One Night Becomes a Liftime

We all stood there shocked by Adam’s words and I could see the rage in Brent’s eyes as he looked between Adam and me. The only person out in the hall that would have been able to stop Brent from hitting Adam was Patrick and he had my son in his arms. So I watched on helplessly as Brent’s fist connected with Adam’s jaw causing him to stumble backwards but Adam didn’t go down easy. He ran at Brent and tackled him to the ground causing a loud crash when they knocked some trunks over after slamming into them. The loud banging startled Evan, waking him from his sleep and he began crying when he saw the two men fighting on the ground.

I quickly moved over to Patrick and grabbed Evan as a few of the guys came running out of the locker room and began trying to pull the two of them apart. “Mommy.” Evan cried as he wrapped his arms around my neck and squeezed himself to me.

“It’s ok baby.” I said rubbing his back as I watched the guys struggle at pulling them apart.

“Come on, we should take him inside he doesn’t need to see this.” Jonathan said coming over to me and blocked Evan’s view of the fight as he led me and Evan into the locker room. “Hey Evan, do you want to try on my gloves?” Jonathan asked him with a forced smile.

Evan nodded as he wiped his tears away and I set him down on his feet. “Mommy is it ok?” he asked looking up at me and I nodded with a small smile as Jonathan smiled at us.

Evan went with Jonathan to his stall as I began pacing back and forth listening to all the yelling that was going on out in the hall. I was so concerned with what was going on in the hall that I didn’t notice there were still half dressed guys standing around watching me pace the room. The only thing registering in my mind was Evan’s laughter with Jonathan Toews and the yelling that was going on out in the hall. That was until one of the other guys in the room walked up to me.

“Hey why don’t you sit down and relax?” he said in a soft voice and I looked over at him. “The name is Brandon Saad.” Brandon said sticking his hand out to me.

“Angela Casalino.” I said shaking his hand as I glance towards the doors again. “Do you think they were able to pull them apart?” I asked him and he smiled softly at me.

“Yeah I’m sure they did, don’t worry about them.” He said gesturing towards the stalls behind us. “Come on let’s sit down.”

We started to walk towards the stalls when the doors opened and Brent came in with Patrick Sharp and Duncan Keith. I gasped when I saw that he was bleeding from a cut above his eye and I looked over towards Evan who had also seen and his eyes went wide at the sight. Jonathan quickly got Evan’s attention back when he pulled out his phone finding a game on it and gave it to Evan to play with. I on the other hand quickly followed them into the other room they led Brent into.

“I’m going to see if the doc is still here.” Patrick said walking out of the room as he patted my shoulder on his way out.

“Can I take a look at it?” I asked moving closer to them.

“We got a doctor around here somewhere.” Duncan said looking over at me and raised his eyebrow when he noticed my scrubs.

“I’m a register nurse at Regional Medical Center.” I said showing him my ID card from the hospital that was still hanging around my neck. “At least let me try and stop the bleeding until the doctor gets here.” They both nodded at me as I moved closer and stood between Brent’s legs as he sat on the medical table in there. Duncan handed me some gauzes and a few medical wipes. “This may sting a little.” I said softly as I wipe the area clean and he winced a little. “Brent you’re going to need a few stitches.”

“Do you feel the same way he does, is there something going on with you two?” Brent asked in a low voice as he reached up stopping my hand from moving and looked at me with one of the most intense stares that I have ever seen. “Did you fall in love with Adam Burish?”

“Brent, can we not talk about this right now?” I asked softly.

“Angela please just answer the question.”

“No I didn’t, I would not have agreed to move to Chicago if I did.” I said as he released my hand. “I had no idea he felt that way. I love him like a brother, he has been the closest thing to family I had here in San Jose.”

“Seabsy what the hell were you thinking getting into that damn fight with Burish.” Coach Quenneville yelled walking into the room and I quickly moved from my spot between his legs like we were kids caught doing something bad. “You must be Angela?” He said in a shocked voice when he saw me standing there and I nodded my head slowly at him, the look on Joel Quenneville’s face scared me. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say the little guy out there that has my captain a nervous wreck is little Seabrook.”

I nodded at him but Brent decided to be vocal. “Yeah that’s Evan.” Brent said with a proud smile on face.

“The kid looks good Seabs.” Quenneville said smiling back at him. “Much bigger than the picture you showed me but that’s a good thing.”

I stood there looking at Brent as he looked at his coach, hearing he still showed a picture of Evan to people broke my heart even more. I knew the last picture Brent had was from when Evan had turned one. I looked down at my hands hoping no one would notice the tears forming in my eyes. I felt like a horrible person at that moment, I kept father and son away from each other and they both hated me for it. I looked back up when I heard one of the other guys coming in the room talking about Evan.

“Did anyone else notice mini Seabs is wearing a Burish sweater?” One of Brent’s teammates came in the room saying.

