Delayed Penalty (Crossing the Line, #1)(81)

I wasn't na?ve, and I never have been.

What Ami went through, and her outlook on life paled in comparison to anything I'd ever done. On top of all that shit with her family, she was welcomed to Chicago in a very brutal way, and still, she moved on with the carefree soul and starry eyes I loved.

When I met her grandmother in Oregon, I saw just how much of herself she gave me. She gave me everything when she met me, every little piece of herself that no one else saw. She gave me that unconditionally, too. As if it was her heart's way of saying, "This is the guy, give him everything and see if he can breakaway." I did.

If someone asked me how she changed me, I would tell them my perspective. All that she went through everyday didn't mean anything. There were worse things in life to be bent over. So what if you were stuck in traffic or you locked yourself out of the car? So what if you missed the penalty shot in a playoff game? Didn't happen to me, by the way, I rocked that motherf*cker, but what I was getting at was there were worse things to have happen to you. Ami was what changed that perspective, if I ever had thought that way. Maybe I didn't. But she kept me from ever swinging that way in the first place.

What I realized, what I lived for now, was the bond.

No bond is greater than the ones you'll bleed for.

I would bleed for this girl, and I would lay everything on the line and cross any line to protect her. Saving a life was worth something to me.

This girl came into my life for a reason.

I was meant to save her, and I was meant to fall in love with her, and this girl was the reason my life had gone the directions it had.

Hockey owned me. Good or bad, it knew everything about the sweat and blood I poured into it and gave me gratification in return. It gave me the adrenaline I needed, the joy, the love, and the thrill of victory.

Then I fell in love with Ami Sutton.

That was when I found out there was something else that I enjoyed just as much. Being with a girl, loving a girl, taking care of a girl, and giving myself to a girl. She showed me a side of myself that had been there all along. It was just pushed aside by my love for hockey.

Up until that night that I'd found her, I believed that nothing would come close to the way I felt about hockey. Now I know better.

After the barbeque, Ami and I walked through my childhood neighborhood, hand in hand, laughing at all the crazy shit I did in this city as a kid.

Once again, I was reminded of my time spent on these streets. Fingers numb, noses running, each game back then played with a face off and we didn't stop. Fast paced, we played to play.

Nothing mattered when we were that age. Steady laughter, hacking shots, we would hide ourselves out there until we couldn't see the light of the day anymore. And then we'd play some more until our moms came calling. We were just kids, but you couldn't tell us that. We thought we were the shit.

I laughed when I saw a group of kids playing hockey at the end of the street. Some were wearing Penguins jerseys, and one little guy, who looked to be on defense, was wearing a Blackhawks number five jersey.

"He's adorable," Ami said, laughing when he scored and began his victory dance, similar to the Stanley Cup dance I did.

"Shit has changed since then." We watched the kids on the street pushing the puck around. Ami snuggled against my side, her arm linked in mine. "But to those kids, that street, it remains untouched, unchanged, a link to a time and place that will always remind them of the game."

My arms loosened around her, her head lifted from my shoulder and eased back just far enough that I was able to look down at her. She understood exactly what I meant. Every memory was a link to another time and place, connecting what needed to be connected.





Five on five – This is when both teams have five skaters and one goaltender on the ice and they are considered full strength.



Game 36 – Nashville Predators

Wednesday, December 22, 2010




As the season kicked off and we got into the groove of road trips and nightly games, our lives twisted and turned, intertwining around the Chicago Blackhawks schedule. What remained the same was my relationship with Ami.

Ami was going to counseling now and attending the local college, though she was taking mostly online classes. I had issues with her being out late at night. You could imagine why. She still danced. I still came back from road trips and found her dancing around our living room, in my Junior Hockey jersey she loved to wear. Every time it still got to me.

And for us, we were just us. The same as we always had been. You always heard about these relationships, mostly conveyed in any romance novel or movie out there, where the couple got together and something, maybe their mistakes, tore them apart. Then they broke up. Some realized their mistakes got back together, others don't.

With our relationship, it was formed in the least likely way. The worst way if you asked me, but something pushed us together. She believed it was Andrew. Even after the fight with Dave, nothing could tear us apart. I kept waiting, thinking something would, but it hadn't come yet, and I was perfectly fine with that.

It was quickly approaching the one year mark of that night, and with that brought Christmas. It took me a long time to decide what to get Ami, for the simple fact that nothing would express what she meant to me or what we'd been through—two things I wanted portrayed in any gift I gave her. I wasn't the type of guy to flash around a fancy gift for the simple gesture that I could; it was more about coming from the heart, something I was good at.