Penn shoots me a look, his cockiness faltering into something closer to concern. It’s never a good sign when the team owner calls you into the coach’s office. Especially not when you’re thirty-six-years old and aging out of the sport faster than you can keep up with training.
But I push that thought away. I’ve still got a year left on my contract, and since the bar fight fiasco a month ago, I’ve kept my nose clean and head down. This can’t be bad news.
Maybe I’m getting some kind of recognition for how I tore apart the New Jersey City Tigers last weekend.
“Catch you later,” I say, clapping Penn on the shoulder before following our owner.
I haven’t even showered yet. There’s dried sweat on my face and neck and I’m still in a pair of loose-fitting sweats, a Mayhem T-shirt, and slides.
When I’m on the ice, I’m running nonstop, back and forth, always moving. Perks of being a forward, and the guy calling the shots while making them, too. It just means by the time I’m done with a practice or game, I’m exhausted and stink. Badly.
Caleb’s walking beside me like he’d rather be anywhere else, and I can’t blame him. The guy answers to a thousand people every day, just recently fired our General Manager for stealing from the team, and deals with us shithead athletes who make him money and lose his money too.
I steal a quick glimpse at him out of the corner of my eye. He’s staring straight ahead, long, lean legs eating up the space, deep in thought.
He’s an enigma to most of us on the team. Never lets anyone get too close, but likes being involved more than most team owners. He’s hard-edged, all business and didn’t come from hockey.
From what I’ve heard, Caleb started in the NBA playing professional basketball, but after an injury ended his career, he put everything he had saved into buying the New York City NHL team.
And now? He’ll be damned if he lets us screw around and ruin his investment. And I wouldn't want to do that either, because a loss for the club also means a loss for me and the guys.
We walk through the hallways in nothing but silence and the faint slap of my shoes on the concrete. The facility is massive, one of the largest in the country, with state-of-the-art everything thanks to Caleb’s decision to throw a ton of money into its redesign just six months ago.
Winning the Stanley Cup the last two seasons in a row will do that. Plus, Mayhem fans some of the most loyal out there but they’re also some of the most high-class and like new things like their luxury suites and lounges to watch us play.
The walls are lined with photos from seasons past, trophies and shots of the city skyscrapers. Everything is new, clean and to excellence. Something that Caleb has insisted on since he purchased the Mayhem.
Even though I started my career in Canada, the quintessential Canadian who was raised with a hockey stick in my fist, the Mayhem snagged me when I was only twenty-two. I’ve been here ever since, and it’s felt like home in a way I never expected.
I’ve found friendship that feels like family here, and fans who’ve always accepted me even when we haven’t won. The thought of leaving all this behind, of going back up north when my contract ends in a year?
Damn… I can’t even picture retirement. It feels like I've still got at least another good win in me. I just hope Caleb thinks that too.
We reach the door to coach’s office and Caleb knocks.
“Come in!” coach Steele’s loud voice booms. “Caleb,” he says standing and greeting us. He shakes Caleb’s hand first then squeeze my shoulder affectionately.
Coach Steele is a retired player in his late 50s. Great guy who treats us like his sons. But even his patience has limits when itcomes to the stunts me and the guys pull, and I know this latest bar fight and the fall out has been wearing on him.
“Hey, Coach,” I say, feeling awkward in a way that I’d never feel around him normally. But with both Steele and Caleb staring me down, the air feels heavier in here.
Normally, I’d crack a joke about Coach calling us the little punks who are making him go prematurely bald. He’d fire back that we weren’t half the players he was in his prime.
That banter feels wildly inappropriate right now, not with the big boss watching me like a hawk.
“Sit,” Caleb orders, gesturing to the chair in front of Steele’s desk. He stays standing, positioning himself behind the cold metal table like it’s a barricade. Two against one. This feels off. I should’ve dragged Penn in here for backup.
Coach Steele leans forward, locking eyes with me in that way that tells me whatever’s coming next isn’t good. “Thanks for coming in, Boone.”
I nod. Not like I have a choice. If I did, I’d pick about a hundred different forms of torture over standing here while the man who’s always felt like a dad looks at me with disappointment and the team’s owner scowls beside him.
“Son,” Coach Steele begins, his tone heavier than usual, “as you’re aware, that bar fight last month brought a lot of negative press to you and to the team here at Mayhem.”
I wet my lips, wishing like hell that wasn’t where this conversation was going. The whole night had been a massive misunderstanding ending in my arrest.
Penn started the fight, of course, and then it snowballed with some drunk guy at the bar cracking a glass bottle over his head knocking him out.
I stepped in to break it up, yanking the shards out of the drunk guy’s hands before anyone’s throat could get slashed. Next thing I know, there’s a photo of me splashed all over the internet, holding a broken glass bottle smeared with blood, angled like a dagger, looking like I’m about to slice the guy open myself.
