Chapter 41 ALI - STORM BREWING #2
“Allegedly, Gary.” Kappy pointed at the old man.
“You don’t believe it?” Gary let out a chuckle.
“Nah.” Kappy straightened his maroon suit jacket. “See, this happened at Centre Ice,” he said, as if that should clear everything up.
“So what?” the guy next to him pushed.
“So, Michael, I own the place,” Kappy said pointedly. “And JP is my best bud. Well, he’d say Colt is his best bud, but we’re all even, I swear.
“Okay, and?” the guy, Michael, pushed.
“And, if JP was gonna do something, he would’ve called me up to cut the cameras.” Kappy stared straight at the camera with a told-ya-so look on his face.
The other guys started laughing.
“C’mon, don’t laugh, you know it’s true,” Kappy said with a grin.
“And you’re forgetting that we grew up at that rink.
We know every single inch of that place.
Even if JP didn’t want to loop me in, he knows where every single camera is set up.
Gotta say, we allegedly committed a crime or two in the day. ”
“What is he saying?” JP clutched his head.
“And we were never stupid enough to get caught,” Kappy said with a proud grin. “You’re telling me that seventeen-year-old-JP knew how to evade those cameras like a pro, but his 33-year-old smarter self got caught red-handed? Nah. I don't buy it. He was set up.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Gary, the old guy at the end of the panel, stuck his hand up, “you’re saying he didn’t commit this crime because he's a better criminal than that?”
The other guys started laughing.
Kappy looked like a deer caught in headlights. “I mean, it sounds bad when you say it like that, but I yeah, I guess so.”
“I’m gonna kill him,” JP whispered matter-of-factly. “I’m really gonna this time.”
“I wanna know what crimes you guys allegedly committed,” the guy next to Kappy said.
Kappy grinned. “I mean, nothing bad. We allegedly took the zam for a couple joyrides in the backlot. And there was that one time we allegedly snuck in and froze out the high school locker room by tripping the sprinkler system. Again, never got caught. Because we know every single inch of that place. I mean, I’ll come clean about this one—when I was about seventeen, my wife and I crashed the zam into the boards.
Smoke and glass everywhere. It was bad. But I deleted all security cam footage before getting caught.
I actually feel bad that our rink manager, Hans—” Kappy looked up at the ceiling— “love you buddy—could never pin it on us.”
Gary slapped the table with a laugh. “I can’t believe this, you’re defending McQuaid by saying you guys were way worse back in the day.”
“Wow, this is great. Real great, Kap,” JP said sarcastically.
“Okay, that’s great and all, Kappy,” the other panelist said, “but wouldn’t you have forgotten the security cam set-up over the years?”
Kappy snorted. “Have you forgotten your home rink, Jake?”
Jake cocked his head to the side. “You know, he’s kind of got a point. Okay, I think I'm jumping ship. McQuaid was set up.”
“Thank you,” Kappy said, slapping the panel.
“Wait, this might’ve been good,” I told JP. “He made a lot of sense. Everyone who grew up in a rink will be on your side.”
JP gave a hesitant nod, but his body was still coiled up with tension.
Unfortunately, despite Kappy’s best effort, things kept snowballing, and JP got a call from his head coach about an hour later.
“What’s going on?” I whispered.
JP changed the call to speakerphone so I could listen in. It only took a minute to realize his coach was suspending him.
“You know this is all bullshit, don’t you?” I blurted out. “Tell him,” I whispered to JP. “Tell him all of it.”
His eyes softened as he sat there silently.
“What’s that, McQuaid?” his coach asked.
“This is Ali. I’m his…” I trailed off, not quite sure what to call myself. “Anyway, this is all bullshit.”
“Uh, McQuaid, you still there?” his coach asked.
JP swallowed hard. “Yeah, I'm still here, Coach.”
I took the phone out of JP’s hand and started talking to his coach, explaining the whole story, while rubbing circles on my stomach.
As soon as I finished with the whole sordid tale, his coach thanked me before hanging up.
“You don’t need this stress,” JP said, placing his large hand on top of mine on my stomach. “I’m sorry.”
“Now you sound like me,” I said with a wry grin.
I reached my palm up to touch his face. He immediately turned and kissed it.
“You have nothing to be sorry for. You didn’t do anything wrong, JP.
If anyone should be sorry it’s me. I’m the one who wanted to stay here a few more days.
” And now we couldn’t go back to Chicago until JP was cleared of everything.
JP shook his head. “We’re not tiptoeing around because of him. In a way, I’m glad this is happening. When this is over, we’ll be done with him once and for all.”
That sounded like a fever dream. Mark Rossi had taken up residence in the back of my mind for far too many years now. I closed my eyes and leaned into him.
The next few days passed in a confusing blur.
The news story about JP kept circulating, and once social media got ahold of it, it went wild.
