20. Rhett
RHETT
“Those dirty fucking bastards!” Brynn barked as we all slammed into the locker room.
Victoria clicked angrily in her heels behind her daughter, ushering the rest of us into the locker room. For the first time all season, things were eerily quiet, despite the incessant barking of the women.
Jett was having the time of his life, though. “Didn’t know those two had mouths on them.”
I just snickered before I took my seated spot in front of my locker.
Coach stood before us with Victoria and Bry on either side of him, their faces beet red and fuming. Victoria had never looked more powerful, standing there in her pencil skirt and her heels with our team jersey slipped over her plump curves.
I needed to get her a jersey with my name and number on it.
Coach drew in a deep breath. “We played a good season, boys.”
That whipped Victoria’s face up to his. “The hell does that mean? We aren’t out of this. Not yet. We’re still—”
Coach shot her a look and I felt every muscle in my body wind up at once.
I didn’t leap to my feet.
That look was the wrong call. It was the way you shut down a player who’d gotten too lippy in the locker room, not the way you talked to the woman who owned the building you stood in.
Coach was tired and he was frustrated and he was wrong, and I was about thirty seconds from telling him so in front of the entire roster.
I didn’t.
Because Victoria Caldwell had been running this franchise for fourteen years without me stepping in to defend her, and the second I started doing it in front of the team was the second she stopped being the owner in this room.
She was already opening her mouth to say something back.
I’d watched her drag harder men than Coach across the boardroom carpet without ever raising her voice.
She didn’t need me jumping up to fight her battle.
I tightened my grip around my hockey stick. Not to hold my anger back. To remind myself that the most useful thing I could do for her right now was let her handle it the way she’d handled everything else.
Coach rubbed his hands down his face. “When a double forfeit—”
Before he could even get his words out, a knock came at our locker room door.
“What?!” Coach barked.
And when the door swung open, it was one of the officials.
Bry took a step forward, but Coach put out his arm, preventing her from taking any more steps toward the man.
I stood and greeted him with a nod. “How can we help you?”
The official stood there with his hands slipped into his pockets. “Our playback cameras don’t show enough detail as to what really happened out on that ice.”
“It’s clear what happened on that ice,” Victoria said flatly.
The official looked at her before nodding solemnly. “Off the record, the Pirates are known for playing dirty. It’s why we always keep a fresh eye out for anything they may pull on the ice.”
“Is Moose all right?” I asked.
The official nodded at me. “He’s heading back this way now. I wanted to beat him here and let you know that despite the double forfeit, both teams are still eligible for the wildcard round of games.”
“You know they don’t deserve that,” Victoria glowered.
The official simply shrugged. “Even so, without clearer cameras, we can’t—”
“Fuck the clearer cameras! I was in the goddamn VIP booth and I saw what the hell happened up there! You don’t get—”
“Mom,” Bry said softly.
Victoria held still, and I watched her jaw work. I wasn’t sure if she was grinding her teeth or biting down onto her tongue, but she tried her hardest.
I hated how worked up this had her.
“Even so,” the official began again, “without clearer cameras, we have to default to what we saw in real time. However.”
“However…?” Coach asked.
“However,” the official said with a nod of his head, “we studied the helmet. That puck was shoved in between those bars in a very distinct fashion. You don’t get a puck stuck like that without aim.
The chances of it happening naturally are too low according to one of the other officials I’ve deliberated with. ”
I looked over at Victoria and practically watched her fucking hackles rise. She wanted answers, so I cleared my throat.
“Get to the point, we have a goalie to check on,” I said.
“Rhett,” Coach warned.
Victoria shot me a grateful look, however, and that was all that mattered.
The official gave me a warning look before clearing his throat. “The game has been forfeited and struck off the books, but it has also been found, after doctors looked over their team as well, that their team is drunk.”
All of us fell silent. “Sorry, what?”
The official looked over at me. “Their center who shot that puck at your goalie in the first place? His blood-alcohol level is twice the legal limit. How he skated around on the ice like that, I’m not even sure. But it prompted us to test the team.”
“What did you find?” Coach asked, finding his voice.
The official looked over at him. “Two of their other team members have alcohol in their systems right now as well. That constitutes their fourth match penalty this season, among other things, which leaves them ineligible for the wildcard game with the New York Bulldogs.”
The team that lost against the Canadians this week.
All of us collectively held our breath before he continued.
“So congratulations, Vegas Vipers,” the official said, “you’re headed to the wildcard game where you’ll face off with New York for a chance at the championship game against Canada’s team.”
The official looked around the room, but the only one to move was Coach. With a nod of his head, the official left our locker room, the door thudding closed behind him.
I expected the locker room to erupt into cheers and applause.
But all we did was turn to Coach just in time to watch him draw in a deep breath.
“If a game forfeiture was going to happen, I’m glad it happened this way.
