29. Brayden
brAYDEN
MONTHS LATER
There’s nothing like the smell of a post-practice dive bar—that sacred combination of stale beer, fryer grease, and the faint whiff of regret soaked permanently into the floorboards.
It hit me the moment Crosby and I shouldered inside.
The place sat wedged between a bodega and a pawn shop, and the neon sign above the door buzzed so unevenly it looked like it had heart arrhythmia.
Perfect.
We needed something easy tonight. Something low-pressure. Something that didn’t involve management, fans, or the high-def cameras waiting for one of us to say something that could be turned into clickbait by morning.
Crosby slapped the bar top twice and pointed to the taps. “Two of whatever won’t give us food poisoning.”
The bartender—a dude with a beard so long it should’ve had a pension plan—grunted and poured us each a draft in cloudy pint glasses. When he set them down, the foam looked half-hearted at best, but hey, we weren’t here for aesthetics.
“You ready for Myla’s party tomorrow night?” Crosby asked, lifting his glass and taking a long swallow like he’d been held underwater all morning.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I said, though my voice sounded tight even to me. “She’s turning twenty-one. Twenty-one. Where the hell did that time go?”
“I thought she was seventeen like… last season?” Crosby leaned on the bar, face scrunching like the information personally offended him.
“Dude, same.” I chuckled to myself before taking in a long swig of warmish beer.
“Well,” he said, wiping foam from his lip, “I know a bunch of the guys are looking forward to it.”
“You think so?” I tried to keep my voice casual, but some part of me—the overprotective big brother part—perked up at the idea of the guys caring about her beyond the “this is Brayden’s kid sister” boundary.
“Yeah,” Crosby said. “She’s the sister to one of us and the girlfriend to another—she’s like our real MVP.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Don’t let Gavin hear you say that. His ego can’t take any more vitamin boosts.”
“Oh please,” Crosby scoffed. “That man wakes up confident. He pisses confidence. I bet he has a confidence scented candle in his house.”
I cracked up, shaking my head. “It probably smells like winning and arrogance.”
“And hair pomade,” he added.
We clinked glasses, losing it completely. It felt good—like the tension that had lived between my shoulder blades since the moment I’d found out Myla was dating Gavin finally loosened a notch.
“How’s your old lady?” I asked once my laughter settled.
Crosby groaned like I’d just asked him to run suicides. “A pain in my ass. She’s so pregnant she can’t even put her shoes on by herself anymore. Don’t get married and don’t have kids. Learn from my mistakes. Preserve your sanity.”
“I got off lucky,” I said honestly. “Karla doesn’t believe in marriage—thinks it takes away the romance or whatever—and the pill is a glorious invention.”
“I can drink to that.” He raised his beer. We clanked again.
And that’s when my phone lit up with Karla’s name.
Crosby looked over, eyebrow raised. Classic teammate curiosity.
“Yeah, babe?” I answered, trying to keep my voice light.
But the second she spoke, my heart damn near fell out of my chest.
“I know you’re having drinks and relaxing, but I really need you to come to my place.”
Her tone—tight, nervous, trembling even though she tried to cover it—punched adrenaline straight into my bloodstream.
I was already pushing off the stool. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m fine.”
But her voice said not fine.
Her voice said something’s wrong.
Her voice said get here now.
“We just need to talk about something really important.”
My pulse hammered. I didn’t even bother hiding how fast I threw cash on the bar. “I'm heading over right now.”
Crosby slid his hand over my shoulder. “Go, man. I got this,” he said, already snagging my empties and waving the bartender back over. “Text me if you need anything.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, already halfway to the door.
The cold night air hit my face like a slap, my breath fogging as I flagged down the first cab I saw.
Whatever this was…
Whatever Karla needed to tell me…
It had her voice shaking.
And that scared me more than anything happening on the ice ever could.
The cab didn’t pull up right away, so I paced the curb while my brain spun itself into knots.
Back inside, Crosby was probably explaining to the bartender why two professional athletes were slumming it in a place where the barstools wobbled like they were assembled with the emotional stability of wet cardboard.
Practice earlier had been rough—back-to-back drills, Coach in one of his “I’m not yelling, but I’m loud-talking aggressively” moods, and Gavin skating around like he owned the fucking rink but also like he had something to prove.
He kept chirping me about my shot accuracy until I nearly shoved him into the boards.
“Touch my sister again and I’ll make sure your teeth match that gap in your slapshot,” I’d growled.
He’d just grinned. “Relax, Bray. She likes me.”
God save me from team captains in love.
And yet… part of me respected the hell out of him. He worked harder than any player I’d ever seen. He protected his teammates like they were blood.
And Myla lit up when he was in the room. That was the kicker—the part I couldn’t ignore. The happiness I saw in her when Gavin entered a space was the kind you don’t bullshit your way into. She had been through enough crap to know the difference.
Still didn’t make it easy for me to picture them together.
Still didn’t make it simple to share a bench with him, pretending I wasn’t hyperaware of every chirp he sent her way.
Which was probably part of why I needed this beer with Crosby tonight.
Off-ice moments like these—sitting in bars where the lights were too dim, the music too loud, and the fries too salty—they kept me sane.
The NHL schedule was a meat grinder. Everyone thought scoring goals was the hard part.
Nah. The hard part was the head game—the never-ending spiral between wanting to be the best and being terrified you’re past your prime even when you’re in your twenties.
And now add real life into the mix—Karla and I dropping the L-bomb months ago, things getting serious in a way that made the ground feel both steadier and shakier at the same time.
She didn’t call unless she needed something.
And the quiver in her voice?
That wasn’t casual.
Finally, a cab slowed and I yanked the back door open. I barked Karla’s address and the taxi whisked into the bustling city streets. My knee bounced the whole ride, and the driver kept glancing at me in the mirror like he thought I was either tweaking or about to rob him.
Relax, man. I’m just emotionally constipated.
Great. Now even my inner monologue sounded like Crosby.
I tried calling Karla again—straight to voicemail. That didn’t settle me at all. My brain immediately jumped to the worst possible outcomes.
Had her piece-of-shit ex contacted her again?
Did something happen with work?
Was it something else?
Something worse?
I leaned my head against the cold window. The city blurred by—streetlights smearing into streaks, pedestrians bundled up and pushing through wind like they were in a survival documentary.
Everything felt heightened. Too loud. Too bright. Too tense.
It was the same sensation I got during playoff overtime—heart racing, chest tight, stomach hovering somewhere between hunger and nausea.
But this wasn’t the ice.
This was Karla.
The woman who made my life feel less like a series of breakaways and more like a place I could fucking breathe.
Whatever she needed to tell me…
I prayed it wasn’t something that would break that.