Page 37 of Power Play

fourteen

. . .

Riley

I’ve never been to a hockey game before. Watched it on TV, sure, though not often. We didn’t have cable in our apartment, and until Al, I’d never known anyone involved in the sport.

Carter didn’t know he was an athlete when they hooked up, and once she got pregnant, she was content to forget the man who’d helped create her child. He was only a guy in a bar. As she said once, his job was done, and she wanted nothing to do with him. It wasn’t until she saw his post-trade goodbye video to the Arizona fans that she realized who he was and the implications of his career—and his access to resources we’d never be able to compete with.

Every day, my frustration with my sister increases as I see Al with Emmy, how much he loves her. She robbed him of so much in her selfishness. I understand she was scared, but he had every right to know he had a child, and it wasn’t her place to unilaterally cut him from Emmy’s life.

But I can’t focus on that. Carter is dead. All I can do is move forward.

Vanessa pulls up in her enormous luxury SUV, and I realize with a jolt it’s the same one Al bought for me. We settle Emmy in the back seat beside Leo, and both babies let out screeches of delight at having a new friend. When we get to the arena, she waves a pass and parks in the family parking structure with a valet.

“Thanks, Teddy,” she says, as a man helps take out both strollers from the trunk.

The man gives me a nod as I get Emmy into her chariot. We even have matching strollers, top of the line from a luxury brand.

Having grown up with everything secondhand, never getting anything new and shiny, I’m glad Emmy doesn’t have to know that life. The little princess will be spoiled and I’ll enjoy every moment of it.

Vanessa leads me into the arena, the temperature immediately dropping several degrees. I shiver in my puffy down coat. Everyone says the key to staying warm is layers, but as soon as I enter a building with the heat on, I start sweating. How do people deal with this? Life in Arizona didn’t prepare me for living in snow country.

Before he left, Al handed me a security badge to allow me into the behind-the-scenes areas. I don’t have access to the locker room, but I can go pretty much anywhere else that the general public can’t. We show our security badges and are waved through. They rifle through the diaper bag, but we’re not limited to the little clear bag policy.

“We’ll drop off our stuff and then head down to meet the girls,” she says, as we step into an elevator, and she presses the button for the eighth floor.

“I don’t know if I’m ready for this,” I admit.

She squeezes my arm, and her unwavering support helps soothe my nerves. She’s been nothing but kind since the moment we met. “You’ve got this.”

The suite is nothing like I expected. It’s huge, with a separate room screened off and a second area with cocktail tables and a bartender before the steps down to the plush leather seats.

A changing table takes up space in the corner, stocked with a ton of supplies, and a playpen sits next to it, with a shelf full of toys beside it. The second room is essentially a parking lot of strollers; there are already four of them.

Following Vanessa’s lead, I deposit my things and the diaper bag here, lifting Emmy into my arms. She’s still drowsy from the car nap, not quite ready for the day’s excitement. I fit the giant earmuffs onto her ears and she whines, but doesn’t try to take them off like she did her mittens.

She looks adorable in her little Boston Grizzlies jersey. The back has Al’s number and DADDY on the crest. I found little black-and-gold booties to match, and she’s wearing a gold headband beneath her earmuffs. I’m in a bedazzled black-and-gold Grizzlies sweatshirt with his name and number. Vanessa has a matching one with Sven’s name.

Thank goodness she warned me this would essentially be a fashion show; I was ready to show up in jeans and a hoodie, my hair tied back in a ponytail. Instead, I took the time to do my hair and makeup for the first time in way too long, and I feel almost like myself, if the old me was married to a hockey superstar.

We head down to the ice level, and Vanessa smiles and chats with the people we meet in the hallways. It makes sense; she works for the team, and she’s been with Sven for three years, so she knows basically everyone.

Downstairs, we run into Mel Easton and her two kids, and Audrey with her newborn. There are a few other wives and partners I met at the baby-slash-wedding shower, and they nod and smile as they hold their kids up to the ice. The biggest kid is about six, and the littlest one is baby Cora Henry, only two months old.

Vanessa perches Leo on the ledge where the boards connect to the glass, and he gives a squawk of delight, so I do the same with Emmy. Her chubby fists bang on the glass and she throws her head back with giggles.

“It’s contagious, isn’t it?” Bex says from behind me. I turn to see her standing beside Rachel Lewis, who’s hugely pregnant and clutching at her swollen belly while looking miserable.

“What’s contagious?” I ask, against my better judgment.

“The baby fever.” Bex smirks at me. She’s wearing a navy Austin Aces sweater and her wavy red hair is tied up in a sleek bun, tendrils falling loose. “Maybe you’ll be next.”

“I don’t know about that.”

That would require me and Al to be more than we are. I like what we have… for the most part. Is it lonely? Yes. Am I going to hook up with my husband because I’m in my feelings? No. I still have to live with the man. I won’t ruin our fledging friendship for a fling.

“We can still set you up with someone,” Vanessa sings, turning to face Bex with a teasing smirk. “Maybe… Nick Mitchell?”