5. CHAPTER 5
Locke
I’m hard to impress. I was a second-round draft pick in the league when I was eighteen.
I spent one year down in the minors before I was given my shot with the big boys, and I’ve never left.
Nine years playing at a professional level and I thought I’d seen everything a team had to offer to a player.
We’re five weeks into the regular season—eight road games so far—and this aircraft still registers as objectively excessive.
It doesn’t have regular seats. It doesn’t even have sumptuous first-class recliners.
No, that wasn’t good enough for Patrick Rowe, so he had specially designed pods—fifty of them staggered the length of the main cabin—to provide quiet luxury to his players.
Each one is a shell of curved leather and brushed metal with noise-dampening panels built into the walls and individual controls for light, air and temperature.
The cushioned seat goes fully flat at the push of a button, converting into a bed long enough for our tallest guys.
There’s a tiny cabinet that has sheets, feather pillows and blankets with higher thread counts than I even purchase for myself.
Sleeping in what amounts to a private suite at thirty-five thousand feet is a perk I didn’t mind getting used to.
The rear cabin of the plane has a lounge that looks like someone’s very expensive living room with thick carpet, actual lamps on side tables, and leather couches and love seats to congregate.
An area with polished wood tables seats groups of four with captain’s chairs, where you can set up your laptop to work or pull out a deck of cards for a rousing game of gin rummy.
Does Rowe do this all for show? Maybe, but he also does it to give us an edge. His logic makes sense though. I read an article in which he said, “Travel takes from the body and mind and the plane should give it back.”
I thought it was the kind of thing rich men say to justify spending obscene amounts of money but five weeks later, I sleep better on this plane than I do in most hotels, thus I can’t argue with results.
It’s true that I’m not a social guy but it doesn’t mean I hang out in my pod all the time.
The trip to San Diego from Portland is only a couple hours, so I set up at one of the tables in the lounge area, choosing a captain’s chair near the window.
One of the trainers sits opposite me, quietly flipping through his phone.
The other players are scattered around in groups, laughing and joking with one another.
I’m easily able to tune it all out and focus on a new book I just started.
Every once in a while, my eyes lift and I scan the area.
I tell myself it’s just peripheral curiosity until I’m able to sink into the book, but it is a bit irritating that every time I look up, I manage to clock exactly where Livia Cross is.
She’s been in the lounge almost the entire flight, alternating between staff and players.
She’s the newest to the team and she’s trying to acclimate, I guess.
Any time I’ve sensed she might look my way, I avert my eyes and hunch further over my book so it looks like I don’t want to be bothered.
I sneak another quick glance and see she’s currently at one of the tables with our backup goalie, Macon Dawes, and the goalie coach, Jordan Michaels.
They’re all three bent over a diagram on the table, and I assume it’s goalie oriented.
I observe the way they seem to fawn over Livia.
They look focused, intensely intrigued, and maybe smiling a bit too brightly at her.
Men are not complicated creatures. Introduce an attractive, warm, genuinely fascinating woman into a contained space and they will orient toward her the way plants reach for the sun.
Movement to my right catches my attention and I look up just as Van Turner drops into the seat next to me.
While I go out of my way to avoid bonds with teammates and generally distrust coaches, Van is someone I’ve managed to form a bit of a relationship with.
I can’t say exactly why I’m comfortable with him, but I think it’s because he’s had a rough life and understands trauma.
His father was a notorious serial killer back on the East Coast and while Van doesn’t talk about it, everyone knows the details because his father published a tell-all book before he died in prison.
Yeah… I read it, just like everyone else.
I took almost all of it with a grain of salt, because none of it was approved by Van.
His dad was an obvious psychopath and narcissist, and I firmly believe he wrote that book to spite his own son.
Van has never said a word about any of it—not to me, not to anyone on this staff that I’ve seen—and that kind of silence I understand on a cellular level.
You don’t owe anyone the story of your worst moments in life.
You carry it or you don’t, but either way, it belongs to you.
It’s because Van has been through his own hell, the kind that follows you into eternity, that I give him a pass. Not trust exactly, but grace. There’s a difference, and with me, it’s about as close as anyone gets.
Van’s got a coffee from the galley and a tablet that he angles toward me. “Watched the San Diego tape last night,” he says, all hockey business without preamble. “Their top line is running a weak side overload I want to talk through.”
I put my book aside and I’m all ears. This is why Van doesn’t threaten my space.
He doesn’t try to be anything more than someone who wants to talk business.
He doesn’t waste time checking in on how I’m doing but rather launches straight to it because he has come to understand that for me, the game is the only door that opens reliably.
