“Okay. Bye.”
Austen hung up and staggered to her feet.
If she was going to make dinner, she needed to head over to DeHardt’sto pick up her car.
Chapter 26
Dane
When Dane’s agent called in the morning and told him the news—that GM Baumbach had informed him that Dane would be traded by the deadline in two days—he wasn’t exactly surprised. He sent a group text to the team and invited everyone over for one last hangout at the captain’s house.
Dane’s house was bustling with bodies and lively conversation. The boys who had girlfriends or wives brought them along. The bachelors invited single girls, and told them to bring friends. A last-minute catering order made sure there was plenty of food and drink to go around. Playing the role of party host for the last time, Dane meandered through the house to chat with his guests.
Dane found Brayden and Jaden in the game room. The twins were locked in a heated game of table tennis.
“Who’s got the edge here?” Dane asked aloud.
But he didn’t get any response except for hyper-focusedhuffs andpuffs. The Ping-Pong ball was a white blur as it rocketed back and forth across the table, with a woodencrackand a hollow plasticsmack. Dane tracked the ball left and right until it made him dizzy. The twins were evenly matched, and this game wasn’t going anywhere.
One table over, Matchbox and Parisi played a game of foosball. Parisi spun his handle, and the ball lasered into the back of Matchbox’s goal with a loudclunk.
“Booya! Five-to-one!” Parisi shouted, clapping his hands. “Take a drink. A drink!”
“No, that’szero-to-one,” Matchbox said, refusing to drink from his bottle of Coors light. “None of your goals so far have counted. How many times do I have to tell you? You can’t spin. I don’t know how you guys do things in Quebec, but here inAmerica, spinning is against the rules.”
“You keep sayin’ that, but I just keep scorin’!”
Matchbox noticed Dane watching and looked to him for help. “D, would you tell this guy I’m right?”
Hewasright, but Parisi still held rank over the rookie. “Better take your drink, kid.”
Matchbox grumbled and took a swig of beer. When he put the ball back in play, Parisi immediately spun his lever again.
Clunk!
“Six-to-one!” Parisi gloated.
Dane laughed and walked away. He’d seen enough.
He found Reavo, Mikey, and Vaughn on the living room couch. They had sunk deep into the sofa’s cushions and they stared at the big screen television like zombies. The channel was on the NHL network, and the talking heads were bantering about the hottest gossip of the day—which was, of course, Dane himself.
A group of the guys’ girlfriends huddled on the couch, too, but they had their own nonhockey gossip to talk about. Dane found space between the girlfriends and the boys and plunked onto the couch.
“Y’know,” he said as he grabbed the TV remote off the coffee table, “I told you guys I don’t want to think about all this crap.”
He switched the TV off, and the zombies moaned and groaned with outrage.
“Hey!”
“Why’d you do that!”
“Because it’s my last day with you jackasses and I want to enjoy it—not watch a bunch of morons on TV talk about me as if they know me.”
“This is suchbullshit!” Reavo yelled. “I’m so fuckin’ furious right now!”
“Calm down, bud.”
“Did you hear what they were saying, D? Apparently, the Devilstankedyour trade value with that stupid fucking interview. Now the other GMs in the league are hemming and hawing, acting like they don’t want you, because who knows, you just might cause another controversy. Other GMs smell blood in the water and they’re gonna make sure we don’t get a good trade. Wefuckedourselves with that interview.”
