I thought I'd earned one more shot.
Instead, I got a phone call in November telling me the committee wanted fresh faces. Younger legs. New stories.
The blonde by my side says something else—something about Pilates or protein shakes or her wellness brand—but I'm not listening anymore.
My phone buzzes. Family group chat.
Mom:Veronica Vance will be at the wedding. Lovely girl. Vassar grad. Her father owns the firm that just merged with Whitmore & Locke.
Aunt Milly:The bridal family is bringing their goddaughter. Penelope something. Very accomplished. Summa cumlaude from Wellesley. Speaks three languages. Plays violin, her family owns half of Greenwich. I checked.
Mom:Your great aunt might be on to something. That says a lot about her habits.
Mom:Good time management. Strong follow-through. Probably ovulates on a schedule.
Aunt Milly:You're not getting any younger. Thirty-five in April. We need to think about legacy.
Mom:At this point, we need someone who treats babies like a project plan. Children who arrive on time. Holidays that run efficiently. A legacy that doesn’t need reminders.
Legacy.
That's the word my family uses when they mean marriage and heirs and continuing the bloodline like we're a dynasty instead of a law firm with delusions of grandeur.
And now, they want to optimize fertility with a Gantt chart and Asana.
Aunt Milly's been managing my love life like a hostile corporate takeover ever since Blake's wedding invitation arrived six months ago. She treats matchmaking like a sport, and she's chasing a personal best.
In another era, she would've been a formidable feudal warlord—strategizing alliances, enforcing bloodlines, treating the Hartwell-Prescott connection like a sacred blood feud, and never once questioning whether anyone involved actually wanted this.
Sigh.
My family, the Prescotts have been practicing law in New York since before there were skyscrapers to put the offices in. My great-grandfather argued before the Supreme Court. My grandfather turned the family practice into an empire. My father expanded into international corporate law, and now the firm has offices in twelve countries and a client list that reads like a Fortune 500 directory.
And then there's me. The only child of the direct bloodline.
The outlier who chose hockey.
Well—who chose hockey first. Then, still dutifully went to law school because it was expected, passed the bar to make my mother happy, and then went right back to the ice the second I had the chance.
Sixteen years in the NHL. Two Stanley Cup rings. FourAll-Star games where I proved I could make grown men cry on and off ice.
But from time to time, I wonder if I'm the big disappointment who chose violence over legal briefs. The one who walked away from mylegacy.
My family isn’t disappointed, exactly. Just…perpetually recalibrating. I’m the only heir to a dynasty they assumed I’d want to help run. I love them. I just didn’t want their life.
Maybe it's time to tell them about the coaching offers I’ve been getting. Maybe it's time to disappoint them properly.
My thumb hovers over the "Leave Group" button.
"West!" Blake's voice cuts through the noise, loud and cheerful and just drunk enough to be annoying. He's back, appearing out of nowhere, grinning like he just closed a deal. "Come settle a debate for us."
I shove my phone back in my pocket and excuse myself from the blonde. She barely notices. She's already scanning the room for her next target.
The finance bros are what I expected—expensive suits, expensive watches, expensive opinions about cryptocurrency and wine regions they've never actually visited. They probably want the Pittsburgh story. The hit I took in the Winter Classic that ran on SportsCenter for three days straight.
"Tell them about that check," Blake says, clapping me on the shoulder like we're still college roommates instead of men pushing forty with vastly different definitions of loyalty.
I give them the clean version. The illegal hit from behind. The way my shoulder separated when I hit the boards. The adrenaline that carried me through the rest of the period until I was back in the locker room and the team doctor told me I was an idiot for not coming off the ice immediately.
