Chapter 34
thirty-four
ASHER
Abeep had my eyes blinking half open in the low light of my room. Cade emitted the tiniest snore beside me.
“Ace, goddamn it!” A deep voice permeated the thick fog in my mind. I couldn’t tell if I was in a dream that felt real or if I’d woken up hearing the last vestiges of what I’d seen in my sleep.
The voice continued to speak.
“You cannot just stop messaging in the middle of making last-minute line changes for tomorrow night’s game. You better have hit your head on the bedside table and be lying concussed on the floor right now. . .”
A brief pause preceded a shout.
“What the ever-living fuck is this!”
The yell had Cade sitting straight up in fear, tremors immediately spreading through his limbs.
Zane stood at the corner where the short front hallway met the bedroom of my hotel room. A keycard was held in his hand, which remained frozen in the air.
“Zane. Get out,” I instructed, not taking my eyes off Cade and the fear on his face.
Shit! Was he reliving some awful moment with his father? I had to get Zane out of here so I could help him calm down.
“Fucking excuse me?” Zane’s anger replaced any shock in his voice.
“Go. I’ll see you in a minute.”
The sound of the door being yanked shut behind him was the only indication he’d listened to me.
I pulled Cade into my side, putting both arms around him.
“Don’t worry,” I whispered. “You stay here. I’ll handle everything.”
Less than ten minutes later, I stood at Zane’s door.
At the sound of my knock, it swung open with such force that it banged against the doorstop on the wall behind it.
“You better be goddamn kidding me, Ace,” he growled, before turning around to storm away from me.
Guilt overwhelmed me. I had never seen Zane this angry, even after he was told his knee injury would prevent him from playing hockey again.
“Get in here.”
His words had my feet following the command. A quick look at the wall as I shut the door behind me revealed no damage.
At least we weren’t starting the conversation with property damage added to the hotel bill.
Zane continued his pacing as I skirted around him to sit in the room’s only chair.
“Buddy, I’m sorry. Listen. . .” Despite the inevitability of this conversation, I was suddenly at a loss for the right words to make the situation better.
“Fuck no! I’m not your buddy right now. I’m your goddamn boss.
And your boss just barged in on you fucking one of our players.
A bloody twenty-two-year-old rookie whom we are responsible for making a better hockey player, not secretly sleeping with him!
” He didn’t stop his pacing back and forth along the end of the bed.
Instead, he counted off his statements like he was listing all the ways I’d gone wrong.
A Wylie-Coyote-sized anvil dropped into my gut.
He raked his hands through his hair, gripping the ends and tugging hard. That shit had to hurt, but he acted like he didn’t even feel the pain in his distracted state.
Zane was right. I had to account for myself professionally first. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do to excuse my choices other than show Zane that I did consider my role as his offensive coach a priority, apologize, and take the consequences as anyone else would have to.
I owed him complete honesty, not placating words.
“You’re right, Zane. I’ve let you down as head coach.
There’s no way I can justify my actions in getting involved with Cade.
I can’t remember if the Hammerheads’ contract said anything about inter-organizational relationships, but even if it’s not a legal issue, it is an ethical one.
I had an obligation to you and to the team, and I failed. ”
Zane’s steps slowed as I spoke. Eventually, he sank down on the end of the bed, leaning over so he could rest his elbow on his knees, his hands clenching and releasing in front of him.
“You’re fucking right you failed. You didn’t just let the rest of the players down and break my goddamn trust, you set us all up for a potential shitstorm of epic proportions!
The optics on this are horrible. I know you, with the exception of this decision, are a hockey player with integrity and a person who would never take advantage of someone vulnerable.
” Zane scrubbed his face in frustration.
The pressure of his hands left his eyes slightly bloodshot, adding to the exhaustion he was radiating.
I parted my lips to reply. Zane held up a hand to stop me.
“Shut up. I know that you wouldn’t do anything to hurt someone else, but the rest of the motherfucking world?
They see Ace Landry, the biggest breakout superstar center of the past five seasons, with his designer fragrance campaign and money flowing through his hands like water.
