Chapter 5
5
Oscar
“Don’t we get one phone call?” Cian slumped beside me on the bench of the holding cell. After our dramatic arrest on the beach, the cops drove us to the nearest police station and, after stripping Cian and Cam of their phones, they dumped us in this cell. That was when we’d discovered my phone was in the car — along with my suit — and was now sitting in an impound lot.
“Do you even know anyone’s number to call, if they let us?” Cam asked miserably. He’d raged right alongside us when we were first thrown in here, but seemed to have settled into a level of acceptance that I refused to attain.
I was getting married today, dammit, even if I had to perform a jailbreak to do it.
“I could call Coach,” Cian offered.
“He’s not your coach anymore. I’m sure he has other screw-ups to deal with. He doesn’t need to hear from us.”
We all hummed sadly at the thought. I missed the team like crazy, and if I didn’t get a call from my agent soon, I’d have to think about finding a real job. The idea of working a nine-to-five desk job was almost as depressing as our current predicament.
“I’ll call Fraser. He can bail us out, at least.”
The plan wasn’t perfect, but as the resident nepo baby, Fraser had the funds to help and the family connections to make it happen fast.
My stomach growled, reminding me we hadn’t eaten lunch before this all went down.
“How are you hungry right now?” Cian asked, the pitch of his voice edging upward. I shrugged.
“It’s not my fault I’m bigger than you. I need more to keep me going.”
“You’re a giant. I don’t think anyone’s as big as you, but if you go crazy on the food, you’ll be too heavy to skate when we get the call-up.”
The funny thing was, there was someone bigger than me. And he was about to be my brother-in-law, if we ever got to make our phone call.
But he might have had a point about how much I’d been eating. I made a mental note to get back in the gym after the honeymoon.
Cian had been convinced we’d be recruited to the same team since we played our last game for Fox U, so he’d continued to train harder than ever in the gym and dragged my slack ass along for the ride when I wasn’t wrapped up in homemaking with the love of my life.
“O’Leary. Time to make your call.” An officer opened the door with one hand on his weapon as though he thought we were poised to lunge at him.
“Do we all get a call?” I asked.
“No.”
Ugh. Jail sucked.
“Were you thinking of calling Mia? She might be worried,” Cam asked as Cian walked ahead of Officer Scaredy Cat toward the far end of the room.
“Hell no. Hopefully she’ll be in the middle of some pampering thing with Violet and by the time she’s ready to walk down the aisle we’ll have fixed all this and she never has to know. Perfect. Wedding.”
I knew damn well I was in denial. For one, we still hadn’t fixed the venue issue. Given the current state of our freedoms, it wouldn’t be the best idea to return to the beach ceremony idea.
A short time later, Cian came back flashing us a promising thumbs up, and then we went back to waiting.
“I swear, the first thing we’re doing when Fraser gets us out of here is swinging by a Wendy’s,” I groaned as my stomach let out another complaint.
The ventilation in the holding cell sucked and my t-shirt stuck to my shoulders. If we didn’t get out soon, I’d not only be getting married in jeans and a t-shirt, I’d stink of sweat and be in a hangry rage too. What a magical way to start a marriage.
“You’d better be fucking joking about the Wendy’s, boy. You two are the best bet of the lot for a draft pick this year. Can’t have you going up to the big league and embarrassing us, now can we?”
Like a foul mouthed angel descending from heaven in a too-tight Franklin U polo and cargo pants, Coach Markson strode through the room and waited by the door for someone to let us out.
“Hurry it up, Rudy. You weren’t the best equipment manager, but you used to know your way around a set of fucking keys.”
The officer dipped his head, muttering a soft yes, Coach as he opened our way out.
“I called Fraser,” Cian said, his brows pinched in confusion as we made our way through the station.
“Yeah, and I called Coach. Who else has the experience with bailing out idiot players?” Our old D-man wandered in, smirking at our miserable states.
“I resemble that remark.” Cian sniffed.
“Get your shit together. We’ve got a wedding to get to,” Coach barked. Police officers rushed to organize paperwork and retrieve our personal belongings under the eye of a man who had probably taught a lot of them in their own college years if their blind obedience was anything to go by.
Within minutes we found ourselves processed — let off with a warning and a promise it wouldn’t appear on our record — and out on the front stairs of the station.
As we headed for Coach’s car, I stalled out.
“We still don’t have a venue. The yacht club double booked and scoping a beach out is what landed us in jail in the first place.”
Fraser stared hard at the ground while Cian and Cam exchanged defeated looks.
“I hate to say it, but I think we need to call Mia.” I ignored Cam’s well-meaning, but stupid advice. We couldn’t ruin this day for her. It had to be perfect. Like her. She deserved the world and if I couldn’t get our wedding right, what hope did I have for our marriage?
The slam of a car door cut off my thought spiral.
“I have a place you can use. Get your asses in the car and I’ll tell you the address to send out to your guests.”
I had completely forgotten about the guests.
While Cian and Cam texted everyone they knew on the guest list, I sat like a stupid lump in the front seat of Coach’s Range Rover. No phone, no suit, no way to help the guys who were trying their hardest to save my special day.
“Get out of your head, kid. Marriage isn’t about the wedding day. It’s about every day you wake up and decide you’ll do everything you can to make life work with the person you’ve chosen. Don’t hang your hat on a perfect day. Make it a good enough life.”
I let Coach’s words play through my head for the rest of the drive. He really was a smart dude, which, of course I knew because he’d done so well coaching us on the ice for our college careers, but realizing he was a human who could teach us life lessons was possibly the biggest shock in a day full of the unexpected.
I was so lost in my thoughts that it took me a while to notice when we turned down a dirt road and pulled up in front of a farm house that looked like a cottage-core wet dream.
“Whoa,” Cian muttered as we piled out of the car.
Coach shrugged. “It should work all right. We have a pavilion out in the gardens that you can use for the ceremony, and plenty of room for parking.” He spoke with a calm that hardly seemed to do justice to the huge hole he’d dug us out of with a click of his fingers. The only evidence that it meant more than a simple offhanded offer was the fact he’d said several sentences without cursing once.
“Naww, you really do care,” I gushed, knocking his shoulder with a fist but still not brave enough to try for a hug.
“Quit it, idiot. Come inside, let’s see if we can find a button down and tie that’ll fit you.”
“You’ve saved my life today, Coach.”
“Yeah, yeah. Just make sure you and Tweedle Dumb include me in your speeches when you win your first Stanley Cup.”
Best. Coach. Ever.