Chapter 10
NASH
“Vaughn, me and you, double date tonight.”
Our grumpy goalie glares at Hayden from across the locker room. “Excuse me?”
“I was talking to these two insanely beautiful girls yesterday,” the rookie continues, “and the one I was into was playing so hard to get. But guess what? Her friend is a huge fan of yours. They said if I could bring you along for her, we could have a double date so I could get to know the girl I’m into. ”
The rest of us look on with amusement as Vaughn levels Hayden with an utterly unencouraging glower.
As each beat of time passes, the hope in Hayden’s expression dims.
“Uh … is that a yes?”
Vaughn just rolls his eyes and turns around, looking into his cubby as he strips off his goalie pads.
Hayden takes a fortifying breath. “Alright, then. Noah, Plan B.”
“Huh?” Noah asks, caught off guard. “Why am I part of Plan B?”
“I can’t give up on this girl, she’s too beautiful and interesting. Noah, you’re going to have to wear a wig and pretend to be Vaughn.”
“Hayden, I’m getting concerned about how many of your ideas involve me wearing a wig.”
“This isn’t the first one?” Cooper Landry, our team captain, asks, bemused.
“This isn’t the first one this week,” Noah replies.
“And you’ve said no every time,” Hayden tells Noah in a chiding tone. “Don’t you think it’s time to embrace yes for once?”
“Why does it have to be me? Wouldn’t it make more sense to ask Nash or Cooper? They’re closer to Vaughn’s age.”
“Closer,” our shit-stirring right forward Adriano Zikos mumbles, emphasizing that last syllable as a nudge to our veteran goalie.
“Nash would never do it,” Hayden answers. “He’s, like, seventy percent as grumpy as Vaughn.” Shit, do I really seem that bad? “And Cooper wouldn’t do it because he doesn’t believe in love.”
Cooper huffs, but he doesn’t challenge Hayden’s claim. I don’t know Cooper’s story, but it’s been easy to gather from conversations with him over the years that he’s a cynic when it comes to romance, even though otherwise he’s a pretty upbeat and personable guy.
I’m cynical, too, after my experience with Bridgett. But Cooper’s a different level of skeptical when it comes to the topic of love.
Noah Page, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. So, it doesn’t surprise me when he answers, “Besides, I can’t. I have a second date tonight.” His eyes practically turn heart-shaped as he gazes dreamily into the distance after telling us. “Second of many. This girl might be the one.”
Last year, I remember Noah talking about three different girls, all of whom he claimed to be his soulmate about a week after he met them.
Hayden drops his head back against his cubby and sighs into the air. “Damn it. I’m going to have to come up with some zany scheme to pull this off.”
The conversation shifts to our upcoming preseason opener, just a couple weeks away. Excitement about this season is higher than usual. It’s a hell of a lot higher than it was when I came to the Alligators three years ago.
For years, the Austin Alligators were one of the most pathetic franchises in the League. Constant losing records, apathetic ownership, and a dejected local fanbase that had long grown used to disappointment.
Then new ownership came in and launched a major turnaround campaign.
Last year, Noah, Adriano, Hayden, and Vaughn joined the team.
The result wasn’t an immediate barrage of wins, but we did spend the season forging our chemistry on the ice.
By the end of it, even though our record wasn’t good enough to get to the playoffs, we started playing like a team that belonged there.
Our first preseason game is an away game, in Denver, but our regular season opener is at home.
We’re taking the preseason more seriously than most teams usually do, because we want to start off on the right foot, and then ring in the regular season with a decisive win that proves to the hockey world that the Alligators are a force to be reckoned with from now on.
We all get changed and leave the dressing room together.
No footage review today, so we’re all going home.
I have some landscaping stuff I want to get started on at my house.
I’ve recently realized that I need to do more with my spare time than obsessively study hockey footage.
I like the idea of having a vegetable garden in my backyard.
Maybe some flowers out front. Maybe spruce up my walkway.
We’re about to go our separate ways at the exit when TJ, a college kid who works part-time at the arena, shuffles up to us nervously.
“Uh, Mr. Miller?” he says.
I roll my eyes at him. “You can call me Nash.”
“Oh. Uh. Right, then. Mr. Nash—I mean Nash …” the kid’s tripping over his words while he addresses me.
I’ve seen him talk more composedly with plenty of the other players on the team.