” He let that hang in the silent air for a while before he continued.
“Because when all is said and done, the only people on that ice who have your backs are the ones standing in this room right now.”
All of us looked around at one another as Coach slipped his arm around Bry.
I wanted nothing more than to march over there and wrap Victoria up in my arms.
“So we battle it out with the New York Bulldogs next weekend. We will keep our regular workout schedule throughout the week. No deviations. No distractions. No additions or subtractions.” He scanned the room, eyeballing every single one of us.
“And I expect all of you to have your heads screwed on straight for that game. Understood?”
“Yes, Coach,” we all answered in unison.
“And Jett?”
“Yep?” my best friend piped up beside me.
Coach pointed at him. “Replace that fucking stick, you numbskull. I know you cracked it out there on the ice. Don’t you let me see you on that ice next weekend with that stick.”
Jett grinned. “No wrapping it in duct tape, got it.”
Coach looked over at Victoria. “Anything you want to add?”
Her eyes landed on me, and for a split second, nothing else mattered.
Nothing else existed. It was just her and me in that locker room, and I still saw that anger simmering behind her eyes.
She was hopped up on adrenaline, ready to pummel someone’s face in.
It wasn’t until Jett nudged me that I blinked and looked away.
And when I scanned the room, I saw the entire team volleying their heads back and forth between the two of us.
Like a goddamn tennis match.
Victoria smoothed her hands down her pencil skirt. “I’m going to need a pair of my own hockey skates if we’re going to do that again.”
And just like that, the locker room erupted into cacophonous laughter.
“Miss C! Let me tell you,” Jett said as he stood from his perched position, “I ain’t ever seen a woman like that trek out onto the ice like you and Bry did.”
“Yeah,” Moose said as he came tearing through the locker room doors, “that was some pretty awesome stuff. Hate that I missed it, what with my head beneath someone’s asshole and all.”
“Moose!” Bry exclaimed.
She pulled away from Coach and rushed toward him, throwing her arms around his neck for a tight hug. Victoria came up behind her, chucking her finger beneath Moose’s chin as she studied the soft bruise all of us now saw beneath the fluorescent lighting of the locker room.
“Just the bruise?” Victoria asked.
Moose nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
She lowered her finger. “I want a copy of the doctor’s files for my records.”
He nodded. “Already told ‘em, Miss Caldwell. I got it put on your desk before I came in here.”
She patted his arm before turning back to Coach. “Seriously, though. Skates. I’m not doing that again in heels. You guys are on your own the next time around.”
Jett barked with laughter. “Hey, just give her a bullhorn and we can make those bitches cry before they ever start the doggie pile.”
That tugged a soft smile across Victoria’s face as the locker room fell apart in laughter once more. She gave Moose a one-armed hug before he made his way to his locker. I stood long enough to pat him on his back while Coach ushered him to sit down.
He plopped down onto the bench in front of his locker, pressing the ice pack to his face, and sighed heavily.
“So the New York Big Shots, huh?” he asked with a crooked grin. “You know they’re weak on their backsteps, right?”
Coach smirked. “Right. Which is why we’ll specifically drill plays that take advantage of that. But for now?”
“We get Victoria some anger management classes?” I asked.
A round of chuckles made their way through the locker room as I looked over at Victoria.
And I swear, those gray eyes softened on me just a tad.
It was a look that wasn’t as harsh, or as pointed as the looks I’d become accustomed to in public.
She wasn’t scowling. She wasn’t pinning me with any sort of a glare.
She wasn’t flatly looking at me with that frustrated downturn of her lips that she wore whenever she walked around Caldwell Arena.
In fact, I could have sworn that the corners of her lips ticked up ever so slightly.
I couldn’t help but stare her down for just a second longer than I should have before I looked back over at Coach.
“For now,” he said before clocking everyone in the room with his eyes, “we rest. Go home. Get showered. Eat a decent meal. Tomorrow is our rest day. And Sunday, we’re back at it.”
But before he got there, my eyes found Victoria one more time.
She was already looking away. Smoothing her blazer.
Pulling that composure back around herself like armor the way she always did the second she caught herself being watched.
But I’d caught it, that half-second before the shutters came back down, and I held onto it the way I held onto everything she gave me without meaning to.
She’d looked at me like I was the only person in the room.
After everything that happened tonight. The brawl, the officials, the forfeiture, the wildcard news.
After she stormed onto that ice in those heels and pulled men twice her size off our goalie by their jerseys.
After she stood at the boards and threatened a PHL official with consequences that I was fairly certain she could actually deliver.
After all of it, in a locker room full of thirty men celebrating the best bad news we’d ever gotten,
She looked at me.
Like she was checking that I was still there.
I tucked that look away somewhere it would last a long time.
Then, with a clap of his hands, we were dismissed.