“Being traded is neither here nor there to me at the moment.” I shrug. My answer isn’t really honest, but it’s not exactly dishonest. Shemustknow she’s the biggest factor in whether I’d want to stay. “If I got traded to a team in cup contention, that would be a good career move for me.”
“Is that likely?”
“Don’t know. I just found out about the trade rumors right before you picked me up. Every year there are rumors. That’s what happens when you’re worth a lot of money and the team you play for is generally not good.”
“The Bullets are—”
“Going to be lucky to make the playoffs at the rate we’re going.”
“You’re one of the top scorers in the league. The whole league.”
“Yeah, which is why the team’s overall performance is such a red flag.” The irony, somewhat, is that Dalton wanted me to play like shit at the start of the season so he could justify trading me.That had been my line of thinking too. I didn’t think I could play better, but I knew I could play worse. No team wants an expensive star player who isn’t performing like a star.
Instead, I got Sawyer, who’s made me infinitely better on and off the ice, but the end result is the same. I’m worth more as a trade with the shape the team is in right now.
“You think they’ll trade you.”
“I think there’s a very good case to get rid of me for those who’d like to see me gone.”
“If you were traded you’d go?”
“What choice do I have? I didn’t want to come here. It’s the nature of the game. You go where you’re wanted.”
“It just doesn’t seem right to me,” she says, and her voice is watery again. “That you can play so well and they just get rid of you.”
“You made me too good, doc.” I raise her hand and kiss the back of it because I hate when she seems sad. This conversation is leaving a bitter taste in my mouth, too, but I’m trying hard to hide it. “Lots of people will want me now.”
“That’s awful,” she whispers. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
But to me, that’s just hockey. What bothers me is how clear it is that she has some kind of attachment to me. She won’t admit it. She won’t tell me she wants me to stay. Or even that us, beyond this season, is any kind of priority for her.
So I won’t fight a trade, and I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to forget moments like right now when I feel so close to her and still so fucking far.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sawyer
Iwasn’t able to sleep last night, even with Logan cuddled up to me in bed. Learning that he might be traded drove a wedge between us. At least on my end.
We’re physically close, but mentally and emotionally, I’m smoldering. Little fires of doubt, angst, and fear, that I’m not sure I should put out. Let them form and rage. Let them burn down what Logan and I have built.
Maybe that would be for the best. If we’re over at the end of the season, if we’re not likely to work together next season, we don’t have to end amicably. We can go out in a blaze.
It might be easier to hate him instead of feeling this desperate desire for our timelines to be more in sync. Right now, his career is the most important thing to him. And my career in Bellerive is the most important thing to me, followedveryclosely by starting a family with someone I love, someone who isn’t asking me to sacrifice myself fortheirhopes and desires.
As much as I might want to believe that going out in a blaze of anger would be easier, better, even, I’ve never been one to blow up my life. It might explode around me, but I’m not the one lighting the fuse. I’m usually the one trying to frantically blow it out, usually at my own expense.
Knowing all that, I should stay out of the team’s business. Logan didn’t seem to care if he got traded, and that should be enough to make me want to stay out of it. His indifference was the sharpest knife, cutting deep. He even went so far as to say a trade might benefit his career. That should also force me to stay in my own, very successful, lane. The deal we made means that if he stays, we’re done, and if he goes, we’re done.
There’s no battle to wage here.
But I’m a fixer, and the notion that he could have the best season of his career and his reward will be a trade? That doesn’t seem right to me. An injustice, even. He shouldn’t have to go where they tell him. When you’re as good as him, you should get a choice.
The Bullets play at home tonight, and I’m already at the arena. I’m not quite pacing outside my dad’s office door, but my behavior isn’t far off. Normally, Dad’s here hours before the game. Being a key player behind the scenes is a point of pride for him. It’s one of the few community-focused things he’s done that didn’t involve my mother. In Bellerive and in our family, he’s been more of a supporting player or a background figure than the main attraction. Convincing a WHL franchise to take a chance on Bellerive was his pet project with King Alexander, and it’s entirely possible it’s the one accomplishment he’s most proud of. It’s certainly the first thing in his life, since he retired from a short career in finance, that I’ve seen him take seriously.
When he first told me about the team, I might have thought the whole idea was a bit silly—a professional hockey team here?—but that’s not at all what I think now. The team seems tohave become an unexpected unifying force across the country, something to be proud of. Even if the team isn’t winning, Logan is.
I just need my dad to tell me Logan is staying, and the rumors are just that. Gossip with no foundation.
