Chapter 2 Fletcher
FLETCHER
“Just when you think this team can’t get any worse.” I pace around in the warehouse. “And then they do.”
My cousins are watching me spin the puck around on my stick as I rant. “All the coaches quit or were arrested. Even the assistant coaches. We don’t have anyone. Not that it matters, because the coaches we did have sucked balls.” I haul back and smash the puck against Talbot’s chair.
“Geez, dude.” He jumps up, almost a half second too slow. “Give a guy a little warning before you bash his brain in, cuz.”
“My one shot to live out my NHL dreams, and they’re ruining it.
And that obnoxious little PR girl was just running around squawking about ticket sales and mad that they took her coffee-cup warmer out of her junkyard of an office.
Like, excuse me, but there are real men with real problems here.
” I toss the puck in the air and hit it like a baseball to bury it in the pocked drywall. “We’re never going to win.”
“You’re always a winner to us.” Lawrence makes a heart shape with his hands.
“Let us know when the PR girl is giving out free tickets to fill stands.” Anderson snickers.
“They’re not giving away free tickets to the Direwolves game. They sent out an email about it. They need all the ticket sales they can get.” I blow out a breath.
“I’m going just because I like carnage,” Elsa says with a smirk.
“I have a lot of money bet that you’ll win.” Anderson claps me on the shoulder.
“Dummy, they’re going to get cremated.” Lawrence kicks his chair.
“You think Coach was making us bad just so he could make money off of bets?” I muse.
“You all already sucked. That entire team is an embarrassment to the great sport of hockey.” Hudson Wynter appears like death in the shadows.
“Fletch doesn’t suck!” Talbot comes to my defense. “I put down fifty bucks that Fletch gets his first NHL goal this game. The Hockey Guys podcast is real excited about him. They say he’s good.”
I preen.
“If he gets a real-deal NHL contract, they think he should get traded to Toronto,” Talbot adds.
“Toronto, eh? I’ll have to brush up on my Canadian.”
“Soooorry.”
“Double-double.”
My cousins cackle.
“I think I’d look good in blue and white.” I run a hand through my hair.
Hudson wrenches the hockey stick out of my hand and slams it on the wall next to my head, making my teeth jerk.
“You”—his voice drops to a growl—“are not a professional hockey player. You’re not signing an NHL contract.
You are not moving to Toronto. You’re not the star of a last-place NHL team.
You’re in the show because you owe me money.
I had you signed to the AHL. I had you called up to the NHL team.
None of that happened because you’re the next Zayne Murphy.
And you’re going to pay back your debt by finding enough dirt on Dana Holbrook to bury the Rhode Island Hockey Club. ” He shakes me. “Do you understand?”
I nod then chance it. “Maybe Dana Holbrook isn’t actually money laundering through the RIHC? Maybe the team sucks because of the GM and the coach and the embezzling…” I trail off. My much-older cousin doesn’t say anything, but the temperature in the windowless warehouse definitely drops.
His breath is icy when he finally says, “Is that your final answer? And think carefully, because if it is and you can’t produce the evidence, then I’m taking my debt repayment in flesh and blood.”
I lean back, forcing myself not to take that step away from him. “I’m sure there’s something there, boss. I’ll get you your evidence.”
He gives me one more long, icy glare then turns away. “And Gracie wants to know if you’re coming for Christmas this year.”
“I guess if I’m not playing—”
“You’re not going to be playing.” He’s terse. “The client wants Dana Holbrook’s head on a platter by Christmas Eve.”
“The Svenssons want this info as a Christmas present,” Lawrence says as he spins around in his chair.
“Once you deliver, you’re a free man.” He looks at me. He’s waiting for a response.
“Yeah, I’ll get it.”
“I don’t know how,” I mutter to myself as I pull on my cap and trudge through the snow.
I don’t mind the cold—love it, even. Cold feels like hockey, feels like freedom, even though it’s been years since I’ve been stuck in my mom’s house with her shitty parade of boyfriends.
I never should have stuck my neck out for her.
But then I wouldn’t have gotten this chance, my only chance ever to play in the NHL. My dream come true.
My nightmare, really.
My team is bad. They could easily get beat by a minor-league team. Shoot, they could probably get beaten by a U18 rec-league team or something.
“We’ll get a better coach,” I tell myself, because even though Hudson says I’m outta there by Christmas, a guy can dream, right?
Maybe they’ll hire a real coach. It will be like the movies—a grizzled veteran whips up a ragtag group. Like that old ’80s movie Rocky or something. We’ll win the Stanley Cup, and I’ll kiss the girl at the end of the movie.
As if.
I don’t have anything to offer a girl.
Not that I want love—or would want what Hudson has with Gracie.
I tried to date after I got back from the military.
Couldn’t seem to make myself care about the girls complaining about their office jobs or their friends.
Even when I played in the minors briefly, all the girls wanted to do was go party.
They chased after hockey players but could barely hold a conversation about the game, let alone play it.
In fact, the only girl I’ve met who gives a shit about hockey since Hudson kicked me through the back door into the NHL is Ellie. And I’d rather keep losing hockey games than even entertain any sort of interest in the PR princess.
My phone beeps. I have it set to notify me anytime there’s hockey news breaking, big or small.
New coach announced for the Rhode Island Hockey Club.
I take a steadying breath, then I open the announcement.
I peer at the photo. I can’t believe it.
A fucking girl?
Wait.
That fucking girl?