“Am I supposed to answer that?”
Sigh—he was so clueless.No,she didn’t want him to answer that. She already knew the answer.
“Yep,” she said anyway, her feet pedaling in the water.
“Promise me you won’t go psycho if I tell you the truth?”
“Okay. I promise,” she said, already gritting her teeth.
He grinned from ear to ear. “Oh, theytotallydo.”
She kicked her foot at the surface of the water, shooting a jet of water at the hockey player’s face. She got him right in his open mouth.
He laughed, and coughed, until he spat out the water he’d just swallowed. “Youjustpromised me you wouldn’t go psycho.”
“That wasn’t psycho,” she said matter-of-factly. “Trust me, you don’t wanna see psycho.”
He smiled with his eyes. “Trustme,I believe you.”
They shared a laugh and a drink of wine.
“This is surreal right now, Dane,” she said at last.
“What is?”
“The fact that we’re here. Hanging out at your house. Drinking wine by the pool. And all those people out there,” she gestured at the rest of the world, “are thinking about us, ranting about us? In a way that will probably change both our lives forever?”
“That is kinda weird,” he said.
“I mean, how do you not hate me right now?” she blurted out. “After that interview, how could you not?”
“You said you didn’t know it’d be like that. I told you, I believe ya.”
“But I still played a huge part in it.”
He sighed. “I gotta be honest with you. When I said I kinda knew this would happen—what I meant was, part of me wanted it to happen.”
She leaned away and side-eyed him. “Wantedwhatto happen?”
“Like I said earlier—I know what it looks like when the media starts packing a guy’s bags. I can see the writing on the wall. I know it’s only a matter of time until I get traded. Maybe I wanted to hasten the process, you know?”
“Soo … you’re saying you want to be traded?”
“Do you know what my dream was as a kid? The dream that got me here,” he gestured at his house, his pool, “the dream that gave me all this?”
“To be an NHL player?”
“Not just any NHL player. A captain in the NHL. A leader. A guy that the rest of the team looks up to and depends on. A guy who always has the team’s back, no matter what, and will doanythingto help them win.”
“Okay …?”
“But the way Ibecamean NHL captain? Soupy’s death, Hathaway disappearing without a trace, losing the Cup? I wouldn’t wish the stress of that on anybody. And maybeI’mnaive too, but I really thought I could turn things around.” He patted his bare pec, where the ‘C’ would be stitched on his jersey. “Sometimes, it feels like the fuckin’ thing was a curse.”
“Then youdowant to be traded.”
“No, I don’t want to. But I’m not going to stop fighting for what I believe in. Weburied a teammate. And Hathaway just disappeared. The team can try to silence me all they want, but I won’t just pretend all that never happened. I don’t know what the hell the guys at the top are so afraid of … but we’re not robots. You can’t just tell us to shut up and go play. Those boys we lost, they’re family. We wanna know what really happened, and we want people to know that we’re still hurting, too.”
Austen frowned. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how it must feel.” She gave her hand to the hockey player. He gave it an appreciative squeeze. “Do you want to talk about it? I’m sorry I wasn’t willing to listen before.”
