Breakaway

by Avon Gale

  He’d been telling himself not to worry about it, that things would work out, one way or another. He had a good thing going with the Renegades, and he’d become something of a fan favorite. There was even a horrible local car dealership commercial with Jared and Darcy Leblanc, the Renegades’ best player, where Jared pretended to fight high prices while Darcy shot a puck into the back of a Chevy truck. It was ridiculous.

  But he didn’t want to be around for the Renegades’ inevitable financial decline. Playing in a team’s last year, after the death knell of possible relocation or temporary suspension, was depressing as hell. And Jared paid attention. He could tell that attendance was waning and there were fewer sponsors than before. He’d also heard talk about the possibility of a new minor league baseball team moving to Savannah, an AA farm team at about the same level as the Renegades. The Renegades might as well pack it in and cut their losses. Jared had an irrational hatred of baseball, just because he was trying to play hockey in the south.

  This season was going well so far, so he stopped thinking about it. He told the realtor thanks but no thanks and promised to keep her in mind if he was going to be there longer than a year. But he kept a box of important stuff next to his bed already packed in case he got that call that he’d been traded. It made him wonder why he was keeping any of it, if all he did was haul it around from state to state and never take it out of the box. But that was one of those things that would work itself out eventually. He was trying to enjoy the moment, have fun, and not get caught up in the moodiness that sometimes took hold at night and kept him awake.

  And that worked, for the most part, until that fucking road trip to Jacksonville.

  He had a thing—a thing, ugh—for a twenty-year-old rookie who was going to be long gone from the ECHL before the ink dried on Jared’s next contract—if there was one. Jared saw the potential for the kid to play in the majors, but even if he didn’t, he would definitely be up in the AHL before too long. Either way, it wasn’t going to end well for Jared.

  Of course, it seemed like maybe it had already ended when he got back to Savannah and didn’t hear a word from Lane. Not that he wanted to—he did—and not that he checked his phone for messages more than usual—he did that too. It was just that he’d had fun with him, more than most people he’d been to bed with lately. Which wasn’t very many people. He barely knew the kid. Sure. But he sort of felt like he knew a guy when he played the same professional sport. It was hard to explain to other people what it was like to give up everything for a career based on short-term promises and governed by so many unknown variables.

  Back in Savannah he was sufficiently mopey that his teammate Jace Wynn took him out to a local bar after practice and bought him a whiskey and Coke. “It’s real whiskey too. Well, it’s Kentucky Tavern, but that counts.”

  Jared hardly drank anything other than beer, but he never turned down a free drink. “Thanks, man.”

  “Why are you such a woe muppet, anyway? You get knocked in the head too hard?” Wynn asked, eating a handful of peanuts. Wynn was about twenty-four, in the prime of his pro career, and clearly loving every second of it. Jared liked him a lot, which made him wonder why they’d never hung out before.

  “Nah. I’m just old,” Jared told him, smiling slightly. “So, did I hear you were going to maybe get a tryout with the Chicago Wolves?”

  “No changing the subject. We’re talking about you being a woe muppet.” Wynn narrowed his eyes. “Did you get dumped? You did, didn’t you. That’s Leblanc’s theory, and it would explain why you didn’t go score with the hot Jacksonville girls when we were there. I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone.”

  “I wasn’t,” Jared assured him, then mentally kicked himself. You idiot, you’re still not. “And why are you talking about that with Leblanc, anyway?”

  “Because everyone likes you, and we’re worried that you’re getting head-concussion depression or whatever.”

  Jesus Christ. Jared wasn’t sure if he should be touched at his teammates’ concern, or hide under the table in embarrassment. “I don’t. I’m serious. It’s just... I’m thirty-one, you know.”

  “Yes. And you wear number twenty-two, and you’re from Michigan. Hi. I’m Jace Wynn. I’m from London, Ontario, and you’ll find me on your line on the ice. On your right.” Wynn smiled sunnily and held his hand out. “Nice to meet you. Jared, is it?”

  “Oh, shut up,” Jared muttered, but he fist-bumped Wynn and picked up his drink. “Being over thirty in this league isn’t a picnic.”

