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“Anything to do with you and my daughter never seems to be nothing,” he says, opening the door wider and then turns to head for his office. “My office, Matthews. Let’s go.”
Glancing over at the printer before I follow him, it doesn’t look any worse for wear even though I hit it hard. Though I’m not so sure I’ll fare as well in Sam’s office.
I reach over quickly and lift the top of the printer to retrieve my driver’s license first and quickly stuff my license in my wallet as I head for Sam’s open office door.
Sam stands on the other side of his desk; his hands pitched at his hips as he watches me walk in.
“I brought you here because I thought you were up for the challenge of coming in here and helping this team bring home a Stanley Cup.”
“I am, sir, and I’m up for the task.”
“Then why the hell am I walking in on my daughter locked in a printer closet with you?” he asks, a frown across his lips.
“It was an accident, I swear. You can even ask her. The AC vent above the door blew it closed. I didn’t know the door locks from the outside or I would have been more careful,” I explain, but he doesn’t seem any less irritated with the scenario.
“In the last four years, my daughter has never been locked in any room with a player on this team. And then all the sudden, you walk into this building, with the ink of your contract barely dry, and this is what I find you up to in my office,” he says, his eyebrows raising in surprise at the situation he walked in on. “With the history between you and my daughter, I find it too coincidental to be an accident.”
“Coach Roberts—” I start but he holds up a hand to stop me.
“I’m not your coach anymore, Matthews. I’m your GM. You can call me Sam from here on out,” he says, his eyes a little softer, remembering that we have history, too.
A four-year-long history of state championships and a winning college hockey team that I captained for most of our time together during those years.
With my father’s constant disappointment in me, Coach Roberts was the first male role model I’ve had that’s believed in me. Every other coach, teacher, or potential mentor has only seen me as a spoiled trust fund kid with anger issues.
Though I was a hothead and got myself in more trouble than Sam would have liked, he’s always believed in me. Then, when I went and put a black stain on our last year together by coming near his daughter and causing problems for her skating career, I unknowingly started a chain reaction of gossip around the school that didn’t do well for her or Coach Roberts.
I nod.
“I can assure you that the only thing we did in that room was take a copy of my driver’s license. She couldn’t wait another second to get me out of this office. All I tried to do was protect her from falling face-first into the wood flooring.”
“You know I’ve heard this before, right? When I confronted you about the rumors circulating about you threatening every jock in the university not to touch Penelope, you told me that you were trying to protect her. But you never told me what you were protecting her from. And then she lost her chance to compete in the tryouts.”
Trust me, it’s better that you don’t know.
I want to say it out loud, but then he’ll attempt to force it out of me. His knowledge of the humiliation and rumors that could have gotten around campus about Penelope if I hadn’t stepped in would have been worse than my threats.
No good can come from telling Sam or Penelope the truth.
And a part of me can’t shake the feeling that going after Penelope might have been retaliation from the fraternity towards me for turning them down, though I can’t prove it.
“I know.”
I nod, sliding my hands deep into my pockets and shrugging my shoulders.
I’m not the person I was then, and our roles on this team are far different than when he was my coach.
I’m no longer the dumb-ass, reckless kid he’s trying to mold into a decent player. Now, I’m a highly paid recruit on the team who he has to put his faith in that I will deliver. And I have to trust that he makes sure that the Hawkeyes is a healthy team and stays a healthy team so that I have a place to play.
I’m here to do a job, and so is he.
“Penelope begged me not to bring you here, but I assured her that years have passed and you deserved your chance. Am I going to regret that decision?”
“No sir, you won’t regret this,” I tell him.
Penelope mentioned she didn’t want me here, but hearing that she told her father that too, lets me know that I’m even further from making amends with her than I thought.
Maybe I underestimated how deep her hate for me goes. I thought time might have lessened it but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
