Chapter 43
LIAM
Unsurprisingly, my ass was summoned into our general manager’s office before practice the next morning.
Still raw, still humiliated, still utterly devastated and angry and hurt, I headed upstairs instead of into the locker room. Was he going to bench me? Suspend me? Tell me the team had collectively demanded he oust me?
It probably wasn’t that catastrophic—or wouldn’t be as long as Chris and I could coexist—but I was still nervous about it. And oh, fuck, I dreaded my first media scrum after this. Would it be too much to ask Travis to keep me away from reporters until this died down? Probably.
Well, first things first—our GM.
“Have a seat, Saints,” Gil said, sounding less than pleased to see me.
I took one of the empty chairs in front of his desk. Chris wasn’t in here; I couldn’t decide if that was a good thing, a bad thing, or if it meant anything at all.
Folding his hands on the desk, Gil peered at me like a principal getting ready to discipline a misbehaving kindergartener. “We need to talk about what happened last night.”
“Yeah, I, uh…” I scratched the back of my neck. “I figured.”
He took a deep breath. “Kanes is furious. The media is going nuts. Social media is full of fans spreading rumors. So… I guess the place I need to start is, are you romantically involved with his father?”
My chest hurt as the truth—I was romantically involved with him—came to the tip of my tongue.
I hoped I still was, and so far, Garrett hadn’t given me any reason to believe this was the end of us.
But I was kind of beyond rational at this point, and I was sure everything, including my relationship with him, was slipping through my fingers.
I didn’t want to get into that, though, and my GM was definitely not interested, so I just said, “Yes.”
That earned me a frustrated groan. “Saints. Oh my God.” He gave me a why do you guys do this to me? look. “Why? Why in the world would you get involved with a teammate’s parent?” He flailed a hand, nearly toppling a cup of pens. “Really?”
I stared down at my wringing hands. After a moment, I met his gaze, and my voice sounded about as exhausted as I felt.
“The why won’t change anything. It is what it is, and someone outed us without our consent.
” That was something else I wasn’t done dealing with—Jack Arlen wasn’t slithering out of this one—but I had a few fires to put out first. I shrugged heavily.
“The question is where do we go from here?”
Gil scowled at me, and I wondered for a moment if he was going to tell me he would decide what the real questions were.
Instead, he sat back in his chair with a heavy sigh.
“The most immediate concern I have is you and Kanes. The bottom line is that I need a cohesive team. I can’t just have two players at each other’s throats. ”
I winced, recalling the hurt and fury in Chris’s eyes. Even when he’d dropped gloves with the asshole who’d slashed Barns, he hadn’t been that pissed off, and that said something.
Gil must’ve seen through me, because he sighed again and asked, “How bad is it between you two?”
“It’s…” I chewed my lip. “He and I need to talk. One on one.”
“How willing do you think he’ll be to talk to you?”
Shaking my head, I admitted, “I don’t know.
But… listen, he’s still coping with the shock.
It’s—don’t blame him, okay? His dad and I got outed in the most stupidly public way possible, and now the entire hockey world is going to be asking him how he feels about his captain sleeping with his dad.
It’s not fair to expect Kanes to process all that overnight. ”
“Of course it’s not fair.” Gil waved a hand.
“But I’ve got a professional hockey team to manage, and they’re making a run at the playoffs.
” He shrugged dismissively. “Even if I was willing to let players’ personal shit dictate how I handle this team—and I’m not—I don’t have that luxury.
Not now. This has to be resolved. Today. ”
Panic roiled behind my ribs as I grasped for a solution. “Look, don’t punish Kanes. If you have to trade or waive someone, then—”
Gil barked a laugh. “Are you insane? You’re the captain of this team. You’re the face of this franchise. I’m not going to—”
“Kanes is the future of this team,” I countered. “You’ve got at most three years left with me.” I waved a hand toward the door. “He’s a generational talent with an entire career ahead of him.”
“And the fans would crucify me if I cut you loose. Especially over something like this.”
“They’ll also crucify you when Kanes is leading another team to a title.” I showed my palms. “Look. We don’t play again for a couple of nights. Give me today and tonight to do damage control.” I swallowed. “I’ll find a way for me and Kanes to coexist without it hurting the team.”
Gil studied me for a long moment. Finally, he blew out a harsh breath.
