30. Luca #3
Icouldn’t remember any of the players’ names, and they all looked the same to me, bulked up in pads and with mouthguards in and helmets on. I fought the urge to wrinkle my nose at the frankly rank stench of the locker rooms.
Maybe I was grateful my father had never wanted me to play team sports. Though the locker rooms in the boxing gyms I hung out in really didn’t smell much different. There were just less bodies so it wasn’t quite so overwhelming.
Lynx stood at the front of the room and sighed heavily. “Okay, so another loss. Not the end of the world, guys! We’ve only been working together for a hot minute. Chins up!”
This time I did wrinkle my nose. Because they fucking sucked.
They’d gotten their asses kicked. Again.
Despite the extra practices Lynx had them doing.
I couldn’t fault him at all. He might have had no coaching experience, but he’d been turning up here in the early mornings, immediately after his night shifts guarding Nyah.
And he hadn’t complained once, despite the fact he was probably only sleeping for a couple of hours, and all of them in the middle of the day.
It had only made me like him more. Which was a fucking problem because I already liked him too much. Why couldn’t he be a cunt and tell me to go get fucked when I’d dumped this team on his lap? Why the hell had he lapped it up like I’d actually done him a favor when it was me who owed him?
My phone had been buzzing silently in my pocket ever since second period when we’d been down by eleven points. I hadn’t answered it because it was my father, ringing to shout down the line that he only backed winners, not losers, and what the fuck was I doing with this team?
I pulled out my phone and stared down at it as it went to voicemail for the fourteenth time in a row, Lynx’s pep talk still going on in the background.
I should have known better than to ignore my father.
The locker room door opened so forcefully it slammed back against the wall, the noise catching the attention of the entire team and halting Lynx’s pep talk mid-sentence.
My father strode in, business suit in place, as always, Enzo two steps behind him, Bruno and Viktor bringing up the rear with a younger guy I didn’t recognize.
He took up a spot on the wall at the back of the room, the hood on his sweatshirt loosely hanging over his head, his arms folded across his chest.
Lynx did his best to hide a sigh. “Mr. Guerra—”
My father simply held up one hand, silencing him. He faced the team. “What. The fuck. Was that?”
An ashamed silence fell over the room, and I rolled my eyes at my father’s theatrics, even though I knew it was directed at me as much as it was at the team.
Lynx tried again. “This team has only had a few weeks—”
Dad spun and glared at him. “Is that the total sum of their playing careers? A few weeks? Because that’s how they’re playing!
Have some of you even seen a puck before?
Because there was an awful lot of you idiots just standing there, staring at it as it whizzed by you!
” He turned to me. “You got anything to say?”
I really didn’t. They sucked. I knew it. They knew it. What I wanted to say was why the hell had my father bought this team, expecting some sort of miracle?
He pointed at one of the guys sitting on the bench in front of him. “Jamison. You’re out. French, you’re now starting.”
Lynx’s brow furrowed. “Who the hell is French?”
The guy at the back of the room who’d come in with my father’s entourage raised his hand. “That’d be me.”
The entire team swiveled around. None of them pleased, and I couldn’t blame them. I wasn’t exactly thrilled that my father had walked in here and taken over the entire thing, even though it was supposed to be my project.
Dad walked over to French with a beaming smile of pride and clapped him on the shoulder. “French is going to win us some games, aren’t you, son?”
French’s jaw clicked, but he nodded. “Sure.”
I eyed the two of them. Something was off.
Lynx cleared his throat. “With all due respect, Mr. Guerra, I’m sure French here is great, but games aren’t won with a single player.”
Carlos narrowed his eyes. “Then get your players to give him some backup. I found you some talent. It’s up to you to work out how to use it.”
He walked past me, his eagle-eyed gaze catching mine, and the warning in them clear.
Make it fucking work.
Enzo smirked at me as he passed and paused in front of me, just long enough to murmur, “Try not to fuck this one next time you get drunk, hey, nephew? I’ve heard he likes dick as much as you do.”
I fought the urge to punch him in his stupid smug mouth.
French wasn’t my type. Hot, yes, with dirty-blond hair just long enough to curl up a little at the base of his neck, and a freshly shaven jaw.
His shoulders were broad beneath his hoodie, and I was sure he’d have abs and biceps cut from steel if he was actually as good a player as my father was making out.
But he was too young. Too pretty.
And he had nothing on Lynx.