“I know. And he knows. He’ll get over it.”
After he showered and changed, he was at his locker when his phone rang. It was Vaughan— his old team captain and best friend on the Thunderstorm— so he stepped out into the hall to take the call.
“I caught the tail end of your game,” Vaughan said through the line. “Sorry it was rough.”
“Eh. It happens.” Connor said, acting like it was no big deal when he was still very much feeling the full strength of the frustrating game, even if they did manage to pull a win out of it.
“I saw Briggs sizing you up like you are a Thunderstorm and the rivalry is still as strong.”
“It was that evident, huh?”
“Pretty much.”
“How’s the new guy on your team?” He was the one whom Connor was traded for. He wanted only the best for theThunderstorm, but a part of him didn’t want the guy to be so amazing that they forgot about him.
“Let’s just say that we’re trying to not be like Briggs is to you.”
“Oh?” He was pacing the hall as he talked, but he came to a stop.
“I mean, he’s great on the ice, but he kind of sucks as a person. We’ve all been missing you over here.”
“Believe me when I say that the feeling is very mutual.”
“It was hard to see you go.”
“I’m guessing it wasn’t hard for the GM, but it’s good to be missed.”
“That’s actually why I called. The GM pulled me in for a meeting after the trades went through to get the pulse of the team— thought you might like to know what he said.”
Connor went back to meandering down the hall as they talked. “All right. Shoot.”
“The Glaciersreallywanted you. Apparently, they’ve been wanting you for quite a while, but the Thunderstorm didn’t want to give you up.”
“You’re making that up.”
“I swear on my grandmother’s grave that it’s true. But we needed a goalie— you know how badly we did— and we apparently had our eye on North Star’s goalie, but they weren’t willing to give him up. And Thompson is great. You know— you played against him tonight. Even scored against him.
“The Glaciers have a second goalie— the one you’re using now— who is practically as good, so they went to the North Star and said they’d give them Thompson if the North Star would give us their goalie. Solving our biggest problem was a good move on the part of the Glaciers because it was the only way they could get us to give them you.”
Suddenly, everything with Briggs made sense. Thompson was his goalie up until five days ago. And his friend. As a hockeyplayer, it was your job to protect your goalie. In warmups, you never shot above your goalie’s waist. But in a game, you were playing against the opposing team’s goalie, and you got the puck in the net any way that you could. Thompson was unprotected, and Connor had shot high. And he scored.
Earlier in the game, the puck was in the crease, and Connor went into the crease after it and may have had some incidental contact with Thompson. He knew how much he hated it when the opposing team made contact with his goalie. Knowing that Briggs was still seeing Thompson as his teammate made his reactions understandable.
Connor stopped walking and leaned his back against the wall. “They gave up two players to get me?”
“Yep. Apparently, it took a while.”
He didn’t know if it made him feel better to know that he was wanted and that the trade wasn’t as casual as it felt, or if it made him feel worse, knowing that there were four players who all got traded a week before Christmas.
After he and Vaughan hung up and Connor went back into the locker room, he decided that if he was being real with himself, he had to admit that maybe things hadn’t been gelling between him and his new team because he hadn’t been trying hard enough. All he’d been thinking about since he arrived in Denver was how to get back out. And if he played with that in mind, he couldn’t play his best. And that wasn’t the kind of player he was.
He needed to acknowledge that Erik Henderson had been a good friend and teammate since the first time Connor had met them, too. As they all headed out to the team bus that would take them to the airport and the plane back home, he decided that he was going to give everyone on this team his all. They deserved better than what he was giving them.
And as he made the decision, he wondered if he had come to the conclusion partly because of Katie. She didn’t seem to ever be far from his thoughts lately, so maybe by deciding to give Denver a better chance, he was deciding to give the two of them a better chance, too.
ten
KATIE
