Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
AIDAN
Walking back into the Rebels practice rink is not unlike pulling on an old favorite pair of skates—ones that used to be so comfortable they felt like an extension of your own body, but after not wearing them for so long, they’re stiff and foreign. Everything’s the same, but it’s not.
Life goes on without you. It’s a painful lesson, but a necessary reminder.
McCabe warned me that I’d feel a change in the team dynamics, but I didn’t expect to feel it the moment I walked into our practice facility.
It’s not just the way new flags hang over the ice, denoting the Rebels as the conference and division champions last season—it’s like the vibes of the place are different and I can’t quite figure out why.
I take the turn from the upper spectator level around the practice rink and scan my ID card at the reader on the wall next to the set of double doors leading to the hallway that houses most of the Rebels staff offices.
One floor down are the training rooms and locker room, and one floor up are the leadership offices.
I head down the stairs for my meeting with one of our trainers and our team doctor, but as soon as I exit into the hallway, I see my GM waiting outside the training room door.
AJ is wearing beige slacks with sky-high heels and a cream colored sleeveless top.
Her dark hair is slicked back into a low bun.
All business, as usual. Try as I might, I still can’t picture her and McCabe together, but maybe it’s because all I can think of when I see her is the way he always grumbled about her on our flights home from games.
I wonder if we’ll still be seatmates like we had been the past few seasons, or if that’s another thing that has changed in my absence? I should have thought to ask him when I saw him last week.
AJ’s head snaps up as she hears me approaching, and she gives me a slight smile and a nod of her head.
“Renaud, welcome back. I know you’re about to meet with Jared and Dr. D, but we need to have a quick chat first.” She turns toward one of the smaller conference rooms that are used for one-on-one meetings down here and pushes the door open before gesturing me in.
My stomach twists, wondering how I’ve already done something wrong when I only just stepped into the building a few minutes ago.
“Have a seat.” AJ pulls a chair out for herself, nodding toward the one at the opposite side of the table for me.
Once we’re both seated, she rests her elbows on the table, crosses her forearms, and tilts her chin as she assesses me.
“At the outset, I want to say that I’m glad you’re recovered and are back to playing this year. ”
“Thank you. And I appreciate that you didn’t send me back to the AHL first. I’m ready.”
“I know you are,” she says. “Some players have an innate ability, and others have to work really hard at it. I know you’ve always been the former, but I need you to try to be more of the latter, too.”
I feel my face contort in confusion. She’s saying that I have an innate ability as a hockey player, so much so that she didn’t think I needed time in the minor leagues to get back up to my previous ability after a year off. But also, that I need to work really hard at it?
“Come again?”
“Ledderman let us know that he’s retiring.
Effective immediately.” Anthony Ledderman has been with the Rebels for a long time; his tenure is second only to Colt.
He’s not even close to the most talented player on the team, but he puts his head down and does the work.
He’s also incredibly levelheaded, especially when everyone else on the ice gets worked up.
He’s held me back from fights and talked me down when things got heated, more times than I can count.
But he pulled a groin muscle last season, was out for a few games, then came back too early and reinjured himself right before the playoffs.
He was supposed to be back this season, but it sounds like maybe he didn’t make a full recovery.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say, unsure what this has to do with me.
She lifts an eyebrow, like she’s waiting for me to make some sort of connection to what she’s said and how it relates to me. But Ledderman plays defense, and I know she’s not going to ask me to switch positions.
And that’s when it hits me—Ledderman is one of our alternate captains.
My jaw drops open slightly as I hold my hands up in front of me. “Noooo.”
“Your name has come up before,” she says.
“I am not captain material,” I tell her.
“That’s what McCabe said, and look at him now. Sometimes, all people need in order to reach their potential is an invitation.”
I think about the several seasons McCabe has been captain and how resistant he was to step into the leadership role management wanted him to play. But something clearly changed over the past year, and I don’t think it was only because of his relationship with AJ.
“I think I’ll have enough to worry about just getting back to playing. I promised myself there’d be no distractions this season.”
