Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
ESME
“The Parliament is looking for an analyst this season.”
I glowered across the table at Cass. “What did I tell you about looking for work for me?” It had been three weeks since I’d retired. Only in the last week had my phone stopped blowing up with texts from journalists looking for a statement. I’d only gotten ten texts and twenty emails so far today. It was a fucking miracle.
She waved a bite of salad in my direction. “You’re thirty-seven. You’ve got four Stanley Cup wins. You’ve won the Hart Trophy… four times. Then there’s the Rookie of the Year, and Norris, and?—”
“Stop.” She probably knew my trophies better than I did. They came in waves every season. Some years I won one, one year I won four, and my highest trophy year had been a decade earlier when I’d won five different individual awards and the Bulldogs had won the Stanley Cup. Except I was still raw and didn’t want to talk about hockey.
She chewed her bite with a scowl on her face. She’d barely swallowed it when she started on me again. “You aren’t just going to retire, Esme. You’re going to keep going. You need to do something. You don’t have to give up hockey completely.”
Because Howe didn ’ t and neither did Lemieux … If I let her continue, she would list at least fifteen names of hockey players who went on to be analysts, broadcasters, and more. The last thing I wanted was to sit at a table and debate how a team had played.
And in Nashville of all places.
It was like the world was forcing me to face being bisexual. Part of me fully suspected Cass was plotting ways to get me to be around people who would make me feel more normal after fifteen years of living in the closet.
“I’d lose my mind as an analyst.”
“You’ll lose your mind here if you keep doing nothing. Esme, who from the Bulldogs has called you?”
I shoved a bite of my roll in my mouth to avoid answering.
“Exactly.”
“But Nashville?” Cernak and Lafferty had both gone to Nashville, one to play for the Grizzlies, one to be the assistant coach of the Parliament. They were thriving in their roles and with their boyfriends. And both had played for the Bulldogs for years and I’d barely known them.
I’d been a shit captain.
Cass batted her big eyes at me, trying to look sweet and innocent, but I knew her way too well.
I jabbed my fork in her direction. “Don’t give me that look.”
“What look? Oh, you mean the don’t-be-a-dumbass look? Or the get your head out of your ass look? Or are you talking about the you know I ’ m right, so why are you fighting this look?”
I growled in frustration. “You’re impossible.”
“And you love me.”
Why was it I’d known as soon as she’d invited me to lunch that she was going to throw a sucker punch my way? Knowing Cass as well as I did, I should have braced myself better for what she had planned. I really should have asked more questions.
“If I go and talk with them, will you be happy?”
Cass beamed like I’d just given her a puppy. “Yes!”
“And you won’t bug me when I decline the offer?”
She scrunched up her face and held up her thumb and forefinger with barely a gap between them. “Only a little.” At my quizzical eyebrow, she sighed. “Maybe a lot.” I tilted my head and got her napkin thrown at me. “Okay, you know I’m going to bug the hell out of you, but only because it’s for your own good! Esme, you need to do something! And you’d be perfect for this job!”
I braced myself for her next words.
“Think about it. You’ve played hockey your entire life. You played professional hockey for nearly a decade more than most players manage. You have the knowledge of today ’ s game that so many of the old guys out there are completely lacking. It’s a brand-new team. You know the assistant coach. You know people on the Grizzlies too. You wouldn’t be alone…” She paused for a brief second before quickly finishing her thought. “And so many of the players are out. You could finally be yourself.”
There it was. The reason I’d been waiting for.
Red Shirt had made me want to come out or at least be free to explore. But I’d lost my career because of the same person. Well, not because of him but because he was a man. There was a hesitancy about being myself Cass couldn’t understand. She and her wife had been happily married for as long as I’d known her. She was a woman in sports—there was almost an expectation for her to be queer.
I was a male ice hockey player. It was expected of me to be straight as an arrow and adamantly against anything that went against the straight and binary. In reality, I didn’t have a problem with any of it: straight, gay, queer, pan, bi, nonbinary, gender-defying. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t had fantasies of a man in a miniskirt and stockings riding my dick. Same as I’d be lying to say I hadn’t had fantasies of a woman in a miniskirt, or a man or woman in a ball cap and T-shirt riding me.
But the world wasn’t supposed to know that.
Except the world knew about the Grizzlies players and coaches. They knew about the Parliament coaches. And the world welcomed them with open arms.
Maybe there was a chance I’d like the job.
“I’ll interview. That’s all I’m committing to.”
Cass hooted. “Yes!” Then she looked at the shocked diners around us and gave them a guilty smile. “Sorry. Sorry.” When she turned back to me, she was grinning from ear to ear. “You won’t regret this.”
I somehow doubted that.