29. CHAPTER 29
Locke
This morning I’m walking down the corridor of the west wing toward Patrick Rowe’s office, and I am aware that in nine years of professional hockey, I’ve never done what I’m about to do. I’m about to walk into an owner’s office voluntarily and divulge personal information about myself.
I’m about to be vulnerable.
I stop at Janine’s desk. “Is he in?”
She checks her screen. “He has fifteen minutes until his next appointment. Let me go ask.”
She disappears down the corridor to Patrick’s office and I pace back and forth.
I think about the first time I walked into this building, when Portland was a question mark and Patrick Rowe was just the latest in a series of owners who’d decided I was worth the risk.
I think about the months since and everything that has happened inside this building.
I think about Livia Cross standing in a dark parking lot last night, refusing to look at me and telling me she can’t keep doing this.
She’s right.
She’s been right about most things, and I’ve been making her pay for it.
Last night was a shit show and a revelation at the same time.
I think of all the times I’ve succumbed to my rage and realize all those reasons were just plain dumb as fuck.
Because when I came out of the performance facility and saw Livia’s ex grab her wrist, there’s no describing the inferno of blind fury that raced through me.
I realized right then that I’d never felt true rage before.
I’d never truly felt for anyone the way I did for Livia, including myself.
My own internal pain was nothing compared to the emotions coursing through me when I saw her in peril.
Luckily, that bastard has a glass jaw and went down fast. The police were there for two hours obtaining statements and documentation. Grant regained consciousness and after EMS checked him out, he was cuffed and hauled away.
I watched them put him in the back of the cruiser and felt nothing that I’d call satisfaction.
What I felt was colder, more specific than satisfaction. I’ve spent all these years managing my anger and last night, I finally let it off the leash for the right reason.
I’m still not entirely sure what to do with the aftermath.
Livia gave her statement on the far side of the parking lot.
She didn’t look at me and I didn’t push it.
Van stood with me while the officers wrapped up, close enough for conversation, far enough to give me room. He’s good at knowing the geometry of a situation… where to angle himself.
“So that’s the woman who has you all torn up,” Van finally said, the ring of understanding a little embellished.
I was waiting for it and there was no sense hiding it. “Yeah… she’s the one.”
I told him everything, including my history with Adam. I told him every detail so he would have the absolute full story, not only what has driven my rage for all these years but more importantly how I think I fucked up majorly with the best thing that has ever happened to me.
Van listened without interruption, without reaction, and when I finished, he was quiet.
Then he said, “You knocked a man unconscious for her.”
“He had his hands on her.”
“I know why you did it.” He looked at me. “My question is whether you know what it means.”
I didn’t answer that. I suspected but didn’t know how to express it.
“Because in my experience,” Van said with the tone of a love guru, “men who have decided they don’t care about someone don’t run across parking lots like that.” He dipped his chin, looked at me pointedly. “They just don’t.”
I looked at the access road where the cruiser had gone. “She told me to stay out of her life until I figured out what I want.”
“And do you know what you want?”
I looked over at Livia talking to Jimmy, who came out to offer moral support and to give the cops access to the camera feed. “Yeah… I know.”
Van nodded once. “Then get your head out of your ass,” he said and walked back inside.
Janine reappears, pulling me out of my memories. “Patrick will see you now.”
I head back to the boss’s office and find Patrick at his desk. He’s wearing a charcoal dress shirt with his sleeves rolled up. It’s barely eight a.m. and he’s hard into it.
He looks at me with a smile. “What can I do for you, Locke?”
“I need to tell you something important.”
He blinks in surprise and motions to a chair. “All right.”
I lower myself down, hands gripping tight, and don’t hesitate to get it off my chest. “I have a personal relationship with Livia Cross.”
Rowe’s expression doesn’t change. “Maybe a little more information for context,” he suggests.
“It developed over the last several weeks. It was mutual and she didn’t pursue it or engineer it.
The professional work she did with me was legitimate and separate from what happened personally, and I need you to know that before anything else.
” I hold his gaze, waiting to defend Livia to the end if necessary, but when Patrick doesn’t say anything, I move on.
“She’s amazing at her job and she’s truly helping your players.
Whatever happened between us doesn’t change that, and I won’t let it be held against her. ”
“That’s a lot to process,” Patrick finally says.
“I’m aware of how this looks,” I say, leaning forward in my chair.
“I’m aware of the optics and the professional complications and I’m not here asking you to look the other way on any of it.
I’m here because I’m about to make it public and I want you to have this information before I do and not after.
