I pass my plate to my teammate Easy, who meets my gaze for a split second and conveys everything I’m feeling right now.
Fuck this guy. He’s just a rich asshole with a big mouth and a small dick. Big talker, but he’d shit his pants if an NHL enforcer even looked at him across the ice.
“Absolutely,” I say, returning Bill’s grin.
Playing along, I wait until he’s taken a selfie he’s pleased with. He moves on to mingle with other Blaze players and Blaze Foundation contributors, not even signing off with us.
“Food’s good, at least,” Easy says, clapping me on the shoulder as he returns my plate.
“Yeah, I could eat about a hundred of these meatballs,” I say.
“I’m supposed to make a joke here, right?” My teammate cocks a brow at me in question.
I let out my first genuine laugh of the evening. It’s not so much that what Easy said was funny, it just reminds me I’m not the only one who feels out of place here.
I’m a poor kid from Canada turned NHL player. There’s a lot of money and power at this level of the sport, which I was lucky to reach. It was only because of a scholarship program that I learned how to play hockey as a seven-year-old. That program paid my way until I was a high school player who landed a full college scholarship. Hockey’s in my blood, but wealth still seems foreign.
But Easy? He’s a well-spoken French Canadian black man, born Erik Zimmerman, who had never touched a hockey stick until high school. He gave up a promising career as a model to join the NHL. Easy’s got an innate gift for the game, and though he’s not a natural brawler, he’s coming along. He’s also one of only a few black players in the league.
“Um…” a soft voice says next to us.
My gaze shifts from Easy to a woman holding a tray of drinks beside us. She’s waiting for us to take something, I think.
“Ah, perfect.” I reach over and grab a bottled beer. Easy does the same.
“Thanks,” I say, just as Easy says, “Merci.”
I take a long sip of the beer, savoring the taste of the ice-cold drink. Across the room, my teammate Anton is talking to a well-dressed couple, his girlfriend Mia beside him. Our goalie Jonah and his wife Lily are there, too, smiling at the story Anton’s telling.
Anton’s like a brother to me. He’s one of the few people I always know has my back. And even though he’s been at the top of his game for a while now, he just recently came into his own when he and Mia got together. He’s happier than I’ve ever seen him, and he deserves it.
But me? Bill was right. I have been playing like shit lately. My linesmen, Anton and Luca, have been holding me up. There are a couple smug-as-shit sports writers who enjoy publicly reporting that I haven’t been playing the same since Kristen Moore dumped me.
“You’re not still moping over that actress, are you?” Jackson Moon booms as he approaches me and Easy.
I smile and do my best to return his bear hug despite the empty plate and nearly-full plate I’m holding. Jackson’s a retired Blaze enforcer. I’ve always liked and respected him—he’s old school, with a crooked nose and a full front set of veneers. But that’s why he’s beloved by every Blaze player and fan—he spent his career putting his body on the line to protect his team.
“I ain’t moping over shit, you old asshole,” I say warmly.
“Good. Plenty more where she came from, right?”
“Hell yeah.”
“You boys going out after this?” Jackson looks between me and Easy.
“You buying?”
I can only maintain my serious expression for a second. Jackson punches me in the shoulder, and while it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t not hurt. Retired or not, this guy’s a bear who could probably still take me down—6’4” and burly as a lumberjack.
“Of course I’ll buy,” Jackson offers.
I shake my head. “I was joking, Moon. Yeah, we’ll go out with you.”
“I can’t, actually,” Easy says. “I have to do a thing for the front office.”
“Next time,” Jackson says to Easy. He looks at me. “You and me, then, kid.”
I smile and hold my beer up in a gesture of approval, but really, I just want to go home after this. I feel like being alone in my apartment, maybe ordering some takeout and watching some baseball.
Easy’s ‘thing for the front office’ is most likely dinner with the team owner and his family. I used to get invited to all those things. But with the way I’ve been playing lately, I guess I’m no longer a favorite. Easy’s a second line forward. My spot on the first line has never been in jeopardy until now.
