Chapter 13
Cass
Across from me, the cracked plastic casing of my crew badge sat on the laminate desk, right next to my hydraulic systems textbook and an untouched granola bar.
Welcome to glamorous road life.
The curtains didn’t do much to block the late morning light, just made it an unflattering shade of yellow. I blinked against it, squinting through the tiny gap where they didn’t quite meet, and rested my forehead against the cool glass of the motel window.
Across the street, the Surge team bus idled in front of the Marriott Edmonton.
Sleek and spotless, the kind of ride reserved for San Antonio’s stars, complete with their silver-blue logo emblazoned on the side.
A few players drifted out from the sliding lobby doors, sticks slung casually over shoulders, protein shakes in hand.
I looked closer, hoping to get a glimpse of Mason.
A flash of his walk or that grin that always started out crooked. But he wasn’t one of the early risers.
I went back to my bed and checked my phone on the nightstand. Blank screen.
I hadn’t spoken to him, and he hadn’t bothered speaking to me. The phone went back to its spot and I flopped onto the pillows. My room smelled faintly of detergent and stale carpet, and the heater groaned every few minutes even though I’d turned it off last night.
The team stayed at the Marriott. I stayed here. One of those things made sense.
Still, I told myself it wasn’t a big deal. I wasn’t here for them, or Mason. Not officially. I was here under the lie I’d sold the crew: documenting the equipment logistics of a pro team for an engineering course assignment. Extra credit. Career-building. Practical application. All true. Mostly.
My phone buzzed, and I swiped for it, exhaling slowly when it wasn’t Mason. I wasn’t sure if that was a breath of relief or disappointment.
Because if it had been him… I wasn’t ready. Not after the interview.
No girlfriend. No prospects. Just focusing on hockey.
My stomach tilted and I rolled over onto my side, staring through the slit in the curtains. I knew why he’d said it. Coach’s rules, timing, pressure… All of them were very good reasons to keep things under wraps, especially from the media. But still.
He’d looked straight at the camera and said I was no one.
And even though I understood it, the moment lodged under my skin like a burr.
A knock at the door broke through my spiral and I turned, heart thumping hard against my ribs. Was this why Mason wasn’t at the bus?
The knock came again.
More insistent.
I crossed the room, pausing at the mirror to check my hair. At least it didn’t look like I’d just woken up. The wrinkles in my Blondie T-shirt were barely visible with the French tuck I had going on. Jeans. Not torn.
I opened the door with the easy smile I’d been practicing, and it fell flat almost immediately.
“Dad?”
Sharp-pressed windbreaker, university logo on the chest. A frown that had never quite left his face since I was fifteen and Mom died.
“Don’t ‘Dad’ me.” He came in without an invitation, paced the small motel room a few times, then planted himself right at the window where I was standing a few minutes ago. “I’m afraid to ask what you’re doing here. Especially after our talk.”
My brain went into overdrive, lie upon lie collapsing onto each other. “It’s for school,” I blurted out.
His phone call when Mason and I were, well, quizzing each other sent a cold panic through me. I was sure he was going to call me out on what Mason and I were doing. But it was about work, and that I’d been slacking with the product order admin.
“Cass.”
“No, really,” I said, closing the door. This was going to be a thing, then. “It’s an extra credit thing. I cleared it with the crew. Also, we’re playing away in my hometown. Why wouldn’t I come along for this trip?”
He said nothing, just shoved his hands in his pockets and continued to glare at me. The tendons in his jaw twitched dangerously, and the vein in his forehead told me I was skating on thin ice.
“Professor Ellis said it’s a good idea for my real-world application class, to—”
“Professor Ellis, huh?” The challenge in his voice struck me dumb. “Would that be the same Professor Ellis who emailed me about the classes you’ve missed? The projects you’ve submitted late or not at all?”
Well, shit.
“He’s not supposed to share my—”
“He’s concerned, and frankly, Cass, so am I,” Dad said. “You’re throwing away years of work, and for what? You’re spending all this extra time at the arena, with the team…”
“I’m not throwi—”
“Yes you are. And don’t pretend this is just about school. I know when you’re flailing. Distracted. I’m programmed to spot that shit a mile off.”
My chest tightened. He knew about Mason. That was why he came here. He knew what we’d been up to and all hell was about to break loose.
“I don’t care what you think you’re seeing,” I said, allowing my frustration to bleed into my words. “I’m not on your squad, Dad. I’m not some breakout star you need to micro-manage.”
