Chapter 3
I shouldn’t be here.
The thought hits me for the dozenth time as I lean against the back wall of the ballroom, watching the crowd of glittering party-goers pretend this is just another New Year’s Eve.
But it’s not just another night for me. It was supposed to be my comeback appearance, the moment I showed the world that Lane Sheridan Junior wasn’t finished yet.
Instead, I was betrayed. Put on “waivers,” meaning I was at risk of dropping from the NHL to the AHL. During this time, any other coach could swoop in and grab me for their roster. If not, I got demoted.
It was a sudden and last-minute dismissal that I should’ve seen coming.
Technically, I was supposed to be here at the Toast, but with a different team. My team. The only one I’ve ever known. The buzzer is interminable in my mind. Game over.
Instead, I’m hiding in the shadows like a washed-up has-been who can’t handle being in public—and attached to another team.
I ought to be glad I’m still an NHL player, but still, it stings.
The irony isn’t lost on me either. Last spring, I was supposed to be celebrating a Stanley Cup win with my teammates. Tonight, I’m appreciating the fact that I can walk without limping and hold a stick without my shoulder screaming in protest. Progress became relative when I nearly lost everything.
“You look like a man contemplating the mysteries of the universe,” a familiar voice says behind me.
I turn to find Lou Chen, the Knights’ team psychologist, approaching.
He’s one of the few people who know the real reason I’m in Vegas instead of on a tropical beach pretending my career isn’t hanging by a thread.
During my first week on the team, Badaszek sent me to his office.
I was told it’s protocol. Yeah, right. They were concerned about my standing.
Want to make sure my head is in the game because hockey is as much a mental feat as it is a physical workout.
“Just wondering what I’m doing here,” I say vaguely. I don’t mean here specifically, but in general.
“Same thing as everyone else. Pretending the turning of the calendar page to a new year means something different from the old one.”
Chen has a way of cutting straight to the heart of things. It’s probably why a quarter of the team sees him regularly, though not all of them admit it.
Because the man demands honesty, I add, “The general manager wanted me to make an appearance. Show my face, let people know I’m still breathing, still part of the organization.”
“Are you? Still part of it, I mean.”
He knows the literal answer to this question. But is my heart still in it? That’s also part of the mental, physical equation.
It’s also the multi-million-dollar question. Literally. My contract hinges on proving I can still play at an elite level. The shoulder surgery went well and the physical therapy exceeded expectations, but there’s a difference between being medically cleared and being game-ready in top form.
“Ask me after next week,” I add.
Chen nods in a way that suggests he’s penned the date on his internal calendar with the intention of following up.
I’m all too aware that this is my last chance. I signed with the Knights on what amounts to a career finale “prove-it” contract taht terminates at the end of this season. Failure means retirement at thirty-one with no other skills.
Chen is aware of what that could do to a guy like me. I don’t know who I am without hockey and he recently emphasized that I can’t let fear of the future get in the way of how I play now.
Me, afraid? Pfft.
The problem is, my shoulder or knee could fail me. Then what would I do? Who would I be?
Chen’s attention turns to the stage where the hypnotist guides the pretty woman I danced with earlier into what sounds a lot like the kinds of meditations we can listen to when taking an ice bath.
Take three deep breaths. Feel your body warm and alive. Welcome the experience and accompanying sensations. Instead of fighting discomfort, breathe into it. Let your exhale be longer than your inhale …
“Hey, is any of this hypnotist stuff real?” Chen is a doctor. Surely he’d know.
He tips his head to the side. “Do you want it to be?”
“Sheridan!” Pierre Arsenault’s whisper shout cuts through my thoughts.
Chen leaves me hanging as he takes his seat in a nearby row.
Mikey follows closely behind and, using his inside voice, says, “What’re you doing lurking back here like a vampire?”
“I was thinking more like a ghoul.” Pierre shrugs.
I turn to find half the Knights’ roster approaching—at least those who aren’t already seated in the front row. All dressed in their best suits, they look like they’re far more entertained than I am.
Jack, our center, parts the pack with his usual cocky grin and points to the front row. “We have seats up there.”
“The ambiance here is fine.” I lift my glass to them with zero intention of sitting down.
“Ambiance?” Grady juts his chin toward the stage as if he knows I’d noticed the blond woman in the icy blue gown earlier.