“Now is not a good time Shawzy.” Coach Quenneville said swatting him out of the room then look back at Brent. “How bad is the eye?”

“He is going to need a few stitches.” I said as I glanced over at Brent and now he was looking down at his hands.

“Coach Q everyone I talked with said doc already went back to the hotel.” Patrick said coming in the room again.

“I can do it if you know where all the stuff is.” I said looking between everyone.

Quenneville was quickly shaking his head no. “We can just take him over to the hospital to have it done.”

“Angela is a nurse at RMC.” Duncan said pointing over at the ID hanging around my neck. “I think this would be better if it is kept in house and away from the media.”

“I do this every day, it’s pretty easy as long as I have everything I need.”

“Sharpie go find Parchman and see if he packed doc’s things yet and get Gapski in here to help her.” Quenneville said sending Patrick out of the room again. “Duncs go relieve Tazer of babysitting duties before he has a nervous breakdown on us. Angela I am trusting you to take care of one of my top guys that I need tomorrow.” He said in a stern voice.

I nodded as he walked out leaving Brent and I alone for the first time since he was brought in here. I wanted to yell at him for fighting like that in front of Evan but I had to remember he wasn’t used to having a kid around let alone his own. We stood there silent for a few moments just looking at everything other than each other while we waited for Patrick to come back, Brent was the one to break the silence between us.

“I’m sorry.” Brent said in a low voice and I turned to face him. He had another small stream of blood running down the side of his face so I moved back to stand in front of him and wiped it clean. “How much of that did Evan see?”

“Enough to scare him but not a lot, Jonathan Toews was quick to get us away from there.” I said as Patrick came walking in with another guy.

“Angela this is Gapski, he’s going to help you with whatever you need.” He said placing a medical kit down and opened it. “Everything you need should be in here.”

I nodded at them and quickly got to work on putting the stitches in, the room stood silent expect the few times I had asked Gapski for something. Brent ended up with just four stitches and a nasty looking bruise. After cleaning everything up and disposing the used supplies Brent and I walked out to find Evan curled up in Duncan’s stall playing on someone’s phone with an oversized Blackhawks t-shirt now over his Burish sweater. Duncan was sitting a few feet away talking with Andrew Shaw and Patrick Sharp. He seemed much calmer with a kid than his captain did and I smiled softly at the thought of Jonathan being frazzled watching Evan for such a short time.

“Who does this belong to?” I asked Evan pointing at the phone as I sat down next to him and he just stood looking at the phone not saying a word to me. “Evan are you not talking to me again?”

He nodded his head not saying a word and I looked up at Brent who was standing in front of us. “Hey buddy, why are you not talking to your mom?” Brent asked as he sat on the other side of Evan.

“Mommy lied to me and said you were gone.” He said not looking up from the phone and Brent looked over at me trying to hide his glare but I noticed it and I rolled my eyes at him. “Is mommy telling me the truth now… are you really my daddy?”

“Evan your mom wasn’t lying to you, I was gone.” Brent said taking the phone away from him so we would have Evan’s full attention, he held the phone out knowing whoever it belonged to would get up and take it. I watched as Andrew Shaw leaned over and took the phone from him then placed it in his own pocket. I looked back over at Evan and he was looking up at Brent. “When she told you I was gone I wasn’t there right?” he asked and Evan nodded at him. “See she wasn’t lying and she is telling you the truth now.”

“Why weren’t you always here with me, I wanted my daddy?” Evan asked as a tear slipped down his cheek.

Brent wiped it away with his thumb. “That doesn’t matter anymore but I’m going to be here now.”

“Are you going to play with the Sharks now like Uncle Adam?” Evan asked sitting up straight.

Brent looked over at me and I could tell that this time he didn’t know what to say. “Evan it doesn’t work like that.” I said as Evan turned to look at me. “Brent lives in Chicago and plays for the Blackhawks only, he’s not going to play for the Sharks.”

“But how can he be here if he doesn’t live here?” Evan said as he turned to face Brent. “You’re my daddy you’re supposed to live with me like the other kids daddies do.”

“Um… Seabs we gotta go, the bus is ready to leave.” Duncan said walking over to us.

I looked up to see the whole room was empty except us, Duncan and one other guy was standing there. He was probably waiting to pack Duncan’s things that we were blocking. “We catch the flight in the morning right?” Brent asked looking over at Duncan and he nodded then Brent looked back at me. “Angela, can I go home with you so we can finish talking about this?”

