26. Russ
CHAPTER 26
RUSS
As soon as I get in the car, Max peels out of my driveway, spraying gravel everywhere. Fucking idiot doesn’t realize that’s worse for his paint job than it is for my lane.
From the moment I woke up this morning, I knew I needed to smooth this over with Max. For Shannon’s sake, and for our team’s sake—and our own working relationship, which has never been close, but has always been professional.
So I wait until we’re on an actual paved road, but then I refuse to wait another second.
“I owe you and your wife an apology for last night,” I grind out.
He doesn’t look across the car at me. “I need you to forget that happened.”
I can’t do that. “I didn’t realize I was stumbling into the middle of an argument.”
“It wasn’t a real fight.”
Sure as fuck sounded real to me. “I’m just?—”
“Fuck off, Russ.” He says it as easily as everything else he’s said this morning, from the too casual good morning when I found him running in the garage, to the way he sprawled in the kitchen, scrolling game video on his phone as I cooked, to the announcement that he’d be driving me to the golf course. “I’m telling you that was private. You probably misheard half of what we were saying, anyway.”
I frown.
Other than wanting to make sure Shannon's okay, I don’t really care about their fight. I mean, I know that married people do sometimes argue. I only used that as my entry into the conversation about what happened between the three of us. Max, though, seems fixated on me forgetting the fight more than the threesome.
Like the subject of the fight is what matters most to him.
They started arguing about the podcast Shannon’s thinking of doing. Then they were talking about the Ice League, and Max was spinning some fantasy about it being a part of his legacy, spending the last few years of his career playing there instead of in the NHL. Bonkers dreamland bullshit.
“All right,” I say slowly. “There was a lot of wind last night. I couldn’t hear you, really.”
His grip tightens on the steering wheel. “Good.” He grimaces. “What has Marty said to you about Ice League?”
Fuck. Our agent. Of course, he doesn’t want me to know about whatever angle he was trying to work—because Marty hasn’t said shit-fuck-all to me about this opportunity, however real or not it may be.
Max and I might share an agent, but there's a code between players—we want to trust that our agent is doing the best they can for us, but also understanding that they might be able to do something different for another player. There is also almost an entire league between Max and me, and we’re at different points in our contract cycles. I have two more years left on my contract. He is in the final year of his, so he is actively looking for a new contract. And he is the type of player who could get one more big contract to get him to the end of his career.
He is a marquee player who would be very attractive to an investor for a new startup league, and also, being pursued in that way could, in turn, increase his value to an NHL owner.
I'm never going to be that kind of guy.
“Nothing,” I can admit easily, because it’s the truth. “I’m not the kind of player they’d be looking to snap up first.”
“Yeah.” He doesn’t even bother to look sorry for that accurate jab.
“I’m not going to say anything to him, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“It’s not just him. Just…forget the whole conversation.”
“Done. And about the rest of it?—”
“What about it?”
All right. I’ve tried. He doesn’t want to talk about it. “It’s buried.”
“Good.” He cranks up his music and we don’t talk again until we get to the golf course.
We divide up into a couple groups, and Max puts himself in a group that isn’t with me. Fine. Great, even. I don’t want to spend a second more with him than I have to, and I have to spend a lot of seconds with him already.
I’m with Calhoun, Zondi and Dodaj, and they’re all buzzing after a good night out, and a good weekend with their teammates.
They’re all so fucking young. So eager and full of hope for the season ahead.
I don’t have a lot to say, so I keep my head down and focus on my swing. I have a couple of sweet birdies, and a beauty of an eagle on the eighth hole, so when we get back to the clubhouse, I’m the clear leader on our card—and when the others join us, it turns out I’ve beaten the whole crew today.
Max is pissed , and he takes it out on Mason and Hale. “This is what happens when you don’t fucking understand the mission.”
“To beat Armstrong on a course he’s played five times in the last week?” Mason doesn’t back down, which is both fucking brave and really fucking stupid for a rookie to snap back at his captain.
On the other hand, it’s not like Mason’s actually making the team as a 20-year-old D-man, and maybe by the time he does mature into the NHL, Max will be off in Ice League stardom.
