Her voice cracks and tears fill her eyes. I take a step toward her and she holds her hands out, warding me off with a shake of her head.
“My helpless, sweet brother who lives a life imprisoned in a broken body…who has only me in this life to count on…and I put him lower than you. I can’t do that ever again.”
“So you don’t,” I make haste to assure her. “We made a mistake last night. You dedicate yourself to your brother and whatever he needs, you give it. So if you wanted to take just one night off, that was okay, Blue. It was shitty timing and luck that he fell on the one night you decide not to answer your phone, but it isn’t the end of the world.”
Blue shakes her head at me adamantly. Her eyes still hold a spark of anger but her voice is coldly detached. “No. I can’t have my loyalties torn. I turned my back on my brother when I was eighteen and left home. I abandoned him then and I’m not going to do it again. He has to be my only priority.”
I have no words. They dried up in my throat the minute she brought up her abandonment of him when she moved to LA eight years ago. I know how ashamed she is of that part of her life. I know how deeply that cuts into her conscience. If she’s equating last night to the type of emotional pain she feels she inflicted on Billy before, nothing I say right now is going to make a difference to her. I’ll have to give her time, is all.
But then she takes even that possibility away from me. “I can’t see you anymore, Erik.”
“Why?” I ask sharply. Even though I know why. She explained it clearly.
“Because you have too much power over me. I care for you too much to balance my devotion to you and to Billy. It’s just not going to work.”
“You don’t mean that,” I tell her gruffly.
“I do,” she says ever so softly but in a way that sounds like a brick wall has just risen around her. “Now…you’d better go. You need to get ready for the trip and to catch the plane. I need to get back to Billy.”
“Blue.” There’s no hiding the pleading in my voice for her to not make hasty decisions.
“I’m sorry,” she mutters and pushes past me.
I let her go.
Through the door and back to her brother.
I let her walk away from me knowing she’s not going to look back.Chapter 26Erik“Is it just me, or are the girls in Vegas strip clubs hotter than everywhere else?” Legend asks me, his voice slurred but still intelligible.
My gaze leaves the glass of bourbon sitting in front of me and rises to the stage before me. A blond woman dances in front of us, hips gyrating and tits jiggling all over the place. She does nothing for me and I’m only sitting here because Legend begged me to come out after our shameful defeat to the Vegas Spades.
We got our asses handed to us which seems to be par for the course for the Arizona Vengeance these days.
Last week, before Blue dumped me, the Vengeance had amassed an impressive record of twenty-three wins and seven losses. We led our conference and hockey fans all over the United States were duly impressed with the new expansion team.
In the seven days since, we’ve lost all four games we’ve played.
I can’t chalk that up to Blue dumping me, because that has no effect on the team. Sure, I don’t feel quite as jazzed when I step out on the ice, but I’m doing my job just as well as I ever have.
No, the reason we’re losing is because of Tacker.
The NHL handed him a ten-game suspension and a $150,000 fine for kneeing Nilsson in the head. He hasn’t played the last four games. We haven’t won the last four games.
It’s not just that we lost our best player. Great players get knocked out all the time with injuries and such, and teams still manage to do well. Others inevitably step up to the plate and pick up the slack.
But we’re losing now because we lost our mojo as a team.
Not because anyone blames Tacker for what he did and getting suspended. Every single one of us secretly applaud his actions. We all understand what drove him, and if there was ever sound justification for a player going apeshit bananas which results in intentional injury to another, this was it.
The problem, however, is in the fact that as a team, we can’t own it together. We can’t support Tacker because he won’t talk about his issues. None of us can come out and say, “Hey, dude…it was shitty what Nilsson said to you and we only wish you’d managed to get another hit to his head before you got pulled off.”