I feel as skeptical as he looked, but I know this team is divided. A lot of the guys still think I’m an asshole for waltzing in here, taking the C and a shit-ton of money they could have earned. The Saints dumped four players to make room in their budget for my salary. Some of the guys up for contract negotiations this summer won’t be getting the salaries they want if they stay.
Sure, we’ve been winning more since I got here, and most of my teammates smile and nod and take my orders on the ice, but deep down there are more than a few who feel like Echolls. He’s just the only one stupid enough to voice it. If he gets sent to minors or traded, every single guy will know it was on my orders, whether I admit it or not. And they’ll all hate me even more. I don’t want that. Even if it would be fucking awesome to get rid of Echolls.
I walk into the locker room and hurl my gloves into the equipment bin at the door. I march over to my locker and shove my helmet on the top shelf before dropping with a thud onto the bench to untie my skates. Some of the guys still undressing glance up at me and give me sympathetic smiles. Others pretend they’re too busy undressing to notice me. They’re most likely the Echolls sympathizers.
Alex is walking back from the showers as I grab my towel to head toward them. As I pass him, he says, “Is Echolls going to evaporate?” I shake my head and Alex rolls his eyes. “You know Saints is just the name of the team, not a lifestyle you have to live. Man, you are too fucking nice for your own good.”
“I’m a saint now? I thought I was a monk?” I quip back.
“Both. You’re an overachiever, as usual.” He grins at me as I raise my middle finger in his general direction and keep walking into the showers.
When I get out of the shower, Ty and Alex are the only two left in the locker room. Ty is just slipping on a Saints baseball cap. “I’m having a barbeque tomorrow night. On the beach in front of my place. Five o’clock. Bring booze and meat.”
“I can’t,” I say without even actually thinking about it.
Ty rolls his eyes and glances over at Alex, who says, “I told you.”
“Told him what?” I question as I drop my towel and reach for my underwear.
“That you would say no automatically, without hesitation,” Alex explains. “The way most people say yes.”
“We have four days in a row without a game, Westwood,” Ty reminds me. “What the fuck else are you going to be doing?”
“I have to go to L.A. for business meetings, and I have a concept meeting for my new line of workout wear, and—”
“The barbeque is tomorrow. Is your meeting tomorrow? On a Saturday?” Alex asks as he puts some gel in his hands and runs it through his hair.
“No, but—”
“Maddie and Steph are coming,” Ty says. “It’s a shame you won’t be there.”
Without another word, he and Alex walk out of the locker room. As they walk down the concrete hall, I hear Alex’s voice bounce back to me. “Stephanie’s single, right?”
My stomach knots uncomfortably. Then suddenly my phone is ringing. I’m grateful for the distraction until I read the call display and realize it’s my father. He’s honestly the last person I want to talk to, but I know if I don’t answer it’ll only make things worse. “Hi, Don.”
I haven’t called him dad since I was sixteen. Because he’s my manager, he feels it’s more professional if I call him by his first name. “Avery. Have you finished throwing your tantrum?”
Funnily enough, his rule of me addressing him like an adult doesn’t mean he has to treat me like one. I ignore the dig and answer with a question of my own. “Are you done trying to dictate my love life?”
“Of course not,” he replies without even a second of hesitation or remorse. “And I’m not dictating, simply advising. I know what you need better than you do, because I’m unbiased and not thinking with my dick.”
“Do not talk about my dick,” I warn. I can’t help the sour expression that I know has contorted my face. “Please.”
“Avery.” He sighs. “I’m a man too. I get that you have needs, especially at your age, and that I’ve asked you to be overly discreet for too long. But I don’t understand why, when I finally tell you to get serious with someone, you don’t want to do it.”
I pause to pull my shirt over my head and then press the phone to my ear again. “Because the person you’re telling me to get serious with isn’t the person I want to get serious with.”
“Who is?”
Loaded question. One that more than anything else in the world I do not want to answer. I cram my feet into my shoes like a rushed ten-year-old and start out of the locker room. “Not Elizabeth.”
“Yeah, because she’s perfect, so of course that’s not good enough.” I can practically hear my father rolling his eyes in exasperation.
“On paper, yeah. But I’m not paper, Don,” I explain for probably the hundredth time since I was signed to the NHL. “Sometimes what’s good for my brand isn’t what’s good for me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he counters firmly, his already deep, loud voice booming with confidence. “I would hate for you to find that out the hard way.”
That tone used to intimidate the hell out of me. It used to make me bend like wax in the sun on everything he wanted me to for way longer than I’m comfortable admitting. But not in the last year or so. Now I’m able to see it as it really is—a bullying tactic.
