Page 15

THIRTEEN

SANTA

Regret stifles my movements as I shrug off my sweater and pads, as I take off my skates and the rest of my gear, then pull up my shorts and slide on my flip-flops.

I shouldn’t have said anything to Charlie. I should’ve kept my stupid mouth shut, but he just... brings out the worst in me.

I walk to the conference room with my head down, not daring to risk meeting anyone’s eyes, though I don’t see another soul in sight. Not until I open the door and see Heart, still in full gear except for the helmet that’s on the table next to his elbow.

His head is in his hands, and I can’t see his expression, obviously, but I think I hear him muttering.

If he’s trying to say anything to me, then he’s going to have to speak the fuck up. I’m not about to try to decipher whatever it is he’s saying .

I sit in the gallery—where the reporters are normally, I suppose—and look right at the wall. It’s probably less than ten minutes until Laney comes in, but every second feels like an eon. That’s why when the door opens with a bang and he comes comes in, smoke practically coming out of his nose, I jump about a foot in the air.

I risk a quick glance at Heart and see he’s just staring at Laney like a man perched under the guillotine would stare at his executioner.

Does he think he’s going to get traded again?

Fuck, would they do that to him?

Would they do that to me ?

Fear grips my heart in a vise and I feel like I can’t breathe as Laney starts his rant.

“Never in twenty fucking years in this league have I ever seen the level of stupidity you two have shown this season. What the fuck is your problem, Brotnik?” He stares daggers at me, then rounds on Heart. “And you, Heart, what the fuck do you have to say for yourself?”

We both stay silent, not that Laney seems to need any input from us.

“You’re both fucking embarrassments to this organization and to this sport. You’re better than this. I know you’re fucking better, but still you can’t figure out how to pull your heads out of your asses? You didn’t want to be on the same line, so I put you on different lines.” He points at my face. “Then you fucked up everyone’s mood, and finally things are starting to look better but you’ve left the team’s morale way too fragile. You are the ones who did this. You ?—”

The door swings open again, with less force this time, and I have to swallow hard when I see Barlow, our GM, come in with the scariest look on his face. He looks like he’s the reaper with his lip in a snarl, his jaw tense, and his eyes cold.

“What the fuck ”—he starts with a shout right out of the gate—“is wrong with you two? I get that you’re two old fucks, but have you really hit your head so many times that you forgot you’re on the same fucking team?”

I lean a back a little in my seat because I’m starting to sweat.

They can’t trade me, they can’t trade me, they can’t trade me.

It’s the mantra that my brain is repeating over and over as some kind of self-defense mechanism.

Laney keeps staring daggers at me as Barlow turns to Charlie now.

“You’re supposed to be the best defenseman this league has ever fucking seen! Is this how they run things in Atlanta, huh? Do they let you beat up teammates on the ice there? Huh? Answer me, ” he shouts when Charlie just stares.

“No, sir.”

“Then why the fuck are you doing it here ?”

My eyes are wide open as I see Charlie open his mouth, scared he’s going to make everything worse by answering something he shouldn’t be answering. Not because I want him to protect me or anything like that, I just know damn well that Barlow’s question was rhetorical and he’s about to go off on a tangent.

And sure enough . . .

“Nine fucking million. Between the two of you, we’re wasting nine fucking million dollars just this season. Is that a waste? Are we seriously about to drop the ball with the two best defensemen in the league? You’re letting little boys skate circles around you and you’re fucking up your own team while you’re at it. What the fuck more do you need to just win some fucking games, huh?”

Barlow’s eyes bore into me and I know this time it’s not an option to stay silent.

“Nothing, sir,” I say with respect. He deserves that, just like we deserve this verbal beatdown.

Barlow chuckles sarcastically.

“ Nothing , he says. Then why can’t you stop dicking around and just play fucking hockey ?!”

“No need to be so loud,” comes Gab’s voice from the doorway. I didn’t hear the door open, for obvious reasons. She walks in until she’s standing between Charlie and me, and looks from him to me then back around. “It seems we have some fussy babies on our hands.”

