Chapter Ten
Gale stood at the window of his hotel room, watching the Minneapolis city skyline blur through the falling snow. Being a healthy
scratch hurt more than any check. His phone buzzed again—probably more notifications, another wave of online hate. He ignored
it. Why bother looking when he had their words tattooed on his brain?
Gale Knight? How ’bout like FAIL Knight!
Guess that big contract is buying him a nice view from the press box. #OverpaidOverRated
LMAO what a joke
Knight’s been invisible on the ice. Now he’s literally invisible. Progress?
Softest forward in the league. Charmin should sponsor this dude
What happened? Guy used to be a beast, now he’s playing like he’s scared of his own shadow
Bro gets millions to sit on his a**. Nice work if you can get it!
No room for passengers on the Regals
When did Gale Knight turn into Frail Knight? Guess success made you soft
I hear the minors are nice this time of year
A knock at the hotel room door startled him. Gale’s brow furrowed as he checked the time—nearly midnight. Who was this?
He opened the door to find Coach standing there, in his game-day suit, looking as crisp as he had during the press conference.
“Got some time?” Coach asked.
Hell, time’s all he had if he wasn’t playing. But Gale didn’t have the heart to snap back.
Instead he nodded, warily stepping aside to let him pass. A tense silence filled the room as Coach stalked to the floor-to-ceiling
windows, hands clasped behind his back. Gale perched on the edge of the bed, feeling like he was a kid waiting for a dressing
down.
“You know why I’m here?” Coach finally asked, without turning to face him.
Gale’s jaw clenched. “To tell me I need to step it up? That I’m not living up to my potential?” He tried to keep the bitterness
out of his voice, but it seeped through anyway. “That the ice under me is so thin I’m about to crash through, like what happened
to Tuck last year?” Their goalie had been playing in England when he fell through thin ice during a pickup game on a lake—the
accident left him in a coma for weeks, though thankfully he’d pulled through.
Coach turned, eyes narrowed, but his voice remained level. “I’m not here to apologize for benching you. It was the right call, and deep down, you know it too. I keep saying that I see something in you—something that’s getting buried under all that garbage in your head.
Gale wanted to argue, but the fight drained out of him. Coach was right, and they both knew it.
“Your old man and I,” Coach said, a hint of a bitter smile playing at the corners of his mouth, “we had some battles back
in the day. Fierce rivals.”
Gale nodded. He’d heard the war stories, and seen the footage of Jim Knight and Coach going at it back in their prime.
“So when you started coming up, people talked. They assumed I’d have it out for you because of old grudges.” Coach shook his
head. “But that’s not how I operate. This isn’t about your dad, Knight, and it never was. This is about you. I don’t like
speaking ill of people, especially to their kids. But you need to hear this. Your old man . . . he wasn’t just tough on the
ice. He struggled with demons off it.
“There was one road trip, must’ve been about a year before his accident. We were in Chicago, and had just lost a crucial game.
Most of the guys were licking their wounds, trying to regroup. But your dad? He went out and hit the bars. Hard.
“Next morning, he didn’t show up. We’re all worried sick, thinking maybe he got into an accident or something. Finally, around
noon, he stumbles into the hotel lobby, still half drunk, lipstick on his collar.
“Your mom had been calling me, frantic. Said he hadn’t been answering his hotel phone, missed wishing you a happy birthday.
She was trying to cover for him, but I could hear the worry in her voice. I pulled him aside, tried to talk some sense into
him. You know what he said? ‘Mind your own business. What I do off the ice is mine.’
“It wasn’t just a onetime thing either. The drinking, the girls . . . it became a pattern. And every time, it was your mom and you kids who paid the price.
“I’m not telling you this to hurt you, Gale. But I see you struggling, and I wonder if you’re carrying some of his baggage.
His mistakes, his regrets—they’re not yours to bear. What I see in you is a different man: a stronger man.”
Coach took a deep breath.
“And I genuinely think you’ve got what it takes to make a mark.”
Gale nodded, but inside, his thoughts churned. He’d turned twenty-five this year, the same age his dad had been when he’d
held his newborn son. Back then, his dad must have looked down at baby Gale and sworn he’d be different, be better than his
own father. Three months ago, when Brooke called from the hospital about Benji’s birth, all the memories had crashed in at
once—not just of his dad’s failures, but images from those early photos where his father was still smiling, still good. Now
here was Gale, Uncle Gale, standing at that same crossroads. What if this was how it started for his dad too—thinking you were in control until
suddenly you weren’t, watching everything slip through your fingers no matter how hard you tried to hold on?
