4. Riley
Riley
The bathroom fan hummed above Riley as she sat on the edge of the porcelain sink, the chill seeping through her pajama shorts.
Graham had already left for morning skate.
His side of the suite had gone quiet before sunrise, leaving her alone with the sour aftermath of throwing up and the small digital pregnancy test balanced between her fingers.
The screen still showed its waiting symbol.
“Come on,” she whispered.
She rubbed her thumb over the plastic casing again.
She had bought the test downstairs after barely making it through the hotel lobby without throwing up again, telling herself she was ruling out something ridiculous.
Stress made people nauseous. Lack of sleep made people nauseous.
Spending half the night staring at a ceiling after your husband walked out of an argument probably did plenty of damage too.
The symbol vanished.
Black letters began forming across the LCD.
“Pregnant.”
Riley stopped rubbing the casing.
For several seconds, she sat completely still, listening to the steady hum of the fan. She read the word once. Then again. Her thumb brushed the edge of the screen as though the digital letters might wipe away and reveal some stupid malfunction.
They stayed exactly where they were.
A laugh slipped out of her before she could stop it. Riley covered her mouth, then looked toward the mirror over the sink. Her own reflection stared back with sleep-tangled hair and damp eyes, nothing like the polished women the franchise planted beside Graham for photographs.
None of that mattered now.
“I belong to you, Riley. Every part that matters.”
His voice came back with the rough certainty of that freezing minor-league locker room, long before sponsor dinners and media handlers had learned how to divide his attention into scheduled pieces.
Riley looked down at the test.
Maybe this was what pulled him back.
Not another fight. Not another demand that he stop treating their marriage like something that could be penciled in after a board dinner. This was bigger than the noise surrounding him. Bigger than Nicolle, the apparel launch, the cameras, all of it.
They were having a baby.
She eased one hand over her stomach and wiped a tear from her cheek.
“We take it all back tonight.”
The words sounded strange in the tiled room, too hopeful after the way yesterday had ended. Riley looked at herself again and refused to let the doubt settle.
“It’s just going to be the three of us from now on. He’s going to be so happy.”
Her phone sat on the bathroom counter.
For one reckless moment, she reached toward it.
Graham would be dressing for morning skate by now, probably surrounded by trainers and coaches, his head already buried in Game 7. Calling would mean telling him through a locker-room door or while somebody shouted that he had thirty seconds before a meeting.
No.
He deserved to hear this in person.
Riley set the test beside the faucet and pulled her purse closer. The zipper snagged near one corner. She worked it free, opened the bag, then picked the test up again and tucked it beneath her wallet where nobody would find it by accident.
She zipped the bag closed.
Tonight, after the game, she would get down to the ice. She would wait until the Cup was in his hands and the season had finally stopped demanding pieces of him. Then she would tell him what they had made together before the whole world got so loud.
Forget the sponsors. Forget the brand. We are the only thing he actually needs.
Tonight, she would tell him on the ice.
The crowd erupted at the final horn.
It blared over the roar pouring down from the stands, and Riley pushed through the tunnel traffic with her VIP credential bouncing against her chest. The air smelled sharply of beer, sweat, and melting ice.
Somewhere beyond the concrete passage, Graham had just won the Stanley Cup, and the pregnancy test remained sealed inside her purse.
She was not waiting upstairs for somebody with a clipboard to decide when a wife was permitted to see her husband.
A security guard stepped into the narrow lane before the ice entrance. “Ma’am, this section is closed. Family staging is upstairs.”
“Then show me the family entrance to the ice.”
“There isn’t one through this tunnel.”
Riley pointed at the credential hanging from her neck. “This pass got me through three checkpoints already. I’m going to the boards.”
The guard glanced past her as camera operators pushed equipment toward the rink. “You can stand at the rail, but this lane has to stay open.”
“That works for me.”
She slipped past him before the crowd behind her could choke the passage again.
The roar grew harsher near the rink, bouncing off concrete and rattling the metal fixtures along the walls.
Through the scratched plexiglass, players flooded the ice while sticks, gloves, and helmets disappeared beneath bodies in team colors.
There you are.
Graham moved somewhere inside that celebration.
Riley pressed farther toward the boards.
