Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
After clawing my way back from a rough few years, I’m finally getting my second chance in the league. The only thing standing between me and a legendary comeback? My own cantankerous attitude—and the blood pressure to match.
Enter Stephanie Love—yoga guru, human ray of sunshine, and the last woman I should be thinking about kissing. She’s here to help me chill the hell out before training camp.
Instead, she’s making it impossible to keep my cool.
One downward dog, and I’m done for. It’s the way she moves, the way she laughs, the way she sees right through my broody bullshit.
I can’t afford distractions, especially not a big-hearted woman who deserves better than a broken goalie with a bad reputation.
But the more I fight it, the clearer it becomes—this game was rigged from the start.
She’s my new dream, now…and I’m about to break every rule to make her mine
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER 1
TANK
There’s an art to being trapped.
I should know—I’ve spent most of my life perfecting it.
Trapped in other people’s low expectations. Trapped in regret. Trapped in a cycle of self-sabotage that nearly destroyed everything I’d worked so hard to achieve.
And now literally trapped in an overflow equipment storage room that reeks of moldy jockstraps and broken dreams.
“This is why people invented inventory systems,” I mutter, shoving aside another box of ancient practice jerseys with more force than necessary. “And dumpsters.”
The pain that shoots through my bum shoulder is almost satisfying.
Almost.
The Badgers’ overflow storage is a disaster zone. No organization, no system, just hoarder-level chaos piled to the ceiling in a dimly-lit concrete bunker at the old end of the complex. When I agreed to track down enough child-sized pads for tomorrow’s workshop, I was feeling charitable.
Now, I’m back to cranky and annoyed—my default settings. But the sooner I get this shit into the guest locker room, the sooner I can go home and unwind with the craft beer of the night.
Thank God, I didn’t turn out to be an alcoholic, as well as a pill head. A beer on the roof of my apartment on a warm summer evening is a peak experience for me at this point.
Which is probably pathetic, but who gives a fuck?
I’m too tired to care. After back-to-back private coaching clients from seven a.m. to ten and working the youth camp the rest of the day, I’m beat. Even as a teen athlete, a day like today would have sent me to bed early. Staring down the barrel of thirty, I’ll be lucky to make it through ten minutes of my podcast of the moment before I’m out cold.
I push deeper into the room, past towers of helmets from the 80s and overflowing stick racks, searching for the elusive box of junior goalie gear. The farther I go, the darker the shadows and the narrower the path through the madness.
I’m trying not to take that as a sign that this quest is cursed, when I hear it—the distinctive clunk of the heavy equipment room door swinging shut behind me.
The door that I was careful to prop open because I know it locks automatically and can only be opened with a code punched into the keypad outside…
“No. No, no, no.” I spin around, stumbling over what feels like a bag of rocks as I lunge across the room. Just a few seconds later, my hands slam against the solid metal. But, as I feared, the ancient son of a bitch is locked up tight. “Fuck!” I curse through clenched teeth.
“Is anyone out there?” I call in a louder voice. “Hey! Can anyone hear me? I’m locked in the overflow equipment room! I’m locked the fuck in. Hello?” I pound on the door until pain vibrates up my forearm, shouting the entire time, but when I finally pause to take a breath, I’m met by silence.
The bunker is practically soundproof and all the camp kids and coaches cleared out an hour ago. I pat my pockets, hoping for a miracle. But as expected, my cell is still in my locker, where I put it when I arrived this morning in an attempt to be a good example for all the screen-addicted nine-year-olds. Cursing again, I glance down at my watch, stomach sinking as I see it’s nearly seven.
Later than I thought…
Chances are, even the maintenance staff has gone home for the night, and I’ll be stuck in here until tomorrow morning.
I drag a hand through my hair.
Fabulous. Trapped like a goddamn rat.
As a former addict, I’ve been in tougher spots—way tougher—but not since I cleaned up my act a few years ago. Since then, I’ve made a point of staying out of trouble. I’m Tank LiBassi, elite goaltending coach, dedicated athlete, youth center volunteer, and a man with his sober gaze fixed on getting back to the NHL.
Now, I’ve finally done it. Thanks to a stellar tryout at a special session last month, I start training camp with the Badgers in just a few weeks as their starting goaltender.
I should be happy, chill, relaxed for the first time in years.
But something inside me is still on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Maybe this is it. This is the shoe,” I mutter.
If so, this isn’t so bad. I had a late lunch and am reasonably hydrated. And at least it’s summer. In a Portland, Oregon winter, this concrete block of a room would get frigid overnight, but it’s August.
I’ll be fine.
Assuming I don’t need to piss.
Or something more offensive than piss…
I slump against the wall, sliding down until I’m sitting on a pile of molded towels, I can’t understand why anyone thought were worth keeping. The thickening darkness wraps around me, the silence broken only by my own breath.