Chapter 12
Miles
The crowd rose to their feet, cheering, as the Gryphons got a three-on-one breakaway.
Stackman crossed the blue line, dropped the puck for Logan who cut behind him and passed to Buchanan over on the other side.
Buchanan’s one-timer beat the goalie high on the stick side.
The light flashed; the goal horn sounded.
Down on the ice, Logan hugged Buchanan and gave the rookie Stackman a pat on the helmet. Buchanan skated along the team bench collecting fist bumps, while Logan and Stackman got off the ice. My face hurt from grinning so wide.
A different line came on for the face-off, and as play resumed, the announcer reported, “Gryphons goal scored by number seventeen, Dave Buchanan, assisted number forty-six, Logan Valliere, and number eighty, Luke Stackman. Time of the goal, seventeen-twenty-six.”
The crowd yelled again. At least, what crowd there was.
The Gryphons hadn’t started the season well, and a Tuesday night game didn’t pull in the numbers.
Playing the Foxes, the Gryphons’ archrivals, probably helped some, but the stands were barely a third full.
Those of us who had turned up were being treated to a show, though.
The Gryphons led seven to two, with less than three minutes to go in the third period.
Logan had a goal and two assists on the night.
His line had been on fire, and I was so glad.
He’d texted me about coming out to his whole team, but we hadn’t had a chance to talk, with my basketball kids running late.
Logan probably hadn’t even read my congratulations back, but going by how he and his lineys were connecting on the ice, his reveal hadn’t messed with their chemistry.
Bubs Buchanan had been one of Logan’s few friends, back when we were together, and I was so relieved that they were still connecting.
Play went on, with scoring chances at both ends of the ice.
The Foxes didn’t bother to pull their goalie, down five goals at that point, although the poor bastard probably wouldn’t have minded being done.
Logan’s line came out for their last shift of the night and Logan got a shot on net that echoed off the crossbar.
I groaned with all the rest, though another goal would’ve been adding insult to injury at that point.
When the horn sounded, the teams filed off the ice.
I saw Logan pull off his helmet and shake out his hair, grinning at something the player beside him said.
He was second star of the night, with his rookie teammate Stackman the first star off two goals and two assists.
The on-ice announcer said to the rookie, “Your line was on fire tonight, accounting for four of the seven goals, two of them yours. What made the difference?”
Stackman grinned, his face on the jumbotron screen flushed and happy. “We just clicked. Bubs and Vally are both awesome forwards and I’m learning a lot from them about being a team player, on and off the ice.”
The announcer asked a couple more banal questions but I sat and basked in the way the kid mentioned Logan’s name.
Probably intentional, for sure done in a we-have-his-back way.
Logan must be feeling great right now. I couldn’t wait to see him, and not only because he was always a ton of fun to be around after a win.
My school board hadn’t been quite as supportive.
I’d been pulled into a meeting with the principal, vice principal, the school board chair, and a couple of unhappy board members.
I’d resorted to pulling out all the pathos about “poor Avery” and her caught-on-camera father, plus an unsubtle reminder of how much money I donated and brought into the school as an ex-NFL star.
In the end, they let me get away with a stern warning to keep my private affairs out of the media.
I could live with that. The local paps were more interested in Avery, poor woman, than in me.
A basketball star with a dramatic drunken rampage had pulled the national sports media away from us.
I planned to settle down to a nice, ordinary life with Logan, as soon as I could convince him to stay.
I let the board members lecture me for half an hour about all my bad choices, and still left that meeting a winner.
I pulled out my phone when I got up to go, and found I had a reply from Logan to my congratulations.
Logan: ~ Hey, thanks. Can you come down to the family room after the game? I told security to let you in.
Well, fuck, yeah, I could do that.
Security for the ECHL team was nothing like the NFL, or what the NHL probably was like. One bored guy blocked the corridor to the locker rooms and when I said my name, he let me through without ID. Although perhaps he knew me on sight.
I’d never come down this way before. Two years together, and our secret meant I’d never dared venture into the players’ spaces. I hadn’t had that right.
A blond young woman glanced my way, did a double take, then said, “You really are Miles Buckner. Wow. Hey, WAGs are over here. I mean, us wives and whomever.” She waved at an open doorway.
