“Dr. Jacobs, hi. I’m glad I caught you before you left,” he says with a polite smile.
I shake his extended hand. “Call me Ben, please, since we’ll be seeing more of each other soon,” I reply, and he grins.
“Great, then please call me Carson. I think of Mr. Wells as my father.” We both chuckle before he continues. “I was hoping you might have a couple of minutes so I could introduce you to someone?” Carson asks, and I nod politely, even though I’m dying to get home to bed.
“Of course. That would be great.”
“Perfect. He’s just over this way.” He turns to lead us toward the far side of the ballroom. The crowd thins out enough for us to walk side by side, and he fills me in as we weave through the tables.
“So, nothing is official yet, of course, but I thought this would be a good opportunity for you to meet the person who’ll be running point for the helmet project from our side. We’re stealing him from our AHL affiliate.”
“Ah, got called up to the show, did he?” I quip, and he chuckles.
“You could say that. Aleks has been the equipment team lead for the Emerald City Eagles for the past year and a half. I think he’ll be a great fit for this project. He’s got an exceptional hockey mind, even though he’s never played at the pro level. He comes from a huge family of top-level players though, so he’s well aware of what the guys will need and what questions they’ll have.”
Suddenly, my head starts to swim, and the palms of my hands get sweaty.Did he say Aleks? Someone who doesn’t play the game but comes from a big hockey family. No… It can’t be…
He leads me over to a huddle of giant-sized Sasquatch players. They’re all laughing about something, their attention focused on one man who’s much shorter than the rest. One of the players—I think it’s Rylan Collings, their team captain—is standing directly in front of the smaller man, doing something with the man’s bow tie, I think. It’s hard to tell what’s going on, but there’s a lot of laughter and jeering from the other guys, and Rylan’s face is bright red. Everyone seems to be having fun though. As we approach, Rylan takes a step back from the shorter man, who immediately drops to the ground with an exaggerated flourish, one knee bent, and bows before the team captain in a theatrical display of worship. Then, he clasps his hands clasped over his heart and turns his face up toward Rylan with a wide grin. When we’re finally close enough to see him clearly, I have to stifle my gasp as the room spins around me.
Because, sure enough, the person Carson was raving about, the person I’m going to be working closely with on a project critical to my career, the person who is currently on hisknees, flirting shamelessly with the gorgeous team captain of the Seattle Sasquatch, is none other than the man I hooked up with and ditched last night. Aleks Warren.
“Dr. Benjamin Jacobs, I’d like you to meet Aleks Warren,” Carson says with a gracious smile.
Aleks scrambles to his feet, hurriedly brushing off the knees of his pants before he turns around. His eyes widen as he reaches up to adjust his bow tie, which is slightly crooked, I note with a sense of satisfaction.Guess Rylan Collings isn’t perfect at everything.
He swallows hard when he sees me, but otherwise, there’s no outward sign he even recognizes me, which feels like a knife to the chest. Mix that with my irrational jealousy over how cozy he seems to be acting with Rylan Collings, and I feel like a confused teenager.
“Hi, Dr. Jacobs,” he says with a friendly smile, extending his hand. “Great to meet you.”
“Hello,” I say politely. I take his hand and try to ignore the shot of electricity that shoots up my arm as our palms meet.
“Aleks has agreed to come on board with the Sasquatch to be the point person for the helmet project,” Carson says. “Although it looks like you and Rylan have been doing some work on neck protection?” He grins mischievously.
Aleks blushes, and Rylan lets out a good-natured laugh, throwing his arm around Aleks’ shoulders. I literally have to bite back a growl.What the hell is wrong with me? I’m not a jealous person.Not to mention the fact that Rylan Collings, as far as I know, is straight as a goddamn arrow. But some primal force inside me wants to rip that meaty arm off Aleks’s shoulders and tear Rylan fucking Collings limb from limb for daring to flirt with Aleks. Because he’smine.
“Just making sure young Aleks here is wearing all his equipment, including his bow tie, properly.” Rylan grins at his GM. “Can’t be too careful, y’know, boss.”
Carson chuckles. “Glad you’re all so keen on proper equipment protocols. It will come in useful during the helmet trial.”
I wouldn’t be able to recount the next few minutes of conversation if someone held a gun to my head. I can only hope I didn’t act so weird that Carson or anyone else picked up on it. All I know is after a couple of minutes of polite small talk, I make my excuses and hightail it out of that party as fast as humanly possible. I don’t even stop to say good night to Nadia and Irena, texting them from my Uber instead, my chest constricted with anxiety. Relief floods over me when I finally get back to my condo, but as soon as I close the door behind me, I lean back against it with a loud groan. “What the fuck am I going to do now?” I mutter to myself as the weight of this fucked-up situation hits me full force.
Chapter 10
ALEKS
Iletoutaloud groan as I drag my eyes open on Sunday morning. My phone is pinging incessantly with Josie’s individual tone, and she’s going to be pissed if I ignore her, but I barely got any sleep. I tossed and turned for hours after getting home, unable to decide if I should be happy about my new job or if I should be freaking the fuck out. Obviously, it’s going to be slightly awkward working with the guy who fucked me and ran a couple of nights ago, but as I thought more about it last night, I realized that’s not the only problem I’m facing.
My dad refuses to believe CTE exists. He played in the NHL for many years; he was what they used to call an enforcer. One of the last of his kind, his job was to protect his teammates with brute force. That kind of player is no longer a part of the game, but back when my dad played, it was serious as fuck. If any of the big scorers took a hit they didn’t like or there was a missed call on a penalty, the enforcer took care of it, which usually meant some unlucky guy from the other team was gonna get the shit kicked out of him.
Just to add to my fun and games this weekend, today is our regular family lunch slash hockey game. Because my dad is… well… an over-the-top kind of guy, when they built their house, he had his own mini hockey rink built. Yeah, that’s right. Literally, my family has a private hockey rink in a separate building on their huge lakefront property.
We try to get together every few months to pass the puck around in a friendly game. My brothers aren’t often around during the season, but my sister and her boyfriend are usually there. Josie often comes, and my dad’s always got a few of his old random hockey buddies around who are happy to jump back onto the ice.
As a teenager, I dreaded these command performances, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized they’re actually kind of special. My dad, as much as he drives me crazy, really does love having us all together on the ice. After she retired from the Olympic figure skating team, my mom coached younger skaters for a long time, so that extremely OTT ice rink has always gotten a lot of use.
The problem I need to solve, before seeing dad today, is how I should approach the topic of my new job, and it’s a lot more complicated than it should be.
The NHL, like most other giant western businesses, is run by a cabal of older white men. My dad has worked with NHL executives and owners since shortly after he retired, and he fits right into the old boys’ club. Despite all evidence to the contrary, none of them will acknowledge CTE exists, or if it does, they deny that hockey has any role in causing it. Their generation believes any guy who doesn’t bounce back up after a wickedly hard hit is just weak. It doesn’t matter what the science says or how my dad needs two hands to count how many of his fellow enforcers are either brain damaged or gone, my father and the NHL stubbornly insist on keeping their heads firmly buried in the sand.
