Victor (Chicago Blaze 3)

I stand up, my eyes welling as I get my phone out. I exhale hard, steadying myself. Walking into the bathroom for privacy, I dial Lindy.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

“Victor. Hi.”

I take a deep breath. “Hey, I don’t have very long, but I wanted to let you know…Lily West passed away this afternoon.”

“What?”

“Yeah, everyone here’s in shock.”

“Oh my God.” Lindy’s voice breaks with emotion. “What happened?”

“We don’t know yet. She collapsed at her parents’ place this morning; that’s all I know.”

“Oh, Jonah,” she says softly.

“Yeah.” There’s a commotion out in the locker room and I look around the corner to see Jonah crying in Anton’s arms, the rest of the team silent.

“Hey,” I whisper into the phone, “I have to go. Keep this to yourself, okay?”

“Yes…I mean, of course.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Okay.”

She’s crying. I hate that I had to give her bad news over the phone, and that I can’t offer any sort of comfort. But right now, I have to go see to Jonah.

When I get out into the locker room, Easy’s hugging him. There’s not a dry eye in the house. We all loved Lily.

Jonah pulls away from Easy and looks over at me, his expression tortured. I’ve never seen such devastation in a person’s eyes.

I walk towards him and embrace him. He cries even harder, his whole body shaking with grief.

“I wasn’t there.” His tone is anguished. “She’s gone and I wasn’t even there.”

“She felt you, Jonah. You were always with her.”

One of our assistant coaches approaches us.

“Jonah, we’ve got a flight home set up for you. Someone from Seattle’s front office is ready to drive you to the airport.”

Jonah stands up straight, squaring his shoulders and wiping his eyes. It’s not the right time to tell him we’ve got him covered—no matter what he needs—but we’ll always have his back.

A numb silence still hangs over the locker room when Jonah departs. We have to find a way to focus on hockey tonight, and win this game without our starting goalie.

It won’t be easy.Chapter ThirteenLindy“You want one?” Jerry offers the three men on our couch a bottled beer from his cooler.

“Are you shittin’ me?” Don asks, sounding genuinely offended.

“Uh…” Jerry looks down at the cooler, then back up. “No?”

Chuck just laughs; he’s the most easygoing of Dad’s friends. But my dad shakes his head, looking as disgusted as Don does.

“Goose Island? What the fuck kind of name is that for a beer?”

Don chimes in. “Goose? Sounds like the kind of shit guys who like to stick their fingers up other guys asses drink.”

“If I wanted to drink piss, I’d turn my dick in the other direction at the urinal and drink it for free,” my dad says.

Chuck cracks open a cold can of Old Style, just enjoying the back and forth.

“Goose Island,” Don mutters. “You’re in the South Side, kid. Ain’t no yuppie pussies drinking that shit in this neighborhood.”

“I drink it because my grandpa liked it,” Jerry says, shrugging as he twists the cap off his beer. “And since he died saving orphans from a burning building, it’s a way for me to remember him.”

“Aw, shit.” My dad’s scowl drops away. “Really?”

“No.” Jerry takes his first sip. “I just wanted to make you assholes feel bad.”

The guys erupt in laughter, Chuck getting up from the couch to offer Jerry a fist bump. I’d be laughing, too, if I wasn’t so upset about Lily.

I can’t stop thinking about her. She was so nice to me when she didn’t even need to be. In fact, she was nice to everyone we saw that night at the game. I admired the way she always seemed to know exactly what to say. Rich, poor, young, old—Lily was at ease talking to anyone. She was one of those people who left you feeling good about yourself.

“Here we go,” Don says, quiet settling over the living room as the puck drops for the game on our TV.

“Rhett Baxter is goaltending for the Blaze tonight after the unexpected death of Jonah West’s wife earlier today,” an announcer says in a sober tone. “Our condolences go out to Jonah and his family.”

“Jesus,” Don rubs his temple. “How long’s he gonna be out?”

“Probably a while,” my dad says, switching his empty beer can from his koozie and replacing it with a fresh one.

I look over at my dad and he meets my gaze, holding it for a couple seconds. I know from his expression that he’s thinking of her right now—my mother.

She died of a brain aneurysm when I was four. It was sudden, and the doctors told my dad she didn’t suffer.

We did, though. I’ll never forget the nights my dad sat next to me in my bed as I cried for her. Inevitably, he cried, too. We held on tightly to each other as we grieved. My dad had been so in love with her, and he was completely lost when she died.