Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
CONNOR
“Did you hear?” Luke asks, looking like a kid on Christmas morning as he nudges me in the side when we’re sat in the away team’s locker room at New Haven on Thursday night. “The scout from Chicago is here. He wants us up in the box after the game.”
I grimace without thinking. It’s getting harder for me to pretend that I intend playing beside him in the pros.
“What’s that face for?” He frowns.
I glance around, desperate to turn the spotlight on someone else, but the only one even remotely close by is Aiden. He’s got his headphones on, eyes closed, head back and lost in his own world. I’m pretty sure he would deck me right here if I tried to mess with his pre-game ritual.
Shit.
I sigh, resigning myself to the conversation.
“Nothing,” I tell him, yanking my jersey on over my pads. “I just think I need an early night in.”
He smacks my shoulder with a nearby towel and it gives off a thud as it bounces off my shoulder pads. At least it’s clean. “I’m not letting you bail on this. It’s our future, man.”
I groan inwardly. Luke is persistent on a good day; it’s one of the things that makes him such a great player, but today it’s not working in my favor. I hate that I’m lying to him, even if it is just by omission.
I already know he’s going to insist, even if he has to throw me over his shoulder and carry me. Ollie would never let me live that down—he would probably try to sell a photo to the highest bidder.
“Fine, just for a quick one,” I agree reluctantly.
He grins and throws an arm around my shoulder, jostling me slightly. “You can sleep when you’re old McKibben. The NHL is calling your name tonight.”
I’m relieved when Coach finally steps into the locker room and demands our attention.
Luke drops his arm from my shoulder, and I feel like I can breathe a little again as he launches into his speech.
I barely hear any of it today, my head already scrambled and mentally trapped in a box full of my teammates, trying to dodge prying eyes while I pretend this is what I want.
My skin prickles at the thought of having to fight with my teammates over a coveted spot on a team I don’t even want. I scratch at the padding on my chest, right where it feels extra constricting.
When Coach finishes his speech, Ethan takes over for the final rally and before I know it, we’re ready for line up.
I need an extra second to myself, so I drop to my knee, untying the laces on my skates and retying them twice to buy me some time to get my head back in the game while everyone filters out of the locker room around me.
“McKibben, you okay?” Coach asks me when I’m the last person out the door—an unusual occurrence for both of us.
I shift my helmet from one hand to the other, fighting the urge to scratch at my chest again. “I’m okay.”
He tilts his head, eyes narrowed as he assesses me. “You injured?”
I grit my teeth, wishing not for the first time to avoid his attention on me. Coach is scary when he wants to be. “No sir.”
“Good. Stop sulking. It’s not a good look.”
The guys are already lined up in the tunnel. Finn nudges me when I take my usual spot beside him. “What did Coach want?”
“Nothing,” I tell him as the Chargers start filtering into the tunnel beside us.
Trace, their captain, greets Ethan at the front of the line up, the two of them shaking hands.
The rest of us barely glance their way, the energy shifting in the hallway.
We’re friendly off the ice, but after three years of having our asses kicked by them, we’re all getting restless for a change in the standings.
Finn nudges me again, drawing my attention back to him. He’s got one brow raised behind his visor. “Got something you want to share?”
I shake my head and pretend to tighten the straps on my gloves next. “He just wanted to discuss my stats.”
“Right before the game?” he asks, his tone barely containing his suspicion. He might as well have called bullshit right here in the tunnel.
Thankfully, I don’t have to respond, because the next moment the main doors open and the ear deafening roar of the crowd in the stadium fills the tunnels while we push forward.
The second my skates hit the ice, I feel like I can breathe a little easier knowing that for at least the next sixty minutes while the clock is ticking, I won’t have to deal with lying to my best friends.
Still, fifteen minutes into the first period, it’s clear that my head is not in the game.
I miss easy passes, earning me a glare from most of my team when I accidentally let the puck fall into the possession of the Chargers’ right forward, and another when my carelessness earns them a point against us six minutes later.
Coach all but smacks me across the head in halftime, and when we hit the ice in the second period, I know I’m being watched like a hawk because Luke refuses to pass to me and Tanner starts to move into my zone, playing double positions. It’s a fucking shitshow.
By the third period I’m just a filler on the ice.
The sinking feeling that I’m letting down another team presses down heavy on me, and I change out earlier than I’m supposed to.
I pretend not to notice the relieved face on Coach’s face when I jump into the players’ box and let Matty take my place. A fucking rookie at that.
We somehow end up winning the game, no thanks to my efforts. I’m pretty sure our win is the only thing that keeps me from getting a lecture from Coach in the locker rooms after the game.
I hang back, trying to blend in with the tiles when we hit the showers, but when I return to the lockers and find Luke and Aiden perched on the bench next to my bags, I reluctantly change back into my suit and follow them up into one of the sponsor boxes at the top of the stadium.
The party is already in full swing when we enter. There’s a full bar set up along the back wall, soft jazz playing from the speakers and waiters passing around canapes in white gloves, and I feel like I shouldn’t be here. I loosen my tie, trying to breathe.
When Luke gets swallowed up by the crowd and Aiden disappears in the direction of the bar, I head for the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the ice.
It looks smaller from up here, and with the heaters blasting in the suite, there’s none of that crispness in the air I always love about the rink.
It feels like a parallel world—spectators to the circus down below. I hate it.
“Connor McKibben!” I turn at the sound of my name to find a gray-haired guy in a navy-blue suit coming to a stop next to me.