I just nodded my head because I knew there was no point in arguing about it, we got up and walked out of the locker room. Brent had me and Evan wait by the doors while he ran over to talk with Coach Quenneville and they both came walking over to us. After Quenneville made me promise to make sure I had Brent back at the hotel before seven a.m. we left back to my place. I could see that Evan was exhausted and should have been sleeping hours ago but he had refused to close his eyes wanting to stay up. When we got to my apartment I made Evan go put on his pajamas as I went to the room and changed into a pair of sweats and t-shirt then pulled my hair back into a ponytail while Brent waited in the living room for us. When I came back out of my room Evan was already sitting on the couch next to Brent with a photo album in his hands going through it with him.

“Would you like something to drink?” I asked, he looked up at me and nodded then looked back down at the album.

I had noticed his eyes were slightly glazed over in the split second he looked at me and it was because they were going through Evan’s photo album that I had made of him. It was all his pictures from when he was a baby all the way up until now. I grabbed a Gatorade for Brent, a small juice box for Evan and a bottle of water for myself then walked back over to them. Just as I was about to sit down there was a knock at the door and I knew it had to be Adam. I placed the drinks down on the coffee table and walked over to the door and opened it.

“Ang, can we talk?” Adam said as I took in the bruises he had on his face.

“Now is not a good time.” I said softly. “Can we talk tomorrow?”

He looked over my shoulder to see Brent sitting on the couch then looked back at me. “Please Angela.”

I glanced back to see Brent looking at us but there was no emotion on his face. “I’ll be just a minute.” I said softly and Brent just looked back down at the album. I turned back to Adam and he took a few steps back as I stepped out of the apartment and closed the door. “Are you ok?” I asked gesturing to the bruises he had.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine… Thornton and Marleau are pissed I went over there without them.” he said and I was about to say something but he cut me off. “I explained everything to them and they still weren’t happy about the fight.”

“Adam things between us…” I started to say but he cut me off.

“I shouldn’t have blurted that out like that and I’m sorry.” Adam said running his fingers through his hair. “But it’s true Angela, somehow in the last seven months I fell in love with you and I don’t want you to move to Chicago.”

“Adam I care a lot about you and I am extremely grateful for everything you have done for me but it’s not the same way you feel.” I said shaking my head at him. “I have to do this, Brent wants more time with Evan.”

“He can do that but you don’t have to move to Chicago there has to be another way.” He said taking a couple of steps closer to me and caressed my cheek. “Angela stay in San Jose… stay with me.”

When I opened my mouth to say something to him, Adam quickly pulled me forward and crashed his lips into mine. My hands instantly went to his chest and I tried to push him away but he wouldn’t budge and the hold his hands on my face kept me from being able to pull away. I hated that hockey players were so damn strong. When he finally released my face and I was able to pull away my hand quickly flew up and smacked him hard across the face.

“I can’t believe you did that.” I said looking at him in shock. “Adam I can’t be with you like that.”

“You won’t give me a chance but four years after Seabrook ditched you alone with a kid… you’re just going to give him another chance to do it again.” He snapped at me. “He doesn’t care about you.”

“I’m not going to Chicago so I could be with Brent.” I snapped back at him. “I’m going there so my son can get to know his father. You said it yourself I was just a good fuck for him but that good fuck resulted in a child and no matter what I do I will always be connected to Brent.” I yelled and Adam shook his head at me. “I have no intentions of going to Chicago thinking this will be an instant family.”

The apartment door opened and we both looked over to see Brent standing there. “Angela, Evan is ready for bed.” He said as he looked over at Adam. “If you don’t mind Angela and I have things to talk about.”

“I was just leaving.” Adam snapped at him as he walked away.

I stood there a moment taking a couple of deep breaths before I looked over at Brent but he had already walked away. I felt like pulling my hair out, what is with all these men just walking away from me like this. I took one last deep breath and slowly exhaled as I walked into the apartment but no one was in the living room anymore so I walked to Evan’s room to find Brent tucking a sleeping Evan in bed. The first thing I noticed was that Brent only had on his dress pants and undershirt now and I could see how large his arms had gotten since I last saw him. Even though I knew there was nothing between Brent and myself I still couldn’t help but remember what it was like to have those arms wrapped around my body.

“I explained things the best I could to him.” Brent said looking over at me by the door breaking me from my thoughts. “He’s mad at me right now because I won’t take him with me tomorrow when I leave but I think he’ll get over it eventually.”

“Evan is a pretty stubborn boy but I think once we make the move to Chicago he’ll feel better.”

“Yeah I think we should really talk about this now.” Brent said as he stood up and nodded towards the living room.

I walked out of the room with him following behind me and we went back into the living room. We had finally sat down and talked about how things were going to work with us. We had a little disagreement about the living arrangements when I did get out there. Brent wanted the two of us to stay with him but I told him no and said I would look for a place of my own before I moved out there. He was going to hire a moving company to move my things and I was buying the plane tickets for us to fly when I was ready. After talking it all out I went back in my room after giving him a blanket and pillow to sleep with. I couldn’t believe I had agreed to do this and I was now questioning my own sanity.