Chapter Two
Rhodes
The hit comes fast. I barely register it before my back slams into the boards, rattling my teeth.
The metallic taste of blood slides down the back of my throat, and I spit red out onto the ice.
My vision goes momentarily black, adrenaline spiking hot in my chest. The ref’s whistle shrieks through the rink.
Once. Twice. A third time—but I don’t wait for them to pull the other guy off me.
I rip my helmet off, hear it clatter to the ice, and lunge forward.
My fist connects first, smashing into his jaw again and again.
And again.
The other guy doesn’t even get a punch in at all.
The pileup of bodies happens in seconds.
Someone yells. Another whistle screams, the echo reverberating around the arena.
Someone on the other team throws another punch, and I retaliate.
Another body—probably Beck—is already hauling me back before I can go for another swing.
I yank my shoulders out of his grip and wipe more blood off my face, this time from a giant gash in my forehead, smearing it all down my cheek. I welcome the stinging pain.
“Jesus Christ, man,” Beck growls in my ear, fist gripped tightly on the back of my jersey. “You trying to get yourself benched? You’re on fucking thin ice already, captain.”
I shrug my best friend off, breathing hard, glaring at the guy on the other team who’s now spitting teeth and blood onto the ice. Good. The dude sneers, wiping his mouth, and I clench my jaw so hard my own teeth threaten to crack under the pressure.
A penalty is called by the ref. Beck skates back to our other teammates, throwing an angry glance in my direction. Callum and Finn are shouting at the ref, arms flailing, pointing at me and the other guy.
“McKnight! Get your ass over here!”
Coach Abrams’ voice booms over the chaos. I skate toward him, bracing myself for the inevitable lecture. Ice kicks up around my skates as I halt to a stop and step off the rink and onto the bench.
“Five minutes for fighting.” The ref glares at me. Shit. I know the consequences before it’s out of his smug fucking mouth. “Game misconduct.” Coach Abrams pinches his mouth in a thin line. It’s a bad look when your captain is the one getting pulled off the ice for fighting. Again.
Calder Trophy winner and first Wolverines player to make captain in their second season, everyone. I’m really living up to expectations.
Coach waves the ref off and he skates back to join the players on the ice. The noise of the arena is a dull buzz in my ears. I tune it out, the pain of the punches I’d received starting to throb in my head. The full weight of Coach Abrams’ disappointment hits me like a tidal wave.
“That’s your third fight in four games,” Coach bites out, voice low, barely contained fury. “What the hell is going on with you?”
“Just playing hockey, Coach.” I mutter, exhaling sharply through my nose. I set my helmet next to me and run a hand through sweat-dampened hair. Sweat or blood. I can’t tell right now. I don’t give him a real answer, because I don’t have one I’m willing to give him right now.
The team is falling apart. And if we’re falling apart, it’s on me.
Me and my inability to separate the stress of my personal life from my professional life.
This will go up to the Department of Player Safety for review, and if I’m suspended, it’s going to piss off the team.
It might fuck us over for the season. Playoffs aren’t until April, but every game we play moves us either closer or further away from qualifying.
And I just pulled us backwards. Way backwards.
“Locker room. Now,” Coach snaps.
I don’t argue. I won’t be allowed back on the ice tonight, so I stomp off, ignoring the eyes of my teammates burning into my back.
The second I’m inside the locker room, I rip off my gloves, hurling them into my stall, and nearly rip the hinges off my locker door.
My knuckles are already bruising from the punches I threw.
I glance in the mirror across the room to see my eye has already begun swelling.
Purple, angry skin is split over my eyebrow and dried blood coats the side of my face. My lip is busted, too.
The door slams behind me, then Coach is there, arms crossed, looking every inch the disappointed father figure I don’t need right now. I already have one of those.
Coach Abrams took a chance on me in my first season in the NHL and another one making me captain during my second season.
When I was drafted onto the Wolverines, I was a hot-headed son of a bitch coming out of juniors playing the hell out of my center position.
I worked my way up over the last two seasons, stopped being such an asshole to everyone, and was making a name for myself.
“I’m gonna give you a chance here, son, to tell me what the hell is going on with you,” he says without preamble. I say nothing and disappointment flickers in his eyes. A terse nod, and he continues. “Do you like being on this team, McKnight?”
We stare at each other.
“Yeah, Coach. You know I do,” I mumble out, shame flushing my cheeks.
“Then you have a real funny way of showing it. Now, I can’t help you unless you talk to me. So either figure out how to deal with whatever you have going on that’s causing you to be a liability for my team, or you’ll end up with our AHL team, who doesn’t care if you mess around on the ice.”
My eyes bug out of my head as the implication wraps around my brain. My career would never survive the embarrassment of going backwards from NHL captain to minor league hockey player.
I swallow. “Coach—” My throat is dry. He’s right. I can’t even argue. It would be stupid to keep a player who causes problems on and off the ice. I’m doing nothing to get our team where we need to be.
He cuts me off with a wave of his hand and my stomach sinks like a stone. I’ve never seen Coach this pissed at me.
Then he’s gone, leaving me standing in the empty locker room, blood still pounding in my ears.
The team has been struggling hard this season.
My guys aren’t getting along on or off the ice.
We were strong last season, but there had been retirements and trades all at the same time, and we were stuck learning how to play with a new roster.
I can’t seem to pull the team morale together. We’re losing games, and honestly, at this rate? We’ll be lucky to even make it to the playoffs.
Coach made a mistake when he put me in charge.
I lean my head against the cool exterior of my metal locker. All my adrenaline is wearing off, and the injuries I sustained tonight are starting to scream.
My phone buzzes in my locker.
Dad, Three Missed Calls
There he is, the reason behind my bad temper these days. I exhale slowly, pressing my thumb against the screen until the notification disappears. His voicemails sit unopened. They’ll stay that way. His texts will go unanswered, too.
