“I-I-I…” My mouth gapes, and I put the camera down and stare up into the wintery-gray eyes. “I think I need to go talk to Dana.”
One of the guys raises his hand. “What are we supposed to do?”
“Um…” I look out at the sea of RIHC players—well, most of them. Some of them didn’t even bother to show up to practice.
“Don’t ask her,” Fletcher sneers. “She’s not the coach.”
Fists on hips, I glare up at him. “Yeah, put that on your Christmas list. You’re lucky I’m not your coach, because I’d make you lazy bums work. Hell, you might actually win a game for once.”
2
FLETCHER
“Just when you think this team can’t get any worse.” I pace around in the warehouse. “And then they do.”
My cousins are watching me spin the puck around on my stick as I rant. “All the coaches quit or were arrested. Even the assistant coaches. We don’t have anyone. Not that it matters, because the coaches we did have sucked balls.” I haul back and smash the puck against Talbot’s chair.
“Geez, dude.” He jumps up, almost a half second too slow. “Give a guy a little warning before you bash his brain in, cuz.”
“My one shot to live out my NHL dreams, and they’re ruining it. And that obnoxious little PR girl was just running around squawking about ticket sales and mad that they took her coffee-cup warmer out of her junkyard of an office. Like, excuse me, but there are real men with real problems here.” I toss the puck in the air and hit it like a baseball to bury it in the pocked drywall. “We’re never going to win.”
“You’re always a winner to us.” Lawrence makes a heart shape with his hands.
“Let us know when the PR girl is giving out free tickets to fill stands.” Anderson snickers.
“They’re not giving away free tickets to the Direwolves game. They sent out an email about it. They need all the ticket sales they can get.” I blow out a breath.
“I’m going just because I like carnage,” Elsa says with a smirk.
“I have a lot of money bet that you’ll win.” Anderson claps me on the shoulder.
“Dummy, they’re going to get cremated.” Lawrence kicks his chair.
“You think Coach was making us bad just so he could make money off of bets?” I muse.
“You all already sucked. That entire team is an embarrassment to the great sport of hockey.” Hudson Wynter appears like death in the shadows.
“Fletch doesn’t suck!” Talbot comes to my defense. “I put down fifty bucks that Fletch gets his first NHL goal this game.The Hockey Guyspodcast is real excited about him. They say he’s good.”
I preen.
“If he gets a real-deal NHL contract, they think he should get traded to Toronto,” Talbot adds.
“Toronto, eh? I’ll have to brush up on my Canadian.”
“Soooorry.”
“Double-double.”
My cousins cackle.
“I think I’d look good in blue and white.” I run a hand through my hair.
Hudson wrenches the hockey stick out of my hand and slams it on the wall next to my head, making my teeth jerk. “You”—his voice drops to a growl—“are not a professional hockey player. You’re not signing an NHL contract. You are not moving to Toronto. You’re not the star of a last-place NHL team. You’re in the show because you owe me money.Ihad you signed tothe AHL.Ihad you called up to the NHL team. None of that happened because you’re the next Zayne Murphy. And you’re going to pay back your debt by finding enough dirt on Dana Holbrook to bury the Rhode Island Hockey Club.” He shakes me. “Do you understand?”
I nod then chance it. “Maybe Dana Holbrook isn’t actually money laundering through the RIHC? Maybe the team sucks because of the GM and the coach and the embezzling…” I trail off. My much-older cousin doesn’t say anything, but the temperature in the windowless warehouse definitely drops.
His breath is icy when he finally says, “Is that your final answer? And think carefully, because if it is and you can’t produce the evidence, then I’m taking my debt repayment in flesh and blood.”
