2. Jon
CHAPTER 2
JON
I pondered the door to the bar Drake Williams had left through, and wondered what the others thought of the center the Lions had sent down for us to un-fuck. And contemplated how I wanted to fuck him.
Such a bad idea, but oh, I bet it would be a such a good time.
“He’s going to kill you tomorrow,” Ella said. “Though, I can’t believe he didn’t recognize you.”
I shrugged. “Oh, come on. It’s not like I’m famous, or even well known outside of the area.” Sure, I was the captain of the Otters, but that and a dollar would get me a really crappy hot dog on dollar dog nights at the arena.
“Jonny.” Red Dog rotated on his stool, which set his leather jacket creaking. “That kid is trouble. He’s not gonna help you boys at all.”
I rolled his words around in my head. Red Dog was the president of the Night Bones MC. I wasn’t a member of any club, but Red Dog hadn’t gotten to his position by lacking intelligence, so I respected and listened, as one should to elders .
“No, you’re right, he’s not here to help. We’re supposed to help him. That’s why he was sent down.” I sat on the stool next to him and his deputy, Merrick, and broke one of my own rules—started talking hockey in the bar. Red Dog would understand, though. This was a serious talk, not bar chatter. “He’s got skills, obviously. We all saw what he did his first two years.”
“Crashed and burned this year,” Red Dog said. “You think he can come back from that?”
I rocked my head, trying to decide if that was true. “It’s still early enough in the season. Bearsy says the kid’s trying too hard. All the issues are up here.” I tapped my head.
“Oh lord,” Ella muttered. “And they sent him to you to fix?”
Merrick chuckled and took a swig of his beer.
“Oh, come on, I’m not that bad.”
Ella lifted one eyebrow and stared at me. Red Dog side-eyed me.
“I’m not!”
Now all three were looking at me, all dubiously. Ella spoke first. “Jon, do you think getting into that boy’s pants is going to help him be a better hockey player?”
I shrugged again, and Red Dog sighed. “Jonny…”
I held up my hands. “I’m not out to fuck him.” Not really. It wasn’t a good idea. Not good at all. “And yes, I think I can help. He’d got a chip on his shoulder.”
“Your dick’s not gonna knock that off,” Merrick muttered.
“Oh, it might, you never know.” I held up my hands when Red Dog gave me his withering look.
“Lord,” Ella said. “Save me from this fool of a man.”
“God’s not that kind,” Red Dog said .
“Hey, it’s not like I go out of my way to sleep with teammates.”
Ella scoffed and threw her rag down on the counter. “That fool Adam accidentally fell on your dick then?”
I winced. You’d think after three years, people would forget about that, but alas. “Adam was a—mistake. Pretty—but a mistake.” Adam Darelo, a sandy-haired left-shooting defenseman with lovely hazel eyes, had lasted three-quarters of a season on the Otters before he’d been traded. Playing-wise, he’d had sparks of—something—on occasion, but was mediocre otherwise. He’d been so fun in bed, though. Just—vibrant and enthusiastic. The Adam whirlwind had been great, right up until I’d discovered he’d also railed his way through the less-than-straight part of the team. Not so great for the married guys, or those with partners. Half the team ended up a snarling mess. Cleaning up after that disaster had been something.
“That’s why I have the dating rule,” I said. “And tonight doesn’t count as a date.”
“ Sure it doesn’t,” Merrick said.
“It doesn’t.” I think the lack of mirth in my voice might have finally convinced them I was being serious, because all three watched me carefully. “I won’t lie and say I’m not attracted to him or that I don’t want him, but Drake’s got to get whatever’s in his head worked out. While a good roll in the sheets might help with that, I have the team to think about.”
Red Dog nodded. “You have to consider what’s best for the club.” The Night Bones could be a hell of a lot more selective about their members, and the buck stopped with Red Dog. Not so with me. I might be captain, but the buck stopped hell of a lot higher up on the food-chain .
“I don’t make the personnel decisions. But the team is still mine.”
“And now Drake William is an Otter,” Ella said.
Which meant he, too, was mine, at least as far as that went. The Lions would call him up eventually, if he unfucked his head. There was time to see what the best approach would be in helping with that. Flirting tonight hadn’t hurt that. And yeah, Drake would probably be mad, but what happened after that would tell me more than anything else would.
But as I told my friends—I wanted him. That, I couldn’t deny. More than that—I really did want to help Drake.
He was a hell of a better player than me, but the stress and sadness and frustration in that man… I shook my head. “Well, tomorrow’s another day, yeah?” I beamed at the two bikers and my bartender. “If nothing else, it’ll be interesting!”
