Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
Sawyer
For the next two days, I keep myself busy with work.
Radek and Auston asked if I’d train them, too, and I agreed to work with them during the offseason.
Since I wasn’t sure what was going to happen with Logan’s trade, I didn’t want to commit to more.
And I still need to have my pro bono and low-income clients in the roster at an interval that keeps them on their paths to recovery.
Logan and I have texted and spoken on the phone, but we haven’t seen each other in person.
Whatever deal he’s trying to work out has required long hours from him and his agent, and from what Logan’s told me, a lot of negotiation at a bunch of levels.
Last I spoke to him, the deal still wasn’t done or even a certainty.
Some of the hockey news sites are reporting Logan’s trade to Oregon as though it’s happened or is imminent, which is making me nervous. But I’m trying not to let the trade gossip get to me. In the end, Logan will be wherever Logan will be, and I might have to make some hard choices.
The only thing that gives me hope is that I know Dalton is out of every sphere of influence, and I’ve heard through the family grapevine that King Alexander is back in the mix with the team.
I’ve just finished with my last client of the day, and Radek is supposed to be showing up in half an hour for a training session when my phone starts to buzz with a call.
“Love of my life,” Logan says, “can you meet me at the arena in thirty minutes?” There’s a buoyancy to his voice that immediately lifts my spirits.
“Radek’s coming for a session. Can I meet you a bit later?”
Logan’s phone is muffled for a minute.
“I’m going to have to cancel,” Radek says into Logan’s phone. “Something has come up.”
I can’t help a little laugh. “Okay.”
“The arena?” Logan says. “Thirty minutes?”
“Are you all practicing?” I ask.
Logan sighs. “Doc, can you be here in thirty minutes?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’ll tell you everything in person.”
Then he’s gone before I get a chance to ask any more questions.
When I arrive, there’s only one car in the parking lot—Logan’s. At the door, I’m surprised to find it unlocked, but there’s likely still security or a cleaning crew somewhere in the building.
“Logan?” I call into the empty arena.
“Hey!” He pops up behind the team bench. “Come here.”
I make my way down the stairs and to the secret side door of the bench. It’s unlocked, and I let myself in where Logan’s lacing up skates.
“I came to watch you skate?” I ask in disbelief.
“I haven’t seen you in two days, so I needed to see your face.” He rises and gives me a quick kiss. “And it’s about time you learned how to skate.”
“Oh no,” I say with a laugh. “I have two left feet on skates.”
Logan holds up the skates he has beside him. “Shame. These are a left and right.”
“Very funny.”
“Come on,” he says, indicating that I need to sit down. “I’ll lace you up.”
“Who’s going to be my physiotherapist when I break on the ice?”
“Me,” he says, glancing at me while his fingers make quick work of the laces. “I’m the one who takes care of you. Which also means you’re not going to break yourself on the ice. I’ll keep you out of harm’s way. Maybe you haven’t heard, but I’m pretty good on skates.”
“I heard you need a stick in your hands to be effective.”
“I am good with my stick.” He winks at me.
“You’re in a very good mood,” I say as he laces my second skate.
“I am,” he agrees. “I love winning.”
Hope rises into my throat, but since he didn’t tell me what winning would look like, it’s hard to gauge how excited I should be. “Are you going to tell me?”
“Once we’re on the ice. It’s important that you learn how to skate.”
“Why now?” I ask with a laugh. “All season you could have tried to get me out here.”
“I did suggest it, but you kept giving me the ‘someday’ runaround. Today’s the day. One we’ll remember.”
He steps out onto the ice, and he turns to offer his hand.
“I’m going to need two of those,” I say as I lift my foot and place it onto the ice, rather than gliding out like I’ve seen him do so many times.
“I don’t know that this will be an immediate love for me.
” My whole body is tense as he takes my second hand and skates backward, pulling me along with him.
“I’ve got lots of time to teach you.”
“Oh my god. Can you stop teasing me?” I say, but I can’t smack him or stomp my foot in annoyance. “I need to know what’s going on.”
“I won’t bury the headline,” he says.
And I want to tell him it’s bury the lede, but I need him to spill the secrets he’s been keeping.
“I’m staying in Bellerive for the foreseeable future.”
I tug on his hands, and I glide straight into his arms, grasping onto him for dear life out of joy and absolute terror. “How?” I ask, framing his face while he keeps us moving.
“A lot of negotiating and a sympathetic King Alexander,” he says. “I took a pay cut—a pretty big one—and renegotiated a multiyear contract that gives the team the room to get good players for a second and third line that should help our overall performance.”
I try to search his expression, even as he keeps us moving across the ice. “You don’t care about the money?” He’s so careful with what he spends. “What about your career? Will it suffer here? Are you giving up too much?”
“I get to play. I get you. That’s all I really want.
You beside me while we build a life and a family together.
Us, investing in this island and the people here.
That’s what I want, and that’s what I’m getting.
” He takes a deep breath. “Maybe it’s all happening earlier than I thought I wanted, but I never knew a love that feels as big, as important, as the one I have with you could be mine.
I never saw you coming, but there was no way I could let you pass me by.
” He glides us to a stop, and then he smooths down my hair and kisses my forehead.
“At the end of my hockey career, I wanted a life worth living beyond the rink, and I know I’ll have that with you.
How lucky am I that I get this relationship so early and that I know its value with such certainty? ”
“God, I love you. How did we end up here?” I can’t help the touch of awe in my voice. It seems like a lifetime ago that I was watching game tape and interviews of Logan and trying to get a handle of what kind of player he was, what kind of person.
“We started at this arena,” he says. He lets go of me to reach into his pocket.
“My two loves.” He flips open a tiny box with one hand, while his other keeps me steady.
“I’d get on one knee, but I’d be afraid you’d fall, and I gotta start this life with you by keeping my promises.
Doctor Sawyer Tucker, will you marry me? ”
I cover my face with my hands, a sob bursting forth before I throw my arms around his neck and bury my face in his chest.
“Now?” I choke out. “You want to marry me now?”
“Name the time and the place and I’ll be there. I’m committed to this life with you. Not a single doubt in my mind. You’re my present and my future, and our relationship is the most important thing in my life.”
“Yes,” I say, wiping my face and wobbling on my skates. “Yes.”
He holds the box for me to take the ring. “You get the ring while I hold you. I didn’t think this through well.” He lets out a self-conscious chuckle.
But he did. This arena has changed my life, and while it might be his favorite place to be, it’s quickly become mine too. Because I get to see him do what he loves, experience the joy it brings him, see the body and its mechanics in a whole new light.
If anyone had ever asked me where I wanted to be proposed to, I never would have said a hockey rink.
But I also wouldn’t have thought my perfect partner would be ten years younger than me, a professional athlete, or a man who’d put me above everything and everyone else.
There was no way for me to know he was coming or that we were even possible.
We’re an example of how the world works in strange and fabulous ways.
That sometimes it takes years for all the threads of a life to be sewn together in a pattern that finally makes sense, where you can see each stitch, but also the whole mosaic of squares that make up the quilt of your life.
And I’m so grateful that the new squares we’ll be sewing onto our life quilts will be done together—side by side. The greatest gift.
“Are you really going to teach me how to skate?” I ask after I’ve slid the square cut diamond ring onto my finger.
“Can’t have the mother of my children sitting on the sidelines,” he says. “I want you right beside me, part of the action.”
It’s exactly where I want to be, too, and when I rise up to kiss him, I almost slip, my feet shooting out behind me. True to his words, he tightens his arms around me, keeping me close, keeping me steady before drawing me into a kiss.
“Today’s just the start,” he says. “I never knew life could be so good.”