“Are you sure you still want to come?” he asked quietly. “You can take the car back home and pick me up later.”
I squeezed his hand, still laced with mine. I leaned over and ran my fingers over the lines of his forehead, wishing them away.
“No, I need to come. You were right,” I said. “We have to face this sometime. We should do it together.”
“But I’m leaving you as soon as we get inside. It’ll be a while before I’m even on the ice.”
I shrugged. “I’ll be fine. I brought a book.”
For the first time in the conversation, Niklas’s face relaxed.
“You brought a book to the rink?” he asked with a snort of laughter. “This is pro hockey, Caroline, even if it’s not official practice today. I’m trying hard not to be insulted.”
*
Niklas’s hand warmed the small of my back as we walked up the long flights of stairs to the arena’s entrance. I concentrated on the steps in front of me, trying not to trip. That would certainly set the tone for my entrance into public life.
As we neared the top, I finally looked up at the small crowd outside the long row of doors. Yes, there were a few cameras, but many of the people looked like parents with our kids, looking for autographs.
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding in. I could handle this.
One boy in a jersey called out Niklas’s name. Niklas glanced down at me, silently asking if he should stay with me or take the pen the boy was holding out.
“I’m okay,” I whispered.
Niklas knelt to ask the boy about hockey. His smile was wide and genuine, and his voice, soft. I wondered if Niklas had enjoyed public appearances before his reputation had taken a downward turn last spring. This wasn’t the first time I had noted that he was good at this side of the business, too. I considered the toll the past year of his career had taken on him. The knee surgery and insinuations of abuse themselves were the most obvious hits, but I wondered if going from hockey hero to threatening menace in the press had shaken him more deeply than he let on.
Niklas stood up, shook the boy’s father’s hand and walked back over to me. He led them past security, through the hallway passage and into the empty arena.
“If you sit a little higher up, you might get a better overview of the game,” Niklas said from behind my shoulder.
I shook my head.
“I think I want to see you close-up,” I said.
“Okay. I’ll be out in a while.”
His thumb stroked my back through my clothes, but he made no move to kiss me. He was keeping a considerate distance, and I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. I wanted his physical reassurance as I stood next to him at the top of the arena stairway, the air infused with the smell of the ice.
A sprinkling of other spectators sat around the rink. All men. No wives.
Though I’d see him on the rink soon enough, I longed to close my eyes and rest against his chest, to breathe in his scent and soak up his warmth, just to hold me over for a while. In our months traveling together, I had seldom held back this urge, but I did so this time. This was real life now.
Niklas stood still behind me, watching his teammates warm up on the ice below. He tucked his large hand under my shirt and traced the edge of my jeans around my hips. His hand left me, and he walked away.
More players entered the ice as I walked down the steps toward the lower seats. I had never been to a hockey arena without a crowd, and I was surprised at how much I missed the teetering chaos spectators brought. I had never quite understood why people paid hundreds of dollars for sports tickets when we could easily watch the game at home for free. But as I sat down on the red cushion of a fourth-row seat, I felt the dull absence of the crowd.
Still, the arena wasn’t quiet. Instead, the sounds from the rink took over. The players’ skates scraped against the ice, the puck slapped against sticks and boards, and the players muffled words and laughs traveled through the Plexiglas and into the stands. Some of the players glanced in my direction, but most of them ignored me as they curved around behind the goal.
Though I had been to a handful of hockey games, I had never thought about the players as people, all with the complications of their own, off-the-ice lives. But as I scanned the faces of the men who glided by, I wondered for the first time who each of these players was. Were any of them married with kids, leading otherwise typical lives off the ice? Niklas had mentioned that a handful of Swedes played for the Red Wings, and I wondered which ones they were. How did they feel about living so far from home?
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, lost in the purgatory between my thoughts and the players skating around the ice, but suddenly it was Niklas skating by, looking up at me. He didn’t smile, but his eyes glimmered with intensity and excitement. I drew in a breath. After months of traveling with me, he was on the rink again, and I couldn’t ignore the happiness on his face.
Until that moment, I hadn’t truly considered just how much he must have missed hockey this last summer. He hadn’t talked about the sport this way. We hadn’t talked much about hockey at all, in fact. When the subject came up, it mostly concerned the problems he faced over the last year. But his joy in skating around the rink again, his stick resting in his hands, shone on his face. He loved this sport—that much was clear. And it allowed me to hope he wasn’t just giving the Red Wings a try for me.
Niklas skated around the rink a few times, talking to other players and shooting stray pucks at the goals. I had forgotten just how fast he could skate, still controlling the puck as if it were gliding next to his stick of its own free will. I had only worn ice skates when I had to, and never very successfully, so it was hard to imagine trying to stay in standing position while aiming a puck at the goal. But each powerful push of his skates made him look more in control, not less. He stopped to talk to another player—Johansson, I read off the back of the guy’s jersey—and his deep laugh echoed over the boards.
The players gathered in the middle of the rink, half in white, half in red, while a couple guys not in jerseys skated around, gathering extra pucks. Someone on the team spoke, and the players turned to Niklas, a few patting him on his back. The group broke up, dividing by color, with Niklas and the other red jerseys filtering over to the side opposite from where I sat. Some players headed for the bench, but Niklas took his position back near the goal.
