In a hotel room in Dallas a handsome blonde athlete sat alone in the room he shared with a fellow teammate, an opened suitcase beside him on the bed. Buried beneath his workout gear and underwear laid a simple 2x3 picture. He pulled it from the bottom and stared longingly at the dark haired beauty looking back at him from the photograph. His thick fingers ran over the glossy surface, tracing the outline of the lovely girls smiling lips. So young, so happy, so long ago.
Looking back him from beside her in the picture was a younger, less world worn version of himself. Youthful blue eyes sparkling with joy as he held a tiny, squirming pink bundle in his arms. His precious Madison. Eighteen and a father. Any other boy would have been scared out of his mind, but not him. It was what he'd been waiting for since the day he was born. To settle down with that girl and start a family, to have a life together. A perfect life and a perfect family.
"Hey Germaine, whatcha got there?" Roommate and fellow Minnesota native Ben Clymer asked, entering the room with a handful of teammates in tow.
"Nothing." Guy lied, shoving the photo back into his luggage.
Vincent Lecavalier just laughed and stuck his hand in the suitcase and pulled it out. "Wow she's cute."
"Lemme see." Brad Richards plucked it from Vinny's hand and nodded. "Yeah she is, who is she?"
Guy sighed and flopped backward onto his bed, glaring at the ceiling. "My ex wife." He muttered scowling.
Ex wife, ex, as in no longer. They'd been divorced for five years. She'd been married to his ex best friend for three of those five years. The pain was still there though, stinging him like a freshly opened wound. Every time he thought about her, he could see her going on with her life the way he wished he could. He could imagine, Charlie tucking his little girl into bed at night. See Charlie making love to his wife. Charlie Conway, was living the life he was suppose have. He stole it from him.
"Ex wife?" Clymer asked puzzled. "You never mentioned her before."
"I don't talk about her. I'm trying to forget her." He continued lay there, eyes transfixed to the ceiling as if it held the answers to the universe. But no answer came. There was no solution to life's problems in the aged plaster above him. So badly he wanted the subject dropped, to shake her image from his mind once more. He just wanted to forget it all, everything they were and everything he wished they still could be.
"If I had a girl like that," Brad began. "I'd have held on tight and never left."
Guy draw a breath and closed his eyes. "I didn't leave her, she left me. For my best friend in fact."
"Wow that's pretty harsh. Who was he?"
"Do you know Charlie Conway from The Wilde?"
Vinny nodded. "Sure I do, I met him at an All Star Game once. Nice guy, his daughter is the cutest little thing."
Guy flinched as if he'd been kicked in the stomach. That was his daughter. His little girl. There was Germaine blood in her veins. It pained him physically to hear people refer to Charlie as Madison's father. He loved his little girl. And yet he stayed away, not because he didn't want to spend every spare minute he could with her, but because he couldn't bare the sight of Connie. Her chocolate eyes, her cherry lips, ever the curve of her neck, it all drove him mad.
"That's my daughter." He retorted swiftly, tightening his eyelids closed. "Maddie, is mine. Charlie took her from me, just like he took everything else. My wife, my dream of a perfect life, everything."
The room fell silent then, you could hear the wheels turning in the three other men's heads. They had initially come to ask Guy if he wanted to go get a beer with them, but it didn't seem like the best idea anymore. Drowning your problems in a drink, only makes them seem that much worse in the morning. Without a word they left him alone with his thought, closing the door behind them.
As the door closed Guy turned out the light. In the stillness and dark, he cried. He cried for his lost love and his heartbreak. Cried because he missed his little girl and be he knew he didn't have the strength to be the father she needed. Cried because his best friend destroyed him.
So long since their motto was 'Ducks fly together'. Now it was more like, 'Ducks will sleep with your wife, in your bed and say it never happened.' Stabbed in the back by the least likely of suspects, it caused the most pain. Still in his heart he knew, we wanted it all back. He needed it back. His wife with her sweet lips and soft hair and his daughter. He wanted his life back and he would get it, one way or another.