Page 10 of Center Ice
“I’m working on that,” I assure them. “It won’t be like that here.”
“Let’s talk about Colorado.”
It takes everything I have not to respond flippantly with, “Let’s not.” Instead, I keep my face in the most neutral expression possible, wishing she’d brought this shit up in one of the conversations we had before she signed me, rather than now, in front of my teammates.
“You weren’t overly big on fighting when you played for Vancouver. What happened in Colorado?”
I glance at Colt, McCabe, and Walsh, who all look interested in my response. I see the question on their faces: how does a player who spent less than a year in the AHL before being brought up to the NHL, who then had three great seasons with Vancouver, get traded to Colorado and let it all go to shit?
“I got off on the wrong foot with one of my teammates and it messed up my relationship with the whole team.”
“We’re going to need more details than that,” AJ says, folding her hands in her lap as she assesses me coolly with her dark eyes.
I exhale so suddenly it comes out like a grunt. The rumors have been out there for years; she’s really only asking me to confirm or deny them.
“On one of the first nights I was in Colorado, I accidentally almost slept with my team captain’s wife.”
Walsh, one of the most happily married guys in the NHL, looks like his head’s about to explode. “How do youaccidentallyalmostsleep with your teammate’s wife?” He grits the question out between clenched teeth.
“I didn’t know who she was.” I emphasize this truth because his wife sought me out, not the other way around. “I’d only been in town a night or two, and went to a restaurant to grab dinner. I was eating at the bar, this hot blonde started chatting me up, and things…kind of progressed…” I don’t mention that we full-on made out at the bar until we were asked to leave. “We were leaving the bar together when Leland Alistair showed up and introduced me to his right hook.”
“Maybe if you knew someone for more than fifteen minutes before you decided to sleep with them, that wouldn’t have happened,” Walsh says.
McCabe shoots Walsh a look, then asks, “Did she know who you were?”
“Yeah. She did it to piss him off. In the end, I don’t think he ever quite believed that I was just a pawn in her games, even though they were already well on the road to divorce.”
“What’s that have to do with your hockey game?” Colt asks, and I just stare at him in return.
“Seriously?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He crosses his arms across his chest.
“Leland was my captain,” I say again, trying to keep my tone level. “And he made sure I always felt like an outsider. He turned most of the other veterans against me, and even though several of them eventually told me I didn’t deserve that treatment, it still messed with my game—badly.” I was beyond pissed off every time I was on the ice, and I couldn’t take my aggression out on my teammates, who were the real culprits, so I took it out on my opponents instead. Hence all the time in the penalty box.
“That’s a coaching and management fail, if you ask me,” AJ says. “If your teammates are out there on the ice and not passing to you after the puck drop…” Clearly, she’s watched enoughfootage of the game to see how my teammates treated me after each face-off. “Why didn’t the coaches get involved?”
“They did, eventually, but it took way too many games for them to figure out what was happening, and by then, the damage was done.”
“Idiots,” AJ mumbles. “It was so fucking obvious.”
“Yep. I guarantee it won’t happen again.”
“Good,” AJ says. “Because we need our Center on the ice, not in the penalty box all the time.” And that’s that. She moves on to other more logistical conversations about things like equipment, practice schedules, and our upcoming pre-season games, and ten minutes later, she’s asking McCabe to stay, and dismissing the rest of us from her office.
Patrick Walsh and Zach Reid strike up an easy conversation as they walk down the hallway. AJ asked Walsh and Colt to give us a quick tour of the practice facility, and Colt falls into step beside me as we follow the others.
“You left early last night,” Colt says.
“Yeah, I had some unpacking to do.”
“You sure it had nothing to do with Flynn’s sister? I saw you follow her into the house. You’re damn lucky he didn’t notice.” Goosebumps trickle down my spine. I was hoping no one noticed, but Colt’s apparently more observant than I gave him credit for.
I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to the idea that Audrey is Jameson’s sister. Did I ever know her last name? Did I even know she was from Boston? Did I know she had a brother? Did I know any damn thing about her, other than she was smart enough to get me through calculus, immediately put me at ease every time I was around her, and was pretty terrific in bed?
Shit, I was such an asshole.
“I went inside to use the bathroom, not to chase after his sister.”