  “Hey, I’m twenty-four, and I’m still hanging out on the blanket. You’re fine.” Wynn took another handful of peanuts. “The picnic blanket. Did that make sense?”

  “Not really. No. But you’ll see what I mean if you’re still here in a few years. Which you won’t be, because you’ll be playing in Chicago or, hell, St. Louis by then,” Jared said, referring to the Wolves’ major team affiliate, the Blues.

  Wynn rolled his eyes. “Okay, first, nobody will be here in a few years. As in, in Savannah. The Renegades will move to Columbus and get some new godawful jersey. Second, I’m a fourth-line winger, Shore. My agent is trying to justify the small amount of income I bring him, which he uses to pay the meter when he meets with me. I’m serious. It works out to neither of us bringing anything to the table. It’s great.”

  “I can barely remember what team I played for when I was twenty-four.” Where had he been? Reading? Toledo?

  “Thank you, oh wizened sage,” Wynn intoned, folding his hands together and bowing. “So if you’re so old and tired like a sad zoo lion, why are you still playing?”

  And Jared thought he could get away from thinking about that shit. Apparently not. “Because I’m a hockey player. What else should I do?”

  “Not act. Definitely. I saw that commercial.” Wynn mimicked punching at the air and laughed when Jared turned red and slumped down in his seat. “Sorry. Look. I like you. You don’t mind when girls stay over, and that was hot when what’s-her-name went in the shower with you. I told her to do that, you know. You’re welcome.”

  “You told her? What the hell? That’s not helping my ego, and also it’s creepy as hell, Wynn.” Jared took a handful of peanuts.

  “Well, I mean, I suggested it. Seriously, Shore, are you okay or what? I have to report back. This is awkward, and it’s about, like, feelings and things.” Wynn made a face. “How do girls do this all the time? I should ask my sister.”

  “Maybe you should tell her to get in the shower with me,” Jared teased, and laughed at the glare he got in response. Wynn’s sister was eighteen and a knockout. Half the guys on the team had a hard-on for her. The Code prohibited that sort of fraternization, but Jared had heard more than one of their teammates joking that Wynn should get traded so it didn’t.

  “Fuck you. That’s my sister. I don’t care if you can beat up high prices and NHL rookies. You’re not taking her anywhere.” Wynn looked at him, considering. “Actually you’re okay. You could maybe take her on a date. But no kissing.”

  “You realize that girl—those girls—you had in our room in Jacksonville, they were someone’s sister. Right?”

  “No. I specifically checked, and they were only children.” Wynn winked. “I know. I know. Are you secretly in love with my sister?”

  “Wynn, your sister is eighteen and lives in Ontario.” Jared was thinking about that NHL rookie comment, and it was making him throw peanuts angrily at the basket.

  Wynn put his chin in his hands and gazed at Jared across the table. “Tell me more things I already know, Shore.”

  “All right. You’re an asshole. How’s that? And yeah. I’m okay.” Except maybe he wasn’t. Maybe this was it, his last season, and maybe his body was trying to get that point across, since his mind was either ignoring it or preoccupied with thinking about going to bed with Lane Courtnall.

  Wynn backed off after that—at least about Jared’s mental state. He did make Jared laugh, telling him stories about playing i
n the juniors with a couple of guys who were in the NHL and how they were douche bags. Wynn bought a round and then tried to buy another, but Jared put a stop to that because it was three in the afternoon.

  “Besides, if you’re so worried about me having a head injury, should you really be buying me drinks?”

  Wynn shrugged and finished the rest of Jared’s whiskey. “It’s okay because it’s whiskey. And that was used as medicine, back in the olden times. And as you keep pointing out, you’re old, so there you go.”

  “It’s a good thing you’re not a doctor,” Jared told him. “Thanks for the drinks, Wynn.” What he really meant was “Thanks for dragging me out and telling me our teammates think I have either a head injury or a broken heart,” and he was pretty sure Wynn got that.

