“But I guess it doesn’t matter what you wear. You’re beautiful and don’t have to worry about it. Sometimes I worry that some guy is going to think I’m your bodyguard and try and start something with me.”
Faith figured Jules was being weird and just a tad dramatic. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. You might dress like you’re experiencing some kind of metrosexual meltdown, but I need to keep you around. Plus,” she said through a smile, “your hair’s bangin’.”
He looked at her a moment as “Are You Ready To Rock?” blasted from the arena speakers. “That’s the first genuine smile I’ve seen out of you,” he said.
“I smile all the time.”
He raised his beer. “Yes, but you don’t mean it.”
Faith turned her attention to the sports timer and the action below. Long before she’d met Virgil, she’d learned to smile when she didn’t mean it. Long before she’d stepped her first acrylic heel onstage and transformed herself into Layla, she’d learned to mask her true feelings with a smile. Life was sometimes easier that way.
But life had a weird way of throwing curve balls, or curved pucks, rather. Never in a million years would she have thought she’d someday own a hockey team. It would never have even occurred to her in a wild fantasy, but here she was, watching her team shoot pucks and throw punches. She wondered what they were going to think when she boarded the jet with them tomorrow.
The next morning she found out as she followed Coach Nystrom into the BAC-111. She couldn’t see beyond his wide shoulders, but a low hum of male voices filled the forty-passenger craft. It was seven thirty, and they were still keyed up from their win against the Sharks the night before.
From the back of the plane, someone complained loud enough for everyone to hear, “The son of a bitch tried to shove his stick up my ass.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time you walked around with a stick up your ass,” someone else said. This triggered a lot of deep manly laughter followed by numerous “up your ass” commentaries and speculations.
“Listen up,” Coach Nystrom said from the front of the plane. “Mrs. Duffy is traveling with us to San Jose.” As if someone pushed a PAUSE button, all laughter and butt jokes abruptly stopped. “So keep it clean.”
The coach took his seat and Faith was suddenly the focus of several dozen startled male faces.
From one row back, Ty Savage looked up from the USA Today sports section he held in his hands. The light above his head shined in his dark hair, and his eyes locked with her for several long seconds before he lowered his gaze to the paper once more.
Jules waited for her in the third-row window seat and she took her place beside him. “How long is the flight?” she asked.
“Less than an hour.”
Behind her she heard a few low whispers and a couple of deep chuckles. She buckled herself in and, except for a few bits of conversation too low for Faith to hear, and the rustle of Ty’s newspaper, the fuselage remained quiet as they taxied to the runway and took off. Once they punched through the thick, gray clouds, the stabbing rays of morning sun flooded the oval windows. Almost as one, the shades were all pulled down.
Faith wondered if they were quiet because they’d played a grueling game the night before that had ended in a 3–4 win in overtime and it was suddenly catching up to them, or if it was because she was sitting in the front of the jet.
Once the snow-covered summit of Mount Rainier was behind them, Darby Hogue leaned across the aisle and asked, “How are you doing?”
“Okay. Are they usually this quiet?”
Darby smiled. “No.”
“Are they uncomfortable flying with me?”
“They’re just a little superstitious about traveling with a woman. A few years ago, a female reporter traveled with the team. They didn’t like it at first, but they got used to her. They’ll get used to you, too.” He turned and looked into the seat behind him. “Got that tape, Dan?”
He was handed a DVD that he plugged into his laptop. Then he turned the screen for Faith to see. “This is Jaroslav Kobasew. We’re looking at him to fill the hole in our second-line defense. We need more size in the back, and he’s six five and two thirty-five.”
She hadn’t known they had a hole in the second line or anywhere else. “I thought we couldn’t make any trades.”
“Not until after the season ends, but we’re always scouting new talent,” Darby told her.
She looked into the screen across the aisle as a huge man in a red jersey battled for a puck in the corner. The huge guy won by knocking the other player off his skates. “Good Lord.”
Jules leaned over her. “How does he hit?”
“Like he has cement in his gloves,” Darby answered.
“How does he skate?”
“Like he has cement in his shorts.”
Normally, Faith would have thought cement in shorts was a bad thing. But this was hockey and she didn’t know. Maybe that meant he could take a hit. “And that’s bad. Right?”
Jules nodded and sat back.
“He’s just one of the players we’re considering,” Darby said and turned the screen to face him. “When I narrow it down, I’ll let you know.”
“Okay.” She turned to Jules and asked out of one corner of her mouth, “Do they have to discuss trades with me?”
He nodded and set his briefcase on his lap. “Did I forget to tell you that?”
“Yeah. You did.” And it was kind of important, although she couldn’t complain. If not for Jules, she’d be lost. Well, even more than she already was lost.
He pulled out a stack of Hockey News magazines and handed them to her. “Dig in.”
She flipped past various copies and settled on the February issue, with Ty Savage on the cover, his face beaded with sweat as his vivid blue eyes looked at the camera from beneath his white helmet. He looked intimidating and intense. The caption on the left read “Can Ty Savage Deliver Lord Stanley to Seattle?”
The magazine had come out a month before Virgil’s death, and she thumbed past a story on Jeremy Roenick to the center of the magazine. On the right side was a color photo of Ty appearing bare chested. He had his hands behind his head and his chest was rippled with clearly defined muscles. In black ink, his last name was tattooed down his side from just below his armpit to the waistband of his jeans. She had a Playboy bunny inked in the small of her back. It had hurt like crazy, and she couldn’t imagine getting a tattoo the size of Ty’s.
Looking at his photo, if she didn’t know better, she’d think she was staring at a “hunk of the month” calender. The shot was from the waist up and only the hint of a smile curved his mouth. The left side of the center spread was filled with columns of career stats with the byline “Saint or Traitor?” superimposed on the impressive list going back to his days in the minors. The article began:
Without a doubt, Ty Savage is one of the NHL’s best and toughest players. He’s known for laying on the big hits on open ice. As a result, he makes opponents keep their heads up and think twice about going up against this Selke winner.
He is, as everyone who follows the game knows, the son of hockey great, Pavel Savage. A relationship he is reluctant to talk about.
“My father was one of the best players in NHL history,” he says in his best surly Savage.
Faith smiled. She knew exactly what the reporter was talking about. No one did surly better than Ty.
“But I am not my father. We play different games. When I hang up my skates for the last time, I want to be judged by my skill on the ice. Not by my last name.”
Enough said.
Unless he commits an unpardonable sin, history will judge this former Art Ross Trophy winner with the same respect it reserves for the likes of Howe, Gretsky, Messier, and dare we say it, Pavel Savage.