Page 25

All Business

Aleks

October

“Look alive, Brittzy!” I baited, keeping the puck steady with my stick tapping on either side of it. I skated right up to him, blades slashing into the ice, and I read him like a book in just a split second. He was moving to my left to steal the puck.

So I went right.

He nearly fell as I whizzed past him, and I laughed all the way to the net as I broke away. Daddy P was in a low squat in front of the net, glove hand positioned, poised and ready to block my shot. That beastly body of his looked nearly impossible to bypass.

But I was on fire today, and not even he could stop me.

I slapped it in, the puck flying just between his left knee pad and the glove on his hand and rewarding me with the satisfied sound of hitting the back of the net.

“Fuck!” he cursed as I threw my hands up, and I barreled out a loud buzzer noise with my mouth.

A few of my teammates gave me high fives or nods of approval when Coach McCabe blew the whistle, while the rest shook their head and skated over to the bench. They were drenched in sweat when they peeled their helmets off, and they glared at me both with appreciation and annoyance.

I couldn’t blame them.

I was being a bit of a showoff.

But I also wasn’t sorry for it. Preseason was over, the real season officially underway, and I had served my punishment time. In two days, I would play my first game of the season.

And I was fucking ready .

“Looking sharp, Suter,” Coach said when I slid up to the boards. He arched a brow. “Maybe consider passing to your teammates from time to time?”

“Need one of these bastards to catch up to me in order for that to happen,” I quipped.

Coach flattened his lips, and Will clapped me hard on the shoulder before squeezing. “Easy,” he muttered in my ear.

I shrugged him off.

Why was it always me who had to calm down, slow down, simmer down? Why was it never asking other players to match my energy? To step up? To fucking play like a pro?

“Sorry, Coach,” I muttered, even though I wasn’t really sorry at all. I think Coach knew it, too, but to his credit, he didn’t make me skate laps or grill my ass for the lack of respect I’d just shown him.

“Fabio,” he said, turning his attention to Carter. “You looked better today, but you’re still—”

“Passing like a fucking toddler handling a ball for the first time, I know,” Carter interrupted, sitting back on the bench with his jaw clenched.

Good.

He should be pissed at himself.

He made it through camp, through preseason, and now he was on the fourth line — just like I’d predicted he’d be. And with the teammate at center in my line on his way out at the end of the season, I needed Carter sharp. I needed him to care more than he’d ever cared before, and to play like every game was a fucking playoff game. We were Stanley Cup champions, and we had the chance to either defend that title, to bring the Cup back to Tampa at the end of this season…

Or, to be a one hit wonder and let it all go to some other team.

“Just clean it up,” Coach said. “You’re slow, you need to bag skate every day after practice. I want to see that speed you brought in the preseason — that will be what sets us apart when we play Boston.”

Carter’s jaw was still tight as he nodded, and Coach moved on, offering up feedback to a few more players before he was addressing us like a team.

Coach McCabe was one of the youngest in the league, a man who had earned respect not just as a player when he was younger, but as one of the most influential coaches, too. He’d come in as a fresh face to Tampa and completely reshaped the team, taking us from a consistent losing record to the Stanley Cup champs.

It was an honor to play for him — even when he annoyed the crap out of me.

He was so wholly focused on our team, always at the stadium even when I came in early to skate or stayed late to hit the bikes in the gym upstairs. I wondered if he ever slept. I wondered if he ever did anything other than work his ass off to make this team the best it could be.

I liked that about him, though. I could relate to that feeling, to not having a wife or kids or a life outside of this sport we loved — or sometimes loved to hate. He was just as consumed as I was, maybe even more so, because where I sometimes fell into a numb state of routine with hockey, he was always alert.

Calculating. Planning. Engaging.

If we had nothing else in common, at least I knew we both wanted to give this season everything we had — just like last season and the one before it, and just like every season we’d ever play in the future.

After a quick run-through of what Coach wanted from us over the next forty-eight hours leading up to the next game, he told us to hit the showers, and my smelly, sweaty teammates filed into the locker room.

All of them except for Carter.

Coach frowned at him, his eyes catching mine before he nodded subtly toward my dejected center. I rolled my eyes at what he was insinuating — because I did not want to be anyone’s fucking babysitter — but I obeyed his unspoken command. I stayed back, waiting until Coach rounded into the tunnel that led to the locker room before I flopped down on the bench next to Carter.

“You good?” I asked him, spitting near my skates with my eyes on the ice.

“What do you think?” He shook his head. “I looked like cat shit out there today.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” I lied. “And it was just a practice.”

He leveled me with a glare then, sweat dripping down his nose and onto his pants. “Says the man who cursed me out in multiple languages for most of the hour.”

I sighed. “Look, I won’t lie and say I don’t want better from you. But I want better from everyone — myself, included. I know bad days happen. Sometimes at practice, sometimes at a game. But every bad day costs us. So, yeah, I’m going to push you. I’m going to curse you out sometimes and call you names and try to get under your skin.”

“Let me guess — ‘but it’s because you care?’ ”

“It’s because I don’t do shit like this,” I corrected, gesturing between us. “If you want a pep talk, go to Daddy P. You want someone to go out with and drown your sorrows, you know where to find Tanny Boy and Brittzy.” I leaned over toward him, leveling him with a stare. “You want the truth about what you need to work on? You want someone not afraid to call you on your bullshit?” I thumped my chest. “That’s my role.”