“Jackson Moon.” A guy in a well-cut suit approaches us, his eyes lit up as he shakes hands with the Blaze legend. “It’s an honor. I’m Cain McMillan. I remember watching you play with my dad and grandpa.”
“Great to meet you, Cain,” Jackson says.
“We were actually at the game in ’98 when you and Trainor had that epic fight. The one where your head was injured. Man, all that blood on the ice…and you got back up! I’ll never forget it.”
“Yeah, that one hurt a little,” Jackson says wryly.
“Hurt Trainor a lot more than you, though.”
Jackson nods as Cain grabs a beer from the tray of a passing server, and Jackson does the same. Kevin Trainor wasn’t just hurt in that fight—he was never the same. After the doctors thought he had recovered, he rejoined his team, but he’d lost so much ground that he couldn’t contribute. He got injured again and ended up retiring young.
That’s one of my fears these days—getting hurt so badly that I’m forced to retire, and on a downward spiral at that—with my numbers in the toilet and my job on the line.
No one would guess I’m thinking these things, though. I mingle like usual, talking hockey with the guys, meeting hospital patients who were able to attend the event since the foundation is raising money for a Chicago children’s hospital; I sign jerseys and pucks, smile for pictures and represent my team well. Even though I feel like an imposter, I don’t let it show.
When people start heading out, I see that Easy is leaving with our team owner and his wife. I don’t begrudge him that; Easy’s a good guy. But it does burn to see Anton and Luca going with them.
So that’s what this is. A test run of sorts to warm Anton and Luca to the idea of having Easy on the first line instead of me. I exhale deeply, frustrated by this turn of events even though I brought it on myself with my shitty play.
“Hey, man.” Jackson claps me on the shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay.”
I nod.
“Let’s go blow off some steam,” he says, chugging the last of his beer.
I take out my phone to check the time, my pulse racing when I see the waiting text.
We need to meet tonight. You have one hour to call or text back.
* * *
Fuck. It’s been a few months since I got one of these messages, so I can’t say I’m surprised. Tonight of all nights, though. I’m already feeling like shit, and now I have to deal with this.
“Hey, Jackson, I’m sorry, but something just came up that I have to take care of.”
“You’re blowing me off?” He grins. “It better be a booty call, Vic.”
My single note of laughter holds no amusement. “I wish. It’s nothing fun.”
“Okay. No worries, bro.”
“Can we do it tomorrow night instead? Dinner and drinks?”
“Yeah, I can do that,” he replies.
“Great. I’ll text you tomorrow.”
Jackson’s expression turns serious. “You okay?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
We say our goodbyes, and as I exit through the stairwell rather than take the elevator to avoid the crowd, I loosen my tie and sigh, glad the social part of my night is over. Now I have to meet up with the only person in this world I hate. But at least there won’t be any false smiles, or pretending like everything’s great.
I am okay. I’ve been through worse than this. But
fuck, I just got cheated on and dumped in broad view of the entire Internet. The headlines were merciless and the photographers relentless. It would be nice if my career could nosedive in a slightly less public way.
Nice, but unlikely.
Chapter Three
Lindy
* * *
I don’t miss the hot Chicago days, but there are some things about summer in the South Side that I’m feeling nostalgic for on this early October evening. The walk from my train stop to home is quieter now that kids have gone back to school. No more splashing around in pools or running through lawn sprinklers or pick-up street hockey games.
There are still people sitting on their front porches—that’s a year-round thing here. When all the houses are narrow and stacked close together, everyone can hear the front porch conversations people have over a beer. I’ve had to listen to more than a few of the fights the couple next door is prone to having at night.
I’m glad their house is dark as I open the gate to the chain-link fence in our front yard and walk up the stairs of the small white bungalow. I’m tired. All I want is to wash away the day and any remains of blue ICEE and then read in bed.