“You’re my daughter, goddamnit!” Forehead vein got a friend, and I was scared my dad was going to stroke out on me. “You’re my responsibility, whether you like it or not.”
“I’m not a kid,” I said, folding my arms across my chest. It was the best defense I had. “I stopped being your re—”
“You never stop being my responsibility.” It came out softer, exhausted. The fight he blustered in with had blown out. “I care about you, and your dreams. I want things to work out for you, and I can’t stand by and watch you piss it down the drain because of stress or whatever.”
Stress?
The stress of… secretly seeing a hockey player?
“Look,” he said, holding up his hands. “I’m not here to fight with my daughter. But more time around the rink isn’t going to fix your problems with school. Running away from your problems is never the answer. If you need help, say so.”
“Help?” It started dawning on me that this may not have been about Mason at all.
“I spoke to your professor, and she said there are tutors available through the school. No charge.”
The realization landed like a brick. He wasn’t here about Mason. He was just worried about me flaking out of school. It should’ve been a relief, but it made the guilt even worse. Lying to him, going behind his back the way I’d been doing…
“If I’ve taught you anything, Cass, it’s to run toward the defensive line, not from it.” The tenderness in his voice reflected in his eyes, and melted the last of the wall I had constructed around me. “You have so much potential.”
“Okay.” That was all I could manage to salvage from the mulch in my brain.
He nodded once, satisfied. “You’re here now, so it’s no use paying for a flight home. But when we get back, I want your word—”
“No distractions,” I swore to him.
He studied me for a second longer, then left the room, the door clicking softly behind him. I stood there, jaw clenched, blood pounding in my ears.
God, how did things get so messed up so fast?
The reason floated into my mind, all rough beard and muscular chest. I crossed the floor in three long strides, back to the window. But the bus had already gone. There was just an empty curb and a crumpled coffee cup tumbling down the sidewalk.
I needed to clear my head. My motel was on a block that hadn’t changed much since high school. The same cracked sidewalks, same tiny one-way street traffic, same corner stand that still sold buttery pretzels and gritty coffee strong enough to wake the dead.
I hugged my coat a little closer, bracing against the wind. The pretzel guy hadn’t aged a day. Still wore his beanie too low and kept his cash in a metal tin duct-taped to the inside of the cart. I ordered a coffee and cradled it in both hands to stave off the worst of the cold.
There was a mural on Third that I had walked past every day for years.
I picked the bench across from it to have my coffee, soaking in the flock of starlings in paint as they soared upward into a swirl of constellations.
I sipped my coffee, grateful that even now, the mural remained untagged by graffiti.
About three sips in, my phone buzzed with a text.
It still wasn’t Mason.
Travis (EQ): Are you nearby? Hydraulics problem at the arena. Let me know if you can make it in.
EQ stood for ‘equipment’ and I sighed with relief. Finally, a real reason to be useful. Something to help my lie be less of a lie.
I thumbed a quick reply: Be there in ten.
The industrial whine of the overhead lights hummed low and steady in the workshop at the home of the Edmonton Oilers. It was weird being back, and being in the back at that. Felt like home and not, at the same time.
The hum blended with the soft clicks of my socket wrench as I got to work on the blocked valve on the trailer’s lift gate.
I’d stripped off my coat, and was being extra careful to not get oil on my Surge crew polo.
Not that anyone would care. I wasn’t making any broadcast reels.
But I wanted to leave from here to the game later, looking at least semi-presentable.
“Oh. Sorry.”
I looked up, and a young girl stood in the doorway, dark curls framing her oval face. She wore black jeans and an oversized Surge hoodie. My people.
“I forgive you,” I said with a wry smile, wiping my hands on the oil rag from my back pocket.
She gave a dry laugh, looked up and down the hallway, then back at me. “I think I’m lost. I’m trying to find the locker room.”
“Good.” I rocked back on my heels, trying to place her. I couldn’t. “You’re not allowed back there. Or here, actually.”
She inched further into the workshop, dropping a shoulder to the wall just inside. “I’m with the team.”
“That’s what all the groupies say,” I scoffed, and turned my attention back to the backed-up valve. “Best you find your way back to the public area unless you want to be escorted out. Not a bad deal. They give you a pair of shiny, silver bracelets that don’t come off without a key.”
“I prefer mine lined with fur.”