“It’s Jacob Gosling,” Antonio said, his green eyes and jet-black hair looking striking under the dimmed light. “He plays well. He scores. He makes things happen. And the fans love him. Which mean the corporations love him. Which means the family loves him.”
“Okay,” Tane said. “But if you think I’m making way for the kid, you can think again.”
“One day, yes, it is inevitable,” Antonio replied, attempting to reassure Tane by patting him on his shoulder. “But not this season. We still need you. But you do need to protect the boy for us.”
“Protect him how?” Tane said, arching his eyebrow. “I can tell the other guys to go easy on him in practice if that’s what you mean?”
“No, no, Jacob must learn the hard way in practice,” Antonio laughed. “I’m talking about in the city. He’s been partying too much. And not only that, but he’s drawn the attention of some less than positive people. Men who want to use him. Take advantage.”
“So how does this involve me?” Tane said, a sinking feeling coming over him.
“You will be his shadow,” Antonio replied. “And if you cannot control him, you will take Jacob to live with you when his apartment suddenly becomes…unavailable.”
Tane felt his entire mood turn.
The prospect of having a cocky little upstart like Jacob Gosling living in his apartment was not something that appealed. Far from it. Tane valued his privacy too much to be dealing with an over-hyped hockey boy and what would no doubt be wholly unacceptable behavior.
There was only one solution.
Tane knew he would have to ensure that he kept Jacob under control and shadowed him just as Antonio requested. Besidesthe prospect of having Jacob move in with him, the idea of upsetting Antonio – and the wider Cardini family – wasn’t something that Tane wanted to contemplate.
“So we are agreed?” Antonio said, holding his hand out to Tane.
“Of course,” Tane replied, taking Antonio’s hand and giving it a firm shake.
“Excellent,” Antonio laughed. “Tane Rivers is a man of his word, and a man of true substance. The family willnotforget your loyalty.”
“Thank you,” Tane said, keeping eye contact with Antonio. “But if you’ll excuse me, I have a locker room I need to take back control of.
With that, Tane left Antonio’s office.
The drive from the stadium to the training complex wouldn’t take too long, but Tane knew that as he drove, he would need to start thinking of how exactly he was going to keep Jacob Gosling under control and out of harm’s way.
Things were never anything less than dramatic at the Enforcers – and while this might be Tane’s final season playing for them, it certainly wasn’t going to be his easiest…
* * *
After driving down to the training complex in Pine Rise, Tane jumped down from his SUV and made a beeline to the locker room.
Ever since his very first day as a professional player, Tane loved nothing more than the energy that a positive locker roombrought to the players. Whether you were a joker, a leader, a member of the pack, or even a rebel – the locker room was the place where bonds were formed, and men became brothers.
Of course, Tane would have liked to have had a partner outside of hockey too.
As good as the camaraderie was with his brothers on the Enforcers roster, it wasn’t quite the same thing as having a boy to call his own. Tane had long since put having a relationship on the backburner though.
Something about committing to a boy and making a relationship work always seemed too far out of reach as Tane’s career took off and saw him moving cities, travelling during the season, and generally having to deal with the day to day pressures of being an elite athlete.
And this had been fine for many years.
Tane was so consumed by his career and having fun with his teammates that settling down just didn’t come up on his radar very often. But as Tane had edged toward the latter years of his career, the idea of finding a boy to make his own had become far more prominent in his mind.
The only problem for Tane was that all he knew was ice hockey.
The thought of finding someone who he could connect with on a deep level just seemed difficult to imagine. Tane had been on dates of course. But more often than not, the boy sitting opposite him at the dinner table was either too overawed to be himself or was only there to get hisI was spanked by Tane Riversstory to tell his friends – or worse, the tabloid media.
“Maybe I’m destined to be alone,” Tane muttered as he put his finger on the fingerprint sensor at the front entrance of the training complex – an extra measure of security that the Cardini had added recently. “Fuck it. I’ve got the hockey guys for one more season at least.”
Tane stepped inside the building and felt a huge wave of relief come over him.
