“Stop,” I cut in, because if he says “opportunity” one more time, I’m going to do something violent with the blender I don’t even own.“Just tell me where the fuck I’m heading this time.”
“You’re going to the Portland Orcas.”
My mouth goes dry.
“The Orcas traded me during my rookie year,” I say, because rage is easier than the tiny, brutal fear crawling up my spine.“Why the fuck would they want me again?”
“If you recall,” he says, slipping into salesman mode so hard I can practically hear him smiling, “they’ve been under new management since then, and the franchise moved from Vancouver to Portland.Mills Aldridge, the new owner, believes you’re the key to taking them into a championship window again.Their captain is retiring this year.”
Retiring.
My mind spins through the familiar cycle: new city, new team, new promises, new interviews where I pretend I’m excited.I can already see the welcome video.The jersey reveal.The press conference where I say all the right things while my life gets shoved into boxes.
I still have years left in me, but I’m also so fucking tired.
“You like Oregon,” he continues, like he’s offering me a consolation prize.“Didn’t you train with Philippe Lafontaine?”
Juniper Ridge punches through my ribs.
And then her name follows—Vesper Lafontaine—bright and immediate, like my body says it before my brain can stop it.
Her.
It’s not the Cup I want.
It’s never been the fucking Cup.
It’s her.
It’s always been her, sitting on the edge of a dock at midnight, feet dangling, mouth full of laughter, eyes too honest for a world that punishes honesty.
My hand tightens around the phone until my fingers ache.
“They need a goalie who can take them all the way,” he says.“Because they have a roster built to contend, and they’ve been missing one piece.That piece is you.”
I let out a humorless laugh.
“So I’m a piece.”
“You’re a franchise goalie,” he insists.“They’re investing.”
Investing.
Like I’m a stock.A gamble.A number on a spreadsheet that either performs or gets replaced.
As if I’m not a man who has spent his whole life trying to build something that won’t vanish the second someone decides they can do better.
I walk to the window because I need distance from my own kitchen, from everything that surrounds me.The city is gray today.The sky hangs low, dull and tired, like it couldn’t be bothered to lift itself.
People move down the sidewalk, bundled up, holding coffees and conversations.Their lives don’t get rearranged by a phone call.They don’t have an invisible hand reaching in to shove them across the map.
“I’m fucking tired,” I say.
“I know,” Conrad replies, and his voice tries for empathy the way a man tries on a coat he’s not sure fits.
“No,” I correct, because he doesn’t.He can’t.“I’m tired of being good and still getting treated like I’m replaceable.”
“Monty—”
