June 2016
There was nothing worse than going to a party with your parents. With her back against the wall of the house, knees bent, forearms resting on her knees, Lexi Rousseau stared out at the happy laughter going on around her with a scowl. The Las Vegas sun was hot enough to fry an egg on the concrete and she wished she was in the pool too. Unfortunately, taking off her shirt wasn’t an option and she just wanted to go home, where she could cool off in peace. Glancing down at her phone, she sent a text to her best friend in Minnesota, Lindsay.
Whatcha doin’? I’m at a party with the parental figures.
The reply came in just seconds later: Working a double, but I’m on break.
Sorry.
Is Zaan there?
Yup.
Have you talked to him?
I’m chicken.
Ugh.
Gotta go—Dad’s coming.
Lexi glanced up as her father approached. His deep blue eyes were fixed on hers with disappointment and she sighed.
“I’m having a great time,” she said sarcastically. “Really. Go back to your friends.”
Rob Rousseau folded his arms across his chest and shook his head. “Lexi, you’ve been sitting here by yourself for two hours,” he said. “Why don’t you spend time with us or some of the other kids…?”
“The kids are like three years old!” She rolled her eyes.
Rob chuckled. “I know, but you love little kids. You babysit all the time.”
“That’s different,” she said quietly.
“Look, I know there isn’t anyone your age,” he said. “But you’re 18 now. There’s no reason you can’t be friendly with the wives or—”
“As long as I’m not friendly with the guys on the team, right?” She hated arguing with her dad but the last two years had been hard and he was making her crazy, trying to push her into doing things she wasn’t comfortable with yet. Like showing off her breast-less chest.
Rob made a face. “You’re too young for the guys on the team, and anyway, you wouldn’t want to date a hockey player. You hate moving and that’s what hockey wives do. That’s a big part of the reason your mom and I divorced—it’s not an easy life, especially at your age.”
“Mack doesn’t seem to mind.” Lexi glanced over to where her stepmother was talking with one of the other wives.
“Mack’s different,” Rob said gently. “This is a second marriage for both of us and my days playing hockey are almost over, but that’s not the point. Come on, why you don’t go for a swim? I’ll get in too—we can play keep away.”
“No, thanks.” She shook her head.
“You can’t just sit here and mope! I know you didn’t want to leave Minneapolis but it’s just temporary until—”
“I like Vegas, Dad,” she said. “It’s fine.”
“Then let’s go for a swim.”
“I don’t want to.”
“You never want to do anything,” he protested. “You’ve been through hell, but it’s time for you to—”
“I said I was fine.” She got to her feet. “I’m going to get something to eat.”
“Lexi, stop it!” Her father’s voice showed his irritation, but Lexi didn’t care.
Fighting cancer at 16 had been the hardest thing she’d ever imagined, but the after effects were still destroying her emotionally. “I don’t want to go swimming.” Lexi faced her father, fists clenched at her sides as she tried to keep her voice down. “I wanted to stay home! You made me come but you can’t make me have fun.”
Rob threw up his hands. “You have to stop hiding under oversized clothes and wigs! You’re a smart, beautiful girl who should—”
“Should what?!” Lexi finally snapped, her voice rising as she stared at her father. “Go swimming?!”
“Lexi!” Rob took a breath, glancing briefly at his teammates and their families, who were all starting to watch.
“What?!” she cried. “Why do you want me to stop wearing oversized clothes? So everyone can see what my body looks like?” She yanked her shirt over her head and threw it aside.
“Lexi, I—”
“How ‘bout if I take my bikini top off too?!” Lexi was getting mad, tired of her father’s double standard. “Huh? Why not, Dad? I mean, that’s what you want, right? You want me to stop hiding so none of the guys on the team will look twice at me, so here you go!” She yanked the tie to her bikini top and let it fall to the ground. She whirled around and threw up her hands. “This is what a double mastectomy leaves behind—what an 18-year-old with no tits looks like!”
“Oh, Lexi…” Mack took a step forward, her eyes filled with concern.
“Happy, Dad? Now all your teammates know I’m deformed and will never look twice at me. My virtue and your puritanical sensibilities are all safe!”
“Honey, I didn’t…” Rob took a deep breath.
“Just leave me alone!” she cried, grabbing her top as she stalked back into the house.
For a moment no one moved and then a quiet voice broke the silence. “I’ll go talk to her.”
Zaan Hagen was a new kid on the team. He’d just finished his rookie season and was a finalist for the Rookie of the Year award. He’d been drafted at 18 and though most players his age either stayed in the major juniors or went to the AHL to develop, Zaan had been ready for the big leagues. He’d had a hell of a season and the team expected big things from him. Which wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
“You don’t even know her,” Rob muttered.
“Rob.” Mack’s soft voice at his side made him turn. “She needs someone her own age right now. Let Zaan talk to her.”
Blowing out a breath, Rob nodded. “Yeah, okay, thanks. Be careful, though—she bites.”
Zaan snorted. “You think she’ll be the first teenage girl who’s tried to bite me?” He went off in the direction Lexi had gone amidst a spattering of muffled laughter.
