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KAYDEN

F irst of all, don’t listen to Erik. He couldn’t tell a story to save his life.

Besides, he’s getting it all wrong. He made it sound like I marched into the locker room, acting like the cock of the walk, just demanding the captain’s locker with nothing to back it up.

Worse, he made it sound like he beat me at my own game, which is total crap.

Here’s how it really happened: I walked to my locker and noticed it’d been taken.

I simply tried to point out our little misunderstanding and gave him the chance to fix it.

And what did he do? He got all belligerent.

He actually thought he could just walk out on me correcting him as if listening to guys like me was beneath his dignity.

Oh yeah, total mistake.

To top it all off, he didn’t follow orders.

I hate that more than anything in the entire freaking universe.

In my world, I give orders, and people listen.

Simple. That’s part of what being team captain is about.

As a locker room general, I gave Erik an order, and I knew he heard me.

Instead of following it, he acted like obedience was optional, as if maybe the rules don’t apply to him.

We’ll see about that.

When I hit the locker room the next morning, I found his combination lock still attached to my locker like he hadn’t heard a single word I’d said.

My muscles tensed and hands balled into fists, and I felt hot all over.

I headed straight for the ice where I saw Erik’s “leadership” style in action.

Get this: he spoke softly to people, like an English lit professor in front of the chalkboard.

He had no fire. He might as well have told the guys, “Would you please play faster and harder?” when he really should have been telling them, “Get your asses moving already, would ya?”

A helmet now capped his brown hair, but he looked every bit as lanky with his pads on. Someone would have to tell that kid to put some meat on those bones before the season started. His ultra-trimmed beard was the only thing that made him look remotely like a hockey player.

He was a wuss, plain and simple. I saw it in the way he spoke to the guys, how he skated, and how he attempted shots at the net. If you want to make it in hockey, you need intensity. No need to apologize.

Not that I cared about that shit at that moment. I cared that he’d exceeded his limits, both with my locker and with me .

He paused at the blue line, probably needing to catch his breath already or have a good long think about what to do. I skated up to him, stopping abruptly enough to spray a flurry of ice shavings all over him.

And do you know what he did? He just stood there and took it.

Seriously. He might as well have thanked me and asked for another.

He looked like a complete idiot dusting himself off too.

To tell you the truth, that made it all worthwhile.

Before you ask, the answer is yeah, I totally did it on purpose and hoped he knew.

“Time’s up,” I said.

He glanced at his wrist as if to check an invisible watch and then shrugged.

“Oh, this again?” I asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about this whole I-don’t-have-to-listen-to-Kayden-Preston attitude you’ve been laying on pretty thick since yesterday.”

“I didn’t lay anything on thick, and I don’t have to listen to you.”

“Nice try.”

I wouldn’t let him control the conversation this time. I circled up to center ice and back, stopping abruptly again, shooting another round of snowy ice onto the dope.

Again, he dusted himself off, like he thought he could ignore me. Obviously, he’d never dealt with anyone like me before.

“You’re not even team captain material, you know that?” I asked.

“Says who?”

“Says me. And I am sort of the authority around here.”

The corners of his mouth lifted a little but offered nothing close to a smile. That look said he wouldn’t give me the satisfaction. I knew his game.

“Tell me one thing that makes you the authority on anything,” Erik said.

“For starters, you play and coach guys like a total cream puff.”

“ Cream puff? ”

“Yeah, I saw the way you were coaching Anderson a minute ago. That’s not how you do it.”

Now he did smile and shook his head in what I call an okay, buddy gesture.

“I have my way and you have yours. I know how to talk to players. I’m a communicator.”

I made a yapping hand gesture so he would know that all I heard anytime he spoke was blah-blah-blah .

“Don’t believe me?” he asked.

“I believe that’s what you do . I’m just saying it’s not worth shit.”

“What’s your way then?”

“You show some real emotion, be intense, smash the other guy in the mouth . Take no fucking prisoners. No holds barred. That’s how I play.”

