Page 2

Chapter 2

Of course he did

Braydon

Around me, the locker room buzzed with that winning vibe. I hunched over on my borrowed bench, staring at the logo on the locker room floor again. I’d just made my first start in goal for an NHL team, what I’d been dreaming of for twenty years. I’d played two periods, let in only one goal, and the win was mine in the record books. But I wasn’t talking and excited. I was more…deflated.

I shoved my hands through my hair and drew in a long breath. Why didn’t I feel it? I let the air out of my lungs, slowly, and almost choked when a large hand slapped my shoulder.

“Good game, Mitch!” Cooper grinned down at me, definitely feeling that winning buzz.

I forced a smile in return. “Thanks.”

“Your first W.”

I nodded. Hopefully the first of many.

He looked around, the space emptying out as players dressed to leave. I had already showered and was in my suit, which was nowhere near as tailored and expensive as the ones worn by the other permanent players here. Cooper’s? Fit like a dream, even with his hockey player body. My jacket was snug around my arms and the pants loose around the waist since I’d bought it off the rack. Alterations only went so far.

“Normally we’d take you to the Top Shelf after your first start. But it’s a big thing for Dev too, and she has to get home so we’re moving the party to her and Hunt’s place. Give me your phone and I’ll send you the address.”

He held out his hand, so I pulled out my phone and gave it to him. “Maybe I should just head back. I live out in Oakville, and we’ve got an early practice.”

Cooper passed back the phone. “De Vries is going to be out for at least a week. You’ll be with us. Come for a few minutes anyway—some of the team will be there and you can meet them properly. And Faith—I don’t think you got to talk to her in all the rush.”

She’d barely made it to the bench in time for the start of the game and I’d already been on the ice. She wasn’t in the locker room for intermission, and when she started the third period it was my turn to sit and watch the play. She set a record as the first female to play in a regular season NHL game. I’d heard her husband played for the Blaze before he retired, so the team was friends with her. I was just a random called up for one game. Maybe Cooper was wrong. Maybe they’d keep her to play with Petrov.

Cooper passed me back my phone. “Sorry, did you have someone you were meeting up with? Your first game is a big thing.”

I shook my head. My teammates were playing in Belleville tonight and wouldn’t be back for two or three hours. My parents lived in Montana and hadn’t been able to make it for the game. My circle of friends who weren’t connected to the Inferno? Didn’t exist.

“Then come with us. Next game, we’ll go to the bar.”

“I’ll think about it.” There’d be a next game, right? I’d been a little shaky at first, but I’d found my footing, only letting in one of twenty-one shots in the two periods I played. The coaches assured me I wasn’t pulled for the third period because I wasn’t doing well.

Probably why this first NHL game of mine was so different than what I’d expected, and once I’d dealt with that I’d feel that winning buzz. Knowing I’d played a game, that I had a win, that there should be more games. Games where I’d feel like part of the team, part of the NHL, not some dummy holding a place for the real players. A little spark ignited inside.

“Hey Coop!” One of the suits from management, someone I’d never met, called Cooper from the doorway. “Frank Devereaux just showed up. Can you handle him?”

Cooper snorted. “Of course he did.” He turned back to me. “Faith’s dad. I need to deal with him. See you in a bit.”

I kept the smile fixed to my face and watched him leave.

There were hardly any people left in the locker room, so I pushed myself to my feet. I grabbed my wallet from the cubby, running my finger over the nameplate, De Vries . Someday that would be Mitchell . I just had to keep fighting, keep focused.

I slipped out the door and made my way to the exit to the players’ parking lot, only taking one wrong turn. My ten-year-old pickup looked out of place among the new trucks and sports cars still there. I jogged over to my truck, the air still cold at the beginning of March. Hockey playoffs would start next month, and the weather would get warmer. Probably. This was Canada after all.

I hit the fob to unlock the doors, and by habit opened the back for my gear. I didn’t have my bag though. At this level there were people paid to take care of it. I’d brought it with me, driving over last minute for the game, but the equipment guys had taken it after I changed. If I wasn’t staying with the Blaze, where would I find it?

