Three Months Later
Dalt
I look around the locker room and can’t believe I’m actually here, ready to play my first pre-season game with the Winds. My agent—yes I have an agent now—worked it out with management and they graciously allowed me some extra time to get out here. Enough time for me to stay with Nikki while she recovered and went through the initial stages of physical therapy.
While she’s not completely rehabbed, she’s doing better than the doctors had expected at this point. Great news is she doesn’t have any residual balance or coordination problems from the brain trauma, although they say it’s too early to tell if her leg will ever be fully recovered enough to be able to play soccer. It’s tough to shun my overwhelming guilt about that, but Nik keeps telling me to get over it. She says I can’t take credit for all the stupid mistakes we’ve made in our past. She claims it’s a moot point anyway since she’ll be on the field hip faking me in no time. I believe her. My girl is one tough cookie.
She and Chloe moved out here with me after the wedding. We got our little house on the water in Newport Beach. Okay, not so little at around six thousand square feet, six bedrooms, and a guest bungalow. But my girls are worth it and it gives us plenty of space for our friends and Matt and Rose to visit whenever they want.
Rose claims as soon as the wedding season slows down they’re going to come out and stay for two weeks because they miss Nikki and Chloe, and me too they added just to be polite. The new business has taken off like wildfire. Rose and Matt only took off one weekend to make time to have their own private wedding. I hope they do get to come out. Nikki and Chloe are missing them.
Nikki is taking online courses to complete her degree. Turns out she doesn’t completely hate doing her work with her toes buried in the sand while Chloe builds sandcastles next to her. She says I’m going to turn her into a fat, spoiled, married lady. I’m doing my best to prove her right about the spoiled part, but the way she runs a little farther every day up and down the beach and then spends at least an hour doing soccer drills in the sand, there’s no way she’ll ever accomplish the fat part.
As we take to the ice and the fans go wild, am I nervous to play my first pro game? Not really. I’d say it’s more of an adrenaline rush knowing I’m going to be paid to do the thing I would have done for free if given the opportunity. My new teammates made me feel welcome from my first day here. Having Wolfe on the bench for support from a familiar face is an added bonus.
One of the goalies is injured and out for the season. They brought Wolfe up from the farm team last month. I’m sure it won’t be long before he gets his turn at the pipes. It’s awesome we’ll both be playing for the same team again. When Dak called to tell me he, Tracey, and Batt were going to be in the stands for my first game, I was beyond stoked to have my posse here to cheer me on.
Garrett showed up too. He says he’ll be at every one of my games, at least the home ones. We worked things out about the crap my father pulled. The old bastard isn’t going to be seeing anything but the four walls of a jail cell for a while. Karma’s a bitch.
Garrett and I changed the name of the company to Walker Brothers Productions, distanced ourselves from our dad, and cut him out of everything to keep the company from going down with him. While Garrett is CEO now and running the show, he says my place is ready and waiting for me whenever I get tired of gliding on razor blades up and down the ice. I’m grateful for his support and I know Mom is looking down, happy and proud of the men we’ve become.
The thing I’m most grateful for, the thing I say a little prayer of thanks for every day, is having Nikki and Chloe in my life and in the stands right now to root for me. I offered to get them seats in the executive suite box where most family members sit, but they all wanted to sit in the seats next to the Winds’ bench.
“Nah, man,” Dak scoffed. “We came to watch the game, not eat hors d’ouevres.”
Nikki added with a coy grin, “I won’t be able to watch your sexy bubble butt move up and down the ice from up there.”
When I skate past the bench, I see Nikki pointing me out to Chloe. When she spots me, she starts jumping up and down on Nik’s lap and clapping. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. My chest swells with pride as I take my seat on the bench.
It takes some time to get used to a new line of guys but when we make the switch a few minutes into the first period, everything falls into place like I’ve been playing with them my whole life.
Gifford, our right winger, and I fly down the ice. He’s driving the puck. The opposing team’s D-man drops back toward the goal and cheats toward Gifford. I’m moving into the perfect receiving angle when Gifford slaps the puck right onto my tape without looking at me, like he knows where I’m going to be. I laser a snap shot right into the hole over the goalie’s shoulder. When the horn blows, it’s the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard, next to Nik’s moans of ecstasy, that is.
When the game ends, we have our first win of the pre-season and I have the first pro game win of my career. After celebrating on the ice with the guys, I skate to the boards and place my palms on the Plexiglas in front of my girls. Both Nik and Chloe touch their hands on the glass where my hands are.
I was wrong when I said life couldn’t get any better the night Nik and I unknowingly made Chloe. Life can get better. Every day with Nikki is even better than the day before and this, this right here, is one of the best days so far.