Chapter 12
GAGE
Fuck.
I sweep a pile of goalie pads off a shelf, sending the teal-and-purple equipment flying. I knew tonight was a fucking mistake, the instant Aeryn suggested it. Every mile of that silent drive down from New York proved I was right. I should have pulled over before we passed New Brunswick.
We could have gone to a bar there, one of the dives Logan and I went to when we were in the AHL. Drink a toast. Share some stories. I could have had her home before midnight.
Not that “home” makes any difference. She’s been up-front since I saw her at the bar in Kynk’s Great Room. She’s flying back to Chicago tomorrow morning. She’s a Reardon, through and through.
Get your arse out of here by the time I get home tonight, or I’ll tell Da.
I can still hear Logan’s voice, rough with the Irish accent that only came out when he fought. I remember every word he said in that shithole house on Beach Avenue.
She’s not one of your whores, shitehawk.
How long have you been beating my sister?
You motherfucking, cocksucking cunt!
I crash into a pile of hockey sticks and send them flying.
Logan wasn’t a fucking Boy Scout. He had his pick of the puck bunnies.
More than once, he took two girls back to his hotel room at the same time.
He paid a thousand bucks to a one-night-stand who said he knocked her up, then ten thousand more to keep her from telling the Atlantic City Press about the abortion.
Every man on the team knew he was the reason the trainers started leaving a big glass bowl of rubbers on the counter in the treatment room.
But in all the years we played together, I never heard about him hitting a woman—whether she wanted it or not. The place we planned to build in the abandoned Brooklyn subway tunnel was a sports bar, not a sex club. Logan knew sports. That’s what he wanted.
I pick up the closest stick and beat it against the floor of the equipment room. One blow. Two. Three. The blade snaps off, and I grab myself another. It breaks on the first hit. Fucking loser. I kick the rest of the sticks like they’re kindling.
Yeah, Logan wanted a sports bar. But I’m the sick motherfucker who started Kynk.
At first, I did it because I didn’t want hockey players dropping by. I didn’t want to be reminded that I was the reason Logan died.
If we hadn’t fought on in the house on Beach, he would have been in better shape for the game. A few seconds faster. More flexible. Able to dodge.
If I had caught the puck on my stick and taken it down ice, no one would have fought at the game. Or we would have fought later, without the freak slash of that blade.
If I had seen that sucker punch, I wouldn’t have been concussed. I could have gotten to him before the trainer. Put pressure on the wound. Kept him from bleeding out.
If, if, if… A fraction of a second here, a quarter of an inch there, anything would have made a difference. There were a million ways I could have saved him. One fucking path that let him die.
I stumble against a shelf of gloves, new ones, stiff. I throw one against the wall with all my strength, feeling the tendons torque in my elbow. A professional athlete would take care not to wreck his arm. I’m no athlete anymore. I’m just an owner.
I throw three more gloves, then knock down a rack of helmets.
I can’t go on that ice. I can’t skate with Aeryn like some lovesick kid. I can’t pretend that Logan’s blood hasn’t seeped into the fucking foundation of Aces Arena.
He’s the reason I bought the team, instead of playing until I was too old to lace up skates.
He’s the reason I run Kynk, instead of a sports bar where all our friends could hang around and shoot the shit.
He’s the reason I should have walked away from Aeryn at the Great Room bar, and he’s the reason I took her home, and he’s the reason I’ll never get to have her again.
I roar like a bull and head back to destroy the Aces’ skates on their goddamn, fucking shelves.