Next Man Up

Chapter 1

AVERY

August.

“Are you even going to be able to skate with him around?” My best friend, Leif Erlandsson, glanced up from the ball he was about to putt. “Didn’t you lose an edge last time we played against—”

“Shut up.” I gestured toward the hole with my club. “Less chirping, more putting.”

He cackled. Then he tapped the ball, which took its sweet time rolling right toward the hole… only to veer a few precious degrees to the side before coming to rest six inches from his target. Leif’s humor vanished and he huffed. “For shit’s sake.”

“Ha! That’s what you get.”

He flipped me off, but his smirk quickly returned. “You know I’m right, though. You’re going to have to spend all of training camp learning how to skate on the same ice as him.”

My face burned, and it had nothing to do with the August sun blazing overhead. “You’re a dick, you know that?”

“But I’m right.”

“You’re a dick.”

He just chuckled, and we continued with our game.

I knew this wasn’t over, though. One of our teammates had texted a few minutes ago to let us know our GM had worked some kind of wizardry with two other teams. When all was said and done, our team had offloaded a couple of forwards who weren’t gelling with the team, three mediocre prospects from the minors, and a veteran defenseman who we all knew wanted to retire closer to his hometown.

On top of that, the GM had managed to shed two pricy contracts we’d retained after some awful trades by his predecessor.

In return, we had two goalie prospects, a handful of third and fourth round draft picks… and Peyton Hall.

Peyton. Fucking. Hall.

Center. Seventeenth overall draft pick five years ago. Rookie of the Year. Runner up for a scoring title two seasons in a row. Two conference championship rings and a goddamned Cup.

And yeah, I may have had a little bit of a crush on the guy, because in addition to being a top-notch hockey player, he was smoking hot.

A little taller than me—five eleven, I thought his stats said—with wicked blue eyes and sandy blond hair that had no right to look that hot when it was sweaty and mussed.

The last couple of years, he’d often sported a dusting of scruff that made him unreasonably sexy.

When we’d played against Detroit last season, he’d scored a hat trick, and his celly on that third goal really had almost cost me an edge. That smile, those eyes—I’d been so screwed.

I wouldn’t admit it out loud under torture, but Leif might’ve been on to something. I probably would have to spend training camp—which was coming up in about a month—remembering how to skate in Peyton’s presence.

I was so stupid for him, and I knew I shouldn’t have let that slip to Leif over a few beers one night.

“No, I’d never do a teammate,” I’d slurred as we’d watched a game in his man cave. Had I been slightly closer to sober, I’d have stopped there, but no, I was drunk with my best friend, so I’d added, “I mean… not unless Gary signs Peyton Hall.”

“Ha! I knew there had to be one!” Leif had gestured at me with his beer bottle. “I should tell Gary to try to get him just so you have to—”

“Leif!” His wife, Rachel, had whapped him with a pillow. “Oh my God. You are the worst.”

Yeah, he kinda was.

And now Hall was going to be on our team.

“For the record?” I said to Leif as he drove the golf cart toward the next hole. “If you breathe a word about this to Hall, I won’t just get revenge—I’ll recruit Rachel to help me get revenge.”

He shot me a wide-eyed look. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

“So we have an understanding?”

Leif made a pouty sound and shook his head. “That’s so not fair. You can’t just weaponize the fact that my wife is seventy percent feral.”

“Why not?” I shrugged, grinning with triumph as I claimed the upper hand. “You knew what she was when you married her.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you’d try to use her against me!”

“I won’t… as long as you keep your goddamned mouth shut about Hall.”

He pushed out a harsh breath. “Christ, Calds. You take the fun out of everything.”

“I know. I’m such a dick.”

“You really are.” He paused. “And a hundred bucks plus three steak dinners on the road says you screw him before the season’s over.”

I barked a laugh that seemed to echo through the rolling golf course. “What? I told you I don’t do teammates!”

“Uh-huh.” He flashed me a toothy grin. “But you also said this one was an exception. So, are you chickening out of the wager or not?”

I scoffed. “I’m not going to bang a teammate. Especially not if it costs me a hundred bucks and three steak dinners.”

Leif made a quiet sound, and as it crescendoed, I recognized it as a chicken noise.

“Oh, fuck you.”

More chicken noises.

“For fuck’s sake—fine! You’re on.”

“Ha! I knew it.” He extended his hand, carefully keeping the other on the golf cart’s wheel. As we shook hands, he asked, “Does it still count if I—”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask!”

“I know you. So no. Whatever it was… no.”

He huffed and rolled his eyes. We exchanged glares, then laughed as he continued driving toward the next hole.

This wasn’t over, and I knew it. I trusted Leif not to tip my hand far enough to make me or a teammate uncomfortable, but he was an expert level troll.

His subtlety bordered on magic both on and off the ice.

When he played hockey, those little moves he did to protect the puck or sneak it past a goalie were mind-blowing.

Off the ice, he was a master at deadpanning the perfect line to make us all choke on our drinks.

A tiny upward flick of his eyebrow could scream sarcasm, amusement, or “that’s what she said. ”

And when there was a wager involved, well…

Oh God. What did I just sign up for?

Yeah, he’d be discreet enough to keep my cards facedown, but I knew without a doubt that next season would be peppered with more chirping than I’d ever experienced in my life. For as long as he and I were on the same roster as Peyton Hall, Leif was going to be merciless.

What could I say?

I was looking forward to it.

That evening, Luis Abadiano gestured with his beer at the empty stool at our high top table. “Is Early coming or not?”

