Page 17 of Hockey Wife
He closed his eyes. “But it’s not … real. I’m working on making it go away.”
His mom sighed. “Listen, you’ve never been a risk taker and it’s kept you on a solid trajectory with your career and your life. But sometimes we need to shake the tree, see what falls out.”
“Are you saying that getting impulsively married to a stranger in Vegas is my way of shaking things up?”
“I know you weren’t too happy about your trade. You hoped to stay in Nashville, maybe win the Cup before your time is up. Things are changing—moving to a new city and team, reckoning with the final years of your career, and thinking about what comes next. Marrying and starting a family would be considered a normal move for someone in your position.”
“I got close already. And that experience made me rethink whether that’s for me. I decided it wasn’t.”
His mom hummed. “Sounds like the universe had other ideas.”
“Not a message from the universe.”
“Often it’s the universe inside your head that dictates the next move.”
“Sure thing, Yoda.”
She laughed. “All I’m saying is that you’ve made your grandmother happy and given her something to look forward to. I’d never ask you to put your life on hold to please an old lady, but let’s face it, divorces take time and the next couple of months will be busy with the playoffs?—”
“If we make it.”
“Which you will. What does your new bride think of all this?”
She wants to stay married. For money.
“We haven’t really discussed it.”
“Okay, maybe you should? You say it was unintentional, but you’re not an unintentional person. Something led you down that aisle and made you put a ring on this woman’s finger. You tried to keep it under wraps, but the news still found a way to come out. I’m seeing a lot of signs here! Don’t you owe it to yourself to explore what led you to this point?”
“So I should stay married because the universe says so?”
“Maybe, and because it will make your grandmother happy.”
His mom might be onto something. He hadn’t been drunk, no matter how much he’d like to spin it that way. He didn’t buy the because-the-universe-decreed-it argument, but he also wondered if part of his resistance to Georgia’s proposal to stay married stemmed from his anger about how she’d initially handled the annulment.
Because, fool that he was, he had wanted to give this thing a go.
6
Anxious to avoid the inevitable teasing, he skipped the optional morning skate and arrived late for the game call. His teammates were too absorbed in their prep to give him more than a few funny looks and locker room jeers.
After the game was another story. They lost 4-1 to Detroit, and during the third period, one of the Motors D-men slammed Banks so hard into the boards no amount of padding could save him. It was his shoulder again. Not a complete separation, he was sure, but painful enough that it would bruise big time and take a while to heal. He’d suffered enough injuries over the years that he knew which ones warranted medical attention and which ones he could manage for himself.
A very pissed off Cal Foreman was currently pacing the locker room, looking for scapegoats. After some back and forth about whether O’Malley’s tumultuous love life was to blame—hockey players were a superstitious lot—talk shifted to where these nosy fuckers wanted it to go.
“Maybe it’s Banks’s fault,” Erik Jorgenson, the Rebels tender, said as he pulled off his pads. “He didn’t invite anyone to his wedding. That has to be unlucky.”
Banks continued with taping his stick. It calmed him when each breath had him wincing in pain.
“Those All-Star games are always trouble,” Reid Durand said.
Banks refused to rise. Scowling he could do, though. He sent O’Malley a pointed glare, though the kid had claimed he didn’t spill. Grey had also professed his innocence as they lined up in the tunnel before the game.
“Let us know when you set up the registry,” defenseman Theo Kershaw said. “Make sure you put ‘sense of humor’ on it along with a tuxedo for all those fancy galas you have to attend with your socialite wife.”
Coach came in and began the game post-mortem, aka the listicle of who fucked up and how (spoiler: everyone). Banks tuned out, stuck to his stick-taping and breathing through the pain of his shoulder, then distracted himself with a replay of his conversation with his gran.
How happy she was for him.