She turns to Laney and to Barlow—whose forehead is bulging with veins.

“You both have better things to do than this—as do I,” she adds with a narrow gaze my way .

I know it’s true. Her football team, the Rogues, are going to play the Conference Championship this Sunday and she’s got a lot of shit to get done before then.

“So let’s get one thing out of the way before we all get back to our important work. Heart and Brotnik, you’re both benched for the forseeable future. Until you can prove to the three of us that you’re capable of handling yourselves like adults, you’ll be treated like children.”

My whole body goes on alert. She can’t— no, but?—

“Don’t even bother,” she tells me, holding her hand up to my face. “From now on, until I decide you’ve become the best of friends, you’re going to be rooming together on roadies. You’re going to spend every available second together if you have any hopes of getting any more ice time this season. You’re going to sleep at each other’s places while you’re here, you’re going to eat every single meal together, go fucking grocery shopping together.”

She leans in, looming over me.

“You’re going to be joined at the hip and do absolutely fucking everything together. Shy of showering you won’t leave each other’s sight , am I clear?” She speaks softly, but her words are like bullets.

I can’t move, not even to look over and find out what Charlie’s reaction to all this is. All I can do is feel all the blood drain from my face and stare up into Gab’s lethal green-blue eyes.

“I don’t care how much of an inconvenience it is, Santa, because you’re fucking inconveniencing me by acting like two immature little boys who need to be taught how to behave like fucking men. You two.” She straightens and looks at Charlie then. “Will have to figure it out together, because I don’t have the time for it. Or the inclination.”

She turns and nods at Barlow to exit before her.

“Who do we have that we can call up?” I hear her ask, her voice fading away as they walk down the hallway.

I don’t hear Barlow’s answer, not only because they’re too far away now, but because the ringing in my ears becomes too loud.

“I hope you’re fucking happy,” Laney spits. “You’re dismissed for the day. Get your shit together and figure out where you’re moving into. Tomorrow, you better be here an hour early so you can coach up whoever Barlow and Gab bring in to take your places.”

Whatever words I could’ve come up with to say in that moment die on my tongue when he too walks out without a backwards glance.

“I’ve never been benched,” I say, dazed and confused. Well no, I’m not confused, I know exactly what’s happening and why, but I feel... lost.

“Me either. Not even when I was on Atlanta’s farm team.” Charlie’s words don’t feel like an ice pick being buried in my ear in that moment. They’re just words, as if anyone else has said them. So... I’ve lost it, that’s the only explanation for it.

“I guess we have to figure out where we’re living.” Charlie snorts derisively. “What?” I demand .

“It’s so fucking stupid that now you’re talking to me.”

“Talking to you is what got us into this mess,” I point out with a hiss.

“Whatever,” he huffs. “Where do you live.”

I say nothing for a moment, because I need to have an internal debate on whether I should tell him that I live in a hotel. I mean... it could be kind of a loophole to the conditions Gab laid down but... No. I’m not going to do that to her.

She has her reasons—good reasons—for having said everything she said, so now I’m going to follow her rules.

“Where I live is irrelevant,” I tell him, once more laying on the accent thick. It seemed to bother him before, and petty or not, I want him to be annoyed right now. I’ll work on the whole mending fences tomorrow. “We will be staying wherever it is you live.”

I stand at that and walk out. He hurries after me.

“Why won’t you tell me where you live?” I keep walking and ignore him—that more than anything seems to aggravate him the easiest. “Brotnik, what the fuck?”

I keep walking until we enter the still-deserted locker room and go to pick up my shit.

“I suggest you get changed because we are leaving in five minutes.”

“You can’t fucking tell me what to do,” he says with a scoff. I round on him and smile smugly.

“Can I really not?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, just use contractions, man,” he shouts, exasperated. It only makes my smile more genuine. “And stop smiling.” He points a finger at my face then focuses on taking his gear off.

