Limelight Love Story

16. Safe With You

Grateful for the break from songwriting and recording, Lucy drove over to the Lopez-Evers house to see Angela.

"Thanks so much for letting me come over," Lucy said when she walked through the door.

Angela was happy to welcome her friend inside, but she could tell Lucy seemed preoccupied. "You said you wanted to borrow clothes, but is there something else on your mind?"

"I'm fine. I just haven't ordered enough clothes for all of these games. I'm really sucking as a hockey wife I guess."

"You're not sucking. I think you know the rules better than I do," Angela corrected. "And, all you need to do to be a good hockey wife is to love your husband, which you do...even if you two are being immature about SAYING it. Since when do you doubt yourself?"

Lucy followed Angela upstairs into her bedroom and over to her closet as she considered how to answer.

Angela motioned to the messy side of the walk-in closet and said, "Pick out whatever you want, but you have to tell me what's going on."

She started perusing her options mindlessly as she vented, "Do you have any idea how many hockey games there are between Thanksgiving and Christmas? I mean, I'm glad I don't have tour dates right now, so I can be at all of them, but there's like three a week plus long practices and tons of time reviewing game footage, and Tim is exhausted all of the time. He just collapses in bed every night and sees me for five seconds in the morning when he drops off tea for me before fitting in a pre-practice workout..." Lucy exhaled sharply and admitted, "I miss my husband."

There was no use in pointing out that Tim was not LEGALLY Lucy's husband, so Angela moved past that to say, "Between the holidays and the end of the season is the toughest time to be a hockey wife. Wes and I haven't had sex in a week. A WEEK! SEVEN DAYS! That's not normal for us at all. Hang in there, Lucy."

"What do you do when you miss Wes?"

"I send him dirty texts. What do you do?"

"Uhh lately, write songs about how much I hate hockey taking my man away from me."

Angela scoffed. "Sounds like some future chart-topping hits."

"I'll never write another song again if I can have ONE day alone with Tim," Lucy whined.

"You remember you agreed to the whole pretend marriage to HELP your career?"

"Couples have all sorts of origin stories. Ours just happens to be...unorthodox."

"I'll say," Angela snickered.

Lucy picked out a low cut L.A. Kings long sleeve shirt and said, "You know what? I'm done complaining. I have to go. Thanks for letting me borrow this."

"Go?" She followed Lucy out of her bedroom and down the stairs. "Where are you going?"

"To see my husband," she answered with a smile.

"Wait, can I come with? Seven days, remember?"

Lucy nodded in understanding and raced over to her car. They drove over to the L.A. Kings practice facility and bounded down the stairs of the rows of seats to stand right in front of the team's bench. "Hi, Coach," Lucy said with a smile.

"It's good to see you, Lucy, and you, too, Angela," Grey greeted them happily.

"Mind if we talk to our husbands for a few minutes?" She asked as sweetly as possible.

"We're in the middle of practice," Grey noted.

"Family first. Isn't that part of the team culture around here?"