Page 5

FIVE

Jethro

Clay’s expression tightens into something I can’t read just before he averts his blue-eyed gaze. My life is moving at too fast a speed for me to process all the waves of aggravation rolling off him.

I’m so angry I can hardly breathe. Clay and I used to be tight . I trusted him in all the ways there are to trust a person. And the first thing I heard—along with everyone else in a five-mile radius—was that he wouldn’t want me if I was the last guy on Earth.

Who says that about a three-time champion?

Now we’re staring at each other, both of us angry. It wasn’t his ass who got FedExed across the country this morning at the whim of my team’s manager.

My former team. I wonder what they’re all doing right now. It’s probably business as usual in the dressing room. Smack talk and strategy. I was supposed to play St. Louis tonight. Now I have to suit up for a game against… I can’t even remember who. I’m so disoriented.

“Listen,” he says without meeting my eyes. “I’m sorry you’re pissed off about the trade. A trade I had nothing to do with.”

“You made that abundantly clear,” I hiss.

He sighs and lifts his eyes skyward. And the gesture is so familiar that it actually pierces the bubble of anger inside my chest. For a split second I can see the twenty-four-year-old Clay Powers, pacing in our little kitchen, angsting about something or other.

It’s wild, really. That time in my life has been buried for so long, and now here it is, standing right in front of me in a sharp suit and a scowl.

It’s almost too much to take in.

“The point is,” he says, trapping me with a pair of knowing blue eyes that seem more familiar with every passing second. “I hope you can settle in and be happy here. I hope we can get past this awkward moment and play some great hockey. That was always your goal, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I admit hoarsely.

He looks away again, and pinches the bridge of his nose, the way he used to do when he felt a headache coming on. “Good,” he says firmly. “Please let Murph or Liana know if there’s anything we can do to make your family more comfortable. Liana is a miracle worker, and the goalie coach is excited to work with you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to tell my team about the trade.”

Then? He steps around me, as if this little chat wasn’t his idea in the first place. And he stalks away from me.

As he goes, I catch myself watching his confident stride. If you’d told me fifteen years ago that Clay Powers would become the youngest coach in the league, I would not have laughed. He was always the kind of guy who wanted things done right. He knew how to handle himself, and he knew how to handle others. It doesn’t take a mental leap to see his star is still rising.

Meanwhile, my star has just been kicked to the curb. It’s deeply embarrassing to start over at thirty-seven. Yesterday, I thought of myself as a valuable member of my hometown team. Today, I’m just the trash they’re hauling out the back door.

It doesn’t help that I’m the third-oldest player in the league. That’s why it stung so bad to hear Clay call me a dinosaur. The whole office heard it. They know what their coach thinks of his newest player, and I don’t know how to come back from that.

“Hale?” I look up to see Matt Murphy, the assistant coach, beckoning to me. He’s a big guy with curly hair and an easy smile. “Coach Powers is just taking a moment to tell the guys that Cockrell was traded. But then we’ve got to get you suited up. Our equipment guy will make you a jersey.”

“Okay,” I manage. I follow him down the corridor while he asks me benign questions about my equipment so he can pass that data to the manager. He pauses outside the dressing room, where I can hear Clay’s voice again as he addresses his players.

The room is dead silent. They clearly show him all the respect that a head coach deserves. And from this day forward I’m supposed to do the same.

I’ve spent the day suffering from a million emotions—my humiliation in Detroit, my anger, and my worries for my family—but now I can’t stop thinking about just one. Clay Powers and I have a past together. A distant past, but it’s still messy.

Now that he’s my new boss, there’s only one way to get through this. I have to put every memory of those old days in a fireproof safe and lock that shit up. Nothing good will come from thinking about what we used to be to each other…

“Hale?” Coach Murphy says.

I snap out of my reverie, follow him into the dressing room, and immediately feel like a monkey at the zoo. Heads swivel in my direction. The players all look a little shellshocked. They can’t believe their backup goalie got zapped into thin air a few days before Christmas. They’ll probably miss the guy.

Plus, it’s a brutal reminder that it can happen to almost anyone. It’s like seeing a news story on TV about a car accident and recognizing the intersection in the clip. You think: that could have been me .

Except this time, it was me, and their stares are making me twitch.

“Well?” I bark. “Where do you want me?”

Clay glances around the room until his gaze lands on a half-empty stall. “Banks!” he shouts.

An equipment guy comes scurrying in from another room. “Coach?”

“Set up Mr. Hale in Cockrell’s old spot, please.”

“Will do, sir.” The young man hurries over to tidy up a stall next to Andrey Volkov, their primary goalie.

I head over to that spot and set down my bag. There’s probably something I should be saying right now that would lighten the moment, but I don’t know what that is.

Clay would know , my brain offers up unhelpfully. He was the talker. The charmer. I’ve always been terrible at conversation.

Luckily, the team captain—veteran player Ted Kapski—crosses the room to shake my hand. “Hi. Welcome to the team. I’m sure you’re as surprised to be here as we are to see you. But it’s an honor, man.”

I shake his hand, but I don’t feel all that honored. “Thanks,” I say gruffly. “Merry Christmas to me.”

“This really fucks up the Secret Santa chain,” another player mutters. It’s Davey Stoneman, one of their star forwards.

Kapski gives him an elbow to the ribs. “Dude, seriously?”

“I love my rituals,” Stoneman says sourly. “But I’ll prolly love not having to shoot past Hale next time we play Detroit. So welcome, man.”

“Thanks,” I say stiffly.

“Where are you staying?” Kapski asks. “The holidays are a rough time for a trade.”

“You’re telling me.” I rub my temples. “My family is taking it hard. I’m in a hotel in Denver for a few nights. The team found us a condo. It’s empty, though. I gotta get some beds and stuff before my dad brings my kid out here.”

A defenseman rises to cross the room. “Hey, I got a furniture guy for you. He did my whole place in a few weeks. Looks great, too. You want the name?”

“Absofuckinglutely. Give me all the names. Or—better yet—wake me up from this nightmare.”

There’s an uneasy chuckle. But I don’t know how to fake how I feel, and I don’t see why I should try.

“You know you’ve got to suit up, right?” Kapski says. “They didn’t call up a third stringer to back up Volkov tonight.”

“Yeah. Sure. I’ll get on that. Right after my breakdown.”

Another awkward chuckle.

“Let’s find you a jersey,” Kapski says. “And I’ll give you the nickel tour.”

“And after the game, we’ll take you out and get you drunk,” Stoneman offers. “Something to look forward to.”

“Sounds good,” I lie, because I don’t even drink. “Let’s do it.”