Chapter Eight
"HELLO, LAINA. I'M CAMILLA, and this is my husband, Trey. It's so nice to finally meet you."
She never imagined she'd find out like this.
Camilla drew her to the couch, which had a view of the rink below that stole her breath.
The Ericsson Suite — named after Camilla's late father, who had built the Waymakers from the ground up — was perched above the ice like a private balcony at the edge of a dream.
Floor-to-ceiling glass. Leather seating that curved around a mahogany bar.
Screens on every wall showing pre-game analysis and player interviews.
A catering spread that could have fed her entire kindergarten class and their parents.
Below them, The Res was coming alive. Playoffs night, and the arena was already thrumming an hour before puck drop.
The ice gleamed under the lights, freshly resurfaced, and the crew was setting up the ceremonial carpet at center ice.
Fans were filing in through every entrance, a river of teal and silver jerseys, and the hum of twenty thousand voices was building into something that vibrated through the glass.
Laina had sat in this building dozens of times. But she had never seen it from here. From up here, the rink looked like a jewel, and the crowd looked like a living thing, and the energy was something she could feel in her chest.
It was Laina's first time inside a VIP suite, but even she knew this was no ordinary one.
This was the suite reserved exclusively for the Flints' use, the one where team owners and league officials and the occasional head of state watched from behind bulletproof glass with a private elevator and a dedicated security detail standing discreetly outside the door.
But for Laina, who only knew just enough about hockey and only watched the games for her husband alone...
"I'm sorry for causing trouble like this."
The use of VIP suites, from what she understood, was a marketing strategy in itself, and it was why they were often photographed overflowing with partying A-listers.
This was especially true on a playoffs night like this, and so, for Laina to be alone with the couple, it had to have cost them something.
Camilla squeezed her hand. "It's no trouble at all, Laina. I promise."
"Would you like anything to drink?" her husband asked.
She quickly shook her head. "I'm fine." Her stomach had tied itself into knots, and she had a feeling she'd simply throw up anything she tried to swallow.
Camilla tried her best not to be obvious as she checked the time. Ten minutes. She just had to make sure that they kept Troy's wife here for ten minutes, and then everything would be okay.
"Is everything okay?" Laina asked awkwardly.
Camilla knew right away her nervousness must have shown, but before she could even ask for help, Trey was already smoothing things over, saying, "My wife still doesn't believe I've completely changed."
Laina's eyes widened. "Oh?"
"I'm not sure if your husband has ever spoken to you about this, but I used to be jealous of him."
Laina could only shake her head. This was news to her indeed.
"I thought he had a thing for Camilla."
Oh.
Oh.
Laina smiled weakly. "I see."
"It's fine," Trey said lazily. "You can say it to me."
"Oh, I would never..."
Camilla was confused. "Say what?"
"Troy's wife is just as kind as you are, sweetheart. She can't find it in herself to say that was the dumbest thing she had ever heard—"
Laina choked back a laugh, but since she didn't deny it, Camilla started laughing, too, and that was how Laina ended up sharing, shyly at first, about how Troy had always talked about Camilla like she was a little sister to him and so Laina herself had never once felt jealous about Camilla.
The next ten minutes went by fast, and it was as if they had always been friends.
Those ten minutes were also the first time that she had managed to stop overthinking about Troy, and of course she knew...
"Thank you," Laina said simply.
That was no accident at all. She might still not understand why Troy wanted her to be here, but she was pretty sure her husband had asked the couple to look after her.
"There's nothing to thank us for. We're really delighted to finally get to know you, and..." Camilla stopped speaking when she heard the PA system in the stadium crackle to life.
It was time.
The crowd erupted. A roar that started low and built until it shook the glass in the suite, and Laina's head whipped toward the window.
Troy Barrymore was walking out of the tunnel.
Not in a jersey. Not in skates. He was in a dark suit, his shoulders cutting a line through the spotlight that tracked him across the ice, and the noise — the noise — was like nothing Laina had ever heard from this building.
