CHAPTER TWO #3
“Leif, you were particularly fired up tonight. Is there a reason for that?” A reporter held out her phone to Leif as he sat in his stall for the post-game media scrum.
Leif forced himself to take a deep breath. “I was just trying to play my best out there. Focus on my game.”
“It seemed like there was an extra edge out there. Is that because of the New York-Boston rivalry?”
“That’s always part of it.” Leif raked his damp hair off his forehead.
“And what about your interactions with Tanner Clayton?”
“What about them?” he snapped.
Her expression faltered for a moment. “Well, they were … particularly noticeable tonight. Was there a reason for that?”
“Tanner and I have always had a competitive rivalry,” he said as cooly as he could manage. “Much like Renner and Crawford. It worked in New York’s favor tonight.”
Leif sped through his post-game routine as quickly as possible and when he walked out of the locker room, he found someone waiting for him. He was dressed in a sharp black suit, and he had his head down, busy on his phone.
Leif hadn’t been sure if he’d come or not. The team was flying back to Boston, and it wasn’t always possible for him to stay in New York an extra day and take an early commercial flight back to Boston the following day.
But they tried to accommodate him as much as possible.
“Glad you could do dinner tonight,” Leif said honestly.
His dad looked up from his phone and smiled. “You ready to go?” he asked, pushing off the wall and tucking his phone into his pocket.
Leif nodded and smoothed down his tie where it lay crookedly. “Yeah. Ready when you are.”
“How’s your mother?” Aksel asked as they wove through the halls of the arena.
“Good,” Leif said honestly. Silje Vang was a former supermodel turned philanthropist. “She’s loving her position as the head of her new foundation.”
Along with several women she knew, she’d started an international charity that focused on women’s rights.
“I’m glad to hear it. I can see her really thriving in that role.”
“You two really don’t talk anymore?” Leif asked curiously.
“Not often,” he admitted. “We spoke a lot when we were still parenting you, and I usually send her a birthday greeting or something that I know she’d be interested in, but now that you’re grown and your career is established, we don’t really have much reason to talk.
I loved her, you know that. I’ll never regret our time together, but … we grew apart and that’s okay.”
“I know.” It didn’t bother Leif. Not anymore.
The divorce had been hard, but maybe not as hard as having his parents living totally separate lives. His dad had been playing for the New York Rockets by that point, and his mom was traveling the world for her career.
Leif had been serious about his hockey and by the time he was sixteen he was living with a billet family.
They rounded the corner and came face-to-face with a grinning Tanner Clayton.
Leif scowled. After a loss, why the fuck was he smiling so much? “What are you doing in this part of the arena?” Leif asked coldly.
Tanner shrugged. “Took a wrong turn, I guess, and now I’m lost.”
Leif pointed. “The exit is that way.”
“Cool, thanks.”
But Tanner didn’t go anywhere.
Aksel Rasmussen cleared his throat. “Do you need something, Tanner?”
“Oh, well, I was going to talk to Leif for a minute but …”
“I have nothing to say to you,” Leif told him. “And Dad and I are kind of busy. Like I said earlier, we’re having a late dinner.”
“Oh sweet. That’s great you get to have some father-son bonding time.”
But he still didn’t go anywhere.
Annoyance prickled across Leif’s skin. “Anything else?”
Tanner’s expression fell. “Uhh, no. Guess not. They’re probably wondering where I am anyway.”
“I am sure they are,” Leif said drily. Privately he wondered if they were ever tempted to leave Tanner somewhere. Just be rid of him.
Though, knowing him, he’d probably keep turning up like a bad penny.
“You’re not taking the team plane back to Boston?” Tanner asked, glancing at his coach.
Aksel smiled. “No. I’ll fly commercial in the morning. Have a safe trip back, Tanner. I’ll see you in Boston at practice tomorrow.”
His tone was firm, and it seemed to do the trick because Tanner finally nodded and turned in the direction Leif had pointed.
“See you, Coach! And bye, Leif!” Tanner called out cheerfully. “Have a fun dinner with daddy!”
Leif ground his teeth together to stop himself from reaching out and doing something that would probably end with them tussling again. Or, worse, something he would regret even more. Especially in front of his father.
“What is it with you two?” his dad said with an amused look when Tanner was gone. “You really can’t let bygones be bygones?”
“Not when he’s an annoying prick all the time,” Leif said.
His dad gave him a disbelieving look. “And you’ve never done anything to deliberately antagonize him?”
Leif opened his mouth to protest. To say no, he definitely hadn’t, but that was a flat-out lie and he didn’t lie to his father. He never had.
“Maybe sometimes,” he conceded.
Aksel grinned and shook his head. “That’s what I thought.”