Discovery and Recovery (Pirates After-game Press Conference: All It Takes Bonuses and Shorts #3)

Chapter 1

Timmy “Brick” Daniels

Mid-March

As the whole team shuffles out of the plane, I stick close to Benny the way I have for the past two weeks.

It’s been a whirlwind.

Before getting traded to the Pirates, I spent the past year thinking I’d be better off quitting hockey altogether rather than spending one more day on Detroit’s farm team.

Not that there’s anything wrong with being on a farm team, but I was demoted after spending a good season in the NHL because they found out I’m gay.

I’m one hundred percent certain of that because it happened the day after the captain of Detroit found me making out with a stranger in the alley behind the team’s bar.

Yeah, they’re those kinds of assholes.

I didn’t see a way out until two weeks ago when the head coach told me I’d been traded and I had to get on a plane ASAP.

The fuckwit didn’t even tell me which team, just gave me an envelope and looked away.

As if I wasn’t the only reason the team wasn’t embarrassing themselves this season.

But then I saw the flight was to San Francisco and I thought that’d be a great change. It’s a great city—historically speaking at least—for queer people. So I thought I was going to join the Dolphins. That is until I was about to board the plane and I got a call from an unknown number.

It was Gabrielle Fucking Darnell.

Yeah, that name deserves a capitalized F. She’s a legend, and she’s a savior for men like me. A champion, a warrior. She’s proven it again and again with the way she’s defended queer athletes in front of the media.

And she let me know she had traded for me and I wasn’t going to be playing for the Dolphins but for the Pirates. The team was currently on a two-week roadie and their second stop was in San Francisco. I had a day to train with them and then I’d be thrust onto the ice the day after.

I thanked her profusely.

“I won’t let you down,” I vowed, and I could hear the smile in her voice when she answered.

“I know.”

Simple words, but they meant more to me than they probably should have.

It felt like so few people had believed in me that way in so long.

But now I could see she wasn’t the only one.

After the brief drama my arrival created, the team embraced me like no one had since I was ten, and best of all, I was once again playing alongside Benny Olsen.

My best friend at the boarding school we’d gone to together.

He decided to go to the draft before we even graduated, but I stayed and then went to college. I played for a year in Connecticut and then was drafted by Detroit at twenty-one. They liked me so much they brought me to the NHL team right away too.

Shit hit the fan before I even finished my first season there, but now . . .

I smile just thinking about it.

The Pirates even gave me a new fucking nickname—one I really like.

Timmy “Brick” Daniels sounds damn awesome if I do say so myself.

And I’m relieved as hell that Brotnik—Santa—wasn’t mad at me once he realized he hadn’t been traded to another team and I was brought in for backup.

I haven’t felt safe enough, even while alone with Benny on the road, to ask for more details on what exactly is going on between Santa and Sweetheart—no, sorry, he also got a new nickname after my ceremony.

He’s now King Charles, though unlike most of my new teammates, I could never choose between Santa and Charlie for who’s the best defenseman.

They’re both masters at their craft, and I still have to stifle the urge to squeal when I remember I play for the same team as those two living legends.

But then I remember I’m playing with the Ruko “the Hulk” Jankowski’s son, Eagle, and I have to pinch myself all over again.

It’s all so surreal, and now . . .

“You didn’t tell me if you had a car here or not,” Benny murmurs as we climb into the bus that will take us to the practice rink for the Pirates.

“I don’t,” I tell him. “Gab told me someone would give me the keys to the trade apartment when we got back,” I explain. “And she put me in contact with someone who’s packing up my apartment back in Detroit. But all my stuff won’t get here for a few weeks.”

“Mid-season trades are weird,” Benny mutters.

“Seriously,” I agree, then snort.

“I can drive you to the apartment if you want,” he offers, and I smile immediately.

“Thanks.”

“Actually, Chris is probably ready for me to get home to him, so would you mind if we go to his place for dinner on the way?”

“Of course not. I’m dying to meet this mythical creature who loves you just as you are,” I tease.

He smiles and shakes his head self-deprecatingly.

“If it weren’t for his brother and my friends, I would think I’d made him up.” His voice is just wistful enough to be considered corny and I have to shake my head too.

“Man, you’re gone for him, aren’t you?”

“I am,” he admits with a sigh. “But anyway, we’ll go to his place and get some food then I’ll drive you to the apartment.”

“I’ll take you up on the dinner but I’ll just get an Uber after. No reason why you have to act as my driver.”

“We’ll see,” he says softly and looks out the window.

The bus is quiet but not deathly so. There are murmurs in the back and some in the front, but I still feel the need to whisper. I don’t want to offend anyone, and I don’t think I’ll find a better moment to ask than right now.

“So what’s really going on with Santa and Charlie?” I whisper the question.

Benny looks amused when he turns back to me.

“I wondered when you’d ask.” Then he lets out a sigh and the humor disappears from his face. “They had some issues the first few months of the season,” he begins quietly.

“They got benched,” I tell him, because I know about that—everyone who cares about hockey knows about that. It seems such an idiotic move to me, to bench the two best defensive players you have on your team . . . the two best defensive players in the league actually.

“They were fighting.” Benny nods. “Santa made it clear from the moment Charlie got here that he was not welcome and well—” He screws up his face in a grimace. “We all kinda went with it because Santa is . . .”

“He’s everyone’s favorite,” I finish for him.

“Ha,” he says softly and shakes his head. But he’s smiling again. “Not exactly, but he’s the one we all trust to look out for us. And so, we trusted him. And we thought things would get better after Christmas, since he seemed more like his usual self, but then they had this fight during practice.”

Now I’m the one wincing. I get that they’re living legends, but fighting during a practice, with your own teammate, seems like a bad, bad thing to do.

“Exactly,” Benny nods at my expression. “That’s why they got benched, and Gab made them live together. Laney put them on the same line after that, and as far as we all know . . .” He leans in then, whispering even more quietly. “They don’t spend any time apart.”

“Okay,” I say just as quietly. “But why didn’t they come back with us?”

“Oh,” Benny says louder, looking surprised, and leans back. “Charlie’s family is from a town just outside Chicago and he asked Laney if he could stay the night there. Laney said yes but that Santa has to go with him.”

“Right,” I say quietly and nod.

The picture it paints is interesting for sure.

I never expected Santa to be the way he is—playful, funny, a shit-stirrer if I’m honest.

His reputation around the league is of a serious man who’s a beast on the ice.

He doesn’t talk to reporters and barely pays any attention to the fans, so when I got to the Pirates’ practice in San Francisco and after a few minutes of introduction I got to see how he behaves around his teammates, I was dumbstruck.

Then a few days later when Charlie was cleared for practice after his injury the week before, and I saw how both of them act around the team, it was another big surprise.

I didn’t get in their faces, not wanting to act like a fanboy around them—even though I am. But I was getting up the courage to ask them on the flight back to Vegas if they’d train with me after practice, so I was disappointed when I found out they wouldn’t join us.

Now I don’t know if I’ll gather the courage to ask them when they come back, but I hope I do.

Charlie Heart was supposedly retired last season, and I don’t know how much longer Santa plans to play, so I might never get the chance to be mentored by them no matter how little they actually tell me or if they agree.

If I want to be the best, then I have to take this shot.

I’m starting a new life here in Vegas.

I have a friend on the team and I know I can make more with the rest of the guys. It feels like my life is really starting now, and I’m going to take advantage of it. I won’t let this opportunity pass me by.