I sat down hard, my teeth clacking. “How? When?”
Sven dropped next to me and elbowed me, his blue eyes alight. “Last night. They did the goddamn switch in the middle of the night.”
“So man outside talking to reporters…?”
“You recognized him, right?” Sven said.
I felt a bit like an ass when I shook my head, and everyone groaned.
“Hey, give him a break. This is the man who also didn’t know whatHome Alonewas,” Rene said.
I wrinkled my nose. “Is not embarrassing to not know movie of neglected child and men who try to murder him.”
Rene burst into laughter as he dropped on my lap and patted my cheek. “It’s okay, bud. That guy outthere was Rohan Gupta. He won three cups with San Jose in the eighties before he took a puck to the head and got a nasty TBI. He had to retire after he couldn’t hold his stick anymore, but he’s a good dude. Agreatdude,” he clarified.
I still didn’t know, but it would be easy enough to research. I wasn’t like these other guys. I didn’t grow up idolizing the greats in the NHL. I thought the KHL was my endgame.
Sometimes they made me feel small, even if they didn’t mean to.
“I think you’ll like him,” Antero said softly. “We were at the All Stars game together during his last season. I was a rookie back then and really freaked out. He talked me through the whole thing.”
I softened. That was so much different from Noah, who had entered every room like he was trying to pick a fight with every man in there. Like everything was a personal insult and he had to make you feel less than dirt in order to feel better about himself.
What would it be like from now on?
I felt a little anxious, especially with everything to do with Micah and Hunter. My brother was still working on trying to pin Hunter down and figure him out, and Micah was holed up in a little cottage in Wellesley near the college—off the beaten path, though no one was going to recognize either of us there.
It had been exactly one week since I’d picked Micah up from Caleb’s. One week since I’d held himand told him I loved him. One week since he’d collapsed in my arms and flayed his soul raw for me.
He loved me, he’d said. And that terrified him.
And I was doing everything in my power to make sure it was going to be okay.
But we had another roadie coming up, and the thought of leaving him behind was scaring the shit out of me. He’d become a fixture at the arena during our game nights over the last week, but he was also back to playing in Salem, which meant long-as-fuck drives every morning and every night.
He had two games off though, which meant he’d be here tonight to watch us play, and then we’d have some kind of short goodbye before I headed out on the road.
I desperately needed to trust that he could take care of himself. He’d been doing it for years, of course. Long before I came along. But now he didn’t need to be on all the time. Now he had me.
“Boys! Straighten the fuck up to meet your new coach!”
I turned my head at the sound of our GM’s voice and tried to keep my heart steady as the door swung open and Rohan walked in. He was very tall, broad-shouldered, a very bright platinum wedding ring on his hand. He walked with a cane, an unsteady gait, and I could see the tremor in the fingers that hung at his side.
The left side of his face also drooped just slightly—a mark of what had happened to him. Of the battle he fought and what he’d lost.
But he was smiling as he glanced around at us.
Behind him trailed a couple of reporters, and one of them looked startlingly like him. The other man was tall, thin, wearing leggings and a blue sweater that fell off his right shoulder. I could see purple shimmer on his eyelids, and his long curls were twisted into a bun at the nape of his neck.
He was very, very pretty. And if it weren’t for Micah, I might have introduced myself.
“Don’t mind the press. They won’t be here long,” Rohan said as he walked over and took a seat in the chair the GM had set down. “I just wanted to do a quick get to know you before practice starts since I know this was kind of dropped in your lap.”
Being that he was captain, Alexio made himself the apparent liaison between players and coach, which was fine by me. It took pressure off me to focus on this because I didn’t have room for it.
I wouldn’t. Not until we got this Hunter bullshit taken care of. So I tuned out and thought about Micah until Antero nudged me, and I looked up to see everyone staring at me.
“Sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.”