  Jared went home and looked at the box of stuff that he kept with him—photographs, jerseys, and that kind of thing—and took out the framed invitation to the Flyers camp. The Flyers organization would like to invite you.... He took it into the small living room and set it on the mantle above the fireplace he never used. Savannah had a hilarious idea of what winter was. It really did. He wasn’t buying a condo, but it was at least a sign that he lived there. The rest of the apartment really did look about as personal as the Econo Lodge in Jacksonville.

  Thinking about that made him check his phone, which made him mad. And he thought about going out, meeting Wynn and Leblanc and some of the guys down at one of the trendy bars in the Historic District. He could use some company, and it didn’t seem like it would be a problem if he picked up a girl. He wasn’t sure why it would be a problem if he picked up a guy, since he and Lane had nothing beyond tentative plans to see each other again. But instead of going out, he got off thinking about Lane and then fell asleep watching an Avalanche game. He dreamed he was playing hockey with Lane, and the goalie was Patrick Roy. Wynn was saying “Don’t pass the puck to that guy on your left,” and Jared scored a goal. On Patrick Roy.

  Lane kissed him on the ice in front of everyone, and then he turned into Wynn’s sister, in the shower in Jacksonville, wearing a Flyers jersey.

  People who claimed dreams told the future were stupid.

  Except that, in his next game, Jared did score a goal. It wasn’t on Patrick Roy, but the goalie was sort of crazy, so maybe that counted. It was the first goal Jared’d scored since the last season, and he’d forgotten how fun it was. As he skated past his teammates and fist bumped them on his way to the bench, he remembered being nineteen and flying down the ice, the puck on his stick and the goal light already flashing in his head.

  He hadn’t always been the villain. A long time ago, he’d been the hero. As he took a drink from his water bottle, breathless from exertion and the simple, happy euphoria of his sport, he wondered when that had changed and why he’d never noticed.

  And if maybe, just maybe, he could change it back.

  The logical answer to that was no, it would be way too difficult—but that had never stopped Jared before. If he only did things the easy way, he would have played peewee football, not hockey. Or he would have been a defenseman instead of a center, like everyone and their mother told him he should be.

  And he would have gone home to Ann Arbor after Andrew Whittaker looked him in the eyes and said, “I just told you all that stuff so you’d play better, Jared. I’m sorry you thought it meant something that it didn’t.”

  Jared notched an assist in the Renegades’ third-period win against Evansville, and combined with a first period fight and his surprise goal in the second, he got himself a Gordie-Howe hat trick and the game’s first star.

  Maybe he didn’t have to be the villain or the hero. Maybe he could be both. If he was hanging his skates up for good after the season, at least he’d know he tried. Next time Lane Courtnall was on the ice with him, he was going to give him a run for his money.

  Then Jared was going to take him to bed and fuck him senseless.

  Chapter 5

  Lane was nervous, and that was dumb.

  Because he wasn’t nervous about the game, even though the Storm and the Renegades were in a pitched battle for first place. He was nervous about seeing Jared. That was dumb. Right? He was pretty sure it was dumb. And when he could check his phone again, Zoe would agree with him, and then he’d be nervous and stupid. Great.

  They were playing a Saturday-night game followed by a Sunday matinee. Then they were leaving on an extended road trip. Lane was looking forward to it, and he was glad that he was rooming with the Sea Storm’s goalie, Riley Hunter, instead of Ryan. Not that he didn’t like Ryan, because he did. Ryan was just very intense.

  Lane and Riley had started hanging out a lot, and Lane liked him quite a bit. Like all goaltenders, Riley was pretty laid-back. He was also weird, but Lane could deal with Riley’s tendency to talk to the goalposts and how he was always stretching—way more than Ryan trying to sleep with every girl in the entire southern United States.

  Riley became Lane’s road roommate by walking up to him, handing him some coconut water, and saying, “I brought you some. Do you want to be roommates with me on the road? I don’t snore.”

  For all his loud sex and general cluelessness, Ryan was a really nice guy like that. When he checked to make sure Lane had a road-game roommate, all he said was “Awesome. He’s kind of weird and quiet like you are.”

  Riley thought he and Zoe were dating, which Lane expected half of the team thought. But he was the first one who asked Lane, point blank, “Is that girl with the cool tattoos your girlfriend?”

