“You need her to rub you down, do you? Tuck you in?”
“Fuck off.” I finally look at him because Sawyer’s disappeared out of my sight. Then I rub my face and take stock of how over the top I’m acting. He’s right. I don’t let people get under my skin like this. “She’s the only person I really know on this island.”
“Except for all your teammates and everyone in the organization. Kind of like when you were in California… And I don’t remember you acting like this over Joe, and Ken travels with the team to look after the whole team. Youhavesomeone if you need someone.”
“She’s a Tucker billionaire. Her familyliterallyhas billions. She doesn’t need the money from her practice.”
“Just because her motivation isn’t your motivation doesn’t mean it’s not valid. Whatever’s going on between you two, if you don’t respect her boundaries, she’s going to dropsomething, and I doubt it’ll be the practice she’s built in Bellerive.”
“There’s just…” I struggle to find the words. “There’s something…”
“Bish, you ever hear the expression you catch more flies with honey than vinegar?”
“I’m not trying to catch her.” Might be untrue, but I can’t admit that shit out loud yet. Saying it makes it true, and the only thing I have room to pursue is my career until I can’t chase those goals anymore. At that point, I’ll think about chasing some woman, having some kids, a life beyond hockey. Right now, Idon’t have time for any of that. I don’twantto make time for any of that.
“You keep telling yourself that,” Chayton says.
Instead of taking our conversation in circles where I admit nothing and he knows everything anyway, I remember something I wanted to ask him in person.
“Someone in the Bullet’s organization here said they’d been having conversations with Michigan about making a trade for me.”
“What?” Chayton laughs, and then he thinks about it for a beat. “I mean, I doubt it. That’s a backroom deal for sure, so I’m not telling you there haven’t been any conversations, but your contract is huge. Michigan would have to make a lot of room for you, and despite how we played tonight, we’ve got a shot at playoffs for sure this year.”
“I thought the guy was blowing smoke,” I say, dragging my hand through my damp hair. What I can’t decide is whether Dalton was totally bullshitting me or if the internal politics of the team is already in disarray. Is Dalton and whoever is aligned with him working against King Alexander and Jonathan Tucker? And if that’s true, how fucked is the team? Better yet, how fucked am I?
“Let’s go get a drink,” Chayton says, slapping my shoulder. “We going to a bar or to your apartment?”
“My apartment,” I say, relieved that he’s not forcing me to interact with anyone from the wild crowd tonight. After my argument with Sawyer, all my adrenaline is gone.
“Sounds good,” Chayton says. “We can get in a real catchup without having to behave for the masses. That crowd was rowdy tonight.”
“Right?” I say, leading him toward the exit. “There’s no way they can sustain that energy all season.”
“But if they do,” Chayton says, “you might have landed in the best place for you. You feed off that kind of hyped-up atmosphere. Always played like shit in a quiet arena.”
“Who knows?” I say as I text my driver to swing around to pick us up. “None of us can predict the future.”
In this moment, I’m not even sure how I feel about anything—the island, the team, my hot-ass trainer who’s completely fucking with my head. At some point all of it’ll come together or fall apart, but I don’t have a clue which direction we’re headed in.
Chapter Twelve
Logan
Unlike in Bellerive, our game in New York haslotsof press. Every major sports reporter is here to witness the Bellerive Bullets first preseason game on American soil. And fuck me if we don’t play like absolute garbage. And not even hot garbage. We’re the bag ripped open, seagulls feasting on our remains kind of garbage.
Reporters swarm the dressing room the minute the game is over, and the buzzing comments between them about the Bullets being shut out are unbelievably annoying. That’s right. Not one fucking goal even trickled past the New York goalie.
“Bit of a rocky start to the preseason,” one of the reporters from the World Hockey Network comments as he thrusts a microphone in my face. “What do you think was the biggest difference between this game and the one in Bellerive?”
“We just didn’t play well,” I say, and Tamiko, who’s been trying to coach me into being more personable, more likeableon screen, is full-on cringing somewhere. She wouldn’t like that answer. Not a good sound bite. Not reflective of who I am. And probably a thousand other things.
“The team doesn’t have the resources, or players didn’t step up…” he says.
He’s leading me, which is never a good sign. After our home ice game against Michigan, I wanted to talk, could have talked for hours, but tonight’s game just didn’t run through my veins like the other night.
“It’s the atmosphere,” I say. “New York fans don’t have the heart that Bellerive has. If you’d been in Bellerive the other night, you’d have heard the game from every corner of the island—not just the arena—the whole island. They’re passionate about us, and we didn’t let them down. We need to take that attitude on the road.” Which isn’t the only necessity for these road games, but it’s the only one I can say out loud.
“You’re happy with the move, then?”