Inside the large room, arena staff had set out a big buffet of healthy food choices for the athletes coming off the rink.
A few young women stood around with coffees or waters in their hands, presumably waiting for husbands or boyfriends.
Their idle chatter stopped as I entered.
One whispered to the woman next to her, a hand up to shield her face.
Luckily, the past year had made me pretty immune to feeling uncomfortable. I waved. “Hi folks, Miles Buckner. I’m here to wait for Logan. Valliere. I don’t know the protocol so any tips you have are welcome.”
A platinum-haired woman closer to my age came over, her hand outstretched. “I’m Anika Petrov. Welcome to our little group.” We shook hands as she looked me over. “We have a group chat for the Gryphons’ families. I can add you, if you like.”
I blinked, surprised to be given that offer so soon. “Sure. Sounds good.”
“Dmitry came home at lunch today and told me what Vally did. That took guts. My husband’s a cautious man, he’s waiting to see how things play out, but I want you to know we’re behind you and Vally.”
“Thanks.”
Anika grinned up at me. “Plus you’d be a good person to have on call when our hubbies are on the road, for reaching those high shelves and unscrewing those stuck lids.”
I laughed. “Consider me at your service, ladies.”
Several of the other women came over, one of them telling me she’d seen my speech, and another asking if I’d been out when I played ball.
We chatted, while one of the wives brought me a small plate of chips and tofu-spinach dip.
“We leave most of the food for the guys, but the team’s okay with us nibbling around the edges while we wait, and you’re a big guy.
” She patted my biceps, and I smiled but stepped a foot back to try the dip.
“Mm. Not bad.”
“The food gets better as you move up the ladder,” another woman noted. “Jeff was up with the Rafters in the NHL for, like, three games before he was injured and that’s a whole other level.”
A stir at the edge of the room marked the first players coming in.
Two guys I only recognized from the team website called greetings and fell on the food like wolves.
Then Bryce Wilkins, a defenseman, showed up and collected a kiss from one of the brunette versions of the WAGs before filling his own plate.
Other players straggled in, a couple kissing their significant others.
Their mood was happy and boisterous from the win.
Buchanan headed my way first, his hand out. “Hey, Miles?”
“Yeah.” I shook hands.
He tipped his head to look up at me, though he was pretty tall himself, and grinned. “Yep, Morty will shit his pants. Anyhow, welcome to the team.”
“Thanks.”
“Your boy will be out in a minute. The media grabbed him and Stacker for sound bites.”
“Congrats on the win. The three of you were fire out there.”
“We were, weren’t we?” He turned toward the food. “I hope we’ll see more of you. You and Vally should come to dinner sometime when we have a night off. My wife’s an awesome cook.”
“Thanks, I’d like that.”
I had my eyes on the doorway, even when chatting, so I spotted Mortenson the moment he appeared.
Tall, bulky, but yeah, not as big as me.
I didn’t move toward him as he crossed to the buffet, but I kept my gaze fixed on his back, willing him to feel the heat.
After a minute, maybe he noticed the prickles on the back of his neck because he turned and sought my eyes out across the room.
I was so, so tempted to walk over there, to say something unsubtle and threatening.
Motherfuckers like you stole so much time from Logan and me.
But I didn’t want to bring down the joyful winning energy of the room, so I just folded my arms and glared.
Mortenson’s face flushed, then he laughed and turned away.
Okay, fucker, but know you’re in my sights.
“Who are you trying to incinerate with your eyes?” Logan asked from my left, having somehow slipped in while I was glaring. “Oh, Morty. Not worth your time. Let’s get out of here.”
“Hey, Vally,” a player called. “We’re going out to party after this. You and your, uh, boyfriend want to come along?”
“No thanks,” he called back. “Sometime, sure, but tonight I’m calling for a hot tub and an early bed. My hip’s killing me.”
Usually, it was Logan’s knee that bothered him. “Oh,” I remembered. “From when you slid into the net?” He’d taken the post off its moorings, tangled up with the goaltender.
“Yeah. I still say that was tripping.”
A very young guy walking past punched Logan’s arm. “It fucking was, bro, but we won seven to two, so we’ll let it go, right?”
Logan grinned at him. “Right.”
God, I wanted to eat that grin off his face, but I knew how many calories he’d burned on the ice. “You want to grab some food before we go?”