Chapter 24
SEAN
The next day; Las Vegas.
The plane landed at Harry Reid International Airport, and Sean immediately powered up his phone to check his messages.
He took comfort in knowing Kiera was staying with Elli back in Minneapolis, but he hated that he couldn’t get through to her.
He’d even had Lukas ask Elli, to make sure they were okay, and Elli had assured him they were staying in and bingeing a new streaming series.
He hit Kiera’s number again, needing to hear her voice. If she would just talk to him, he’d know if she were being honest. He’d know how badly he’d screwed up, jumping in like he had.
Again, it went straight to voicemail.
This time, he didn’t leave a message. One was good. Two was probably still okay. Three unanswered voicemails might be a little psycho.
“Something wrong, Murph?” Q asked from his seat by the small oval window.
“What?” Sean glanced up from his phone.
Q jerked his chin toward the aisle.
The rest of the team was already out of their seats and pulling their carry-ons from the overhead bins.
“Oh,” Sean said. “Sorry. I guess I’m a little distracted.”
“Very distracted,” Q said, “seeing how you had no reaction to that landing. Talk about rough, man.”
Sean stood and made room for Q to get out, too.
Q ducked his shiny bald head under the luggage compartment and slid out into the aisle behind Sean.
“Whatever’s bothering you,” Q said, “it’s time to get your head in the game.”
“Right,” Sean said.
Q’s straight white teeth flashed. “It’s always a woman, ain’t it?”
“Yeah,” Sean said.
“She doing okay? With her apartment and all?” Q asked. “Something like that can really rock you.”
“She’s staying with Elli for the weekend.”
“That’s good,” Q said. “She’s got good friends to take care of her, and if things get dicey, that blond one’s ready to crack some heads.”
“Blond one?” Sean asked, recalling Kiera’s crew. “Is that Jen?”
“Yeah,” Q said. “You should’ve heard her talking after we got the three of them safe. She had me shaking in my boots with the revenge she was planning.”
Sean forced a smile, trying to imagine the scene, but all he could see was Kiera’s wild mane of multicolored sunrise hair and her picture-perfect apartment sliced to hell, her pink toaster smashed on the floor.
They all filed off the plane, then got on the bus that waited for them on the tarmac. The first stop was the hotel. Normally, they arrived at away games the day before. This time, scheduling hiccups meant arriving on game day and only having seven hours to rest up.
The players disembarked, then the bus continued on, taking the trainers and equipment managers to the arena to set up.
Coach Erikson stood at the hotel’s front desk and called out, “Eliason! Murph!” He chucked a set of keys in Bjorn Eliason’s direction.
The goalie snagged them out of the air with his big berserker-bear hand, then clamped his other hand down over Sean’s shoulder. “Let’s go, roomie. This old man needs a nap.”
While Bjorn snored, Sean took turns watching a reality dating show and refreshing the screen on his phone.
More than once, he’d hovered his thumb over Kiera’s number before thinking better of it. He’d replayed that whole gnarly scene at her apartment more times than he could count, and each time he kicked himself harder for how he’d handled things.
He’d done his damnedest to let Kiera take the lead with her mom, speaking up only when he could no longer hold his tongue.
But now he was seeing that he’d jumped in too much, and she was obviously pissed about that if she kept ignoring his calls.
He couldn’t help thinking, how did someone so sweet and generous come from such a bitch as that woman who called herself a mother?
Kiera was a flower among weeds.
Then he found his thoughts going to his bike. He’d only bought it for kicks, and he’d normally put it away for the winter by now, happy to tilt anywhere he needed to go until the weather warmed again.
Now, with Kiera in his life, he’d have to look into buying a truck. There was no way he was going to fold his body into a lemon yellow Beetle, even if Kiera did let him drive.
Of course, she’d have to forgive him first.
He checked the time. The game was in four hours. He should sleep.
Or he could try Rogue.
He’d left that duty up to Lukas, but if Rogue was avoiding Lukas, maybe the same wouldn’t be true for him.
Rogue hadn’t been on the plane. Coach said he was meeting the team at the hotel, and with the game so soon, he’d have to be here by now.
