Chapter 31

Before the series against Carolina started, I was a nervous wreck. They’d just knocked off two of the top teams in the league in the previous two rounds. I wasn’t sure if they had enough left in them to beat the Pens or not.

I sat in Mario’s box next to Nathalie for game one and felt very relieved at the outcome. The same went for game two. I had a good feeling about the series and told Sidney that before he left. The girls all came over to watch game three at our house. When they won and went up 3-0 in the series we all knew they were going to the Stanley Cup Finals for the second year in a row.

“Congrats on the win!” I exclaimed into the phone when Sidney called later that night.

“I can’t even begin to tell you what a relief tonight was. The series may not be over, but we all just know we’re going to win,” he replied. I could tell he was smiling.

“I just hate that you’re going to be gone another three days. It’s boring without you around,” I joked.

“Well, about that. I thought you could fly down for game 4.”

I didn’t respond right away. Was he serious? I couldn’t just fly down when I was in the middle of chemo treatments, could I?

“Sid, I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Why?” Did he really not know?

“I’m in the middle of treatments. I can’t skip out on appointments. Not to mention that I’m not exactly feeling up to traveling,” I explained.

“It’s just one day, Tanner.” He sounded annoyed with me turning him down.

“And what happens if that one day is the worst day of the week for me? What happens if I can’t stop throwing up and my whole body hurts?” I asked. He sighed.

“I doubt that’s going to happen.” I clenched my jaw and closed my eyes, taking a few breaths in the process.

“The point is that it could. I can’t take the chance right now. You know I haven’t felt well lately.”

“Well, maybe this is going to be what helps make you feel better. The weather is beautiful down here. It could be just what you need,” he argued.

“Or I could sit near someone on the plane with a cold. You know that I’m more susceptible to getting sick and I can’t even take anything for it. I’d be miserable if that happened.”

“I just really want you here,” he said.

“You know I want to be there, but I can’t,” I told him firmly.

“Yes you can. You just won’t.” That got me angry. He was trying to lay a guilt trip on me to convince me to go down. I was not okay with that.

“Don’t you dare tell me what I can and can’t do. You have no idea what I’m going through and how I feel!” I yelled into the receiver.

“Tanner, it’s one fucking day!” he yelled back.

“For one stupid hockey game that we all know you’re probably going to win!” I retorted.

“Oh, so my career is stupid now? Thanks a lot.” I groaned in frustration and anger.

“You’re really taking things way out of context here,” I growled through clenched teeth.

“You called the game that could put us back into the Stanley Cup finals stupid! How exactly am I taking that out of context?” he questioned angrily.

“There are more important things in life than you making it to the Stanley Cup finals, Sidney.” I could feel a headache forming and tears building in my eyes.

“This is my life! It’d be nice if you cared, just a little,” he yelled. I wanted to take a minute and calm down before responding, but that’s not what happened.

“I care. I care so much it hurts. Unfortunately I have a life too. I have cancer! I’m in constant pain and my life is on the line! Don’t you even pretend that lifting some fucking trophy is more important than my life!” I screamed.

I paused, waiting for a reaction. I could hear background noise on his end, so I knew he was still on the line, but he wasn’t responding. He didn’t say a word. Then I understood, and my stomach dropped.

“Unless it is. Unless that trophy is more important to you than my life,” I said quietly, realization hitting me like a freight train.

“Tanner, come on,” he started. It was too late. The tears were already streaming down my face.

“I’m going to go. I have things I need to do. I wouldn’t bother calling back. You probably won’t get through.”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I hung up the phone. The next thing I did was turn it off. I didn’t want to hear his voice right now, or read anything he may write in a text. Nothing he could say would make me feel any better. If he didn’t care about me, I wasn’t going to care about him.










“Fuck!” Sidney yelled as he hung up his phone. He dialed her number and heard it go straight to voicemail. “Fuck!” he yelled again.

“Everything okay?” Flower asked poking his head in the door that Sidney hadn’t fully closed.

“No everything’s not okay,” Sidney growled at him.

“Is Tanner okay?” he asked, worry in his face.

“She’s fine. Unfortunately our relationship isn’t,” he sighed, leaning back to rest his head on the headboard of the bed behind him. Marc walked into the room and shut the door behind him.

