Page 22 of Rule 4: Never Get Stranded with a Sports Reporter

And Jesus, I got a goal the other night. I should have been celebrated for that.

Guilt bubbles in my chest. I tell myself it’s the bourbon.

I hurry onto the plane and curl up into the first-class cabin. There’s an eye mask in the VIP gift bag and I whip it on.

Maybe I hate flights, but at least this will get me to the other side of the world.

Finally, the plane lands. I tap my fingers along my passport and hope I didn’t need to get a visa or something. Oskar alwaysbooks our trips for the team. I want to ask him if he has any booking advice, but he probably hates me now too.

It doesn’t matter.

I yank my gym bag from the overhead luggage compartment, then I march off the plane, mumbling goodbyes to the flight attendants.

Unease moves through me. I don’t do things like this. The only time I took a beach vacation was when I went to Florida with Finn and Troy over a year ago. They didn’t ask me this time. I can’t blame them.

I show my passport to Fiji security, then step outside.

I’m definitely, definitely not in Boston. Warm air wafts around me. Palm trees sway in the distance. There’s not a single icicle is in sight— nor a single icy surface that can derail my career if I step on it wrong.

I’m in a place many people call heaven.

Something makes me glance over my shoulder, but tourists study their luggage as if they might have forgotten how to count within the time they got off the plane.

No matter.

I’m slightly paranoid. That feeling will go away when I vacation. There’s a reason vacations are something people go on. They’re supposed to make you feel better.

And since I can’t imagine feeling worse, maybe this will be good.

I take a taxi to my hotel and try to push away the guilt I feel for going on vacation to begin with. I stare out the window until the taxi drops me at the resort.

I’m groggy and out of sorts, unprepared for the cheerful chorus of welcomes from the Fiji staff. Even the male Fijians wear skirts, which is weird, but I guess is practical in this heat. Huh. My mind sort of hurts, and I wonder what Dad would make out of all of this.

Someone at reception thrusts a sweet drink into my hand, and I flash my card again.

Finally, I’m taken in a golf cart to my room.

A gentle gust drifts in from the ocean, rustling the long grass. The resort is perfect, excessively so. Each villa gleams with polished luxury, the private pools sparkling in the sunlight. Couples stroll hand in hand, smiling at each other like they invented love and are fucking proud of it. At any moment someone’s going to propose. I consider vomiting.

I’ve stepped straight into someone else’s fantasy, and it’s pleasant, but not mine.

All I ever wanted was to be on the ice. To play in the NHL: to work hard, keep my head down, and win.

The golf cart whizzes past luxurious villas, avoiding hitting the designer-clad guests in their loud tropical apparel.

I feel ridiculous being driven around, but hotels here aren’t built vertically.

I hate the definite feeling of boredom. I’m supposed to be living my best life. I’m supposed to be making people jealous.

But instead, all I wonder is if I can watch hockey games in my room. I wonder how elaborate the gym setup is. The website promised a good one. That’s how I chose this hotel. I wonder if Coach Holberg is plotting to trade me somewhere.

Shame moves through me, sharp and steady. Cal’s face flits into my mind again and again and again.

But then, it’s had a habit of doing that since I was sixteen. But that makes sense. People normally think about their best friends, after all. And if occasionally they think about them in not strictly straight ways, because imagining a friend naked isn’t something most guys would admit to, well, that’s probably normal too. Teenagers are horny. Discovering how a dick works is a pretty cool thing, it would be weird not to wonder what one’sfriends’ dicks look like. And how they would feel in your hand. Or mouth. Or ass—

“Mister?” The driver stares at me, and I realize he’s stopped in front of an attractive villa.

I blink against the stupidly cheerful sun and squint at a patch of aggressively tropical flowers that look like they were stolen from a sticker collection of a nine-year old girl.