If anyone was going to be mistrustful in this relationship, shouldn’t it have been me? I was the one who got my heart broken at eighteen while she went off happy as a clam to her damn debate meet.
And if I wasn’t worked up enough about Grace, Chloe had informed us three days ago that she was planning a short visit with friends in Houston. She was insistent that she’d only be gone for a few nights, but when had Chloe ever kept her promises?
It had only been forty-eight hours, and already Josie had reverted right back to the sad-eyed, silent girl she’d been at the beginning of the school year. Apparently, she didn’t have a whole lot of faith in her mother to return either.
The whole thing made me want to take my hockey stick to the wall. I wanted to beat on something, to break something. I felt like I didn’t have any control in my own life—I couldn’t stop Gracie from bailing on me, I couldn’t stop Chloe from flitting off without a care. And I sure as hell couldn’t seem to stop my baby girl from getting her heart broken all over again.
“What the hell kind of pass was that?” Coach Dillion hollered at me from the other side of the ice. I gritted my teeth, having no excuse for my shitty play. My head was just not in the game right now, and I had no idea how to fix it.
“You doing okay?” Jay asked, skating up to my side as we prepared for the next face-off. We were scrimmaging, attempting to work out some of the defensive kinks we’d been experiencing in the last few losses. I had no idea if any of it was sticking with the other players—I was barely paying attention to what was happening on the ice.
“Shitty week,” I muttered to Jay.
“How ’bout I come over this afternoon and spend some time with Josie?” he asked. “I can take her out for popsicles or something. Try to get her mind off things.”
“That would be great, man. Thanks.”
He was still watching me closely. “Is that the only thing bothering you?” I had told Jay about the continuing drama with Chloe, but hadn’t mentioned Grace. I certainly didn’t want to go there right now.
“Let’s just get through this practice,” I muttered, moving to take my spot at the face-off circle.
“Sloppy fucking work, Dalton!” Coach yelled when Gabe missed a pass from Cane. I gritted my teeth. The pass had been off target, and Gabe would have needed magic powers to catch it. But of course, he was the one Coach was berating. He never said shit to Ryan Cane.
But now Coach seemed to be on a tear, his face red, prominent forehead vein bulging. I watched as he got up in Gabe’s face, snarling about God knows what. Gabe didn’t respond to the diatribe but even from half way across the ice I could see the tense set of his shoulders.
“I don’t know why I fucking bother with the lot of you,” Coach yelled, throwing his clipboard to the ice. “You’re the most pathetic team I’ve ever seen.” He skated over to Gates, one of his assistants. “They’re all yours. I need a stiff fucking drink after watching this bullshit.” Then he slammed open the door to the bench with a resounding smack. We could still hear him swearing as he stomped down the tunnel.
“Jesus,” Jay muttered. “Are we supposed to feel inspired now?”
“He’s an ass,” I replied. “Come on.” We skated over to Gabe, who was breathing heavy and staring down at the ice.
“Man, that shit was not on you,” I told him. “It was an awful pass. He shouldn’t have blamed you.”
Gabe raised his head slowly. His light brown eyes were swimming with anger and frustration. “I know exactly why he blames me,” he said, voice low and full of fire. “Coach doesn’t like guys who look like me.”
Again, the urge to break shit overtook me. I couldn’t even imagine how pissed off Gabe must be. He’d been playing for Dillion for a couple years and must have dealt with endless amounts of this treatment. And Dillion wouldn’t have been the only one to treat him like that. The NHL was the least diverse of the four major sports leagues. I could only guess at the stream of bullshit he would have endured both on and off the ice.
I brought my face close to his, close enough that our helmets touched. “You’re the best fucking winger on the team. Don’t you forget that.”
He didn’t nod, didn’t respond at all, just held me with that fiery gaze that said so much more than words could. My urge to break things doubled.
I skated over to the assistant coach. “Can I take over practice?”
The man looked tired and resigned. He held up his hands. “Fine. Maybe they need a shake-up.”
They need a hell of a lot bigger shake-up than one practice,I thought, skating away to center ice.
“Listen up,” I shouted. “The rest of this practice is optional.” I pointed over to the bench where Dillion had just disappeared. “You share Coach’s attitude? That’s fine. You can go hit the showers. Or grab some time with the weights. Maybe see the masseuse or sit in the steam room for a while. I don’t give a fuck.”
No one moved. “I’m serious,” I growled. “You don’t want to be out here, go. Management isn’t here. Our own coach took off. No one is going to punish you for it or hold it against you. Iunderstand that we’re all tired and frustrated. If you don’t think you can work through that today, get off the ice.”
“Fuck yeah we’re frustrated,” Ryan Cane barked out. “Can you blame us? We’re playing with a bunch of amateurs. My peewee team skated better than half of these pussies.”
I pointed at the bench again. “Sounds like you need a break, Cane.”
He glared at me for a long moment then muttered something to the guy next to him. The two of them skated over to the bench. A few other guys shared glances. There were a lot of angry faces on that ice. Four more guys followed, all of them grumbling while they skated off.
I waited a few minutes to see if anyone else would go. When silence fell over the ice, I took a deep breath. “All right then. The rest of us are going to scrimmage. Four on four. Gabe’s gonna call line changes for the red side. Jay will be in charge for the white jerseys.”
