Page 92 of Breakaway Goals

“Barty’s actually my agent’s partner,” Jacob said dryly. “Mark Clifford is my agent. Mark works with him.”

“And I’m still annoyed you picked Cliffy over me,” Barty complained. “My ego might never recover.”

Hayes didn’t have to see behind his sunglasses to know Jacob was rolling his eyes. “I think your ego’s plenty inflated,” Jacob muttered under his breath.

“It was too bad Mo couldn’t come,” Barty said as he pulled the cart alongside the first hole.

“He had some ESPN commitments,” Jacob said. He shot a glance in Hayes’ direction, then added, “He was real sorry to miss it.”

“Barty,” Hayes said with exasperation, “I told you I didn’t want to go that direction.”

“And he’s not here, is he?” Barty said in a tone full of faux-innocence. “Just Braun.”

Hayes didn’t even bother rollinghiseyes because it wouldn’t have done any good.

“What direction is that?” Jacob asked Hayes as Barty strode out onto the green with driver in hand.

Hayes didn’t particularly want to tell Jacob all of this. He’d tried to keep his contract negotiations away from the team, and Jacob, while not technically a member of the Sentinels, was as good as one these days. But he was out of small talk subjects, and he didn’t know how to shut Jacob down without sounding like a real asshole.

“We’re negotiating my extension, and the Sentinels lowballed Barty. He had some brilliant idea that Morgan could go on ESPN and talk me up. Sway public opinion to convince them to settle this early and not force us onto the open market.”

Jacob nodded. Like most goalies, he had a great poker face, but the corner of his mouth tilted up. “And you said no.”

“It’s . . .no. I mean,yes, I said no. I told Barty no.” Hayes might’ve been surprised he’d tripped over his words when discussing this, but he wasn’t. Nothing about Morgan surprised him anymore. “For good reasons,” he added.

“Not because you thought Mo would turn you down,” Jacob guessed.

Hayes watched as Barty took a practice swing and then another. He was absolute shit at golf, but it almost didn’t matter, because he always played like he had both the lowest handicap and the biggest dick on the course.

“I don’t know if he would or not,” Hayes answered honestly. He had given up understanding Morgan Reynolds a long time ago, and he couldn’t claim, even after their conversation three days ago, that he’d gotten any additional clarity.

“Seriously?” Jacob asked.

Hayes looked over at him. “I mean,yeah. We’re not friends, Braun. I can’t say we’re enemies, like you two were, but it’s not . . .we’re not close.”

Barty took a big swing and his ball sailed off wide right, landing on the far edge of a sand trap. He shrugged and headedback to the cart, grabbing a hard seltzer out of the cooler then motioning to the pair of them. “Who’s up next?”

“I’ll go,” Hayes said. If Jacob was as good as he’d hinted at, he didn’t want to go last.

He was just going through the motions, brain still stuck on the conversation he’d been having with Jacob. He couldn’t figure out Jacob’s surprise—or what he knew. And he sure as fuck couldn’taskhim. Hayes swung and his ball soared along the fairway, straighter than Barty’s, and avoided the sand trap.

“Great job,” Barty exclaimed, patting Hayes enthusiastically on the back as he and Jacob switched places. Hayes rooted around in the cooler, finally settling on a plastic bottle of unsweet tea.

Jacob was true to his word and his shot was by far the best of their trio. His putting game, both long and short, was solid, too.

“Not a lot going on down here in Florida. Didn’t get to golf much in the winter in Portland,” Jacob admitted with an easy shrug, referring to the Pacific Northwest city he’d lived in after retiring. Where he’d ended up meeting Finn, who’d been playing college hockey.

“Much better setup here,” Barty enthused on the third hole.

Hayes was half-focused on the game and half-worried that Jacob would bring up Morgan again.

He should’ve known Jacob was just biding his time, in typical goalie fashion.

Jacob struck on the ninth hole.

“You two were pretty cozy at Four Nations,” he said, nudging Hayes, as they watched Barty hit his ball out of another sand trap.

“Me and who?” Hayes asked, pretending ignorance even though he knew perfectly well who Jacob was talking about.