Total pages in book: 54
Estimated words: 53034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 177(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 177(@300wpm)
“Did I miss something, boys?”
My dad’s voice booms through the room, the celebration immediately dying down.
“Did we just win a championship?” Dad asks, feigning genuine curiosity. “I thought we just won a regular season game, which we should be doing all the time, and you’re acting like we just won the cup, the bowl and the series!”
Every player is looking at him, most of them frozen. The champagne flowing from Silas’s dick champagne bottle is just a little trickle now.
“I’m fucking with you,” Dad says with a grin. “Hell of a game, boys!”
Everyone cheers, the tension lifting immediately.
“But take it easy on the booze,” Dad calls as he heads for the visiting coach’s office space. “We’ve got to be game ready tomorrow night.”
Our plane will depart for Phoenix in a couple of hours. The equipment staffers have to get everything packed and loaded. If the players are lucky, they’ll be able to sleep on the plane and catch a few more hours at the hotel after we arrive.
“Hey, how are you at wrapping and taping?” Melina asks me.
I consider. “It’s been a hot second, but I do know how.”
“Excellent. Can you help me get some guys taken care of? I desperately need an assistant, but we haven’t been able to get the position approved yet.”
“Sure, I can help. I won’t be as good at it as you are, though.”
She waves a hand. “You’ll be great. I’d love your help anytime you’re up for it.”
“Sure, I’ll do whatever you need.” I follow her toward the training room. “No fart yoga, though.”
Her laugh reminds me of my friend Anya’s laugh. Anya’s still in San Francisco, and we text sometimes, but I haven’t been up for much else. Being around Melina makes me think about calling Anya, though. Maybe tomorrow, I will.
Chapter Six
Lucien
* * *
Ten Days Later
* * *
“You good, man?” Carter asks me.
I push off the concrete wall in the tunnel outside our locker room, nodding and putting my phone back in my pocket. “Yeah, I was just talking to my sister. She’s worried about her follow-up scan next week.”
“I can’t imagine what that would feel like.”
I nod, still gutted over her crying in our conversation just now. Calla still lives in our hometown of Overland, Kansas, but we keep in close contact. She’s six months out from beating stage three breast cancer, and she has to get a scan next week to make sure she’s still clear.
“She doesn’t want to fall apart in front of Matt, but it’s okay with me.”
He frowns, a crease forming between his brows. “You sure? You look pretty weighed down right now.”
One of the equipment interns passes us, rolling a rack of gloves. We both nod at him in greeting.
“Yeah, it’s heavy. But the least I can do is listen.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder. “You’ve done more than that.”
Not as much as I would have liked to do. I was seventeen, and Calla was twenty, when we lost our mom to breast cancer. Then that bitch of a disease came for my sister, and it stole almost everything from her.
I made sure she and my brother-in-law were taken care of financially, and I paid off their house to lift some of the burden, but that’s just money. I stayed with them for a month of my offseason so I could be there for her last month of treatment, and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Harder even than watching Mom wither and die, because I knew how wrecked Mom would be over Calla going through it.
I take a deep breath and roll my shoulders. “Gotta let it go for now and get into game mode.”
“Come on, let’s go eat.”
We just got back from a road trip yesterday, and we have a home game tonight. When we walk into our team dining room, the savory scent of grilled steak makes my stomach rumble.
Our team chef, Marco, has the usual pregame buffet set up. He’s standing behind a grill at the end of the buffet, where he prepares grilled steak and chicken to order, so it’s still steaming when he puts it on our plates.
“Hey Marco,” I say as I pick up a plate. “Looks great.”
“Steak medium rare,” he says, gesturing toward a sizzling steak on his grill. “And grilled chicken for you, Cap.”
Marco is all business during mealtime. He’s a tall, wiry guy who shaves his head completely bald. He rolls through assistants because he’s impatient and doesn’t tolerate mistakes.
“The soup is butternut squash and carrot with a bit of coconut cream,” he says.
“I’ll take a little.”
He ladles about a fourth of a cup into a bowl and passes it to me. I don’t like to eat much soup on game days because it weighs me down, but a little bit is okay.
I thank him and go to the salad bar while my steak finishes cooking, getting half a baked potato and making a salad. Puck drop is still four hours away, so it’s time to fuel up with carbs and a little protein.