Like me, he takes care to put everything where it belongs so at least our equipment manager won’t be mad at us. Then we walk silently to the players’ parking lot and I stop next to my pretty Vanquish. Charlie’s brow furrows as he looks down at my car, and I’m about to snap at him, ask him what he’s looking at, when he shakes his head and looks back at me.

“Just follow me home.”

I was about to ask him for his address, so I could go get some things then meet him at his place, but this works too, I suppose. In any case, I don’t feel like talking to him at all, so I just shrug and get in, back out of my spot, and wait for him.

I see a car pull up next to mine and pass by slowly, which I have to reluctantly appreciate—anyone who is careful around my car at least has common decency, which is all I can say about Charlie—and then I see he has the new fully electric BMW SUV, and that just earns more appreciation. It’s a pretty fucking car, that’s for sure.

Not as pretty as mine, but still . . .

And what the fuck am I doing admiring his car?

I keep pondering that question as I follow him to the gated community outside the city where some of my other teammates live. He must let the guard at the gate know I’m with him, because he greets me with a smile and gives me a red square.

“Just put it on top of your dashboard and you should be able to come in and out without having to sign in until you give it back.”

“Thank you,” I tell him and place it in its new spot.

“Big fan,” the guard says in a hurried voice.

I decide to be nice today so I catch the name tag on his uniform and nod at him with a smile.

“Appreciate it, Rick.”

With that, I move the car along and keep following Charlie who for sure had to wait for me to finish up with Rick. I pretend that it doesn’t make the hate shrink, even if just a little.

The driveway where he turns is long, and you can’t really see the house until the bend, and I have to snort a little. It’s a picturesque house, that’s for sure. Very cute, but cookie cutter and... boring. Yes, it’s boring.

But then again, Charlie Heart is a boring guy, isn’t he?

If he didn’t play hockey I bet he’d be selling insurance or... houses. I smirk at the thought of saying all this to him when he gets out of his car, and the unforgiving set of his jaw tells me he’s about to snap at me if I don’t get out of the car.

Alas, I can’t keep insulting him in my head all day no matter how much I want to—it has turned out to be the best activity, though, to avoid thinking about the fact that I won’t be playing tomorrow .

Charlie walks up the steps and opens the front door without saying anything to me. He just leaves it open and assumes I’m going to follow him, and dammit, I do.

“This is... nice,” I say when I find him getting a bottle of water out of the refrigerator in the kitchen.

Admittedly, the kitchen is pretty kickass. My father would’ve gone insane for that six-burner range. Through the big sliding doors that lead to a back yard on the opposite side I see a shiny, massive grill that would’ve made him weep with happiness.

Grief, potent as ever, squeezes my heart mercilessly.

“Yeah, the best I could find in a week,” he mutters cryptically.

“Why did you even come here?” I finally ask what I’ve been desperately wondering since I found out he’d become a Pirate.

“Why do you hate me so much?” he volleys back.

I shake my head and scoff. “You are an asshole,” I tell him simply. “Now answer me.”

“I don’t owe you shit.”

“Bullshit,” I snap. “I answered and now you go.” I stand taller, widen my stance, and cross my arms over my chest.

“Fucking hell,” he mumbles, looking down, then his eyes collide with mine. “What do you want me to say?”

“The truth. Say you are only here to fuck over my team. To get what you can out of us then fucking leave.” I see that I’ve hit him where it hurts when he steps back from the counter and advances on me. I don’t care, I have no reason to stop.

“You will not be staying around to help when times get rough.”

“Shut up,” he mutters, still walking slowly.

“Say you do not even care about hockey,” I keep taunting him, taking a step back so he won’t reach me.

“I said shut up,” he says, this time louder.

“Or you could tell me how you only care about the trophies, about the accolades and the applause.”

“I swear to God if you don’t shut up?—”

“You do not care about being a warrior on the ice,” I interrupt him. “Or about the honor. You only care about being the one who’s celebrated, not about your team winning. You?—”

His hands reach out when he’s less than a foot away and he grabs my shirt in his two fists, pulls me down and growls, “I said fucking shut up.”

My mind goes blank when his lips collide with mine.