Chapter One
Fresh Meat
ELI
The energyin the locker room always shifted from team to team. Some were filled with more of the goofball types, snapping wet towels at each other’s bare asses and laughing like it was the funniest damn thing in the world. Others were more game-focused, constantly discussing different strategies and plotting ways they could get their hands on the Calder Cup.
It was my first day in the Bobcats’ locker room, but I could already tell these guys leaned more toward the former than the latter.
Emerson “Emmy” Meyers, one of the team’s D-men and a verifiable unit of a man, stood with a towel wrapped around his waist and a skimpy pair of hot pink underwear hanging off a finger.
“Dyl, if you swap my underwear for another pink thong again, then I’m just going to wear it, take a picture of it, and set it as your phone’s wallpaper.” He tossed the underwear at Dylan Raye, whose grin slanted as he chuckled. He wore a Bobcats sweatband around his forehead—black with white and baby blue stripes—which held back a sweatyhead of dark brown hair. A white streak of hair cut across the side of his temple, matching a similar white streak that went across the top of his left eyebrow. He stuffed the thong into his already overflowing duffel bag. “Dumbass.”
“Whose are those anyway?” Soren Volkov asked in a thick Eastern European accent. He was the goalie on the team, and a damn talented one at that. He was one of the reasons I was okay with this trade—there were a couple of other reasons, but playing on the same team as Soren made me excited. It surprised me that he hadn’t made the jump from the AHL to the NHL yet. And he wasn’t the only one on the team who had next-level kind of stats.
“Got them on Amazon for a Halloween costume,” Dylan replied nonchalantly.
“Mhmm,” Emmy said. “Maybe Eli wants to try them on? A little initiation ritual.” Emmy cocked his head and crossed his arms over his bare chest. He winked at me.
“Don’t think they’re my size,” I said, getting a laugh from the guys.
Soren, already fully dressed and halfway out the door, stopped and pointed sternly in my direction. “Don’t let these puck-brained fucks bully you. Give ’em a smack behind their head. Coach allows it.”
“Pfft, you saw him on the ice,” Dyl said. “A smack from him’s going to give me a fucking concussion.”
“Or it could restart whatever engine is malfunctioning in there,” Emmy quipped.
“Fuck you,” Dyl said, his words having zero bite behind them.
The banter continued until it was only me and Chris Rodriguez left in the locker room. He was one of the centers on the team and one of the first guys to reach out to me when the trade was announced. Hehad short, cropped blond hair and a nose that sat slightly off-center underneath a pair of hazel green eyes that reminded me of my mom’s.
Meant I instantly trusted him.
“Nice job on the ice today,” Chris said as he stood up from the bench, his duffel bag strapped over his shoulder. “I can already tell we’ve got a good season ahead of us.”
I grinned up at him, happy to receive the compliment. I’d researched the entire team before moving to Burlington. Chris had seniority on the team, even though Emmy was captain. He also had some serious stats under his belt. Last season, his average goal per sixty minutes was three, which was a feat that even some NHL players had trouble achieving. Made me wonder again why this team was so damn stacked and why no one seemed to be moving up?
“It’s a solid group of guys here. The talent is through the fucking roof,” I said.
“We’ve got talent and brotherhood here. It’s a lethal mix for any of our rivals.”
“I noticed the brotherhood vibes. The last team I was on felt close, but the Bobcats look like they’re on another level.”
It wasn’t just based on my observations from today. Chatter online said that the Burlington Bobcats were known to be a tight-knit—and slightly mysterious—group. They avoided a lot of the spotlight by often forgoing after-game press interviews, keeping a pretty quiet social media presence, and staying out of gossip or trending topics. In fact, the only thing I could find online that was anything beyond the couple of videos posted on their social media was an interview the head coach, Julian Romanoff, had given where he stressed the importance of a family-type bond between his players.
Chris chuckled, showing an endearing gap in his front top teeth. “Yeah, it’s something that we’re all proud of. We get along like family, bicker like it too. Shoulda seen Gio and Emmy going at it last week after Gio accidentally ate some cake Emmy was saving. You’d think Gio slept with Emmy’s girl. Then, five minutes later, the two were making plans to go out that same night.” Chris glanced at his watch. “Shit, speaking of plans. Gotta run and meet my girlfriend, but keep your schedule clear for tomorrow evening. The team usually goes out to eat together every Tuesday after practice.”
“Sounds good, man.”
“Glad to have you, bud.” Chris gave me a squeeze on the shoulder before leaving the locker room.
I sat on the bench and let go of a breath I felt like I’d been holding since I stepped on the plane and left behind my disastrous life in Florida.
All I wanted to do was grab my phone, pull up my texts, and send a message to the first person on the list, telling him how good a day I’d just had. How fucked was that? He’d broken up with me almost a month ago, and I still couldn’t get him out of my head. It was as if the four years we’d been together had formed invisible manacles around my wrists and ankles, attached to a heavy weight I’d been dragging around ever since I heard those five fucked-up words: “I’ve fallen for someone else.”
I hadn’t even known he wastalkingto anyone else. Our relationship had been a strictly closed one since the start, so to say I was fucking blindsided was an understatement.
And my dumb ass was still thinking about him. Wishing things were different. Wondering what the hell I had done wrong this time. What could I have done better? Was there a way to have prevented this? Did I evenwanttoprevent it? Looking back on those last couple of years, there were bright spots that made me hopeful, but they were surrounded by stressful fights and arguments that would last for weeks, leaving me in a constant state of anxiety.
