Page 8

Chapter 8

Eoghan

S cuba's wedding was exactly what I thought it would be. A glitzy affair full of hockey players. It seemed unreal; he put together the whole thing in basically the same time period that I'd been with the Legacy: a month and half.

If it was any other Legacy player, I wouldn't have shown up. But my new self-appointed best friend would have killed me if I missed his special day.

It was fucking brutal being single at an event to celebrate love. It really didn't help that all my friends on the Legacy were all coupled up. Carter and Suzuki were dancing with their girlfriends since they came into the dance hall.

Also, everyone was annoying as all hell with their tinging the glasses with their knives, begging Scuba and Annette to kiss. The only way I could get the sound to escape my ears was to dull all my senses with my new favorite method to cope with things: Jameson.

Got to love a good open bar, and a few of them were spread out around the large reception hall. So I never had to wait in line for more.

As I visited Tom's bar for the tenth time and asked for a James and ginger, he shook his head. "No can do."

I squinted my eyes at him. It was early in the evening, and I wasn't even tipsy.

"Why?"

I reached over the bar to get a cup, and the guy had the audacity to slap my hand as he said, "You're cut off."

I saw red, and I wanted to rip the guy's head off. Who the fuck slapped another grown man's hand?

Okay, I probably shouldn't have reached over the bar, but I wanted a damn drink, especially since people were begging for the happy couple to kiss yet again.

The scrawny bartender folded his arms and tilted his head as if saying try me . I had sixty pounds on the dude, but I wasn't going to fight at my teammate's wedding. So I just shook my head and went to the bar on the far side of the room.

Thankfully, Lisa wasn't a dickwad like Tom was and gave me another James and ginger. I tried to slow down a little. That way, I wouldn't continue to get cut off by the various open bars.

I don't know who the hell talked to the DJ, but he cranked up the music even louder, to the point if you were walking near a speaker, it would vibrate your whole body. Which wasn't helping my sour mood.

I had to say, it was nice that Cartsy, Scuba, and Suzuki would drag me to the dancefloor and wouldn't let me just wallow in my loneliness. After the electric slide, I noticed the bar in the back was being torn down and instead of taking the booze and moving it to one of the open bars, they were taking it to the back.

So I went over to get one last drink. I didn't care. I had a sizeable buzz going on. The twenty drinks I'd had thus far were fairly watered down.

Cartsy and Suzuki followed me over to the bar. They both ordered a beer. I asked for some Jameson.

The bartender, I forgot her name, asked what I wanted but that dickhead Tom who was at the other bar came up and said, "He's cut off."

I saw red again. This fucking twat had no right to interfere. I lost my shit.

"That's not fucking fair. I'm not like those asshats over there who can't keep their shirts on or doing that." I pointed to a few of the Sound guys who were just as drunk as I was who were half naked with the best man that was drinking a beer through his undershirt.

Cartsy and Suzuki were trying to tell me to calm down, but I wasn't having it. I wanted a Jameson, and I was going to get one. Especially when I saw the bottle sitting right there for the taking.

I fixated on that bottle. No twat would deny me my one guilty pleasure and the only thing keeping me sane in this wedding.

I fucked up last night.

I don't know how it happened, but I got tossed out of Scuba's wedding. After all he'd done to get me to feel like part of the team, I let drinking get to me and I got myself thrown out.

On top of that, I was still fucking drunk, which meant I had to drink a bottle or two of Jamieson before practice. I wanted some hair of the dog to make sure that I could play only slightly guilty instead of massively sick. I would need to apologize to Scuba and the other guys for making a fool of myself.

But first I had to find my last bottle of Jamieson. I was pretty sure I still had one of those left.

All I saw were empties. So many empties were all over my place.

I needed to clean it up. No, I really should hire someone to clean my place. Then maybe I could find my bottles with something in it.

There was a knock on the door.

Shit.

Looked like my reckoning was coming. I really didn't want to deal with it.

Sniffing the air as I approached the door, I could tell it was Logan.

Fuck. This was a real reckoning. It wasn't just asking for forgiveness from my friends.

Nope. It was an alpha (okay, only an alpha-light, but I still had to listen to him).

Yeah, I really shouldn't have drank so much last night or had the metric shit ton of empties lying around.

Too late to do anything. Since he heard my footsteps and wouldn't be afraid to kick my door in, I opened it.

He pushed his way into my apartment and looked around. His face distorted from the sight of all the bottles strewed around. "Dude. What the fuck? Drink this."

He shoved a thermos to my chest.

I opened the lid and sniffed. It was one of those restoratives that the more magically inclined in our pack (including myself) would take to cure all our ails. But I doubted it could fix feeling like an outsider, an imposter, loneliness, and everything else going on in my mind.

I took a swig and gagged. Instead of the normal restorative, it was vile and seemed to suck all the alcohol from my system so quickly that I had an instant hangover. I wanted to look for another bottle of Jamieson before it felt like my body was on fire.

Why did magic taste so bad?

Logan shot me the look and pointed to the thermos, so I took another swig.