I thought the memes about the icks were bad, but those could be laughed off.
Now people were creating compilations of JP’s hits and fights, making him look like an angry, violent person.
Each time Johnny called, my heart jumped to my throat, holding onto a shred of hope that he’d say everything was dropped. But that never seemed to be the case.
At the end of the week, Cliff put JP and I to work at Herb’s.
Cliff claimed it was their busy season and he needed the help, but I had a feeling he was just trying to distract us.
While Cliff worked outside in the cold, helping customers in the Christmas tree pasture, he had us manning the cash register, charging people for their trees.
We were untangling extra strings of Christmas lights and sipping on hot chocolates when Johnny’s name flashed across JP’s phone.
JP grimaced. “I don’t even want to answer.” After a beat, he dropped the lights and stood to take the call. I continued untangling the lights, needing to do something with my hands. But as JP spoke on the phone at the back of the store, his eyes flashed to mine.
“Good news?” I whispered.
He rubbed a hand over his jaw and reluctantly shook his head, making my heart plummet. How could things get any worse?
“Okay, whatever,” JP said into the phone. “Any news on the divorce?”
With everything happening, the divorce completely slipped to the background for me, but apparently it hadn’t for JP, and my heart wobbled in my chest. I hated that I had any part in adding to his hurt.
JP’s eyes closed and his jaw flexed. “Yeah, that’s not fucking happening, Johnny.” JP shook his head. “Absolutely not,” he said again before hanging up on him.
“What’d he say?” I asked as he made his way back to the stool beside me.
JP’s arm went to his right peck and he winced. “Rossi was granted a temporary restraining order against me.” He snorted a dry laugh. “He wants to keep me away.”
My eyebrows pulled together in confusion.
“And he’s saying he’ll only sign the divorce papers if he can have a meeting with you face-to-face, a meeting that I won’t be able to attend because of the restraining order.
” He ran his tongue over his teeth as he stared straight ahead.
“He’s getting exactly what he wants.” He dropped his head. “How does he always get what he wants?”
My heart squeezed in my chest. He just looked so discouraged that I could take it. I reached for his large hand and placed it on my stomach. “He doesn’t.”
I could feel a little of his tension bleed out as he heaved a sigh. His face softened as he stared down at my stomach. His throat bobbed with a swallow before his eyes came to mine. “You’re right.” He leaned down to kiss my head and lingered against me for a second. “Thank you, baby.”
“JP, I think—”
The door chimed, signaling customers walking into the shop. JP and I both straightened up and fixed fake smiles on our faces while we gave directions to a young family.
After cashing them out, we went back to untangling the Christmas lights, but I kept trying to read JP’s face.
He had bags under his eyes from losing sleep, making him look permanently weary, and I noticed he was back to taking painkillers for his shoulder.
He needed to get back to Chicago. He needed his team's physical therapist. He needed his reputation back, his life back. He was stuck facing the consequences from my past actions. It wasn’t fair, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could sit back and watch it happen.
When we laid down in bed that night, I pulled the quilt up to my chin and turned to face his chest. “I think I should talk to him.”
His body stiffened. “Absolutely not.”
“JP, if that’s the only way he’ll stop, then I think—”
“We’ll find another way, I promise. You do not need to do that.”
Silence settled around us.
“I think I do, though,” I said quietly. “I think I need to see this to the end.”
“He could go after you, Ali.”
But I can’t keep watching him go after you, I mentally argued.
JP tipped my chin up. Even in the dark, I could see the kindness in his eyes. “I won’t be able to take it if he does anything to you. Please don’t go near him. Please, Ali. Promise me?”
“Okay, but…” I sucked in a shaky breath. “If it comes down to it, I—”
“No, baby.” His hand trailed over my hair.
“I’ll throw everything away. I don’t care about any of it.
I don’t care if I ever play hockey again.
I don’t care if they slap me with every fine in the book.
I only care about our family. I need you, Ali.
I need you and our babies safe. I just…” He licked his lips. “That’s my only goal, okay?”
A burning lump formed in my throat, threatening to cut off my voice. “But I don't want you to lose hockey or anything else,” I forced out.
“Then I won’t. We will figure this out. Just give it a little more time, all right?”
I nodded, but I knew this wasn’t fair.
I was the one responsible for bringing Mark into our lives, so I was responsible for shutting him out of it as well.
I was the one who refused to report Mark all those years ago when JP begged me to.
And I was the one who stayed married to him on paper because I was too scared to argue with him or face him again.
If I were being honest with myself, I’d admit that I didn’t see the point in fighting for the divorce because I thought I wasn’t allowed to move on.
I thought I didn’t deserve to. And deep down, I was scared to even try for the kind of life I always wanted, so it was easier to keep running.
But I wasn’t scared anymore.
And I was done running.
I would fight for our happy ending, even if it was the last thing I did.
I was going to the rink tomorrow.