Or he might be the punchline to a joke about Icarus flying too close to the sun.
I choke on an unexpected laugh, drawing confused looks from my teammates. “Nothing,” I say, smothering my face in my hands. “Fucking nothing.”
“Let’s go. I don’t want to get stuck in traffic heading home,” Max growls.
“Glad we’re driving back in separate vehicles,” Haler mutters to me as we head back to the parking lot. “What’s his malfunction?”
I shrug. “He doesn’t like to lose.”
Maybe that’s why he’s more pissed about me overhearing the fight about the Ice League more than the fact I made his wife come on my face. It doesn’t even occur to him that he could lose Shannon. She told him she wanted a divorce and he just kissed that out of her.
His career, though…
There is a certain confidence that carries men like Max deep into their career never having to grapple with what I have known since I was twelve years old: there is always someone to step into your skates, to take over your stall, who is a better, faster, smarter hockey player than you.
Even number one draft picks don’t always turn into generational talent.
Maybe Max Tilman hasn’t gotten over the fact that New York exposed him in the expansion draft, rejecting him as the generational talent he thought he was going to be for them.
I wasn’t looking forward to being trapped in the car with him again for the drive back, but with this new thought in my head, I hop into the passenger seat.
Regardless of what personal issues we might have, understanding my captain better can only be good for the year ahead.
But where he wanted to talk about business—and how his is none of mine—on the drive to the golf course, on this return trip, he’s moved on to stewing about what should have been his top priority: how fucking good I made his wife feel last night.
“We’re going to head out as soon as I get back,” he says.
“For sure.”
“Last night won’t happen again.”
“I figured as much.”
“Shannon can be emotional, and you got to benefit from that last night.”
I frown, not liking where this is going. “We all got caught up in it a bit, but she didn’t seem any more emotional than you did.”
“That’s your crush colouring how you saw it.” He picked that word carefully. I bet he thought about it all morning, instead of focusing on his golf game. He spun around and around, trying to figure out what word would make me feel small and insignificant. To remind me that how I feel about Shannon is nothing of any importance.
Tell me something I don’t fucking know, jackass . But I shove that thought deep, and shrug. “Yeah, sure. I don’t harbour any illusions, Tiller. I know she’s your wife, and she loves you. She only went along with it because you invited me in.”
You did this to yourself and I won’t let you reframe it any other way. Shove. Deep. Down.
He goes quiet. We slice down the narrow highway, thick trees on either side. Racing towards the inevitable.
“Lose the crush, Armstrong,” he finally says. “She’s not the angel you imagine her to be. She didn’t think twice about helping you cheat on your girlfriend, did she?”
Fuck. Me. “Didn’t cheat on anyone,” I growl before I can stop myself.
He laughs. “We’re all cheaters, buddy. Deep down, even Shannon’s a slut. I’ve never encouraged it, because I knew it would get out of hand quickly, and I was right.”
He called her that last night, too.
It’s one thing in the heat of the moment. It’s another to say it in the cold light of day.
My big, meaty hands ball into fists.
He notices. “Easy, big guy. It’s fine.”
“She was just trying to make you happy. It wasn’t anything to do with me. She thought you wanted to share her. If you regret that?—”
“Don’t give me marriage advice, buddy.”
“Don’t call me buddy if you won’t take it,” I snap back.
He slams on the brakes and wrenches the wheel, skidding his car onto the gravel shoulder. “Get the fuck out of my car.”
“Gladly.” I wrench the door open at the same time as I unbuckle. Then I see Malik’s car behind us, pulling over, too.
“Fuck,” I roar in frustration as I give our teammates my back for a second.
But Max, having thought about how to ambush me all morning, and probably having been a sociopath his entire miserable life, has it in hand.
Instead of pulling back onto the road and leaving me in the dust to explain, he does a U-turn and rolls down his window. “Left my wallet back at the golf course,” he lies to our teammates, easy as can be. Captain Cool with a ready explanation. “Get Rusty back to his place, all right?”
He revs his engine and takes off back the way we came, leaving us in his dust.