I nearly drove a fist into my palm to demonstrate. Instead, I puffed my chest out to show my pride.

“Did you tell that to the cops when they were putting the cuffs on you in that assault charge?”

“No . . . I mean, shut up.”

“You have the right to remain silent.”

“Knock it off.”

“If you give up the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney.”

“I said fuck off, dude.”

“Why? I’m just getting started. If you cannot afford an attorney?—”

“Just shut up and watch this, okay?”

I pointed to Ryan Detenbeck, the goalie standing in the net, and ordered him to defend against me.

At least one player on the ice knew how to take directions.

I skated over to the nearest loose puck, set it in motion with my stick, and charged straight for the net.

Erik’s dumbass comments supercharged me.

Winding back, I slapped the puck as hard as I could enough to make a cracking sound echo throughout the rink. Though quick on his feet, the goalie tried to block the shot, but the pick flew right in the net.

As expected. But I wasn’t done.

I glided back to the blue line, grabbed another puck, and proceeded to the net again.

Detenbeck blocked that shot, but it didn’t matter.

You might not make all your shots, but you’ve got to keep trying and cramming that same give-‘em-hell attitude down the goalie’s throat each and every time.

That was why my third, fourth, and fifth shots all landed in the net.

I’m telling you Ryan Detenbeck didn’t know what hit him.

I skated back to the blue line, expecting to see a look of utter amazement on Erik’s face but found this stupid blank stare instead. I sprayed ice shavings onto him for a third time, more than happy to rub it in.

“Now would you look at that? ” I gave his shoulder a little push.

“Help me out here. What am I supposed to be seeing?”

“I’m trying to show you how it’s done, that’s what.”

“Okay…”

“A little hockey one-oh-one for the greenhorn.”

“Uh huh.”

All right, fine. It might look like I was doing this stuff on purpose—and I so totally was—but Erik had played dumb on purpose to get under my skin. Then he had the nerve to act like I’d come from another planet. The more he did that, the more I would pelt him with ice shavings. Simple.

“That’s how I set an example for the team,” I said. “High energy, high intensity, real explosiveness, and I take no shit. Do you really think you’d make a better team captain than me?”

“I know I can. Besides, it’s not about either of us saying who should and shouldn’t be team captain. It’s up to our teammates to vote someone in.”

“That’s right.”

“Which means I’ve got nothing to worry about.”

My fingers curled, balling into fists. I wanted to slug him in the worst way.

If I did, he would spit out a tooth and make some smartass joke about my arrest. Where did this kid find such bizarre confidence anyway?

Did they put something in the water in Canada?

Either way, I meant to give this Erik De Ruiter asshole an attitude adjustment.

“You really think so, huh?” I asked.

“I’m as sure as I can possibly be.”

“Yeah, well we’ll see about that.”

All right, fine, so maybe I didn’t have some clever comeback to nail him with. Besides, the kid was so stubborn that he would return with some stupid ass comment no matter what I said. It wasn’t worth the effort.

I circled around the blue line again, making one more abrupt stop and spraying ice shavings onto him for the umpteenth time now.

And he still did nothing. He just brushed them off like nothing I did could bother him.

That was your leader right there: a wimp who just stood there and took all the shit I dished out to him.

No, thank you.

“I think we’ve got this settled,” I said. “I’ll expect you to have your lock off and your shit out my locker no later than an hour after practice. While you’re at it, you can have my skates sharpened too.”

I skated off, leaving him no opening for some stupid quip. Besides, he’d gotten the last word in the locker room, and no way would I let that happen twice.

After practice, I took a shower and got dressed, taking my time and soaking up my personal victory over Erik.

I even thought about how this story would sound in my autobiography one day.

Look, I’m a reasonable guy, I wouldn’t push that dickwad any harder about this locker thing than I had to.

I even waited two hours after the end of practice for good measure.

When I returned to the captain’s locker, I found Erik’s lock still attached, like he hadn’t even touched it. If you thought I’d gotten really heated before, then look out.

This meant war.