It doesn’t take a genius to recognize Trevor Fayden.
He’s been around long enough that he probably scouted Luke’s dad back in the day.
I stuff my hands in my pockets to keep from fiddling. “You play an impressive game.”
I raise a brow, turning my eyes back on the rink to find some semblance of calm. I can admit that being on his radar is intimidating, even if I’m not hoping for his good graces to sprinkle fairy dust all over my career. “You must not have been paying attention then.”
“Most guys would’ve played it off as a team issue.”
“My team has nothing to do with my head being scrambled.”
He watches me with beady eyes as he takes a sip of his drink. I reach up to loosen my tie a fraction more. When did it get so hot in here? I feel like I can’t breathe.
“Anything of concern?” he asks, eyes tracking down my body like he’s assessing my every move, and I know he’s really asking if I’m injured. Not because he cares about my health, but because any sign of injury would rapidly decrease my value.
I shift on my feet, biting the tip of my tongue to keep from scratching at the skin on my forearm. This is exactly why I didn’t want to be up here tonight.
“No sir.”
“Good.” He nods, seemingly satisfied with my answer. “Keep this up and I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”
He holds out his hand, waiting for me to shake it, and I stare at it like it’s wrapped with poison ivy.
It’s just a handshake, but it feels weighted with a dozen expectations that I don’t want to try to fulfill.
Thoughts of weekends spent in unknown cities with strangers who don’t care about me flash before my eyes.
Time spent away from my family, fighting for a spot in the limelight while Ellie grows up without me.
Being jostled around from place to place until I no longer feel at home anywhere. I don’t want any of it.
“I have to go.” The words are out of me before I know it, and I’m storming toward the closest exit, my hands working to undo my tie so I can breathe. I need to get as far away from here as possible.
My lungs refuse to fill until the moment my feet hits the hallway outside the box again.
The door swings open behind me. I don’t have to look behind me to know it’s Luke following me, his quick strides closing in on me before I can make it even halfway to the elevators.
“What’s wrong with you?” He shoves my shoulder, and I go flying into the nearest wall.
I push him back off me. “Nothing is wrong with me.”
“Bullshit, you had that guy eating out of your palms and you just walk away?”
“I told you I wanted an early night in.”
“The NHL is calling your name, Connor.”
“I’m not declaring.”
He rears back like I’ve just slapped him across the face. “What?”
“The constant scrutiny, flying all over the world and never spending more than a few nights each place? I don’t want it,” I snap at him.
When I realize I’ve been practically shouting in the quiet hallway, I lower my voice and add, “I love the game—love being a part of a team—but I don’t want to get to a point in my life where I start hating it or where I’m sacrificing my life for hockey. ”
“Hockey is life.”
“I want more.”
He frowns, crossing his arms over his chest. He’s trying to appear bigger, his default mode when he gets threatened on the ice. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s pulling it with me now that I’m threatening his idea of the future. “For how long?”
“A while.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”
I shrug, doing my best to appear nonchalant. “I guess I didn’t want to disappoint you.”
He deflates a little, his stance softening but the hurt on his face stays.
The door to the suite opens and Aiden strides out, Finn close on his heels.
“Everything okay?” Aiden asks, looking between us.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” I tell him, even if I don’t feel it. Judging by the way his eyes narrow, I have a feeling he doesn’t buy it. The broody bastard is perceptive, I’ll give him that.
“Great. I need a drink.” Finn clasps his hand on Luke’s shoulder and nudges him toward the elevator bay.
“You’re coming, right?” Ollie asks, as he sidles up besides Aiden, one arm slung over his shoulder and completely ignoring the way the six-foot goalie is currently glaring at me. “There’s this club downtown that sells half-priced margarita pitchers until midnight and Aiden here is buying.”
Ollie ruffles Aiden’s hair, whose scowl deepens as he turns it on the right winger.
Ollie doesn’t even blink.
Aiden might have a scary reputation with our rival teams, but everyone knows he’s a gentle giant. He likes to keep to himself, but I know first-hand that he would throw himself in front of everyone in this room before he let them take a hit.
Having had enough of the antics, Aiden shrugs Ollie’s hold off him and stalks toward Luke and Finn at the end of the hallway. His long strides cover the ground in no time, catching him up to them just before the elevator doors slide shut.
I let my head rest against the wall and squint against the headache that’s been slowly creeping up on me. This day has been nothing but a shitshow from start to finish and all I want to do is get out of here and curl up in bed.
“Who peed in his Oreos?” Ollie asks. He’s still glancing at where Aiden has just disappeared when the door to the box opens again and Tanner appears, his suit jacket slung over his arm.
“You guys going out?” he asks, glancing between Ollie and me.
I shake my head, letting it roll against the wall the cold concrete. “No, I’m beat. Going to call it an early night.”
“Since when have you ever said no to a party?” Tanner balks, passing a napkin with a phone number scribbled across it to Ollie. Judging from the heart doodles next to it, I’ll guess Ollie finally convinced him to be his wingman.
“There has to be a first time for everything.” I shrug.
“I’ll drink a pitcher for you so you don’t miss out,” Ollie tells me as he snatches the napkin from Tanner and waves it in front of him. “You know where to find us if you get bored of your own hand as your only company.”
I flip him off and am more than grateful when Tanner spins him by the shoulders and pushes him forward.
When they’re finally gone and I’m alone for the first time since this morning, I let my eyes fall shut, trying to ignore the ringing in my head.