Chapter 9 #2
The UConn goalie had a .928 save percentage with a high tendency to lead last year’s Frozen Four winners to a shutout. In fact, Zach just broke his streak, and if the scout isn’t taking that info home to Daddy, then I’ll eat my beanie.
Once the puck drops again, I go to pick up where I left off, but Callan asks, “You sure you’re not dating?”
“Callan!”
“Fine, fine. Okay, you were saying.”
“So, we all grew up in Fort Lauderdale. Pecan and I are Florida natives, but Zach’s dad coached—” I hiss when a UConn defenseman boards Zach and the ref does shit about it.
“—the Jaguars for a couple years. Then Team Canada hired him and he coached them to gold, but by that point, he and Zach’s mom were on the outs.
She refused to disrupt Zach’s life when he was so close to us, so they kinda led separate lives.
Him back in Canada during the season, them in Florida—”
“So Zach resents him for leaving them?”
“Yeah, because it wasn’t a clean split. His dad spent the off-season in Florida and bitched about it and they weren’t technically separated. It was weird. Then Zach’s mom got sick and his dad never changed the way they lived.”
“Whoa!”
“Yeah, fucked up, right? She struggled for a long time before things became terminal, and in the end, she decided to go back to Canada when the doctors told her how bad things had become.”
“To be with her husband?’
“Yeah. Who promptly got a job with the Stars.”
Callan gapes at me. “You’re joking.”
“I wish I were but no.” I hitch a shoulder as Alec fucks up yet another pass. “How the hell they made him captain is beyond me.”
“Don’t you know who his dad is?”
“No?”
“The president of the school.”
I bark out a laugh. “Nepo baby. How do you know that?”
“I like research.”
“You mean you’re a snoop.” Elated, I turn in my seat to face him, finding even more pleasure in his bashful expression.
Callan Korhonen’s hard to make out. He’s pretty quiet on the surface, but dig a little and he’s kinda loud. Plus, in the short time I’ve known him, I’ve come to learn that he has a bunch of tasty nuggets in his arsenal—just like that one about Alec.
“I take an interest in the people around me,” he states, crisper than freshly fried chicken.
My smirk only widens. “I love it. What other shit do you know?”
“Derek Dyers’s on his last chance—”
“WHAT?!”
The people around me glower at my volume, which says a lot in a hockey crowd. But I don’t care, not when Zach’s been bitching about Dyers since he started practicing with the jerk and could use the ammo.
“Last year, he and this other kid, Ben Sanders, were accused of misconduct.”
“On the ice? Jesus!”
His expression turns grim. “With a woman at a Rhos’ house party.”
As I pluck at the hem of my jersey, guilt assails me. “How didn’t I know that?”
“The Rhos went out of their way to bury it with the dean’s assistance.”
“Why would a fraternity get involved in a cover-up?”
His lips quirk. “You’ve never been in a sorority, have you? It’s kinda their MO.
“But Dyers and Sanders’ daddies are alumni, big donors. They can make anything go away.”
I slump in my seat. “I hate this world sometimes.”
“Money talks,” he agrees. “But this kind of power is something else.”
“You know a lot about them, huh?”
“I’ve been approached as a legacy. My dad was a Rho.”
Something dark whispers into his tone. Bitterness. Hurt. Hatred.
“You won’t accept the invitation?”
“No. That’s not my scene.”
“Should you be talking about this?”
“Scared that the three ex-presidents who are also Rhos brothers might send special ops in to assassinate us?”
Ordinarily, I’d laugh.
But he’s still using that tone of voice…
“Maybe?” I squeak because he sounds serious, but… he can’t be. Right?
Slinging his arm behind the back of the seat beside him, he chortles at my discombobulation. “Sanders was silently moved to another school with an associate chapter, but Dyers’s potential meant Oakwood wanted him to stay here.”
“Potential? He sucks.”
“You’re only saying that because Zach, ergo you, doesn’t like him. His stats last season were pretty impressive.”
“Who says ‘ergo’ in a sentence?”
“Me.” He reaches for more popcorn and I let him.
“Sounds like you’re prime material for the Rhos.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“How is Dyers allowed on campus if he’s a sex offender? It’s not right.”
“One more strike and he’s out. NHL be damned.”
Fascinated, I ask, “Are the Rhos the bad guys?”
“Probably, if my dad was one of them.”
There’s a lot to unpack there, but unlike me, Callan doesn’t tend to overshare. “Any other zingers for me? What do you know about me?”
His grin’s sheepish. “Mostly what you already told me.”
