Page 115 of Best Man
“Now?”Mom wasn’t on speaker phone, but Paulina could still hear her clearly.“Get her to the hospital ASAP. When my water broke with you, you popped right out an hour later. Paulina came out even faster.”
Oh no,Paulina thought, squeezing her eyes shut.Please no. Not like this.
“We’re working on it,” Piper said.
“Great. We’ll see you at the hospital.”
Once Paulina was dry and changed into a clean pair of pants, she went back into the wives’ lounge to gather her things.
“Should I tell Sasha?” Paulina wondered aloud. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You two talked about what to do if this happened, didn’t you?” Piper asked.
She nodded. There was no way of reaching Sasha or any other player once the game started—but if the baby was coming before game time, he wanted to know. “Only if it’s an emergency, or if I start labor,” she said. She looked at Molly. “Does this count? Is this an emergency? Am I in labor?”
Molly sighed. “Hard to say. It’s not an emergency, but this could be the start of labor. Or it could easily be a few hours before labor begins. Maybe more.”
She turned to Piper. “What do you think? Would you tell Jax?”
“It’s Game 7 … he’s probably getting ready right now …” Piper said, wringing her hands. “Oh, God. I honestly don’t know what I’d do, Paulie.”
“Either way, we have to get you to the hospital,” Molly said. “Let’s see what your doctor thinks. If you go into labor, and the game still hasn’t started, then we can let Sasha know. Okay?”
Paulina took a deep breath. “Yeah. Okay. Let’s go.”
She hoped this was the right decision. Truth was, she had no idea. She didn’t want to ruin his mental state before the most important game of his life, but she didn’t want to rob him of experiencing the birth of his first child, either.
They said their goodbyes. The other girls, quiet and wide-eyed with concern, wished Paulina good luck.
Piper and Molly stuck their heads out the door and scanned the doorway. The Devils’ locker room was just down the hall.
“Coast is clear,” Molly said, and the girls took Paulina by the arm and bolted out the room and down the hallway.
Paulina kept her head low, hoping they wouldn’t somehow bump into Sasha. Thankfully, the doors to the locker room were shut, so they managed to hurry past without incident.
35
Niko
With three hours to go before puck drop, a dozen Devils gathered in a circle in the hallway to play a game of sewerball. The objective of sewerball—a mainstay in hockey locker rooms everywhere—is to keep a soccer ball airborne without using your hands. Each player is allowed two touches before the ball is passed to another player. If you let the ball hit the floor, you’re out. Last man standing wins.
But therealobjective of sewerball? To take the athletes’ minds off the fact that they were hours away from the biggest game of their lives. It sure as hell beat sitting around in the locker room with nothing to do but twiddle your thumbs and nervously count down the minutes.
“Stay loose, boys,” Dane reminded them as he tossed the ball into play again.
Loose?Niko thought.I wish.
He hadn’t felt loose in weeks and his stat line reflected it. He’d started the playoffs hot—he led the Devils in scoring as they dispatched Vegas first, then Nashville in the second round—but his play in the third round began to steadily decline just as Paulina’s due date approached.
In the Western Conference Final against San Jose, Sasha’s offense began to cool off. He was a mess of emotions; he was so excited for the baby to come! Yet he was so worried about it, too. He prayed the baby would be healthy and there would be no complications. He prayed that Paulina wouldn’t give birth while he was on the road, and he could be home to witness it.
After dispatching San Jose in six games, Philadelphia was the last thing standing between the Devils and the Stanley Cup. Dallas was the heavy favorite against the Philadelphia Falcons, a big but slow team that played a suffocating style of defense. No one typified their play better than their captain, the big and downright nasty defenseman—and fellow Russian—Vladimir Volkov. Everyone expected a bounce back series from Niko, whose lightning quick feet and hands weresureto exploit Philadelphia’s lack of team speed.
But one thing the pundits hadn’t known when writing their series matchups was that Niko was distracted by the impending birth of his baby. Nor could they have predicted that Paulina’s due date would come and go, extending her pregnancy throughout a low scoring series. As a result, through six bitterly fought games, Volkov had managed to completely shut Niko down, holding him to a single assist. Heading into Game 7, the Devils were now the underdogs.
Tonight, Niko knew he had to lay everything on the line. All he had to do was trust that the baby would eventually come, at some pointaftertonight, that both mother and baby would be healthy, and he would be in the right head space to play his game. Because his team needed him. Without Niko, the Devils simply didn’t have the offensive firepower to break through Philly’s defensive trap.
Hathaway, juggling the sewerball on his knee, passed it over to Niko. Niko stabbed at the ball with his foot, saving it from touching the ground in the nick of time—but lost his focus when a commotion in the background caught his eye.
