42. Nathan
NATHAN
Nathan fired the puck across the offensive zone right onto the rookie’s stick and watched the kid deke Pav’s poke check and score with ease. He’d always enjoyed two-on-one drills, but he especially liked when he got to do them with Langdon.
There had been many rookies before Theo Langdon, but Nathan had never seen hands or hockey sense quite like his in an eighteen-year-old.
This wide eyed, innocent looking guy had absolutely killer instincts on the ice.
Nathan didn’t worry about him at the rink.
He did worry about him off of it, though.
Especially since everything had come out with the case.
Now he found himself inviting him to dinners on the road, keeping him in his company or one of the other players he trusted.
Using his influence and experience to guide the next generation, even if it was only one player.
“Keep that up and you’ll be seeing more ice time than any of us.” Nathan nodded in approval when Langdon stopped next to him.
“That’s the goal.” He smirked. “I love finishing a game with nothing in the tank.”
Nathan doubted that was ever possible. Even if his body was done, adrenaline kept him going for a few hours after the final horn.
“What are you doing now to blow through that adrenaline?” he asked as they made their way off the ice.
“Nothing much.” He shrugged. “Too young to go out if I wanted to. I pretty much go home, answer a call from my parents, play something online with my little sister.”
“What do you two play?” he pressed, keeping his attention on the kid instead of the fact they were being filmed by the social media team.
“Call of Duty, mostly.”
“My brother is obsessed with that game,” Nathan said. “Has all this official paraphernalia and shit.”
Langdon laughed and leaned in. “The first thing I bought with my first paycheque was a badass Ghost mask. Um, that’s like, the main guy,” he added.
“Oh, I may be old, kid, but I am well aware of that mask. Scottie made me bring it to rehab for him because he was playing the game with another patient. I don’t get video games but I can’t deny they’ve helped him during his recovery.”
“Oh yeah, I can def—”
“What the fuck is he doing here?” Nathan stopped dead when he saw Connors standing in the middle of the dressing room, being welcomed back like some war hero by some of the guys while others offered a nod as they lumbered to their stalls.
“Shit,” Langdon breathed, glancing at Nathan before giving Connors a wide birth, not even looking at him.
“Sorry about this bo—”
“You’re not welcome in this room, Connors.” Nathan walked further into the room, whipping his gloves off as he went.
The man had the nerve to look offended as he looked around.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” he argued.
“The bitch is lying. You know how they are. Begging for it and then when they don’t get a ring and a big spending account it’s assault.
The fact is she spread her legs wide hoping to catch one of us in her little net.
As if anyone in this room is going to say no to an easy l—” Nathan was on him before he finished his sentence, backing him up until his back crashed into the partition between two stalls.
Towering over him because of his skates.
“You’re a fucking rapist. You know it and everyone in this fucking room knows it.
And that’s one of the fucking problems.” He snarled, pushing himself off his teammate’s chest and spinning around to take in the other guys in the room who had frozen in place.
The fact that not one of them had stepped in to stop him was all he needed to know.
“We all fucking know what goes on and we let it. Why?” He spun, looking to see if anyone was willing to speak up.
But the only pair of eyes he saw on him were Sami’s big blues, wide with shock.
“Complicit.” He pointed at each player, ending with his finger jammed into his own chest. “Coward.” He repeated once again ending with himself. “Pathetic.” Each time he highlighted a word, his teammates looked more and more uncomfortable. Langdon looked like he was about to piss his pants.
“It was you.” Connors sneered. “You’re the snitch in that article.
” This time he stepped forward, and unlike with Nathan, three teammates jumped between them, but it didn’t stop Connors from spewing more bullshit.
“What else are you telling people, eh? Did the media get wind of Pav’s divorce from you?
Hell, I bet you called his wife. Perfect, sober, lonely Nathan Albertson, unwilling to have any fun and bitter seeing anyone else having some. ”
“Fun?” Nathan saw red. “What exactly is fun about what you did? Forcing someone to do something they don’t want to do is fun to you?
You know that’s psychotic right? And I don’t give a fuck what goes on in your personal lives,” he said, looking around at the shocked faces of his teammates.
“Unless of course you’re doing what he and his buddies are into.
” Several heads shook. “And you’re going to fucking wish you were lonely after you’re found guilty.
” Connors’s mask slipped as if the glimpse of his possible future hit.
“I think you should leave,” Sami said through a clenched jaw to Connors before turning to face Nathan. “And I think you need to take a walk.”
Nathan watched as Connors grabbed his jacket from his locker and practically stomped from the room. He looked like a petulant child who didn’t get his way. Except petulant children don’t do what he did.
“Get changed and then go,” Sami said, his voice quieter this time. “Call your girl. Go fire some pucks at the boards. Run some laps. Just get out of here for a bit.”
Nathan changed quickly in the near silence of the room, leaving his gear out before grabbing his phone and walking toward the therapy room with every intention to leave the back way in order to avoid any potential run-ins with Connors.
But before he made it past the last cold plunge tub, Shannon stopped him.
“Nate, what’s going on?” he asked, setting down a box of kinesiology tape he’d just walked in with.
Nathan didn’t know if he should get into it or if it was something that should be left with the team. But then he realized that half the problem was the belief that what was said in that fucking room, didn’t leave it. A lot of the trainers were privy to things but not always the finer points.
And so he took a deep breath and told Shannon everything he knew and everything he planned on doing.
Shannon glanced toward the hallway and the door that led to the weight room. “Close the door,” he instructed, nodding toward the hall while he walked to the other door.
Nathan did as Shannon asked before returning to the centre of the room, unsure of what was about to happen.
“You’re going to want to have all your ducks in a row before you do this, Nate,” he said, his voice low. “We all know things. We all act like we don’t, it’s not just the players. It’s everyone involved in this game.”
“I wasn’t sure how much you all were aware of.”
Shannon gave a humourless laugh. “Guys either talk around us as if we aren’t there or they share things with us knowing we’ll stroke their ego in some way. This isn’t a one-off situation. It’s just one of many and we all like our job security a bit too much to rock the boat.”
In fairness to Shannon, he looked ashamed admitting that.
“I don’t know how much power sharing something we’ve heard has,” Nathan grumbled. “And I know every one of those guys has some gold-plated lawyer with a high number in the win column. I don’t even know where to start for this foundation idea aside from throwing money at it.”
“Now that”—Shannon took his phone out of his pocket and waved it at him—“is something I can help with.”