of his wool pants, and made his way to the chartered bus.

“That’s my Louie hatbox.”

He glanced toward the cargo hold of the plane, where Mrs. Duffy stood, the wind whipping the tails of her black coat about her knees.

“And that’s the matching wheelie,” she added, pointing into the bay.

Jules took a big Louis Vuitton suitcase and a round case with a loop handle from one of the equipment managers who stood at the cargo bay unloading bags and equipment.

Ty glanced at the faces around him. Through the lenses of his sunglasses, he could see the guy’s confusion. He felt it too. Why did a two-day trip require two pieces of luggage? Especially a hatbox? How many hats could one woman wear in forty-eight hours?

He boarded the bus and took an aisle seat toward the front. Until she’d walked onto the plane in Seattle, he and the guys hadn’t even known she was traveling with them. Outside the window, Ty watched her move across the tarmac toward Darby. The loop of her hatbox circled one wrist and she shoved a pair of big sunglasses on her face. Her blonde hair slid across her cheek and she raised her free hand to push it behind one ear. The flight from Washington had been quiet. Too quiet for a group of guys who excelled at talking trash at 35,000 feet. If she hadn’t been on the flight, they would have questioned the paternity of several San Jose players, and they would have broken out the cards for air poker. Frankie was down five hundred bucks, and Ty was sure the sniper wanted a chance to get some of it back. Little had Ty known that when he’d suggested they all play poker as a way to bond, it would turn into a never-ending game.

“I’d pay a lot of money to see her on a stripper pole again,” Sam said as he slid into the window seat next to Ty. “Maybe busting out of a short little nurse’s outfit.” He sighed like he was in the middle of some porn fantasy. “And those clear plastic shoes they all wear. And an ankle bracelet. I love a lady in an ankle bracelet.”

“You should probably give up on that dream, Rocky,” Ty said, using Sam’s nickname. “Especially since she owns you, eh?”

Sam unbuttoned his jacket. “I don’t mind that she owns us. Not like some of the guys. She’s surrounded by a lot of smart people who won’t let her make a huge mistake. I remember Jules from five years ago. He knows a lot about hockey. Back then he was a pudgy guy with a mullet. He hadn’t come out of the closet yet.”

More players piled on the bus, and Ty looked out the window as Faith nodded at something Jules said to her. “He claims he’s not gay.”

“Really.” Sam shrugged. “I had a cousin who dressed like that in the nineties. He wasn’t gay either.” Sam shrugged. “But he was from Long Island,” he added as if that explained it. He turned his face and looked out the window. “What do you suppose she’s got in the box? Handcuffs? Whips? French maid uniform?”

Ty chuckled. “I’d guess hats.”

“Why would a woman need that many hats?”

Now it was Ty’s turn to shrug. “I’ve never been married.” In fact, he’d only come close to it once. That is, if he counted the time his old girlfriend, LuAnn, had proposed to him. Though he didn’t know if that even counted, because he’d run screaming in the other direction. He wasn’t against marriage. For other people.

“Well, my ex never carried a hatbox around when she traveled.”

“I didn’t know you were married.” He looked up as Coach Nystrom and goalie coach Don Boclair stepped into the bus.

“Yeah. Been divorced five years. I have a little boy. His mamma just couldn’t handle the life, ya know.”

He knew. The divorce rate for hockey players was high. They were gone for half of the long season, and it took a strong woman to stay at home while her man was on the road working hard, living large, and fending off puck bunnies.

Or not. Being married to a hockey player had made Ty’s mother crazy, or so she’d claimed. Or perhaps she’d already been crazy, as his father claimed. Who knew? The only thing for certain was that she’d died of a toxic cocktail of Klonopin, Xanax, Lexapro, and Ambien. The doctors had called it an accidental overdose. Ty wasn’t convinced. His mother’s life had always been one long emotional roller coaster, and whether she’d been born with a mental illness or had been driven to it, the result had been the same. Ty’s mother had battled depression that had ended her life. He wasn’t worried that he’d end up sad and depressed like his mother. He worried that he was too much like his father to care.

Ty pulled back the thick sleeve of his coat and looked at his watch. It was a little after eight o’clock in Seattle and he wondered what his dad was going to do while he was gone. Other than what he always did: drink all Ty’s beer and watch ESPN. It had been two weeks now since Pavel had shown up at his door. Over two weeks of his father practicing his backswing or hanging out at strip clubs. Over two weeks, and it didn’t seem like his dad was planning on leaving anytime soon.

The door to the bus opened and Jules entered, followed by Faith. The assistant moved to sit by the window, while Faith took a seat across the aisle and two rows up from Ty. She set her hatbox on her lap and placed her hands on the sides. The light caught on her huge platinum and diamond wedding ring and shone on her red nails.

Just as before, when she had stepped on the plane, silence descended like a heavy brick wall. Singly and collectively, every hockey player on the bus had been around a lot of beautiful women. They’d been around a lot of strippers. Some of them had even been to parties at the Playboy Mansion. But for some reason, this former stripper turned playmate made all those cocky hockey players tongue-tied. Probably it was because she had so much power over them. More than likely it was because she was stunning. Or it was both.

“Listen up, boys.” Coach Nystrom stood at the front of the bus. “We have practice this afternoon and then you’re on your own until light practice tomorrow morning. We have an important game tomorrow night; I don’t need to tell you all to stay out of trouble.” He sat in the first row. “Okay, bussie,” he said. “Let’s move out.” The driver closed the door and the bus rolled across the tarmac.

The San Jose Marriott was in the heart of downtown and not far from the HP Pavilion. On the short drive to the hotel, Ty folded his arms across the front of his wool jacket and watched the sun hitting the buildings and lighting up rows of palm trees. It was still early in the playoffs, but a win against the Sharks tomorrow night was very important. After practice today, he wanted to review game tapes of the San Jose defense and their goalie, Evgeni Nabokov. In last night’s game, Nabokov had stopped twenty-three shots on goal. He was cool under pressure and consistent, but even cool, consistent goalies had bad nights. Ty’s job was to make him wish they’d sent in the rookie.

A few rows up, Faith slid her hand up the sides of her hatbox, over the top, and then back down. Her long thin fingers brushed the Louis Vuitton monogram, back and forth, caressing it like a lover. Her shiny red nails scraped the hard surface, and Ty’s scalp got tight, as if she’d touched him again.

“Jesus H,” Ty whispered and leaned his head back. He was tired and his right ankle hurt like a bitch. He had a game against the Sharks to think about, and his old man was making him nuts. And thanks to Sam, one prevailing thought pushed everything out of his head: What the hell was in the damned hatbox? Sam might fantasize about nurses, but Ty was a lingerie man. He loved lacy garters and thigh-high stockings on a pair of smooth thighs.