Twenty thousand people on their feet.
Because in this arena, no one cared about the rumors. No one cared about the headlines or the interview or the scandal. In The Res, Troy Barrymore was a hero. Always had been. Always would be.
The spotlight followed him to an elevated platform near the commentators' booth, where two men were already seated behind a desk.
Old Goldie — the gravelly-voiced legend who had called Waymakers games for three decades — and his partner Fleming, who had been trying to get a word in edgewise for most of those thirty years.
The crowd roared again as Troy took his seat between them.
"Welcome back, Troy."
"Thanks, man."
Laina couldn't believe what she was seeing and hearing. Troy was giving a live interview in The Res? She turned to Camilla and Trey, her eyes wide. "What's happening?" she whispered.
Trey's tone was gentle. "I believe Troy made you a promise."
A promise? What promise?
"He's fixing things like a good husband would do."
And right on cue, Fleming's question was the perfect follow-up.
"So what brings you here?"
Laina found herself fighting back tears once again as she looked back at the commentator's platform, which was now also being broadcast on the jumbotron above the ice. Troy's face, forty feet tall, looking directly into the camera.
"I thought I'd clear up a few things," Troy had answered in a gruff voice.
"Ah." Old Goldie nodded understandingly. "Marriage trouble."
The crowd laughed. Old Goldie, blunt as always.
"I've always thought my personal life was my business alone."
"Not when you look that pretty, I don't think so."
The comment from Old Goldie had Camilla wincing, but when she took a peek at Troy's wife, she was relieved to see that the words just had Laina laughing along with the crowd.
"It was why, seven years ago, I kept my marriage a secret."
And to Laina's shock — the camera swung to the Ericsson Suite, and her face appeared on the jumbotron. Right there. In real time. Forty feet tall, with her wide eyes and her trembling mouth, and twenty thousand people looking up at her.
Oh no no no no!
She could feel herself starting to panic. Her hands gripped the edge of the couch, and her first instinct was to duck, to hide, to make herself invisible the way she had always made herself invisible—
"Is that Mrs. Barrymore?" Fleming was asking with a smile.
This wasn't right. Her presence might cause trouble. But just when she was about to jerk to her feet—
"That's her." Two words. But spoken with such quiet pride that her heart...
It just started beating for all the right reasons again, and she could only think...
I love him.
I love you.
So, so much.
It was that love which pushed all the panic away, and she was able to stay in her seat and remember that she had given him her word.
I love you.
I will never leave you again.
"I wanted to keep her to myself. To keep her safe.
I mean, don't get me wrong. This game, I love it.
The management, my team, the fans of the Waymakers.
It's all good. But that's the good side.
And we know in this world, every business has its ugly side, and that's what I wanted to protect her from.
" Troy's jaw clenched. "But in my effort to keep her a secret, while focusing all of my energies on winning one more championship for the Waymakers, I didn't realize what all of that was doing to our marriage. "
Laina started shaking in her seat as she covered her mouth, unable to believe what she was seeing. Because while Troy had been speaking, the jumbotron had started playing footage from all the years...all of them, oh God.
Footage of her.
In Section 308, Row 14. Season after season.
Her face caught by the arena's security cameras in a crowd of thousands.
Cheering with the rest of the fans every time he scored a goal, leaping to her feet with her fists clenched.
Protesting alongside them whenever he was fouled, her small voice lost in the roar but her face fierce and furious.
And that one time — the time she had the biggest scare in her life, when Troy had taken a devastating hit and had to be rushed out on a stretcher — the cameras had caught her breaking down completely, her hands over her face, her shoulders shaking, a stranger in the next seat putting a hand on her back because she looked like she might collapse.
All those years. All those games. And he'd never known she was there.
"My wife is more a Waymakers fan than a hockey fan, if you know what I mean?"
Old Goldie grinned. "I believe many of us married folks understand what you're saying."