I walk through the front door and immediately hear the sounds of a tirade about the Sox player at bat. I look into the living room and see the game on the TV screen.
“Are you fuckin’ kidding me with this guy?” my dad’s friend Chuck bellows. “My grandma’s got bigger balls than Hollinsworth. The ball barely touched the brim of his helmet last season—didn’t even hit his face—and he’s out for five fuckin’ games.”
“Hey guys,” I say to my dad and his three friends as I walk past them to the kitchen.
“Lindy, you could hit better than this guy,” Chuck calls after me.
They all groan in unison.
“What kind of a fucking moron swings at that pitch?” my dad cries. “That was about a foot out of the strike zone.”
“Yeah, hang your head, Hollinsworth,” my dad’s friend Don says. “Grab some pine!”
“Guy’s hittin’ about a buck fifty, way below the Mendoza line,” Chuck says with disgust. “He’s killing us!”
My dad and his friends, Chuck and Don, are die-hard Chicago sports fans. They’ve watched every televised baseball, football, basketball and hockey game that didn’t interfere with their 9-5 workdays since I was a young kid. Last year, they invited a guy about my age named Jerry, who works at a lumber mill with Don, to watch with them. So far it seems like Jerry’s pretty quiet—not that the other three give him much opportunity to say anything.
I’m starving. I scan the kitchen counter for dinner leftovers, but all I see is about a dozen empty Old Style cans and an open bag of cheese puffs.
“There’s pizza in the fridge!” my dad calls.
My stomach rumbles with approval. My dad only orders pizza from Tony’s, a local place, and it’s the best. I open the fridge and crouch down to pull a big slice of New York-style pepperoni out of the box.
“How was work, Lindy?” my dad asks.
I’m about to mumble that it was fine, like I always do, but my dad erupts into another loud groan with Chuck and Don.
“Fuckin’ Lowe!” Dad cries. “Guy could teach a class on how to hit into a double play! Christ! We finally get a man on base and he blows it.”
Leaning against the aging yellow Formica counter, I eat my pizza in silence. There’s quiet in the living room, too, as a commercial break begins. The pop and hiss of cans opening sound as Dad, Don and Chuck open fresh beers.
This slice of Tony’s pepperoni pizza is the high point of my day. My morning and afternoon were spent scrubbing floors and washing out dozens of stainless-steel ketchup, mustard and relish dispensers, the smell of them soaking into my skin. Then there was the ICEE Machine Incident. So now all my coworkers have seen what I’d look like in a wet t-shirt contest. Oh, and my obnoxious boss, too.
And as bad as that stuff was, the worst part by far, was seeing Victor at the VIP event tonight. Just walking into the same room as him made my heart race. I’ve seen him off and on during my time working at the Carson Center, but never as close up as I did tonight. Tonight, I discovered that his eyes aren’t just blue like I’ve seen in photos, but a thousand shades of indigo, ocean, and cornflower blue, the colors melding perfectly and holding me captive.
I knew he was tall—Victor is 6’3”—but tonight, I got to feel his height. As I looked up from the other side of my tray, nine inches shorter than him, my stomach swirled nervously as I imagined him embracing me. My cheek would rest in the most delicious spot between his chest and shoulder.
His short, blond hair was a controlled mess, spiky in places. My hands shook slightly as I wondered what it would be like to run my fingertips through that hair.
I was close enough to see the light, sandy brown stubble on his face. I think I may have even smelled him—I got a whiff of a faint, woodsy scent—but I can’t be sure it wasn’t one of the other two guys he was standing with.
Whether or not it was his smell I basked in, tonight I got closer to Victor Allen Lane than I ever dreamed I would. And he didn’t even look at me.
It took me a good five minutes to work up the courage to approach him and Easy. The first time I tried, my tray was emptied of drinks before I reached them. So I refilled, gave myself another pep talk, and went directly over to them.
