“Got yours yet?” He lifts his right hand and sure as shit he’s wearing all three Stanley Cup rings. They’re lined up from index finger to ring finger like giant titanium and diamond rocks. “I can lend you one for now if you want.”
“So you’re as cocky off the ice as on. Good to know,” I reply.
“Is it cocky or well-earned confidence?” Briggs retorts. “Now answer the question. You leave someone in Boston or have some sort of long-lost crush here? After all, it’s your hometown, you must have someone here who was almost Mrs. Barlowe. A high school sweetheart?”
I laugh, but it’s dull and high pitched at the same time and now both Briggs and Pennie are eyeballing me suspiciously. I swallow and shrug. I intend to talk to Pennie, and probably my coach, but not like this. Right now, before a presser I didn’t realize we were having and in front of a new teammate. So I keep my answer vague. “Who doesn’t have a high school sweetheart or a one that got away?”
Pennie starts to walk down the hall, waving her hands wildly in a signal we should follow. “Umm, guys, we’ve got reporters waiting impatiently. Let’s turn off that banter and turn on whatever it is you use with charm.”
She turns left at the fork in the hallway. She raps quickly on the first door on the right and then swings it open without waiting. Her smile is brighter than a stage light as she announces, “Good morning, gentlemen!”
There are four men in the conference room she just walked us into. Two in their late-forties, one about my age, and a guy on our side of the table in a summer suit. He looks up and I instantly recognize Jay McBride. He was traded to Portland from Seattle. I nod at him, but he just throws me a dead eyed stare before nodding much more welcomingly at Briggs and Pennie.
I sit down next to Briggs, who sits down next to McBride. I recognize the guy from the Portland paper who was at Patti’s Parlor for my ice cream flavor reveal. No idea where the other two are from. In the corner is a younger, frazzled looking woman with her phone already up. She mouths the words “Insta Live” to Pennie who gives her a discreet nod. Then she smiles brightly at the press. “Welcome to the first official Q and A with Riptide players. We’re doing one a week, with three different players each time. Briggs, McBride and of course, our local born and bred superstar, Barlowe, felt like a good way to kick off the series. Ask them anything you want guys. Also, we’re on the Riptide’s Instagram. Live. Say hi, everyone.”
Briggs and McBride wave at the phone in the woman’s hand and I nod and try to smile. This is not how I expected today to go. And it only gets worse as the reporters pepper us with questions. What we expect from the first season, who we’re excited to play with, what our personal goals are with the team. I can handle all these questions, but I feel a little off because I wasn’t anticipating them. I think it goes okay, though.
And then the questions shift to more personal stuff. They ask Briggs how his family is settling in — the answer is they’re loving exploring the local beaches. They ask Jay what he’ll miss most from the West Coast — the answer is his condo which had a view of the Space Needle. And then they ask me a question. The guy from the Portland paper asks. “So Abbott, have you been catching up with old friends?”
“I have. It’s been great.” I smile and try not to think of Declan, but of course he’s front and center in my mind.
“I saw you reconnecting with people at the ice cream parlor in your hometown,” the reporter goes on and I instantly remember the awkward moments with an over-eager Stacy. “Anyone especially glad you’re home?”
I know he’s baiting me. Trying to get me to drop something about Stacy because she was hanging off me so boldly. But I’m obviously not going to do that. It would be so easy to mislead him. In the past, I would have. But I promised Declan I would figure this out and misleading reporters won’t help down the road.
“Barlowe’s got an old flame he’s hoping to reconnect with,” Briggs blurts out, and I snap my head to stare at him. He grins. “You wanna give us more on that?”
All the reporters are staring at me like I’m chum floating in the water and they are very hungry sharks. “I… think Briggs is going to start a hockey gossip blog when he retires next year.”
“Next year?” the younger reporter repeats, and Briggs shoots me an undeniable ‘well played, asshole’ look.
The focus drifts to him and I sigh in relief. Pennie wraps it up very shortly after that and the reporters leave. We all stand up and head back into the hall.
“I can’t believe you put retirement rumors in their head,” Briggs says to me as we follow Pennie’s clicking heels down another hallway.
“I can’t believe you started bullshit about my personal life.”
“Ain’t bullshit. You said there was someone.” Briggs shrugs.
“It’s good, Abbott,” Pennie adds. “The only thing better than a hometown hero, is one with a hometown sweetheart.”
She stops abruptly in front of another door and swings it open. Inside are my new coaching staff.
As usual, it’s a bunch of middle-aged men. I’ve worked with one of the three, Casey Schneider. He’s one of the two assistant coaches. The goalie coach isn’t here. The other assistant coach is a guy named Hank Corbin, who used to play for Colorado about five years ago. And the head coach, the guy I have to work hard to impress according to my agent’s advice yesterday, is John Maxwell. He’s never played in the league but he’s coached on five teams over ten years and his teams have only ever not made the playoffs twice.
“So this is the start of our dream team, huh?’ Coach Maxwell says with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He’s not rude… I don’t think. I think he’s just a grizzled old warrior type. He’s seen it all and he doesn’t impress easily. Briggs doesn’t notice or doesn’t care and strikes up an easy conversation. Jay talks with Schneider and Corbin asks me about the Cup-winning game.
After a few minutes of small talk, Coach Maxwell turns to Pennie. “How did the presser go?”
She smiles confidently. “Awesome. You can watch it on our Insta. We were live.”
“Do I look like I Insta?” Coach Maxwell grumbles and Pennie’s smile fades. “We may have sold the league on this new franchise but now we need to sell the locals. Guys, I need you to sell this team, the dream, like you’re selling Crypto to millennials. And keep it clean, calm, and inspirational. That kind of shit gets butts in seats. No one wants to spend money on dirt bags who act poorly on or off the ice.”
“It was good,” Pennie assures him. “Briggs seemed like the experienced leader, McBride was the excited starting goalie, and Barlowe is the hometown hero.”
“Sliding into the playoffs when they’re halfway through because someone else gets injured,” McBride mutters in a low voice that only Briggs and I can probably hear, thankfully. “That’s standard for a hero in Maine, huh?
“Now. Now,” Briggs whispers as I eye Jay and try to figure out if he’s kidding or being an actual jackass. “I offered one of my rings to Barlowe, but it sounds like you need to borrow one instead.”
