Page 65 of Tricky Puck

He’s doing his job as he sees fit. I don’t know if I’d do it any differently if I were him.

Life is full of tough choices. I need to be tough enough to make mine.

Dressed and ready, I head for the exit.

“Hold on, Milano.” I hear coach’s voice boom from behind me and I turn. He’s coming in from the door that leads to his office. I face him.

The locker room goes quiet.

“Where are you going?”

“To New York.” I don’t bother explaining because I see Sabe come into the room behind him. They’ve obviously had a talk.

“You made the right decision to stay and play the game tonight, even if you did play shitty.” There are a few chuckles in the otherwise quiet room, but I don’t even crack a smile. He stares me down for a beat and I stare back.

“Now I’m making the right decision. Go home to New York.” He pauses and a cold numbness takes hold of me because it’s not clear whether he’s kicking me off the team or giving me personal leave.

Then he adds, “Come back when your fiancée says its time.”

I head out the door so fast I feel lightheaded. Then my heart hammers and all the damn feelings I’ve been holding back flood me.

They push me with a kind of urgency I’ve never felt before as I get in my car and drive non-stop in six hours to New York City.

I get here in time to stand in the doorway of her Granny’s full hospital room, breathing heavy from my rush through the hallways, as a doctor shuts off the machines and Granny Bernadette stops breathing.

The loudest sob in the room belongs to Delaney and I push past everyone to go to her. She turns to me and after staring at me for a beat with those sparkling teary blue eyes filled with pain that I can feel down to my bones, she melts against me.

“Granny’s gone,” she sobs and I move her to a corner of the large crowded room to give us some privacy. No one stops us though I get a cold stare from her oldest uncle. But he has his own grief to deal with as he holds onto his wife.

Delaney cries for a long time, ragged sobs giving way to silent tears and then to sniffles. I hold her, my chest tight, absorbing her pain and staying solid for her to lean on. Supporting her is automatic, absorbing her feelings and taking them for my own seems normal, not foreign the way it would have a couple of weeks ago.

“I’m sorry, Milano,” she says, pulling back and swiping at the large wet spot on my shirt and tie. “You’re kind of overdressed for the occasion aren’t you,” she says still looking at my chest. The suit is what I wore to the game, the only clothes I had with me and I wasn’t taking the time to stop at my condo for a change.

“I’m the one who’s sorry, Delaney.” I cup her chin and make her look me in the eyes.

In spite of her attempt at sarcasm, her usual bravado, she’s never looked so soft and vulnerable, or so adoring.

But when I tell her coach gave me leave to come here after the game, she goes cool.

“It wasn’t a tough choice for you to be here, then?”

I shake my head. “I made the wrong choice when you asked me to go with you, Delaney. And I’m sorry. But I vow to you I’ll never do it again because I understand now what I have to lose. And I’m not losing what we have. I can’t go back to living by myself and sleeping with strange women, never connecting.”

“Those are pretty words, Milano, but we both know I didn’t ask you to come with me.” She heaves a shuddering sigh. I’m not sure where she’s going with this but my heart thunders in anticipation.

“I did the horrible thing of giving you an ultimatum. Grandma would be so disappointed in me. She used to tell me never give a man an ultimatum and I always dismissed her advice like I’d never need it.”

She sighs again and I’m about to tell her it’s okay when she puts a finger over my mouth to stop me. She looks at me solemnly, her electric blue eyes intense.

“My only excuse is that I was so broken with grief, angry so helpless. I had a week moment.”

My chest squeezes for her, needing to ease her mind if not her pain.

“You weak? Never. You’re the woman so strong that she sings her songs even though she’s afraid.”

“Such pretty words. You’re so good with words, Milano, that I’d swear you have some Irish poet in you⁠—”

I can’t help myself. “I want to have some Irish poet in me as soon as I get you⁠—”