CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ALEXIO
Jumping off the treadmill,I gulped down water and swiped my wrist over my forehead. A good sweat was exactly what I needed before talking to Noah about my plans. Vanya would be here later, and I was going to run the idea by him one last time before sitting down with our coach, and I didn’t have a good feeling about it.
Noah wasn’t a great guy, and he also wasn’t often a reasonable one. He was old-school and kind of basic, and I was hoping that he’d move on to a different team. But being that we were in the middle of a rebuild anyway, I doubted that was going to happen.
We were closer to a playoff spot now than we had been this time last season, but there also wasn’t a chance in hell we were going to make it. Even a wildcard spot was a pipe dream, and I wasn’t going to get my hopes up.
Maybe in a year, maybe two good drafts and a handful of decent trades. Some guys were heading into free agency—mostly from the West Coast, and I knew Noah was vying for the newly drafted goalie from Boston U to play backup for Vanya. I had no idea if we had enough cap space for anyone else worth taking,but if Noah let us slough off some of our dead weight, we could make room for some fresh blood.
It was an idea, anyway.
And ideas like that were what earned me the C on my chest, though I wasn’t feeling like the most stellar captain this year. Not just because of the losses, but also because of the fact that I was distracted. But Jonah would do that to a guy.
And so would hearing everything that happened to him at Nikos’s shop.
My brother wasted no time getting hold of me after practice to let me know what Peter had said, and it had gutted me. Mostly because I wasn’t there to help Jonah deal with it after. I had every plan to go back over there tonight, but with the meeting and the fact that I’d lost my fucking coin somewhere in the building, I wasn’t sure I’d make it.
Tomorrow was another day, but we had morning practice and an evening game, and then we were hitting the road for ten fucking days, which was not ideal.
Why did all of this shit have to happen mid-season? Why couldn’t I hit pause on everything and fix it all before getting back to the damn game?
“Yo! Zeki!”
I turned to see one of the security guards poking his head into the room. Lifting my brows, I nodded at him. “Yes?”
“There’s a guy here to see you. He’s, ah…from one of those teams. You know…with the canes, and?—”
“Blind team?”
“Yeah.” He shifted uncomfortably, and fuck, was that what I looked like before? “He seemed kind of frantic. I tried to tell him to wait by the locker rooms, but he took off to try and find you.”
Christ. It had to be Jonah. Who the hell else would want to see me unless it was maybe Tiago, but I very much doubted that.Tossing my neck towel beside the machine, I dropped my water bottle on top of it and brushed past the guy.
“Where was he?”
“Uh—” He pointed toward the doorway that led to the admin offices.
I didn’t think he’d go in there, so I swept past them, turning the corner toward the locker rooms, and that’s when I saw him. He was walking out, his cane moving rapidly back and forth, his expression telling me he was in an absolute panic.
“Jonah!”
He froze.
Did I tell him it was me? Did I?—
“Alexio?”
“Yeah, hey. Some guy came to find me and said you were looking for me. You seem upset. What’s?—”
I didn’t get the chance to finish my sentence. He moved with a freaky speed, his cane smacking into my legs, and then his free hand grabbed my wrist, and he tugged me close.
“Take me somewhere quiet. Alone.”
Did he want to fuck here? We’d done it before. It was risky, but most of the guys were home, so as long as we stayed away from the cameras, we could make it work. I glanced left to right, then pulled him toward the equipment room. No one would be coming in there until tomorrow.
It was dark, so I flicked on the light as the door slammed shut, and before I could ask him what he wanted, he shoved me back against the door.
