“Jeez, that sounds familiar. Isn’t that the same logic you tried to use against me less than two minutes ago?”
“No way, dude.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve been playing in America, dude.”
This again. He didn’t have to say anything more. I sure as hell hoped he wouldn’t, actually. But if he did, I knew where he would go with this. He would say Americans were better hockey players than Canadians—and better than everyone at everything by default. Or he would make some stupid-ass comment about how Canadians woulddareremind the hockey world that we invented the sport. Oh yeah, I saw his line of bullshit coming a mile away.
“Nice try,” I said.
“Look, I’ll be a nice guy and a good teammate by giving you until the end of the day to take off that lock and move your shit someplace else.”
“That’s so charitable, Kayden. Thank you soooo much.”
“Ah, a wiseass, I see.”
I arched my eyebrows at him to communicate how weird I found his proposal—no, this entire conversation. Again, you can’t feed egomaniacs like him…so I didn’t.
When I tried breezing past him a second time, he planted a hand on my shoulder to stop me. Oooooh, he was making physical contact now. That meant he was totally serious. I was soooo scared I could’ve shit my pants.
Like I’ve been telling you, you can’t sweat these guys.
“I’ll be going now,” I said, “so, if you’ll just take your hand off my shoulder?—”
“You think I’m joking.”
Kayden’s voice jumped an octave, trying to create this weird joking tone. You should know that guys like him don’t know the first thing about being funny.
“Oh, I’m sure you’re not joking,” I said, “I’m just choosing not to take you seriously.”
Kayden pursed his lips and his chest puffed out. If we hadn’t been surrounded by a locker room full of hockey players, he might’ve slugged me.
“Are you even listening to me?” I shrugged. If I’d looked scared, I would’ve played right into his hands.
“Remember what I said. You’ve got until the end of the day to follow orders, pal, or there’s going to be a whole lot of trouble.”
I half-smiled at him. “Noted.”
2
KAYDEN
First of all, don’t listen to Erik. He couldn’t tell a story to save his life. Besides, he’s getting it all wrong. He made it sound like I marched into the locker room, acting like the cock of the walk, just demanding the captain’s locker with nothing to back it up. Worse, he made it sound like he beat me at my own game, which is total crap.
Here’s how it really happened: I walked tomylocker and noticed it’d been taken. I simply tried to point out our little misunderstanding and gave him the chance to fix it. And what did he do? He got all belligerent. He actually thought he could just walk out on me correcting him as if listening to guys like me was beneath his dignity.
Oh yeah, total mistake.
To top it all off, he didn’t follow orders. I hate that more than anything in the entire freaking universe. In my world, I give orders, and people listen. Simple. That’s part of what being team captain is about. As a locker room general, I gave Erik an order, and I knew he heard me. Instead of following it, he acted like obedience was optional, as if maybe the rules don’t apply to him.
We’ll see about that.
When I hit the locker room the next morning, I found his combination lock still attached to my locker like he hadn’t heard a single word I’d said.
My muscles tensed and hands balled into fists, and I felt hot all over.
I headed straight for the ice where I saw Erik’s “leadership” style in action. Get this: he spoke softly to people, like an English lit professor in front of the chalkboard. He had no fire. He might as well have told the guys, “Would you please play faster and harder?” when he really should have been telling them,“Get your asses moving already, would ya?”