“And you think that being an alternate captain would be a distraction?”
How do I tell her that being an alternate captain would demand a skill set I don’t have. I’m not optimistic, supportive, or sometimes even rational.
“My whole career I’ve been an enforcer.”
Captains are measured and calm. Enforcers are shit stirrers who set the tone of the game by physically intimidating their opponents. Captains are the ones talking to the referees about penalties, while enforcers are the ones being sent to the sin bin in the first place.
“There’s no such thing as an official enforcer anymore, Renaud. And if you paid attention this past season, you would have noticed that the Rebels had the least amount of time in the penalty box of any team in the league. And that took us all the way to the finals.”
I cough out a laugh. “Where Hartmann choked.”
“Easy to say from your couch, right?” She clears her throat. “Our team fell apart at the end. Every single player on the ice that night bears some of the blame. And Hartmann is the only one who had a legitimate excuse.”
I’m tempted to flippantly ask if she has to say that because he’s the owner’s son and the CEO’s brother. But McCabe warned me that things had changed, so I hold my tongue.
I’m sure Luke Hartmann is a good guy, but when our team needed him most, he wasn’t a good goalie. And that’s the metric that should matter.
“What we’re focused on this year,” AJ continues, “is coming back stronger. And to do that, we need every single player not only giving his all, but giving more than he’s ever given before. For you, that means working harder than you’re used to working—”
“I’m not afraid of hard work.” There’s no way AJ doesn’t know this. In fact, aside from the team doctor, she’s the only other person who knows the grueling recovery I went through in the last twelve months so that I could be back on the ice again this season.
“—and stepping up in ways you haven’t before. I need you on the ice, Renaud. That means I need you to be levelheaded out there so you’re not spending as much time in the sin bin as you do on the ice. Understood?”
“Understood,” I say, my voice definitive, even though I’m extremely conflicted.
Hockey is a violent sport, and the fights are part of what makes it fun for fans. My willingness to lay someone out when needed is one of the things that helps prevent the other team from playing dirty.
But AJ getting caught in the middle of a fight in the stands while holding McCabe’s baby last season may have changed her perspective on things a bit.
Or maybe her perspective was already changing?
Drew Jenkins was a known brawler when he was in Colorado, but very rarely got in a fight after being traded to the Rebels last season.
Did she give him this same talk last fall?
“I need you to be a leader on this team.”
I sit back in the cushy chair and cross my arms over my chest. “Why me? There have got to be better options.” Like maybe someone who wasn’t just out for a whole season?
She presses her lips between her teeth briefly and then shrugs.
“There are certainly other people who’d jump at the opportunity to wear the A on their jersey.
But wanting that distinction, and being the right person to serve as the alternate captain, are two entirely different things.
Show us that you’re the kind of player who’s right for that role, Renaud .
. .” She trails off, like there was something else coming after it, and my mind is spinning with the possibilities.
But the only one that feels right is or else.
My chest shakes with a laugh, because this is AJ’s special brand of leadership: making you believe you can be better than you are.
But the problem is, I’m a great hockey player precisely because I’m a physical player.
I’m the guy who lets his emotions get the better of him out there on the ice, because my emotions are the fuel that lights a fire in me, making me push myself harder.
Asking me to tamp down my emotional responses on the ice, to lead instead of fight—that’s like asking me to be a worse player, instead of a better one. Isn’t it?
“I see those wheels turning,” she says, leaning back in her seat as she rolls her chair away from the table. “And I suspect you’re asking yourself the right questions right now.”
“Which are?”
“How you can play at the level you’ve been playing at, if you have to rein in your emotions out on the ice.”
Goddamnit. Is she a fucking mind reader?
“But the answer leads right back to where we started,” she continues as she stands.
“You need to be the kind of player who has to start working hard at it. Because if you take physical intimidation out of your playing style, I suspect you’re going to have to put a bit more effort into your other strengths. ”
“Ouch.” I stand, mirroring her position.
