Chapter 17
Resisting Delaney last night turned out to be easy, for two reasons. First, because she downed some Benadryl and it knocked her out within twenty minutes. Second reason, and more importantly, her talk about feelings scared the shit out of me. Feelings of the romantic kind are exactly the one thing I’ve been avoiding all my life successfully—ever since second grade.
From everything I’ve seen, romantic feelings are messy and make perfectly reasonable sane people turn their lives into melodramatic shit shows. Just ask Romeo and Juliette.
Or ask my dad. Not that he’d cop to it. He loves his melodramatic shit show of a life and I don’t know how he remains the calm rock in the middle of it. Okay, so maybe living with all the female hormones going wild around me as I grew up—and seeing more than my share of heartbroken girls, having to console them, one after another every time I turned around, left a sour taste in my mouth.
Or maybe I was born reticent. A pirate who loves the chase and catching the booty.
Standing in front of my coffeemaker, the only appliance in the kitchen I know how to work properly, I take another fortifying gulp of the steamy black elixir of life, and a necessity for early morning skates.
No matter why, I’m determined to stay the course of my simple, rational life of bachelorhood and concentrate solely on my commitment to hockey. The Stanley Cup is in reach—if I can avoid the troubled waters of romantic feelings.
Not mine of course—hers.
When I check on Delaney before I leave, she’s groggy, barely awake. Today’s game being a Saturday matinee, is normally my favorite time slot for the long evening it gives us to pillage the town for all its celebratory treasures afterwards. But that’s not happening tonight.
“Hey sleepyhead, don’t forget to meet me at the friends and family lounge an hour and a half before the game. We can make the introductions then.”
“Introductions?” She looks at me, and then at my coffee, so I hand it to her. She downs the rest of it.
“You know—where we meet each other’s families and tell them how much fun we’re having together.”
“I can do that. It’s not a lie. We’ve had some fun.”
I grunt and take my go-cup back. “I set the alarm to make sure you’re not late.”
“Me? Late? That’s so cliché and so not me.” She throws a pillow at me as I’m walking away and I bite my lip trying not to laugh. And trying to tamp down on that blip of something warm and satisfying in my chest.
When I get to the arena, I find Sabien there, as always—though I’m determined to beat him in one of these days. One of the rookies, the wise guy goalie, Beau Picard is there too.
“You expecting to play today?” I say to him. We head to the dining room.
“He’s always expected to be ready,” Sabien says for him.
“That’s not why I’m here early,” he says, not elaborating. If he’s teasing, he overestimates my curiosity. It’s my policy to make rookies earn my respect and so far, Beau has only a half point in his favor for showing up early because he was in the negative column for his wiseass comments the other day doubting my skating speed.
Three hours before game time,we eat our meal of chicken, rice and something green. I usually go for the broccoli. Then we loosen up, each having our own stretching routine, before we skate around, taking it easy to warm up.
Then while the other guys are hitting the whirlpool or the massage table, I change back into my sweats to head to the friends and family lounge. It’s time for the show to convince grandma that Delaney and I are a couple. My chest tightens in anticipation of who knows what.
But before I make it to the locker room exit, coach Spence slams through the door with a deep dark scowl on his face. Aimed at me. Fuck.
“Milano, my office. Now.” He turns and heads back out the door where he came in.
I exchange a glance with Jason and his eyes are wide. “What the fuck?”
As I’m about to follow coach out the door, Sabien rushes in from the dining area waving his phone at me. “Link, did you see this? What happened here?” His face is white and he shoves the phone in my face.
What I see makes me freeze like I’ve been run over by a glacier. It’s also the answer to the question of why the fuck the coach wants to see me in his office. Fucking Dennis the handyman posted his damn photos on social media.
I’m looking at a photo of me punching George in the face. “Fuck.”
“What are you talking about?” Jason says, looking over my shoulder. “Shit. No wonder coach is out for blood. Who is that dude you’re punching out?”
“What’s going on, Link?” Sabien asks like he’s catching his breath, tamping down on his panic.
“I had an altercation with Delaney’s ex-boss. He fired her and when I went up to her cabin—he was the last person I expected to walk in on. They were arguing.” I take a deep breath. “Turns out, he owns the cabin, but in the meantime, we had this disagreement. But it’s all good now. I swear. We have no beef. as it turns out, he’s a hockey fan.”
“Who posted the pics on IG?” Jason says, taking the phone and thumbing it. “Holy shit, there’s a video clip—it has close to a million views.” He blows out a whistle. Some of the other guys are checking their phones and shaking their heads, glancing at me.
“Link, you can’t let coach—” Sabien starts.
“He knows. He just invited me to his office to chat about it.” I hold onto my cool, my natural reticence defying whatever fear I should have, rescuing me from nerves and tamping down the churn in my gut.
Sabien rubs his hands over his face. “Oh man. This is bad. We need you this season if we’re going to make a run?—”
“I know. Don’t worry. I have no intentions of going anywhere. I’ll take care of this. It’s all a misunderstanding.” I say the words, and they’re true, but in this world of social media and hyper sensitivity and the need to judge celebrities whether the facts warrant it or not, I shouldn’t be so confident.
Especially since Coach already threatened to trade me.
