Chapter 10 – Zane
ten
Zane
Me:
Meet me in Cam’s office.
I send Eric the text after getting the email I’ve been waiting for.
I push away from my desk and head over to Cam’s office, which is supposed to be right next to mine, but he decided to take the office at the complete opposite end of the hall from me.
I pass the locker room that is starting to fill up since we start practice in about half an hour.
I get there and see the door to Cam’s office wide open.
He’s sitting down behind his desk with five players, and they look like they are having a meeting.
No one even looks my way before I knock on the door and see them turn to look at me, Owen’s face goes white when he sees me. “Coach,” he says my name.
“Hey, am I interrupting anything?” I take a step in and the guys get up nervously, shaking their heads and moving out of the room. “What was that all about?” I ask Cam, getting an uneasy feeling in my gut.
“Going over defensive plays,” he replies, leaning back in his chair. “What’s up?”
“Hey,” Eric says, coming into the office and standing beside me, “just got your text.”
“Yeah.” I look back at him. “I know we are having practice today,” I tell them, “but I have something planned with the guys.” I look over at Cam. “The bus gets here in thirty minutes.”
“The bus?” Cam asks me and I smile.
“The bus,” I repeat. “I’ve decided to take the boys out to do some bonding.”
“Bonding?” Cam repeats like I didn’t just say the word.
“Yeah, I think the team needs to be more in sync.” I look at Eric, who nods.
“They aren’t trusting each other on the ice, and it’s starting to show.
” I look over at Cam to see if he’s going to repeat these words too, but he just leans back in his chair and rocks back and forth.
“So I got a hold of a place where they do team-building exercises.”
“I’m not going to that,” Cam declares without waiting for me to tell him what it is.
“Why the fuck not?” Eric snaps out, looking at Cam.
“I just don’t think it’s a necessary activity,” he says. “I’ll make up an excuse that I have an appointment or something.” He shrugs.
“You think that’s a good idea?” I ask him and he nods his head.
“I’m skipping it.” He sits back up, crossing his hands on the desk. “I’ll hold down the fort here and work on the power play and power kill plays.”
“Sounds good,” I reply, turning to Eric. “Looks like it’s me and you.” I slap his shoulder and squeeze it, telling him it’s not worth it. He nods his head, avoiding looking back at Cam before we walk out of the office.
“That guy is a piece of—” I cut him off before he says something and someone reports it.
“To be honest, this wasn’t for him, or for us, it’s for them.” I point toward the locker room. “We have a game on Saturday, and we have to win it.” He just nods at me as we walk into the locker room.
“Guys,” I call out, my voice booms as everyone stops talking.
“I know we are supposed to be on the ice in about an hour, but the bus is going to be here in twenty minutes,” I tell them and I see they are all sharing a look.
“It’s nothing bad. So get to the kitchen and get some grub before we leave. ”
Twenty minutes later, I’m the last one on the bus and I look over to Eric, who is sitting in the back with some of the rookies.
I give him a chin lift as I sit in the front next to Jaxon, who is turned in his seat talking to Kirby and Knox.
“So we have to know,” he says to me, “where are you taking us?”
“Disney,” I side-eye him, smirking, “the most magical place on earth.”
“I’ve been and it’s, in fact, not magical.
It’s where parents go to die,” Knox states as I look out the window.
“You think it’s magical until it’s past a naptime and your kid has a mental breakdown in the middle of the fucking sidewalk because she can’t get a Mickey Mouse ice cream,” he groans.
“I refuse to take the kids back until they are old enough to not have a meltdown.”
“So, never,” Kirby jokes with him. “I’ll take them.”
“I will have them packed and ready to go,” Knox agrees, and I laugh. When we pull into the building, I get up from my seat.
“I know you guys are probably wondering where we are.” I look at everyone. “I thought that instead of on-ice practice, we could do some team-building exercises.” I clap my hands and the door to the bus opens. “Let’s go, people.”
We get off the bus and walk into the building where two men are there waiting for us.
“Welcome.” They look at us and wait for the team to get in the front door before talking.
Eric comes and stands next to me. “We’re excited for you guys to start.
” He looks at the guys. “Let’s go to the first activity. ”
I follow him into the first room, which is set up with aluminum plates all scattered around four separate workspaces. “Okay, I want you guys divided into the lines,” I tell the guys as everyone gets in their respective lines.
“This is where you are going to see if you trust your team,” the associate says.
“I want all the guys to put on a pair of goggles.” The other guy holds out a basket as he passes them to each player.
“And the guy in charge is going to guide you through the pathway. If you step on the plates, you have to start back at the beginning.”
The guys all line up, the first line has Jaxon leading them.
The second line has Owen leading them. I stand back and watch as Jaxon starts and they all line up.
His team holds each other’s shoulders while the other team puts the players on their shoulders.
“That’s interesting,” I say as they work their way through the playing field.
Lots of laughter fills the room and lots of frustration when it takes one line over thirty-five minutes to make it through.
Owen’s team is the second to last place and they hate it.
Each of them points the finger to the next person.
The next activity has each team putting their feet on two planks of wood with ropes being tied to them. Each player holds the rope in each hand. “The team that gets over the finish line first wins,” he tells the group of guys. “Easiest drill.”
