Delayed Penalty (Crossing the Line, #1)(31)

"Hey, Ami, are you all right?" My eyes snapped up to his mother with a mixture of surprise and confusion. She was standing beside me holding a blanket and pillow. My eyes dropped to the blanket. "It gets kind of cold in Evan's room, so I thought you might like extra blankets. Evan said you like to keep warm."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry. I wasn't trying to snoop or anything," I responded, simultaneously trying to act like I wasn't just staring at Evan's school pictures on the wall.

"It's all right, sweetie." Judy pointed to a picture of Caitlin and Evan when they were kids, both with big smiles. "He's always been protective of her, but they have never really gotten along."

I gazed at the picture again. "It's strange to admit and even stranger to feel, but it's like I know him already, like he was meant to find me that day because we were meant to know each other."

The two of us walked down the hall to Evan's room. I sat down on the edge of the bed, as did she, and I arranged the blankets and my bag so I didn't have to bend over to get them. I got dizzy and nauseated anytime I bent over. Physically, I healed since the accident. There was no permanent damage to speak of, but I still had stomach pains and then of course the headaches and vertigo. Emotionally, I was fine. It wasn't any worse than what happened to my family, and it definitely wasn't something I was struggling with. I had Evan.

I didn't want to attach myself to anyone. Believe me, that was the last thing I wanted, but there was something about him that made me feel alive again.

Judy smiled, her soft spoken voice gentle as always. "Sweetie, that's Evan. It's not strange at all." She moved to sit closer. Her arm draped over my shoulders in a loving manner I hadn't felt since my own mother was taken from me. "When Evan was first placed in my arms, I knew the power he had. I was young when I had him, seventeen…his dad was eighteen and just getting out of junior hockey. Once we had Evan, there wasn't much time for our own dreams, but we had him. That's all that mattered."

I saw it back home, coming from a small town. The parents had kids young and before you knew it, the kid was being forced to live the parents' dream for them. I saw it with Joey, Andrew's best friend, but you didn't get that feeling with Evan and his family.

Judy went onto explain how Evan got started in hockey and his love for it; all things he had already explained to me in the hospital, but I loved hearing it again. It made me feel that much closer to him.

Throughout the night, Evan kept his promise and sent regular text messages asking if I was still there or if I ran away. I ignored them at first, well, aside from the obvious of practically mauling the phone to get to it every time the little f*cker dinged with a message. But then the messages got flirty, and I couldn't help myself.

I ended up going to bed after that, exhausted from the long drive. I slept with the lights on. I had said I was healing, and emotionally, I thought I was doing pretty well, but I didn't like the dark. The dark was all I saw for months. I needed light.



Game 62 – New York Islanders

Tuesday, March 2, 2010



The next morning I stepped foot into the Masens' kitchen and saw Judy standing over the stove making pancakes and Evan's sister sitting at the table, legs pulled up into the chair with her phone in hand.

Clearing my throat, I said hello, and Caitlin turned around.

"Hi, I'm Caitlin, Evan's little sister. It's so nice to meet you!" Caitlin jumped up from her chair and ran over to me, wrapping her arms around me. She was definitely Evan's sister. They were both huggers. "I was tired of hearing about this girl Evan couldn't pry himself from but never meeting her."

I was so excited to finally meet Caitlin I wasn't sure how to respond to her. Evan thought highly of his younger sister, and through his frequent conversations about her, I felt like I knew her already.

"Nice to meet you, too!" I managed to get out, caught off guard by Evan's dad walking into the room with a bright smile. I understood where Evan got his looks and build—from Sam, his dad.

The same brown hair covered his head and identical piercing blue eyes gave his face that same boyish look Evan's had. Though they were easily twenty years apart, you knew exactly who his father was.

Sam put his arm around my shoulders, gazing down at me with a fatherly smile I hadn't seen in a long time.

I smiled, not knowing what else to do, and he rubbed his belly. "It's good to have you here Ami. Jud-bug here makes pancakes to die for."

Caitlin, who was still beside me, loped gracefully past me to put her phone on the counter and then reached for the plates in the cupboard. "Hey, Mom, can I go to Evan's game on Wednesday?"

The thought of seeing Evan play live was thrilling to me. He had told me I could come, when I was feeling better, because he would love for me to watch him.

"No, Caitlin, you have school. You can go to the one on Friday when they play Vancouver." Judy gave a nod to the calendar on the wall of the kitchen near the sliding glass door.

Their backyard caught my attention. Well, the landscaping did. When I got here last night it was dark, and I couldn't see much else other than their white house. Now, it was clear they were very much into gardening and the appearance of their property. The thought made me smile.

My mom was a landscaper. It started with her love for flowers and making floral arrangements for around the house and that turned into friends asking her to design their backyards for them. By the time I was fifteen, she had her own business and loved it.