Chapter 9
nine
CADEN
After the extra-early morning practice, Coach Wilder had sent us home with instructions to rest before the newly minted tradition of a team dinner. As we were about to head out, he announced that we were expected at the pub just down the street from the arena.
A nap did nothing to dull the embarrassment of being handed my new Hammerheads jersey by the man who’d inspired me to choose the number in the first place.
Didn’t matter that I’d played as the number seventeen since I started in representative hockey.
What mattered was that Asher now knew that I’d chosen to wear the number because of him.
Kait wasn’t driving my computer and monitors down until several weeks from now, so it wasn’t like I could lose myself in a tricky piece of code I was working on.
Though my fingers practically itched with the need to do something with the new app I was working on. I’d sold fifty percent ownership of the first app I’d developed the summer before, leaving a condo’s down-payment worth of savings in a bank account my dad knew nothing about.
Or an escape fund to move to another province and start over, my inner voice supplied, unhelpfully. It’s that or use it to fund three-quarters of a computer science degree at any university that would take you as a mature student.
As much as I wished I’d been brave enough four years ago to tell my dad to “fuck off” and just leave Sudbury to go to school, the guilt and responsibility I felt because of my mom’s MS had crushed that idea without Dad even finding out about my acceptance letters.
People talked like it was the simplest thing in the world to say, “fuck it all,” and choose your own dreams. But the reality was that a statement like that had never, nor would it ever, apply to my life.
If anything, I was more trapped now—financially and emotionally—than I had been at eighteen.
Dad hadn’t had a steady job for more than two months at a time in recent years.
Without any kind of health benefits provided by an employer, all of the services that really helped Mom when she was in a flare-up had to be paid out of pocket.
And that was on top of the mortgage, utilities, and all the other monthly bills.
My dad kept me in the dark about how my hockey money was allocated for the family’s expenses, which meant that, unless my mom told me specifically about something she needed, all of the decisions about her care defaulted to Dad.
With all of my family stress hanging around my neck, it was a wonder I could ever think about anything else.
But in the hours that had passed since sneaking into the arena, I’d done nothing but stare at the ceiling in my room and worry about what Asher thought of me after last night and this morning.
Usually, I had too much going on to consider anyone’s judgment other than my dad’s. Between hockey, my job at the local rec center in the off-season and shuttling my mom to her various doctor appointments when I was at home in Sudbury, my schedule didn’t allow me to dwell on shit.
You’ve also never embarrassed yourself in front of your personal and professional hero twice in less than twenty-four hours, either.
Even ten hours later, while squeezed into a large corner booth between Kovac and Hawkins, my cheeks still felt heated with embarrassment.
It also didn’t help that I had an unobstructed view of the man in question, despite the number of tables the restaurant had cobbled together to accommodate so many of us.
“Doing okay, Caden?” I felt more than heard Kovac’s low-pitched question through where our shoulders mashed together in the booth inside the pub.
“Yep. No problem,” I replied quickly. After the excruciating, albeit good-natured, attention I’d received this morning, I didn’t want anyone else focusing on me for any reason.
“If you say so.” In my peripheral vision, Kovac lowered his chin, likely to keep his comment between us. “It can be a lot, the first day on a new team. Especially this one. Coach Wilder isn’t what you call. . .low energy.” A chuckle spilled into his last few words.
“What’s that, Kovac? Got a question?” Coach Wilder’s voice boomed from the other end of the table.
“Nothing, Coach!” Kovac raised his volume above the multiple conversations around us before bringing his hand in up front of his mouth.
“I’m not convinced he doesn’t have superhuman hearing,” he added for me alone.
“Or he can read lips, I’m not sure which.
Something to keep in mind for the locker room for sure. ”
But he didn’t sound at all bothered at the prospect that Coach might have somehow heard him.
I opened my mouth to say. . .something, but one of the other rookies I’d met this morning, Greyson Romero, raised his hand midway down the table, like he was asking a question in school.