“I don’t know, Baddy.” I smirked. “If you have to ask him, you’re probably not doing a very good job of—”

“Oh, fuck you!” He kicked me under the table as our other teammates howled with laughter.

“You kind of walked into that one,” Willie—Henri Ouellet to everyone else—snickered.

Baddy rolled his eyes, shook his head, and took a deep pull of his beer.

I sipped my own beer, then checked my phone.

I’d texted Leif about fifteen minutes ago to see if he was still coming.

He was the most punctual of all of us by far—his nickname, Early, didn’t just fit him because his last name was Erlandsson—so it wasn’t like him to be late, never mind forty-five minutes late.

He hadn’t read the message, which probably meant he was on the road. He never so much as glanced at his phone while he was driving, and if he was on his motorcycle, he wouldn’t hear it anyway.

Maybe he’d parked and was on his way in? Maybe he still hadn’t heard his phone?

“Hey. Avery.” Davis elbowed me. “You good?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” I laughed softly and put my phone facedown on the table. “Just texting Early to find out where his sorry ass is.”

“Didn’t he say he and the missus are trying for a fourth?” Baddy shrugged. “Maybe he got, uh, waylaid?”

“Well,” Willie deadpanned, “that would answer the question about whether or not he’s coming.”

Everyone at the table groaned, and Davis gave Willie a shove.

I chuckled, half-expecting Leif to suddenly appear and ask what he’d missed. We would, of course, fill him in just so he could come up with some even snarkier remark to put Willie and Baddy in their places.

But he didn’t.

And my phone stayed quiet.

As I neared the bottom of my beer, something coiled in the pit of my stomach. This wasn’t like him, and I didn’t like it.

Especially when an hour had passed since he was supposed to be here, and my texts still hadn’t been read.

I pushed my stool back and got up, gesturing with my phone. “I’m going to step out and give Early a call.”

They all nodded, and I headed for the bar’s front door.

I was halfway there when the phone in my hand vibrated with an incoming call. I looked at the screen, and I halted so abruptly, a server almost crashed into me.

Rachel.

I couldn’t explain the cold dread wrapping around my spine like frozen barbed wire.

God, please tell me he lost his phone again and he’s calling from his wife’s to let us know where he is.

But somehow, somewhere deep down…

I knew.

“Mrs. Erlandsson is in here.” The nurse pushed open a door marked Private Family Waiting Area, and she gestured for us to go inside.

As soon as I stepped into the room, Rachel was on her feet, and she threw her arms around my neck. She was shaking all over and sobbing against my shoulder, and I just closed my eyes and let her hold on for a moment.

I sensed my teammates around us, and someone put a hand on her shoulder. Someone else murmured that we’d stay with her as long as she needed us.

A couple of the other wives were here, too, their faces pale and full of worry as they sat around the chair Rachel had been occupying.

As she collected herself a little—as much as any wife could be expected to—she drew back and wiped her eyes with shaking hands. “Thank you guys for coming. It means a lot.”

“Of course.” I kept a hand on her shoulder. “Do they, um… Do they have any updates?”

Fresh tears well up and she pressed her lips together as she shook her head. “He’s still in surgery.”

My stomach somersaulted for about the fiftieth time since her voice had come through my phone.

“Leif’s in the hospital,” she’d sobbed. “I don’t know what happ—It’s bad, Avery. He’s… They said it’s really bad.”

Here in the waiting room, she swiped at her eyes again. “God, he’s going to be devastated if he can’t play anymore.”

I nodded numbly, as did my teammates. I had a feeling everyone in the room was thinking the same thing—if we focused on whether Leif would ever play hockey again, then we could ignore the bigger, uglier question. The question that had bile burning in the back of my throat.

We all settled into chairs, everyone exchanging worried glances in a room that was silent except for the occasional sniffle.

My mind flicked back to when we’d said goodbye in the parking lot outside the country club this afternoon.

“You going out with us tonight?” I’d asked as I hoisted our golf bags into my trunk.

“Are you kidding?” He’d laughed as he’d adjusted the strap on his helmet. “We have to get back to work soon. I’m going to take all the going out and relaxing I can get.”

“Is that why you weren’t at the gym this yesterday?”

Despite his sunglasses, the roll of his eyes was unmistakable, and he flipped me off with a glove-covered hand. “Fuck you.”

I chuckled. “All right. We’re meeting around eight.”

“Sounds good. I can take the kids off Rachel’s hands for a few hours before I go.”

I made a gesture like I was cracking a whip.

He just snorted, fired up the engine, and rode out of the parking lot.

Sitting here now in this waiting room… Had that conversation been our last?

No. No, of course it hadn’t. It couldn’t be.

From what I’d been able to piece together from Rachel, he’d been on his way to meet us when he’d started getting dizzy, so he’d pulled over.

He’d sat for a few minutes, hoping it would pass.

It didn’t, so he’d called Rachel and said he didn’t feel safe on his bike, and maybe he needed to go to the hospital.

Then he’d texted that he suddenly had a massive headache, and he definitely needed to go to the hospital.

When she’d arrived minutes later, his bike stood abandoned beside an ambulance as EMTs frantically loaded Leif into the back. He’d collapsed, and a bystander had called 911.

He’d made it to the hospital and into surgery. Brain bleed, they said. An aneurysm. People survived those all the time, didn’t they? There might be a long recovery ahead, but he’d pull through. He was too goddamned stubborn not to.

I couldn’t say how much time went by before the waiting room doors opened again.

But then they did.

And just like I had in the moment I’d seen Rachel’s name on my phone…

I knew.