He’s the team’s enforcer and built like a brick wall, but supposedly is a doting dad.
I wouldn’t know because this is the first team-related event I’ve attended, and that’s because it’s an official NHL shindig.
The Knights invited me into the fold, but I’m better off flying solo these days.
Better not to form a brotherhood if I’m the weak link.
Redd hisses, “When you got here, you were sulking.”
“I don’t sulk.”
“Then I saw you dancing.” Mikey signals that we sit down or get down and boogie, I can’t be sure.
Yeah. That happened. Almost as if it were a dream. Our eyes met. We floated together from across the room as if drawn together by marionette strings—even with the roving photog, I knew I should’ve resisted, but I couldn’t. We danced, laughed … I’m actually not sure if it was real.
Redd clicks his tongue. “Sulk? Correction. Lane broods. Very different. Much more manly.”
Several of the guys nearby chuckle.
“Looked like you were having fun with that blond.” Jack elbows me.
Redd shakes his head with disapproval. “Then he instantly went back into his funk.”
Truth is, they’ve been trying to draw me out of my “shell” all evening—turtle jokes were told and they were all of the dad variety.
While I appreciate the effort, I really do, being traded to Nebraska after my entire career with the Wisconsin Warriors feels like being sent out to pasture, even if everyone is being generous and gracious by calling it a “fresh start” and an “opportunity.”
Fresh start. Right.
Opportunity. Sure.
Make no mistake, that was pure, unadulterated sarcasm.
I’m thirty-one—with a surgically repaired shoulder and knee—and a point to prove to every coach, player, and armchair analyst who thinks I’m done.
I want to retire on my terms and not because my body gives up. But my pride refuses to let that happen. I’m going to play at least until the same age as my father was when he hung up his skates—never mind that I intend to kiss the Stanley Cup again.
“Speaking of brooding, any word from your old man? I heard the Mustangs are having a rough season.” Liam, our captain, gets shushed by his wife.
My jaw tightens automatically. Dad was captain of the Utah Mustangs when these guys were still in diapers.
Now, he’s the coach. His shadow follows me everywhere I go.
Lane Sheridan Senior, the legend. The standard I’ve been measured against my entire career.
The one he’s always pushed me to be better, while also keeping his hockey skate firmly on top of mine, so I don’t exceed his accomplishments.
The man is mercurial.
“Haven’t talked to him lately,” I say, which is true.
Our conversations are limited to hockey and family emergencies, which usually involve my sister’s drama or a media obligation.
My relationship with my father is complicated at best and strained at worst, especially since Desi went off the rails and became the family blue sheep—her hair color, the last time I saw her, which was seven years ago now? That can’t be right.
She has a kid, and while I’ve tried to remind her that I’m her brother—family—who’d like to be part of her life, it’s hard to keep up.
No, actually, last time we were in touch, she was in Hawaii and had gone blond, but her hair wasn’t as silky soft as the woman’s on the stage—either genuinely hypnotized or clucking like a chicken because she’s in on the act.
“Man, I can’t imagine having that kind of pressure,” Mikey says with an air of sympathy in his voice. “Following in those skates has got to be—”
Liam grunts while ushering us to sit in the front row. “I can.” His father, another hockey legend from Canada by way of Germany, and his brother are notorious NHL players.
“Guys, hush!” another one of the hockey wives hisses.
“Can’t they not talk about hockey for more than thirty seconds?” a brunette asks.
A tall woman with olive skin shakes her head. “Highly unlikely.”
Just then, the crowd erupts with laughter, likely at something the hypnotist made the woman on the stage do while under his spell. Or not. I have as many doubts about this as I do about how playing for the Knights will go.
“Now that’s a sight to improve anyone’s mood,” Mikey says.
But whatever it was, I missed it. The blond woman whom I noticed earlier across the room is as stunning when dancing as she is when clucking like a hen.
Before the guys interrupted my perfectly good position leaning against the wall, Nina, volunteered by her friends, looked absolutely mortified to be up there.
Gorgeous in her sparkly ice-blue gown that flatters her figure, at first, she looked like she’d rather be somewhere else. Not anywhere else like me. But some place specific. There’s a distinction. Now, she’s slightly dazed, yet serene at the same time.
“Like what you see?” Mikey chuckles, noticing my attention is solely focused on Nina.