Alas, overnight, the weather turned to cold rain from the brisk but dry late fall, so I pulled my old truck into the players lot at the arena. None of the other players were here yet, which wasn’t unusual. Coach Macintosh’s truck was, along with the SUVs of some of the other training staff.
Mac caught up with me in the locker room as he breezed through. “Hey, Jonny. That kid from the Lions is arriving today. You good with taking him under your wing?”
“Absolutely. You know I’m always willing to help.”
Mac grunted. “I’ve been studying film. No idea what the issue is. He’s talented. Played his ass off for two years. And now…” He shrugged and jawed his gum. “Got any ideas?”
“Some,” I said, and beamed at Mac. Though I bet pissing Drake off inadvertently was not what Mac had in mind.
He rolled his eyes. “You behave yourself, Jonny boy. This kid’s gonna be a star if he can get it turned around.”
Mac was usually right about his talent estimations. Drake had been burning it up before this season. I headed over to the fitness room so I could warm my legs up on the bike. “I promise I’ll be good.”
“Jon.” Mac said my name with a gruffness I recognized, so I halted in the doorway and met his gaze. “Yeah, Coach?”
He gave me one of those knowing looks, and I wondered what I’d given away. I swear, Mac could read our minds. “You got something you want to tell me?” he asked.
After a couple years being coached by Mac, I knew better than to shrug his concern off. “He stopped by the bar last night but didn’t recognize me, that’s all.”
Mac groaned. “Don’t tell me you hit on him.”
“Other way around, actually. He came in looking for a drink and a…” I waved my hand. “Ride.”
Mac squeezed his eyes shut and pinched his nose. “Jonny, you’re supposed to be the responsible one of you nutballs.”
“I didn’t do anything! We talked. Played pool. He went back to… well, his hotel, I suppose.”
“And? Because there’s a point to this long story of yours. There always is.”
It wasn’t that long of a story, I didn’t think, but I held up my hands to placate Mac. “Okay, okay. Point is, he didn’t know who I was. Still doesn’t know. ”
“Oh,” Mac said, then paused, probably because the whole issue behind my words sank in. “ Oh . Huh.”
“I know I’m asking a lot in this situation and maybe my way isn’t the most orthodox for integrating a player, but do you trust me?”
He paced a small circle in the locker room and rubbed his chin. “I have no idea how your brain works, Jonny. Kid’s going to be super pissed at you. But I’ll let you handle it.” He stopped, then pinned me with a stare. “For now.”
“Two games,” I said. “Give me two games to get him into the team.”
He held up two fingers. “Better work, Jonny boy.”
I nodded and kept my mouth closed.
Mac waved me away. “Go do your thing.”
I spun and quickly made for one of the bikes in the fitness room. Helped get my legs going. I’d turn thirty on January 5—not old yet, but age was starting to catch up with me. By the time I finished and returned to the locker room, the other guys were filtering in. Clancy, our goalie, was in his quiet zone, earbuds in as he got his mountain of gear on. Hardy and Lou, though, were their normal gregarious selves. “So we’re getting Drake Williams, huh? Not had a great year so far.”
“Happens sometimes,” I said. “It’ll be fine. He’s got good wheels and hands, just has had some bad luck. We can get him back on his feet. We’re here to help the big club, you know?”
There was a cough at the doorway, and there stood Drake in his base layer, with Hank White, our equipment manager. “Guys, this is Drake Williams. Drake, your stall is over there, next to the captain, Jonny Eriksson.”
Drake’s eyes narrowed when that fiery gaze met mine, and his jaw tensed, but that was the only tell that he was fuming at me. “Great,” he said.
Hank set down Drake’s hockey bag on the floor next to me. “The Lions sent down the specs on your gear, so I got a bunch of things ready for you, but holler if you need anything in particular.”
His shoulders relaxed a bit. “Thanks—Hank, right?”
Hank nodded, patted Drake on the back, and left him to us.
Drake sat down with a huff onto the bench next to me. His eyes cut my way, still full of fire. “Jonny, huh? So you’re the captain?”
“I am.” I beamed at him. “Welcome to the Greensburg Otters.”
He unzipped his duffle and started pulling out his protective gear. “Not just a bar owner then.”
Hardy whistled at that just as Lou said, “Uh oh.”
Me? I laughed. Couldn’t help it. Then I smiled at Drake. “Oh, I’m that, too.” Then I added, “I think we’re going to call you Dragon. You’re really not a Duck. No idea what those guys were thinking when they named you that.” I shook my head. “Not a good nickname.”
