Pull Me Through

Three weeks into the regular season and we're set to face the Vancouver Canucks at the Bell Centre. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't both nervous and excited about facing my former team. After being traded twice in the span of three months, I'd been given a second chance with an organization that was considered to be one of the front runners for the Stanley Cup. Being passed around from team to team had delivered a serious blow to my confidence; completely stripping it away and flushing it down the toilet and leaving me second guessing every move I made on and off the ice. There were changes that needed to be made. Techniques and behaviours that had needed to be altered before I found myself spending the rest of my career playing for farm teams. While both the Canadiens and the Ducks had just given up and sent me packing, the Canucks had willingly taken me on and had busted their asses to transform me into the player they knew I had the potential to be. Someone that was worth more than just ridiculous antics on the ice and mocking the opposition. No one had believed in my abilities once I'd gotten out of junior A. I'd become a troll the second I'd slipped on the Canadiens sweater and it had been a role that I'd both grown into it and felt at ease in. Being that way had been my comfort zone. Every team had a guy that was able to easily and successfully get under the skin of opposing players, and it had seemed as if I'd been practically born for the role. I had never minded being the 'player that everyone loves to hate'. The taunts from the fans and the chirping for the other teams never bothered me. I viewed the hate as just another day at the office.

But then it became all I was good for. People only knew me as a troll. I'd grown too comfortable in the role and I didn't know how to get myself out of it. By the time that happened, my behaviour had gotten out of control and I didn't know how to break out of the mould. Even my own teammates and organization grew tired of my shit and I was sent to Anaheim. I had hated it there. I couldn't even pretend to enjoy playing for the Ducks. I couldn't stand my teammates or the fans or the stupid goddamn gimmicks they came up with for charity events. Everything felt strange...foreign...and there was nothing anyone could say or do to make me feel as if I was part of the Ducks 'family'. I wanted the hell out of there the second my plane touched down in California; so miserable and bitter that I couldn't even hide the fact I didn't really want to be there. After that my confidence died entirely. I no longer enjoyed going to the rink. A sport I'd loved since I was a child and I'd once considered myself blessed to be playing professionally, became nothing more than a burden. I had never once discussed my dislike of the place; never mentioning how much I hated the circus like surroundings or the way the vast majority of my teammates wandered around thinking they were rock stars. But my displeasure and desire to be somewhere else...anywhere else...must have been more than evident. I'd never even gotten a chance to get remotely settled and I was being sent to Vancouver.

It had been the change of pace and scenery that I'd needed. A team that was run like a well oiled machine from top to bottom and stocked full of young, incredible talent. I'd certainly been out of my league talent wise. Even the guys on the third and fourth lines seemed light years ahead of me when it came to skills. But despite my reputation within the league, I'd been welcomed into the fold. Rivalries and issues I'd had while playing against some of the guys were forgotten about. Hatches were buried and grudges tossed away and both my new teammates and the coaches and management staff invested a lot of time and energy into turning me into the player they knew I could be. That I knew I was capable of being. Trolling was acceptable under certain circumstances and up to certain levels. I had to learn the proper times for the behaviour and what boundaries not to cross.

Things had gone well. There were still shades of the old Max hanging around but I wasn't as much of an on ice nuisance as I once had been. We'd had an extremely good run. Coming within one win of capturing hockey's Holy Grail and then having our hopes and dreams so cruelly dashed. The playoffs had been a true testament to grit and determination. A huge chunk of our extremely talented -and highly priced- core had fallen victim to injuries; either out of the line up entirely or operating at less than fifty percent. It had been up to the third and fourth liners -mostly goons and grinders- to step up and keep the ship afloat. We'd really come together; forming a united front both on and off the ice. Shedding our fair share of blood, sweat and even tears together. And although the off ice drama had threatened to throw a monkey wrench into our quest for Lord Stanley's fabled mug, we'd somehow managed to hold it all together. In the dressing room battle lines had been clearly drawn; those that vehemently protected Kes, a handful that threw their support behind me, and others that tried to stay neutral. Yet on the ice we'd functioned as a cohesive unit.

One that unfortunately succumb to injuries and enormous pressure and fell painfully short of the ultimate prize.