My dad has been a nasty drunk my whole life, and from what I’ve gleaned from my mom over the years, was for most of my parents’ marriage.
Mom left him when I was two, and he never got over it.
Never got over her. Court orders made it so that I had to split my time between them, but she was the one who footed the bill for hockey, making sure I had everything I needed.
My dad only comes to games when he thinks he can corner me afterward or berate me in the stands.
When I was four, Mom married Paul, and a year later my half-sister Sloane was born.
Paul is a good guy, the kind of guy my mom deserves.
The kind of father Sloane deserves, a stable job and white picket fence kind of guy.
He tried to include me. My mom tried, too.
But no matter how much they welcomed me into their new, perfect life, I was always on the outside looking in.
I’m the spitting image of my father, and there are times I swear my mom looks at me and flinches.
Sloane and I are close, even with the five-year age difference. I love her and would protect her with my life. She lives close, on the college campus in town, and we make time to see each other pretty regularly.
My dad, though? Whenever he drinks himself into a hole, I’m the first call.
Me and my “big, fancy NHL bank account”.
I do well—my salary and endorsements set me up—but that doesn’t mean I exist to pull him out of every pit he throws himself into.
Not while he’s still hurling insults at me on the way down.
I should tell Coach he’s calling again. He’s taken care of my dad before. But I’m twenty-four. I’m not a kid and I don’t want to project my daddy issues onto the one stable adult male relationship in my life. Fuck. A therapist would have a field day with me.
My ejection will be out by the post-game interviews, and afterwards I’ll have to figure out how to deal with that, too.
I sit in my car while the game ends, watching the highlights on my phone screen. 0-4. Wolverines lose.
Fuck. My. Life.
A text message from Beck pops up onto my screen.
Beck (9:30pm): Where you at, man? Everyone’s back in the locker room.
Me (9:35pm): I’ll go over footage before next practice.
Beck (9:36pm): Can’t hide forever, Rhodes.
I exit out of his text and lean my head against my headrest. I can’t face the team right now. Beck is right. I’m hiding.
I start my car and drive out of the parking garage. My stomach growls loud enough to pull me out of my thoughts and alert me to the fact that I am starving. Food. I need to get food.
* * * *
Hours later, after I’ve eaten, I am sitting in front of the Abrams Professional Skating Club, my home away from home.
Our home games are at the big arena downtown, but we practice here.
I’m here more than I am anywhere else in my life.
We share ice time with the figure skaters when we’re not at games and when they’re not competing.
It was easier for Coach to host our practices here, somewhere he could keep an eye on his team and his daughter.
Monroe Abrams—the figure skating darling of Team USA. She’s the reason we have such a state-of-the-art practice facility.
I technically shouldn’t be here after hours, but I need to feel in control of something because I’m sure as hell not in control of my team.
Or my dad. I can guarantee Kelsey, my agent, will have sent me a dozen messages by now, too, which I won’t see until tomorrow, because my phone is off and I refuse to turn it back on.
No doubt she’s already come up with some kind of plan to rewrite my bad-boy hockey captain status into something more palatable.
She has worked overtime this season to keep me from losing endorsements, and I’m extremely aware of how difficult I’m making that job.
I make a mental note to give her some kind of spring bonus this year to make up for my dumb ass.
I relish the first step onto the ice, feeling the familiar give under my skates. I skate hard, fast, running drills until my legs burn and my mind is blank, the New Year’s Day game tonight wiped from it.
Then I do it again. And again. And again.
The muscles in my thighs are shaking and sweat drips down the back of my neck, despite the cold. I push through it, cutting tight into a turn. Too tight.
I slam into the boards, my shoulder hitting first, rattling the plastic. A sharp groan leaves my throat.
Enough for tonight.
I push myself off the plastic and lean heavy into a glide over to the rink exit door.
My blue-and-red Wolverines team bag is sitting on the bench nearby, and I grab it as I head toward the showers, the familiar logo stretching with the amount of gear stuffed inside.
In the empty locker room, I strip out of my jersey and pads and toss them into a dirty laundry bag.
The water scalds the back of my neck as I stand beneath the unrelenting stream of heat. I turn it up even hotter, letting it burn my skin. By the time I’m done rinsing off and getting dressed, it’s close to one in the morning. I grab my bag, my keys, and my skates and lock the rink doors behind me.
My drive home is silent. No music, no late-night radio hosts griping their way through my speakers. Just the sound of my own ragged breathing and the distant thrum of my tires against the pavement.
When I pull into my driveway, my house is dark. It’s an old home I bought and renovated myself a year ago—classic Connecticut architecture and history.
There is a palpable fear in the pit of my stomach of losing this home if I get sent down to the AHL.
All the work I put into it. It took me months to fix up, doing most of the work myself in our off seasons.
I wanted it to be something solid. Something permanent.
Something mine. I swallow down the sour taste in my mouth left at the thought of someone else building a life here.
Once inside, I force myself to turn my phone back on to assess the damage.
Fifteen missed texts. Two more missed calls from Dad.
Kelsey’s name is near the top of the list. Her message is long, too long—but I already know what it says.
“We need to get ahead of this. Let’s set up some interviews, rewrite the narrative. You were provoked on the ice. As captain, you have to defend your team. We want the headlines to read Rhodes McKnight is passionate and talented, not unhinged and unstable.”
I stare at the screen for a second. I am feeling more unhinged and unstable by the second, so maybe the reporters aren’t too far off.
Then I lock it back up and toss my phone onto the counter, leaving it there as I head up the stairs to my bedroom. I can’t even begin to respond to any of that tonight. My avoidance is going to tick her off.
She can get in line if she wants to be pissed at me. Her and fucking everyone else.