Coach moved to sit in the armchair across from Gale, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “Something is holding you
back.”
Gale stared down at his skates, gut churning. God, he used to live for this sport. The ice, the roar, that feeling like he
could fly. Now every game scared the shit out of him. How could he tell anyone he was terrified of becoming his father? Not
the dad who’d taught him to skate. The other one. The one who’d gotten so caught up in being a legend that he’d lost himself
in a blur of parties and pills, until hockey’s golden boy became a cautionary tale.
“I just . . . I don’t know,” Gale managed, the lie tasting bitter on his tongue.
Coach’s eyes narrowed, clearly not buying it, but he didn’t push. Instead, he said, “The ones who make a mark find a way to play their own game, not anyone else’s.”
“I’m trying.” He hated how weak he sounded. “But I keep failing. It’s like I’m stuck in this avalanche and there isn’t an
end.”
Coach nodded, sympathy flashing in his eyes. “That’s why I’m up here. Not to tear you down, but to tell you to keep going,
get at whatever’s blocking you. Because you have the ability to be a generational player. I know it. I still believe it.”
Gale felt a spark of hope kindle in his chest, quickly drowned by another wave of that familiar choking panic. What if those
flashes of brilliance were just setting everyone up for disappointment? His heart was hammering so hard he could barely think
straight—the same racing pulse he got now every time he stepped on the ice, every time someone said they were counting on
him. The more people trusted him, built their plans around him, the tighter his chest got, the harder it was to breathe, that
voice in his head getting louder and louder about how much farther there was to fall.
“Thanks,” Gale managed, forcing a small smile. “I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
Coach leaned back, studying him intently. “You know, Knight, it’s okay to love this game for no other reason but that it brings
you joy.”
“I don’t know if I remember that feeling,” Gale admitted, surprised by the longing in his voice. “Like I can mentally remember
it. But in my body, it’s just . . . gone.”
Coach stood, a frown tugging at his lips. “That’s it, isn’t it. And I don’t know how to tell you how to get that back. You
have to walk the road alone.”
With that, he said good night, leaving Gale alone with the suffocating weight of his thoughts.
He moved back to the window, the city lights blurring through the rain and his own unshed tears.
For a brief moment, he felt a glimmer of something—not quite hope, but perhaps the faintest possibility of it.
The path ahead was still shrouded in darkness, fraught with uncertainty, but maybe, just maybe, he could take those first tentative steps.
He opened up his phone, toxic, but he was a moth to a flame. The screen erupted in an instant, a digital hellscape of more
hate:
This is what happens when you draft on name
Trade this bum already
My grandma has a better chance of a comeback and she’s dead
His thumb scrolled frantically, a masochistic hunger for more pain. The words bled together, a howl of failure. His chest
tightened, breaths coming in ragged gasps.
This was the truth, wasn’t it? No matter what Coach said. If he dug deep he knew the truth. He knew the real Gale Knight,
stripped bare, standing alone in the dark.
Twenty-five years old and already feeling everything slip through his fingers.
His stomach twisting every time someone said they were counting on him.
His father’s son, finding it easier to pull away than to stay, to let people close enough to realize that maybe he wasn’t
the man they thought he was. That maybe he never would be.
But then, a text buzzed. It was from Harriet.
This is a detour, not a dead end.
An ember of warmth flickered in his chest, so faint he almost missed it.
Harriet’s quiet support felt like a fragile lifeline he was afraid to grasp too tightly.
Every time she smiled at him, he felt something in his chest unwind, like maybe he could breathe again.
With her, he didn’t have to pretend or live up to impossible expectations.
He could just be. But his stomach twisted at the thought of letting anyone new get close enough to see the cracks.
Especially her. How quickly would that warmth in her eyes fade when it sunk in that a guy who seemed to have everything couldn’t get out of his own way?
The more she saw of him, the harder his heart pounded, that shitty instinct to pull away wanting to kick in before she had the chance to.
Setting the phone aside with trembling hands, Gale took a shaky breath; a mix of quiet resolution and gnawing uncertainty
settled over him. The clock was ticking, and he might fail spectacularly, but Mom and Brooke had spent years showing him that
not everyone leaves, that staying was possible. Maybe, just maybe, if he could summon every ounce of courage they’d helped
him find, he could prove to himself that he was more than just his father’s son—that he knew how to let someone in without
waiting for them to disappear.