There's some guys I miss. Friendships I'd made that had withstood all the drama and the bullshit. There's others that I loathe with a ferocious intensity. Whose faces I'd love to bury my fist in. And I'm pretty sure that they feel the same way about me. I'm prepared for it: the retaliation spawned from some of the Canucks' overwhelming desires to protect Kes' honour. It doesn't matter that he'd been the ring leader of 'the plan'. That he'd bullied Sammie into going along with his sick and twisted bullshit and had used the lingering feelings he knew she still had for him and her guilt over giving up Chace against her. It doesn't seem to sway their misplaced senses of loyalty that he'd not only admitted to plotting the entire thing and then scaring her into keeping up her end of the bargain when he realized she was starting to have legit feelings for me. And they don't seem to give a fuck that years before he'd suckered in with promises of always and forever and then had kicked her to the curb -while pregnant- when he'd been busted by his wife. The guy has no remorse. No sense of guilt. He admitted to his wrong doings but has never apologized for them. Yet he's put up on some goddamn pedestal and treated as some kind of hero. Worship the ground he walks on.

It doesn't matter that I was the one true victim out of the entire thing. Sammie accepts her role. She knows what she did was wrong and she's ashamed of herself for getting wrapped up in Kes' fucked up little world and not having the strength to break free of it when she had the chance. And that's something she's probably going to struggle with for a hell of a long time. If I hadn't have accepted her apologies, we wouldn't be where we are right now. If I wasn't willing to forgive her and get past what had happened, I would never have suggested we get married and we wouldn't be starting a family. What I'd done -cheating on Bianca in the first place instead of just breaking things off- was wrong. I've never denied that. But I can't help but bust out the victim card and feel as if what Kes had done to me is even worse.

Whatever happens, happens. If Kes and his buddies view me as the enemy for taking Sammie away from him, so be it. I know the truth behind everything went down. I lived it. Not them. And my new teammates have already assured me that they have my back. That there isn't going to be any retaliatory bullshit going down on their watch.

“Don't worry. I might be retired, but I still have your back,” Big Georges had told me on the phone only two nights ago. After Sammie had taken it upon herself to call him because she was stressed about the game and worried that something horrible was going to happen to. “Any shit goes down, and I'm not against hunting him down and breaking every bone in his body. I can even make it look like an accident.”

Although he'd been joking about the last past, it was still harsh words from someone that's become a champion of love, peace and equality since he'd hung up his skates. After spending years filling a role he didn't necessarily want and being encouraged to bash peoples' skulls in to earn his pay cheque, he's become quite the advocate of eliminating senseless violence from the league. While you can either choose to agree or disagree with what he has to say, there's no denying that he's trying to change the game -and the world for that matter- one tiny step at a time.

****

“God...I feel so fat...” Sammie complains as she waddles -yes, waddles, there's just no other appropriate term to describe it- into our bedroom.

While we face the Canucks in two nights time, right now there's more pressing issues at hand; a black tie affair entitled 'Star Light, Star Bright' at the Montreal Convention Centre. Attended by members of the sporting community, politicians and philanthropists and Quebec based celebrities, it's one of the highlights on the Canadiens' jam packed social calendar. Normal every day people not only shell out big money to rub elbows with the famous, but drop enormous amounts of cash on the various autographed memorabilia and other high priced items at a silent auction.

“I'm a double wide,” she laments, grimacing as she checks her reflection in one of the full length mirrors that line the wall to wall wardrobe cabinets. “Bigger than a double wide. A triple wide. Quadruple, even. Is there such a thing?”

Two days removed from her seventh month and she's already had enough. The insomnia is the relentless and the heartburn and backaches insistent and she can not longer see her feet, let alone tie her shoes or get into the bathtub by herself. To me she's the most incredible woman in the world. Sexier and more beautiful than I ever thought she could possibly become. Normally she's a knock out. Now...pregnant with my child and her face constantly glowing and her curves simply out of control...she's off the charts. No guy deserves to be this lucky.

Especially someone like me.

“You're beautiful,” I both praise and reassure her, as she nervously adjusts the handful of crystal topped hair pins that are expertly holding her dark tresses in an elegant sweep. She's stunning. Barely any makeup required and her pregnant belly accentuated by the empire waist of her evening gown; silver satin that shimmers in the light and boasts a descending row -smallest to largest- of rhinestone, aquamarine and sapphire star shaped clasps that start at the back of her neck and end at the small of her back. “So beautiful...” I breathe, finding myself in absolute awe of her. I must have done something very, very, very good in a previous life to deserve her.

A slight blush creeps into her cheeks and through her reflection cast by the mirror, I catch the smile that tugs at the corners of her lips. “But you're biased,” she playfully scolds.

“Maybe...” I give an unapologetic shrug, and tucking the tails of my crisp white dress shirt into my black suit pants, tend to the zipper and button and buckle my belt. “You could wear a garbage bag and be beautiful,” I inform my wife, and then join her in front of the mirrors. Her confidence has taken a beating within the last couple of months. She rapidly went from barely showing to (in her own words) looking like she's carrying an entire herd of elephants. And she has it in her head that the excessive weight gain and the host of minor -yet aggravating- health problems somehow equals repulsive. Nothing could be further from the truth. In my eyes...in my heart...there's no one on this earth that can possibly hold a candle to her. “I don't know what you're so nervous about...” I drop a kiss on the top of her head and then on each of her bare shoulders. “...you're going to be the most beautiful woman there.”

