THREE
Max
“ Y ou’re lucky,” an ER doctor says, glancing over the results from a barrage of tests.
For the last few hours, I’ve had every inch of my body examined, short of a colonoscopy.
The blow to the head with the lamp knocked me out for a few minutes. When I woke up, the woman and the men were gone. But the damage was done.
I was out cold, and they just left me. I don’t know if they wanted me dead. That’s a lot to clean up in a hotel.
Avoiding the risk of someone else finding me, I called Coach.
“So, we’re looking at a concussion, facial contusions, and a heavily bruised wrist,” Coach Tatum Beck confirms with the doctor.
The ailments strung together twist my stomach. Wiggling my hands, I feel a shocking sting from my left wrist. I’ve played with broken fingers. But a concussion will keep me off the ice.
My agent and my closest friends on the team stand behind Coach Beck. Stefan Willis and Troy Madison sport lethal grimaces. Beck probably dragged them in here. They’re the only guys who can talk me off the ledge when I wake up enough and try to get out of here.
I’m notoriously stubborn. But as the team captain, I have to think of the other players first.
My vision still wobbly, I notice my two teammates suddenly morph into three. Someone else hovers in the back of the room. He’s a blur, but that familiar buzz in my veins roars to life despite lying here all banged up.
Fuck. No.
My head isn’t screwed on right. I’m concussed. I’m probably just seeing things.
“Do you want me to call anyone else, Max?” my agent, Noah, asks, coming abreast of Coach.
He manages me and Willis, along with a few others on the Crushers.
“No,” I say sharply.
“Not even your mother?” Coach asks, his eyebrows pinched together.
Makes me sound lame. At thirty-six, with no wife or girlfriend, the first person everyone thinks to call is Mommy.
“What time is it?” I ask, my voice losing its battle from pain and exhaustion.
“Three a.m.,” Willis says.
“My mother is most definitely asleep.” I doubt she’d care at any hour.
That goes double for my father, who takes the money I send him, usually without a thank you. And siphons most of it to my younger brother who can’t keep a job.
Don’t ask me when they last showed up at a game, even though they’re sent season ticket passes for prime seats right behind the team bench every damn year.
When Dad found out I was boning my teammate and best friend Jake in high school, my once happy, tight-knit family iced me out. Mom and Dad stopped coming to my games, and it felt like I didn’t exist.
Jake and I never spoke again despite being on the same team for another three years. He never made it to the professional league like me. Not that I would dare to look him in the eye if he was right in front of me. He betrayed me .
My high school coach, Coach Avalon, restored my faith, accepted me for what I was. Built me back up. Got me into an Ivy League college on a hockey scholarship where I ended up going third in the draft in my senior year.
My parents never visited me at college and didn’t go to the draft.
I feel as if my thoughts are being broadcasted on the television as a fresh silence echoes in the hospital room. They moved me in here rather quickly. Celebrities don’t linger on a gurney in the ER.
The man behind my teammates shifts like he read my mind just now. No, he’s not imaginary.
I glance at him, expecting he’d look away as most people do when I make eye contact—me, the hockey star, the celebrity. No, he holds my stare with a smile ghosting his lips.
“What does he want?” I ask, attempting to lift my arm to point, but it’s tugged back from all the tubes I’m tangled in.
Coach glances over his shoulder, and with a hand up to stop the guy from answering me, he says, “When can my guy be discharged, doc?”
“We need twelve to twenty-four hours to watch the concussion.”
“Am I on the list, Coach?” I ask about the dreaded league’s injured list.
Back in the day, it was faxed to all the teams. Now, thanks to the internet, fans ogle at all the benched players. And bookies clean up in dirty bets.
“Not yet,” Coach says. “Reid is waiting to hear from me.”
GM Aaron Reid has his Lamborghini all picked out from the bonus he’ll get if we go into the postseason. He’s not reporting shit if he doesn’t have to. The rule says, if you bench a player for injuries, it must be reported. But teams skirt those rules. Those on the list? They’re really hurt and out for days, sometimes weeks.
“We don’t play again until Friday,” Madison reminds me.
“You’ll be ready by then, won’t you, Max?” Noah sparks my confidence.
I nod to my agent. “Hell yeah.”
We have nine more games in the regular season, and we need four wins to clinch the playoffs. Two of them are against Richmond, our arch rival, who we beat tonight. The late season match-ups were a fluke in the scheduling. It changes every year.
Coach’s gaze lands on his star winger and center. “Willis. Madison. Go home. Get some sleep. You still have morning skate.”
“Sure thing, Coach,” Madison says.
They each stop at the bottom of my hospital bed. “We’re praying for you, brother,” Willis says and leaves.
Madison follows him after giving me a thumbs up.
“Thanks, doc.” Coach shakes the doctor’s hand. “Please close the door on your way out.”
The ER doc looks miffed to be dismissed. For once he’s not the rockstar in the room. But he complies, and when the door shuts, the room gets darker.
It feels like a tomb.
“Now it’s just us in here,” Coach says with a glare. “How do you really feel?”
“Like I got attacked by two men with a stick, a knife, and a bitch with a lamp.” I blow out a breath, fighting exhaustion. “Any idea who did this?”
“We’re investigating, but the hotel will only hand over security video to the cops.” Coach seems more rattled than I’ve ever seen him.
“What’s the plan here?” I say .
“So glad you asked,” Coach says and signals for the mystery man in the corner to come forward.