Shit . I didn’t have a pass to get back into the building. I hoped they were on top of it, because my backup equipment wasn’t in good shape.

Shelving that problem for tomorrow, I climbed into my truck and started it up, blowing on my hands. The phone hooked up to the truck, and I hit the number for my parents. I had to call them after my first NHL start, and here in my truck with no one around I didn’t need to play it cool. They answered immediately, and suddenly the high I’d been missing was there.

“Braydon! Congratulations! You did great.”

This time my smile wasn’t forced, even if no one else could see it. “Thanks, Dad! It was great to get that win. Because it was fu-freaking terrifying when they dropped the puck the first time.”

“Sweetie, I was so nervous. I knew you’d do great, but it’s so fast, and they’re all so big.”

“I’m covered in pads, Mom. Nothing to worry about.”

Petrov got hurt in warm-ups, but I didn’t mention that. She’d already looked up every video she could find of weird goalie injuries. Didn’t matter what I said, she was going to worry. It wasn’t her choice for me to be a hockey player.

My parents watched every game they could if I was playing, so they’d had the TV on for this one. We went through the two periods I played in detail. They didn’t offer advice or criticism because they weren’t hockey fans. They watched just for me, and I loved them for it.

After the two periods were rehashed, mostly them listening to me, Dad brought up the elephant in the room. “Did they tell you why you didn’t play in the third?”

I leaned against the headrest. “They said I was doing good, but they wanted to give the other goalie some time to play. You know, set a record as the first woman.” That sounded resentful, and yeah, I maybe was a bit, but I needed to get over it. I understood why the team did it. That voice inside my head whispered that they didn’t think I was good enough and that was why they played her. Too many people had told me I wouldn’t make it, and it was hard to stop the voice even now.

There was a silence on the other end. Did I sound like it upset me? I didn’t want that. My mood was just a little wonky.

“Did you meet her, Faith Devereaux?” Mom asked.

I shrugged, though they couldn’t see it. “Not really. She was a last-minute call-up, and one of us was on the bench when the other was on the ice. But I’ve been invited over to her place for a first game celebration.”

“Will her parents be there?”

Her voice…it sounded like when she used to ask how much new goalie pads would cost, before she started adding up how many extra shifts that would take. Did she think I was upset they couldn’t make it, and if Dev’s parents were there, they’d feel worse? There wasn’t enough time to drive to Billings to catch a flight to Toronto. They’d have taken a financial hit for that, like they had for all my hockey expenses. “I don’t know—I think someone said they weren’t at the game, so…” Then I remembered the message for Cooper. “Oh, her dad got here sometime?—”

“Did he talk to you?” This time her voice was definitely weird.

I frowned. What the… “Why would her dad want to talk to me?”

The silence on the other end of the phone vibrated. There was something going on with my parents and the Devereaux family. What the hell? I’d never heard of Faith till the game.

“Do you know them? Did they do something?” What could possibly connect Faith Devereaux and her family with mine? I’d been raised in a small town in Montana, and Faith was from Toronto, according to the game announcers. Until tonight, we’d never run across each other.

I heard a faint murmur on the other end of the call. Like someone had put a hand over the receiver. Then, still muffled but distinguishable, “What if he’s there? You have to tell him.” My dad’s voice.

“Braydon?” My mom sounded like she was about to cry.

I gripped the steering wheel. Something bad was coming, something related to this family I’d never heard of before tonight.

“I hoped I wouldn’t have to tell you, and I never wanted it to be this way.” She paused.

“Mom?” I was twenty-four, but my voice wavered like a scared four-year-old. I cleared my throat. “What is it?” That sounded more adult.

“Frank Devereaux…I knew him. I didn’t know he was married. I swear, I had no idea…”

My whole body seized and I wanted to hang up. Throw the phone away. I saw what was coming, as if the words were written across my windshield.

Mom’s voice sounded farther away as she continued. “I was young and na?ve, and I thought I was in love with him.”

No, no, no . I didn’t want to listen, but I couldn’t make my body move.