Although this time, it tasted better.

"What did you give me?"

He smirked. "I had Dino whip something up special for you after last night's spectacle."

I closed my eyes and scrunched up my face as I clenched my fists.

Great. Just great.

The pack knew about my issue, cause bless Dino's heart, he couldn't keep a secret. He would be discreet, but somehow, he would tell Theo or Jayden. Then things would continue to leak out.

I looked at the open thermos and gulped the rest, since there wasn't much left. By some miracle of God, it didn't taste nearly as vile, and I was feeling better since the hangover was easing.

Logan poked around under the sink and grabbed a couple of trash bags. He threw me one bag. "It's time to clean this place up and for you to start talking."

I took the bag and opened it. Bottles clinked off each other as we dropped them in, but I stayed silent. I didn't know what he wanted me to say.

I messed up by drinking too much in front of my teammates.

Logan was tossing some of the empty bottles into his bag. There was something about an heir to a massive fortune and an alpha-light to clean up my trash that made me want to laugh.

Logan then did something atypical and slipped into his alpha voice, which basically forced me to do his will. "Talk. What the hell is going on with you? This isn't the guy I knew back in Minneapolis."

I couldn't look him in the eye. I hated telling him how much I hated being away from the pack. Yeah, I knew my drinking was out of control and I wasn't playing like the guy that I was. But life in Vancouver sucked. "It's hard being here."

He gave me that look where that answer wasn't going to suffice. So I took a deep breath and leaned back against the counter to put everything I'd been feeling into words.

"I'm not built like you. It's been so fucking lonely without my brothers beside me. I hate having to deal with all the crap the human world puts on us. I need to numb myself from the noise and smells. From everything."

Thanks to cleaning off the island some, there was a bit of amber liquid reflecting off the surface. I could have kissed it. I reached for the bottle, and I fell to my knees in pain from the fact every nerve ending was on fire.

"Ugh."

Logan dropped his trash bag and lifted me off the ground. "Best not to be thinking about drinking any alcohol for the next forty-eight hours. Give or take."

What was he talking about? Sure, the restorative differed from normal, but it shouldn't do anything like this. As the pain subsided, I asked, "What did you do to me?"

"A little magic to force you to get sober, at least until it wears off. It's only a few days, but it's your first step to saving your spot with the Legacy and your career."

He was probably right that I need to get sober.

No. He was right. I needed to get clean, if only to save my reputation. Why else would he put so much emphasis on the part about saving my career.

Although to fully get treated the human way, it would take me away from the game. "I can't join the player assistance program. Not when I'm so close to getting everything. I'll do anything to stay part of the team."

I folded my arms and tried to gather my thoughts. They hadn't been clear in so long, and it sucked since every feeling of being inadequate seeped back into my body.

Logan said, "Normally, I would recommend it since it's there to help you. But you have to want it. I would be happy if you just stayed sober from now until the end of the playoffs. But the drinking is only a symptom, so what's the actual issue here in Vancouver?"

It was time to tell him some of my problems.

I hated admitting my problems, but I wasn't fixing them with alcohol. It was time to try to something new. Besides, thanks to whatever he and Dino did to me, it might kill me if I resorted to the old way.

"I already told you. I just can't handle the human world. I thought I could, but everything is so damn loud. It's smelly, and it's just hard."

It was just a small piece of the story. Although it was something that could be fixed if I got off my ass and asked Dino to help me. But with the time difference and him being constantly on patrol, Jameson was just easier.

Logan also tossed me a gold chain. It wasn’t too different from a lot of other gold chains that guys wore. But this one had a spark of magic to it, which meant it was something else that Dino had his hands on.

"I figured."

I noticed that as I held onto the necklace, things felt better. The noises from the outdoors lessened. So did the smells. I realized what it was. It was one of those personal dampeners that Dino would make the new wolves, including Logan.

I put it on properly.

There was another knock on the door. I sniffed the air. I could just barely get a sniff of my guests. It was the wedding boy and his best friends on the team, Spencer Suzuki and Carter Carmichael.

I opened the door and just sighed.

It felt like a fucking intervention even before they showed up.

"Come to join the party in getting me clean?"

My teammates just frowned. Yet another sign of how I was an outsider to everyone. They didn't get my self-deprecating humor.

Scuba stepped closer and asked, "Do you want to get clean?"

I shrugged.

As much as I wanted to say that I wanted to get clean, I wanted to feel numb again. I was too afraid to actively search for the bottle with any tasty liquid in it. But the desire to feel numb and quiet my thoughts was still there.

Carter folded his arms and gave me one of those death stares that I would normally give out to the players that were letting me down back home.

Yup, you're the fuck up now and you did it to yourself.

The least I could do was be honest with the guys. It was the only way they could trust me.

"Honestly, I still want the alcohol, but it's causing me to lose my reputation and your trust. I plan to get myself sorted and start going to some meetings. Also, sorry about last night. It wasn’t my finest moment."

That brought out smiles in everyone. So that was the right answer.