Do I really come across as such an asshole that an arena employee I see regularly is scared to talk to me? “I thought you’d want to see this …”
It’s now that I realize he’s holding something that looks like a magazine in his hands. Actually, it looks more like one of those trashy tabloids they stock next to the checkout counters at grocery stores.
He holds it out to me, and I take it. I look at the front page. My stomach plummets.
Alligators Star Seen Leaving Seedy Austin Motel With Mystery Woman.
The headline is splashed above a photograph that I know was taken Saturday morning. I know exactly where it was taken, too. Because I’m in it, and so is Piper.
It’s a shot of us just as we’re stepping out of the hotel room we spent the night in together.
My fists tighten so hard at the edges of the tabloid that my fingers burst through the cheap paper, digging into my palms on the other side.
The picture has a clear view of me. Luckily, Piper’s turned to the side. It would be difficult to recognize her. But someone who knows her well—especially someone who recognizes the dress she was wearing that night—wouldn’t have any trouble doing so.
This could cause her a lot of embarrassment. And it would be my fault, because I’m the one who drew the attention.
I have to do something about this.
My eyes lift from the paper and find TJ’s. The kid is practically quivering, like he’s in a shoot-the-messenger situation. I’m not that scary, am I?
“Where’d you get this?” I ask. The question comes out rougher than I intend, because TJ flinches.
“I saw it at the convenience store where I stopped for coffee on the way here. Sorry, sir, but I thought you’d want to know and—”
“Calm down, TJ,” I say, trying to get my anger at the pieces of shit responsible for this publication under control, trying to take the bite out of my voice. “None of this is your fault. I appreciate you letting me know.”
After I see TJ’s relaxed a bit, I let the darkness back into my tone. “This fucking paper’s gotta be all over the city by now.”
Adriano looks over my shoulder. “Oh, the Austin Observer? They’re not too big, actually. Probably just a couple dozen stores carry that one.”
Adriano knows a thing or two about trashy tabloids. He’s one of their favorite pieces of subject matter. Granted, the headlines and photographs he provides them tend to be a lot juicier.
“But the internet,” I say.
“The company that owns the Observer is super behind the times, and only really wants to sell physical copies of their paper instead of going viral online,” Adriano says.
He’s like a professor giving a lecture on a topic he’s a worldwide expert in.
His Greek accent lends him a note of intellectual distinction at this moment, too.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Of course, someone could buy a paper, take a picture of it, and upload that themselves. ”
“Not too many stores carry this paper, you said?” It’s Vaughn who asks that question, which surprises me. He’s usually only too eager to stay out of anyone else’s business but his own.
“Yeah,” Adriano answers.
“We’ll buy up every copy then,” Vaughn says. “If we each split up and take our own cars, covering a different area of the city, it should be doable.”
I look at Vaughn with surprise. He’s the last guy I’d expect to volunteer his day to go on a wild goose chase.
“Guys, I can’t ask you to do that,” I say.
Vaughn just shrugs. “You don’t have to ask. We’re a team. We come through for each other when one of us needs it.”
My lips open in surprise at an attitude I never would have expected from our closed-off, perpetually grumpy goalie.
“What the hell, Vaughn?” Hayden says. “Where was that attitude when I needed you for our double date?”
The ice-cold side-eye Vaughn slides to the rookie is more like what I’m used to from him.
My gaze scans over the rest of the guys, and I’m taken aback to see that their expressions match what Vaughn just said.
“No, guys, forget it. It’s my problem. You go home and get some rest.”
“Fuck that,” Noah pipes up. “Vaughn’s right. We’re a team, on the ice and off.”
“For sure,” Hayden agrees. “Besides, after we save the day for you, Vaughn might find himself on a streak of altruism and agree to be my date partner.”
“Even though you assholes have never rallied to clean up after one of my scandals, I’m in, too,” Adriano says.
“That’s because you get off on driving Ines insane when she has to clean up after you,” Cooper says, referring to a woman on the Alligators PR staff who’s constantly butting heads with Adriano over his off-the-ice shenanigans.
Adriano smirks. “Fair enough.”
“Let’s get to it, boys,” Cooper says, using his captain’s voice.
“Yeah! All for one and one for all!” Hayden puts out his hand like he’s expecting us all to pile ours on top of his for a cheer.
Instead, we just walk to the parking lot, talking as we head to our cars about which areas of the city each of us should cover.
“Damn, way to leave a guy hanging,” Hayden mumbles as he catches up.