Carter looked ready to scoff, but instead, he held my gaze, blowing out a long breath after a moment and hanging his head between his shoulders. He stayed that way for a beat before speaking again.

“I want to be better,” he said, his voice low. “I feel like all I’ve ever done since getting drafted is try to be better, to be… good enough.” He swallowed, turning to face me, and I saw a vulnerability there that made me as uncomfortable as it made me feel sorry for the guy.

It also made me a bit sick in the stomach.

Because I understood that feeling more than he knew.

“I finally have a chance again, Su Man. I made it through camp. I made it through preseason. I… I’m here , as an Osprey.” He shook his head. “I can’t get sent down again. I can’t go back to New York. This is my team. This is where I want to be.”

I nodded, throat tight. I didn’t know what that was like. I’d been drafted and remained in the NHL since then. I’d never been sent down to the AHL, never had that kind of pressure riding on my shoulders to prove something — at least when it came to hockey.

For once, I felt like I saw Carter for more than just the annoying punk who frustrated me with his lack of talent.

I saw his potential.

I saw his drive.

“Then listen to me, listen well, and let me help you.”

His eyes widened. “You? Help me?”

“I won’t fucking repeat myself.”

“No, no, of course not, I — yes, please. Help me.”

He turned to face me more fully then, eager puppy dog that he was, and I took a breath on a smirk before launching into all the shit I saw in this practice alone that he needed to work on. I gave him homework — video to watch, players to research, drills to run, and then I told him to meet me here early tomorrow to go through some things together.

By the time I was done, I swore I could see him jotting notes in his mind, his head bobbing like one of those fucking toys that you might see sitting on the dashboard of an old car. But the kid was smiling again, and he had a little bit of hope back in his eyes.

I preferred that to the moping he was doing before.

“Hey,” he said when we finally stood and started making our way back to the locker room. “I heard your fiancée will be at this game.”

I nearly stumbled at the mention of Mia, but somehow kept my cool, shrugging one shoulder. The locker room was empty already, save for a couple guys in the ice baths or getting work done by our trainers.

“Of course, she will be,” I said with what I hoped was a convincing smile. “She’s gotta show support for her sexy ass husband-to-be.”

“And then you’re going to her first concert in New York?”

I swallowed. “Yep. Just enough time to go before we play Toronto the following night.”

“That’s going to be so wild, man. She sold out not one, not two, but three nights at the Garden.” He whistled. “Impressive shit, that is.”

“She’s an impressive woman,” I agreed, ignoring the way my ribs squeezed my lungs in a vise grip.

I couldn’t wait to see her.

And yet, I knew it wouldn’t really be her I’d be seeing.

It would be the new Mia — the ice queen with all her highest, most solid walls up. She’d been like that ever since the proposal, and no amount of me begging could get her to tell me why.

We met up for photo ops. We had a “secret” engagement party with close friends and family that ended up all over the Internet. We held hands walking side by side in Los Angeles, pretending to talk and laugh only to be completely silent on the drive back to the airport.

But that was it.

We no longer hung out outside of the stunts. She didn’t ask me to stay, and she declined me when I tried to get her to.

It was all business now.

And it fucking killed me.

Especially as we sped closer to our expiration date on this whole charade.

Giana was thrilled with the sponsorships that had rolled in for me this season. We’d filmed so many commercials in August and September that I already knew I was going to be sick of my own face now that they were all airing.

A fast-food restaurant, a shoe brand, an energy electrolyte drink…

Add in that my jerseys continued to sell like hotcakes and we’d sold out the first ten games of the season, and Richard Bancroft was more than tickled pink with this whole arrangement.

On my end, the deal was done.

And we weren’t far behind when it came to Mia.

Soon, I knew Isabella would be ready to pull the plug. Garrett Orange had already been silenced for the most part. The album was a success. The tour was already shaping up to break records. I’d served my purpose.

How much longer would they need me?

How much longer would I have an excuse to hold her, to touch her, to kiss her before I’d be asked to fake breaking her heart?

If I was being honest, it didn’t feel like something I needed to fake at the moment. It felt like something I’d already done.

I just didn’t know how .

“I still can’t believe you’re getting married,” Carter said, shaking his head as he untied his skates. “To Mia Fucking Love. I mean, look, I know we’re not all best buddies or anything, but… you didn’t tell a single soul.”

“Why would I?”

He shrugged. “To let us share in the excitement with you? To practice your speech? To… I don’t know, have a fucking friend to celebrate with?”

“I don’t—”

“Have friends, yeah, yeah, I know,” Carter cut me off, standing with a sigh as he ripped his practice jersey overhead. He paused for a long moment before turning to face me. “Doesn’t that ever get old to you? Doesn’t it ever get… lonely?”

I couldn’t explain why his gaze felt like a knife through my chest, why my face grew hot the longer I went without being able to pop back a sarcastic or unaffected response. I swallowed what felt like a glob of sandy peanut butter before slapping on my signature smirk.

“I’ve been lonely my whole life, kid.”

Carter’s brows tugged inward, and I couldn’t take the fucking pathetic way he was looking at me. I stood, holding up my fist for him to bump.

“See you in the morning. Get some good rest, because I fully intend to kick your ass on that ice.”

I turned and stripped out of my clothes quickly before heading toward the shower, not leaving any room for further discussion.

In the shower, I overheard one of the televisions from the training room talking about a hurricane moving toward Cuba, its path after that still unknown.

I couldn’t help but feel another storm brewing deep inside me.