Chapter Eight #2
It might have been good for him to ask for it anyway.
An ice bath in the Twisters’ fancy facilities couldn’t be as bad as watching his teammates get drunk on overpriced liquor.
Fulls and Matheson, the rookies, snuck illegal drinks every chance they got. Damir already knew it would be his job to get them back to the hotel and keep the coaches from finding out what they’d been up to.
Ketchup leaned against the bar, explaining something to the overworked and irritated bartender at great length with excessive hand gestures.
Rocky let go of his habitual scowl, trying to chat up girls at random. The operative word was “trying.” He did better when he didn’t talk, not least because keeping his mouth shut hid the gap in his teeth.
Lissy had done twice the number of shots as everyone else in half the time.
He dragged their goalies, Henderson and Petterson, as well as the team’s bottom D-pair, Cerny and Galveston, to the dance floor in an attempt to improve morale.
A valiant effort for a mismatched group in Damir’s opinion.
Petterson had the third-highest save rate in the league, and Henderson was top ten as well, though he started less often.
They still struggled to buy a win, largely because of Cerny and Galveston, who blocked shots as well as Swiss cheese on skates.
No one could say Lissy didn’t try his best. He’d pulled his hair out of its customary man-bun, and everyone involved would be lucky if he didn’t get arrested for public indecency based on how closely his hip motions mirrored the helicopter.
If Damir weren’t an A, he could sneak out, go to his hotel room, take a hot shower, jerk off to Kilian’s voice message, and pass out.
As it was, he ordered a few more waters for the rookies and roped Ketchup into making sure they drank them, which distracted Ketchup from his quest to discover whether the bartender had ever played MMORPGs.
In an act of charity so great Damir should automatically receive the Lady Byng, he asked the girl Rocky was stammering his way through an introduction to whether she liked sports.
It turned out she really liked CrossFit, which made Rocky light up and rediscover he could use full sentences.
Damir left them comparing the effectiveness of different kinds of burpees and steeled himself to enter the dance floor.
Not for the first time, he wished he could find this atmosphere enjoyable while sober. Or, barring that, be someone who could relax by getting drunk.
Lissy and the two defensemen were smack in the middle of the floor. It would have been easy to find them by virtue of their size alone, but to make it even easier, Lissy had decided this was the time and place to teach a Czech man how to do the Macarena.
“Does he know we had this dance in Europe too?” Damir shouted to Cerny over the music (decidedly not the Macarena).
Cerny shrugged. “I did not want to spoil his fun.”
At least Lissy’s mission in cheering up their struggling D-pair and the goalies had proved successful. Galveston and Petterson both had their phones out, pointing them at Lissy and Henderson, who had gotten in on the dance.
Henderson was too nice.
Someday, he had to learn that all of Lissy’s ideas were terrible.
“Denny!” Lissy cried. He’d just executed the jump with a quarter turn at the end of the dance sequence, turning him to face Damir. “Just who I needed!”
He advanced before Damir could escape, brandishing his phone. Up close, Lissy reeked of gin. His beard scratched against Damir’s cheek, and Damir couldn’t help but flinch away.
“You have to take it, Denny,” Lissy attempted to whisper. It came out more of a shout, since the pounding of the music and the alcohol in his bloodstream made him physically incapable of discretion. “I’m too drunk to talk to Coach.”
Damir took the proffered phone, where a number of missed calls from Coach Simmons were indeed displayed.
Once again, Damir thought longingly of his quiet, private hotel room.
Damir passed the phone back to Lissy, patted him on the chest, and pointed toward the exit and his own phone. Miraculously, Lissy was not too drunk to understand simple sign language and pressed a wet, boozy kiss to Damir’s cheek.
It took stepping out into the fresh night air for Damir to realize how bad it was inside. One inhale, and his head cleared. A second, and he felt ready and willing to fulfill his duties as alternate captain.
Coach Simmons’s phone rang twice before he picked up. “Denny! Where are you boys?”
Damir squinted up at the sign above the bar and read it aloud before explaining, “At a gin bar down the street from the hotel.”
After a brief pause, Simmons sighed. “And I’m guessing that’s why Lissy’s not answering his phone, eh?”
Damir stayed silent.
“Sometime, ask him about his rookie year when he did answer.”
Damir had no intention of doing any such thing.
“Look, is Henderson with you?”
