Chapter 1 Dominic
Dominic
Sitting in my truck in the parking lot, I stare at the pair of double doors like they’ve offended my entire family line, and snarl at the garish neon-green sign above them proclaiming “O’Neal’s” as though the double apostrophes are bullets straight to my brain.
To be fair, neither the sign nor the doors have done anything to me. It’s what they represent.
They’re the portal to this new phase of suckage that is my life. My life, which was going stellar until a few weeks ago, when I suddenly had to sublet my place, pack up my truck with most of my shit, and move to a short-term rental in a city where I don’t know anyone or anything.
And yeah, the generic cc on a “welcome back” email from a team I don’t even know is pretty much the cherry on top of this shit sundae.
No assistance on moving, no star treatment, nothing.
Since it’s not a mid-season trade and I’m not a hot young draft pick, I’m ignored to the point that I don’t even want to get to know these assholes.
Fuck this. I’m only going to be here for a season, and then I’m going home.
But I am a man who enjoys a mission, so I studied up and did my homework like a good little soldier. Mission: Yank Mike Kipson’s head out of his ass, slap him stupid, and get myself traded back to the Hawks as soon as possible.
With that in mind, I stride across the parking lot, sling open the door, and enter O’Neal’s, switching out my grim-set mouth for the fakest of fake smiles. “Let’s do this shit,” I grumble to myself.
The bar is surprisingly welcoming, with dark wood floors, green-globed chandeliers, and a dozen small round tables surrounded by guys. I don’t head there. Instead, I go straight for the bar along the wall. I need a drink for this.
“Whiskey, beer back. Whatever you have is fine,” I tell the bartender. She sets a shot glass in front of me and I swallow it in one go, welcoming the burn. Taking a sip from the beer so it won’t spill, I approach my doom, otherwise known as the Blizzard players.
Amazingly, I’m greeted well, considering the beatings I put on a lot of these guys during the playoffs. “Dom!”
“Hey, man! Heard you were joining us!”
“Welcome to the best team in the league.”
The guys seem friendly enough, a bit rowdy even if I’m being honest, but that last one I can’t let slide. “You mean the second-best team. Hawks won the Cup last season,” I boast, proud of the accomplishment.
Anderson, the Blizzard goalie, grins like he was poking at me intentionally. “A toast to it being us this year! Welcome to the shit show.” He throws an arm around my shoulders like we’re best buds and holds up his beer.
“Welcome to the shit show!” the chorus echoes.
“Thanks,” I tell them. Then I tilt my head and tease, “I think.”
Initial awkwardness handled, I work my way around the room, mingling and meeting a bunch of players and various team staff, including my new coach. I hold my hand out in greeting as I say, “Coach Boothe, nice to meet you.”
The Blizzard coach is in his late fifties, could probably bench press as much as some of the team guys, and has a suntan line around his eyes that tells me he spends a lot of time outdoors wearing sunglasses, probably golfing.
But he’s no armchair analyst, I know his playing stats and he’s earned his reputation.
“Good to have you here, Lee. You were impressive last season. Hope to make good use of those skills this year too.” He flashes a smile, but it’s gone too quickly to be friendly. He’s a businessman at heart, and his business is hockey.
“Same,” I reply because agreeing seems to be the safest answer.
I mean, I do want to play. Otherwise, I would’ve told both teams to fuck off.
But hockey is my life. There’s nothing like flying across the ice, slipping through holes that no one else sees, and keeping our goalie from having to be target practice.
Coach Boothe lowers his voice, his chin dropping too. “I trust Leverson told you the deal?” I nod subtly, and Coach looks pointedly toward a man sitting alone at one of the tables. “Hope you’ve got some magic. Otherwise, this team is fucked and so are you.”
“No pressure, though, right?” I joke.
“Oh, make no mistake, there’s pressure.” With that, Coach drifts away, finding a group of what appears to be interns to talk to.
I sigh, my anger at the situation reigniting in my gut. But I might as well get this shit started.
It’s not the type of situation where I can walk right up to Kipson and lay my cards out with an “I hear your life sucks ass and I’m here to save you from yourself, so nice to meet you” type deal.
I have to play it smarter than that. Instead, I work the room, getting closer and closer to my target.
I’m not overly friendly with anyone, which isn’t that hard to do since I’m not happy to be here and a lot of these guys know it after my situation last season. But eventually, I’m in front of Kipson.