” I pause, take a deep breath. “More importantly, I’m asking you not to let this reflect on her job.
Put it on me. However you need to handle it professionally, it lands on me. ”
Patrick settles back in his chair and stares at me. “I noticed a difference in your performance on the ice since November.”
I say nothing.
“I asked Livia about it in our staff meeting.”
“And what did she say?” I can’t help but ask.
“Oh, she gave me a very careful, professional answer. She’s never revealed anything personal about you.”
“She’d never do that. I trust her.”
And yeah… I really trust her.
Patrick picks up a coffee cup on his desk and takes a sip. “She’s good at her job and probably one of the best hires I’ve made for this organization. Which is saying something because I don’t make bad hires.” He pauses, sets the cup down. “This could become quite complicated.”
“It won’t be,” I assure him. “It won’t affect her job, and I can promise you… you’ll never see me hurt this team again.”
He looks at me with those blue eyes that I’ve come to understand see everything and reveal only what he intends. “What she does going forward with you as a member of this roster is a conversation she and I will have directly.”
My heart skips a beat, because now it’s in Patrick’s hands.
I have to trust that he will do right by Livia, and that’s a hard ask.
While I trust my girl completely, I don’t know about Patrick.
I think this is going to be a wait-and-see scenario, but I understood the risk I’d have to take when I made the decision to talk to him this morning.
I spent a lot of time weighing the risks last night. In order to have a clean slate and a path forward with Livia, I knew it all must be out in the open and approved by Patrick.
I decided the risk was worth taking, and I must have a certain level of trust in him.
“I trust you to be fair to Livia,” I say, and that’s quite the admission on my part.
Patrick nods. “What you’re planning to do—making it public—that’s your business. Good luck.”
“I’m going to need it,” I quip, rising from the chair. I start to turn away but reconsider and step up to the desk, holding out my hand. Patrick rises and shakes it. “Thank you,” I tell him solemnly. “I won’t let you down going forward.”
“I believe you,” he says.
The locker room is full when I walk in.
Post-morning skate, two dozen men in various stages of undress, and the low-level repartee that provides the normal ambient noise.
Boss is arguing with someone about the ranking of breakfast foods and Arch is half in his gear with his phone in his hand.
Rome is already suited up, moving toward the door, and he slows when he sees me come in.
Perhaps he sees it on my face.
I stand at the entrance and take in my teammates. I’m going to fill them in on the Livia situation, just like I did with Patrick, but it’s more than an announcement.
It’s an invitation into my personal life.
I look around the room. The men I’ve been playing with for almost three months. The men I’ve apparently been allowing to matter to me—incrementally, reluctantly—in spite of every decision I made after the age of seventeen about what that cost me.
“I need everyone’s attention,” I say, not loudly but because I so rarely initiate conversation, the room immediately goes quiet.
Coach Monahan looks up from his tablet, frowning at me in confusion.
“Livia Cross,” I say, panning the room to look at every man.
“I’m in a relationship with her. It’s personal and it’s real and I should have told you sooner.
” I note Arch’s jaw drop. “I think you all know she’s a complete professional, and everything she’s built with this team with the individual work she’s done with the players in this room, is legitimate and has nothing to do with us.
If anyone has a problem with it, that problem is with me.
Not with her. It doesn’t touch her role here and it doesn’t touch what she’s earned with this team, and I’ll take exception to anyone who thinks otherwise. ”
The room is completely still. Boss stares at me with his mouth hanging open in equal proportion to Arch’s.
Crosby watches me with an expression that is doing several things simultaneously, one of which might be recognition. I imagine he and I will have a lot to talk about, and I might even hit him up for advice since he’s been in the same situation.
Nobody says anything for a moment and Rome pipes up. “Donovan.”
I look at him.
“You couldn’t have just sent a text like a normal person?”
Laughter sweeps through the room—sweeps through me. It’s the most perfect comment I could have gotten.
“Yeah, yeah,” I say with a wave of my hand. “I’ll do that next time I have a major announcement.”
“So, you and Cross,” Arch says, appearing at my elbow.
“That’s what I said.”
“Since when?”
“Since none of your business.”
He grins wider. “That’s fair.”
Boss leans back in his stall. “I just want to say, for the record, that I called it a few weeks ago.”
“You did not call it,” Rome says from the doorway.
“I absolutely called it. Ask anyone.”
“You said, and I quote, ‘There is no way Donovan has feelings. He was built in a lab.’”
Boss snorts indignantly. “I said it in a way that left room for interpretation. You merely failed to interpret it correctly.”