I’ve just made everything so much worse. Fuck.
Shannon is in the kitchen with Emery, wearing a damp-looking bathing suit and wrapped in a towel as she eats a salad. They’re laughing together, and they don’t stop when we come in and start pulling out our own lunch options.
“Max had to go back to the course,” I finally say, gruffly.
Shannon’s expression is carefully unsurprised. “He texted me,” she says. “He’s fine. We’ll need to leave as soon as he gets back, though.”
I want to ask what the fuck he said, but that’s between them. I’m on the outside, just fucking everything up.
“Of course.”
Emery glances at her watch, which gets text messages, too. “Excuse me for a second, I have to go call my mom. She’s having a soufflé disaster.”
She goes out on the terrace as Shannon excuses herself as well, heading upstairs. I try to ignore the racing footsteps. I try to stay downstairs. But it doesn’t take long before I leave my teammates in the kitchen and follow her.
Knowing I probably don’t have a lot of time before her husband returns, I knock on her door, and it swings open.
She’s already packed, and she’s standing at the window.
“Can I come in for a minute?”
She nods, not looking back at me.
I stay on this side of the room, but I close the door behind me. Then I take a deep breath. “Are you okay, Shan?”
She turns, looking surprised. “Yes.”
“You sure?”
This time there’s a beat of hesitation. Then she exhales and comes around the bed to stand closer to me. Not close enough to touch, but enough that I can see her chest rise and fall with each inhale and exhale. Steady. “Yes. I am,” she says. “I’m sorry about last night.”
I frown. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”
She swallows hard. Less steady.
I glance at the dark suitcase on the bed. His suitcase, that she packed for him. “Does he make you say sorry for things?”
“Don’t say it like that.”
I’ll take that as a yes. Fuck.
Her gaze flicks nervously to my mouth, which has tightened into a line, and I can’t help that. Then she looks back up to my eyes, and she slips on that mask that I’ve seen a dozen times before.
A bright, effortless smile. Clear eyes, all uncertainty wiped away.
“I know it’s hard to understand,” she says softly. “But I told you about my past. I know what I’m doing.”
“If you ever need anything?—”
For the second time in half a day, we’re interrupted by the sound of tires out front. This time, it’s her husband.
A visceral pain stabs through me at saying goodbye without a resolution, without being able to tell her everything I want to say.
She glances past me at the closed door. The message is clear. Get out. But her voice is soft and sweet, as it always is. “I’ll see you soon, Russell.”
I go to my own room. Emery has stripped the sheets off the bed, and the cleaning lady hasn’t yet replace them. I find them in the closet and make my own damn bed as I try not to listen to the sound of the Tilmans carrying their luggage down the stairs.
I wait until the last possible second before heading down to the front door to say goodbye.
Jenson and Ani are heading out, too, which makes the moment easier in some ways.
It’s still fucking hard to see Shannon get in Max’s car and drive away.
Then the young guys leave, and Hayden and Becca, and before long it’s just Emery’s rental car that needs to be packed up. Like a reverse of the start of the weekend.
She leans against her trunk and gives me her best sisterly inquisition look. “You okay, Rusty?”
I shrug. If I don’t get the truth out of Shannon, I’m not about to give my own to Emery. “Of course. The countdown is on to the start of the season now. You should come see a game or two.”
“I can’t be your plus one for the entire season.”
“I know. I don’t need that.”
“You really don’t.” She pauses. “You should tell her how you feel.”
“That’s never going to happen.”
“I think she needs to know there are other options.”
I laugh without any humour at all. “She knows. She has her reasons and I respect them.”
Once she drives away, I’m finally alone. I give my gorgeous new house the finger. “Really had different plans for you,” I say out loud.
The house doesn’t reply.
My phone vibrates. A text message from Foster asking if it’s just me this afternoon.
Sure is. I’m all the fuck alone.
I’ve got a week here to myself before I’ll head back to Hamilton, and I’m planning on doing nothing but skating and swimming and thinking about all of my life choices that have led me to this moment.
Two out of three of those choices are good for me. The last one can’t be helped.