A PR handler cut across her path, blocking her with an outstretched arm. “Your credential gets you to the rail. It does not clear the broadcast lane.”
“Then the rail is where I’m staying.”
“We need this area open.”
“I’m not standing in your lane.”
A nearby guard approached them and pointed toward a narrow pocket behind the boards. “Stay behind the glass and keep the gate clear.”
Riley stepped into the space without taking her attention off the ice. “Fine. I’m waiting for my husband.”
The handler reached for her arm.
“Hey. Step away from the barrier. ESPN needs this sightline clear.”
He grabbed her just above the elbow.
Riley tore her arm free and turned on him. “I am his wife. These credentials mean you do not get to put your hands on me, and I am not moving.”
The handler stared at the ice, then back at her. “The directors want a clean visual when Graham comes through. You’re standing inside the shot.”
“Move the camera.”
“That isn’t how this works.”
Riley planted both hands on the upper edge of the boards. The plexiglass shook against her fingers as another surge of cheers rolled through the building.
The handler leaned closer. “They specifically need the Graham-and-Nicolle visual unobstructed.”
For a moment, Riley only stared at him.
Of course they did.
The same machine that had shoved Nicolle into the media pen now wanted to stage the championship before Graham had even finished celebrating it.
Riley tightened her hold on the barrier.
“To hell with your frame. Back off.”
The handler opened his mouth, but the crowd erupted again, swallowing whatever answer came next. Riley turned toward the rink and searched past the scratches in the glass.
Tonight was not about Nicolle.
It was not about apparel executives, broadcast schedules, or whatever manufactured story somebody planned to sell by morning.
I have something real to tell you.
A cluster of players broke apart near center ice.
Graham skated toward the benches.
He hoisted the Cup above his head in a storm of camera flashes, the glare so bright Riley had to blink. The roar of the crowd vibrated through the plexiglass in endless bursts, but she stayed where she was, both hands resting on the boards while his teammates swarmed him.
This was the moment they had talked about back when ten dollars for a skate sharpening had meant groceries.
This was supposed to belong to them too.
“Graham!”
Her voice vanished into the celebration. Riley leaned closer to the glass as he passed the Cup to another player and moved toward the bench area, his jersey damp and his hair flattened by the helmet he had already tossed aside.
Look over here.
The pregnancy test waited inside her purse. All day she had guarded the secret, refusing to reduce it to a phone call between meetings or relay it through some team assistant who would schedule five minutes of private time on Graham’s behalf.
He came closer.
“Graham!”
He turned toward her.
Riley’s smile broke across her face before she could contain it. He glanced toward her through the scratched barrier, his attention still split by the crowd around him. She lifted one hand from the boards and waved.
“Graham! Please, just face me! I have massive news!”
He looked straight at her.
Surely that was enough. Surely he would skate to the gate, pull her through, and ask why she looked ready to cry on the greatest night of his career.
Instead, Graham held up a finger.
Riley stopped waving.
He mouthed a command she could read even through the glass.
Not yet. Stay right there.
She lowered her hand back to the boards.
For a moment, she remained exactly where he had told her to stand, staring at his back as he turned toward center ice again. He had noticed her. That was the part she couldn’t dismiss. He had met her eyes, understood that she needed him, and chosen to postpone her anyway.
The secret she was carrying suddenly felt absurd from behind the plastic.
A woman stepped onto the ice in designer cleats.
Nicolle.
She moved into Graham’s path with both arms open, smiling toward the photographers. “An incredible finish! You were completely untouchable on that ice!”
Graham caught her before the cleats could slip.
“That edge was razor-sharp tonight! Flawless game!”
They laughed together as photographers crowded closer.
Riley put her palm back against the glass and stayed exactly where Graham had told her to wait. The cameras flashed around them.
Graham drifted back toward center ice. A trainer skated across his path and tossed him a bundle of gray wool, which Graham caught against his pads.
Riley recognized the sweater before he opened it.
The patched elbow. The uneven cuff she had repaired after his first minor-league road trip. The crooked section near the hem where she had lost feeling in two fingers and refused to stop knitting because the apartment heater had died again.
“I want you remembering exactly who was here when we had nothing.”
Graham had said that years ago with the sweater bunched in his hands.