I will not let that happen. That’s the thought I hold onto as I give my friends, and all my teammates in the locker room who are watching me, a nod of reassurance. Then I walk confidently through the door and down the hall to Coach’s office.
“Take a seat.” He doesn’t look up from his phone.
I remain standing and fold my arms across my chest. Maybe that’ll help keep the pounding of my heart to a minimum because it’s starting to thud faster.
Coach finally looks up and meets my defiant glare with one of his own. he tosses his phone at me and I’m quick enough to catch it.
“Tell me why you were in a fight and I had to find out from the PR office because the photos end up on social media? Tell me why the Sherriff was called and I know nothing about it until I see it in the comments and PR confirms that it’s true?” He stops his low growling tirade and I wait a beat to make sure he really wants me to answer his questions because they might be rhetorical.
I decide he doesn’t want to hear what I have to say because he’s already made up his mind. So I remain silent. He holds my stare and I don’t flinch.
He bangs on his desk. “Damn it, what’s wrong with you? We’re fielding questions from the press and so far, we have no idea what to say to them. What the fuck is going on, Milano?”
I clear my throat. I was wrong about him not wanting an answer.
“It was a misunderstanding between me and George—the guy I was fighting with. It’s a long story, but we’re all good. No charges were pressed?—”
“I don’t care how fucking long your story is. Tell me. Every last thing.”
I tell him the facts, or most of them, about going to pick up Delaney at the cabin to bring to the game because her family was going to be there, and George being her ex-boss and I didn’t know he owned the cabin and that they were arguing when I arrived so I misunderstood the situation, then about the creepy handyman who took the photos and that he was told to delete them.
The only thing I didn’t tell Coach is that Delaney is my fake girlfriend. I feel a strong need to leave her out of it, to keep our relationship out of the discussion.
When I finish, Coach watches me in silence for a few beats and I’m comfortable staring back.
“So you have a girlfriend?” he says, and my comfort disappears.
“No, not exactly.”
“What exactly? Don’t lie to me.”
“My relationship with Delaney has nothing to do with the photos creating a wrong impression on social media?—”
“Oh, but it does. PR tells me we need to spin this to make you look like the hero defending the girl and the public opinion will overwhelmingly turn to your side.”
Shit. This lie is getting out of hand. I remain reticent.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t pick up this phone and make the call to trade you right now?”
“I’ve been playing too well for you to trade?—”
“What if I can get Bolio from Montreal for you?” He says it like he’s talked to them. Bolio is having a slow start but he’s coming off his highest scoring season. And he’s married with a family. Fuuuck.
My reticence splinters, cracking me open, exposing my soft gut like a vulnerable animal waiting to be devoured.
“Delaney and I are engaged to be married.” A bold-faced mother fucker of a lie
“Don’t fuck with me, Milano.”
“Her name is Delaney Collins. I met her when I was home in New York.”
“And why should your engagement to her stop me from trading you? Sounds like more reason for me to trade you—like she’s the reason you got yourself in trouble. Proving you’re not committed to hockey.”
What the hell is he saying? I keep my cool and fire back. “I thought you said if she was my girlfriend we could clear up the problem with?—”
“Only if it’s true. But an engagement is another matter. Sounds like you’re more committed to her than hockey.”
“No. Don’t play head games with me. We both know how fucking committed to hockey I am right now.” It’s hard to keep the outrage out of my voice, to stand there and let him play his game.
“I’m not convinced of that at all. I don’t even know if you’re really engaged or how committed you are to hockey, to this team. You have a lot to prove and little to no time to prove it.
In the meantime, we’ll deal with the media and you’ll have to answer to them—but not until tomorrow. Report to PR first thing in the morning and don’t say a word about any of this today.”
He’s about to dismiss me and I feel my cool melting with the threat of being traded hanging like a blade close over my neck. I need to convince him I’m committed to the team and hockey.
“I told her we can’t get married until I win the Stanley Cup.”
He raises his brows. “Is that right?”
I nod, my jaw clenched. I’m too far off the reservation of truth to say more. My heart slams against my chest wall as I picture Delaney, then Grandma, and the two of them meeting and hugging. Anticipating that they’ll find a true connection calms me and I take a deep breath, waiting like a man about to be sentenced for unspeakable crimes.
“Bring her to fan day on Thursday afternoon. Everyone needs to see her there, especially the media.”
“I’ll bring her.”
“Is she still in New York?”
“No. She’s here. In New Hampshire.”
His eyebrows lift even higher than before, furrowing his forehead and making him look every bit his age at forty.
“You live together? That would explain things.” He says this as if he’s a reasonable man, but his deep frown says otherwise. “It would explain why you’ve been distracted.”
“I’m not distracted?—”
“Save it. I’m the final judge about whether or not you’re distracted.”
“I’m not the only guy on the team with a live-in girlfriend.”
“No. You’re the only one on the team who punched out a guy and got caught on camera doing it.” He squints his eyes at me. “I’ll give you one more chance, Milano. No more fuck-ups.”
The only thing I can’t control is the tick in my jaw. Otherwise I regain enough cool to hold my game face together and vow to stay on this team no matter whatever else I do.
“I have everything under control,” I say as I leave to head to the friends and family lounge to face the introduction of my fake girlfriend to our families.
I have everything under control?That has to be the biggest fucking lie I’ve told yet. And I’m starting to hate myself for it.