Bennett
Hockey teams will tell you it’s about systems. About drills and discipline and doing the same thing the same way every time. That’s only half the truth. The other half is about what happens when a roomfull of men decides they trust each other enough to stop bracing for impact.
Playlist: “Lose Yourself” by Eminem
The locker room goes quiet the second I walk through the door.
Not the respectful quiet I’ve earned over three years of leading this team through every kind of adversity. Not the focused quiet before a big game. This is the quiet that precedes an ambush—the held breath before the hit. I should’ve seen this coming. Should’ve known that showing up with a professional haircut and a shaped beard would be blood in the water. Not the haircut. Her. That’s what they’re circling.
Shep sees me first.
His eyes go wide, tracking from my face to my hair to my beard and back again. For a full three seconds, nobody moves.
Then his face splits into the biggest grin I’ve ever seen on a human being. I’m in trouble.
“Ladies and gentlemen.” He stands up from the bench, spreading his arms in a wide arc. “The captain has returned from his spa day looking like a whole new man.”
The room explodes.
“Holy shit, is that what Foster’s face looks like under all the scowling?” Heath tilts his head to the side.
“Who are you and what have you done with our captain?” Holden says, lips turning upward.
“Is that... is that product in your hair?” Gage asks.
I keep my face neutral, move to my locker as if nothing’s different. “We have practice in twenty. I’d suggest focusing on that instead of my appearance.”
The suggestion lands with all the authority of a wet napkin.
“Appearance.” Shep clutches his chest. “He’s calling it his appearance now. Like it’s casual. Like he didn’t clearly walk into Glamboozled and let Gisele LaRue put her hands all over him.”
Heath wolf-whistles from across the room. “ Get it, Cap. Get all of it. We support your journey.”
“Nothing to get.” I pull my gear bag open with more force than necessary. “I needed a haircut. She owns a salon. Basic transaction.”
“Basic transaction.” Shep turns to Boone, who’s been watching this whole thing with the quietly amused expression of someone who knows exactly how much I’m suffering. “Your brother wants us to believe he had a basic transaction with the woman who dragged him off the street two days ago and has apparently been showing up at his house before dawn.”
“How do you know about—” I stop myself. Small town. Of course he knows. “It’s not what you think.”
Even as I say it, I’m not sure what I think it is. Which makes defending it considerably harder.
“What do I think?” Shep slides closer, that predatory gleam in his eye. “Please, Captain. Enlighten me about what I think.”
“You think there’s something going on between us.”
“Is there?”
“No.”
“Then why—” He pauses, pulls out his phone, scrolls for a second. “Then why did you pick ‘hug’ as your morning greeting option today?”
The room goes absolutely nuclear. This is what losing control looks like. Not the street. This.
“GREETING OPTION?”
“What the hell is a greeting option?”
“There are OPTIONS?”
