Chapter 1
Present
Ash
My mouthguard goes flying as I hit the boards like they’re a concrete traffic barrier. Pain shoots through my cheek as I bite down on it, and I taste the metallic tang of blood when I swipe the cut with my tongue.
Fucking Lapointe. He’s been homing in on me tonight like he’s a heat seeking missile and my ass is on fire.
“My left ball dangles better than you, Gunnarsson,” Lapointe throws out before pushing off me to catch up with the puck.
“Real original, asshole!” I shout back before swiping up my guard and shoving it back in my mouth. Not my best comeback, but the verbal game was never my forte.
I can handle Lapointe’s hits. The bigger issue is he hasn’t stopped chirping at me since we got on the ice.
Or maybe he’s been ‘quacking,’ since we’re playing the Ducks?
Regardless, I’ve already missed two easy shots – or easy for me – and it’s pissing me off.
It’s only preseason, but clearly no one has forgotten how last year ended for me, and they’re not planning to let me forget it either. Especially not Lapointe.
I streak down the ice and get back in position.
We’ve got the puck, and Bouchard is trying to find a shot.
I’m wide open, and he glances my way but passes to Cote instead.
Cote tries to flick the puck into the top left corner, but it bounces off the crossbar and the goalie smothers it when it hits the ice again.
“What the fuck?” I say to Bouchard as I skate by him. “I was open.”
“Sorry, didn’t see you,” he says. “Next time.”
Fuck that. He saw me. He didn’t trust me to make the shot.
I pull my mouthguard out and spit blood onto the ice.
“Looks like you’re bleeding,” Lapointe says as he skates up, getting in my face. “Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered.”
His glove is off, and he grabs the front of my jersey to shove something down the collar. I push him away and reach for whatever he just put down my shirt. I feel a small lump, but I can’t grab whatever it is. I take off my glove and reach into my jersey to pull out…a tampon.
I’ll fucking kill him.
I wheel around to find Lapointe and take off as I spot him. He’s laughing, but his face turns serious when he realizes I’m not stopping.
I slam him back against the boards as he swings at my head.
The blow glances off my helmet, and he opens his mouth to yell at me, but I shove the tampon into his open trap and clamp my hand over it to hold it in as I pin his head to the glass.
His eyes widen, and he throws another punch that dislodges me before he spits the tampon onto the ice.
“Motherfucker!” he shouts.
Lapointe and I punch each other wildly, each trying to land something. Kelsier and Petruck join the fray along with a couple of the Ducks, then the refs are on us, pulling us apart.
One of the refs picks up the tampon by its string.
“Match penalty, number seventeen,” he tells me. “You’re outta here.”
“He’s the one who brought it!” I yell as I gesture at Lapointe, who’s smirking at me. “I was just giving it back to him.”
“Out! Now!” the ref repeats as he directs me toward the tunnel.
I go, swearing like a sailor the whole way.
“PMS is a bitch, right?” Lapointe calls to me, and Kelsier has to block me from turning to go after him again.
“Take it easy,” Kelsier says. “You’ve already been kicked out. Don’t make it worse.”
He’s right. How did I let things get this bad?
Ash
Two hours later, I’m showered, dressed, and on my way up to see the big boss – the owner – who asked to see me after the game. And when I say ‘asked,’ I mean that in the same way my mother used to ask me to take out the trash.
“Go right in, Mr. Gunnarsson. He’s waiting for you,” Mr. Kaladin’s assistant says as I approach her desk.
“On a scale of one to atom bomb, how pissed is he?” I ask her.
She only smiles encouragingly, and I sigh before I knock a couple times and open the door.
“Ah, Mr. Gunnarsson,” Max Kaladin says from behind his desk as I peek inside. “Come on in.”
The desk is huge and sits at the far end of an office that I’m sure is bigger than my first apartment. There’s a God damn fireplace and sectional in one corner of the room, for Christ’s sake.