When Victor saw the drinks and said, “Ah, perfect,” I nearly dropped my tray as I imagined he was talking about me. I know his “thanks” was directed my way, but he would’ve said that to any server.
He didn’t even look at me. I thought I didn’t want him to, because I was a ketchup-ey, musard-ey, Icee-ish mess. But it felt worse to be invisible.
What was I expecting? I’m the help. That event was for rich, famous people who donate to the Blaze Foundation so they can meet Blaze players. My only role was to carry around a tray of drinks and not drop it.
Victor has been the object of my affection since he was traded to the Blaze four years ago. I started reading up on our team’s new forward then, and the more I read, the more I liked him.
He’s Canadian. An only child. Age twenty-eight. A survivor of pediatric cancer. A huge baseball fan. He eats Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups before every home game. When he lost his dog Spike three years ago, he said in an interview that he cried every day for two weeks.
I may not know Victor, but I know a lot about him. He knows nothing about me, though, and he never will.
I’m twenty-three years old. Too old to have a crush on someone who couldn’t be further out of my league. I should probably be sensible and accept a date with Manny, the janitor at the Carson Center who told Ari he likes me.
Manny has yellow teeth, and he picks his nose. I just haven’t been able to bring myself to accept that this is my league.
“BOOM!”
There’s whooping and cheering in the living room. I lean back to get a look at the TV screen and see that the Sox just got a two-run homer.
“That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” my dad yells, pumping his fist. “Does Clemson come through every time or what?”
“Every fuckin’ time!” Don says gleefully. “His wife better be on her knees when he gets home tonight. My man deserves a steak and blowjob.”
I grab another slice of pizza and a bottle of water, then head upstairs for a shower. I could easily go to sleep right after, but there’s no way these guys will be quiet enough for that until the game is over.
I’ll just read in bed until then. I’m in the middle of a book about a female assassin who’s being wooed by a warrior king.
It’s fantasy, but it sure beats my reality—a nose-picking janitor.
Chapter Four
Victor
* * *
“What’s going on with you, Victor?”
Fuck. You know you’re on Coach Johnson’s shit list when he calls you by your first name. He always calls players by our last names, and if he’s yelling at you, you’re
good. It’s when he stops yelling and turns serious that you’re in trouble.
Sitting in a chair in his office, I shake my head and look at him blankly. “I don’t know.”
It’s kind of true. I know what’s been distracting me lately, but I can’t tell my head coach—or anyone—about that. That’s not what he’s asking me, though. He wants to know why one of his first line wingers is playing like a guy any college coach would cut. And I have no explanation for that.
“You still hung up on that actress?”
“No.”
He cocks his brows, skeptical of my answer.
“You had photographers following you everywhere when you were with her, and even more of ‘em after those pictures of her with that other guy came out. You were the most famous player on our team—hell, on any team—for a while there. Don’t you miss that?”
I have to laugh at his theory. “Hell no. I hated having those fucking photographers on my ass all the time. I was into Kristen, and it would’ve been nice of her to just break it off with me before she started fucking someone else, but it went down a different way.”
He nods and takes a deep breath. “Think you need a break?”
My stomach rolls with nausea at the thought. “A break” would give Coach an opening to slide Easy onto the first line, and I wouldn’t get my spot back once that happened.
“No. Look, I know my numbers have been bad lately.”
“It’s not just your numbers, Vic. You’re phoning it in. At this level, I can’t have that.”
I exhale hard, my shoulders slumping as I stare at the floor. “I know. I’ll work harder. Just give me a chance to turn things around.”
“Are you sure there’s nothing going on? Nothing I can help with?”
“Yeah, it’s not…my mind’s been elsewhere, that’s true. But I’ll get refocused.”
Coach Johnson’s typically hard expression softens. “You know, son, any offensive line of an NHL team is still pretty damned elite. It’s not—”
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