“Yes, why? Did something happen?” Damir couldn’t imagine Henderson doing anything requiring disciplinary action or, to be honest, action in general.
Then again, every couple of months, a new player in the league turned out to have a sexual assault charge buried somewhere in his past or a drug problem poorly concealed in his present.
The teammates always claimed they had no idea, which Damir found unlikely.
He knew exactly who had drug problems on the Firecrackers.
But maybe if Coach Simmons said something truly shocking, Damir would get to be one of those innocent teammates interviewed about the latest NHL scandal.
“He’s got to get to the hotel and pack his things. We just got the call—management traded him to San Francisco for Kilian Howard and two draft picks.”
Damir blinked. He blinked again, then rubbed his eyes.
Then, he realized he didn’t hear with his eyes. “You what?”
“Come on, Denny, the team needs more depth. We got Howard for a steal. If we clean up his skating a bit, he can do great things for us.”
“That’s what—” I told him. Damir finished the sentence in his head. But of course, Coach didn’t—couldn’t—know they were seeing each other. Which they weren’t. So, it was fine. “Uh. What do you need me to do?”
“Get Henderson sober and on a plane to California.”
An alternate’s work never ended.
With the phone call over, Damir braced himself and reentered the bar. It was exactly as loud, smelly, and dark as before, overwhelming his senses and disorienting him. How much worse would it be if he were drunk? The mind boggled.
He took stock of the team. The rookies slumped against one another in a booth, empty water glasses in front of them. Ketchup sat across from them, gesticulating enthusiastically regardless of the state of his audience.
Rocky and CrossFit Girl had progressed to arm wrestling, which might be counted as flirtation in some cultures.
And the rest of the idiots were still on the dance floor, Henderson among them.
Damir shouldered his way through the crowd. Lissy spotted him, raised his arms exuberantly, and beckoned Damir to come dance. He held a large cocktail in one hand, the contents slopping from side to side.
It was a good thing captaining a hockey team didn’t require a man to be dignified. Or intelligent. Damir patted him on the shoulder and pushed him off toward Petterson. He grabbed Henderson by the elbow and led him outside.
“Trade went through, huh?” Henderson asked as soon as they made it past the crowd of smokers congregating near the back door.
“You knew?”
Henderson scoffed. “’Course I knew. I’ve had my list ready since the season started.”
“You wanted to go?”
Henderson gave him a pitying look. “Denny. Don’t you want to play for a contender?”
An instinctive argument rose within Damir. The Firecrackers were a contender, or at least they could be with another year or three of hard work and a few clever trades.
Huh.
Good to know he felt so strongly about it.
“Anyway, I’ll never be the starting goalie here, not while Petey’s playing. It was only a matter of time. Who is it?”
“The Sea Lions.”
A smirk stole across Henderson’s face. “Great. Can’t wait to mess with Mazetti. What am I worth?”
“Howard and two draft picks.”
“Nice. I thought it’d be one pick at most. Guess the Sea Lions are desperate for a tendy.” Henderson pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Oh, shit, that’s my agent. I should take this. Do you know when I’m flying out?”
“As soon as possible.”
“I guess this is goodbye, then. See you on the other side, Denny.” Henderson took off in the direction of the hotel, phone pressed to his ear.
At a loss, Damir watched him go. Was it his job to break it to the team?
Would Henderson not say goodbye? Did Damir need to have a one-on-one talk with any particular friends before the news broke?
Henderson and Damir didn’t run in the same circles when it came to casual hangouts, largely because Damir had no interest in golf.
Off the top of his head, he couldn’t think of anyone Henderson seemed particularly close to.
If he’d intended to be traded all along, why bother?
Damir knew that hockey was a business and trades happened all the time.
In fact, he preferred Henderson knowing about it and wanting it over being caught by surprise.
All the same, he couldn’t shake the sense of unease at the man calculating his own market value and showing so little emotion about leaving the team he’d been drafted to.
If Damir were traded, he would be sadder. He would say goodbye.
Perhaps feeling so strongly was his prerogative as a first overall pick.
The chances of him being traded without his say-so were slim.
On the other hand, no one expected a trade so far out from the deadline, and everyone liked to believe in their own value.
After all, a team drafted a player because they wanted him.
Kilian probably thought the same thing.
Shit, Kilian.
Damir dug out his phone and opened his message thread with Kilian.
Nothing.