I lean over to look at the tablet with interest and watch a clip that he has queued up.
“Their center,” I say, pointing at the video. “He telegraphs the weak side pass. Watch his shoulders before the puck moves.”
Van nods, makes a note. “I caught that too. Question is whether we shade our coverage or trust the read.”
“I’d trust the read.”
“Agreed.” He scrolls to the next clip. We go through four or five more sequences, the conversation finding its own rhythm.
Van asks a question, I answer. I point out an option, he builds on it.
The tablet passes back and forth between us, and not once does he mention the fact that my bad penalty the other night cost us the game.
It’s the closest thing I have to easy with this team, although I still hold the greatest part of me in reserve. That’s a lock I’ve never loosened the entire time I’ve been in this league.
After a while, Van closes the tablet and sits back. His eyes drop to my book. “What you reading?” he asks, taking a sip of his coffee.
“Eisenhower in War and Peace,” I say, holding it up so he can see the front.
Van’s eyebrows explode up so fast, I’m surprised they don’t launch off his head. “You’re kidding?”
I smirk at him. “Hard to believe a dumb jock likes to read about history?”
Van stares at me, hazel eyes level and without an ounce of shame. “Pretty much.”
I can’t help but snort. “Yeah, well… I love history. Military history to be more precise. It’s a really good biography.”
“Consider me fucking charmed,” he says with a wink and then stands from the table. “Maybe you can give me the CliffsNotes version at some point.”
“Our next workout, I’ll have a summary for you,” I promise.
He points to me as if to seal the deal. “Also, I’ve got my team putting together some video on Calgary. They’re going to be a harder team than San Diego this trip.”
My stomach lurches at the mention of Calgary. We’re heading there after we play the Renegades.
“Looking forward to it,” I say to Van, even though I’m dreading it more than he or anyone could ever guess.
Van lifts his chin and heads off, leaving me to think about Calgary.
It will be the first time this season we’re going up against the Wild.
To everyone else on this team, it’s just a game on the schedule.
A cold city, an enthusiastic crowd, a physical opponent.
To me it’s a confrontation with my past that I wish I could avoid.
I close my eyes and try to concentrate on the laughter circulating through the cabin. I try to tap into the pressing but soothing hum of the plane’s engines. Unfortunately, there’s not enough noise to keep the past buried deep.
I think about the last time I spoke to my best friend, Adam, and it dredges up the same severe anxiety that I experienced ten years ago.
I stood outside his bedroom door. We were both seventeen, our last season in Major Junior, and his billet mom had let me in the house.
Said that he had been in his room all day and wouldn’t come out.
I knew what I did and I knew I did it for all the right reasons, and still, knocking on his bedroom door to confront him about it was the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life.
I made myself do it because I needed to find out how bad the damage was.
The door opened and Adam stood there, his expression one I’ve never been able to forget, even after all these years.
Not angry, not at first. Just—destroyed.
It was the type of demolition that happens when someone who has had their entire world upended because their right to decide for themselves was taken away.
I had done that. I had let the world know about Adam’s very worst thing.
I knew it as soon as I saw his face, I have known it every day since, and knowing it has not once made me believe I was wrong to do what I did.
That is my own personal hell.
“Adam—” I said, hoarse with fear and nervousness.
“Don’t.” He was so fucking quiet and that one word hit me with the force of a nuclear explosion.
Desperation struck me deep. “I had to—”
“No,” he says, anger now sharpening his tone. “You didn’t. And I’ll never forgive you for this.”
“Gentlemen, this is Captain Reid.” I’m pulled out of my memory, thankful to hear the pilot’s announcement.
“We’re about forty minutes from San Diego and starting our initial descent.
Forecast has us looking at a smooth approach and we should have you on the ground right on schedule.
Weather in San Diego is seventy-two degrees and sunny, which I’m told is the same as yesterday and the day before that and will be the same tomorrow.
Enjoy it while you’re there and kick some Renegade ass tomorrow. ”
Someone hoots a war cry in agreement, and then everyone starts making their way back to their pods to buckle up. I give my seat belt a tug, choosing to stay here.
My jaw aches, an indication I’d been gritting my teeth through that little stroll down memory lane. I release it slowly, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth.
In three days, I’ll be seeing Adam Belleau, the only person in the world I truly despise and feel sorry for at the same time.
He’s a second-line defenseman with the Wild and I have no clue if our lines will overlap on the ice.
They have in the past, and it might very well happen again. We’ll ignore each other, of course.
Because no matter how out of control my rage can get, and no matter how many shots I’ve taken at unsuspecting players when the heat builds, I’ve never once taken a shot at Adam, even though he’s the one who actually deserves it.