Maybe Rogue would agree to meet him in the hotel bar.
Sean tried the number.
It, too, went immediately to voicemail. Well, shit.
Bjorn snored loudly in the adjacent bed, then blew all his air out like a whistle.
Sean supposed it wasn’t unreasonable for Rogue to be sleeping, too. Yeah. He probably was.
He set his phone face down on the nightstand, folded his hands over his chest, and closed his eyes.
But he didn’t sleep. He worried he’d given Kiera too much space after her mother left. He wished he’d made Kiera talk to him.
Now, there was even more space between them. Over fifteen hundred miles of space. And by the time he got back to Minneapolis, he might be one second too late to make things right.
Again.
Two hours later, even before Coach took roll call on the bus, it was clear that Rogue was still missing.
The team’s reaction was mixed, anywhere from anger (Coach) to worry (Lukas) to fear (Tuttle and Petey).
Sean saw that—plain as day—in the human players’ expressions, and when he caught Tuttle’s eye, Tuttle quickly turned to face his window.
The locker room was equally tense, and everyone suited up in silence. Coach stood out in the hallway, making phone calls and cursing.
Rafe did his best to calm everyone down and get them focused. “Let’s all take a breath and get our heads in the game. Circle up.”
Sean finished tying his skates, then moved in close, joining the rest of the team.
“We’ll have an explanation soon,” Rafe said. “For now, we focus on the task at hand. You all remember the films. The Leprechauns are strong on both ends. They’re going to be stingy around the net, and their penalty kill percentages are top notch.”
“Not as top as we are,” said Julian Hough, a junior defenseman, just two years in the league.
“That’s right,” Bjorn said. “Don’t worry about our net. I’ve got it.”
“We’re on a roll,” Rafe reminded them all.
“We’re living up to expectations. Our veterans bring experience more valuable than gold.
That experience is spiked with rookie blood and the freshest legs this league has ever seen.
We’ve got some of the most talented specialists…
There’s a reason they’re saying we could win it all this year. ”
Caden Kelly, the rookie center, tossed his silky blond hair and hopped back and forth on his skates, raring to get out on the ice.
“We had a rocky start,” Rafe said.
Tuttle bowed his head, and Sean narrowed his eyes on him, not certain how to read the chagrin. Tuttle hadn’t been the biggest liability to their earliest games. That had been Rogue, making bonehead moves that cost the team its advantages and put multiple men in the penalty box.
“But we’ve hit our groove,” Rafe continued. “And I know we’re all worried about Rogue, but right now we need to get in the zone.”
Coach came back into the locker room, his face like thunder. “Bakken!”
“Yes, Coach?” Lukas asked.
“Shoulder’s healed?”
Sean didn’t know why Coach bothered to ask. Berserkers healed quickly. Lukas’s several-week reprieve from the game was purely a matter of doctor’s orders.
“Absolutely,” Lukas said. There was a brightness to his voice because he had to know what Coach was intimating.
“Ribs?” Coach asked, cautiously implying the injuries Lukas had suffered at the hands of his own father.
“All good,” Lukas assured him.
“Then suit up. You’re in for Rogue. You’re playing defense tonight.”
Sean caught Lukas’s eye and saw the veteran berserker’s surprise, but also his excitement. Lukas may have been an elite forward, one of the best in the league, but Sean knew he’d jump at the chance to play defense if that got him back on the ice.
Sean clapped him on the shoulder. The two of them would be playing on the same starting line. “Let’s get ‘em.”
“Bakken! Bakken!” chanted several of their teammates, knocking their stick blades against the rubber mats.
Lukas’s grin was tight—his concern for Rogue still present—but he wasted no time suiting up. The trainers had kept his equipment packed, never knowing when he’d be given the green light.
Once the whole team was ready, they left the locker room and lumbered down the dark tunnel that led to the arena.
At the end of the tunnel was an equally dark opening, but it was cut with the bright white strikes of a swirling laser light show.
Loud thumping music and the roar of the crowd hit Sean’s ears. Adrenaline pumped in his veins.
Rafe was right. After years at the bottom, the Spriggans had finally hit their groove. This was the year they took it all.