"I never wanted her to feel pressured to watch my games. I thought I was being a good husband, not pressuring her. What I didn't realize was that my wife...she wants to be there for me. And found a way to be there for me even if I didn't know it."
The whole crowd went aww, and this had her laughing just a little, but she was also finding it harder not to cry.
"I got a lot of things wrong about my wife. I thought, by hiding her away, and not letting the world know about her, I was keeping her safe. But because I spent more time away from her than with her, I wasn't really by her side when it mattered."
"Are we talking about the other man?"
Laina paled at Old Goldie's question, but this only had Troy shaking his head.
"Oscar's a good man. I'll tell you more about him later, but right now, I'm talking about someone else. Or to be more accurate, I'm talking about people I made the mistake of trusting."
Laina's heart was pounding harder and faster than ever, but this time for a completely different reason.
"Laina?"
She turned to Camilla even though her mind was still lost in the past. Because those people that Troy mentioned...
"Do you know who Troy's talking about?"
"I..."
"Are they Troy's relatives?"
Laina bit her lip hard.
"They were the ones who made you believe all these years that Troy had changed his mind about you, but he was just too nice to ask for a divorce. Am I right?"
Laina couldn't speak. She just felt so, so foolish. All these years, Troy's relatives had been so nice to her, and she just...she just accepted that they meant well every time they told her things.
You're so lucky to have Troy!
WAGs play an important role when it comes to building their husbands' social capital outside sports, but Troy is obviously intent on spoiling you.
Troy is a very responsible man. Don't you ever worry about him leaving you. Even if he falls out of love with you or anything, he'll always take care of you.
"These people..."
Troy was talking again, and he was looking straight at the camera—
"They made my wife believe that she wasn't enough for me."
Like he wanted Laina to know he was looking at her.
"They made her believe that I had sacrificed the better years of my life when I married her."
And it was Laina he was talking to.
"They made her think, when I finally retired, the least she could do for me was to ask for a divorce."
There was complete silence in The Res as Troy said this. Twenty thousand people, utterly still. And when he spoke again—
"I have always loved my wife. But I didn't care for her the way I should have. I took her for granted without realizing it. And that's how those people got to her."
His voice had gone hollow, in a way that no Waymakers fan had ever heard the great Troy Barrymore speak, and it was that sound...
It was that sound that had Laina no longer able to hold back her tears.
"When she walked out on our marriage, all I could think of was my own pain. It was only today, when I finally got to the truth, it's only now that I'm beginning to comprehend just how much it cost her to do that."
Laina couldn't stop crying.
All this time, oh God...
All this time...
"Just days ago, one of those people...called my wife again.
They made her believe that I had confided in her.
But I didn't. What they knew was the product of hiring someone to tail my every move.
And it was by using this knowledge that they convinced my wife when they told her I had regretted trying to get back together with her, and that was why when the reporters got to my wife outside her workplace... "
The way understanding had dawned on Old Goldie and Fleming's faces was pretty much how the truth dawned on the crowd.
"As for the rest..." Troy stood up, and the spotlight swung to the tunnel, where Oscar came walking out onto the ice. Troy walked to meet him and gave Oscar a pat on the back that almost had the other man flying, but the two men were grinning, and caught on mic was Troy saying, "Thank you."
"My pleasure, man. Anything for you and Laina."
Troy looked back to Old Goldie. "Oscar's going to explain the rest."
He didn't wait for the commentators to reply.
He was already walking as fast as he could across the ice and into the tunnel.
All he wanted was to get to his wife, and he was impatiently hitting the Up button on the elevator, blind to the reporters taking countless photos of him while being smart enough to give him space.
The doors opened, but he didn't have a chance to get in...
Because his wife was already flying out and straight into his arms.
"I love you, Troy."
That was all he had to hear, his arms closing tightly around her, and his eyes squeezing shut in relief because this...
This was the answer to the first prayer he had ever prayed in his life.