“It is Gun-arsson and not Guuh-narsson, right?” Kaladin asks as I step inside and close the door.
“Yes, sir,” I say as I head toward the desk. “My parents Americanized it when they moved here. Everyone mispronounced it anyway.”
He nods. “Well, it’s good to finally meet you.”
He’s smiling, and I feel like this has to be a trick. The man spent a lot of money to bring me here, and not only am I sucking ass in the preseason, I got ejected from one of our last games before the regular season starts.
I stop in front of the desk, and Kaladin reaches out to shake my hand. I meet it reluctantly.
The owner of the Hartford Hydra is in his mid-thirties with hair that’s a shade of red I’ve never seen a man pull off well until now. I expect to tower over him, but he’s only an inch or two shorter than me, and he seems fit, like he works out.
Max Kaladin has his hands in just about every industry you can think of.
He was already filthy rich when a pharmaceutical company he owned developed a weight loss drug that, for a change, actually worked, and he became ‘buy his own continent’ rich.
For some reason, he decided to use some of that money to start a new NHL team.
“Sir, just let me apologize-,” I start, but he waves me off.
“Have a seat,” he says. He gestures to one of the chairs in front of his desk as he sits in the plush leather one behind it.
“Tell me what happened,” he says when we’re both settled in.
I hesitate. This still feels like a trap. The owner of my last team would’ve been turning purple by now if I’d pulled the shit I did tonight, but Kaladin sounds perfectly calm as I wait for the other shoe to drop.
He looks expectantly at me, and I launch into the short version of everything that happened between me and Lapointe from the time we took the ice until I got ejected. He listens patiently, nodding at all the right times, and I dare to think he might not boot my ass.
He’s quiet for a long while when I finish, so I add, “That’s it.”
He nods again. “So would you agree we have a problem here, Mr. Gunnarsson…Ash? Can I call you Ash?”
He can call me whatever the fuck he wants. Just please, dear God, don’t let him kick me off the team.
“Ash is fine,” I say. “And just so I’m sure we’re on the same page, can you specify what problem you’re talking about?”
A smile ticks at the corners of his mouth. “I’m talking about how you implode whenever someone gets in your head,” he says. “The problem is you can’t handle a little trash talk.”
Can’t handle a little trash talk? He’s right, but it sounds both condescending and accusatory, and I feel instantly defensive.
“It was more than a little trash talk,” I argue. “The asshole put a tampon down my jersey.” I pause. “Pardon my language, but Lapointe crossed a line. I don’t appreciate that kind of misogynistic BS.”
He nods. “Yes, and I’ll see about getting him disciplined as well, but you can’t deny this has been a problem well before tonight.”
He’s right about that too, but he knew that when he signed me. It’s why he was able to get such a great deal on me. I’m damaged goods.
“I know I fall apart when guys start chirping at me, but-”
“You understand that’s part of the game, right?” he asks.
Is it, though? That’s debatable, but I’m not about to argue with a man who has more money than God and who’s also my boss.
“I’ll work on it,” I promise.
“Did the Lightning have you working with a sport psychologist?”
“Yeah, but it didn’t help. And if you’ll excuse me for saying so, the guy you’ve got here is even worse.”
Kaladin cocks his head at that before he picks up a sheet of paper and hands it to me. I take the paper and skim it before frowning.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“Hopefully, the answer to our problems.”
I raise a brow. “Our problems?”
He leans back in his chair. “Ash, do you know why I signed you?”
I thought I did, but his question makes me second-guess myself.
“I’m a former Rookie of the Year and a hell of a goal scorer when I keep my head in the game?” I suggest. I mean it as a statement, but it comes out as a question.
He waves a hand. “You’re a fucking amazing goal scorer when you’ve got your head in the game, but there are plenty of other great players out there I could’ve signed.”
“I was the least expensive?” I say, trying to keep the bitterness at bay.