This world has very little grace to offer genuinely good people who make mistakes.
Have you missed every bit of good sense I’ve attempted to drill into the players this entire goddamn season?
It should be that way because too fucking many men have gotten away with unspeakable shit for years and years.
All because of money and power. Now you go and do this.
Maybe you don’t give a fuck about your job because you have a multi-million-dollar NHL contract to return to.
But this? This is my goddamn team and livelihood you’re fucking with, Asher.
Who gave you the right to torpedo my life along with your own?
” He heaved the final words, the fight in his voice giving way to something tinged with despair.
He dropped his chin to his chest with a sigh, the situation exhausting him, or maybe he couldn’t bear to look at me.
I would have preferred he pull out his old defenseman ways and kick my ass with his fists than take the emotional beating of his words.
If I thought I felt guilty before, I couldn’t even swallow my own saliva now, I was so sickened by how much I’d hurt him.
The direct line between my choices and how disastrous they could be for Zane had become a reality.
“Fuck. I’m so sorry, man. You’re right.” I leaned back into the chair, closing my eyes as I rested my head against the cushion.
A heavy silence sat between us. I knew the only option was for me to leave the team immediately. It was the fastest way to solve the problem for everyone.
Because there was no way in hell I would ever give Cade up. I refused to consider a scenario where our relationship wasn’t part of the solution.
Cade carried a heavy burden when it came to hockey. His experience with the game had been tainted by his father’s simultaneous hatred and jealousy of Cade’s skills and the family’s reliance on Cade’s hockey salary.
Each time he offhandedly referenced something about his app development, he almost immediately self-censored.
He loved the app development and coding that he did, but he talked about it as if that dream was out of his reach.
Like he wasn’t twenty-two with his entire life ahead of him to chase what he wanted.
No matter what was coming next for Cade and me in terms of consequences, he deserved to have all options available to him.
Maybe he would fall in love with hockey once he got out from under his father’s control?
It was hard to imagine after seeing how much molding himself into the perfect future hockey star took out of him, but if my shoulder injury and slow-as-fuck recovery had taught me anything, it was that I was shit at predicting the future.
“I knew from your behavior recently that you were seeing someone, but I never would have imagined you with one of the players.” The sharp tone of Zane’s statement sliced through the air that separated us. “A fucking rookie! Do you know how this looks?”
I knew what a nightmare this could be for all of us. I felt the worst about involving my best friend in a situation that could risk ending his career for the second time in his life.
“I know. And I’m sure it doesn’t mean much, and only thing I can do is to keeping saying I’m sorry. I will take total responsibility for my actions. I should have resigned from the team when I couldn’t stop myself from pursuing my feelings for Cade.”
Either my words or the sincerity of my tone must have gotten through to him because the fierce, tightly held emotion had drained out of Zane’s expression. His gaze now held a genuine curiosity that hinted that my friend, rather than my boss, had entered the conversation.
“Oh yeah?” he asked, raising an eyebrow, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “Which part of your donated salary were you going to ask the charities to return? The half you donated to the children’s hospital in Toronto or the half you donated to the children’s hospital in Hamilton?”
“Fuck you,” I choked out a laugh. “Neither. And you know that, Z. I would have just paid the damn Hammerheads organization back out of pocket. The last thing I want is this leaking to the press before Cade has a chance to figure out what he wants for himself.”
I scrubbed my hands through my hair, briefly tightening my grip to yank at the roots as if the flash of pain might make me wake up in a reality where I hadn’t done the most selfish thing to risk my best friend’s career.
“So, you have real feelings for him, eh?”
I opened my eyes and sat straight up so that he could see my whole face. He needed to believe that I was one hundred percent sure of Cade. That nothing short of needing Cade in my future would have allowed me to act this way.
“Yes, I do. I love him,” I replied quietly.
Cade and I knew how we felt about each other.
Though I’m sure Mom suspected when I’d brought Cade home to Niagara, Zane knowing the depth of my feelings lifted a weight off my chest I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying.
“Even without the potential public fallout I’m facing, I’m sure it seems too fast to you. ”