“What happened?”

Sidney didn’t know where to start. At what point had he turned into an asshole? That conversation had gone from good to bad in no time and he wasn’t sure where he’d screwed it up.

“She thinks that winning the cup is more important to me than her surviving cancer,” he told Marc.

“How did that happen?”

Sidney told him about the entire conversation. Marc listened and then shook his head at him. Sidney didn’t even allow him time to tell him what he’d done wrong. He already knew. He never should have pushed Tanner to fly down. He’d tried to guilt her into it, and upset her. Then he threw her concerns about her health aside and thought only of how angry he was about her choice of words. Of course Tanner hadn’t meant his career was stupid. He was an asshole.

Marc talked to him a bit longer before leaving for the night. Sidney tried Tanner’s phone a few more times with no success. She’d obviously turned it off for the night. It was a good thing they had an off day tomorrow, because he knew he wasn’t going to sleep well.

He woke up the next morning after tossing and turning most of the night feeling both upset and exhausted. He met the guys in a conference room set up for a private breakfast in the morning, but didn’t join in conversation. He’d tried Tanner’s phone again when he’d woken up, but it was still off. That’s when he noticed Jordan texting on his phone.

“Hey, Staalsy, can I borrow your phone for a minute?” Jordan gave him a strange look.

“What’s wrong with yours?” he asked.

“Nothing. I was just wondering if I could use it to call Grace?” he asked. Jordan narrowed his eyes at him.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he told him.

“Why not?”

“She’s really pissed off at you after your conversation with Tanner last night,” Jordan explained.

“Just give me the phone!” Sidney demanded.

“It’s your life,” Jordan commented, handing it over. Sidney scrolled through Jordan’s contacts until he found Grace’s number. The phone rang a couple times before he heard her voice.

“Hey, sweetie,” she greeted cheerfully.

“Grace, sorry, it’s Sidney,” he said into the phone. He half expected the line to go dead. After hearing Grace’s response, he almost wished it had.

“What the hell do you want?” she asked him, venom dripping from each word.

“I wanted to talk to Tanner,” he explained, hopeful. She laughed, but without humor.

“Not gonna happen,” Grace told him.

“Please, Grace. I need to apologize. I really screwed up last night.” He hated admitting that he was wrong, but in this case, he really was.

“Yeah, you screwed up, but you’re going to need to give her more than an apology.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. He’d do anything if it meant making Tanner realize that her life mattered to him more than anything else in the world.

“Right now she’s questioning whether she should have ever taken you back when she woke up from the coma. She loves you, Sid, so much it hurts. That doesn’t change the fact that she’s done nothing but put you first, even after she found out about the cancer. She knows that as long as you’re playing hockey, it is going to come first to you and she’ll be second. Even so, she thinks that while she supports you all the time, you can’t find it in yourself to support her,” Grace explained.

“That’s not true. I’m there for her every chance I have,” he argued.

“You sure have a funny way of showing it. If you can’t support the decisions she makes about her health and her life without being upset about it inconveniencing you, than why should she expect you to support the decisions she makes about her future and her career?” Grace asked.

“I know I was a jerk last night. I didn’t mean the things I said. I can’t believe that she thinks winning the Stanley Cup is more important to me than her life.”

“Deep down she knows that’s not true. It doesn’t matter. She’s an independent person who’s always done what she wants. Ever since she met you she’s done what you want. She was fine doing that until she felt that you’d never give any of that back to her. To her, it’s always going to be about you.”

“It’s not, Grace. I swear it’s not going to be like that.” He couldn’t finish what he was saying. She cut him off.

“If that’s true then you need to leave her alone. Don’t call her, don’t text her, don’t come over until you can put her first. She doesn’t deserve to be second place when she’s fighting for her life. Just leave her alone until the day when you can make it all about her and not at all about you. Unfortunately, I just don’t see that happening anytime soon.” She hung up before he had a chance to respond.

It hurt to hear the things that Grace said, but they were all true. Hockey had always come first to him. Tanner had never tried to change that. She’d even understood. The problem was that he’d taken complete advantage of her. Now he was on the verge of heading back to the finals and he didn’t have the one person that he really wanted there. He wasn’t sure he’d ever have her there again.