Drake paused, jock in hand, and stared at me.
“You don’t mind Dragon, do you?”
His brow was full of creases. Some from frustration, but the confusion there had taken the edge off that. “No.”
“Oh good, that’s settled then!” I strapped my shin and knee guards on. Followed those with my socks, standing to clip those into the garters.
“It’s two syllables,” Hardy said.
“So’s your mom,” Lou replied, and Hardy smacked him.
“Jonny’s two syllables,” I said. “I had a perfectly good one syllable name and you all had to make it longer. And anyway, Sandwich”—I poked my thumb at Lou—“is also two syllables.”
Hardy waved my words away. “Eh, whatever.” A beat passed. “Jhonnnieee.”
I snickered. “Better than Hard, don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” Lou chimed in. “I am not making a ‘your mom’ joke out of that, thanks, Cap.”
For his part, Drake silently put on his gear while we chattered around him. Once he donned the Otter practice jersey, he finally spoke to me again. His words were quiet but still sharp, and they slipped beneath the noise in the room. “You could’ve told me who you were.”
“Yeah, I could’ve.” I plopped my helmet onto my head. Didn’t bother with the chinstrap. “Admittedly, that probably was the easier path. But I had my reasons.”
The frustration crept back into his voice and body. “Which are?”
I chuckled and tapped the plastic that encased my noggin. “Think about for a little bit.” I clapped him on the shoulder, then headed out of the room to grab my sticks and hit the ice.
Despite having a game that evening, Mac worked us at a high-energy pace at practice. We’d blown the previous game—mostly lack of details—so he had us battling along the boards and working both on breakouts and defending against the rush. Drake slotted in at center on the second line, and everyone on the ice could tell he didn’t want to be here. His effort was… not great. Mac talked quietly with him a couple of times, as did the other coaches. Dr ake nodded politely, discussed the finer points of the drills, then—just didn’t go for it.
It was one of the new young guys—Alfie Joelsson, a winger from Sweden—who was the first to vent to me. “I trained with him in camp. Not that he remembers. He looked right through me when I said hi.” Alfie shook his head in frustration, then switched to Swedish. “But what pisses me off is that he’s got amazing hands and legs and IQ, and he’s half-assing everything out there! No wonder they sent him down and called Gavin up.”
Gavin Lacey was one of the other new guys—drafted last year and one of those Canadian born and bred hockey players. He wasn’t as good as Drake Williams, but he had something that our new grumpy, frustrated dragon didn’t have at the moment: determination.
“He needs time,” I told Alfie. “And a little shift in his neurons, I think.”
“I don’t understand what happened. He was great his first two years.”
Alfie’s sentiment was a common refrain and one I was starting to wonder, too. Drake didn’t say anything to the guys he’d been in camp with. He didn’t really say anything to anyone, but you’d think he’d at least acknowledge the guys he’d met.
I hadn’t been invited to the Lions camp for years, mostly because I was on a PHL contract now, so I’d never get a call-up, but partly because I asked them not to after the first two years. I was a lot . Bearsy called me Guy Smiley because I was this, as he put it, happy chatterbox who was always going. The boys loved me, but I didn’t want to be a distraction, especially once it was certain I’d never play in the NAPH again .
The Otters were my team, my home. I was still a chatterbox here, still smiling, but I was part of the fabric of this team, even with its rotating cast of characters.
And now Drake Williams was here with his sad blue eyes, pretty blond curls, and fucked-up attitude. It was one thing to not know who I was, but some of these kids—he’d spent two weeks working with them.
Mike Smith (we called him Bike, partly because he’s sometime show up to practice on his bicycle and partly for… other reasons) muttered at me while we waited for our turn in a drill. “Fuck that dude.”
Oh, I still wanted to.
Bad thought. No good. Needed to keep a lid on that. “Was he like this in camp?”
Bike shook his head. “Nah. He was serious and hard working. But he talked to us, you know? Helped with the drills. Not like—” He waved as Drake went through the motions of another power play drill with little effort. Mac blew the whistle, then barked at Drake to do it again. “That.”
There was Alfie’s question again. Whatever had happened had been between training camp and the start of the season. Or early on.
I stuffed that to the back of my mind as my turn with the drills came along. Mac used me on both the power play and the penalty kill, so he kept me busy. My hockey IQ was pretty good, which helped when it came to knowing where openings would appear or where pucks would come from, so I tended to be in the right place at the right time. At least down here. Up in the NAPH? Not so much. The game was a hell of a lot faster and I was…not. Never had been.