Mike Kipson is a monster of a hockey player, whose stats put him at six foot three and 225 to my six foot and 200 pounds of lean muscle.
Those few inches and pounds make a world of difference, both on and off the ice.
But right now, the man in front of me looks so hollow that I could probably knock him down with a playful slap to the shoulder.
“Hey, man,” I say, starting this rescue mission.
He barely lifts his eyes from where they’re locked on to his beer. “Lee.”
We’re not instantly trading friendship bracelets and braiding each other’s hair, but it’s a decent start for two assholes who are reasonably pissed at their lot in life at the moment.
“Looking forward to hitting the ice with you this season.” A white lie, but I think God will forgive me given the circumstances.
He sighs heavily, his lips settling into a deep frown. “Look, I know you and Mahoney are all buddy-buddy, but it’s not like that here. We’re not gonna be bros.”
Griffin Mahoney and I have been friends for years, and other than the pesky matter of gestation, we’re brothers, so of course Kipson and I aren’t going to suddenly have the same level of connection.
“I don’t need another brother, so no worries there,” I inform him, eyes narrowed to watch every microexpression that crosses his face.
What I see most is surprise, as if he fully expected me to want to be his new bestie.
“All I need is for you to keep your off-ice shit off the ice. Think you can do that?”
Okay, so maybe I’m throwing my cards out a bit prematurely, but it happens to the best of us. Or so I hear. Besides, some people need a velvet glove, some need a swift kick in the ass. Hopefully Kipson’s the latter.
He huffs out a dry, humorless laugh. “Yeah, I can do that.”
I don’t believe him any more than he believes himself. “Good. Then we’ll be fine.”
Kipson picks up his beer, downs the whole thing in one swallow, and slams the empty glass back to the table. “Gonna hit the head.”
“Make sure you shake it off before you come back out.” I don’t mean his dick, but rather his mood, and he knows it.
“Fuck you, Lee.”
“Fuck you, Kipson.”
It’d seem like we’re already sworn enemies, but in the ways of guys, we’re about two weeks out from an after-practice beer and a month out from those friendship bracelets. But if he needs help moving into his postdivorce bachelor apartment, he can fuck off. I’m not letting him borrow my truck.
An hour and one beer later, I’ve avoided Kipson in favor of getting to know some of the other guys. Mostly because I figure they can give me a bit of recon insight, plus I do have to play with them this season.
But mostly what I’ve learned is that these guys are annoying as hell.
On the Hawks, we had a guy we called Brody, not because it was his name but because he was such a bro, like the most stereotypical frat dude you’ve ever met.
The rest of us were professional athletes, and conducted ourselves that way.
The entirety of the Blizzard team seems to be cut from the Brody cloth, however, which is to say immature, annoying, and obnoxious.
“Hey, Dom, pick three . . . fuck, marry, kill,” Anderson tells me. He raises his beer to the bar at large, which is filled with people coming in for a quick after-work drink or to meet friends. Or strangers.
I furrow my brow and shake my head. “I don’t do that sort of juvenile bullshit.”
Sabine, a left winger, and Pacholek, a center forward, join in with Anderson’s teasing. “Come on, it’s just for fun. Look around.” Anderson points at a few women scattered throughout the bar.
I have half a mind to point at Tweedlefuck (Sabine) and Tweedlefucker (Pacholek) as at least two of the three options just to get them to shut up. But in the end, I point at two women. “Fuck. Marry.” Then I point a finger gun to my temple. “Kill.”
They laugh, but honestly, kill me now sounds about right. How did I go from dinners with my best friend and sister to this? How did I end up traded from a winning team to this group of assholes?
“Go talk to her. See if you can score. Work that Dominic Lee magic we’ve all heard about,” Sabine taunts, pointing at the woman I deemed fuckable.
Three words, and I talked myself into a corner. I have less than zero interest in women right now. What does interest me is getting the hell away from these bozos for a minute, so I swallow my beer and head over to the bar under the guise of getting another one.
“Draft, please,” I tell the bartender, pretending to ignore the beautiful blonde perched on a barstool two feet away. Although to be honest, it’s hard to ignore her.
She’s stunning, in skintight jeans, a simple white tank top, and tan boots with a floral design on the sides.
Her eyes are bright as she looks around, but there’s something about her that makes her seem uncomfortable, like this isn’t her scene.
Whether that’s the bar or its occupants tonight, I don’t know.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hello.” Her tone is friendly, but the quick return of her attention to the room is not.
I scoot a little closer. “I’m Dominic.”