  Lane immediately decided that, since Riley remarked on her tattoos and called them cool, he could date Zoe if he wanted. “No,” he’d said. “She’s my best friend, but that’s all.”

  “Did you know her before you came here to play hockey?” Riley’d asked with an intent and even gaze.

  “Nope. She was our waitress at Cruisers after that first game against the Renegades. Ryan was hitting on her, and then left me there so that I’d sleep with her.”

  “Oh. Cool. What do her tattoos mean?”

  That she sleeps with girls and doesn’t care what anyone thinks about it? “Umm.” He had no idea how to answer that. “You should ask her. She’d tell you. I think, anyway. She’s really nice.”

  Riley had just nodded, and that was the end of it.

  Lane was quiet as the team sat on the bench waiting for the puck to drop in the Savannah Civic Center. He was doing his best to ignore his teammates, who were making jokes about the prior evening’s Disney on Ice: Princess Wishes performance and making up elaborate stories about how it starred their opponents. They were the same kind of stupid comments Lane had heard his entire life on a hockey bench, and he was getting tired of them.

  Zoe was a girl, and if she were a princess, she’d probably behead people just for fun—while wearing a really nice dress, because she had more clothes than anyone Lane had ever met. Considering his circle of acquaintances were hockey players, it might just be a normal amount. But it seemed like a lot to him. Part of him wanted to lift his head and snap, “I suck cock and I don’t wear dresses, you morons.” But he knew they weren’t even thinking about that. It was just dumb guy talk. Lane didn’t translate it into his sexual preferences, but he wondered if anyone else did.

  Maybe he was just thinking about it because he could see the Renegades bench—and Jared—and it was the first time he’d seen him since that night in Jacksonville. His body, including his dick, remembered everything immediately, which was not comfortable, given all the protective gear he was wearing. Apparently his choice was to either be in pain, thinking about cocksucking, or to get mad at his teammates for making jokes about it.

  Luckily the whistle sounded to start the game. Lane got ready for his first shift and tried to get his head focused on the game and not head. Fortunately, when his skates hit the ice, instinct took over, and it was all hockey.

  The rivalry between the Storm and the Renegades was about as intense as you were going to find for two souther
n-market hockey teams. It was fun as hell, and Lane was a lot more comfortable with the game—with the speed and the heavier checks and even the trash talk—and he was having a great time. He was definitely not going to throw down with Jared, or anyone else. Instead, he was going to score goals and leave the fighting to the people who were better at it.

  Unlike the last times the two teams played, which were low-scoring games with the winner decided by a single goal, this one was a back-and-forth, fast-and-furious effort. Both teams scored within seconds of each other. The momentum shifts were dizzying, and the building was electric. Lane scored a goal and got booed, really vehemently, because a home team goal had just been announced.

  “Home wrecker,” Bridey said with a grin and an enthusiastic fist bump.

  His fist bump from Reeder was a little less enthusiastic. Reeder had been the best player on the Storm for the last three years and was probably not expecting Lane to show up and challenge him for the top position. But that’s how it went. It was Lane’s job, and he was there to play.

  The other person who was there to play, apparently was Jared Shore. And he wasn’t playing like Lane remembered, because he was.... Wow. He was fast. Or at least a lot faster than Lane remembered, and it was obvious he wasn’t going for the Sea Storm’s scorers to knock them over. He was going for their goal.

  “Hey, Campbell.” Lane grabbed his teammate’s arm before he hopped over the boards and onto the ice. “Watch out for Shore, man.”

  “Why? I’m not gonna fight him. Sorry, Courts.” Campbell flashed a grin at him. He was missing a tooth. “I lose my teeth just skating. I don’t need to pick on goons.”

  Jared wasn’t just a goon, which was exactly what Lane was trying to tell him. “I think he’s trying to score,” Lane pointed out literally, with his stick, indicating Shore as he skated up the lane and put the puck behind Hunter to tie the game.

  Four minutes later Shore scored again and gave the Renegades a 3-2 lead with two minutes left in the period.