But years watching my dad play had helped the brain. I understood the game, but I didn’t have the hands or legs of a hall-of-famer. What I did have was an absolute love for everything hockey. The sounds, the sights, even the smell. I never wanted to leave the rink.
Drake had the hands and the legs and the IQ, but he looked miserable right now.
Practice went on with more drills, and I caught him watching me when I paused to catch my breath in between stints. Oh, he was still angry, given the narrowing of his eyes and frown when I caught him looking. But there was more there, too.
Hardy muttered, “I can’t decide if he wants to kill you or fuck you.”
“Could be both,” I replied.
He snorted. “I can guess which one you want.”
I rolled my eyes and shoved Hardy. But there were those bad thoughts again—the ones that ended up with Drake under me. Or on top of me. I wasn’t that picky, really. There were no rules about teammates fraternizing, as long as screwing didn’t screw the team, but the whole shit with Adam had kept me from doing anything more than harmlessly flirting with some of the guys. All air, no heat.
If I wanted a good tumble in the sheets, I could find that at the bar. What I really wanted with Drake was to see him smile. On the ice. Preferably after scoring a goal or three.
Yeah, and I wanted that smile in my bed, too.
Team first. Drake’s future first. My libido could wait.
Drake didn’t look any happier when Mac blew the whistle to end practice and gathered us all in.
“Tonight’s going to be a fun one, boys. The Gators are tough and hungry and they need the points as much as we do. I expect you all to show up, work hard, and have fun.” He gave the ice a tap with his stick. “Be here by five.”
After Mac left, we all stretched out at center ice. Some left after that—Drake was one of those—and some of us stayed out to work on shooting. My one-timers had been missing the net more than hitting, so I worked with Lou for a while to recalibrate myself.
By the time I got into the locker room, the grumpy dragon was gone. By the time I got showered and dressed, I’d received word to talk to Mac before heading home. I went to his office, pausing to rap on the open door. “You wanted to see me?”
He pointed at the chair in front of his desk, and my heart did the flip it always did. Sitting down with your coach or your GM—that could be good or it could be bad or nothing at all, and I’d been through all the iterations.
I gestured to the door. “Open or…”
Mac glanced at the door. “You can leave it open.”
Well, that meant it wasn’t going to be too horrible a talk. I lowered myself into the guest chair. “I’m all yours.”
He smiled and grunted. “I doubt that.”
Heat touched my cheeks and I clamped my lips closed to stop from stuttering out a bunch of nonsense.
Mac snorted and shook his head. “You deserved that.”
“Okay, yes. Probably.” I took a breath. “But you’re our coach and married and…” I bit off my words with a little eep as he raised an eyebrow at me.
“Straight?”
I shrugged. And kept my mouth shut. I was too busy swallowing my pride. And my Pride.
After letting me shift in my seat, he shook his head again. “I called you in here to talk about Drake Williams.”
I cleared my throat. “Okay. Yeah. Drake. What about him? ”
“You actually think you can work some kind of miracle with that kid? He absolutely does not want to be here.”
“I know,” I said. “And yes.” I didn’t know Drake, but there’d been something in those blue eyes that had drawn me in last night. And a joy buried underneath all that anger and sadness and frustration. “But it’s probably not going to go well tonight, I don’t think.”
“No shit.” Mac leaned back in his chair. “And I’m going to handle it like I always do.”
Which meant limited ice time. You had to earn it in this club. Come to think of it, that was true for the Lions, too, which explained Drake’s demotion. “Good,” I said.
Mac watched me. “You like him.”
Yeah, I kind of did. “I want to make him smile,” I muttered. “That’s all.”
“Oh my God, Jonny.” Mac picked a pen up off his desk, then tossed it back down.
“What wrong with that? He looks so unhappy.” Unhappy players played shitty hockey. Everyone knew that.
Mac studied me, entirely like I suppose a father might—but not my father. My papa would smile, wave, and tell me to get to it. Mostly because Papa never wanted me the kind of unhappy I thought might be eating at Drake. Mac, though—I suspect he thought I just wanted in Drake’s pants or something.
Which I did. But not yet. I gave Mac my best puppy-dog eyes. “Trust me?”
He snorted. “You’re wearing the C, Jonny. I trust you. But don’t make me regret that, yeah?”
“Yes, Coach.”
He waved at his door. “Go home and take a nap.”
I nodded, then retreated the hell out of there. The drive home soothed me, to an extent, but I never could nap before games. I always itched to go. I just fucking loved being out there.
And tonight’s game promised to be very interesting indeed.