Chapter 3 Garrett
Garrett
The leather of the steering wheel is warm under my hands, sun-heated from sitting in the arena garage for the past ten minutes. I haven’t turned the radio on. The engine clicks softly as it cools, the only sound beneath the low hum of fluorescent lights overhead.
She had invited me to a meeting called "Media Synergy & Brand Strategy Session." Corporate for: “Fix your attitude, or we’ll find someone who will.” The phrase makes my jaw clench—but not because of the threat. I’ve faced worse pressure than a marketing exec trying to polish my public image for sponsor money.
What gnaws at me is how she handled it.
Sloane McKenzie didn’t lead with buzzwords or fake charm. No tight smile, no shallow flattery. She walked straight into my territory and called me out. Told me, point-blank, what my behavior was costing the team. Told me why it mattered—to the locker room, the franchise, the bottom line.
Twelve million dollars. Northstar Bank cares. Your teammates are carrying your weight every time they step in front of a camera. The depth players who make your stats look so good.
She did her homework. Knew the figures, understood the dynamics. Most suits focus on the star players and have no clue how important the rest of the guys who fill out the roster are, but Sloane? She gets it.
She’s not most suits.
I shift into drive and pull out of the garage, muscle memory guiding me through the familiar streets toward home. The city's quiet at this hour—past rush hour, before the dinner crowd. Just the way I like it.
The thing that's really grinding at me isn't that she was right about the media stuff.
It's that she didn't flinch. Not when I crowded her space in that narrow equipment room aisle.
Not when I used every inch of my size to intimidate.
She just tilted her chin up, looked me in the eye, and dismantled my argument piece by piece.
Made me feel like a rookie again. Getting read the riot act by a coach who actually gives a damn.
My phone buzzes on the center console.
Lucas Martinez
Heard you had a fun meeting with the new marketing pit bull. She eat you alive?
I don’t answer. By morning, half the locker room will know Tank Sullivan got verbally tackled by someone half his size wearing designer heels.
The elevator to my loft is slow, giving me too much time to think. About her voice, low and clear, saying she understands hockey. About the way she called me out not to score points, but because she actually gave a damn.
About how long it’s been since someone challenged me without wanting something in return.
My front door swings open and the silence wraps around me like armor. This space is sacred. Here, there’s no crowd, no cameras. No Tank. Just Garrett.
The loft opens around me—exposed brick, iron beams, soft lighting that warms the bones of the place. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the Mississippi, the river dark and slow under the weight of twilight.
But it’s the details that matter. The contradictions.
The west wall is lined with books—real books. Spines cracked, pages dog-eared. Hemingway leans into Dostoevsky. Atlas Shrugged still has a bookmark jammed three-quarters in because Rand’s philosophy makes my teeth itch, but I’m too stubborn to let her win.
On the mantel above the concrete fireplace, my grandmother’s snow globe collection gleams under the dim lights. London. Paris. A ridiculous little Zamboni in a miniature rink she picked up in Montreal. They’re sentimental, absurd—and completely mine. I’d break fingers if anyone touched them.
Keys land in the ceramic bowl by the door, a small echo in the quiet. My shoulders drop an inch. The ritual begins.
Shoes by the mat. Phone facedown on the charger. Messages can wait.
In the kitchen, I check my sourdough starter—alive and bubbling in its jar, a quiet thing that needs care and patience. Not performance. Not power plays. Just time and attention.
I pour two fingers of bourbon—eighteen-year, amber and smooth—and head for the leather chair by the window. The record player calls to me from the corner, and I flip through vinyl until I land on what I need.
Bill Evans Trio. Waltz for Debby.
The needle drops. A soft pop. Then jazz pours into the room, piano drifting like memory.
This is my world. Quiet. Controlled. Mine.
The laptop opens with a familiar chime. I pull up video footage—tomorrow we’ve got Chicago. That means three periods of calculated violence. I scan their recent games, looking for patterns, weaknesses, anything that might give us an edge.
The footage starts, and I watch with the detached focus that's made me one of the league's top defensemen. Chicago's power play, their breakout patterns, the way their forwards cycle in the offensive zone. It's chess at ninety miles per hour, and I'm looking for the move they don't see coming.
Then I pause the footage.
Zac Torres. Six-foot-four, and every ounce of it mean as a snake. The camera caught him mid-check, shoulder driving into some unlucky forward's ribs, the kind of hit that borders on dirty but stays just clean enough to avoid a suspension.
I know that look in his eyes. I’ve worn it. But his is different. Where I hit to protect, he hits to dominate. He plays with a chip on his shoulder the size of the Sears Tower, like he has to prove something on every single shift.
Last year, he blindsided our rookie with a late hit. Three weeks on injured reserve. I made sure he paid for it the next time we met.
Guys like Torres think intimidation is the only way to earn respect. They don’t realize that for some of us, the only response is to hit back harder.
I sip the bourbon, eyes scanning his stance on the screen. He keeps his left shoulder tucked in, just slightly, favoring it on the follow-through. That's the tell. The shoulder's not 100%.
I rewind the clip. On the forecheck, he lunges—all power, no finesse. For a split second after he commits to the hit, his entire right side is exposed. A passing lane. An opportunity.
The gentle improvisation of the jazz piano fills the quiet loft, a stark contrast to the calculated violence frozen on my laptop. The two worlds never get less strange, living together in the same room.
My phone buzzes. Probably my agent trying to catch me when he knows I’m not at the gym, or maybe Coach with some last-minute adjustment to tomorrow's lineup. I don't check it. Tonight, in my fortress, the outside world can wait.
I close the laptop, the city lights glittering through the glass beyond. The city moves, but in here, I’m still.
Tomorrow, I’ll lace up. I’ll become Tank Sullivan again. I’ll absorb the hits and give the media exactly the nothing they expect from me.
But not now.
Now, I’m just Garrett.