“Here’s the deal, Saints. You and Kanes are in my office by noon tomorrow, both of you convincing me you can function together at the level we expect from you.
If I’m not convinced, he goes on waivers at two o’clock. Am I clear?”
I gulped. I wanted to believe he was smart enough not to waive our best and brightest young player over something like this. I wanted to believe that.
But I also knew that when a GM made up his mind, shit could get real.
“Okay.” I nodded. “Noon tomorrow.”
He dismissed me, and I left his office. Out in the hallway, I paused to collect my thoughts. The truth was, I had no idea how I was going to smooth things over with Chris. I had no idea if it was even possible.
What I did know, though, was that I wasn’t going to allow Gil to waive him. Chris was the future of the Pittsburgh Phantoms, and I wasn’t about to derail that.
If we couldn’t come to a solution…
Then before waivers went active at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon, I’d be announcing my retirement from professional hockey.
In the name of not stirring up gossip in the locker room, I didn’t go in to get Chris myself. Instead, I had one of the strength trainers ask him to step out, ostensibly to square away some scheduling for his off-ice workouts.
As soon as Chris saw me, his already bummed out mood darkened. To the trainer, he said, “Really?”
The trainer put up her hands and stepped away.
“Don’t blame her,” I said calmly. “I just didn’t want people in there”—I tipped my head toward the locker room—“speculating.”
He scowled. “Yeah, like everyone isn’t already talking about it.”
“I know. I just didn’t want to make that worse.” Before he could argue that point any further, I added, “We need to talk, and it can’t wait.”
Then I headed for one of the small conference rooms, praying with every step that he followed me.
He did, and a moment later, he was shutting the door behind us. “Okay.” He folded his arms and leaned against the door. “Let’s talk, I guess.”
I paused to gather my thoughts. When I was confident I’d arranged them enough to be coherent, I took a deep breath, but Chris spoke before I could.
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry,” he growled.
I froze, mouth still open for the unspoken apology. Then I closed it.
Chris shifted his weight, hugging himself tighter.
“My dad, Saints. My fucking dad. And then you both lied to me about it but you’ll tell random fans.
I mean, I get that the video was AI, but someone fucking knew, and I had to hear it from…
I just…” He made a frustrated gesture and started pacing across the tiny room. “What the hell?”
I watched him silently for a moment as I weighed my next words.
“I know you don’t want to hear it,” I said as evenly as I could, “but I am sorry.”
He glared at me.
“This wasn’t how we wanted you to find out.”
The response to that was a caustic laugh. “Yeah. That sure worked out. You’d think my dad would’ve learned by now that keeping things hidden will just make everything into a bigger shitshow than it needs to be.”
“I know, and your dad and I talked about that,” I insisted. “About telling you. We talked about it a lot.” I exhaled hard, leaning against the small table at the center of the room. “He felt guilty hiding it from you, and so did I.”
“So why did you keep hiding it?” he demanded. “Why didn’t you guys just man up and tell me so I didn’t have to find out like”—he gestured in the general direction of the locker room—“like that?”
“It wasn’t how we wanted it to come out either.”
“But it did. And now here we are.” His eyes—full of anger and hurt—demanded to know what happened next.
“Listen, I know this is hard for you,” I said. “And the last thing I wanted to do was cause problems between you and your dad or problems on this team.”
“What did you think would happen?” he growled. “How the hell did you think hooking up with my dad would play out when you—”
“I was thinking I’d finally met someone who didn’t just want to fuck my jersey number or my bank account.”
Chris froze, lips apart.
My own words echoed over and over in my head. Fuck. Saying that out loud—ouch.
I swallowed hard. When I managed to speak, my voice tried hard to break, but I tried even harder to keep it together.
“I know this is weird for you, Chris. And I know we hid it from you. But Jesus Christ, have you noticed how long I’ve been alone?
How it’s so goddamned conspicuous that the fucking press can’t go a week without asking if I’ve got someone?
” My shoulders dropped. “I haven’t had someone.
I’ve had one boyfriend in my entire career, and even that didn’t get far for the same reason nothing else ever does—because my whole life has been hockey, Chris.
All hockey all the time. Since I was a kid.
Then I met your dad, and…” I trailed off, not sure how to finish that without showing more emotion than I wanted.
Chris just watched me silently, as if he didn’t know what to make of that or what to say.