“Listen, Renaud, you’re a very good player who has the potential to be great.
You’re also not getting any younger and basically shattered your hand a year ago.
If you’re getting in fights all the time, the risk that you’ll reinjure your hand increases dramatically.
And if you’re out on IR again, you might as well retire at the end of the season with Colt. ”
Well, shit.
“If you want longevity in this league, not to mention on this team, you’re going to need to make some changes to how you play.” She lifts a shoulder and an eyebrow before saying, “The choice is yours. I’ll see you in a couple hours in my office. Have a good workout.”
Two hours later, freshly showered and with a recovery shake in hand, I approach AJ’s office.
The workout my trainer, Jared, just put me through has my body feeling sore in ways it hasn’t in a long time, but at least it gave me something to think about besides my GM’s ultimatum. Or ultimatums, plural, actually.
AJ’s assistant, Colleen, isn’t at her desk, but the door to the office is wide open and McCabe, Colt, and Walsh sit chatting with AJ on the couches and chairs in the seating area near the wall of glass that overlooks the practice rink.
It’s only then that I realize that AJ sought me out earlier so she could have a private conversation with me about my future with the team, and now, more than ever, I appreciate her discretion.
My teammates greet me with more enthusiasm than I probably deserve, and then spend the next ten minutes catching me up on what’s changed since I last played for the Rebels.
It’s a lot of what McCabe already told me, so I spend my time watching the dynamics instead—how Colt, who was always our unofficial captain, sits back and lets McCabe take the reins; how Walsh peppers comments in about the new players, and their strengths and weaknesses; how McCabe actually sounds like he gives a shit, whereas before he was the grumpiest fucker that ever played hockey.
AJ opens her mouth to say something but a knock on the door behind me stops her, and then Colleen’s voice rings out, “Morgan’s here.”
My stupid, hopeful heart beats harder just at hearing that name, even while I know it’s not her.
“Hey, I forgot you started working here!” Colt says, jumping up from his seat and striding past me.
I turn in my seat, only to see him wrapping his arms around my girl.
My stomach clenches as he pulls her into a quick hug before he lets her go, stepping back enough for me to see her.
She’s standing there in an ivory dress that’s fitted on the top before flaring out just past her hips.
The heels of the strappy wedge sandals make her calves more pronounced and remind me just how sexy her legs are when they’re wrapped around my head.
With her freckles and her strawberry blonde hair flowing loosely past her shoulders, she looks like a literal ray of fucking sunshine.
“She’s worked here since the playoffs,” McCabe grumbles.
What. The. Actual. Fuck.
“Nooo,” Morgan says, drawing the word as she looks back and forth between AJ and McCabe.
I can tell she’s holding in a smile. “I did some work for AJ during the playoffs, and then agreed to come on as a consultant for the team. Now I’m stepping in to actually work here for a few months, because Tatum is having surgery and you all need someone to run your social media. ”
“What about your PR company?” Colt asks. “You just leaving all your other clients to come work with us?”
“I’m doing a favor for a friend.”
A quick glance shared between her and AJ lets me know that AJ is the friend in question . . . and none of this makes any sense. AJ is well over a decade older than her. How are they friends? And how does she know McCabe, Colt, and Walsh?
Most importantly, why has she not even acknowledged me? In fact, she’s directed her attention at everyone in the room except me, which means she’s not surprised to see me here. She’s intentionally ignoring me.
Finally, she turns toward me, holds her hand out, and casually says, “Hi, I’m Morgan. You must be Aidan,” as if I didn’t just have her coming apart in my hotel room, in a cave during a storm, and against a wall outside a hotel just this past weekend.
There’s a slight emphasis on my name as it rolls off her tongue—not enough that anyone else would notice, but I can tell she’s pissed.
It’s like when we saw each other at the wedding, only a hundred times worse.
Because not only have I not stopped thinking about her for the last two days, but now, in addition to being related, we apparently work together.
I’d convinced myself that I could forget about her because I’d never see her again. But this is another hit I didn’t see coming.