He shrugs. “That didn’t hurt, but part of the reason I signed you is because of your little trash talk problem, not in spite of it.”
I stare at him. “What?”
“I’m trying to build a brand new hockey team in a very small state where there’s lots of competition for fans,” he says. “There’s a dedicated fan base here that will embrace the Hydra because they’re still pining for the Whalers, but there aren’t enough of them to fill an entire stadium.”
The Hartford Hydra is Connecticut’s only professional men’s sports team, and its first NHL team since the Whalers moved to North Carolina in 1997 to become the Hurricanes.
The state never quite let go of the team, as evinced by the Whalers merchandise that sells alongside Hydra gear on game days.
Even the Hydra’s colors – navy, silver, and white – are a subtle nod to the last years of the Whalers.
“Do you know what fill stadiums?” Kaladin asks.
“Winning games?” I guess.
“That’s one thing,” he says. “The other is drama. Spectacle. People come to a hockey game expecting a good fight, and they’re disappointed if they don’t get one.”
“You…want me to fight?” I ask.
“Sometimes,” he says. “But more than that, I want you to be able to take your anger and channel it into scoring goals rather than falling apart.”
His words are a knife to my gut, and I lock my jaw.
“Look,” Kaladin says, leaning forward over his desk, “you have name recognition because of what happened last year.”
My jaw tightens even more, and he hurries on.
“It may not be the kind of name recognition you want, but you have it,” he says. “People will be watching. You can either implode again and end your hockey career…”
My stomach bottoms out as he confirms my worst fear.
“Or you can turn things around and show people what you’re made of,” he goes on.
“You gained a reputation as someone who’s affected by trash talk, and some people will come to watch you fail, but more people will come to see you use that as fuel to kick ass.
And when we win the Stanley Cup this year, they’ll stay and become fans. ”
I blink at him. “You…think we can win the Stanley Cup?”
“I know we can,” he says, pounding a fist on the desk for emphasis.
“We have the best goalie in the league. Our defensemen are freight trains on skates, we have some of the top rookies in the country, and I have a player who – until the end of last year – was arguably the best center in the NHL.” He gives me a meaningful look.
“We have the talent. We just need to put it all together and make it work, and that starts with you getting your head on straight. I need you to be a leader on this team.”
So no pressure.
“How exactly do I get my head on straight?” I ask.
He gestures toward the paper. “Go see this woman. If she agrees to help you, put in the work and do what she says. Hopefully by the end of the season, you’ll have figured out how to ignore the chirping.”
“She’s not a psychologist,” I point out.
“No, but the psychologists you had didn’t help. It can’t hurt to try something different, and this woman is at least an expert.”
I look at the paper, then back up at Kaladin. “Sir, I’m not trying to pass the buck here, but wouldn’t it be better for you or your people to reach out to her? What incentive does she have to say yes to me?”
“I’m making you do this because it’s your issue, and you need to prove you’re willing to take steps to fix it,” he says. “I won’t make you contact this woman. You need to decide what you’re willing to do to help yourself. That’s why you need to be the one to reach out.”
I nod. “That’s fair. But what I mean is…um…” I search for the right way to remind him people don’t work for free, but he’s ahead of me.
He picks up a business card and hands it to me. “When you’re ready to discuss terms with her, have her call that number. I’m sure she’ll find our offer more than generous.”
I look at the card. It’s for someone in HR.
“Is…that all?” I ask. I still don’t believe I may get out of this office without him tearing me a new asshole.
“That’s all for me,” he says. “Go see Cedric in PR before you leave, though. He needs to discuss how to handle the media questions about tonight’s incident.”
I groan inwardly. I knew it wouldn’t be that simple, but in all honesty, I’m still getting off far easier than I should.
I rise. “Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down.”
He nods. “I knew we’d have some work to do when I signed you, Ash, but I only give so many chances.”
He says the words calmly enough, but I hear the ultimatum.
Get my head on straight or prepare to be cut loose.