“Yeah...right....” she laughs sardonically. “Fattest woman there is more like it.”

“Stop,” I gently order, and lightly brush my fingertips over her shoulders and down each arm. “You're perfect to me. Who cares how everyone else see you.”

A smile twitches the corners of her mouth. “I noticed you didn't disagree with the fat part.”

“Sacre bleu,” I sigh in exasperation. “Would you stop? Just stop? To me you're the most beautiful, amazing woman in the world. What does it mater what other people think? I wish you could see yourself the way I do. I wish you knew exactly what I'm thinking. What I'm feeling. You're perfect to me. For me. Isn't that enough? Isn't that enough to make you stop being so hard on yourself? So what if you've gained a few pounds...”

“A few?” she cocks an eyebrow. “Try fifty three.”

“...and so what if you need me to tie your shoes for you and help you into the tub. Or that you need me to massage your feet and your back all the time. Sounds more like you're spoiled than anything else.”

“You like spoiling me,” she declares, and then giggles when I nuzzle the tip of my nose against the side of her neck. “You really think I look okay?I don't look too huge?”

“You don't like huge at all,” Okay...so maybe that's a bit of a lie. There's no denying that she's big. That someone could easily think she's carrying twins. Or even triplets. But she's not fat in the way society labels people. “...you're pregnant,” I point out. “There's a big difference between being fat and being pregnant.”

“True. Being fat would be my own fault. Being pregnant is all yours.”

“I totally set myself up for that one,” I chuckle. “You know...” my fingertips slide down her biceps and onto the insides of her elbows. The skin is extra sensitive there; I feel her entire body shiver and grin into her curve of her neck when she wriggles her ass against me. Her need and desire for sex has always been sky high. Pregnant with all of those hormones raging out of control? Well now she's off the charts. There's days I can barely keep up. And I consider myself an extremely sexual person. “...this wasn't entirely my fault. You played a pretty big part in it too. You had to kick a little something in for this to happen.”

“You rendered me helpless,” she teases. “You looked at me with those huge brown eyes and you give me that grin of yours and I was no longer in control. I was operating outside of my body and without all of my common sense.”

“You knew exactly what you were doing. A woman doesn't do the things you do without knowing how,” I press a series of kisses along the outer edge of her ear. “You can't make that stuff up as you go along. You can't guess at those things.”

“Those things?” she inquires innocently, fluttering those long, beautiful eyelashes and then pressing her ass into my crotch. “What exactly are 'those' things?”

“The kind of things that are going to make us very, very, very late for this party,” I reply, and she gives a dramatic pout when I press a chaste kiss to the corner of her mouth and step away. “You keep looking at me like that and we're not even going to get out the door,” I warn, snagging my suit coat from the middle of the bed and slipping into it.

“You don't even want to go in the first place,” Sammie points out, placing her hands on my shoulders and smoothing out the wrinkles in the fabric and straightening and flattening the lapels. “You've been bitching and moaning about it for two weeks.”

“It's not that I'm bitching and moaning,” I argue. “I just...I don't know...I just don't feel like going. Too many other things going on.”

“You're the one that volunteered our names,” she reminds me, and reaches for my tie.

“You're the one that picked out this monkey suit for me to wear,” I chide, gagging dramatically when she yanks a little too hard at my tie. “Well you did.”

“You happen to look devastatingly handsome. Very James Bond-ish. Only better because you're French and James Bond wasn't. Everything is better when it's done by a Frenchman.”

“Including things of the...oral...” I wiggle my eyebrows suggestively. “...variety.”

“Well that just goes without saying. You could just be reading the ingredients off a box of cereal and my panties would be wet.”

“As flattered as I am, I wasn't referring to talking. I was referring to other things. You know, like spending time down under.”

“Now who's being bad? Now who's going to make us late for the party?”

“What? The mere suggestion makes you want to throw me down on the bed and sit on my face and....”

“You're evil,” she huffs, and then stands on her tiptoes to press a kiss to my lips. “...look...let's be serious for a minute here...let's...”

“I'm always serious when it comes time to pay homage to your nether regions.”

“Maxim...” she sighs exasperatedly. I always know I've irritated her or that she's pissed off about something when she uses my full name. “...can you be serious, please? Can we please have a serious conversation?”

Serious. Conversation. Two words I don't like hearing in the same sentence. They usually come hand in hand with bad news. But I decide to suck it up and give her the courtesy of keeping my mind out of the gutter. Even if the mix of her perfume and her dangerously sexy curves are driving me to distraction.