“You sneak!” Still, enjoying this side of Callan, I mock, “Why am I glad that you sat next to me in philosophy again?”
“I don’t know,” he admits. “I’m glad I did too. Oakwood might have sucked otherwise.”
“You’re a long way from home.” My tone softens. “It must be hard.”
“Mostly, it’s how many people there are.
” He rubs his chin. "I can deal with the distance. That’s what vid calls are for.
But the noise and—” When Connecticut scores, the boos confirm how noisy it is despite the low-ticket revenues.
But he joins in when I hiss my disdain. “—the people are a lot to get used to.”
“You’re not from a city?”
“No. That’s why I figured college here would be neat. Near the border in case Devere decides to run Canadians out of the country,” he drawls, “but still an Ivy League with a hockey team that doesn’t suck too bad. They’re lucky they have some key players or they’d be screwed.”
“I’m telling you they won’t suck at all this year. Now that Zach’s on board, Pecan will live up to his nickname.”
The few remaining kernels of popcorn in his hand tumble to the floor. “He earned the name Pecan from hockey?”
“There’s something your research didn’t pick up on, huh?” I counter with a wide grin that widens further when he flips me the bird.
“Tell me, oh wise one, how the two are related?”
“He isn’t named for the nut. Pe = Peter.
Can = Canard.” I shrug. “Peter Can. Pe - Can. It was this dumb mantra Zach made up when they were Mites. Pecan choked so badly on the ice that his dad was going to pull him from games because it’s not cheap, you know?
Especially for goalies, with all the equipment.
And Pecan spent more time terrified than enjoying himself.
“Anyway, he and Zach wanted to stick together so he told me whenever ‘Peter’ froze, I had to scream Pecan. So I did. And here we are.”
“Zach’s not the only one on track for the NHL.” Callan swipes popcorn crumbs off his lap.
“Yeah, for sure. It’ll suck when teams draft them apart. They won’t like playing against each other or being split up. This past year sucked for us all.”
“Huh, you’re really that close?”
“We are. It brings us back to what I was saying earlier. He resents hockey enough that he wants a career, too, and he never wanted it to split us up like it did with his parents.
“He studied at a community college last year and played for the local junior team, all so he could be with his mom. Then, he came back to us.
“Because his dad is who he is, the coach let him be a walk-on and, of course, he’s awesome so that quickly turned into this.”
“But you said it yourself. NHL teams will draft them apart. And, what about you? You won’t—”
“I’ll go wherever one of them does.”
His eyes bug. “Seriously?”
“I know it’s dumb, but hell, the big teams are all in cities. It’s not like it’d hurt my career, considering my dad wants me to work for his sports agency.
“If he signs on either Pecan or Zach, then I could be the intermediary for them.”
“Laissez-Faire” by Camden roars in the background when Pecan makes a save.
“You don’t look too happy about the prospect.”
“About the job. Not the fact it’ll keep me in their world. I always hated the idea of life tearing our friendship apart.”
“That’s not why you should pick a job.”
“It’ll be fine. My dad’s paying my way through college on the proviso that I follow him. If I really hate it, then I can always go back to school.”
Lies.
But it’s what I tell myself when I flunk yet another essay.
“What if Pecan goes to LA and Zach’s in New York.”
“Firstly, that’ll never happen if his dad’s still a coach for the Stars. Secondly, it would suck and my carbon footprint would explode.”
“You have it all figured out.”
“Callan, I have nothing figured out. This is on a wing and a prayer and I’m two years away, max, from losing one of them to another city. But that’s two-years-older Denny’s problem.
“For now, I’m going to watch my buds fuck up, we’re going to enjoy college, and then we’ll deal with adulthood as it comes, all while my new study buddy keeps me from flunking and I show him that there’s more to college than the library.”
He holds out his fist for me to bump. This time, we actually bump fists. “You and me both. I was kinda feeling a little insecure back there.”
“Ha. None of us know what we’re doing. Even Zach. You don’t have any plans?”
“I plan to expose myself to the city long enough for my older brothers to stop treating me like a noob.”
“Why do they do that?”
“I’m a small-town guy who’s very happy in his small-town world.”
“Hate to break it to you, kiddo, but this isn’t exactly NYC.”
He shudders. “It’s city enough for me. You know college is a rite of passage. Which is bullshit the media and the government sold us to indebt—”
“You a conspiracy nut, Callan?” I interrupt, eyes gleaming.
“I’m a truth nut.”
“I already knew that I liked you, but this just rams it home.” I offer him some more popcorn. “Here, tell me what you think about President Devere and his latest immigration bullshit.”
“Well…”