Chapter 26 #2
“I don’t know Addison all that well,” Pecan inserts, “but she’s at almost every party me and Hailey go to. I’ve never seen her that scared of her own shadow before.”
“Me neither,” Mason butts in. “She’s the instigator, not the one who sits back and takes it.”
Alec straightens in his seat and don’t ask me why, but I get the feeling he’s trying to change the subject. “Zach, we need to talk about your attitude—”
“And not Dyers’s? He’s the problem. Zach finishes what Dyers starts.
” Gregg’s chuckle turns nasty. “You need to shut the fuck up about shit that’s happening on your watch and that you’re incapable of handling.
You’re the worst captain we’ve had since I’ve been on the team and that’s because of who your daddy is.
You can’t keep anyone under control, Alec.
“Dyers’s doing drugs. You know he is because at least three of us have come to you to complain about him sniffing the stuff in the locker room, but you do sweet fuck all about it.”
“Neither does Coach,” Joker grouses.
“If anyone’s a problem,” Gregg continues, “it’s that cokehead. All I saw today was a teammate who’d back me in a fight if some fucker got in my face.
“I meant it when I agreed with Pecan. I’m in this for fun. There’s no fun to be had when everyone from the captain up is biased and in favor of a man like Dyers. Not after what went down last year.”
The words light up in my brain like a Christmas tree. “When he assaulted someone?”
En masse, the team grows still.
Alec’s the only one not surprised by my accusation, which tells me a lot.
Lex clears her throat, but from her pallor, I can tell she heard every word.
I send her an apologetic look, but she’s purposely hyperfixating on the checkerboard floor.
“Did you want to order replacements?”
There’s no humor in her words anymore. No lightheartedness.
Was she lying to Denny?
Is she the woman Dyers and his buddy hurt?
We place our orders, but Joker isn’t willing to let the subject drop. “Is that what happened?”
“I have it on good authority that it did. What did you think happened last year?”
“We were never given the details, just told that there was an incident. The moron he hung around with was suspended from the team and got yeeted to another school. Derek couldn’t play for a couple games but then he was back. Would the board of governors have allowed that if he’d…?”
“Of course they would. A name like his?” I sneer. “Especially with a captain on board who’ll look the other way.”
“I don’t appreciate the insinuation—”
“Fuck you, Alec,” Pecan shouts. “If I’d known he sexually assaulted someone, then I’d never have agreed to play with him.”
I’m so proud of my best friend but…
“You didn’t know?”
“You think I’d have played with the asshole if I had? To be honest, I thought the suspensions and that kid moving onto another school was drug related.”
Gregg and Mason nod.
“Me too.”
“Same.”
“You think Dyers’s a junkie, that’s nothing to his bud.
What a psycho he was.” Joker rubs his chin.
“You’re sure about this, Zach?” He raises that same hand when I glower at him.
“Just saying, he’s a bragger. I’m not sure if he’d have been able to keep his trap shut if he managed to get away with something like that. ”
He has a point.
“My source is unparalleled,” I tell him, stealing Denny’s adjective.
“His father probably gave the college a massive donation to smooth things over,” Gregg muses. “That knob jockey.”
“All we knew, pretty much, was that his game collapsed before he was suspended and they let him back as if nothing happened, despite a few of us questioning Coach about his comeback when he was on drugs. A couple of us even offered to go on the record about it.”
“That they let him return is just bullshit,” I growl.
Cutting a look at Lex, I find the ordinarily sassy server’s shaking. Eyes large in her pale face, she’s listening into the argument from the counter like she can’t stop herself.
Alec takes my distraction as an opportunity to slide out of the booth and scamper off like the rat he is. I scowl at his exit but let him go because we’ll get more done without his presence.
“He knew,” Mason seethes, banging his fist on the table so hard that the container holding salt, pepper, sugar, ketchup, and mustard rattles.
“Yeah, he did. What a piece of shit.” Gregg grits his teeth. “Think we should quit the team? I don’t want to play with either of those slimy fuckers—”
“Why should we be the ones who quit?” I reason.
“They’re not going to push either of them out, Zach.” Pecan rubs his temple. It’s a surprisingly somber look on a man who takes nothing apart from hockey seriously.
“You didn’t know about any of this?” I can’t stop myself from asking twice.
This kind of shit—the cover-up—it’s too big to fly under the radar.
“One day, Dyers enters the locker room with a set of black eyes and a busted nose. We were coming up to the conference quarterfinals. We needed to win to stay in the competition,” Pecan states with a crack of his knuckles.
“It’s no excuse, man, but your mom had just had that second-to-last stroke and Denny and I were in pieces. It’s why my game went south.”
Gregg pats him on the back. “Alec told us that Dyers got into a fight with a door and the door won.”
“He played like shit,” Joker butts in. “Pecan looked like Hellebuyck in comparison. No offense, bro.”
“None taken.” Pecan tears up one of the paper napkins. “My game, hell, I fell apart.”
His misery speaks louder than words. His grief clear. And I’m a shitty friend for appreciating that I’m not the only one mourning Mom. It’s not something we talk about mostly because I made it clear when I moved into the apartment that it was an off-limits topic.
“But we all knew he was a junkie.” Joker sheepishly ducks his head. “I thought they’d run into trouble with a dealer or something.”
Gregg confides, “It fit. I think his folks must have put him in rehab over the summer break because he was barely functioning back then. Right, Mason?”
“Yeah, he was almost always high.”
“Once we were out of the running of the Frozen Four, there was no reason to hang around with Alec or Dyers. Both move in different circles than us and they’re so up each other’s asses, they’re eating shit half the damn time,” Joker mutters.
“It’s that fraternity bullshit,” Gregg remarks. “I hate that kinda thing. Mason and I room together. Pecan and Denver are tight, obvs, and he’s with Hailey. Joker is buds with a couple guys on the team, and it’s the same for the rest. Only Dyers and Alec are associated with that frat.”
“You’re saying it’s some kind of Rhos’ conspiracy?” I ponder.
“Zach, you know this shit happens. And you also know what the higher-ups will tuck away from the public eye to protect their reputation,” Gregg points out.
I hate that he’s right.
From the corner of my eye, I see Dopie push our replacement meals through the serving hatch.
Slipping into the booth, I order, “Do we all agree that we should talk about how we’re going to move forward?”
Joker scrubs a hand over his head. “Let me call the rest of the team. We have to present a united front.”
As the others concur, I hide my grim satisfaction.
I still want to kill that asshole for calling my Denny names, but I’ll settle for taking away the one thing every hockey player holds dear to their hearts…
The game itself.