Free Light the Lamp by Catherine Gayle Page B

Not her dad’s.”
    “ I see,” I said, nodding my head like I really understood the finer details of how one chooses whose jersey to wear.
    “ Anyway,” Katie said, rolling her eyes in a near perfect imitation of Maddie, “Mom will want to meet you later, Noelle.”
    “ And my mommy and Miss Dana,” Maddie added.
    “ And Sara Thomas.” Katie tugged the blanket up closer to her shoulders, tucking it in beneath her armpits. “So you should get yourself ready, because they’re all curious.”
    I sat back in my seat and pulled my sweater tighter over my chest. Liam had been right. It was cold in here. I shook my head. “Why do they want to meet me?”
    “ Because no one really knows Kally very well, yet,” Katie said. “He just got traded here a couple of weeks ago. It’s just what they do with all the new players’ wives and girlfriends as a way to welcome them to the city.”
    “ I’ve only known him a couple of days. I’m sure all of you know him far better than I do.” A couple of moments of mild flirtation didn’t come close to having us know one another well. “And I’m not his girlfriend.”
    “ Right,” Maddie said, grinning like the Cheshire cat. “And Katie isn’t dating Mr. Jamie.”
     
    Aaron Ludwiczak had just healed from a minor concussion. Tonight was Luddy’s first game back in the lineup, reclaiming his spot on the top line and allowing me to move back to my more comfortable position on the third line. I was happy to be playing down the lineup again since I hadn’t found a way to contribute alongside the top-line guys. Less was expected of me in a depth-forward role. I could play a solid defensive game and not have to worry about putting the puck in the net. If I scored, it was a bonus.
    They weren’t counting on me scoring on a nightly basis, though. Or even very often at all. Jim Sutter, the team’s general manager, had been sure to tell me that a few times. He didn’t want me to stress about it; he just wanted me to get comfortable. He said the scoring would come eventually. Maybe he was right. Maybe. I wasn’t so sure anymore.
    A couple of years ago, I would have been furious if a coach had tried to drop me down the lineup. I had always had a true goal-scorer’s touch. Until last year, I’d never failed to score at least twenty-five goals per season, not even in my rookie campaign. Most years I got more than thirty-five, and a couple of times I’d scored more than forty. That put me in some pretty elite company among the most prolific offensive players in the history of the game.
    And then it had all dried up when Liv died. The goals had stopped coming. I’d scored three times since her death, and two of those had been flukes.
    Coaches kept telling me to relax, to stop squeezing my stick, to let the game come to me. The harder I tried to do any of those things, though, the more I did the opposite. It was a vicious cycle, never ending. I’d spent a year and a half trying to figure out how to get out of this funk.
    But tonight, after a week of trying to force myself into my former offensive ways, I was finally able to go back to doing the parts of the game I could actually still do. I could skate. I could check. I could block shots. I could hit. I hoped my linemates would score, but I had come into tonight’s game knowing that the pressure would finally be off me in terms of that.
    The pressure was only gone until halfway through the first period, when Luddy skated off the ice with his eyes squinted together. He looked a little green, like he might puke at any moment. He headed straight down the tunnel with a trainer, not even bothering to stop to talk with the coaches before he disappeared.
    Maybe his concussion hadn’t completely healed, then. The hit he’d taken just before coming off the ice hadn’t been that bad. Just a little rub-out along the boards. No contact to the head. Nothing to cause new brain trauma.
    Or he might have some sort of a stomach bug. That