Jaxon’s team has him in the front. Owen’s team has him in the front, the two of them are side by side.
The whistle blows and Owen shouts out for his team to go right first, which is fine because they all lift their right foot but don’t really go ahead, while Jaxon leads his team with instructions to lift the foot and move forward.
They easily get to the front first with Owen behind him, and he’s pissed to be behind Jaxon.
“See the cracks in the foundation?” Eric leans over and whispers to me and I nod my head.
“A couple of them I do,” I confirm, watching Owen and the guys I found in the office with Cam stand to the side and talk amongst themselves.
By the time we get back on the bus, half the team is laughing while the other half of the team is unsure. “Might be time to rework some of those lines,” I tell Eric when we get back to the arena.
The next day I show up early, and the press is there already setting up. “Hey, Coach,” a couple of them say as I walk to my office then to the other room where the whiteboard is.
“Hey.” Cam walks into the room. “What are you doing?” he asks as I look at the board.
“Going to switch up the lines,” I reply, and he looks at the board with me.
“You think that is a wise decision?” he retorts and I look over at him.
“If you had come with us yesterday, you wouldn’t ask that question.”
“From what I heard, it was dumb and half the guys hated it.” He puts his hands in his pockets.
“Yeah, and who told you that?”
He shrugs. “Couple different people.”
“Well, you let those people know they should come to me if they have a problem, instead of adding fuel to the fire.” I turn back to the board.
He doesn’t say a word as he turns to walk back out of the office, and Eric comes in followed by Jaxon. “What’s up, Coach?” Jaxon asks when I start to erase names from different lines and switch them around.
“I’m playing with some lines,” I tell him and he looks at what I did. “Going to change just one player this game from each line and see how that goes, might change it back before the end of the game… depending.”
“Sounds good,” he says to me. “You going with us after the game?” I glare at him.
The last thing I want to do is go to the bar after the game. “It’s bonding too,” he reasons and I roll my eyes when Eric snickers.
“I don’t know why you are laughing,” I tell him, “you’re coming with.”
“Great,” he replies, “I’ll go and tell my wife.” He turns and walks out of the room with the phone in his hand.
I walk out of the room with Jaxon as Kirby and Knox get there together. “You guys carpooling again?”
“Yeah, the girls are going to be our rides home,” Knox says. “You going to be okay?” he asks Jaxon, and I look over at him, knowing I missed something.
“I don’t like it,” Jaxon declares and then looks at me.
“My sister, Tori, she invited this guy to the game on Saturday.” He says her name and just like every fucking time before, my body goes on alert.
It’s been almost a week since she called me.
A week where every single night, I’ve looked at her number and told myself to call her.
A week where I’ve thought about nothing but her when I wasn’t thinking of the game.
Where I ate each meal alone, something that has never bothered me before, but now suddenly bothers me, and I don’t know if it’s because I’m thinking about having her sit with me at the end of the day.
“Apparently, she met someone at a coffee shop, and he asked her out on a date.” I swallow and all I can hear is the thumping of my heart in my ears. “So she asked me for an extra ticket.”
“If she’s dating this guy,” Kirby says, “the best thing to do was to give her a ticket so you can meet him after.”
“Or you don’t and she goes out with him and you never meet him so you can’t threaten him,” Knox adds. “Either way, you have to get her a ticket.”
I look down, a rage filling my veins, and I don’t know why since this is what I wanted to begin with. “Don’t you guys need to get ready?” I snap, not sure I want to hear the rest of why it’s a good idea for her to date this guy, already fucking hating him, and I don’t even know him.
The whole game I am in a mood. The lines that I’ve changed have half-worked and half-not, and when we come out with a win by the skin of our teeth, I’m ready for the whole fucking night to be over.
I walk into the press room after the game and sit down.
“Hey, Coach.” I look over to see the veteran reporter, Timothy, who has been covering the team for the past ten years, I think.
“There have been whispers of personality clashes amongst the players,” he says, and I just look at him, making sure I give away nothing.
“Is that why you switched up your lines tonight?”
“I like the idea that I have a team and everyone can play with everyone as a team,” I tell him.
“Things happen during the year—injuries, power play, penalty kills—it’s a good time to see who works well with whom, so mixing it up is always beneficial.
” I don’t even bother commenting on the first part of the question, and he must sense I’m in no mood tonight.
“We have a good team. They have to trust each other.” He just nods at me.
I take a couple other questions and when I walk out, Eric is there with Jaxon. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Making sure you don’t bail on us,” Eric admits.
“It’s easy to slip out.” I roll my eyes, pulling down the knot of my tie, and then tuck it in my pocket as I walk out of the arena and head to my SUV.
“Shotgun.” I look over at him. “What? My kids always say that when they want to ride in the front seat.”
I shake my head as I make my way back to the same restaurant they always rent out after the game.
I get out and head in. Looking around I tell myself I’m not looking for Victoria, when I see her sitting down with a man beside her, who has to be her date.
Eric goes right and I know I should follow him, but instead I follow Jaxon to his table, and I see her look up and smile at Jaxon, then she looks over her shoulder at me.
“Hey,” I say, pulling out the chair in front of her and right next to Knox, “nice to see you again.”