“Exactly! It doesn’t hurt to just explore other options.” My dad raises his hand as Granny Murray hefts the hockey stick Ikeep in the corner of the office. “I’ll tell the NHL you’re open to stepping down.”
“Traitor!” Granny Murray hollers, berating my dad as he leaves.
“I’m just trying to help—”
The door slams. I sit there in silence, ears ringing, for a moment.
Give up coaching? It’s not like it was my life’s calling.
Besides, clearly, I’m not very good at it. I failed the test of not sleeping with a player. Also, isn’t that illegal? Probably would get me fired anyway, so maybe it’s better if I resign before I, too, am hauled away in handcuffs.
Or maybe I’m just a wuss. I don’t want to coach the rest of the season and watch Fletcher make bedroom eyes at Dana Holbrook or start sleeping with Dana Holbrook (if he hasn’t already—Shut up, brain!), or dating Dana Holbrook, or—Gulp—falling in love with her.
I will fresh hot coffee to appear in my mug as I grab my skates. Maybe shooting some pucks will help clear my head. I can test out some of the moves, too, for next practice. When I head down the dark hallway, I almost run into someone.
Cookie is standing outside the locker room, tears in his big brown eyes.
“Cookie! I thought Zayne took you home.”
“I forgot my hat.” His lower lip trembles.
“Oh, we’ll find it—let’s check the lost and found, okay?”
He shakes his head.
“What’s the matter?”
“You’re leaving us?”
30
FLETCHER
Afan whirs in the field office as Lawrence and the rest of my cousins comb through the data copied from Dana’s iPad.
“Does she know her iPad is missing?” I ask.
“She’s been pinging it from her phone.” Lawrence looks over. “I’ve blocked it.”
I shift on my feet. “I can just take it back to the stadium, stick it in the lost and found.”
“We need it to unencrypt some of these files.”
“Oh, here we go!” Talbot whoops. “The mother lode. Look at that.”
“Shit.” I read over his shoulder. “That looks intense.”
“Yeah, this is tax-loss harvesting.”
“She’s just running the team into the ground to offset her tax burden for this year.” Anderson whistles.
“Damn.” It’s a gut punch.
“We tried so hard.” I sit down slowly on a folding chair. “This team… It’s people’s entire lives, and it means nothing to her. It’s just numbers.”
My cousins don’t seem that emotional about it.
Jake shrugs. “Them’s the breaks of dealing with billionaires.”