“I got pregnant, he gave me money for an abortion, and I never heard from him again.”

It was coming, a slap shot aimed right at my helmet, and I was too frozen to move and avoid the hit.

“He’s your father. Frank Devereaux.”

Slam.

I dropped the phone, but it was hooked up to the truck’s Bluetooth system.

“You should know in case there’s a situation where you might meet him.” That was Dad, anger threading his voice.

“Does—” Again, I sounded like a kid. “Does he know who I am?”

“No. I never talked to him after he sent me that money.”

Thoughts scattered through my brain. I knew who my sperm donor was now. Why had Mom never told me? I had a sister—a half-sister. My biological father didn’t walk away because he couldn’t handle kids, but because he was an asshole. A married, cheating asshole.

“Braydon?” My dad—my adoptive dad—was worried. Maybe he’d been talking while I zoned out.

“Dad.” Could I still call him that? Idiot , of course I could.

“Are you okay?”

“Sure. I mean, I will be. I just have to process this a bit, you know?”

“Sweetie—”

I couldn’t do this anymore. I needed to talk to someone who wasn’t involved, work out what it meant. My teammates? Damn, they were probably sleeping on the bus to be ready for practice in the morning. Who else?

“I gotta go, get back to my place. I’ll talk to you later.” I reached out to disconnect on the truck’s media screen. I heard my mom just before I lost connection, but I ignored it. She’d had twenty-five years to deal with this. I’d just found out.

There were only a few vehicles left in the lot, and I should go, but first I picked up my phone and pulled up a browser. I needed to know about my—this man who’d gotten my mom pregnant.

There were a lot of hits. Frank was a sports agent. He was probably in Minnesota to scout some clients when he met my mom, since that’s where I’d been born. There were a lot of hockey players from that state, and he represented some of them. He’d been married for years before I was conceived. So, definitely a cheater. Good to know.

He was still working as an agent. And I wondered, if I’d been one of those good prospects, the ones who were scouted and drafted, if he might have reached out and asked to represent me. What a shitshow that would have been.

There was a link to his daughter, so I clicked on that. Faith was three years older than me. I could see the resemblance. We both had blond hair. Blue eyes. She was five foot eleven. I had three inches on her. We played the same sport and position. Her chin and nose were different, so we didn’t look unmistakably like siblings, but when you knew, you could see it.

She’d been born and raised in Toronto. Played on co-ed teams for years, competing against guys, and then was a star for the girls’ teams she played on. She’d gone to a top hockey school in Vermont, been drafted, and won an Olympic gold medal. She was married to Seb Hunter, the former Blaze defenseman, who now worked for the team. She had a daughter.

Cooper mentioned some of this in the locker room, when I hadn’t known we had a connection. But still…it was seeing my life as it could have been. If the man who provided half my DNA had given a damn. No begging to play, my parents taking on extra jobs to pay for my goalie gear and any camps we could afford. Summers that I spent working on skills on my own, my half-sister had spent at elite hockey camps, learning from the best.

I hadn’t been on the NHL draft radar. I was lucky to get a partial hockey scholarship for a North Dakota school where I’d juggled hockey and classes and a part-time job. The team hadn’t been great, but I’d managed to catch the eye of a scout at a tournament, and finally got a chance to try out for the Blaze organization. I was damned lucky to get signed with the farm team.

Hockey was in my DNA, thanks to Frank, but I’d had to figure out everything for myself because he was a cheating piece of shit. If I’d had those opportunities, those doors opened like Faith had, would I now be playing in the NHL? Was I as good as I could get, or had I not had the training early enough that would have made me better?

I was angry, holding on to a secret that might blow up the Devereaux’s happy home. No way was I joining a party at my sister’s house. How was I supposed to act? What if Frank was there? Maybe with his wife? Did I want to be polite to the man who could have changed my life if he’d only been a decent person?

Fuck. Was I like him?

I needed alcohol. Screw the careful rules I’d been following for the last ten years. I’d stop at any bar that looked good on my way home, and two beers were not going to be my limit tonight.

What a fucking day.