Walking through the house he’d lived in for almost a year, Zaan looked around, wondering where she’d gone. She wasn’t in the downstairs guest bathroom, kitchen or family room, so he headed towards the den behind the stairs. He’d spent a lot of time there himself last summer, wondering what the hell he was going to do playing in the NHL, making nearly a million dollars a year, and living with the team’s married captain and his family. Living with the Armstrong’s had been a stipulation of his contract, to make sure he had a little balance in his suddenly out-of-control life. He’d hated it at first, and the bright airy den had been where he’d gone to hide and think; something told him he would find Lexi there.
She was sitting on the built-in bench in the bay window, her knees pulled tight against her chest, her cheek resting against her knees as tears slipped from her eyes.
Tenderness or humor, he wondered as he watched her. Humor, he decided, though part of him yearned for the other. He had to tread carefully because Rob’s beautiful daughter was a spitfire—he could see it in her eyes—but the cancer had obviously impacted more than her breasts.
“Never thought I’d see one of my teammates’ adult daughters go topless at a team party,” he said lightly, leaning against the wall.
She swiped at her face. “Go away.”
“Come on, I’m just kidding. You okay?”
“Do I look okay?”
“You look angry,” he said, slowly walking towards her. “I don’t know much about what happened, but based on the scars, it must have been pretty awful.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry you had cancer—are you better now?”
“I’ve been cancer-free for almost a year, but they check me every six months.” Lexi stared out the window.
“Your dad won’t let you get implants?” Zaan didn’t know how personal to get, but at this point, he figured she might react better if none of these topics were off-limits.
“We tried,” she said quietly. “They had to take out the expanders because of infection.”
He nodded, even though he didn’t know what she was talking about. “Can you try again?”
“They don’t think I’m a good candidate for regular implants. If we try again we have to do this other thing…” She sighed. “Anyway, why do you care?”
“Because you seem bummed.” He sat on the edge of the bench and looked out the window. “We’re about the same age and, trust me, I know how it feels to be different. I’m the youngest guy on the team, making a ton of money, with all this pressure to be some superstar. Most of my friends are either still in Juniors or college, and here I am, trying to be an adult—it’s fucking exhausting.”
“But hockey is what you do, isn’t it?” she asked softly, her eyes meeting his for the first time.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “But it’s not who I am. I’m just a kid from Michigan who got lucky playing sports and is suddenly some hockey star.”
“I’m just a girl from Minnesota who got really un-lucky and doesn’t have anything to look forward to.”
“Why? ‘Cause you don’t have boobs?”
“I missed my senior year of high school,” she whispered. “Chemo and radiation were really bad, my mother lost her mind and is still trying to get back with my dad even though she and my dad are both remarried—and on top of that, we keep moving so I never have time to make friends or have fun. I just want my life back.”
“That sounds pretty shitty,” he said. “I won’t say anything stupid like ‘things are going to get better.’”
“You’re not?” She looked up, confusion in her hazel eyes.
“I have no idea if things are going to be better,” he admitted. “So why say it? But I do know you can make every day better in some small way. Start doing research on that other procedure if you want boobs—”
“I do want them,” she whispered so softly he almost didn’t hear her. “I want to look normal with clothes on. I want to be able to wear a bra. I want cleavage. I’ll never have nipples or breastfeed a baby, but I want to look normal on the outside!”
“So start working on that other procedure. What are you waiting for?”
She shrugged. “Things keep changing. I need to be settled in one place for a while because it’s a long procedure and even though my stepmom is a plastic surgeon, there’s a lot involved...”
“You’re not staying in Vegas?”
“Dad and Mack are, but we’re supposed to go back to Chicago for the summer and then hopefully I’m going to college in New York. They bought a house here, but it won’t be ready until September so we’re going to Chicago until then.”
“Three months,” he said gently. “Use that time to get your head on straight. Whatever makes you feel strong—exercise, dancing, yoga, painting—whatever it is, figure it out and do it. Focus on what you’ll need once you get to school—”
“That’s just it—I don’t know for sure where I’m going. I’m supposed to start in the fall but… ugh, that’s another clusterfuck.”
“Why?” Zaan sank onto the edge of the bench, wishing he had the nerve to touch her. She was way out of his league, even without boobs, and Rob would never allow her to date one of the Sidewinders. He talked about his daughter as though she were made of glass, and while he’d never come out and said she was off-limits, Zaan wasn’t stupid; Rob Rousseau would never let the team rookie date his barely-legal daughter.
“I want to go to Julliard but because I took online classes and graduated late, the process was a little more complicated. I did well on the SAT and ACT, but I had pneumonia in March when I was supposed to do my audition and they told me to re-apply next year. Mack went to bat for me, though, and sent in all my medical records, trying to say there were extenuating circumstances. They said they’d review and there might be an exception made, but it’s June and I still haven’t auditioned.”
“Oh, wow, that’s really frustrating.” Zaan wasn’t sure what to say. She’d been dealt a shitty hand in life the last couple of years. “You want to get out of here?” he asked impulsively.
Lexi looked up, uncertainty in her eyes. “I… um, yeah, but my dad—”
“I’ll ask him,” Zaan said, standing up. “He won’t say no, not after that stunt you pulled a little while ago.”
She smiled faintly. “You’ve been really sweet but you don’t have to do this.”
“I want to,” he interrupted quietly, his eyes meeting hers. “Hang tight. I’ll be back.”