“I know exactly why you're acting like this,” she says, and I want to bust out a 'because I'm horny' but decide to just keep my mouth shut. “Normally you love going to to these things. You love doing things for charity. And I know exactly why you're having such an issue with it right now. You're worried that Ryan's going to show up.”

Busted. The Canucks got into town this morning and the charity event is big news around Montreal. It's a huge event here and it's been widely reported what guests are going to be in attendance. The press just hasn't reported 'and members of the Montreal Canadiens'. They went ahead and printed off a list of the exact players that have donated their time and money. But there's no way I'm going to let her know that that's what's burning my ass the most. That my number one worry is that Ryan Kesler is going to show up out of the blue and make a big old scene. I want to think that he's above that. That he'd taken Sammie's failure to respond to his letter as the proof he needed to accept that she wants nothing to do with him. But this is Kes we're talking about. He'd spent months devising 'the plan' and how to exact his revenge on Bianca. Something tells me if he's done it once, he'll do it again.

“Are you worried that he's going to show up?” I counter.

“I don't care if he does. I don't care if he...”

“Sammie...I didn't ask if you cared. I asked if you were worried about it. Let's not play games here, okay? Let's not try and spare each others feelings. We haven't talked about him in months. We go out of our ways to avoid talking about him. Now he's in the same city and this charity thing is no secret. He could just walk right in and...”

“Ryan's above that,” she says. “He wouldn't do something like that. He wouldn't walk into a public place and cause a big stink. That's just not his style. He wouldn't...”

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”

“He just wouldn't do it,” she insists. “He wouldn't take that chance. Everyone knows who he is. He wouldn't risk embarrassing himself or his team by doing something stupid.”

“Typical Kes. Only cares about himself.”

“He's obviously moved on. It's quite clear he's gotten over it, don't you think? He hasn't even tried to get a hold of me. I ignored his letter and he's gotten the picture. I don't want anything to do with him and I've gone on with my life. Now he's going on with his. I'm sure he's got bigger fish to fry.”

I want to remind her of all the hard work and the plotting and conniving he'd gone through when he came up with the sick and twisted idea to use me to get back at Bianca. How he'd held onto that particular grudge for five years and it's only been less than eight months since we'd 'screwed him over'. But what good would it do? What good could come out of throwing her own mistakes in her face? By bringing up Kes and what went down in Vancouver, I have to stir up the demons that she's still carrying around. I can't do that to her. I can't feed into the guilt that she's still burdened with. That was what he did. And I refuse to be anything like him.

“I don't have to dance at this stupid thing, do I?” I decide to change the subject entirely. No sense picking at those barely formed scabs her conscience bears. I love her too much to hurt her like that. “Please don't make me dance.”

“Makes up for not dancing at our wedding,” she retorts, and playfully sticks her tongue out at me.

“We got married at City Hall,” I remind her. “We didn't have a reception. And don't flash that tongue around if you're not planning on using it.”

“I fully plan on using it. When we get home. But only if you dance with me. I'm only asking for one dance. That's it. Don't act like I'm asking you to part the Red Sea or cure the terminally ill,” she uses her palms to smooth out any wrinkles in the front of my shirt. “You promise me you won't worry about this? About Ryan showing up? You promise that....?”

I silence her with a kiss. Long and soft, one hand cupping the back of her head and the other resting lightly on the side of her stomach. “I promise,” I breathe against her lips, and she gives a sharp gasp and a giggle when the baby lands a swift kick against my palm. “See that?” I grin down at her belly. “Even she wants you to back off. She's even telling you to leave me alone.”

“She recognizes her daddy's voice,” my wife declares, and the use of the word 'daddy' and the way she looks up at me with such pride and adoration that it makes my heart skip a beat and raw emotion form in my throat. In that moment, everything seems so...real. So real and so overwhelming. How far we've come together, all of the things we've managed to get through, the fact that there's a living, breathing human being inside of her that I'd helped create. “She's a daddy's girl already. She's got you wrapped around her little finger and she's not even here yet.”

“She's got me around one finger and you've got me around another,” I say. I'm whipped. No ands, ifs or buts. But the first step in being whipped is having the guts to admit it. Even if it is only to yourself.

“We love you,” Sammie tells me. “We love you and we need you. You're the strong one, Maxim. You're the one that holds things together. So even if Ryan does show up and tries to cause problems...”

“I won't let anything happen to you,” I promise, and draw her into my arms. “To either of you.”

These are my girls. My reasons for drawing air into my lungs and getting out of bed every morning and putting one foot in front of the other.

And no one is going change that.