“Romero, you might be the youngest player on the team, but you’re done with school, bud, and I’m certainly no one’s teacher.” With Coach Wilder’s attention successfully drawn away from Kovac and me, my shoulders retreated from their position under my ears.
“Except as an example of what to avoid, for sure. You could teach a master’s degree on that, Coach,” Asher interjected irreverently.
I sucked in a breath and held it, waiting for Coach’s reaction. The majority of my coaches over the years barely so much as cracked a smile, let alone allowed themselves to be the butt of jokes.
“I will not be undermined in this way,” Coach Wilder said, slapping the table with his palm. The laugh that accompanied the action countered any pretend anger in his expression. “Or I’ll make the daily coaches’ meeting at six a.m. instead of seven-thirty.”
His threat had Asher miming zipping his mouth closed, but his eyes remained filled with mirth.
Zane Wilder wasn’t like anyone I’d ever met before. No one on this team was.
I let out a quiet breath. Even when I wasn’t involved at all, any kind of conflict had my nervous system on fire just by being in the immediate vicinity.
“Now, Romero. Back to your question . . .” Coach Wilder waved a hand for Romero to jump in.
“Okay.” He looked around the table. “Um, I was just wondering if anyone knew why the team is called the Lakeside Hammerheads?”
“You mean, because Lakeside is . . .” Hawkins piped up from beside me, but was cut off by one of the other defensemen, Hugo Lavoie.
“On a fucking river.” Lavoie’s statement had Romero nodding. “And hammerhead sharks live in . . .”
“Salt water,” Hawkins finished for him.
Romero looked between our two teammates and nodded again. A few seconds of silence around the table followed.
“Fuck if I know.” Coach Wilder’s deadpan delivery had the team erupting in a roar of laughter so loud, I glanced around to the few other patrons at the bar to see if they were bothered by the racket.
None of the other people around us so much as turned our way.
They must have been used to the team’s antics in this place.
“I’m so glad he asked.” Kovac turned his head in my direction, drawing Hawkins’ attention on the other side of me. “I’ve been wondering that for three seasons.”
“Really? Shit, Tiger. You could have asked me.” Amusement laced Hawkins’ tone.
“Right. And risk being told there was a legend about the great white north hammerhead shark who swam up the St. Lawrence River and into the Great Lakes area, where he was widely believed to walk on land at night and gobble up naughty Canadian children up past their bedtimes?” Kovac arched an eyebrow at Hawkins.
“Damn, Tiger. You’ve given this some thought.
You should write a kids’ book. That’s what we gotta tell the rookies next year.
See how long it takes them to figure out we’re full of shit.
” Hawkins offered me a conspiratorial wink, making me glad he hadn’t had more time to think up stuff to torment me with.
“That’s better than the drop bears I heard about when I visited Australia. ”
“Drop Bears?” Kovac’s eyebrows rose in question. “These are real animals?” His tone was skeptical. And with our captain, it seemed like a wise way to be.
“I mean,” Hawkins’ gaze met mine, and crinkles formed around his eyes as he failed to hold back a grin.
“I never saw one when I was there, but I didn’t have a chance to go into the outback at all.
There are apparently these bears that are similar to koalas, but bigger.
And at some points in the year, you gotta worry about them falling out of the trees on top of you because that’s their way of protecting themselves from predators. ”
Kovac’s eyes narrowed as he considered the explanation.
“It is like living with Pinocchio and the boy who cried wolf in one person,” Kovac muttered to himself. But it seemed Hawkins was satisfied after getting yet another reaction out of his friend and he turned his attention back to the rest of the table.
I chuckled sincerely, surprising myself. Usually, it took me a long time to warm up to new people, but it looked like my new roommates were not going to allow me to keep to myself, no matter how much I tried.
It’s going to make it that much harder to convince everyone you actually want to be here.
My smile dimmed at the thought. I’d never let myself get close to any of my teammates before, always hoping that someone better would come along and take my spot on the team. That way, management could easily write me off as the player who “never fit in with the team” anyway.
But this team seemed so different from any of the others I’d been on before.
I’d been right a few weeks earlier when I got the impression Coach Wilder was different. He was insane.